Environmental Update
2001-2003
There is no way around it. The environment
has been taking a real beating for the last three years.
Learning well from the battles of the past,
the current Administration has changed the way conservatives
are fighting environmentalism. Rather than taking the issues
of the day on directly through the legislative process,
their newest tactic is to cripple existing legislation through
rule changes and agency policy to the point that it has
little or no impact. This stealth approach has been devastatingly
effective.
By avoiding the limelight and legislative
process, the administration has been able to gut many of
the environmental protections developed over the last 40
years. The big benefactors of this effort have been energy
companies, large ranchers, timber companies and factory
farmers. Obviously, their campaign contributions were well
placed and now they are being well rewarded for their financial
support.
The big losers have, of course, been the public.
We, the people, are being robbed blind. Although we have
researched the issue extensively, we cannot find any historical,
philosophical, theoretical or moral basis that suggests
that such an approach represents good public policy. Unfortunately,
those charged with protecting our environmental resources
do not seem bothered by the lack of basis for their actions.
This obviously begs the question, just who
are the people who have been granted stewardship of our
environment? The list below identifies a number of the high-ranking
members of the administration, some of whom have a strong
public presence and others who are virtually hidden from
public view. Regardless of their visibility, it is important
to recognize that they are filling the various departments
and agencies that they control with people of their own
ilk. That is not an encouraging thought.
The Players:
We are assuming you know that George W.
Bush is a former oil company owner and executive, Vice President
Dick Cheney is the former CEO of Halliburton Industries,
a major oil corporation and Kenneth Lay, of Enron fame,
was/is (?) a leading policy advisor to the current administration.
Gail Norton
Remember James Watt? Reagan’s Secretary
of the Interior, who was long considered to be the worst
environmental disaster ever to have occurred (including
the Exxon Valdez!), is now being remembered fondly by environmentalists
yearning to return to the “good old days”. Why?
His protégé, Gail Norton, now heads the Department
and she learned well from his mistakes.
Where Watt was rough and rude, Norton is subtle
and smooth. Where Watt attacked the environment and environmentalists
head-on, Norton slips around corners of the law, often unnoticed
until it is too late. Where Watt was ineffective because
of his bluster and bullying, Norton has been incredibly
effective and devastatingly destructive with her stealth.
Don’t let the t-shirts and denim shirts fool you.
If you care about clean air, clean water or anything environmental,
this is one very scary lady.
Gail Norton’s past is reflective of
the attitudes that she has brought to the Department of
the Interior. She began her career under James Watt at the
Mountain States Legal Foundation, an ultra conservative
organization that has repeatedly sued the Department of
the Interior to open up federal lands for a variety of uses
including mining. She is a strong property rights advocate
who has repeatedly expressed her dislike for the federal
government and proposed abolishing the Commerce, Energy,
Education and Housing and Urban Development Departments
during her unsuccessful 1996 Senate campaign.
As Colorado’s Attorney General, she
refused to defend the state’s racial preference laws
and forced the Governor to hire outside counsel to do so.
She refused to intervene in the Hayden Power Plant case
(they violated the Clean Air statue 19,000 times) and the
Summitville mine fiasco that destroyed over 17 miles of
direct tributaries to the Rio Grande River. Upon taking
office in Colorado, she immediately slashed the environmental
section’s budget by one third. Perhaps her crowning
achievement was using her position as Attorney General to
argue that the Endangered Species Act was unconstitutional.
Prior to her appointment to head the Interior
Department, Ms. Norton was a registered lobbyist for NL
Industries, a defendant in over 50 actions involving lead
poisoning in children, mining, and waste disposal. She also
founded the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy,
which is reputed to be sponsored by mining and chemical
industries.
For being a self proclaimed “environmentalist”,
perhaps Norton’s most bizarre position is her support
and advocacy of the concept of self-auditing. By her measure,
industries should be allowed to decide whether or not they
comply with applicable environmental regulations, and she
has consistently supported drilling in the ANWR and expanding
energy leases on federal land. We warned you, this is one
scary lady to have in charge of 500 million acres of America.
For further information, please see the links below:
http://www.rep.org/opinions/speeches/7.html
http://www.ems.org/interior/norton.html
The other players…
J. Steven Griles - Deputy
Secretary of the Interior. Formerly, a lobbyist for the
coal, natural gas, and oil industries. Griles has been repeatedly
accused of violating ethics agreements and continuing to
work on behalf of his former clients while in his current
position.
For more information, please see:
http://www.foe.org/camps/eco/interior/902grilespr.html
http://www.ems.org/interior/griles.html
http://www.citizenscoalcouncil.org/press/groupdemands.htm
James Connaughton - Chair
of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Formerly,
a lobbyist for the mining and chemical manufacturing industries.
Don Evans - Secretary of
Commerce. Formerly, the CEO of a Denver-based oil and gas
company.
William Geary Myers III
- Interior Department Solicitor. Formerly, a lobbyist for
the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.
Mark Rey - Undersecretary
of the Department of Agriculture for Natural Resources and
Environment. Formerly, a lobbyist for the timber industry,
Rey served as a key staff member of the U.S. Senate Committee
on Energy and Natural Resources. He was intricately involved
in the preparation of legislation that would have fined
environmentalists up to $10,000 if they appealed USFS rulings
on timber harvesting and the infamous 1995
Salvage Rider, which the New York Times called "the
worst piece of conservation legislation ever written".
For more information, please see:
http://www.nativeforest.org/campaigns/public_lands/rey_5_30_02.htm
P. Lynn Scarlett - Assistant
Secretary of the Interior for Policy, Management, and Budget.
Formerly, the President of the Reason Foundation, an anti-regulation
think tank heavily funded by the oil, chemical, and munitions
industries.
Thomas Sansonetti - Assistant
Attorney General for Environment and Natural Resources.
Formerly, a lobbyist for the coal-industry.
Rebecca Watson - Assistant
Secretary of the Interior for Land and Minerals Management.
Formerly, a lawyer for the mining and timber industries.
Camden Toohey - Special
Assistant for Alaska, Department of the Interior. Formerly,
the executive director for Arctic Power, an organization
which is lobbying for oil exploration in the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge.
Linda J. Fisher - EPA Deputy
Administrator. Formerly, a lobbyist for Monsanto.
Jeffrey Holmstead - EPA
Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation. Formerly,
a lawyer for the chemical industry and agribusiness.
Jeffrey Jarrett - Director,
Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement. Formerly,
a coal-industry executive.
The Issues:
Below are a number of the major issues on
the national environmental stage and the list is, unfortunately,
by no means inclusive. The particular subjects were chosen
because they represent gross violations of our trust as
well as our laws and the destruction that they threaten
to cause is beyond comprehension. In addition, they were
also chosen because when taken together, they paint a picture
of an administration that desperately needs to rearrange
its environmental priorities.
Florida Everglades
Threatened from Increased Deep Pit Limestone Mining
In spite of Congress allocating $8 billion
in 2000 to revitalize the Everglades over a 30 year period,
the Army Corp of Engineers (ACE) approved deep-pit limestone
mining that will destroy over 5,000 acres of Everglades
wetlands. To put this in perspective, the wetlands loss
in the Everglades from this approval is greater than the
nationwide wetlands loss in 2001. The Natural Resources
Defense Council, Sierra Club and National Parks Conservation
Association have jointly filed suit to block the ACE approvals.
Deep pit mining involves stripping the soil
and then blasting the subsurface limestone. The limestone
is retrieved using massive draglines, weighing up to 3 million
pounds, and the results are enormous pits that occupy the
former wetland areas. As proposed, several of these pits
would be converted into huge storage reservoirs with one
providing drinking water while the other would provide water
for the Everglades. While on the surface this may sound
reasonable, the attractiveness of the idea diminishes when
one realizes that the reservoirs won't be constructed until
they are mined out (in 35 years); that they will cost the
taxpayers at least a billion dollars to construct (after
the mining companies have received 35 years of profit);
and that there is real concern that the reservoirs may implode
or burst (contaminating drinking water supplies and draining
water from the Everglades).
Politics have played an enormous role in this
issue, with huge campaign contributions rolling in to protect
the interests of the mining companies. At virtually every
turn, the miners have been granted special dispensation,
with the Florida legislature relieving them of damage claims
resulting from blasting and allowing them exemptions from
Florida's wetland regulations. The ACE did their part for
the mining companies when they voided their "no net
loss" rule and developed a special remediation compensation
plan that charges the mining companies only 1% of the normal
amount assessed by the ACE in similar situations.
For more information, please see:
NRDC
press release detailing the legal actions designed to block
the ACE approvals for Deep Pit Mining in the Everglades
http://florida.sierraclub.org/Pelican/Fall2000/Page12.htm
Sierra
Club sites dealing with the Everglades
Miami
Herald article on Deep Pit Mining
St.
Petersburg Times article on Deep Pit Mining
Washington Post series on the Everglades
- Part 2 deals extensively with Deep Pit Mining but the
subject is touched on in other installments as well. Very
interesting reading!
Tongass National
Forest Threatened by Logging
Many people are surprised to find out that
the world's largest temperate rainforest is in the United
States and that our own government is encouraging its destruction.
Situated along the southeastern coastline of Alaska, The
Tongass is America's largest National Forest stretching
over 17 million acres. As a temperate rainforest, The Tongass
is a vital component in a complex and fragile ecosystem.
On December 23, 2003, the current Administration announced
that it was revoking the application of the "Roadless
Rule" from The Tongass and would open over 300,000
acres to logging. This action was taken in spite of the
USFS receiving over a quarter of a million replies to its
call for public comment on the issue and finding that only
1% of them supported the Administration's position.
The claim by the Administration and logging
proponents that less than 3% of The Tongass would be impacted
is disingenuous. It ignores the reality that the area to
be opened for logging includes some of the most important
old growth tree stands in the forest. Further, impacts to
habitat areas and water resources are non-linear and are
rarely confined to the immediately effected area. The Sierra
Club correctly points out that using the "only 3%"
argument loses its validity when one realizes that the clear
cutting and paving over of Yellowstone National Park would
result in the same "only 3%" loss to our National
Park system.
Endangered
Forests - This is a great site! Wander around it a bit
US
Forest Service Site
Lots
of good links on The Tongass and other Alaskan issues
SEACC
- More good links
Excellent
information on the Roadless Rule
Protecting
America's National Forests - An extensive report on
the Roadless Rule by the National Environmental Trust and
Heritage Forest Campaign
ANWR - The Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge
Although few Americans will ever visit this
isolated and unforgiving area in the northeast corner of
Alaska, the nearly 20 million acres that comprise Alaska's
Arctic national Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) are of profound beauty
and critical environmental importance. Located near the
North Slope and Prudhoe Bay oil fields, this pristine refuge
is considered to be the most sought after prize by oil companies.
With the help of the Bush Administration, repeated efforts
have been made to open the area to drilling over the last
several years. Fortunately, in each case, those efforts
were defeated - though sometimes narrowly - by the US Senate.
Despite the defeats, the efforts to open to
ANWAR oil exploration continue. The latest attempt comes
in the form of President Bush including the projected income
from drill site leases in ANWR as part of his 2005 budget.
Of the $2.4 billion that the administration claims will
be generated, 50% would be dedicated to increasing funding
for the Energy Department's renewable energy programs over
a seven-year period. The administration hopes that this
concession (threat?) will sway some votes in its favor but,
more importantly, by moving the ANWR issue into the budget
process, the energy companies and administration are attempting
to eliminate the possibility that a filibuster could once
again be used to defeat the efforts to expand drilling.
ANWR is expected to continue to be a critical
environmental battlefield for some time to come. Perseverance
and diligence will be required to protect this vital treasure.
Please, stay involved if you already are, or get involved
if you aren't. This is too big a fight to lose.
Save the Artic Refuge - Very robust site with great
maps and information
US
Fish and Wildlife Service site It is obvious that nobody
in government reads the stuff they put on the Internet.
If they did, we would not have all of the problems that
we do.
Another portion of the USFWS
site that focuses more on the oil portion of the debate.
Interesting reading.
Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge Brochure - Another USFWS goody
in a PDF format. Great pictures; makes you wonder how anyone
could think of putting oil wells there.
The
oil industry counterpoint It is always good to know
what the other side is claiming.
An
interesting review of the policy issues surrounding ANWR
Sierra
Club - As always, well done and informative
Clean Air Goes
Up In Smoke
In a gift to the energy industry, the Bush
Administration announced its intention to enact new "rules"
that effectively dismantle one of the most important aspects
of the Clean Air Act; that being the sub-section pertaining
to New Source Review (NSR). Historically, this portion of
the act mandated that large industrial facilities (including
refineries and power plants) had to upgrade their pollution
control systems when undergoing a major facilities upgrade
or when undertaking new construction. Under the new rules,
they would be allowed to classify many of these activities
as "maintenance" or use other "new"
exemptions to avoid complying with the Clean Air Act.
Exempted from NSR compliance are those situations
where facility modifications cost less than a specified
percentage (up to 20%) of the value of the entire facility.
Even if the modification costs are in excess of that amount,
a bizarre rule would allow unlimited INCREASES in the pollution
levels as long as the equipment replacement served the same
function.
To fully understand the implications of this
action, we would ask that you read Eric Schaeffer's, the
former EPA Director of Regulatory Enforcement, resignation
letter. Also, please consider Senator James Jeffords'
remarks of June 13, 2002:
"This appears to be the biggest rollback
of the Clean Air Act in history. It is clear by today's
action that this Administration is intent on undoing more
than 25 years of progress on clean air. The question is
why?
This decision is a victory for outdated
polluting power plants and a devastating defeat for public
health and our environment. Why anyone would pick smog
and soot over clean air is beyond comprehension."
For more information, please see:
As
always, the NRDC provides a wealth of useful information
EPA
info on the changes to the NSR rules
The
EPA's New Source Review Policy and Guidance Database
We don't know who is supposed to use this because there
doesn't seem to be any ramifications if you ignore it.
The
Clean Air Trust site is an excellent source for a wide
variety of information. Best of all, they have a dark sense
of humor. I suspect their staff and ours would get along
famously.
Try using the Environmental
Defense search engine and you will find numerous articles
on NSR.
Mountaintop
Removal Mining (MTRM)
Score one for Gail Norton and the mining companies
that poured millions into the last presidential campaign.
They have won a major victory that will literally allow
mining companies to blow the tops off of mountains and dump
the refuse into streams and valleys below. MTRM are large
surface mines that require the removal of the upper rock
layers to uncover coal beds. This type of mining utilizes
large earth moving equipment and bears little resemblance
to the shaft mines of Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
In addition, and with the direct assistance
of the Department of the Interior, mountaintop-removal mining
can now occur on more federally owned land (that's your
land, in case you forgot) than ever before. To provide an
incentive to destroy OUR land, the administration has structured
the rules so that the mining companies don't have to pay
for the damage that they cause, nor or they responsible
for any resulting water pollution. That's a pretty sweet
deal, if you own a mining company.
Virtually all of the pre-existing regulations
regarding mountaintop-removal mining will be negated by
the rule changes proposed by the Department of the Interior.
Basically, the new rules stipulate that as long as mining
companies try to avoid damaging streams "to the extent
possible, using the best technology available," then
they have fulfilled their environmental obligations. That's
a pretty sweet deal, if you own a mining company.
OK, say you don't own a mining company; where
does that leave you? Why, with the bill to clean up the
mess, of course, and that's not such a sweet deal.
For more information, please see:
The good people at the NRDC
have an excellent section on mining issues.
This Environmental
Media Services page provides an excellent resource.
Appalachian
Voices provides an excellent resource on MTRM practices.
Make sure you look at the photo gallery, it is very scary.
The
Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition has provided a unique
picture(s) of the potential devastation that can result
from mining operations.
An
informative article on MTRM from the West Virginia Gazette
A
collection of photographs of mining operations including
numerous photos of MTRM sites
MTBE Phase Out
Reversed
MTBE (methyl tertiary-butyl ether) is used
almost exclusively as an additive in gasoline to help the
fuel burn more completely and thus more cleanly. It is widely
used in areas of the country where the air pollution levels
exceed those established by the EPA for compliance to the
1990 Clean Air Act. When used properly, it appears that
MTBE does the job for which it was designed.
The problem with MTBE, identified as a potential
carcinogen, is that if it enters a water supply, it is extremely
difficult to remove and spreads more rapidly through aquifers
than other chemical components of gasoline. Thousands of
wells throughout the country have been impacted by MTBE
contamination that has resulted from spills and/or leaking
storage facilities. It truly has become a problem of national
proportions and 17 states have banned the use of MTBE. Currently,
the oil industry is seeking Congressional protection from
the enormous number of lawsuits that have been filed against
it as a result of MTBE groundwater pollution incidents.
As one of his final acts as President, Bill
Clinton submitted a proposed
regulation to the EPA that would phase out the use of
MTBE in gasoline over a four-year period because "The
use of MTBE as an additive in gasoline presents an unreasonable
risk to the environment."
MTBE producers countered by maintaining that
phasing out the additive would cause "grave" economic
harm to their companies. They had contributed heavily to
President Bush's election campaign and have given over $1
million to Republican interests supporting their position
since the election.
One month after taking office, the current
administration quietly shelved the Clinton proposal and
decided to leave the issue to Congress where it has become
bogged down in a legislative morass orchestrated by House
Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas. Interestingly, unlike
many other instances where the Bush Administration chose
to change past policy / rules openly and defiantly, in this
case, they never disclosed that they had done so. The issue
only came to the public's attention as a result of an Associated
Press story on February 15, 2004, nearly three years after
Bush's decision to shelf the MTBE phase out.
For more information, please see:
EPA
information on MTBE
AP
story on the Bush reversal of the MTBE policy
Additional
Resources
As we mentioned earlier, the topics discussed
above are but a fraction of the environmental abuses that
have occurred over the last three years. In fact, the list
is so appallingly long that it is well beyond our resources
to detail each instance. However, be assured that we do
think arsenic
in the water is an important issue; and yes, we think,
Gail Norton's refusal to enforce existing settlement
agreements protecting manatees was both mean-spirited
and legally indefensible; and certainly, we take issue with
the BLM
policies in the Powder River Basin.
On that note, to provide you with additional
information on a wide variety of environmental abuses, we
will refer you to both the Natural Resources Defense Council
and the Sierra Club sites listed below.
http://www.nrdc.org/bushrecord/wildlife.asp
http://www.nrdc.org/bushrecord/other_enforcement.asp
http://www.nrdc.org/bushrecord/default.asp
http://www.sierraclub.org/epajob/bush_trackrecord.asp
Both organizations maintain extensive sections
on the current (sad) state of our nation's environmental
policy.
In addition, two documents detailing the current
environmental policy of the federal government, are listed
below and should be included on your "must read"
list. Both are more frightening than any Stephen King novel.
Scientific
Integrity in Policymaking - An Investigation into the Bush
Administration's Misuse of Science is a scathing report
from the Union
of Concerned Scientists on the improper use of science
to validate government policy. They maintain that, "there
is a well-established pattern of suppression and distortion
of scientific findings by high-ranking Bush administration
political appointees across numerous federal agencies."
And that, "that the scope and scale of the manipulation,
suppression, and misrepresentation of science by the Bush
administration is unprecedented."
Weird
Science: The Interior Department's Manipulation of Science
for Political Purposes is a document that was prepared
for the U.S. House of Representatives by the Democratic
Staff Committee on Resources. Although it could be viewed
as a potentially partisan document, its contents cannot
be dismissed on that basis as the information put forth
is well supported and can be amply documented.
