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White House usurping scientific authority from federal agencies
January 11, 2004: Putting politics before public safety, the White House Office of Management and Budget is moving to exert control over emergency declarations rather than leave that authority with federal agencies. Under the guise of peer review, the OMB's proposal could inject political considerations into scientifically based, nonpartisan statements from federal agencies, or worse, diffuse or delay the release of important information regarding diseases or dangerous situations in the name of "national security." A nonpartisan group of former top agency officials, fearing the merge of federal science and politics as dangerous to both the public and environment, have joined environmental and health groups in opposing the OMB's efforts.
"This is really just a last-ditch attempt by the Bush administration to achieve weaker pollution and safety standards without having to lobby Congress," said NRDC scientist Jennifer Sass. "Scientific experts within federal agencies, not OMB political appointees, should be in charge of warning the public about health threats and safety concerns."
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Pentagon to seek more environmental exemptions
January 09, 2004: They're baaaaack! After convincing Congress last year to exempt the Defense Department from the nation's wildlife protection laws, the Pentagon now wants immunity from federal air and hazardous waste protections. Pentagon officials have asked the White House to lobby Congress to rewrite the rules so that the military won't have to obey the Clean Air Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and the toxic waste (Superfund) cleanup law. The specific changes being sought by the Pentagon include extending federal deadlines for hazardous waste cleanup on military installations, waiving Clean Air Act violations and bypassing state environmental protection regulations. Critics contend that changing those laws will endanger America's environment and threaten the health of communities facing pollution problems (particularly drinking water contamination) caused by military activities. But the Bush administration insists that environmental protections hamper military training and readiness -- despite never having produced any evidence to support this claim. "Americans overwhelmingly believe that no government agency should be above the law, especially the laws that protect our health and environment," said Karen Wayland, NRDC's legislative director. "We're prepared to fight to force the Pentagon to obey these fundamental safeguards."
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Park Service says 'Let 'em snowmobile' in Yellowstone
December 11, 2003: Despite tens of thousands of public comments supporting the Clinton-era plan to phase out snowmobile use in America's oldest national park, final rules issued by the National Park Service call only for placing limits on the number of off-road vehicles allowed in the park. Eventually, the agency will require quieter, less polluting models but for the time being 1,100 snowmobiles a day will be permitted in both Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks. Starting in 2005 all snowmobiles entering Yellowstone will have to meet a 70 percent reduction in carbon monoxide emissions from the EPA's 2002 baseline. However, park officials acknowledge that enforcing those air quality standards will be challenging.
Environmentalists maintain that the Bush administration's plan is not nearly adequate to protect the area's wildlife and air quality. In fact, independent federal studies found that the plan will allow twice as much carbon monoxide pollution and five times the nitrogen oxide emissions compared to an outright ban of snowmobiles in national parks.
"From day one the Bush administration has ignored and manipulated scientific studies to achieve its goal of letting snowmobiles continue to run amok in our parks, regardless of the harm to health and wildlife," said Chuck Clusen, director of NRDC's parks program.
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EPA planning to loosen mercury pollution rules
December 03, 2003: NRDC and other environmental groups leaked a draft Environmental Protection Agency proposal that would weaken and delay efforts to clean up mercury emissions from America's coal-fired power plants. Those 1,100 facilities are the largest unregulated industrial sources of mercury contamination in the country, spewing 50 tons of the poison -- roughly 40 percent of U.S. industrial mercury emissions -- into the air each year.
In news stories, EPA administrator Mike Leavitt defended the draft proposal as an emissions trading program similar to the one that has reduced acid rain. A close examination of the plan, however, reveals that by emphasizing a cap-and-trade program, Leavitt was trying to deflect attention from the heart of the proposal: It would downgrade mercury from being regulated as a "hazardous" pollutant to one that requires less stringent pollution controls. By doing so, the EPA's "cap" would allow nearly seven times more annual mercury emissions over a period five times longer than current law. Moreover, an emissions trading program would allow "hot spots" of mercury contamination in the lakes and rivers neighboring plants that buy pollution credits instead of reducing their mercury emissions.
"The Bush administration's mercury proposal will permit more toxic pollution for a longer time. It's an early Christmas gift to the Bush administration's friends in the energy industry and speaks volumes about the administration's unspoken policy toward America's children," said David Hawkins, director of NRDC's climate center.
Toxic mercury emissions from power plants put 300,000 newborns each year at risk for neurological impairment, according to EPA data. But adults, as well as children, suffer from mercury exposure -- it can damage their cardiovascular and immune systems. Eight percent of American women of childbearing age (nearly 5 million women) have mercury in their blood above EPA's "safe" level. Mercury pollution also has contaminated 12 million acres of lakes, estuaries and wetlands -- 30 percent of the national total -- and 473,000 miles of streams, rivers and coastlines. Last year, 44 states and territories issued warnings about eating mercury-contaminated fish, a 63 percent jump from 1993. Seventeen states have mercury warnings for every inland water body, while 11 states issue warnings for mercury in their coastal waters.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics (
www.opensecrets.com), the energy industry gave more than $48 million to the Republican Party in the 2000 election cycle; $3 million of that went to the Bush-Cheney campaign. American Electric Power, Southern Co. ($1.6 million to GOP in 2000 cycle), Reliant Energy (nearly $445,000 to GOP) Dominion Resources ($560,000 to GOP), along with the government-owned Tennessee Valley Authority, were responsible for one-third of all U.S. electric utility mercury emissions that year and American Electric Power alone released 10 percent of all power-plant mercury emissions. The above four companies also were among the beneficiaries of the recent EPA ruling that essentially repealed the Clean Air Act provision requiring power plants to install modern-day pollution controls if they increased emissions when upgrading their plants.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Press Release: 12/5/03
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EPA considers streamlining of toxics release inventory
November 17, 2003: In perhaps the most drastic measure ever contemplated to reduce paperwork, the Environmental Protection Agency is considering industry groups' suggestions to streamline the reporting process for the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) program -- the federal right-to-know program that requires businesses to disclose their toxic emissions. The agency recently entered the second phase of its online public discussion about how to change the TRI reporting process. This new stage, which follows a period of public comment, presents a series of "burden reduction options" ranging from increasing exemptions for small businesses, to allowing more companies to fill out a shortened reporting form, to permitting ranges, rather than exact amounts, of pollutants to be inventoried. Environmentalists caution that the EPA may buckle under industry pressure to reduce reporting requirements. Of particular concern is the mining industry, which has recently filed two lawsuits against the EPA in an attempt to shirk responsibility for reporting toxic mining wastes.
"Streamlining TRI reporting requirements fits the Bush administration's pattern of trying to ease the 'regulatory burden' on corporations," said Linda Greer, director of NRDC's health program. "But the fact is that small business can emit large amounts of toxic materials, too, and people have a right to know what pollution is being pumped and dumped into their environment."
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White House considers dropping some fish protections to promote logging
October 31, 2003: Save endangered fish or level more forests? That is a question for the Bush administration, as it considers how to achieve its goal of almost tripling timber harvests in national forests throughout the Pacific Northwest. Under the landmark Northwest Forest Plan, federal agencies must review the impacts of logging on salmon-bearing streams. But Forest Service officials are mulling over a new, less eco-friendly approach that would exempt some logging projects from the requirements of the Aquatic Conservation Strategy. The proposed change would pave the way for increased logging and even allow destructive practices such as clearcutting on steep slopes, which washes sediment into streams and degrades the habitat of endangered fish.
"Contrary to law, science and common sense, the Bush administration is hell-bent on rewriting the rules so that logging takes precedence over wildlife protection, recreation and other values offered by our national forests," said Nathaniel Lawrence, director of NRDC's forests program.
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EPA changes rule to exempt hazardous waste requirements
October 23, 2003: The Environmental Protection Agency is poised to exempt certain hazardous wastes from disposal requirements, increasing the possibility of dangerous pollutant leaks. The EPA's new rulemaking seeks to change the parameters for classifying industrial materials as "recyclable," increasing the number of materials exempted from the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. Environmentalists worry that changing the rule will ultimately result in hazardous waste being released into the environment rather than recycled, as required by the RCRA. Without a clearly defined disposal protocol, dangerous exempted solvents could be left sitting or go astray during transport. As the rule itself notes, many early Superfund sites became contaminated when stockpiles of materials waiting to be recycled leaked into the soil or water near industrial facilities.
"Rewriting the rules to allow sham recycling of hazardous waste could endanger our health through more leaks and widespread contamination," said NRDC senior attorney Erik Olson.
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Bush administration declares open season on endangered species
October 13, 2003: If the Bush administration gets its way, imperiled wildlife in foreign countries will soon be in the crosshairs. In a radical policy shift, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed lifting the ban on importing endangered wild animals -- dead or alive -- as hunting trophies and commercial products. Bush officials claim that the profits from legalizing the foreign endangered species trade will provide poor countries with an incentive to expand their conservation programs. The move -- which could affect some 500 endangered species worldwide, including the Asian elephant -- marks the first time in the 30-year history of the Endangered Species Act that the United States has tried to permit the importation of imperiled animals.
"From the administration that brought us the so-called Healthy Forest initiative, a plan to save forests by cutting down more trees, we now have a plan to preserve wildlife in developing nations by promoting poaching," said NRDC senior attorney Joel Reynolds. "This shocking proposal benefits big-game hunters, many of whom just happen to be President Bush's biggest campaign contributors, at the expense of wildlife species already on the brink of extinction."
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Interior Department eases mining rules
October 09, 2003: The mining industry has reason to celebrate now that Interior Secretary Gale Norton has overturned a Clinton-era regulation that limited the amount of public land that could be used for waste from hardrock mining projects. The new decision effectively reverses the agency's 1997 ruling that the 1872 Mining Law limits each individual 20-acre mining claim on federal lands to one 5-acre waste site. According to the Bush administration's interpretation, there is no longer a restriction on the number of 5-acre waste sites -- meaning gold and silver mining operations can dump unlimited amounts of toxic and other waste on public lands.
Mining practices have become much more destructive over the years but the 1872 Mining Law has not changed. Whereas in the old days mining shafts left relatively little waste, today's mines create huge open pits and leave behind massive cyanide waste heaps that have polluted thousands of stream miles throughout the West.
"All that glitters is gold, but only for the mining industry," said Johanna Wald, director of NRDC's land program. "The Bush administration has given industry an open invitation to dump more toxic waste on our lands and to pollute our waterways, leaving community health and wildlife to pay the price."
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White House study: benefits of environmental regulation far outweigh costs
September 29, 2003: Environmental protections aren't only crucial to ensuring cleaner air and water, they're also cost-effective, according to the most comprehensive federal study ever performed on the costs and benefits of regulatory decision-making. The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) found that the benefits of some major environmental rules outweigh the costs to industry by several times. For example, the OMB determined that the health and social gains resulting from tough new clean air regulations during the past decade were five to seven times greater than compliance costs. Even with the most conservative assumptions, the OMB reported, each dollar spent on environmental regulation returned more than six dollars in health care savings and improved worker productivity. The OMB also admitted that it erred in last year's annual assessment by underestimating the benefits of environmental protections.
"Let's hope the truth shall set the Bush administration free from trying to weaken and undermine our nation's environmental laws," said Wesley Warren, NRDC's senior fellow for environmental economics.
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White House recommendations could shut the public out of environmental review
September 24, 2003: Recommendations announced in a report by the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) could obstruct public input on key federal decisions on the environment, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). NEPA, signed into law in 1970 by President Richard Nixon, requires federal officials to assess the environmental impact of agency decisions and give the public a say in those decisions. NEPA also is the statute that created the CEQ.
Critics say recommendations in the report, "Modernizing NEPA Implementation," would undermine NEPA's guarantees of public participation and environmental review in two ways. First, the section on environmental assessments recommends scaling back the amount of required analysis of an activity's environmental impact. Federal agencies prepare environmental assessments to avoid having to prepare more detailed environmental impact statements, which require greater public participation in the process. An increase in environmental assessments would cut out public input and weakening the requirements for these assessments would open the door to more environmentally damaging projects.
Second, the task force's recommendations for what are called "categorical exclusions" could allow more environmentally destructive activities to escape review and public input altogether. Federal agencies give categorical exclusions to activities that supposedly do not have an effect on the environment. That means that they are not subject to NEPA and can be initiated without public input. The Bush administration has expanded these exclusions to encompass activities that will undoubtedly harm the environment, such as so-called forest "thinning" projects that will open up public lands to more logging.
"The Bush administration's 'streamlining' strategy for NEPA would amount to steamrolling environmental protections and public input," said NRDC senior attorney Sharon Buccino. "'Modernizing' the key law that ensures public participation in federal environmental policy is a code word for shutting the public out. But that's not surprising since the Bush administration is all too willing to sacrifice public participation and environmental review to promote its pro-development, pro-industry agenda."
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EPA opposes Bush plan to relax Clean Water Act
September 05, 2003: The Bush administration's plan to remove Clean Water Act protections from more than half of the streams and one-third of the wetlands in the mid-Atlantic region has stirred dissent within the agency charged with upholding that law. At issue is a proposal, unveiled in January 2002 that would make Clean Water Act protections inapplicable to most intrastate, nonnavigable wetlands and headwater streams. Internal Environmental Protection Agency documents -- obtained by environmentalists through the Freedom of Information Act -- warn that the Bush plan would have "profound and far-reaching impacts" and "serious effects on the progress made during the last 30 years to restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the nation's waters." Lifting CWA protections on streams and wetlands would leave drinking water for more than 3 million people unprotected by pollution regulations and drive up water treatment costs, according to the EPA's analysis. The EPA's concerns come on the heels of a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service analysis that questioned the merits of the administration's effort to reduce Clean Water Act protections.
"Clearly, EPA scientists share our concern that the Bush administration's proposal would roll back 30 years of progress under the Clean Water Act," said Nancy Stoner, director of NRDC's clean water program. "We all live downstream, which is why we need to do more, not less, to protect the law that keeps pollution out of America's creeks, streams and wetlands."
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EPA lifts ban on selling polluted sites for development
September 02, 2003: In yet another quiet reversal of a long-established environmental rule, the Environmental Protection Agency lifted a 25-year-old ban on the sale of land contaminated with PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls). Congress banned the sale and use of PCBs in 1978; scientists have linked this toxic substance to cancer and other neurological disorders.
In an internal memo, the EPA offered a "new interpretation" of an existing law -- thereby avoiding having to notify the public or solicit their input -- so that now only the sale of "severely poisoned" land is prohibited. An outgoing EPA official claimed that the old policy created "an unnecessary barrier to economic redevelopment" of the more than 1,000 pieces of contaminated land nationwide. (Nearly a third of the nation's 1,598 Superfund sites contain PCBs.) Critics, including some EPA staffers, worry that the new policy will make it difficult to track the sale of polluted sites and to ensure that buyers don't develop land before it is cleaned up.
"This decision fits into the Bush administration's pattern of ignoring science, putting economics before health concerns and avoiding public input," said Linda Greer, director of NRDC's health program.
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EPA officially rolls back Clean Air Act protections
August 27, 2003: The Bush administration delivered a major blow to environmentalists when the Environmental Protection Agency, as expected, essentially repealed the "new source review" provision of the Clean Air Act. That provision requires industrial facilities to install modern pollution controls when they make upgrades that increase air pollution. In the agency's final rule, however, the new definition of "routine maintenance" would exempt roughly 17,000 older power plants, oil refineries and factories across the country from having to install pollution controls when they replace equipment -- even if the upgrade increases pollution -- as long as the cost of the replacement does not exceed 20 percent of the cost of what the EPA broadly defines as a "process unit." For example, if a coal -- fired power plant replaced a boiler whose cost was less than 20 percent of the replacement cost of the entire process unit -- the boiler, turbine, generator and other equipment that turns coal into electricity -- the company would not have to control the resulting pollution increases.
Under this scheme, all of the Clean Air Act violations that the Justice Department is prosecuting at nine Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) power plants and at a recently convicted Ohio Edison plant would have been allowed, according to NRDC. The upgrades at those plants increased air pollution by hundreds of thousands of tons, but because they cost less than 20 percent of the replacement value of the process units, TVA and Ohio Edison would not have to install modern pollution controls under the new rule.
"The Bush administration's clean air rollback, like the smokestack emissions it will permit, really stinks. But it is music to the ears of utility companies, which stand to save hundreds of millions, or even billions, of dollars from the rule change," said John Walke, director of NRDC's Clean Air Project. "This blatant industry giveaway will undermine efforts to crack down on corporate polluters, who will now be able to spew even more harmful chemicals into our air. Worse, the polluter -- friendly EPA gutted the rules despite the harm that will be inflicted on millions of Americans. The concerns expressed by hundreds of thousands of people opposed to weakening federal clean air protections were totally ignored."
The same companies that are currently being prosecuted for new source review violations are major contributors to the Republican Party and had easy access to Vice President Cheney's 2001 secret energy task force, according to Walke. For example, the Edison Electric Institute, an industry trade group comprising the power plant defendants in the Justice Department new source review cases, had at least 14 contacts with the Cheney task force and contributed nearly $600,000 to the Republican Party from 1999 to 2002.
Walke also pointed out that the timing of the final rule announcement is likely motivated by the fact that Congress is on recess and much of the nation is on vacation and, perhaps most important, by the Bush administration's desire to insulate its nominee for EPA administrator, Utah governor Michael Leavitt, from criticism. Governor Leavitt's own air quality director, Rick Sprott, testified recently before Congress in opposition to what is now the final rule, calling it a "train wreck."
Meanwhile, a report issued by the General Accounting Office found that the EPA lacked hard data to support its revision last year of clean air rules in favor of utility plants and refineries. According to the GAO, in rewriting the rules the agency "relied primarily on anecdotal information from the industries most affected" -- just as Cheney's energy task force had suggested.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
More Background: The Bush Administration's Air Pollution Plan
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Oily deal on offshore drilling rights
August 21, 2003: The Bush administration is quietly attempting to rewrite federal rules that give states influence in decisions that impact their coastlines. In the wake of a recent federal judge's ruling against the administration's efforts to extend soon-to-expire leases for drilling off the California coast, the administration has proposed changes to the Coastal Zone Management Act. Passed in 1972, the CZMA allows for a partnership between federal and state governments, giving the states increased authority over decisions beyond their beaches. When a December 2002 ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the states' power, the administration chose not to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. Now, however, the administration's proposed rule changes would eliminate the traditional deference given to state agencies on the environmental impacts of drilling and other proposed activities along their coasts, shifting greater weight to the opinions of federal agencies.
"When it comes to offshore oil drilling, the Bush administration abandons its usual states rights mantra to help big oil at the expense of our coasts," said NRDC attorney Sarah Chasis. "This end run around the federal court's ruling is blatant assault on states' rights to protect their own coastlines."
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EPA stifles staff objections to Pentagon pollution exemptions
April 09, 2003: A top Environmental Protection Agency official endorsed the Pentagon's pending pollution exemptions in congressional testimony without disclosing serious objections raised by his own staff, according to documents released by an environmental watchdog group. John P. Saurez, head of EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, testified before House and Senate committees that the Pentagon's proposal to grant the Defense Department sweeping exemptions from five federal environmental laws was "narrowly tailored" and "appropriate while his own staff's analysis submitted to the president's Office and Management and Budget raised a number of public health concerns and attacked the Pentagon's plan as overly broad and unnecessary.
In testimony before the House Armed Services Committee (March 13) and the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee (April 2), Suarez said the Pentagon's proposal to exempt munitions left on military training ranges from toxic waste laws "comports with existing EPA policy." But according to government documents obtained by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, EPA staff had concluded that the Pentagon's proposed exemptions:
"have the effect of invalidating the Munitions Rule (the current EPA policy) and eliminating environmental safeguards provided in that rule";
fail "to provide for the rights of states and citizens to address imminent and substantial endangerment issues at federal facilities"; and
"interfere with the ability of states to enforce air pollution and drinking water requirements that protect public health and the environment."
The EPA staff analysis also points to an array of other problems with the Pentagon's proposal, including weakening the ability of anti-pollution agencies to address "off-range impacts" of spreading contamination, exempting petroleum spills from regulation, and creating pollution dangers from scuttling the Navy's "ghost fleet" as artificial reefs. EPA experts, through PEER, also raised the concern that the exemptions could allow defense contractors to discharge toxic chemicals (such as perchlorate) during weapons systems development. On April 3, the Pentagon offered amendments to allay concerns about the scope of military exemptions, but none of those proposed changes addresses the problems raised by EPA staff.
"The Bush administration's political hired hands at EPA are reading from the Pentagon's play book," said Karen Wayland, NRDC's deputy legislative director. "and ignoring their own agency experts who clearly understand the health risks posed by exempting military activities from environmental protections."
FOR MORE INFORMATION
More Background: Above the Law? The Pentagon is Taking Aim at America's Public Health and Environmental Protections
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Whitman changes her tune on Pentagon environmental exemptions
March 26, 2003: A few weeks after testifying that environmental laws do not hamper military readiness, EPA Administrator Whitman announced she is "very comfortable" with the Pentagon's proposal to exempt the military from federal protections. On February 26 Whitman told a U.S. Senate committee that she has "been working very closely with the Department of Defense and I don't believe that there is a training mission anywhere in the county that is being held up or not taking place because of environmental protection regulation." The Pentagon's "Readiness and Range Preservation Initiative" would grant the Defense Department immunity from five major laws that regulate air pollution, toxic cleanup, and wildlife protection. After other Bush administration officials, even within EPA, expressed support for the proposal, Whitman abruptly backtracked and said that "We believe we will still have the ability to be proactive in protecting the public's health and the environment while still allowing the military to do the work they need to do."
"Based on Whitman's very clear previous position on the issue, it's not just environmental laws getting rolled by the Bush administration," said Alys Campaigne, NRDC's legislative director.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
More Background: Above the Law? The Pentagon is Taking Aim at America's Public Health and Environmental Protections
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EPA conflicted over Pentagon proposal to exempt the military from environmental laws
March 13, 2003: Somebody must have missed a memo at the Environmental Protection Agency. Less than two weeks after EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman told a Senate committee that she knows of no incident in which environmental protections have ever hampered the military's ability to train, her agency's enforcement chief, J.P. Suarez, testified in support of legislation that would exempt the military from federal environmental and public health laws. "We believe the [Bush] administration's bill appropriately takes account of the interests of the American people in military readiness and in environmental protection," Suarez said at a House Armed Services Committee. The Pentagon is asking Congress to approve its "Readiness and Range Preservation Initiative," which would grant the military sweeping exemptions from the Clean Air Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, Superfund cleanup law, Marine Mammal Protection Act, and Endangered Species Act.
"This is an outrageous retreat on environmental and pubic health protections, which begs the question who is running the show at EPA, anyway, Whitman or her underlings?" said Alys Campaigne, NRDC's legislative director. "Giving the military blanket immunity is unwarranted because the laws protecting our air, water, wildlife and public lands already contain exemptions for national security."
FOR MORE INFORMATION
More Background: Above the Law? The Pentagon is Taking Aim at America's Public Health and Environmental Protections
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EPA exempts oil and gas industry from water pollution rules
March 10, 2003: In a rather slick deal for oil and gas drillers, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency exempted that industry from a new water regulation aimed at reducing polluted runoff. Under the EPA's phase II stormwater pollution rule, issued during the Clinton administration, construction sites between 1 and 5 acres are now required to obtain a National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit. But the agency gave the oil and gas industry two years to comply, and will it studies whether a permanent exemption is warranted. Six U.S. Senators promptly fired off a letter to EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman, saying there is "voluminous evidence" of an oil and gas industry review before the rule was created in 1999.
"The Bush administration has found another way to help out its oil and gas buddies," said NRDC senior attorney Sharon Buccino, "by excusing the industry from complying with a rule that is critical to reducing pollution in America's streams and waterways."
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Pentagon chiefs ordered to hunt for environmental exemptions
March 07, 2003: On the heels of the Pentagon's effort to convince Congress to grant the Defense Department sweeping exemptions from the nation's environmental and public health laws, the Pentagon's No. 2 official ordered the chiefs of the Army, Navy and Air Force to provide examples to justify possible exemptions by President Bush in the name of national security. The secret memo by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz -- leaked by an environmental group -- argues the Bush administration's position that antipollution and wildlife protections threaten military training and readiness. Environmentalists strongly oppose broad exemptions for the military. While the statutes under fire already allow the president or secretary of defense to grant waivers for national security reasons, the military has yet to provide evidence that environmental laws impede readiness. Nor has the military ever requested that those provisions be invoked.
"The Bush administration is using the conflict in Iraq and the threat of terrorism to roll back regulations protecting our air, drinking water, public health and endangered wildlife," said Alys Campaigne, NRDC's legislative director. In addition to jeopardizing millions of acres of critical wildlife habitat, NRDC and other groups warn that the exemptions would allow the nation's largest polluter to abandon its responsibility to pay for toxic cleanup at hundreds of contaminated military facilities around the country. "National defense should not come at the expense of what the military is entrusted to defend, namely America's natural heritage."
FOR MORE INFORMATION
More Background: Above the Law? The Pentagon is Taking Aim at America's Public Health and Environmental Protections
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Defense Department seeking exemptions from environmental laws
March 06, 2003: The Bush administration is exploiting the impending war with Iraq to open a new front in its ongoing campaign to weaken or roll back the nation's environmental and public health protections. The Pentagon has once again asked Congress to exempt the Department of Defense (DoD) from a wide range of laws, including the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act; Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (Superfund law); Clean Air Act; Endangered Species Act; and Marine Mammal Protection Act. Last year Congress rejected essentially the same proposal, but environmentalists expect a tougher fight in the face of looming hostilities in the Middle East.
The administration claims that laws regulating hazardous waste, toxic cleanup, air quality, as well as those protecting wildlife habitat, migratory birds, whales, and other marine mammals hinder military readiness. Critics charge that the plan is unnecessary because there is no evidence that these protections adversely affect military preparedness, and that the laws being targeted already allow case-by-case exemptions for national security. Even Christine Whitman, head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, recently testified before the Senate that she has "been working very closely with the Department of Defense and I don't believe that there is a training mission anywhere in the county that is being held up or not taking place because of environmental protection regulation." The National Park Service also recently warned that the changes being sought "would cause substantial degradation of natural resources."
"No government agency should be above the law -- especially the laws that protect America's air and water in and around military facilities, the health of the people who live nearby, and endangered wildlife," said Alys Campaigne, NRDC's legislative director.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
More Background: Above the Law? The Pentagon is Taking Aim at America's Public Health and Environmental Protections
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EPA plans to relax toxic air pollution standards
February 11, 2003: The Bush administration plans to relax rules requiring chemical plants, pulp mills, auto factories, steel mills and other industries to curb their toxic air pollution. The Environmental Protection Agency has drafted a set of new rules to exempt these businesses from current requirements to reduce toxic fumes from their plants to the maximum extent possible. The new rules also would allow businesses to self-regulate their operations using less rigorous controls.
For the first time since the Clean Air Act was amended in 1990, EPA is prepared to shift from stringent control of toxic emissions to allow companies to avoid pollution restrictions. The six industrial categories affected include brick and clay manufacturing; plywood and wood products makers; stationary backup engines; auto-paint shops; industrial boilers and process heaters; and gas-fired turbines. Environmentalists decried the proposed changes as an attack on the Clean Air Act and a rollback of public health protections. They also pointed out that many of EPA's proposals are contained in so-called white papers drafted by industry.
"EPA's skewed twisted interpretation of federal law and its unwillingness to enforce existing clean air standards is part of the Bush administration's overall effort to rewrite federal environmental protections for industry," said John Walke, director of NRDC's clean air program. "The net effect will be increased emissions from these industries, resulting in an increased cancer risk." Walke noted that the emissions from the affected industrial sources can lead to cancer, brain damage or even harm fetal development.
EPA proposed the new rules in September of last year. Public comment could last until mid-March, with the agency expected to finalize the rules by the end of the year.
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OMB pushes for industry-skewed cost-benefit analysis
February 04, 2003: If the White House gets its way, the value of some human lives could be worth less in the regulatory realm. President Bush's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has agencies using a new calculation for weighing the costs and benefits of proposed regulations. Behind the move is John Graham, head of OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, who wants agencies to change the way they review rules by relying on a certain kind of cost-benefit test. Business groups favor the proposal, but critics warn that the new cost-benefit test is slanted and could be used as a political tool by the Bush administration to block agencies from issuing rules that protect public health and the environment.
One particularly controversial aspect of OMB's proposal would especially work against protections for older Americans. It is the recommendation that agencies no longer rely on the number of lives savings is calculating the benefits of regulations but consider as an alternative simply the number of "life-years" saved by a rule that prevents premature death. If applied to strict environmental standards for sensitive populations, this methodology would decrease the value of a life as a person ages. In other words, instead of assigning the same dollar value to every person -- the standard method of analysis -- an agency would decrease the value of an older person's life and subsequently lower the value of any benefits that may accrue from saving them. Changing the life value in an analysis in such a way can make a huge difference in the outcome of regulations -- usually to the benefit of corporations that produce pollution affecting some of the most vulnerable populations.
The White House wants agencies to cheapen the life of senior citizens in order to spare polluters from their responsibility to provide clean air and water," said Wesley Warren, NRDC's senior fellow for environmental economics and himself a former OMB official. "We should honor the lives of older Americans for all they have done for us, not turn their lives into an asset for sale on the corporate balance sheet."
FOR MORE INFORMATION
More Background: OnEarth Magazine: John Graham, Mr. Bottom Line
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Defense Department targets environmental laws
January 13, 2003: A few months after its legislative initiative was defeated in Congress, the Pentagon is gearing up to renew its drive for exemptions from six of the nation's primary environmental laws, including the Endangered Species Act, which protects endangered species and critical habitats on millions of military ranges across the country. The Department of Defense (DoD) plans to once again ask Congress for the exemptions, claiming that they are needed to maintain "wartime readiness." Beyond amending the environmental statutes by adding language to the 2004 defense authorization act, the DoD favors new regulations to require federal agencies to file "defense impact statements" -- similar to existing environmental impact statements -- before taking actions that could hamper military training activities. The DoD also wants to allow military installations to substitute their own natural resource plans, which are far less stringent, for ESA critical habitat protection. The DoD is seeking two other legislative changes that would exempt the military from hazardous waste cleanup laws.
"There's no excuse for the Pentagon to declare war on our environment since the laws under fire already contain waivers to ensure military readiness," said NRDC attorney Joel Reynolds. "National defense doesn't require natural destruction."
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EPA exempts oil and gas industry from stormwater pollution rules
December 30, 2002: The Environmental Protection Agency wants to exempt the oil and gas industry from new regulations governing runoff pollution from construction sites. The EPA's phase II stormwater requirements, issued during the Clinton administration, force construction sites between one and five acres to obtain a National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit. The rule is slated to go into effect on March 10, but the EPA proposal would exempt the oil and gas industry from the requirements until 2005. The agency says that too many -- close to 30,000 --sites per year may be adversely affected because the time window for drilling is usually much shorter than that of homebuilding or other construction. But critics question EPA's number, and in any case, they say that the industry has had three years to prepare.
"There's simply no reason for the Bush administration to let its favored industry off the hook for complying with a rule that would help prevent stormwater runoff that's polluting America's streams and waterways," said Nancy Stoner, director of NRDC's clean water program.
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White House begins process of relaxing government regulations for industry
December 19, 2002: The Bush administration released a report on how it plans to overhaul more than 300 federal regulations targeted by industry. The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) will direct the review that could significantly weaken rules safeguarding America's environment and public health.
Under the Bush administration, the OMB has enjoyed unprecedented new power to undermine existing environmental rules and bottle up new ones indefinitely. Last year the agency reached out to polluters and the think tanks they fund to develop a specific "hit list" of dozens of environmental and public health safeguards, many of which were weakened. Corporations again dominated the nominating process this year, placing many of their suggestions for changing regulations on OMB's "hit list" for 2003. The federal agency with the largest number of rules targeted for review (65) is the Environmental Protection Agency.
"While the Bush administration claims the aim of its hit list is to reform regulations, its objective in rewriting rules for corporations is really to roll back important safeguards for public health and the environment," said Wesley Warren, NRDC's regulatory expert. "Corporations can expect the White House to fulfill their Christmas wish list, and everyone else will get a lump of coal."
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White House discounts human life in cost-benefit analysis
December 18, 2002: The White House Office of Management and Budget has sparked a scientific and ethical debate with its position that, when it comes to evaluating proposed federal regulations, some human lives warrant less protection than others. While it is standard practice for the government to run cost-benefit analyses before implementing regulations, selectively lowering the value of human life can lead to extremely biased and unfair results. Under OMB's approach, the lives of senior citizens (70 years or older) are worth much less than younger people. Twice this year, the OMB told the Environmental Protection Agency to apply the discounted value of 63 percent for elderly Americans when it was assessing whether to impose new air pollution restrictions on the polluting industries.
Critics have blasted the Bush administration for discounting human lives in an apparent attempt to relieve industry from the cost of complying with requirements intended to safeguard public health. Moreover, the cut-rate standard being applied by OMB is based on faulty science that is out-of-date and doesn't even apply to U.S. regulations. The 63 percent value is based on a 20-year old scientific survey in Britain, in which citizens were asked how much they would pay for a safer bus system. More recent studies have concluded that there is little difference between the value that the elderly and younger people place on saving their life.
"Inevitably, cheapening the value of life leads to an unacceptable loss of life," said Wesley Warren, NRDC's senior economics fellow. "Helping industries avoid cleaning up their pollution is what's motivating the White House, when protecting the lives of the old and young should be their first priority."
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Bush administration rewriting rules to boost logging in Northwest
September 30, 2002: As part of legal settlement, the Bush administration has agreed to ease environmental restrictions in order to clear the way for more logging on federal land in the Northwest. Last January, the timber industry filed the lawsuit against the government alleging that the landmark Northwest Forest Plan -- a 1994 compromise plan between environmentalists and loggers that set safeguards for remaining old-growth forests in the region -- contained onerous and unnecessary wildlife protections.
Although President Bush expressed his support for the Northwest Forest Plan when he visited Oregon in August, administration officials have complained that the plan's logging goals have been stymied by environmental requirements, particularly the survey-and-manage rules. The timber industry and administration officials have criticized those surveys for taking too long (years, in some cases), costing too much (more than $25 million last year), and including little-known wildlife (such as snails and fungi). Because timber sales have been slowed by the wildlife surveys, as well as tied up in lawsuits and appeals by environmental groups, the administration plans to revise rather than eliminate the wildlife safeguards by next July. In the meantime, the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management will make immediate changes to "streamline" the current survey-and-manage rules and release the new version in February. The timber industry agreed to stay its lawsuit pending the outcome of the revision process.
"This is yet another example of the Bush administration's eagerness to cut a secret deal that helps its industry friends profit at public expense by rolling back rules that protect our national forests," said Nathaniel Lawrence, director of NRDC's forest program.
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Bush administration to reconsider Clean Water Act protections
September 19, 2002: In a move that could reverse the progress made over the past 30 years in cleaning up the nation's waters, the Bush administration announced that it plans to consider new rules for enforcing the Clean Water Act. During a House subcommittee hearing, high-level officials with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers testified that their agencies have decided to propose new rules that redefine "waters of the United States" for purposes of the Clean Water Act. The agencies said they now question whether certain waters, including streams that dry up periodically, and wetlands next to these streams, should be protected under federal law.
The administration claims that its position reflects a January 2001 Supreme Court decision on wetlands, despite the fact that the ruling in question, Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. Army Corps of Engineers, struck down only a policy that allowed the corps to extend its jurisdiction to water bodies used by migratory birds. In light of the court's decision, industry representatives -- primarily developers -- argue that federal authorities are exceeding their jurisdiction in many water pollution cases and should leave enforcement to the states. Environmentalists insist that many states lack adequate laws to cope with massive industrial pollution.
"On the eve of the 30th anniversary of the Clean Water Act, the Bush administration is acting at the behest of polluting industries by using a narrow loophole created by this Supreme Court ruling to roll back fundamental water quality protections," said Robin Marx, a water quality specialist at NRDC. "Engaging in an unnecessary rulemaking to limit the government's jurisdiction to enforce water quality protections would throw open the doors to a host of pollution in so-called non-navigable waterways, as well as the filling and destruction of wetlands."
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Forest Service smoothing the rails for Bush's logging proposals
September 19, 2002: With President Bush's controversial wildfire prevention proposal stalled in Congress, the U.S. Forest Service is preparing to streamline the administration's plan to "thin" flammable forests by granting some logging projects in national forests immunity from laws and regulations that could slow the projects down. According to agency officials, the administration is moving ahead with plans to exempt logging on millions of acres of western forests from environmental reviews and citizen appeals, regardless of whether pending legislation gets enacted. The administration's strategy is not surprising, given that last week Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth told reporters that the 1993 law that forces the agency to accept appeals of all land-management decisions "doesn't make sense," and that Congress should repeal it.
In accordance with the administration's approach, environmental impact statements or assessments -- which provide opportunities for public input -- will no longer be required for fire reduction and some other logging projects. Forest supervisors will be able to revise timber management plans without going through environmental and public reviews. The president also has directed federal land agencies to speed work on Western forests by using so-called categorical exclusions to exempt logging projects from review under the National Environmental Policy Act. Currently, more than 1,500 projects are being considered for categorical exclusions. Meanwhile, the Forest Service is at work on a categorical exclusion to exempt timber sales under a certain size from environmental reviews, which would pave the way for thinning, salvage and other logging projects to proceed much faster. A federal court rejected such an exclusion last year.
"If at first you don't succeed in giving the timber industry unfettered access to national forests, then try, try again," said Nathaniel Lawrence, director of NRDC's forest program. "Only this time, the administration is using a sham fire reduction plan to increase logging at the expense of the environment and citizen involvement."
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Press Release: 8/22/02
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Bush orders agencies to streamline environmental review of transportation projects
September 18, 2002: In a major victory for the nation's road lobby, President Bush signed an executive order directing the Department of Transportation and other federal agencies to speed up the approvals process for federally-backed projects, such as highway construction or airport projects. The president's order calls for "streamlining" environmental review and limiting public participation in planning and permitting processes. The order also establishes an interagency task force to promote cooperation between agencies, and to provide the White House with annual reports on the agencies' progress.
Environmentalists warned that the executive order will undermine environmental protections and is part of a larger campaign to weaken the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). They noted several major problems with the order. First, it grants the Department of Transportation, an agency that is not usually focused on environmental protection, the power to oversee environmental review of new roads, highways and other projects. Second, the order calls for speeding up these reviews despite the fact that the Federal Highway Administration's own assessment showed that project delays are due to lack of funding, local opposition, or project complexity -- not environmental reviews. Finally, the new task force likely will recommend further ways to "streamline" NEPA.
"NEPA is what keeps pavement out of our remaining fragile watersheds and wildlife habitat. Unfortunately, what the Bush administration means by 'streamlining' NEPA is that it wants to 'steamroll' the law that protects the environment and the right of citizens to be involved in the decision-making process," said Deron Lovaas of NRDC's Smart Growth Program. "There are ways to improve transportation environmental reviews -- such as better and earlier public involvement and more resources for overworked review agencies -- but weakening key environmental safeguards is not the way to go."
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Interior Department allows more air pollution at national park
August 22, 2002: The Interior Department reversed a National Park Service finding that air pollution from a proposed coal-fired power plant in western Kentucky would significantly hamper visibility at nearby Mammoth Cave National Park. In an August 22 letter to the state of Kentucky, Interior Assistant Secretary Craig Manson rejected the conclusions of career Park Service officials after meeting with Peabody Energy Corp., one of the nation's largest coal companies and one of President Bush's major campaign contributors.
Peabody wants to build a 1,500-megawatt plant, dubbed Thoroughbred, 50 miles west of the park, and then find an operator to run the plant. The plant would burn Peabody's dirty high-sulfur coal and emit 22 million pounds of sulfur dioxide into the skies over Kentucky every year. The air at Mammoth Cave is already more polluted than at nearly every other park in the country. The proposed plant would only make that pollution worse.
According to internal Interior Department documents obtained by NRDC, Park Service officials found that Peabody's Thoroughbred power plant would have an adverse impact on visibility at Mammoth Cave National Park at the level at which Kentucky wants to allow the plant to pollute. Park officials determined that the level would need to be reduced by nearly half for there to be no adverse effect on visibility at Mammoth Cave.
Manson's letter to Kentucky air quality officials reverses the National Park Service finding that air pollution from Peabody's proposed plant would have an adverse haze impact on Mammoth Cave. The Interior Department letter also describes a deal cut by Peabody, Kentucky and the Bush administration in which the Thoroughbred plant would be allowed to operate at a level that would hinder visibility in the park, while being given a two-year operating window at the end of which the state would determine whether Peabody would be willing to accept a lower limit.
"It's a sad day for America's parks when the policy of the Bush administration is 'Pollute first and ask questions later,' " said McIntosh. "Since the Park Service recognizes that we need stricter pollution limits on Thoroughbred to prevent visibility haze at Mammoth Cave, the agency should be a guardian of the national parks instead of protecting a big Bush campaign contributor."
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Press Release: 8/23/02
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Bush uses national security to gain corporate secrecy and immunity
July 26, 2002: At the behest of industry, the Bush administration is using the guise of homeland security to squelch the public's right to know about corporate practices that threaten its health and safety.
Both houses of Congress are working furiously to pass massive homeland security legislation before the one-year anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks. But buried deep within the House version of the bill is a provision -- supported by the Bush administration and its congressional allies -- that would shield private companies who voluntarily give the government information related to "critical infrastructure," including chemical plants, dams and computer networks, from public disclosure and civil liability laws. While this may sound innocuous, the effect would be to broaden corporate secrecy and immunity at the expense of the environment and public health and safety.
Unlike the Senate bill, the House bill proposes an exemption under the Freedom of Information Act that would bar the federal government from disclosing information regarding a company's environmental and health hazards, product defects and other dangers, including accidental chemical spills. The exemption also would shelter a company from the consequences of violating the nation's environmental, consumer protection, and health and safety laws. All a corporation would need to do to avoid public disclosure -- and keep damning data off-limits to enforcement actions -- would be to designate the information as related to critical infrastructure and voluntarily submit it to the government.
A broad coalition of environmentalists, first amendment activists and journalists believe corporations should not be allowed to avoid accountability for violating the nation's public health and environmental laws simply by voluntarily submitting information to the government. Such protections against public disclosure are not needed, as existing exemptions contained in FOIA already provide adequate protection against harmful disclosures of information critical to the nation's security. The EPA also has the authority to classify documents as exempt from disclosure on grounds of national security, a power that was updated after the September 11 terrorist attacks to eliminate any concern that such information would be used inappropriately.
"Our security can be protected without giving corporate America free rein to hide information and escape federal enforcement actions," said Alys Campaigne, NRDC's legislative director. "Now more than ever, Americans expect Congress to ensure more corporate responsibility, not less."
Both houses are expected to pass their respective bills before the August recess, during which time a conference committee will finalize the legislation.
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Bush administration revokes habitat protection for California frog
July 04, 2002: Mark Twain's once celebrated frog has little to cheer about these days, thanks to the Bush administration. Less than a month after a federal judge ruled that federal officials could not revoke protection for more than a half-million acres of habitat critical to the survival of two endangered species in southern California, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rescinded its designations of more than 4 million acres for the protection of the state's red-legged frog. The agency eliminated the habitat protections after a legal challenge by home builders who said it would impede development.
The red-legged frog, the subject of Mark Twain's story about a frog jumping competition in Calaveras County, has lost 70 percent of its original range and is making its last stand in the foothills and suburban land of northern California, an area under intense development pressure. Following the provisions of the Endangered Species Act, the Fish and Wildlife carved out 4.1 million acres of "critical habitat" to ensure the survival of the federally listed threatened species. In response to a lawsuit filed two years ago by the Home Builders Association of Northern California citing economic concerns, the agency has agreed to settle the case by nullifying most of the habitat protections for the frog.
The Fish and Wildlife Service's decision to backtrack on habitat protections for the red-legged frog mirrors an April 2002 settlement in which the agency agreed to reconsider the protection of millions of acres of habitat for 19 salmon and steelhead species in California, Oregon and Washington. Interior Department officials in Washington said their decision to settle was influenced by a recent U.S. Court of Appeals ruling in favor of New Mexico cattle growers who sued to strike down habitat protections for the endangered southwestern willow flycatcher because the Fish and Wildlife Service failed to adequately consider economic impacts.
However, environmentalists counter that a federal judge last month rejected the administration's efforts to rescind more than 500,000 acres of critical habitat for a threatened and an endangered species. In that case, development remains barred while the Fish and Wildlife Service conducts a new analysis of the economic impact of habitat protections on property owners.
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