WASHINGTON, DC, September 24, 2008 (ENS) – The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee held a hearing today to review the Bush administration’s record on public health and environmental matters, but it was conducted in the absence of Ranking Member Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, a Republican and former chair of the committee.

Senator Inhofe was not ill or out of town, he boycotted the hearing, and he asked the two government witnesses scheduled to honor his objection. Neither one attended the hearing nor did any of the Republican committee members.

Inhofe’s spokesman Marc Morano said this is the first time the senator has objected to an Environment and Public Works Committee hearing. “Senator Inhofe’s actions were in response to the Majority’s refusal to grant a single Minority requested hearing this entire 110th Congress, despite numerous requests,” said Morano.

Senator Inhofe requested a hearing twice in writing, Morano said, to examine the “emerging questions surrounding ethanol’s effects on world food and livestock feed prices, its economic sustainability, and its transportation and infrastructure needs, its water usage, and numerous other environmental issues.”

Senator James Inhofe
(Photo courtesy EPW)

As the former chairman of the committee when the Republicans controlled the Senate before the 2006 elections, Inhofe granted three minority requests for hearings, said Morano.

A Majority staff source says that, in fact, committee chair Senator Barbara Boxer of California has agreed to hold the ethanol hearing Inhofe requested, but finding a date has been a challenge.

Other Inhofe requests for hearings have been met, according to this source, who said that on August 23, 2007, Boxer permitted Senator Inhofe to chair a hearing in Oklahoma on the Endangered Species Act and the oil industry, a hearing the Oklahoma senator had specifically requested.

Senator Inhofe requested additional hearings on Lieberman-Warner climate change bill, and they did take place as well, the source said.

Today, the Democratic senators on the committee heard from a variety of witnesses who were unanimously critical of the Bush administration’s environmental and public health record.

Witness Jamie Rappaport Clark, executive vice president of Defenders of Wildlife, worked for the federal government for 20 years at the Department of Defense and the Department of the Interior. She served as director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from 1997 to 2001 in the Clinton administration.

“The record of the Bush administration amply demonstrates that it decided to slow-walk the listing of species under the Endangered Species Act,” Clark told the committee.

Jaguars are native to the United States.
(Photo courtesy AFGD)

“The net result of the administration’s policies has been to thwart protection for hundreds of species deserving protection under the act. Species such as jaguars, wolverines and pygmy owls have had Endangered Species Act protections denied or removed by the Bush administration on the dubious and illegal grounds that those species are found in Canada or Mexico and, consequently, protecting them in our own country is not necessary,” she said.

“The Bush administration also has hamstrung recovery of many species by making decisions based on political agendas rather than scientific data,” Clark told the committee.

“The scope and magnitude of political interference revealed by the Interior Department’s Office of Inspector General and the GAO interviews is unprecedented in my experience, but no longer surprising given the unrelenting hostility the Bush administration has shown to the conservation of endangered species,” she said.

Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope underscored Clark’s criticism of the administration’s treatment of endangered species.

But Pope told the committee, the administration’s attempts to dismantle environmental protections have been thwarted by the checks and balances written into the U.S. Constitution.

“The good news is that little of the Bush administration’s affirmative environmental agenda has survived the challenges our system of checks and balances makes possible – Congress, the Courts, the states, and direct intervention by the public has undone most of the legal damage which the Administration sought to do,” Pope said.

“The entire edifice of administration policy on clean air lies shattered in judicial smithereens – and in its place a vigorous, state based air quality protection structure is being put in place in much, but sadly not all, of the country,” said Pope.

Oklahoma’s Muskogee power plant burns coal
and natural gas. (Photo courtesy XPDA)

“The Courts have thrown out the Bush EPA’s mercury rules and interstate transport policy and blocked its efforts to repeal the requirements that power plants be cleaned up when they are expanded or modernized,” Pope said. “During the period when the Administration’s mercury rule was on the books, more than 20 states rejected its permissive emission limits and adopted much more effective rules of their own.”

“For six years the administration sat by while oil imports increased, gas prices rose and global warming became more and more threatening,” said Pope. “It refused to set higher fuel efficiency standards for vehicles even when the data showed that the current trajectory was actually hurting the U.S. auto industry, desiccating its market share.”

“But California acted on its own, and other states virtually stampeded to follow it,” Pope said.

“While EPA has yet to issue the needed waiver for those standards to take effect, that matter is before the Courts, and perhaps more important, both candidates for president have pledged that they will allow California and the 13 other states which have joined it to act on their own,” he said.

Reverend Jim Ball, president and chief executive of the Evangelical Environmental Network, quoted Scripture to the committee, but he also exhorted the members to rely on science.

President George W. Bush addresses a
news conference at the White House.
(Photo by Joyce Boghosian courtesy
the White House)

“Take lead as an example,” said Ball. “As the best scientific evidence demonstrates, it clearly causes harm to children, a vulnerable group within our society over whom we have power. As the most current evidence and analysis by both the EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee and the EPA’s staff scientists suggests, the current standard set in 1978 is clearly outdated and should be strengthened or improved.

“My hope is that when the EPA issues their final ruling in mid-October the EPA Administrator will abide by the unanimous recommendations of the EPA’s own scientific panel as well as his scientific staff,” Ball said.

He also urged more regulation for mercury and for climate-warming greenhouse gases.

“On June 7, 2007, I and other religious community colleagues testified before you on the dangers climate changes poses, especially to the poor, and the ethical reasons for action. The situation is even more urgent now than it was then,” Ball said. “Given the current state of our efforts at the federal level, this represents a tremendous opportunity for the next Congress and administration to do better.”

Senator Barbara Boxer (Photo
courtesy EPW)

Perhaps the strongest criticism of the Bush environmental record came from Chairman Boxer in her opening statement, which cited reports from the investigative arm of Congress, the Government Accountability Office, GAO.

“According to a recent GAO report prepared at my request,” Boxer said, “EPA political officials worked with the White House and the Pentagon to undermine the process for evaluating toxic chemical risks.”

“EPA has severely weakened its Office of Children’s Health Protection and largely ignored its Children’s Health Advisory Committee, as we learned from GAO just last week,” said Boxer.

“EPA’s record on global warming could hardly be worse,” she said. “Despite the president’s campaign promise to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, the White House reversed course and rejected actions to control global warming pollution.”

“In one of its first official acts, the Bush EPA announced that it was suspending the newly strengthened standard for arsenic in tap water. After a public outcry and legislation blocking it, EPA finally retreated,” she said.

The EPA story is the same for soot, smog, and lead standards – all weaker than its own scientists recommended, Boxer said.

“EPA has slowed down its Superfund program to practically a crawl,” Boxer said. “Over the last seven years, the pace of Superfund cleanups has dropped by about 50 percent compared to the last seven years of the prior administration, from about 80 cleanups per year to 40 or less.”

“We just learned that EPA has decided that it will not set a health standard for the toxic rocket fuel perchlorate in our drinking water, even though EPA data show that up to 16.6 million people are exposed to unsafe levels,” said Boxer. “Perchlorate is especially risky for infants and children, because it interferes with their thyroid, which controls normal development.”

“On occasion, EPA has taken a positive step, including the issuance of cleanup orders to the Department of Defense, though more work is needed to ensure DOD follows through,” Boxer said. “Unfortunately, the Bush record of rollbacks overshadows these efforts.”

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WASHINGTON DC, August 7, 2008 (ENS) – The Bush administration today denied a request by Texas to cut the U.S. biofuels mandate in half, rejecting the claim that the massive increase in corn-based ethanol is causing economic harm to the state’s livestock industry and raising food prices.

Few stakeholders were surprised by the decision, but debate over the U.S. biofuels mandate reflects lingering concern about the economic and environmental impact of nation’s ethanol boom.

The controversy centers on the nation’s renewable fuels standard, RFS, which calls for the nation to increase its production of ethanol and other biofuels to be blended into gasoline. Such fuels account for some six percent of the nation’s gasoline supplies.

The RFS requires nine billion gallons of biofuels be used this year, with the target set to jump to 11 billion gallons in 2009 and 36 billion gallons by 2020.

Fueling with corn-based ethanol (Photo
courtesy Iowa Corn Growers Assn.)

Congress first established the RFS in 2005. Lawmakers increased it last year, promoting the mandate as part of a strategy to reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign oil and to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The politics of corn production hang heavy over the RFS controversy.

Corn-based ethanol currently accounts for the vast majority of biofuels blended into the U.S. fuel supply. Other sources of biofuels are not commercially viable, but corn-based ethanol is a ready alternative thanks to generous subsidies and support from U.S. lawmakers.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture predicts a third of U.S. corn production will be funneled into ethanol this year, yet record corn prices have some wary of the larger impact of the ethanol boom on food and livestock feed prices.

In May more than 20 Republican senators, including Arizona’s John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, urged EPA to waive the RFS mandate because of concerns about its impact on food prices.

Others are concerned about the impact on the nation’s environment.

Corn growers use large amounts of pesticides and the boom in corn production has been linked to an increase this year in the giant dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico.

And although blending ethanol with gasoline helps cut greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks, in can increase emissions responsible for smog.

Today’s announcement came in response to a request made in April by Texas Governor Rick Perry, who asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to cut the RFS mandate by 50 percent.

Perry, a Republican, argues that demand for ethanol is responsible for corn prices that reached record levels in June, up nearly 120 percent from 2007. Those high corn prices that are harming his state’s cattle and poultry farmers, Perry said in his request, and are being passed onto consumers in higher food costs.

But the head of the EPA disagreed. The RFS mandate is not causing the “severe economic harm” required by law to waive the requirement, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson said today.

“Rather, the RFS is strengthening our nation’s energy security and supporting America’s farming communities,” Johnson told reporters on a teleconference.

EPA was not required to consider the environmental impacts of the RFS mandate, Johnson added, as the Texas petition was based solely on economic concerns.

EPA’s analysis found the RFS mandate may be responsible for increasing corn costs between seven and 30 cents per bushel. The agency has yet to complete analysis of the long-term economic or environmental impacts of the policy.

The Texas governor blasted the decision, saying the EPA appears incapable of looking past the “good intentions” of the policy.

Fresh corn for dinner (Photo
credit unknown)

“For the EPA to assert that this federal mandate is not affecting food prices not only goes against common sense, but every American’s grocery bill,” Perry said. “Any government mandate that artificially props up a single industry to the detriment of millions of Americans is bad public policy.”

But recent events have given some strength to the view that the RFS mandate is not the key factor behind corn prices.

Prices have dropped from a record high of nearly $8 a bushel in June to less than $5.40 earlier this month – a decrease many contend has been driven by a drop in the price of oil.

“Most economists now recognize the real severe economic harm is being done by the skyrocketing price of oil and not by ethanol production,” said Bob Dineen, head of the Renewable Fuels Association. “In fact, without ethanol production the damage from high oil prices would be even worse.”

Dineen contends that curtailing the RFS mandate would have had little impact on corn prices but would have “sabotaged the development and growth of new technologies and a cellulosic biofuels industry.”

Other reaction to the decision demonstrated the strange bedfellows brought together by the biofuels controversy.

Livestock interests, along with environmentalists, grocery manufacturers, restaurants and oil industry groups had all called on EPA to grant the Texas waiver.

“Diverting a third of our corn crop to ethanol production has driven corn and all feed prices up to levels that are severely impacting U.S. meat and poultry producers as well as consumers,” said Jesse Sevcik, vice president for legislative affairs for the American Meat Institute.

The head of the nation’s largest chicken producer said the RFS mandate has caused feed prices to “spiral out of control,” adding that his company’s food costs could jump $900 million this year.

“It’s apparent that the government intends to blindly pursue this misguided and destructive policy despite reams of data demonstrating its negative impact on the environment, food prices, and world hunger,” said J. Clinton Rivers, president and chief executive officer of Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation.

Environmentalists had hoped debate over the Texas waiver would have prompted EPA to review the environmental impacts of the RFS mandate.

“Corn-based ethanol isn’t just raising food prices,” said Frank O’Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch. “It is causing more smog, adding to global warming, and causing more water pollution.

With controversy over the RFS mandate far from settled, the EPA is bracing for a potential flood of requests asking for changes to the policy.

States were the only interested parties allowed to file waiver requests this year, but next year the door will be open to industry groups and other affected parties.

By J.R. Pegg

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WASHINGTON, DC, February 28, 2008 (ENS) – The world’s first map of the corn genome was unveiled today by a team of scientists led by Washington University in St. Louis. The researchers have completed a working draft of the corn genome, which they say should accelerate efforts to develop better crop varieties to meet growing demands for food, livestock feed and fuel.

The genetic blueprint was announced today by the project’s leader, Richard K. Wilson, Ph.D., director of Washington University’s Genome Sequencing Center, at the 50th Annual Maize Genetics Conference in Washington, DC.

Dr. Richard Wilson (Photo
courtesy Washington University)

“This first draft of the genome sequence is exciting because it’s the first comprehensive glimpse at the blueprint for the corn plant,” Wilson said.

“Scientists now will be able to accurately and efficiently probe the corn genome to find ways to improve breeding and subsequently increase crop yields and resistance to drought and disease.”

Corn is only the second crop after rice to have its genome sequenced, and scientists will now be able to look for genetic similarities and differences between the crops.

The genetic code of corn consists of two billion bases of DNA, the chemical units that are represented by the letters T, C, G and A, making it similar in size to the human genome, which is 2.9 billion letters long. By comparison, the rice genome is far smaller, containing about 430 million bases.

The challenge for Wilson and his colleagues was to string together the order of the letters, an immense and daunting task both because of the corn genome’s size and its complex genetic arrangements. Corn has 50,000 to 60,000 genes, roughly double the number of human genes.

“Sequencing the corn genome was like putting together a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle with lots of blue sky and blue water, with only a few small sailboats on the horizon,” Wilson explains. “There were not a lot of landmarks to help us fit the pieces of the genome together.”

The $29.5 million project was initiated in 2005 and is funded by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Energy.

“Corn is one of the most economically important crops for our nation,” says National Science Foundation Director Arden L. Bement Jr. “Completing this draft sequence of the corn genome constitutes a significant scientific advance and will foster growth of the agricultural community and the economy as a whole.”

Corn is one of the world’s staple foods. (Photo by Scott Bauer courtesy USDA)

Corn is used to make products from breakfast cereal, meat and milk to toothpaste, shoe polish and ethanol.

The team working on the endeavor has already made the sequencing information accessible to scientists worldwide by depositing it in GenBank, an online public DNA database. The genetic data is also available at maizesequence.org.

The draft covers about 95 percent of the corn genome, and scientists will spend the remaining year of the grant refining and finalizing the sequence. “Although it’s still missing a few bits, the draft genome sequence is empowering,” Wilson explains. “Virtually all the information is there, and while we may make some small modifications to the genetic sequence, we don’t expect major changes.”

Scientists at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York and Iowa State University worked on the sequencing.

The group sequenced a variety of corn known as B73, developed at Iowa State decades ago. It is noted for its high grain yields and has been used extensively in both commercial corn breeding and in research laboratories.

The National Corn Growers Association applauded the scientific accomplishment and looks forward to its practical applications.

“The completion of a maize draft sequence is the first step in determining the function of all the genes in corn, which in turn, will allow corn growers to plant corn hybrids that are better able to withstand drought and other stresses and are better suited to market and environmental needs,” said Ron Litterer, president of the association. “Consumers will benefit from a more nutritious, abundant and sustainable food supply.”

The United States is the world’s top corn grower, producing 44 percent of the global crop.

In 2007, U.S. farmers produced a record 13.1 billion bushels of corn, an increase of nearly 25 percent over the previous year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The 2007 production value of corn was estimated at more than $3 billion. Favorable prices, a growing demand for ethanol and strong export sales have fueled an increase in farmland acreage devoted to corn production.

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