WASHINGTON, DC, March 2, 2009 (ENS) – Lisa Jackson, administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said today that the agency will begin a new initiative to measure levels of air contamination near many schools across the country, particularly those located near large industries and in urban areas.

The $2.25 million initiative will be the first to focus on air pollution near schools. Directed by the EPA, the monitoring will be conducted by state and local governments. Some states have already begun monitoring.

“I’m a mother first, and like all parents, I want to be sure my children are breathing healthy air at school,” said EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson. “Questions have been raised about air quality around some U.S. schools, and those questions merit investigation.”

The questions Jackson refers to were raised in December 2008, by the newspaper “USA Today,” which published a ranking of the air quality around 127,800 public, private and parochial schools based on the concentrations and health hazards of chemicals likely to be in the air outside.

Using the EPA’s computer model that predicts the path of toxic chemicals released by thousands of companies, reporters spent eight months examining the impact of industrial pollution on the air outside schools. They fed into the model emissions reports filed by 20,000 industrial sites in 2005.

San Jacinto Elementary School in Deer Park, Texas, near Houston. Students at schools in this town face high levels of butadiene, a carcinogen, and other gases from petrochemical plants on the Houston Ship Channel. (Photo courtesy Deer Park Independent School District)

The analysis showed that many schools are in toxic hot spots near factories that emit hazardous amounts of toxic gases and metals.

During her confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works on January 14, Jackson promised committee chair Senator Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat, that she would prepare a plan to address high pollution levels near schools as one of her top priorities after taking office.

Senator Boxer said today, “I am so pleased that EPA Administrator Jackson has announced a plan to test schools for toxic air pollution. I vowed that schools at risk would be tested when this threat to our children’s health was exposed in a recent investigation, and I asked Administrator Jackson to promise to take immediate action in her recent confirmation hearing. That promise has been kept.”

“Children are our future,” said Boxer, “and we need to ensure they have a safe and healthy one.”

Jackson said the EPA will work with states, tribes, and local communities to ensure that monitors are rapidly deployed to get high-quality data and to share the results with American families.

“EPA will work quickly to make assessments and take swift action where necessary,” Jackson said today. “Our job is to protect the American public where they live, work and play – and that certainly includes protecting schoolchildren where they learn.”

This partnership will help EPA maximize its monitoring and analytical capabilities to develop a clearer picture of any potential risks to children from toxic air pollution, Jackson said, adding, “This action is particularly critical in some low-income areas, which are sometimes disproportionately impacted by environmental degradation.”

From 1990 to 2005, emissions of air toxics in the United States declined 41 percent, according to EPA data.

But levels of air toxics can vary widely from place to place depending upon a number of factors including the amount and types of industry nearby, proximity to heavily traveled or congested roadways, and weather patterns.

The monitors will focus on chemicals that are known to cause cancer, respiratory and neurological problems in children, who are more vulnerable than adults because they are still developing. Exposures to toxic chemicals at critical periods of development can cause damage to the nervous system, reproductive organs and behavioral problems.

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WASHINGTON, DC, January 14, 2009 (ENS) – Scientific integrity and the rule of law will be the “two core values” guiding decisions by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under the incoming Obama administration, the president elect’s nominee to head the agency vowed today at her confirmation hearing.

The promises of nominee Lisa Jackson were met with high praise from Democratic senators, who contend the Bush administration has ignored recommendations of the agency’s scientists and undermined its mission to protect public health and the environment.

“Science must be the backbone of what EPA does,” said Jackson, who appeared before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

Nominee for EPA administrator Lisa Jackson (Photo courtesy EPW)

The former head of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection told the committee she would administer EPA with “science as my guide.”

Political appointees “will not compromise the integrity” of agency experts and scientists to advance particular regulatory outcomes, Jackson said, adding that the agency will “operate with unparalleled transparency and openness.”

Jackson would be the first African-American to lead EPA, an agency with some 17,000 employees and a budget of more than $7 billion.

Currently chief of staff to New Jersey Democratic Governor Jon Corzine, Jackson also worked at EPA for 15 years in several jobs related to the Superfund program.

Jackson did not lay out specific priorities during the hearing, but instead outlined five broad objectives – reducing greenhouse gas emissions, curbing other air pollutants, addressing toxic chemicals, cleaning up hazardous waste sites and water protection.

“These five problems are tough, but so is our resolve to conquer them,” Jackson said.

Senator Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat and chair of the committee, hailed Jackson as a “breath of fresh air” and welcomed her comments as “music to my ears.”

With little Republican opposition to the nominee, Boxer suggested the full Senate could easily confirm Jackson as EPA chief early next week.

Helen Sutley is nominated to lead the Council on Environmental Quality (Photo courtesy EPW)

Boxer alluded to a similar easy path for Nancy Sutley, Obama’s pick to head the White House Council on Environmental Quality, CEQ.

Sutley, currently deputy mayor for energy and environment in Los Angeles, said her focus as CEQ chief would be “to ensure that there is a strong science and policy basis for our environmental policy.”

The bulk of the nearly four-hour hearing was focused on Jackson. Democratic senators littered the proceedings with criticism of the Bush administration’s environmental record and of current EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson.

Johnson has drawn the ire of Democrats and environmentalists for a slew of decisions, including his failure to act on climate change and for repeatedly ignoring the recommendations of agency scientists.

“The fact is, I believe the EPA has hurt the American people, made them less safe, over the last eight years,” Boxer said, who called the agency “a shadow” of its former self.

“I am looking for a renewed commitment to EPA’s mission – nothing more, nothing less,” Boxer told Jackson.

EPA under the Bush administration has “fallen into significant disrepute,” said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat. “More than anything else it needs its integrity restored.”

On some key issues – particularly climate change – the Bush administration has refused to act, Democrats noted.

On others, such as reducing harmful emissions from power plants, the Bush EPA finalized controversial rules only to see them rejected by federal courts, added Senator Tom Carper, a Delaware Democrat.

“We start this 111th Congress pretty much where we were eight years ago,” Carper said.

Jackson acknowledged that much of her early work would be dealing with controversial Bush rules and some of the court rulings that have ordered EPA to rewrite regulations.

Among these issues, she promised to revisit Johnson’s controversial decision to deny California’s waiver request to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles. Nineteen other states have said they will follow the California policy as soon as the EPA grants the waiver of weaker federal rules.

In response to questioning, Jackson also pledged to assess risks from coal ash disposal sites similar to two that have recently spilled in Tennessee and Alabama.

“EPA, first and foremost, needs to discuss the state of what’s out there and where might be a horrible accident waiting to happen,” Jackson said.

Republicans on the panel cautioned the EPA nominee against moving too aggressively on climate change and warned that her job will not be easy given the contentious nature of environmental policy and regulation.

Senator George Voinovich makes a point at the confirmation hearing. (Photo courtesy EPW)

“I think it is the most difficult job that one can have in the federal government,” said Senator George Voinovich, an Ohio Republican.

Voinovich urged Jackson to consider the economic impacts of federal environmental rules on states and local communities, particularly in light of the nation’s economic woes.

“You have to consider the impacts these things are going to have on the people,” Voinovich said.

Senator John Barrasso, a Wyoming Republican, took direct aim at the issue of global warming, reiterating longstanding concerns by many Republican lawmakers about the costs of limiting emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

“Addressing climate change through the Clean Air Act is a disaster waiting to happen,” Barrasso said, alluding to the controversy over the 2007 Supreme Court decision that found EPA had the authority under the statute to regulate greenhouse gases.

Barrasso said he was worried that “federal laws on the books are being used in ways they were never intended to be used.”

Jackson rejected that concern and reiterated that the Obama administration will tackle global warming with the tools available if Congress fails to pass climate legislation.

She told Barrasso, “The beauty of many environmental laws is that they were meant to address not just the issues of the day but the issues of tomorrow.”

By J.R. Pegg

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WASHINGTON DC, January 8, 2009 (ENS) – The head of the Tennessee Valley Authority today pledged the federal electric utility would do a “first-rate job” cleaning up the mess left from last month’s massive coal ash spill. But at a Congressional committee hearing to examine the spill he faced sharp criticism from senators unconvinced by his promises.

“You need to have a plan to clean this spill up and you don’t have it yet,” said Senator Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat and chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which conducted the hearing. “People will never feel safe there again.”

Residents of Harriman, Tennessee were in attendance at the hearing – the first to examine the December 22 spill at TVA’s Kingston Fossil Plant, located at the confluence of the Emory and Clinch Rivers in eastern Tennessee.

The spill devastated the area when a retaining wall holding back a 60 foot-high pile of wet coal ash gave way, sending a billion gallons of toxic sludge and contaminated water across 400 acres.

One of the houses damaged by the coal ash spill. (Photo courtesy TVA)

Twelve homes and other buildings were buried in more than four feet of sludge, a rail line was displaced and the Emory River was contaminated.

Federal and private analyses have found elevated levels of an array of heavy metals in the water, including arsenic at more than 149 times the maximum allowable levels in one sample.

TVA President and CEO Tom Kilgore testified that the utility is committed to completely remediating the contaminated area and will work to compensate affected residents.

“We’ll start with the people first and the environment comes right after that,” Kilgore said. “We are working 24 hours a day, seven days a week on cleaning this up.”

“It is only in our best interests to do this right,” he said. Kilgore explained that the main thrust of the cleanup effort is to construct barriers to keep the sludge from moving into the river and to begin moving the contaminated material back onto TVA’s property.

To minimize dust and erosion, TVA is spreading grass seed and fertilizer, as well as a liquid dust suppressant on the ashy sludge. The seeding is an immediate, short-term solution and will not be left in place long term, aa TVA plans to recover all the material possible.

TVA President and CEO Tom Kilgore (Photo courtesy TVA)

“Now that we have entered the recovery phase, we are turning our attention to a long-term plan for full recovery and restoration,” Kilgore said. “I cannot tell you at this point how long this might take.”

Boxer said TVA should be doing more than it currently is doing to clean up the area. “This isn’t a harmless mud,” she said. “Seeding the ground with grass is not a permanent solution. Cleanup can be done right or it can be a ticking timebomb.”

The California Democrat pressed Kilgore on TVA’s lack of a plan to deal with two river coves popular with residents.

“We want to recover all that we can recover,” Kilgore said. While TVA does not have plans to clean up the coves, the utility doesn’t have “plans not to,” he said.

“That’s not an answer,” Boxer responded. “That’s not cleanup.”

Boxer also questioned Kilgore about reports that TVA had been warned of the potential failure of the impoundment wall at least twice in the past five years, but balked at a $25 million project to secure the site.

“You went with the cheapest fix, and now you have the most expensive problem,” Boxer said. “The cost of that $25 million is going to seem like pennies compared to what it is going to cost to clean this up.”

Early estimates of cleanup costs are as high as $250 million.

Kilgore defended the utility and cautioned against drawing conclusions before the investigation of the spill is complete. TVA has suggested the retaining wall broke because of heavy rains and cold weather.

“We had no reason to believe it wouldn’t hold,” Kilgore said. “I don’t know what caused this but I don’t think it’s something that betrays the public’s trust in that we were careless.”

This aerial view of the ash spill shows one of two weirs newly built to contain the ash while the Emory River is dredged. (Photo courtesy TVA)

He told the panel it appears that the areas subject to earlier warnings were not the same part of the retaining wall that ruptured. “We had outside experts help us with those fixes – the most expensive solution was not chosen and obviously that looks bad for us,” he said. “I would like to get the failure investigation complete to know exactly what the cause was.”

Boxer said the spill highlights the need for federal regulations to govern the disposal of toxic coal ash, noting that state regulatory efforts have been inconsistent at best.

“The federal government has the power to regulate these wastes, and inaction has allowed this enormous volume of toxic material to go largely unregulated,” she said.

Coal-fired power plants across the country produce some 130 million tons of ash every year. Although some of the ash is recycled into industrial building materials, much of it is either stored in dry landfills or wet lagoons like the one at the Kingston plant.

Amphibious trackhoes are being used to assist in road and rail clearing near the TVA Kingston Fossil Plant. (Photo courtesy TVA)

More than a thousand similar coal ash ponds exist at utilities across the country. A report released Wednesday by environmentalists warned that nearly 100 of them pose a similar or even greater potential danger than the Kingston site.

Boxer said she would press the Obama administration to enact federal rules governing coal ash storage and would question the president-elect’s nominee to head the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson, about the issue at her confirmation hearing next week.

“It is critically important that protective standards for coal ash waste be established,” Boxer said. “The EPA doesn’t even need any legislation from us. They have the ability to regulate this and I see it is coming. I hope it is coming.”

Kilgore refrained from endorsing or opposing such a move, saying that TVA “looks forward to following the lead of EPA and Congress to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again.”

Tennessee Republican Senator Lamar Alexander urged his colleagues and TVA to take a long-term view. “We need to turn a short-term regulatory and management failure into a long-term technology development solution,” he said. “We need a series of mini-Manhattan projects on how we can safely and securely use coal.”

Almost 93 percent of all coal consumed in the United States is burned to generate electricity, according to the federal Energy Information Agency.

By J.R. Pegg

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WASHINGTON, DC, December 11, 2008 (ENS) – The Bush administration has dropped plans to adopt two Clean Air Act rules that would have allowed power plants and other polluters to increase smog and soot pollution.

The first rule concerned the Clean Air Act’s New Source Review program. It would have allowed coal-fired power plants to increase their power output by installing new equipment without adopting pollution controls.

The second abandoned rule would have weakened special air quality protections that Congress adopted for national parks and wilderness areas. If the rule had been adopted, it would have been easier to build a coal-fired power plant, refinery or factory near a national park.

Both rules had faced opposition from public health and environmental groups, state and local air quality regulators, and prominent members of Congress.

EPA officials had been trying to finalize both proposals before President-elect Barack Obama is sworn in January 20. The have both been in the works for years.

South Carolina’s coal burning Cross power
plant is operated by Santee Cooper. (Photo
courtesy Santee Cooper)

U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat who chairs the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, was pleased with the agency’s decision.

“Our children and families can breathe easier now that the EPA has abandoned two controversial plans to undermine clean air protections through midnight regulations,” she said. “EPA has many other damaging and dangerous rules under consideration that deserve the same fate.”

“EPA’s decision to reconsider issuing a severely deficient air pollution rule that would have exempted almost every power plant in this country from installing modern pollution control technology is the correct one,” said Bill Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies.

The proposal would have allowed electric generating units to use the “hourly test” to comply with New Source Review rules. The practical effect of this proposal would have been devastating to public health and welfare, explained Becker.

“Utilities would have been able to expand their operations and increase air pollution significantly without installing modern pollution control technology, conducting air quality analyses to determine impacts on nearby jurisdictions and offsetting their emissions in certain circumstances,” he said.

The Natural Resources Defense Council first urged EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson to abandon the New Source Review rule in August, following a July court decision that overturned EPA’s Clean Air Interstate Rule, which EPA had relied upon as its primary justification for pursuing the weaker NSR rule.

In its announcement Wednesday, the EPA pointed to the fate of its Clean Air Interstate Rule as the primary reason for dropping the New Source Review rule.

“I am heartened that both of these destructive and unlawful air pollution rules will not be forced upon the American people, said the NRDC’s John Walke. “With the barbarians at the gate having pulled up their tents and headed for the hills, we can look forward as a civilized society to tackling the critical problems of global warming, smog and soot pollution that continues to damage our health, and toxic mercury that contaminates our waters.”

“NRDC looks forward to working with the incoming administration to protect our air quality and the health of all Americans,” he said.

However, the EPA Wednesday finalized a rule that exempts “fugitive emissions” from being counted for some major industries in determining whether emissions sources making modifications to their facilities trigger New Source Review requirements.

Fugitive emissions are pollutants released to the air other than those from stacks or vents. They are often due to equipment leaks, evaporative processes, and windblown disturbances.

“Fugitive emissions would be included in determining whether a physical or operational change is a major modification only for industries designated through previous Clean Air Act rulemakings,” the EPA states.

“It is no coincidence,” said Becker, “that the agency has finalized another rule today on fugitive emissions that allows other major industrial facilities such as mining operations and ethanol production plants, to escape these important requirements.”

Affected industries include electric services, petroleum refining, industrial chemical products, and pulp and paper mills.

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WASHINGTON, DC, November 21, 2008 (ENS) – The order of business in the incoming 111th Congress is beginning to take shape. When lawmakers convene on January 6, 2009, Democrats will be firmly in control of both houses, although today the outcome of several elections is still unclear.

When Democratic President-elect Barack Obama takes office on January 20, both the White House and Congress will be in Democratic hands for the first time in 16 years.

For the environment, this means that climate change legislation will be on the front burner as soon as the new session opens.

The U.S. Capitol at sunrise. November 11,
2008 (Photo credit unknown)

Senator Barbara Boxer of California, who will continue to chair the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, announced Tuesday that she will introduce two pieces of climate legislation in January.

“The first bill will establish a grant program to reduce global warming emissions under the Clean Air Act with up to $15 billion a year available to spur innovations in clean energy, including advanced biofuels,” Boxer said.

Intended as an economic stimulus, Boxer said the bill follows President-elect Barack Obama’s recommendation.

Obama’s short video statement on climate change played at the Governors’ Global Climate Summit convened in California on Tuesday was “music to my ears,” Boxer said.

Obama said, “Few challenges facing America – and the world – are more urgent than combating climate change. The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear. Sea levels are rising. Coastlines are shrinking. We’ve seen record drought, spreading famine, and storms that are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season.”

“My presidency will mark a new chapter in America’s leadership on climate change that will strengthen our security and create millions of new jobs in the process,” he said.

“Climate change and our dependence on foreign oil, if left unaddressed, will continue to weaken our economy and threaten our national security,” said Obama.

Senator Barbara Boxer of California
(Photo courtesy EPW)

“Clean energy means green jobs,” Boxer said, citing a new report from the U.S. Conference of Mayors estimating that by 2038, another 4.2 million green jobs could be added to the economy.

Boxer also will propose a bill amending the Clean Air Act that directs the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to set up a cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gases that meets the goals laid out by the president-elect.

“This bill will reflect the strong partnership we will have with the new administration, and will focus on achieving the emissions reductions needed while restoring the economy,” said Boxer.

Boxer also announced her committee’s first hearing in the 111th Congress. “The hearing will take place as soon as possible after we convene in January, and will be entitled “How Fighting Global Warming is Good for the Economy and Will Create Jobs,” she said.

Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma
(Photo courtesy EPW)

Senate Democrats will have to contend with Republican Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, the ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee and a climate change denier. In his blog on the committee website, Inhofe claims that the planet is cooler now than when President George W. Bush took office and that Arctic ice is growing, not shrinking.

Over in the House of Representatives, the Democratic Caucus Thursday elected California Democrat Henry Waxman as chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

He replaces Michigan Congressman John Dingell, who has served for the past 28 years as chairman and ranking member of the committee. Dingell now will serve as chairman emeritus, but Waxman’s ascendency marks a shift away from the influence of the Detroit auto industry and towards cleaner energy and climate concerns.

Waxman said, “Some of the most important challenges we face – energy, climate change, and health care – are under the jurisdiction of the Commerce Committee. In large measure, our success as Congress will depend on how the Commerce Committee performs.”

“Enacting comprehensive energy, climate, and health care reform will not be easy,” said Waxman, but, “The public expects Congress and President-elect Obama to work together to find solutions to the nation’s most pressing problems.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday, “Henry Waxman will bring to the post of Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee the outstanding leadership he has demonstrated as chair of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

“Under his leadership, the committee and the entire caucus will make progress toward making America energy independent, making health care available to all Americans, and addressing the greatest challenge of our time, global warming,” she said.

Congressman Henry Waxman of California
(Photo courtesy Office of the Congressman)

The replacement of Dingell by Waxman could affect the outcome of possible legislation offering financial assistance to the beleagured auto industry, which has requested at least $25 billion to stave off collapse.

Today, Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid sent the following letter to the executives of the Ford, General Motors and Chrysler, calling on them to “submit a credible restructuring plan that results in a viable industry, with quality jobs, and economic opportunity for the 21st century while protecting taxpayer investments” by December 2.

“It is critical that you meet this deadline since we have announced we are prepared to come back into session the week of December 8 to consider legislation to assist your industry. We intend to give pertinent agencies within the executive branch, the Government Accountability Office, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, as well as outside experts, the opportunity to comment on your work,” Reid and Pelosi wrote.

Senator Inhofe calls higher fuel efficiency standards that may be a condition of the potential auto industry bailout, “environmental thuggery.”

In a speech on the Senate Floor Thursday, Inhofe said, “The proposed $25 billion bailout of Detroit now appears to have been hijacked by the powerful environmental lobby.”

Quoting a November 19 article in the “Wall Street Journal,” Inhofe said, “the auto bailout has degenerated into a tool to ‘make Detroit a subsidiary of the Sierra Club.’”

“We hear proponents of the auto bailout endlessly say it’s about jobs,” said Inhofe. “But the truth is, this bailout appears to be about environmental lobbies taking over the U.S. auto industry.”

The Congressional balance of power is set, but the actual seat count is still shifting.

Right now, in the Senate, the Democrats hold 55 seats, the Republicans hold 40, and there are two Independents – Joe Lieberman and Bernie Saunders, who caucus with the Democrats.

Three seats are vacant or undecided.

One Illinois seat is vacant as President-elect Barack Obama, a Democrat, has resigned. This seat will be filled by a replacement appointed by a Democratic governor.

Delaware does not yet have a vacancy, but Vice President-elect Joe Biden, a Democrat, is expected to resign on or before inauguration day, January 20, 2009. His seat will be filled by a replacement appointed by a Democratic governor.

In Minnesota, the seat is held by Senator Norm Coleman, who won the 2002 election. While Coleman leads Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party challenger Al Franken by 215 votes, the race remains too close to call. The close margin triggered a mandatory recount, which began on November 19. The recount is not expected to be resolved for at least a month.

In Georgia, a run-off election between Republican incumbent Saxby Chambless and Democratic challenger Jim Martin is underway.

In the House of Representatives, the Democrats hold 255 seats, the Republicans hold 175, and there are no Independents. Five seats are vacant or undecided.

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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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DENVER, Colorado, August 27, 2008 (ENS) – Speaker after speaker at the Democratic National Convention is calling on Americans to elect Barack Obama president because they expect him to build a green economy powered by U.S. renewable energy instead of by foreign oil.

U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton of New York told delegates that she ran for president in part, “To promote a clean energy economy that will create millions of green collar jobs.”

Presidential hopeful Senator Hillary Clinton
of New York accepts the applause of
convention delegates (Photo courtesy
DNCC)

“And,” Clinton said, “to join with our allies to confront our shared challenges, from poverty and genocide to terrorism and global warming.

“We need to elect Barack Obama because we need a president who understands that America can’t compete in a global economy by padding the pockets of energy speculators, while ignoring the workers whose jobs have been shipped overseas. We need a president who understands that we can’t solve the problems of global warming by giving windfall profits to the oil companies while ignoring opportunities to invest in new technologies that will build a green economy,” Clinton said.

In keynote address to the convention, former Virginia Governor Mark Warner who is now running for a seat in the Senate, said the Republican policies are wrong because they have brought America, “Two wars, a warming planet, an energy policy that says let’s borrow money from China to buy oil from countries that don’t like us.”

“Look at energy,” Warner said. “If we actually got ourselves off foreign oil, we can make our country safer.”

“We’ll start to solve global warming. And with the right policies, within 24 months, we’ll be building 100 mile-per-gallon plug-in hybrid vehicles right here – with American technology and with American workers.”

Mark Warner, former governor of Virginia, delivered
the keynote address. (Photo courtesy DNCC)

U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer of California, who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, told delegates what she said when she accepted the chair from the previous chair, Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, who has famously called global warming a “hoax.”

“When I took the gavel from the former chairman, I told him that ‘elections have consequences.’ When we win in November, we’ll prove it,” said Boxer.

“Instead of protecting polluters, we’ll protect our families. Instead of ignoring the experts, we’ll fight global warming. Instead of facing Republican roadblocks, we’ll have a Democratic majority large enough to ensure healthy communities,” she said.

“Instead of a president with an Exxon policy, we’ll have a president with an energy policy. This November, we can’t afford more of the same,” Boxer said. “Let’s elect Barack Obama so that the world’s economic and environmental leader will clearly be our nation – the United States of America.”

U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington told the delegates that voters in her state “know it’s time for a president who will make energy independence America’s top priority.”

“After eight years of skyrocketing gas prices, eight years of families spending more and more of their paychecks at the pump, and eight years of two former oil men catering to big oil’s agenda, it’s time for a new energy day in America,” said Cantwell. “One that makes energy more efficient and renewable, creating millions of high-wage jobs. One that allows families to spend more of their precious dollars raising children, instead of boosting oil company profits.”

Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer devoted his entire speech to solving America’s energy problems by electing Obama, not his Republican opponent.

“We face a great new challenge, a world energy crisis that threatens our economy, our security, our climate and our way of life. And until we address that energy crisis, our problems will only get worse,” Schweitzer said.

“For eight long years, the White House has led us in the wrong direction,” said Schweitzer, a Democrat who chose a Republican to be his second in command.

“After eight years of a White House waiting hand and foot on big oil, John McCain offers more of the same. At a time of skyrocketing fuel prices, when American families are struggling to keep their gas tanks full, John McCain voted 25 times against renewable and alternative energy. Against clean biofuels. Against solar power. Against wind energy,” said the Montana governor.

Schweitzer blamed McCain for taking “more than a million dollars in campaign donations from the oil and gas industry,” and for proposing to “give the oil companies another four billion dollars in tax breaks.”

“Right now, the United States imports about 70 percent of its oil from overseas. At the same time, billions of dollars that we spend on all that foreign oil seems to end up in the bank accounts of those around the world who are openly hostile to American values and our way of life.”

At the same time, he said, “CO2 emissions are increasing global temperatures, sea levels are rising and storms are getting worse.”

On the floor of the Democratic National
Convention. August 26, 2008 (Photo DNCC)

“Barack Obama knows there’s no single platform for energy independence. It’s not a question of either wind or clean coal, solar or hydrogen, oil or geothermal. We need them all to create a strong American energy system, a system built on American innovation,” Schweitzer.

“In Montana, we’re investing in wind farms and we’re drilling in the Bakken formation, one of the most promising oil fields in America. We’re pursuing coal gasification with carbon sequestration and we’re promoting greater energy efficiency in homes and offices,” said the govenor.

“Barack Obama understands the most important barrel of oil is the one you don’t use,” he said.

The Montana governor supports Obama’s plan to invest $150 billion over the next 10 years in clean, renewable energy technology. “This will create up to five million new, green jobs and fuel long-term growth and prosperity. Senator Obama’s plan will also invest in a modern transmission grid to deliver this new, clean electricity from wind turbines and solar panels to homes, offices and the batteries in America’s new plug-in hybrid cars,” Schweitzer said.

Iowa Governor Chet Culver told delegates that “securing our energy future” is the most important challenge America faces.

“For the last eight years, the big oil companies and their Washington lobbyists have literally written our national energy policies. They have made billions, while the rest of us are stuck paying the bill,” said Culver.

“Now the oil companies are placing their bets on John McCain, bankrolling his campaign, and gambling with our future. McCain has voted against tax credits for renewable energy 11 times, and his only idea to solve our energy crisis is to keep doing what we’re doing, as we watch prices go up and up and up.”

The Iowa governor said only Obama has a detailed plan to lower energy prices and create more green-collar jobs.

“If anyone still doubts whether renewable energy can lower prices and create jobs, look no further than Iowa,” Culver said. “We have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in renewable energy, created more than 100,000 good-paying jobs and provided clean alternatives to overpriced, foreign oil.”

U.S. Congressman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, who also contested the Democratic nomination for president, told convention delegates that this election is a wake-up call for America.

“Wake up, America. In 2001, the oil companies, the war contractors and the neo-con artists seized the economy and have added four trillion dollars of unproductive spending to the national debt. We now pay four times more for defense, three times more for gasoline and home heating oil and twice what we paid for health care,” Kucinich said, “while all the president’s oilmen are maneuvering to grab Iraq’s oil.”

“Wake up, America. We went into Iraq for oil. The oil companies want more. War against Iran will mean $10-a-gallon gasoline. The oil administration wants to drill more, into your wallet,” he said.

“Wake up, America. This is not a call for you to take a new direction from right to left. This is call for you to go from down to up,” Kucinich said. “Up with creating millions of good paying jobs, rebuilding our bridges, ports and water systems. Up with creating millions of sustainable energy jobs to lower the cost of energy, lower carbon emissions and protect the environment.”

And Dave Gipp, a Hunkpapa/Lakota American Indian from the Standing Rock Lakota-Dakota Nation, who serves as president of United Tribes Technical College in Bismarck, North Dakota, told delegates that he is one of “thousands of tribal citizens who support Senator Barack Obama for accepting tribal nations and their citizens into the future he sees for America.”

“We’re not another special interest group trying to claim a share of the American pie,” said Gipp. “We are, after all, the first Americans. We paid for our place with land and blood. Our status as sovereign tribal nations is specially recognized in the U.S. Constitution.”

“Every step you take across this great nation, every vista you admire, every city you call by its tribal name, was once Indian country,” said Gipp.

“American Indians are still here and we’re seeking justice for our people,” he said. “We offer the strengths of our spirituality and our connection with Mother Earth in renewing America’s promise for all.”

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WASHINGTON, DC, July 28, 2008 (ENS) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is ordering its staff to “not respond to questions or make any statements” if contacted by congressional investigators, reporters or its own Office of Inspector General, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, PEER.

“The order reinforces a growing bunker mentality within an EPA that is the subject of a growing number of probes into political interference with agency operations,” according to PEER, a service organization assisting federal and state public employees in natural resources agencies.

In a June 16, 2008 e-mail distributed throughout EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, managers were asked to “remind your staff” to comply with “these important procedures.”

These procedures forbid staff from speaking with any reporters or representatives of the Government Accountability Office or the EPA Inspector General. If contacted, EPA employees are not supposed to say anything but are to immediately refer the person to a designated public affairs official.

“Inside the current EPA, candor has become the cardinal sin,” said PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, an attorney. Ruch noted that while “this directive is of questionable legality, an agency specialist risks discipline or even termination for disregarding a direct order.”

“The clear intention behind this move is to chill the cubicles by suppressing any uncontrolled release of information,” said Ruch.

U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat who chairs the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, today commented on the EPA e-mail to staff concerning procedures for responding to inquiries, saying, “Stephen Johnson is turning the EPA into a secretive, dangerous ally of polluters, instead of a leader in the effort to protect the health and safety of the American people.”

EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson testifies
before the Senate Environment and
Public Works Committee. July 11,
2007 (Photo courtesy EPW)

By way of justification, EPA’s Office of Public Affairs defends the order as “standard operating procedures” to promote efficiency and consistency in responding to official investigations.

That office also contends this “procedure was developed in part to respond to a recent IG report” entitled “EPA Can Improve its Oversight of Audit Followup” issued in May 2007.

That cited Inspector General’s report, however, makes no such recommendation and is primarily about how EPA lacks an accountability system for correcting admitted deficiencies identified in previous IG audits.

The cited audit has absolutely nothing to do with reporters or the Government Accountability Office, GAO, which is the investigative arm of the U.S. Congress.

An additional concern is that the directive may illegally obstruct IG or GAO investigations, Ruch said.

Although the EPA Public Affairs claims that the IG “signed off on” the gag order it has not offered written confirmation of that approval. PEER’s inquiry to the EPA Inspector General’s General Counsel as to the propriety of this directive has gone unanswered.

Currently, the EPA Inspector General position is vacant.

Today, EPA is the target of intense congressional scrutiny, including attempts to subpoena agency files.

Following increasingly contentious hearings, Administrator Johnson has refused to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee, but gave no reasons for his refusal.

On Thursday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont canceled a hearing scheduled for July 30 at which Johnson was invited to present testimony about the EPA’s refusal to provide Congress with documents related to the public health risks of global warming.

Leahy said he called the hearing after an investigation in the Environment and Public Works Committee “uncovered what appears to be an effort by the Bush-Cheney administration to shield the truth about the effects of global warming from Congress and the American people by interfering with scientific conclusions and regulatory decisions that Congress intended to be answered by the science experts at EPA.”

“There are serious questions whether the White House improperly influenced EPA to deny California’s request for a Clean Air Act waiver,” Senator Leahy said. “This waiver would not only have allowed California to enforce tougher emissions standards, it would have allowed other states, including Vermont, to do the same.”

“This is only the latest skirmish in what has come to be called the Bush-Cheney administration’s war on science, in which powerful and well connected special interests get their way, at the expense of ordinary Americans,” the senator said.

“I am disappointed that the Bush administration has again chosen secrecy over accountability,” Leahy said. “They are preventing the Environmental Protection Agency from giving Congress information about its policies, and preventing us from learning what they are doing to enforce – or not enforce – vital laws meant to protect the water we drink and the air we breathe.”

The Judiciary Committee chairman called Johnson’s refusal to attend the hearing “yet another in a long line of examples of the Bush administration hiding behind a thick veil of secrecy.”

By contrast, 25 years ago EPA Administrator William Ruckelshaus proclaimed that, “When I recently appeared before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, I promised that EPA would operate ‘in a fishbowl.’ I said, ‘We will attempt to communicate with everyone from the environmentalists to those we regulate and we will do so as openly as possible.’”

While this 1983 Ruckelshaus “fishbowl” policy was never rescinded, it no longer reflects agency practice.

“Ironically, EPA has brought a lot of these congressional hearings on itself by not being open,” said Ruch, questioning the need for such secrecy at a public health agency.

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WASHINGTON, DC, July 8, 2008 (ENS) – Officials in the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney’s office pressured federal health and environmental officials to edit congressional testimony to downplay the public health impacts of climate change, according to a former senior official with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Senior Senate Democrats contend the allegations of Jason Burnett, the EPA’s former top climate advisor, add to evidence of a concerted effort by the Bush administration to mislead the public about the risks of climate change and to prevent the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases.

Senator Barbara Boxer of California
(Photo courtesy EPW)

“This cover-up is being directed from the White House and the Office of the Vice President,” said Senator Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. “History will judge this Bush administration harshly for recklessly covering up a real threat to the people they are supposed to protect.”

Boxer held a press briefing today to release a July 6 letter from Burnett, an economist who initially worked at the EPA from 2004 through 2006 before resigning due to disagreements over an air pollution rule.

A rare Democrat within the Bush administration, Burnett agreed in 2007 to return to the agency as a climate advisor.

Burnett resigned last month in protest over the EPA’s decision to block California from setting limits on greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles. Under the Clean Air Act, California has the unique power to enact stricter clean air laws than the federal government, but only if the EPA issues a waiver of federal standards. Once California has its waiver, other states can adopt the stricter standard. EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson has declined to issue the waiver, and California has sued seeking to secure it from the federal agency.

After his resignation, Burnett announced his intention to campaign for Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama of Illinois.

Burnett told Boxer that both the White House and Cheney’s office intervened to edit the written testimony of Dr. Julie Gerberding, head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC, who testified before Boxer’s committee last October.

Julie Gerberding, MD
(Photo courtesy CDC)

Although the CDC chief noted the serious public health concerns associated with climate change during her remarks, some six pages of her written testimony expanding on the issue were deleted at the behest of the Bush administration.

Officials with the White House and Cheney’s office requested the removal of “any discussion of the human health consequences of climate change,” wrote Burnett, who declined to tell reporters who specifically called for the changes.

Burnett’s letter also details efforts by the administration to influence the EPA’s response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s April 2007 decision in the case of Massachusetts vs EPA. The ruling requires the agency determine whether greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health. An “endangerment” finding would require the EPA to take action to regulate and limit greenhouse gas emissions.

The agency has yet to comply with the ruling – a coalition of 17 states and three major U.S. cities have filed suit in protest.

Last December, Burnett emailed the White House the EPA’s preliminary finding that greenhouse gas emissions “may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public welfare.”

According to Burnett, the White House subsequently asked him not to send the finding.

“When we explained that the document had been sent, I was asked to send a follow-up note saying that the email had been sent in error,” Burnett wrote. I explained that I could not do this because it was not true.”

Heat waves like this one are forecast
to increase in frequency and intensity.
(Photo courtesy NOAA)

The former EPA advisor noted that he was also asked by the White House to retract the message, adding that he refused to comply.

The White House refused to open the email, Boxer said, and “the finding was left in limbo.”

Boxer told reporters the administration’s censorship of the CDC chief’s testimony was part of a “master plan” to weaken EPA’s response to the Supreme Court ruling.

Gerbering’s original testimony detailed a long list of serious public health consequences of climate change, Boxer noted, including direct health and safety effects of severe weather events, health effects from air pollution, allergic diseases, mental health problems, food and water scarcity, and an increase in vector, food and water-borne diseases.

“CDC’s work clearly would lead us to the endangerment finding,” Boxer said.

Burnett contends the administration also sought to alter testimony by EPA Administrator Johnson given to Boxer’s committee on the denial of the California waiver.

Officials from the White House and Cheney’s office called on Burnett to edit Johnson’s testimony to “avoid the phrase ‘greenhouse gas emissions harm the environment,’” the former EPA deputy administrator wrote in the July 6 letter.

“I declined to accept the suggestion … in the end this part of the administrator’s testimony remained as EPA had written it,” Burnett wrote.

Boxer called on Johnson to release “every document” related to EPA’s consideration of whether greenhouse gases endanger public health and to immediately release a notice of proposed rulemaking on how it intends to cut emissions.

Senator Boxer has scheduled a hearing on the issue for July 22 and threatened to subpoena the documents if necessary.

“This is not about me, or about Mr. Johnson, or President Bush, or Vice President Cheney or Mr. Burnett,” she said. “It is about protecting the public and the planet.”

Concerns about the Bush administration’s interference with climate science are hardly new, as the White House has faced a barrage of criticism in the past few years for meddling with climate reports to downplay concerns about global warming.

A report released last year by government watchdogs found that nearly half the 279 climate scientists who responded to a survey reported being pressured to delete references to “global warming” or “climate change” from scientific papers or reports and many said they were prevented from talking to the media or had their work edited.

By J.R. Pegg

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By J.R. Pegg

WASHINGTON, DC, June 6, 2008 (ENS) – The U.S. Senate’s much anticipated tangle with a landmark bill that would have required the nation to make deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions responsible for global warming came to an unceremonious end Friday, as proponents failed to muster enough votes to formally consider the legislation.

Four days of deliberations on the climate bill were marked more by partisan bickering than substantive debate, but supporters of aggressive U.S. action to combat global warming contend the tide is turning in their favor.

“This is a landmark day,” said Senator Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat and cosponsor of the bill. “It’s another milestone in the fight against global warming.”

Friday’s 48-36 vote fell a dozen votes short of the number needed to end debate and begin consideration of amendments to the bill.

Seven Republicans joined 39 Democrats and two Independents in voting to move forward with the bill. Four Democrats sided with 32 Republicans in opposition.

Convinced most Republicans had little interest in actually trying to move the bill forward, Democratic leaders opted to pull the legislation from the floor.

Water levels in Georgia’s Lake Lanier were
low in May as a prolonged drought
still grips the Southeast. The lake
supplies hydroelectric power and
drinking water to the city of Atlanta.
(Photo by B. Bearden)

But the bill’s sponsors claimed partial victory, noting that six senators who missed the vote – including both presumptive presidential nominees – said they would have supported moving forward with the legislation.

“This is moving in the direction that history needs it to move,” said Senator Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut Independent who cosponsored the bill with Boxer and Senator John Warner, a Virginia Republican.

Lieberman and Boxer noted that the 54 senators who supported proceeding with the bill far exceeded the 38 who voted for a similar, but far less aggressive, climate bill in 2005.

“It’s clear a majority of the Senate wants to act,” Boxer told reporters.

The vote has “laid the foundation” for lawmakers and the next president to tackle the issue, Warner added.

Both the presumptive presidential nominees – Senators Barack Obama, an Illinois Democrat and John McCain, an Arizona Republican – have indicated support for mandatory reductions in U.S. greenhouse gases.

Their positions stand in contrast to the policies of the Bush administration, which has opposed any mandatory limits and came out against the Boxer/Lieberman/Warner bill.

“We will have a Senate next year that I believe will be much more hospitable to this bill and they’ll like this bill,” Boxer said. “And we will have a president, either one, who will be hospitable to this subject and we believe will send down a bill to us and work with us.”

A coalition of national environmental groups, including the Environment Defense Fund, the National Wildlife Federation and the Union of Concerned Scientists echoed Boxer’s view.

“This week’s debate was just the first round in a three-round fight,” the groups said in a statement. “The Senate debate has elevated the importance of this issue for the election and the next round will be in November. The final round will be next year, when we will have the support and momentum we need to pass legislation that will more effectively build a clean energy economy and prevent the worst consequences of global warming.”

Rock lawn in El Cerrito, California replaces
grass and eliminates watering. As of
June 5, 2008, California is in an official
state of drought. (Photo by Ken Duffy)

But the debate also showcased the fact that deep regional and partisan divides must be overcome if Congress is to take a leadership role in addressing climate change.

Republicans opposed to the bill called the climate plan unworkable and claimed it would cause undue harm to the U.S. economy.

“It is a climate tax,” said Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from the coal-producing state of Kentucky. “This legislation will raise gas prices, electricity prices, diesel prices, natural gas prices, and fertilizer prices. It will also put America at a significant economic disadvantage compared to the rest of the world.”

The legislation would have created a sweeping greenhouse gas emissions trading program, encompassing virtually every sector of the U.S. economy, with the aim of cutting U.S. emissions 19 percent by 2020 and 71 percent by 2050.

The trading system, similar to one already operating in the European Union, would allow companies to buy tradeable pollution allowances to ensure the overall reduction targets are met.

Money generated by selling emissions permits would have been reinvested by the government into new energy technologies and also used to help consumers and businesses reduce their energy costs. Some Republicans claimed more funds collected from permit sales should be given back to taxpayers and used to build new nuclear power plants.

McConnell argued that proponents of the bill had made a tactical error in bringing forth the legislation at a time when many Americans are worried about high gasoline prices.

“This whole exercise will have had no effect on either climate change or gas prices,” said McConnell. “But it does send an unambiguous message: on the issue of high gas prices, our friends on the other side have no plan to lower the price at the pump.”

Boxer rejected the characterization of the bill as harmful to the economy, saying it would create jobs and have little effect on gasoline prices.

Opponents of the bill refuse to “talk about climate change,” she added. “They haven’t challenged us on our basic premise that we have a problem. They switch the topic to what I think is a made-up topic.”

Time is running out to tackle the problem, she added, noting that scientists estimate global emission reductions of some 80 percent by mid-century may be needed to avoid the worst consequences of global warming.

“We must act now,” Boxer said. “Waiting two years to act will double the annual rate at which we must cut emissions. In other words, you have a problem, and the longer you wait, the harder it is because the carbon goes into the atmosphere and stays there.”

Advocates of the bill never expected the measure to pass, but it is unlikely they thought deliberations would descend into partisan squabbling over judicial nominees.

After agreeing to consider the bill Monday, Republican leaders stalled actual debate on the measure. On Wednesday, McConnell refused to waive reading of the bill, forcing Senate clerks to read aloud all 492 pages. That took nearly 10 hours and drew the ire of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

The Nevada Democrat criticized McConnell before sharing with colleagues a Republican memo, given to him by a lobbyist, that outlined a plan by Republican leaders to delay consideration of the bill in a bid to score political points with Americans concerned about high energy costs.

“You couldn’t make anything up more cynical,” Reid said.

McConnell claimed the decision to make the clerks read the bill was payback for a failed promise by Reid to confirm three district court judges.

“It was about the importance of keeping one’s word,” McConnell said.

The majority leader questioned McConnell’s priorities, arguing that the Kentucky Republican’s “sense of urgency” about three judges was misguided.
Water in Nevada’s Lake Mead used to cover the exposed white margins of the lake, which supplies drinking water to Las Vegas. (Photo by Dr. Ken Dewey courtesy High Plains Regional Climate Center)

“[He] does not share that same sense of urgency about the global warming that is changing the world we live in,” Reid said. “The world will little note nor long remember those three judges, as good as they may be individually, but it will remember that we wasted an entire day and perhaps wasted our best efforts this session to take up the single most important issue for the survival of the planet.”

The Republican leadership “stopped work to fight for the status quo,” Boxer added. “They have stopped us in our tracks on this issue.”

Both sides argued that they were keen for a long and substantive debate on the bill, but ultimately deliberations were derailed by a dispute over the process.

The Democratic leadership called for all amendments to be submitted prior to debate, something Republicans said was a tactic intended to limit their efforts to change the bill.

“It is probably the biggest, most complicated bill we’ve had in the 36 years since I’ve been a senator,” added Senator Pete Domenici, a New Mexico Republican, noting that the bill calls for 39 new rules and regulations and the establishment of 58 federal programs. “It needs time … not closing off opportunities to amend.”

Senator James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican, said all his fellow Republicans wanted was “just one thing, and that is to debate this bill, bring it out in the open, let the light shine on it.

But Senator Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, said Republicans had sanctioned a “tremendous waste of time and effort” and were not acting in good faith.

“The notion that we have blocked all amendments is not true,” Durbin said. “We have said to the Republicans repeatedly: Provide us with the amendments. Show us what you are going to offer. Here is what we will offer … yet the Republican side has refused.”

S. William Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, said his organization of state and local agencies believes that ultimately Congress will “adopt comprehensive climate legislation that yields greenhouse gas emission reductions consistent with the consensus recommendations of the scientific community.”

“In the meantime,” Becker said, in view of the U.S. EPA’s refusal to grant California a waiver for its Clean Car Standard, “the need to preserve the rights of states and localities to take action above and beyond that of the federal government has never been clearer.”

“As we face the tremendous and ever-growing challenges posed by global warming,” said Becker, “states and localities in every region of the country will continue to lead and act as laboratories of innovation to address this urgent problem.”

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WASHINGTON, DC, May 29, 2008 (ENS) – Legislation to protect almost half a million acres of federal public lands in California has been introduced in Congress on a bipartisan basis.

The Eastern Sierra and Northern San Gabriel Wild Heritage Act will give wilderness designations to 472,804 acres of public land, the highest level of protection and conservation for federal lands.

The bill designates 430,671 acres of wilderness in Mono and Inyo Counties and establishes more than 45 miles of the Owens River Headwaters and Amargosa River as Wild and Scenic Rivers.

The bill also designates 42,000 acres of wilderness in Los Angeles County and establishes more than seven miles of Piru Creek as a Wild and Scenic River.

A bristlecone pine tree in California’s White
Mountains (Photo courtesy U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service)

On Friday, U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat, introduced the legislation in the Senate. Congressman Buck McKeon, a California Republican whose congressional districts contain these lands, introduced the companion bill in the House.

Boxer said, “I am thrilled that Congressman Buck McKeon and I, together with countless local officials and residents, were able to forge a bipartisan compromise to protect these truly spectacular lands.”

McKeon said, “I am pleased that after years of working with local leaders, wilderness activists, and recreational enthusiasts, we finally have a practical solution to preserving the wild heritage of the 25th congressional district.”

“I also want to thank Senator Boxer for playing such a critical role in crafting legislation that meets the needs of all the key stakeholders. With this legislation, we are increasing economic development by preserving land treasured by many and enhancing recreational opportunities in the area,” he said.

The land protected under the bill includes the White Mountains, America’s largest and highest desert mountain range. The second largest unprotected roadless area in the lower 48 states, these mountains contain the world’s oldest living trees, the ancient Bristlecone Pines, which live almost 5,000 years.

It also makes additions to the Hoover Wilderness, a classic High Sierra landscape of deeply carved glacial valleys dotted with tranquil alpine lakes and forests of lodgepole pine.

The Amargosa River, which the bill also protects, is the only river flowing into Death Valley, and it sustains biologically rich wetlands and riparian forests as it makes its way through rugged canyons.

Boxer said, “From the majestic High Sierra, to the stunning White Mountains and their ancient bristlecone pine forests, to the beautiful northern San Gabriel Mountains, Californians will be able to enjoy this striking beauty forever. We will continue to work together to make sure that this natural legacy can be left to our grandchildren and their grandchildren.”

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