Table of Contents
Pollution Fines Reduced Under Bush
Bush Wants More Enforcement Cuts
Superfund Underfunded
River cleanup may be in stages
Drawbacks of a SplitRenard Isle Heats Up Again
What You Can Do
Environment on the Brink
Bush Attacks NEPA
What You Can DoAnti-Regulatory Studies Deceptive
OMB Weakens Haz Waste Rule
OMB Guts Marine Diesel Rule
U.S. Groups Support European Chemicals Policy
Bush Blocks POPs Law
Twisting Science
Pollution Fines Reduced Under Bush
Polluters have paid 64% less in fines for breaking federal environmental
rules under the Bush administration than they did in the final two years
of the Clinton administration, according to federal records analyzed by
Knight Ridder.
Fewer polluters paid fines, and penalties were much smaller, according
to records obtained by a former top enforcement official under Bush.
“There’s a tremendous problem with environmental policy in general
and enforcement in particular in this administration,” said Sylvia Lowrance,
who was EPA’s acting assistant administrator in charge of enforcement from
Jan. 20, 2001, to May 2002. A 28-year civil servant, she retired in August.
“The data don’t lie.”
Lowrance’s deputy, EPA civil-enforcement chief Eric Schaeffer, who
resigned last February to protest what he charged was weak enforcement,
compiled four years’ worth of EPA non-Superfund civil- enforcement settlements
through Oct. 1, all published in the Federal Register. A Knight Ridder
analysis found that during the first 20 months of the Bush administration,
civil penalties averaged $3.8 million per month. During the last 28 months
of the Clinton administration, civil penalties for the same types of violations
averaged $10.6 million a month.
In addition, Bush’s EPA is requiring violators to pay much less for
environmental projects, such as restoring wetlands, that they are ordered
to undertake as part of their settlements. The value of such extra projects
plummeted 77 percent during the first 20 months of the Bush administration.
Their value averaged $2.6 million per month, versus $11.6 million per month
during the last 28 months of the Clinton administration.
During its last 28 months Clinton collected $296.1 million in civil
penalties from polluters and $324.4 million in additional environmental
projects. During its first 20 months, Bush collected $76.3 million in fines
and $52.7 million for additional projects.
The Clinton administration averaged 7.75 civil-penalty settlements
a month. Bush averages 6.3 per month, a drop of 19 percent. Under
Clinton, the average civil penalty was $1.36 million, versus $605,455 under
Bush, a drop of nearly 56 percent.
Lowrance charged that the drop in settlements reflects a lack of support
from the White House for strong enforcement of environmental laws.
“The administration literally walked in the door, the first action
they took on EPA’s budget was to announce that they were cutting back on
civil enforcement,” said Lowrance, who ran that office under Bush.
This national problem could easily affect us here in Northeast Wisconsin,
as we have hundreds of pollution permits which require enforcement, and
we rely heavily on federal laws to protect a multitude of local natural
resources (air, water, endangered species, etc.)
In particular, this federal trend heightens our concerns about the
upcoming Fox River and Green Bay cleanup announcement, and the outrageously
low PCB damage settlement between the Bush Administration and Georgia-Pacific
Corporation. We know for a fact that Bush settlement shortchanges
the public.
(from Knight Ridder Newspapers, 11/4/02)
Bush Wants More Enforcement Cuts
Last year Bush proposed to cut $25 million and 270 EPA enforcement jobs,
but Congress spared most of that.
In his current budget proposal, which is still pending on Capitol Hill,
the president asked to eliminate 112 enforcement positions to save $10
million. He also asked to send $15 million to states to strengthen their
enforcement of pollution laws, but the EPA’s reports show that states do
that poorly. Our own experience is that the Wisconsin DNR is
too politicized to strictly enforce laws against major corporations
(major campaign donors). We’ve seen DNR ignore paper industry violations
too many times.
(from Knight Ridder Newspapers, 11/4/02)
Only 42 sites were cleaned up last year under the Bush Administration,
while the Superfund program cleaned up an average of 86 sites per year
in the middle and late 1990s.
The result of this slowdown is that more people and communities are
at risk from toxic contamination.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency blames the slowdown on the
complexity of sites slated for cleanup. In reality, the Bush administration
continues severely to underfund the Superfund program, after slashing it
50%.
The lack of cleanup money to write and enforce cleanup plans is a strong
encouragement to polluters, who may see further opportunities for delay
by digging in their heels and continuing with their obstructive ways (such
as calling for more studies). The government is put in a very weak
bargaining position.
If the administration does not provide Superfund with adequate resources,
the pace of cleanups under the Superfund program will decline even further.
And the cleanups that do occur will be weaker.
River cleanup may be in stages
The DNR and EPA plan to release the final Record of Decision (ROD) for
the Fox River PCB sediment cleanup in December, according to a recent article
in the Appleton Post-Crescent.
The ROD is the government’s final decision on cleanup strategies and
cannot be appealed by the seven paper companies that may be expected to
spend an estimated $308 million to implement it.
We are worried the decision may not be complete, after persistent rumours
from many sources that the agencies are considering splitting the plan
into several pieces, with the upcoming ROD giving a final decision only
for the first stage.
Apparently, the agencies may issue a ROD for just the two upper segments
of the river, near Neenah, Menasha and Appleton, and delay releasing a
final ROD for the downstream sections of the river and the bay of Green
Bay. They may argue that they want to start upstream and see
how it goes before going any further.
After we raised major public concerns about the DNR’s lack of any cleanup
for Bay hotspots, and the appalling lack of government data on PCB levels
in the extreme southern area of the Bay, the DNR took 36 additional core
samples in the area
This would be an awful change in plans for the agencies, for several reasons:
1. Damage settlements would be blocked The Natural Resource Damage Assessment process requires a final ROD before proper damage compensations can be calculated. The agencies need to know how long the cleanup will take, and what the residual uncleaned damages will be, before they can accurately estimate future dollar damages. Our lawsuit intervening in the Georgia-Pacific settlement specifically highlighted the prematurity of settling before the final cleanup plan was done. A split ROD could delay settlements for MANY years, butt he public deserves compensation immediately.What You Can Do2. The science is adequate The agencies have been studying the Fox River and Green Bay PCB problem for 30 years now. We have one of the most studied systems in the world. With the recent Bay samples the agencies should have adequate data to make a final determination. There is no scientific reason to delay further.
3. Demos are done We’ve already waited several years for the results of the two sediment dredging demonstrations. Those projects showed the overwhelming benefits of dredging and also provided plenty of warning of potential problems to be avoided.
4. PCBs still flow downstream Every year of delay means hundreds of pounds of PCBs continue to flow downstream and escape into the Bay. This is unacceptable.
5. Outrageous public health risks The governments have never treated this problem with the urgency it demands. Approximately 40,000 people are eating unsafe fish and ducks, commericial fishing businesses have been destroyed, and the rest of us are chronically exposed to PCB contaminated air and water. This is a public health emergency that requires action, not more years of delay.
6. Multiple work crews needed Many experts have testified that it is essential to have several dredging teams working simultaneously at several different points in the river in order to complete the cleanup in a reasonable timeframe (approximately 10 years). If only one crew is working from the headof the river down, the progress will be far too slow. The second season of the Site 56/57 dredging demonstration near Georgia-Pacific proved that the agencies can get a lot of sediment cleaned up quickly when properly motivated.
7. Lobbyists are working overtime Appleton Papers’ biased science team has been lobbying government officials at all levels for a year now, pushing their frightful capping proposal and other obstructive ideas. Further delays aide their efforts to increase political pressure on the agencies behind closed doors. Meanwhile the public is shut out and lacks the resources to defend its interests. We can never match the sheer organizing power of all the paper industries’ lawyers, lobbyists, scientists, media experts, and their well-funded support staff. We also can’t match their election campaign contributions, direct or otherwise. The government agencies have made no effort to respond to or counteract the corporate propaganda campaign.
8. Anti-cleanup cities benefit Ironically, the region most aggressively opposed to the cleanup, the Fox Cities area, would be the first to benefit if the ROD is split, while the poisoned downstream communities and bayside residents all the way north to Michigan could be forced to wait years before being protected from PCB effects. The hostile anti-environment governments, Chamber of Commerce, labor unions, and news media of the Fox Cities are a primary reason for the agencies’ decades of delays.
9. Bad example to the nation We had hoped that the Fox River cleanup plan could be a model for other river cleanups across the country, but instead it could set a negative precedent.
10. We need closure Our group has worked 17 years to make progress on this issue. The public and news media are sick of hearing about it. People are losing what little faith they had in the process. We need a final decision to bring closure to this issue. The corporations can always hire fresh faces and pump them full of money to rejuvenate their lobbying campaigns. Local citizens don’t have this luxury and the governments should not be allowed to continually torture us with their indecision.
11. Don’t blame citizens The agencies are partly blaming the large volume of citizen comments for the delays, but this is a poor excuse. It’s been nearly a year since the public comment period ended, which should be more than enough time to finalize the entire river and bay plan. The EPA gave DNR approximately $4 million in 1997 to write the plan. They’ve had 5 years to complete it.
12. Politics are interfering We are also worried about Gov. McCallum’s timing, which delayed the plan until after the election. Now, as a lame duck Governor, he could safely propose an awful Fox River plan with no repercussions. And Gov. Doyle could then blame the Republicans, and distance himself from responsibility. The EPA’s new weakness under Bush is also a major worry, because up until recently the federal government had been a champion for a strong cleanup plan, in spite of Gov. Thompson’s and Gov. McCallum’s reluctance.
Please write, as soon as possible, to your Governor and elected representatives in the state Legislature and tell them what you think about the potential splitting of the Fox River Record of Decision.
Gov. Scott McCallum
Room 125 South, State Capitol
P.O. Box 7863
Madison, WI 53702-7863
Senator
,
P.O. Box 7882
Madison, WI 53707
Rep. (Last Name, A thru L)
P.O. Box 8952
Madison, WI 53708
Rep. (Last Name, Mc thru Z)
P.O. Box 8953
Madison, WI 53708
(If you don’t know who your elected state representatives are, call the toll-free Legislative Hotline at 1-800-362-9472 on weekdays, between 8:00 and 5:00)
After many years of delay, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposes
to formally close Renard Isle (better known as Kidney Island) and turn
it over to Brown County taxpayers for long-term maintenance.
This 55-acre artificial island was created with roughly 2 decades of
dredged sediments (starting in 1976) from the Green Bay Harbor shipping
channel offshore from Bay Beach Amusement Park just east of the mouth of
the Fox River.
The sediments are highly contaminated with hundreds of industrial pollutants
and have been estimated to contain roughly 22,000 pounds of PCBs.
In essence, the island is a toxic hotspot.
Clean Water Action Council took legal action in the fall of 1995 and
successfully blocked the Corps, Brown County, and the Wisconsin DNR from
tripling the size of the island to 186 acres. Since then, the island
has been neglected and unresolved. It has been over-filled for many
years, but was never properly capped, sealed or secured.
Now, the Corps proposes a Closure Plan, where the island would be “capped”
with 5 feet of sand dredged from farther out in the bay, and simply turned
over to the County.
The island had a 50 year design life and was built to withstand only
20-year storms (storms which happen statistically every 20 years, but could
come sooner.) The island was designed to leak all around it’s base,
as its dewatering mechanism, though the Corps claims the island “self seals”
after filling. We fear the outer sediment layers are in direct contact
with fluctuating bay waters and seepage could be carrying significant toxic
contaminants back into the bay.
For years, we have urged the County to demand major remediation of
the island --- either massive strengthening and sealing of the site, or
total removal of the island. Otherwise, it is inevitable that it
will eventually break apart, requiring extremely expensive repairs, over
and over again, and could recontaminate the bay with catastrophic releases
of toxins, after hundreds of millions have been spent cleaning the bay
up. The County and DNR have ignored our concerns, so far.
Now, the DNR is reviewing the Corps proposal, and may require something
more.
Meanwhile, the County is jumping ahead and proposing a wide variety
of commercial uses of the island in order to cover the costs of maintaining
the site. Dean Haen, the Brown County Port Manager, proposes to generate
revenue from the island by building a restaurant on top and an expensive
causeway from Bay Beach Amusement Park, along with several other tourism
attractions, possibly paid for with PCB damage settlement money from the
paper industry.
Haen said, “The (Army) Corps is going to hand over ownership, and we
need a nest egg to pay for it or else taxpayers will be left footing the
bill for maintenance.” We’ve been warning abou;t this liability
for years.
Obviously, we are concerned about the shoddy construction and unsafe public exposures. We’ll be studying the final proposals carefully and asking for public hearings. Stay tuned.
Which direction is the environment heading? Find out the possibilities in this discussion of politics and the environment in the 21st century.
You are invited to attend this panel and public discussion.
Panel members will be Rebecca Katers, of Clean Water Action Council; Professor Troy Abel, of UW-Green Bay’s Department of Public and Environmental Affairs; and Robert Bermke, environmental engineer with Georgia Pacific.
7:00 p.m. Thursday, December 5
at the Christie Theatre, in the UW-Green Bay Student Union
Join in the dialogue! Come with questions, comments and concerns that you have about the environment. This is your chance to speak with representatives from three distinct schools of thought on the environment.
Sponsored by: Round River Alliance, College Democrats, Public and Environmental Affairs Council, and Clean Water Action Council
Thirty two years ago, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) was passed, to require federal agencies to estimate environmental impacts of substantial projects they build, pay for, or issue permits for. The process involves public hearings and listing of various alternative ways to accomplish the purpose of any given project.
NEPA is a keystone in modern environmental laws and is essential to the public’s right to have input in government decisions.
The law’s purpose is to force agencies to make better-informed decisions.
The law does not require agencies to choose the least damaging alternative.
It only requires them to take a careful look at a range of alternatives,
including the alternative of not building (or funding or permitting) the
project altogether. It assumes that once the choices and their likely results
are made clear, the agency will make a decision that best serves the public
interest. NEPA also ensures the public’s right to research,
discuss and comment on the issues before decisions are made.
NEPA is now under attack on several fronts. The first is from
the Congress, where bills in the Senate (sponsored by Sens. Larry Craig,
R-Idaho, and Pete Domenici, R-N.M.) and the House (Scott McInnis, R-Utah)
would exempt 10 million acres of national forest land from NEPA review
to expedite thinning to head off wildfires. The bills would allow
the Forest Service and timber industry to log wherever they like (rather
than targeting high risk areas).
The Bush Administration is also proposing legislation to waive NEPA
provisions as part of its “Healthy Forests Initiative,” denying public
comment on timber cutting proposals, as well as the opportunity to challenge
them in court.
And Bush isn’t waiting for the law to change. He suspended regulations
for ecological sustainability in the National Forest Management Act (NFMA)
in the spring of 2001. This was the first step toward dismantling
environmental review of projects in all National Forests, noting that the
chief of the Forest Service has already approved a number of other changes
to NFMA, the most significant of which would categorically exclude forest
management plans from NEPA.
Another NEPA attack is from the Justice Dept. and the National Marine
Fisheries Service, both under Bush, which have pushed to exempt from NEPA
the U.S.’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), the area of ocean between 3 and
200 miles offshore. (The 3 miles immediately offshore belong to the states.)
A federal judge recently rejected the Justice Department arguments, but
the issue may not be over.
Notes from an August meeting at the White House Council on Environmental
Quality, which has formed a NEPA task force to study various aspects of
the law, indicate that the administration “is considering stripping NEPA
protection from the oceans.” This is a major policy change:
for the past three decades, NEPA has governed EEZ projects including oil
drilling, pipeline laying, waste dumping, and other activities.
Possible motives: to get rid of a lawsuit by the Natural Resources
Defense Council against Navy testing of sonar devices that seem to be harming
whales and other marine mammals —- and to allow a major expansion of commercial
fish-farming in public waters without any environmental review, despite
significant evidence that these aquatic farms can cause severe damage in
some cases. If EEZ is removed from NEPA jurisdiction, it would
be the biggest rollback of that law in history.
NEPA must be protected from such encroachments, to require evaluation
of alternatives and consequences.
Write a brief letter to your elected Congress members and tell them what you think about these issues:
Senator Russ Feingold
U.S. Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510
Senator Herb Kohl
U.S. Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510
Congressman Mark Green
House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515
Congressman Thomas Petri
House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515
Write a Letter-to-the-Editor of your local newspaper, calling public attention to one of these issues, and ask the public to also write to their federal officials.
Anti-Regulatory Studies Deceptive
A series of influential studies which claim to show that federal regulation
is irrational are based on data that is misleading and frequently manufactured
to fit a preconceived point of view, according to an investigation by Richard
Parker, a law professor at the University of Connecticut.
These studies are frequently cited in calls for “reforms” — both legislative
and administrative — designed to limit regulations and increase the use
of cost-benefit analysis. Three examples:
• False Study #1 A 2000 study by Robert Hahn, co-director of the AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, which concluded, “using the government’s numbers,” that less than half the major rules issued between 1981 and 1996 pass a cost-benefit test (costs minus monetized benefits). Yet Hahn’s study did not disclose the names of these rules, making the findings unverifiable. “Merely getting the list of rules — and the corresponding tabulation of costs and benefits — required months,” said Parker. “When I finally obtained the spreadsheet, I immediately made a startling discovery. Forty-one of the 136 rules in his database — fully 31 percent of all the rules — are assigned a zero benefit.” This includes a rule requiring tankers to devise response plans for large oil spills; a rule requiring manufacturing facilities to publicly disclose toxic releases; and three rules to limit toxic pollutants in drinking water.Parker’s complete findings will be revealed in a forthcoming 90-page paper.
Clearly such rules carry significant benefits, many of which are difficult, if not impossible, to monetize. Yet according to Parker, “It turns out that Hahn, with a few narrow and limited exceptions, has assigned a zero value to any benefit which the government’s regulatory impact assessment [RIA] does not quantify and monetize. Hahn also zero-values even benefits that are quantified and monetized in an agency RIA, unless they happen to fall into one of his select categories of recognized benefit,even as he insists at he is using the government’s numbers.”
For instance, EPA promulgated a rule in 1992 to protect 3.9 million agricultural workers from pesticides, which the agency estimated would yield substantial benefits, including the prevention of serious developmental defects, stillbirths, and acute pesticide poisoning. Yet Hahn’s study only recognized the health benefits of “reducing the risk of cancer, heart disease, and lead poisoning.” As a result, Hahn scores EPA’s rule as having no benefit.• False Study #2 A 1995 study by Tammy Tengs and John Graham, the Bush’s appointed Administrator of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), found that 60,000 additional lives could be saved each year if the government redirected resources from current regulatory interventions to more “cost-effective” options. Graham has provocatively labeled this “statistical murder.”
Yet Parker points out the logical fallacy of this claim, which assumes a fixed regulatory budget where a dollar spent on Risk A is a dollar less for Risk B. “In fact, there is no such budget, and no such tradeoff,” Parker writes. Even so, Parker points out that Graham’s hypothetical reallocation encourages the adoption of two interventions — influenza vaccines for all citizens and continuous (vs. nocturnal) oxygen for hypoxemic obstructive lung disease — that alone account for more than 42,000 of the 60,000 additional lives saved.
“Are we to believe that the nation’s failure to [adopt these interventions] is somehow related to the allegedly excessive regulation of benzene or other interventions at the cost-ineffective bottom of his list?,” Parker asks. “If not, where is the statistical murder?”
Ironically, “Graham’s re-allocation works by finding one or more instances of under-regulation to match every instance of over-regulation,” Parker writes. “But under-regulation, of course, is not the lesson that regulatory critics choose to draw from the Graham study.”
Another central point of Graham’s study is that toxic regulation is frequently cost-ineffective when compared to non-toxic related interventions. Yet amazingly, Graham’s own data suggests the exact opposite. Parker points out that only 4 percent of expenditures on toxic regulations exceed $8 million per life saved, while 63 percent of the funds devoted to non-toxic interventions exceed that threshold.
• False Study #3 A 1987 study by John Morrall, a senior economist at OIRA, which presented a table of 44 regulations and concluded that one-third cost more than $100 million for every life saved. Yet like the work by Hahn and Graham, Morrall’s study is deeply misleading.
Morrall, like Hahn and Graham, relies on agency cost-benefit data. But Morrall revises these estimates “whenever he disagrees with them — often by several orders of magnitude, and always in the direction of higher costs and lower benefits,” according to Parker. Moreover, Morrall offers no supporting documentation for his changes, making his findings impossible to replicate. Indeed, Morrall admitted to Parker that his assumptions and calculations are “scattered around in filing cabinets.”
“All three studies rely on undisclosed data and non-replicable calculations,” Parker concludes. “They misrepresent ex ante guesses about the costs and benefits of future or hypothetical regulations as actual measurements of ‘the’ costs and benefits of regulation. They grossly under-estimate the value of lives saved, or the number of lives saved, or both.”
(from OMB Watch, 10/28/02)
Using its regulatory review authority, the White House Office of Management
and Budget (OMB) blocked an EPA effort to protect soil and drinking water
from excessive levels of manganese — an industrial by-product linked to
numerous health problems, including respiratory problems, sexual dysfunction,
nervous system issues, mental and emotional disturbances, as well as manganism,
a disease with symptoms similar to Parkinson’s.
EPA originally published a proposed rule back in September of 2000
to list manganese, among other elements, as a hazardous waste. This action,
compelled by a 1998 consent decree with Environmental Defense, would have
prohibited the “underground injection, or land disposal” of any waste containing
manganese, unless it was treated to reduce manganese to safe levels.
After intense pressure from the steel industry, OMB’s Office of Information
and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) stripped the listing of manganese during
its review of the final rule, which was eventually published in the Federal
Register on Nov. 20, 2001; instead, EPA agreed to give the issue further
study — although more than a year later, this still hasn’t happened.
In devising its original proposal, EPA focused on manufacturing that
involves titanium dioxide — which is associated with high levels of manganese
— including the production of paint, lacquer, and varnishes, as well as
paper and plastics, among other products.
EPA tested individual facilities for components in the waste stream
of the titanium dioxide production process, and most had high levels of
manganese that could endanger human health by seeping into drinking water
supplies.
However, during a meeting with OIRA on Oct. 19, 2001 (referenced in
an industry letter, but not logged by OIRA, as it should have been), the
steel industry argued that the listing of manganese could, among other
things, cripple its business in steel slag — which contains high levels
of manganese and generated about $147 million in 1997, according to industry
lobbyists. OIRA proved receptive to these cost concerns — not surprising
given its track record — and forced EPA to back down.
EPA, for its part, deemed the entire proposal (including not just manganese,
but other elements) “economically insignificant,” involving economic impacts
less than $100 million. In an appendix made available online in conjunction
with the final rule, EPA specifically states that it “does not believe
that there are significant incremental costs or economic impacts associated
with adding manganese to Appendix VIII” (the catch-all list for hazardous
wastes), noting that the number of affected facilities is small and that
some states, such as New Jersey, already include manganese in their listings
for groundwater monitoring. As for corrective action clean-ups — a major
concern of the steel industry — EPA says that manganese is already considered
a hazardous constituent in this context, and its addition to Appendix VIII
would not create any new requirement. Therefore, EPA should not have
backed down.
This issue is potentially important for Northeast Wisconsin because
white paper coatings frequently contain titanium dioxide, and paper recycling
facilities strip these coatings off during the de-inking process, resulting
in waste sludges and wastewaters potentially contaminated with unsafe levels
of manganese. Some recycling plants in Wisconsin are allowed to landspread
their waste sludges. This must be investigated.
(source: OMB Watch, 11/06/02)
Using its regulatory review authority, the White House Office of Management
and Budget (OMB) recently gutted an EPA proposal to limit diesel emissions
from large ships and tankers, which are a growing — and still unregulated
— source of air pollution around coastal cities and ports, emitting about
273,000 tons of nitrogen oxide (NOx) per year.
As originally submitted to OMB on March 14, 2002, EPA’s proposal contained
two tiers. Tier 1 codified modest limits contained in a 1996 international
agreement known as Annex VI, which still needs to be ratified and remains
unenforceable. Tier 2 required more stringent limits that would achieve
an additional 30 percent reduction in NOx emissions from new engines beginning
in 2007.
During its review, however, OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory
Affairs (OIRA) stripped out this second phase, according to EPA sources
and documentation required by Executive Order 12866, after the tanker industry
weighed in heavily against it. With this change, the proposed rule (published
in the Federal Register on May 29) now merely lays out the possibility
of the Tier 2 standards, and takes comment on not adopting them.
The Tier 1 limits, which are supported by industry, were left in tact,
and would apply to all new engines by 2004. Yet by EPA’s own admission,
this will not yield any new health or environmental benefits because manufacturers
have already achieved compliance with the identical Annex VI limits, which
apply to all ship engines built after Jan. 1, 2000.
Meanwhile, ship and tanker emissions continue to increase with the
rise in international trade, now accounting for 14 percent of global NOx
emissions and 16 percent of the world’s sulfur emissions, according to
a report from the Bluewater Network, “A Stacked Deck: Air Pollution from
Large Ships.” These emissions are associated with premature death, lung
damage, chest pain, asthma aggravation, acid rain, global warming, smog
and reduced visibility due to haze, along with many other detrimental environmental
affects, according to EPA.
With commercial ships expected to double or triple in the next 20 years,
this problem will only get worse unless further action is taken. Indeed,
EPA estimates that even with its proposed Tier 1 limits, U.S. emissions
from large ships will increase 6 percent by 2020 and 13 percent by 2030,
with port cities disproportionately hurt.
Even the rejected Tier 2 limits seem too timid. Besides NOx, the Tier
2 proposal also addresses diesel emissions of hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide
— which are not touched by Tier 1 — but does not tackle the larger problem
of sulfur in fuel, which is correlated with particulate matter emissions.
By contrast, a 1999 rule required reductions in particulate matter from
small and medium-sized marine diesel engines. “EPA has reduced sulfur levels
for all categories of transportation, except large vessels ... despite
the fact that marine diesel engines represent the third largest source
of [particulate matter] in the US,” according to the Bluewater Network,
which successfully sued EPA to compel the proposed rule.
Moreover, given advances in technology, much higher NOx reductions
seem well within reach. EPA states that technology is already available
to meet the Tier 2 limits, noting that a Swedish program achieved a 45
percent reduction in NOx emissions between 1995 and 2001. The Bluewater
Network argues that further emission reductions of 90 to 95 percent are
now possible.
What’s more, such reductions are not expected to be prohibitively expensive.
EPA projected that meeting the Tier 2 standards would cost industry about
$1.6 million annually, which is less than 1 percent of annual shipbuilding
revenue. Nonetheless, this was too much for industry lobbyists, and consequently,
too much for OIRA.
(from OMB Watch, 11/06/02)
U.S. Groups Support European Chemicals Policy
Call on Bush to Stop Undermining Reform
Clean Water Action Council recently joined with more than 50 other environmental,
public health, and labor groups in the U.S. to denounce our government’s
efforts to derail proposed reforms underway in the European Economic Union
(EU).
In a letter to President George W. Bush, we supported EU efforts
to protect against hazardous chemicals and countered Bush Administration
claims that the legislation would be bad for U.S. business.
“This letter is evidence of broad grassroots support in the U.S. for
government policies that protect people, wildlife, and ecosystems from
chemical contamination,” said Michael Warhurst, WWF’s Senior EU Toxics
Programme Officer. “Instead of lobbying to slow environmental progress
in Europe, the U.S. should take some lessons from overseas and begin to
tackle this global threat.”
The European Commission has proposed a new chemicals policy called
REACH (Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals) to address
the large gaps in public health and environmental protections against chemicals.
The proposals would shift the burden of proof onto industry by requiring
adequate scientific data as a precondition for selling chemicals - and
products - and includes a mechanism for systematically eliminating the
most hazardous chemicals in favor of safer alternatives.
Echoing the position of the chemical industry, the Bush Administration
has developed and actively disseminated documents highly critical of the
EU reform proposals, claiming that cost of increased scrutiny would burden
U.S. businesses and hinder competitiveness. The Bush attack has been
widely distributed by U.S. government representatives to officials throughout
Europe. Our public interest groups maintain that the
cost of reforms is minuscule compared to billions spent on health care,
pollution control, and clean-up from chemical contamination.
“The European chemical industry would have us believe that the new
EU chemicals management REACH harms their competitiveness, while the US
government argues that it would harm THEIR competitiveness. There is something
obviously wrong. More likely is that EU’s chemicals policy reform will
create new markets for companies that employ cleaner processes to create
cleaner products”, said John Hontelez, Secretary General of the European
Environmental Bureau.
“It is clear that the U.S. government is not acting in the general
public-interest, but is narrowly focussing on the self-interests of its
chemical industry”, said Mary Taylor from Friends of the Earth. “It is
heartening that these diverse organisations in the States stand ready to
fight for the EU reforms. From labor unions to children’s health advocates
to conservation organisations, these groups represent millions of Americans
who demand protection from chemical contamination.”
U.S. chemical policy is increasingly antiquated and ineffective, mired
int he legislative backwaters created by the 1976 Toxic Substances Control
Act (ToSCA). An estimated 85% of the 80,000 chemicals in commerce lack
basic publicly available data on potential health and environmental impacts.
In the 25 years since ToSCA came into effect, EPA has restricted only a
handful of hazardous chemicals, while many more known toxic substances
are used in everyday products and released into our environment.
In short, U.S. chemical policy would benefit greatly from some of the same
policy reforms being pursued in Europe.
The Bush Administration recently staged an 11th-hour obstruction of
Senate legislation which would have implemented the Stockholm Convention
on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs).
The Administration sat out the negotiations for the past 18 months,
and its recent objections in effect ended all hopes of making the POPs
Treaty a U.S. law in the 107th Congress.
International environmental leaders have been outraged. “Bush continues
to balk at proposals to implement the treaty while refusing to engage in
constructive or meaningful ways,” said Robert K. Musil, Ph.D., M.P.H.,
executive director of Physicians for Social Responsibility. “The international
community has recognized that POPs pose a threat to public health around
the world, but the White House continues to drag its feet.”
The Stockholm Convention mandates the phase out and ultimate elimination
of POPs, a dangerous class of chemicals that includes highly toxic dioxins
and PCBs as well as pesticides such as chlordane.
POPs pose a global hazard because of their toxicity to animals and
people, their persistence in the environment, their ability to travel long
distances on air and water currents, and their propensity to build up in
food chains. They have become common contaminants of fish and other marine
life, dairy products, and other foods. Many Americans may now carry enough
POPs in their body fat to cause serious health problems, including reproductive
and developmental abnormalities, cancer, and immune system disruption.
Arctic ecosystems and their indigenous peoples suffer disproportionately
from POPs contamination and can no longer safely consume many of their
traditional foods.
Bush publicly claimed to support the Convention in a Rose Garden ceremony
in April 2001, and EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman signed the
treaty in May 2001.
The Administration’s actions since then have undermined that
commitment. Legislation introduced on behalf of the White House in April
2002 failed to include a provision, known as an “adding mechanism,” that
would allow EPA to add new chemicals to the list of prohibited POPs in
the future. Omission of this key requirement would gut one of the most
important parts of the treaty.
“The governments negotiating the Stockholm Convention believed they
were creating a dynamic, science-based treaty that anticipates future toxic
threats, not one that just addresses ‘dinosaur’ chemicals already banned
by most countries,” said Brooks Yeager, Vice President for World Wildlife
Fund’s Global Threats Program and the former chief U.S. negotiator of the
treaty. “Negotiators agreed that the addition of future POPs should be
at the heart of this treaty. It is very disappointing that the Bush Administration
is turning its back on the Stockholm Convention.”
In contrast to the Bush bill, Sen. Jim Jeffords (I- Vt.) introduced
the POPs Implementation Act of 2002 (S.2118), which includes this “adding
mechanism.” The Jeffords bill has been pending in the Senate for nearly
six months, allowing ample time for representatives of the chemical industry,
public interest groups, and Senators from both sides of the aisle to negotiate
details. The White House, however, refused to provide any constructive
advice even after EPA finally acknowledged the need for the adding mechanism
on September 27.
On October 9, EPA confirmed its lack of commitment to the treaty by
proposing multiple hurdles to thwart the elimination of new dangerous chemicals.
The Administration’s stalling tactics effectively stymied progress on the
bill during the crucial days before the Senate recessed.
The American public wants real protection from toxic threats , but
Bush has mesmerized them with talk of war.
It’s important to know where experts get their paychecks.
President Bush has replaced 15 of the 18 members of a scientific advisory
committee at the Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) National Center for
Environmental Health. This committee assesses effects of environmental
chemicals on human health.
Many replacements are people with direct links to polluting industries.
Dennis Paustenbach, is a California scientist who conducts paid risk assessment
for industries and testified in defense of Pacific Gas and Electric Co.
against the real-life Erin Brockovich. (PG&E was found
guilty of poisoning drinking water.) Other appointees are: Lois Swirsky
Gold, a U. of California risk-assessment specialist whose career had been
made by opposing scientific claims of links between environmental pollutants
and cancer; Roger McClellan, former president of the Chemical Industry
Institute of Toxicology, a North Carolina research firm supported by several
chemical companies; and Becky Norton Dunlop, a vice pres. of the Heritage
Foundation (an industry-funded group) who vigorously fought against environmental
regulation as Virginia’s secretary of natural resources.
On another CDC committee which assesses lead poisoning, similar Bush
replacements are occurring. This committee is reexamining the
limit on acceptable lead levels in blood. According to the CDC, more
than 890,000 children in the U.S. between ages 1 and 5 have elevated lead
in their blood, which can damage the nervous system, kidneys, reproductive
system, and decrease intelligence, among other harmful effects.
The office of Tommy Thompson, secretary of the Dept. of Health and
Human Services (HHS), which includes the CDC, has been closely involved
in the selection process, nixing a number of nominations in favor of a
panel more sympathetic to industry.
Michael Wetzman, pediatrician in chief at Rochester General Hospital
and author of numerous publications on lead poisoning, was not reappointed
to the committee as expected when his term expired, and nominations of
two other accomplished doctors with expertise in lead poisoning were also
rebuffed by Thompson’s agency. Instead, CDC nominated four scientists closely
allied with the lead industry. Specifically, they are:
• William Banner, prof. of pediatrics at the U. of Oklahoma. Served as expert witness for the lead industry, downplaying the effects of lead on childrenThese are just examples of widespread changes occuring under Bush. Basic scientific information is being twisted to accomodate corporate interests.
• Joyce Tsuji, principle scientist at Exponent, a consulting firm whose corporate clients include ASARCO, which is now involved in a lead dispute with EPA, Dow Chemical, and Dupont (she has since withdrawn her nomination)• Sergio Piomelli, a prof. at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center. Has argued against lowering the acceptable lead limit in blood, saying “there is no epidemic of lead poisoning in the U.S. today, but some people are trying to create an epidemic by decree”
• Kimberly Thompson, an asst. prof. of risk analysis and decision science at Harvard, is affiliated with the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis (HCRA), which has 22 corporate funders with a financial interest in lead. This includes Ciba-Geigy Corp., FMC Corp., and Monsanto, which have superfund sites with lead contamination. (The administration’s regulatory czar John Graham, who has bottled up health, safety, and environmental protections across federal agencies, is the former director of HCRA.)
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