Time for Clean Science, No?
On March 9, President Obama announced a science integrity initiative aimed at taking the politics out of science. In his memorandum that day, he laid out the broad principles and instructed the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to “develop recommendations for Presidential action designed to guarantee scientific integrity throughout the executive branch” - and to have the recommendations within 120 days. John Holdren has since been confirmed as OSTP Director.
Yesterday, Tuesday July 7, was 120 days after March 9. But there’s been no announcement of what Holdren is recommending.
CPR scholars have written extensively about the clean science initiative, lauding the initial announcement, sending initial ideas to Holdren and asking him to open the process to public comment, and lauding the White House when they did just that. In May, we submitted our comments to OSTP with our full recommendations on science integrity.
Let’s hope Holdren's recommendations are almost ready and will be made available for public scrutiny soon.
It was, as Greenwire put it, a rough term for environmental interests; in five separate cases the Supreme Court overturned rulings that environmentalists had favored.
CPR Member Scholar Amy Sinden told the NYTimes of one of the themes:
“It’s become a cliché to say the Roberts court is about the expansion of executive power ... and I think it’s true of these environmental cases as well. The court gave the Bush administration discretion. That certainly leaves the Obama administration with discretion to act as well.”
Below is a recap of CPR Member Scholars' reactions to some of the key cases of the term.
Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council Holly Doremus:
In truth, nobody in the environmental community welcomed the decision—and it certainly wasn't a great day to be a whale—but the decision itself is neither surprising nor sweeping. ... According to the decision …
This item is cross-posted by permission from Legal Planet.
Last week, Interior Secretary Salazar and Commerce Secretary Locke issued a press release announcing that they were withdrawing the Bush administration’s midnight rules relaxing the ESA section 7 consultation requirements. (Background on the Bush rules is here, here, and here.) The notice formalizing that decision has now been published in the Federal Register. As Congress authorized them to do in the omnibus spending bill, the Secretaries have flat-out withdrawn the Bush administration’s last-minute consultation changes, reinstating the consultation rules as they stood prior to that rule. At the same time, recognizing that the consultation rules have not been comprehensively revised in more than 20 years, they have invited public comment on “ways to improve the section 7 regulations while retaining the purposes and policies of the ESA.”
A broad review of the Section 7 consultation rules …
The Chesapeake Bay watershed covers 64,000 square miles, measuring 200 miles in length and 35 miles at its widest point. The watershed is one of the most beautiful and economically productive in the world. Tourism, which depends to a large extent on the preservation of pristine environmental conditions, contributes billions of dollars to the economies of Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. As Shana Jones recently wrote on CPRBlog, the Bay is plagued by so-called “nutrient loading,” a condition where a river or stream is choked with organic matter discharged from sewage treatment plants and manufacturing facilities or washed into the water by rainwater runoff from hog and chicken farms, other agricultural lands, and urban centers.
Nutrient loading kills fish and other aquatic life, accelerates the growth of algal blooms, and, at its worst, results in “dead zones” where natural resources cannot survive.
Between 1995 and 2004 …
A string of recent developments have brought the issue of contaminated drywall back into the headlines (we last wrote about the issue here).
Last week EPA released the results of tests it did on two Chinese drywall samples taken from a Florida home. They found sulfur, as well as two organic compounds associated with acrylic paints (all not usually in drywall). They also found strontium at much higher levels than usual for drywall.
On Thursday, the Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Insurance Subcommittee of the Senate Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee (got that?) held a hearing on drywall. The CPSC's Lori Saltzman tried to assure the Senators that the agency was addressing the problem, and referred the committee to www.cpsc.gov/drywall, but as of Wednesday morning it's a dead URL. The agency does have information for the public here.
Dr. David Krause, of …
The drywall debacle continues.
Inez Tenenbaum, President Obama's nominee for head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, got a number of drywall questions from senators at her nomination hearing earlier this month. They said the government response seemed too slow. Tenenbaum pledged she'd work on the problem, and was subsequently confirmed by a voice vote by the full chamber.
The CPSC has posted somewhat more extensive information on its website about identifying possibly contaminated drywall. Florida's Department of Health had previously posted their own guide, and the two document give somewhat conflicting information. Hmm.
In Louisiana, a state senator, Julie Quinn, tried to move a bill that sought to place clear liability on the "manufacturer, seller and distributor" of tainted drywall. The effort floundered earlier this month.
Also on the legal front, a number of drywall-related lawsuits from around the country will be consolidated …
Waxman-Markey passed the House. Was it the right thing to do? What's the outlook from here? Here are a few views from around the web.
The concerns about measuring and enforcing offsets are genuine (and increased because of Waxman-Markey’s reliance on USDA to do the job.) But those problems aren’t insurmountable either. Instead of complaining about reliance on offsets or the inclusion of USDA, we need to think about how to improve the offset program.
When you draw intersecting curves of “what needs to be done” and “what can realistically be done,” Waxman has time and again put himself at the intersection, and I think it involves a fair amount of hubris to think that you know better than him what the best feasible legislative outcome is.
That said, there’s really no getting around the fact that the best …
Wednesday, I explored the various ways that the USDA takeover of bio-sequestration offsets could affect how well the offsets provision of the Waxman-Markey Climate Security Act would work. Today, we have legislative language in the form of an amendment offered by Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN), which fills in some of the details. While some of the changes may be helpful, others are cause for worry.
The amendment gives all offset authority over bio-sequestration and agricultural activities to the USDA – the authority to initially approve offset rules; to create rules for “additionality,” leakage, and permanence; to approve offsets themselves; and to account for reversals. The language does remain specific about what must guide the rulemaking, and is also specific about accounting for reversals and holding offset credits in reserve for reversals. The offset reversal part of the law does expand the list of offsets eligible for requirements of …
The House Agriculture Committee yesterday released the language of an amendment by Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-MN), which Rep. Waxman has agreed to accept as part of the final House climate change bill in order to secure support from Peterson and other farm-state representatives. Peterson represents a large, heavily ag-dependent district in central and western Minnesota, and makes no apologies for his desire to protect the interests of farmers in his district and elsewhere. From that perspective, the Peterson-Waxman deal represents one of Peterson’s most significant legislative accomplishments to date as Ag Committee chairman. From the point of view of environmentalists, however, the deal involves some major concessions to the ag and forestry sectors, and a serious weakening of the bill.
Peterson's amendment notably exempts the ag and forestry sectors from , and moves authority to draw up and administer rules for offset credits generated …
Last night, House Energy and Commerce Chair Henry Waxman announced that he had agreed with Agriculture Committee Chair Collin Peterson that the USDA could have jurisdiction over agricultural offsets in the massive American Clean Energy and Security Act, which the House may vote on this Friday.
In agreeing to what had been one of the major sticking points to bringing farm Democrats on board, Waxman appears to believe that any concerns over USDA’s role are outweighed by the other good things in the bill. There are a lot of potential concerns with the USDA having the lead role on agricultural offsets. Most environmentalists have asserted that the EPA would be more likely to properly enforce the requirements that offsets be additional, verifiable, and not have leakage.
It is hard to make predictions about the effect of this change without specific legislative language, which is expected later …
