Roll Call: The good science scam and an undemocratic provision
Some members of Congress apparently do not want agencies to regulate powerful agricultural and pharmaceutical interests in order to protect the public from dangerous risks. Yet, rather than say that — and be held accountable to the electorate for the consequences — they have developed what has become a standard, indeed almost boilerplate pretext to hide their endgame.
Specifically, they have drafted a provision snuck in as a rider to a farm bill that requires agencies to develop elaborate “high standards” for the use of science before they can regulate. Even more problematic than their obscurity is the fact that rather than deferring to the scientific community’s idea of what these high scientific standards should be, congressmen establish the rules of the game on their own. Given their politically-charged origins, it is thus not surprising that these congressionally developed rules are decidedly not in the public interest, nor are they consistent with the true “high standards” of science.
“Good science” sounds like a good thing, like motherhood and apple pie. But, those who spend their lives studying the tedious details of regulations and laws understand that there is plenty at stake in this type of provision. Most obvious is the fact …
Climate change and pollution affects everyone. Global warming-induced hurricanes pummel our coasts and droughts ravage our farmland. Our neighbors, friends, and children develop asthma and heart attacks because of air pollution and our favorite parks and hunting grounds are withering away.
The science is conclusive and polls reflect the concern of many Americans about global warming and its related pollution. So what can account for the lack of government action on the issue? The answer has a lot to do with our broken campaign finance system and the ability of individuals committed to denying the existence of climate change to dump huge amounts of money (much of it secret) into elections and in the political process.
During the 2012 election, outside spending groups, many of them newly created in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, reported spending more than $1.28 billion to …
Earlier this week, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in EME Homer City Generation v. EPA. At issue in the case was the ability of EPA to regulate cross-state pollution, or pollution generated in some states that is carried over to others downwind. Eight “downwind” states, primarily in the Northeast, filed a brief in support of the Court’s review of a previous decision by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which struck down the rule EPA implemented to regulate cross-state pollution.
The rule stems from the “Good Neighbor” provisions of the Clean Air Act, which calls on EPA’s good judgment to address the issue of one state unfairly polluting another. More than 90% of ozone levels in Connecticut stem from out of state pollution sources, contributing to the soaring levels of asthma and respiratory illness in the area. In order to mitigate this kind …
I’ve spent a lot of time and energy talking about the need to adapt to climate change, but I’ve also become increasingly uneasy about “adaptation” as a way to think about the situation. One of the things I don’t like about the term “adaptation” is that it suggests that we actually can, at some expense, restore ourselves to the same position we would have been in without climate change. For any given amount of climate change, we can do things that decrease the resulting harms (at a cost), but we can’t eliminate those harms. Adapting to climate change is like “adapting” to a serious chronic disease — you can get by, with luck, but it’s still not like being healthy.
But there’s also an important conceptual issue. The idea of adaptation assumes that the world will go along more or less as …
Efforts to hold private companies responsible for their contribution to climate change just took a big step forward, thanks to researcher Rick Heede. For the past eight years, Heede has painstakingly compiled the historical contribution of fossil fuel companies to today’s concentrations of greenhouse gases. According to Heede’s study ”Tracing anthropogenic carbon dioxide and methane emissions to fossil fuel and cement producers, 1854–2010,” which was published in Climatic Change, just 90 enterprises have accounted for over sixty percent of total industrial carbon dioxide and methane emissions. And just five private oil companies-- ChevronTexaco, ExxonMobil, BP, Shell and ConocoPhillips—have accounted for more than 12 percent of such emissions.
This data is a potential game-changer in how we think of responsibility for climate change. The fossil fuel industry would like us to believe that we are all equally culpable every time we turn on an …
Lately, press releases from the Maryland Department of Agriculture read like a broken record:
MDA Withdraws Phosphorus Management Tool Regulations; Department to Meet with Stakeholders and Resubmit Regulations
-- August 26, 2013
MDA Withdraws Phosphorus Management Tool Regulations; Department to Consider Comments and Resubmit Regulations
--November 15, 2013
The second headline is from this past Friday when MDA withdrew a proposed regulation aimed at cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay by restricting the use of manure to fertilize crops.
Manure is full of phosphorus, one of the nutrients choking the Bay. Indeed, manure runoff accounts for 26 percent of the phosphorus in the estuary. The proposed “phosphorus management tool,” developed at the University of Maryland, would have helped determine which fields were over-saturated with the nutrient. If the soil contained too much phosphorus, the farmer could not apply manure to fertilize that field.
As the agency’s press releases …
Maryland’s effort to limit pollution from massive industrial animal farms in the state is falling behind. A new CPR Issue Alert finds that the state has not registered 26 percent of Maryland’s concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and Maryland animal feeding operations (MAFOs), missing out on tens of thousands of pounds of pollution reduction in the Chesapeake Bay.
The Chesapeake Bay is in trouble. Years of half-hearted interstate efforts to check polluting emissions and restore the nation's largest estuary have failed. The Environmental Protection Agency’s Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) plan for the Bay represents the Chesapeake's last, best chance of recovery. The TMDL requires all major polluting sectors—including massive industrial farms—to reduce their discharges into the Bay.
Maryland is home to at least 588 of these massive animal farms, known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and state-regulated Maryland …
Yesterday, Catherine Jones, CPR's Operations and Finance Manager, received Public Citizen's 11th annual Phyllis McCarthy Public Service Award, in recognition of her contributions to the organization and the nonprofit community.
Catherine's been with CPR for eight of our eleven years, and she's been a lynchpin of the organization for most of that time. CPR began small — first as an idea shared by a group of scholars around a restaurant table — then morphed into a somewhat more formal gathering of scholars, and then over the course of a few years grew out of its "garage band" phase into the full-fledged organization that's now making a re
al difference.
Anyone who's ever built an organization of any type — a nonprofit, a small business, a theater company, you name it — will recognize the challenges inherent in organizational evolution of that sort. Catherine made …
Lois Alt is a 61-year-old grandmother who sued EPA in federal court arguing that her large chicken farming operation is exempt from Clean Water Act (CWA) permitting requirements. On October 23, the judge ruled in her favor in an alarming decision that could mean thousands of other large industrial farming operations do not need permits.
The case began when EPA found Ms. Alt in violation of the CWA for discharging without a permit. EPA ordered her to apply for one and informed her that, under the law, she could be subject to civil or criminal penalties. The agency later withdrew the notice, essentially mooting the case. Nevertheless, Judge Bailey felt compelled to rule on the merits.
The facts are not disputed. Ventilation fans blow litter and manure out of Ms. Alt’s eight chicken houses. Rainwater washes this pollution from the yard surrounding the chicken houses into …
Congratulations to our friends at Earthjustice and their clients for a tremendous victory in federal district court today. Judge Reggie Walton (a George W. Bush appointee) ordered the Obama Administration to provide a schedule for regulating coal ash within the next 60 days. This epic battle now shifts back to the White House and Congress where nearly hysterical electric utilities that depend on coal-fired power plants will sweep in, aided by some very twisted economics from strong regulation’s staunch nemesis, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA).
The coal ash crisis burst onto the national scene shortly before Christmas day, 2008, when the contents of an enormous impoundment containing coal-ash slurry from the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) Kingston Fossil Fuel Plant poured into the Emory River. The proximate cause of the spill was the bursting of a poorly reinforced dike holding back a pit …
