Mountaintop mining update
This item is cross-posted by permission from Legal Planet.
In March, I wrote here about EPA’s newfound boldness on mountaintop removal mining. Under current regulations, the Corps of Engineers issues permits for that practice under Clean Water Act section 404, but EPA has the authority to veto those permits. EPA, which was entirely passive on the matter under the Bush administration, had sent objections to the Corps on a couple of permits, and announced that “it would take a close loook” at others.
It is now clear that a close look doesn’t mean blanket opposition. Nick Rahall, Chair of the House Natural Resources Committee, has released a letter from EPA indicating that, of 48 permit applications the agency has reviewed, it has approved 42 and objected to only 6. Coal Tattoo (the Charleston Gazette’s blog on all things coal mining) has the story here. NRDC’s view is here.
On Friday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee released its anticipated Beta version of its comprehensive GHG and energy bill. Among other goals, the new discussion draft attempts to address concerns from moderate and conservative Democrats concerning the proposed cap and trade system and how it would work. The most notable change involves the free allocation of allowances to certain economic sectors to assist in the transition to the new system, and this is the part that seems to most directly respond to actual political pressures regarding the cost of controlling greenhouse gases.
With respect to offsets, the most problematic change is allowing the offsets, which are more uncertain than emission reductions, to be treated as equal in value to emissions allowances. The original Waxman-Markey discussion draft discounted all offsets by 20% with respect to equivalent greenhouse gas allowances, so that it took 1.25 offsets to …
On May 9, at the conclusion of the Fourth Conference of the Parties (COP-4) to the Stockholm Convention, negotiators from around the world agreed to add nine chemicals to the list of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) that are too dangerous for international trade. It was an important step toward protecting the world community from toxic exposures, but it unfortunately highlights our country's inability to take a leading role in international environmental law.
How it works
In 2001, representatives of nations from across the globe met in Stockholm to negotiate a treaty that would eliminate the production, distribution, and use of the most dangerous chemicals in the world marketplace. They originally agreed to phase out DDT, PCBs, and ten other substances known as the “dirty dozen” because of their high toxicity, ability travel great distances in air or water, and tendency to bioaccumulate in the food chain …
On Tuesday, CPR Member Scholar Catherine O'Neill testified about mercury pollution from chlor-alkali plants at a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection.
At least one in ten women of childbearing age in the United States has blood levels of mercury that threaten the neurological health of her newborn babies. Chlor-alkali plants are a major source of mercury pollution (which we are exposed to primarily through eating fish), even though only four of the plants in the United States still use a mercury-emitting technology. It's completely unnecessary, O'Neill argued, because the industry developed an alternative technology decades ago that does not use any mercury. Approximately 95 percent of chlor-alkali is produced using those newer processes, "diaphragm cell" and "membrane cell."
Said O'Neill: "For years now, we’ve tried waiting this problem out, allowing the …
CPR President Rena Steinzor and Policy Analyst Matt Shudtz submitted formal comments this week to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) with policy recommendations for separating science from politics.
Back on March 9, President Obama issued a memorandum on scientific integrity, which outlined broad principles on the subject and requested that John Holdren, the director of OSTP, draw up a series of specific policy recommendations. CPR Member Scholars wrote a letter to Holdren with initial recommendations, and suggested opening the process to formal public comment. On April 27, the White House announced that they were doing just that.
The comments submitted by Steinzor and Shudtz on Wednesday give recommendations in response to each of the six broad principles that President Obama set out. Below is a summary of their recommendations.
Ensuring Selection and Retention of the Best-Qualified Candidates for Science & Technology Positions …
Cass Sunstein had his confirmation hearing Tuesday; it was well-attended and anti-climactic. President Obama’s nominee to head the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) testified for about an hour, and Senate approval of the nomination seems assured.
Ironically, in a perfect example of timing being everything, at about the same hour that Sunstein took his seat in front of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, a story hit the media fan in Washington showing that for the past several months, it has been business-as-usual between OMB and EPA with respect to climate change, with the economists of the first subjecting the scientists of the second to a gauntlet of skeptical questions about whether responding to this urgent problem will cost too much. Had the story broken 24 hours earlier, Sunstein would have had his hands …
Yesterday, as the Executive Council for the Chesapeake Bay Program held its annual meeting, President Obama issued an Executive Order on Chesapeake Bay Protection and Restoration (a first), declaring the Chesapeake Bay a national treasure and signaling that EPA will play a strong role in leading Bay cleanup. For years, federal leadership on the Bay has been missing in action. President Obama's move is dramatic, and we dare to hope that this could be a turning point.
Among other things, the order:
- Requires EPA to “examine how to make full use of its authorities under the Clean Water Act to protect and restore the Chesapeake Bay and its tributary waters”
- Establishes a Federal Leadership Committee headed by EPA and including the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Homeland Security, Interior and Transportation to oversee program activities, including data management and reporting;
- Requires the agencies identified as part …
With his attractive family and a phalanx of top aides in tow, Professor Cass Sunstein had a cordial, 45-minute hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee yesterday. He was introduced by former student and current Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) who praised Sunstein as a teacher, mentor, and eclectic thinker, all qualities for which he is rightly known. Ironically, however, the remainder of the hearing could be summarized as efforts by the three Senators in attendance— Chairman Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), ranking minority member Susan Collins (R-ME), and Senator Daniel Akaka (D-HI)—to get Sunstein to pledge that eclectic thinking will not be his modus operandi at the White House.
The Sunstein story has taken on a life of its own, significantly out of proportion to the interest this level of position typically sparks, especially given the urgency of headlines on the global economic crises, swine …
With Cass Sunstein's confirmation hearing for "regulatory czar" set for today, CPR Member Scholars Catherine O'Neill and Amy Sinden have an op-ed on the subject in this morning's Philadelphia Inquirer -- "The cost-benefit dodge." They write:
Beginning in the Reagan administration, any regulation with a significant impact has had to pass through Information and Regulatory Affairs' doors for approval. The office's role, frankly, has been to water down health, safety, and environmental regulations - if not drown them entirely.
...
Once confirmed, Cass Sunstein will face a choice: rely on cost-benefit analysis with the zeal his past writings suggest he would, modify the process in the hope that it can somehow be mended, or abandon it in favor of a better method. The decision he makes will have profound consequences.
Let's hope we find out what his choice will be during his confirmation hearing. And …
Cattle, chickens, and hogs create more than 500 million tons of manure in the United States annually – three times more than the sanitary waste produced by people. Yet, in contrast to a concerted federal and state effort to fund and build sewage treatment plants since the Clean Water Act was enacted in 1972, dealing with the water pollution problems caused by animal waste has been like wrestling a greased pig – a stinky, frustrating mess.
Regulating agricultural waste in the Chesapeake Bay watershed has been no less frustrating than in any other area of the country. And it’s no secret that nitrogen and phosphorous loadings from manure are killing the Bay. Recent developments in the Bay watershed, however, could signal a new direction on regulating Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs – factory farms) and the application of manure to cropland by farmers. An emerging coalition of 40 environmental …
