Who Fired Mary Gade? 1
From the Wonk Room.
Mary Gade, the Region 5 Administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency, abruptly resigned in the midst of a battle with Dow Chemical over its refusal to clean up decades-old dioxin pollution from its headquarters in Michigan. As Michael Hawthorne reported in the Chicago Tribune:Gade told the Tribune she resigned after two aides to national EPA administrator Stephen Johnson took away her powers as regional administrator and told her to quit or be fired by June 1.He further reported that one of those officials had recently assessed her performance as “outstanding”:
Five months ago, a top U.S. Environmental Protection Agency official gave Mary Gade a performance rating of “outstanding.” On Thursday, the same official told her to quit or be fired as the agency’s top regulator in the Midwest.
The regional administrators report directly to the office of EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson. So who can the “two aides to national EPA administrator Stephen Johnson” who “took away her powers” be? The following are the most likely suspects:
Marcus C. Peacock
And although the administration chose Steve Johnson (a career scientist) as EPA Administrator, they sent Graham henchman Marcus Peacock over to keep a close eye on EPA as Deputy Administrator.
Control the power of OMB to a reasonable level – OMB does more to waste time and taxpayer dollars than any other organization in the government.
Further, the influence of other agencies, particularly OMB significantly affects the actions of specific individual program offices, which amounts to direct oversight of almost everything EPA does.
The current Administrator is a puppet operated by CEQ and OMB.
Luis A. Luna
This is a role that serves at pleasure of the administration, and [EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson] makes the decision of keeping people in place, and he made the decision. It’s a politically appointed position, just like mine. We have the expectation that we’re here to do a job, and we serve at the pleasure of the president, or in this case the pleasure of the administrator.
As Crooks and Liars noted during in 2007, the “pleasure of the president” was a Bush administration talking point during the U.S. Attorney scandal.
Sen. Whitehouse Compares EPA Firing To U.S. Attorney Scandal: 'Déjà Vu All Over Again'
Yesterday, the Environmental Protection Agency dismissed Midwest regional administrator Mary Gade, one of ten such officials appointed directly by EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson. Gade, a lifelong Republican and a prominent supporter of George W. Bush’s pursuit of the presidency in 2000, told the Chicago Tribune, “There’s no question this is about Dow.” Gade was locked in a battle with Dow Chemical over the cleanup of dioxin poisoning from its world headquarters in Michigan. As former EPA official Robert Sussman writes in the Wonk Room, “To remove a Regional Administrator because of a disagreement over policy at an individual site is unheard of.”
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) just spoke on the Senate floor about Gade’s firing. Whitehouse compared her firing with the U.S. Attorney scandal that enveloped the Department of Justice and led to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’s resignation:We do not yet know all the details of Ms. Gade’s firing, or everything that may have gone on between her office and Dow Chemical. But from everything that we’ve heard and seen so far, it looks like déjà vu all over again. From an administration that values compliance with its political agenda more than it values the trust or the best interests of the American people. Last year we learned that this is an administration that wouldn’t hesitate to fire capable federal prosecutors when they wouldn’t toe an improper party line. Today it seems that the Bush Administration might have once again removed a highly qualified and well-regarded official whose only misstep was to disagree with the political bosses.
Watch it:
Sen. Whitehouse also announced that he is conducting an oversight hearing into the politicization of the EPA and the circumstances of Gade’s dismissal next Wednesday. The last time EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson testified before Sen. Whitehouse, he put in a shameful performance, leading Whitehouse to state:
In my short time in Washington, I didn’t think I would again encounter a witness as evasive and unresponsive as Alberto Gonzales was during our investigation of the U.S. Attorney scandal. Unfortunately, today EPA Administrator Johnson stooped to that low standard.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, for much of last year, the Senate Judiciary Committee was engaged in a troubling inquiry. We were trying to determine whether the Bush administration had fired several United States Attorneys for political reasons – because they were not “loyal Bushies.”That inquiry continues. But over its course, the incompetence and misjudgments it uncovered cost a number of Justice Department officials their jobs – including former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who made clear that he put loyalty to the President before the faithful exercise of his office. It also cost this proud Department the morale of its staff and the trust of the American people, who were left to wonder whether federal prosecutions in this country arose out of the pursuit of justice or the pursuit of political advantage.
This morning, we awoke to the news that the Environmental Protection Agency’s regional administrator for the Midwest, Mary Gade, was forced to resign in the midst of a heated debate over dioxin contamination in waters near Michigan. According to a report by the Chicago Tribune, Ms. Gade invoked emergency powers last year to force Dow Chemical, headquartered in Michigan, to clean up several areas saturated with the toxic chemical, a dangerous carcinogen which was a byproduct of Agent Orange.
She later broke off negotiations with the company on a more comprehensive cleanup, citing concerns that Dow had been reluctant to take steps to protect health and wildlife. At that point, the Tribune’s report says, the company asked EPA officials in Washington to intervene, though Dow said yesterday it had nothing to do with Ms. Gade’s dismissal. The paper wrote Ms. Gade said that high-ranking EPA officials “repeatedly questioned her aggressive action against Dow.” It quoted Ms. Gade as saying: “There is no question this is about Dow.”
We do not yet know all the details of Ms. Gade’s firing, or everything that may have gone on between EPA and Dow Chemical. But from all we have heard and seen, Mary Gade’s story seems like déjà vu all over again from an administration that values compliance with a political agenda over the best interests of the American people.
Last year, we learned that this administration would not hesitate to fire federal prosecutors who didn’t toe the party line. Today, it seems that the Bush administration has once again to remove a highly-qualified and well-regarded official whose only misstep, it appears, was to disagree with her political bosses.
Unfortunately, Mr. President, the story of Mary Gade is not only a distressing signal that the Bush administration may again be making hiring and firing decisions based on political loyalty. This is also just the latest in a growing pile of evidence of a troubling and destructive force at work within our government, one with serious consequences for our environment, our natural resources, and our public health.
We’ve always known that the Bush Administration was no friend to our environment. Over and over again for seven long years, this administration has put forward, under false flags, policies that would do great harm to the environment. From a Clear Skies initiative that would increase air pollution, to a national energy policy written by oil industry lobbyists, the Bush approach to environmental protection has been Orwellian.
That pattern continues even to this day. Not long ago, President Bush stood in the White House Rose Garden and announced what his administration characterized as a new strategy to address climate change. With Americans all over this country crying out for a bold, visionary plan to tackle the threat of global warming, a problem that threatens to engulf this nation and the entire world within generations if nothing is done, President Bush’s proposal was neither “new” nor a “strategy.”
Instead, the President announced what he called “a new national goal:” voluntary action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2025. Let me say that again: voluntary action to reduce emissions by 2025.
Mr. President, there are a couple of problems with that approach. First: the President’s so-called strategy would allow greenhouse gas emissions to continue to rise for another 17 years – even though overwhelming scientific evidence indicates that unless we take immediate action to cut global warming pollutants, we might be too late to prevent the most serious impacts of global climate change.
Second: President Bush offered no initiatives that might reduce emissions now or in the future, and made clear that on his watch, the United States Government will never require polluters to make such reductions. But as every American not working in the Bush administration understands, voluntary action, without strength of will or force of law, simply isn’t enough to tackle the magnitude of this problem.
And finally, even as the President announced this empty, so-called renewed commitment to fighting global warming, his administration reiterated that it will oppose a specific, detailed plan for addressing the climate change problem that the Senate will likely take up after the Memorial Day recess – the Warner-Lieberman Climate Security Act.
This trifecta would merely be laughable, were the situation not so serious. And there is always the distasteful possibility, given this administration’s long and destructive history of disregard for environmental concerns, that this is a stalking horse, intended to prevent real progress on climate change; a way to leave this problem, like so many others, for the next President to solve.
Regrettably, the President’s announcement is also a stunning failure of leadership in a world community that is quickly growing unaccustomed to American leadership.
* * *Mr. President, we’ve known for a long time that politics of special interests is at the bottom of this, and that the Bush White House has repeatedly interfered with the decision-making process at the Environmental Protection Agency and other agencies, in thrall to the checkbooks of the oil companies, the gas companies, the chemical companies, the timber companies, the coal companies, and the auto companies.
A couple of weeks ago, we saw new evidence of how deeply this corrosive political influence has seeped within EPA – the primary federal agency charged with protecting our environment and public health. A report issued on April 23 by the Union of Concerned Scientists, entitled “Interference at the EPA,” is a scathing indictment of the decision-making process at EPA from those who know it best: the agency’s career scientists. The report consisted largely of a survey of EPA scientists and found that 60 percent of those surveyed had personally experienced at least one incident of political interference during the past five years. The report documents, among many other things, that many EPA scientists have been directed to inappropriately exclude or alter information from EPA science documents, or have had their work edited in a manner that resulted in changes to their scientific findings. The survey also revealed that EPA scientists have often objected to, or resigned or removed themselves from, EPA projects because of pressure to change scientific findings. Mr. President, the conclusion could not be clearer: EPA is an agency in crisis.
Once upon a time, anyone working at EPA could be proud of their agency’s reputation as the international gold standard in the area of environmental protection. Indeed, for most of its 40-year history, all Americans could place their trust EPA’s independent, science-based leadership in safeguarding our natural resources and our public health. In a 1970 press release setting forth the agency’s mission, its first administrator, William Ruckelshaus, stated EPA’s role unequivocally. I quote:
“EPA is an independent agency. It has no obligation to promote agriculture or commerce; only the critical obligation to protect and enhance the environment.”
Administrator Ruckelshaus was a Republican, appointed by President Nixon. Yet both he and the President who appointed him intended EPA to be immune from political pressure, to be guided by the twin lodestars of law and science in discharging that “critical obligation to protect and enhance the environment.”
However, in recent years and especially during the tenure of Administrator Johnson, we have seen EPA’s leadership, in cahoots with its White House allies, despoil these basic principles of independence and scientific integrity. Here are only a few examples from the long bill of particulars that indicts the leadership of this once-vaunted agency:
The George Bush Environmental Protection Agency has falsified data and fabricated results of studies regarding the safety of the air around the site of the collapse of the World Trade Center on September 11th.
The George Bush Environmental Protection Agency has selectively edited government reports, including the EPA’s 2003 Report on the Environment, to support uncertainty in climate change science, placing the imprimatur of the government of the United States of America on fringe views soundly rejected by essentially the entire world scientific community.
The George Bush Environmental Protection Agency has routinely tampered with regulatory and scientific processes to achieve results sought by industry, at the expense of our public health and environment. For example, in 2004, EPA allowed North Dakota to alter the way it measured air quality, to bring Theodore Roosevelt National Park into compliance with air quality standards without actually reducing pollution.
The George Bush Environmental Protection Agency has hidden, suppressed, and delayed the release of scientific findings in order to affect the impacts of EPA decisions, as in the case of a 2002 report on the effects of mercury on children’s health that EPA delayed for nine months and released only after it was leaked to the media.
The George Bush Environmental Protection Agency has disregarded legally mandated scientific and administrative procedures, as in the case of the agency’s failure to abide by the Supreme Court’s recent decision on regulating Greenhouse Gas Emissions.
The George Bush Environmental Protection Agency has stacked the EPA’s leadership and its advisory committees with industry allies, removing the respected scientists who argued for stronger public protections. A prime example of this is the removal, at the request of the industry lobbying group the American Chemistry Council, of toxicologist Deborah Rice from an EPA toxics advisory committee. Dr. Rice had argued for more stringent EPA standards for regulating certain chemicals used in commercially available plastics products. Not only was Dr. Rice removed the panel in a particularly Orwellian maneuver, but the fact that Dr. Rice had ever been on the panel was stricken from the panel’s records.
The George Bush Environmental Protection Agency has ignored the recommendations of career staff and scientists when they collided with White House political imperatives, as in the case of the agency’s decision on the so-called California wavier.
The George Bush Environmental Protection Agency has reduced enforcement of environmental regulations by opening fewer criminal investigations and filing fewer lawsuits against corporate polluters.
The George Bush Environmental Protection Agency has not only failed to protect, but sought reprisals against, agency employees who pointed out problems, reported legal violations, and attempted to correct factual misrepresentations made by their superiors. Amazingly, the EPA’s office of general counsel has invoked the doctrine of sovereign immunity against whistleblowers suing the agency because of actions taken by the agency in reprisal for whistleblowing activity.
And the George Bush Environmental Protection Agency has had its lawyering literally mocked by U.S. appellate courts—which in one case, condemned EPA’s defense of its regulation as possible “only in a Humpty-Dumpty world,” and in another case, accused the agency of “deploying the logic of the Queen of Hearts” from Alice in Wonderland in its interpretation of the law.
It makes one’s skin crawl to see the ways in which EPA’s leadership under the Bush Administration has put the interests of big business CEOs and lobbyists before the health and welfare of our environment and the American people.
The consequences of this are dire.
First, in a world that presents complex challenges to our public health, our environment, and our national security, the elevation of corporate interests over independent, science-based decision-making threatens America’s ability to respond effectively, and to provide the kind of leadership that the world expects and the American people deserve.
Second, the Administration’s conduct has demoralized EPA’s professional workforce – the scientists, lawyers, and regulatory experts to whom EPA owes its reputation as a champion of environmental protection and who, time and time again during this Administration, have seen their expert counsel set aside in favor of a partisan political agenda.
Third, President Bush and this Administration have compromised the faith of the American people in the integrity of their government. The President’s eagerness to do the bidding of the special interests and the Administrator’s willingness to kowtow to the White House, to the detriment of sound public policy, only confirm what too many in this country most fear: that the United States of America is no longer governed by and for the people. When policy is made for special interests and not for the public good, America is left weaker. No matter our partisan or ideological standings, I hope that no one in this room would want to do such a thing to this great country.
The Bush Administration has done lasting harm to our environment and the confidence of the American people. Next Wednesday, May 7th, at 9:30 a.m., I will join Senator Barbara Boxer, chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, for an oversight hearing to look into the many actions by this Bush Administration, and its EPA Administrator, which seem to be so badly at odds with the recommendations of the agency’s scientists and the best interests of the American people.
Chairman Boxer has been dogged in her pursuit of the truth behind the machinations of EPA’s leadership and the Bush White House, and her leadership will be critical as we try to get to the bottom of this. We plan to ask tough questions – and we expect honest answers – because the American people deserve an Environmental Protection Agency that lives up to its name.
The adequacy of state and federal regulatory structures for governing electric utility holding companies
Panel I
- Joseph Kelliher, chairman, FERC
- Suedeen Kelly, commissioner, FERC
- Philip Moeller, commissioner, FERC
- Jon Wellinghoff, commissioner, FERC
- Marc Spitzer, commissioner, FERC
- David Owens, executive vice president, Business Operations, Edison Electric Institute
- Mark Gaffigan, director, Energy Projects, Division of Natural Resources and Environment, GAO
- Scott Hempling, executive director, National Regulatory Research Institute
- James Kerr, commissioner, North Carolina Utilities Commission
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will question energy regulators about their efforts to protect consumers when utilities are acquired by large holding companies at a hearing Thursday.The 2005 Energy Policy Act repealed a 1935 provision that had prevented holding companies from owning more than one utility and restricting non-utility companies from owning or controlling regulated utilities. The intention was to generate investment and access to capital in the power industry to stimulate the large projects needed in generation and transmission.
When holding companies own subsidiaries in both competitive and regulated markets, it is important to protect consumers from cross-subsidization. This involves large holding companies using guaranteed rates from captive customers – those who still receive power from one regulated utility – to pay for financial risks taken by other subsidiaries.
Holding companies could also abuse that privilege by having regulated utilities buy services for above-market prices from its other companies and get paid through rate returns.
The 2005 EPAct granted the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission authority to review merger acquisitions but required the commission to determine if the transaction would result in “cross subsidizations” and to adopt rules in that regard. The bill did not outline specific consumer protection regulations be put in place.
Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and Sens. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) and Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) had questioned the wisdom of repealing the 1935 provision without providing some required consumer protection regulation at the time.
Feingold and Brownback introduced an amendment that would have required FERC to establish “ring fencing” rules that restricted financial transfers between a regulated utility and its unregulated affiliates owned by the same holding company. The amendment did not pass but Bingaman promised during floor debate to hold a hearing on federal and state regulations on merger reviews and also asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate the matter. GAO confirms doubts
The GAO report was finally released last month and it appeared to confirm the senators’ fears of weak consumer protection.
The report said FERC has not substantially expanded its review policies since the 2005 bill and relies too much on self-reporting.
The report recommended FERC use “a risk-based approach to detect cross-subsidization, enhance audit reporting, and reassess resources to demonstrate oversight vigilance.”
FERC has strongly disagreed with the GAO report. FERC Chairman Joseph Kelliher said the report failed to understand FERC’s current policies and the history of its authority and definition of cross-subsidization.
FERC has the flexibility to defer to states’ protective measures, in contrast to the “pre-emptive” approach supported by the GAO report, Kelliher said at this month’s meeting.
“Recognizing the common interest in policing improper cross-subsidization, that [pre-emptive] approach seemed wholly inappropriate, since it would produce unnecessary conflict between federal and state regulators,” Kelliher said.
FERC is currently reviewing a proposed rule that would require a “code of conduct” when regulated and market-based companies had transactions.
But the GAO report said merely requiring merger companies to disclose existing or planned cross-subsidization and to promise not to engage in cross-subsidization is not strong enough regulation.
Several states have established “strong ring fencing” rules, including Oregon and Arizona, and have asked FERC not to adopt “pre-emptive” merger regulations.
All five FERC commissioners will testify, as well as representatives from state regulators, consumer advocates, GAO and the electric industry.
EPA Dances Around Request to Curb Greenhouse Gases from Refineries
E&E News (subscription req.) is reporting that the EPA—responding to a court order—has issued new regulations to reduce air pollution from petroleum refineries. But there’s a catch: EPA also has denied environmental groups’ request to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from the refineries, and in so doing, stands accused of dramatically reinterpreting the Clean Air Act:
EPA explained that it was working on a new global warming policy in response to last year’s loss in the Supreme Court in Massachusetts v. EPA—a case that started when the Bush administration denied a petition to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks.
The agency also opened itself up to controversy today by saying it did not need to set any greenhouse gas limits for the industry now because it previously had opted against establishing such standards.
Environmentalists said they plan to sue EPA in federal appeals court over that reasoning. "It’s enormous," said David Bookbinder, an attorney at the Sierra Club. "They’re taking the position the agency has no obligation to look at or review any other pollutant."
Bookbinder said he was not surprised by EPA’s decision, adding that he did not expect the issue to be resolved until after the Bush administration leaves office. "I don’t want these chuckleheads writing the regulations for CO2," he said. "What scares me is the chunk of collateral damage done to the Clean Air Act."
EPA’s response to the public comments, filed by the Sierra Club and the Environmental Integrity Project, is explained between pages 92 and 104 of the new rule. We’re first taking a close look at EPA’s wording ourselves, and will chime in with further comments as needed.
But as a matter of simple analysis, it does behoove us to note that this is far from first time that EPA has used its own unreasonable delay on the Supreme Court’s Mass. v. EPA mandate as an excuse…
OMB Uses Misleading Appeal to 'Deliberative Process Privilege' to Shield EPA Corruption
Not only is the corruption of the IRIS process a clear example of the Bush administration’s politicization of the EPA, it is also emblematic of its pursuit to raise the Executive Branch above the law.
The OMB’s Kevin Neyland argued vociferously that all “interagency deliberations” should be shielded from any scrutiny because “these documents are covered by the deliberative process privilege.” Neyland cited the Freedom of Information Act, NLRB vs. Sears, Roebuck & Co., and EPA vs. Mink, to conclude: “accordingly, protection of internal Executive Branch communications is not ‘inconsistent with the principle of sound science.’”
John B. Stephenson, the GAO’s director of natural resources and environmental issues, explained to the Washington Post that “transparency in the risk assessment process is the cornerstone of sound science.” In his report, Stephenson shot down the OMB’s defense in no uncertain terms:Contrary to OMB’s assertion, the report specifically acknowledges that OMB considers the documents at issue to be protected from disclosure because of their deliberative nature. Moreover, OMB’s assertions concerning the deliberative process privilege are misleading and illogical. That is, OMB’s comments fail to note that the deliberative process privilege protects internal and interagency communications from judicially compelled disclosure, an issue irrelevant to our report. The privilege in no way prevents agencies from voluntarily disclosing such information. OMB is thus arguing that because the scientific comments at issue might generally be protected from discovery in civil litigation, refusal to disclose them voluntarily in this specific context is necessarily consistent with the principles of sound science. OMB provides no citation or other support for this conflation of judicial and scientific procedures.
Stephenson concludes, “OMB fails to explain why certain scientific views should be given added consideration and protected from the critical scientific scrutiny all other comments will receive simply because the reviewers providing the comments are federal employees.”
EPA Toxic Assessment Process Hobbled By Politicization And Secrecy
From the Wonk Room.
Yesterday, yet more information about the politicization of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) came to light as the result of a congressional investigation.
One of the responsibilities of the EPA is to protect Americans from exposure to toxic chemicals that cause cancer, birth defects, and death when found in air, food, or water—such as Alar, chlordane, formaldehyde, and malathion. Since 1985 the EPA has placed its scientific risk assessments of such chemicals into a database called the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS). In a contentious oversight hearing yesterday, Senate Environment and Public Works Committee chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) made public a damning report that exposed how the “assessments are being undermined by secrecy and White House involvement.”
Before Stephen L. Johnson became administrator in 2005, the assessment process was a straightforward one run by the staff scientists of the EPA:
In the words of Richard Wiles of the Environmental Working Group, “With these rules in place, it’s now official: The Bush White House is where all good public health protections go to die.”
EPA Toxic Chemical Policies
- James B. Gulliford, Assistant Administrator for Pesticides, Prevention, and Toxic Substances, United States Environmental Protection Agency
- John B. Stephenson, Director, Natural Resources & Environment, U.S. Government and Accountability Office
- Linda Giudice MD, PhD, Chair, Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences Department, University of California, San Francisco
- Annette Gellert, Co-Founder and Chair, WELL Network
- V.M. DeLisi, Fanwood Chemical, Inc., On behalf of the Synthetic Organic Chemicals Manufacturers Association
- Laura Plunkett, Ph.D, Integrative Biostrategies, LLC
- Lynn R. Goldman, MD, MPH, Chair, Interdepartmental Program in Applied Public Health, Environmental Health Sciences, Occupational and Environmental Health, Johns Hopkins University
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will meet tomorrow to discuss changes U.S. EPA made earlier this month to a key chemical database that would allow federal stakeholders, scientists and the public to weigh in early in the chemical risk assessment process.The agency’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) provides access to research on chemicals found in the environment and their potential health effects. The risk assessments are used to create public health standards.
Under the new plan, EPA not only would invite other agencies to participate in the risk assessment process earlier but also would hold listening sessions to “allow for broader participation and engagement of interested parties,” according to the agency’s Research and Development Office. EPA also said the changes would result in an even more rigorous scientific peer review of IRIS assessments.
EPW Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said the changes would be problematic. “They put politics before science by letting the White House and federal polluters derail EPA’s scientific assessment of toxic chemicals,” she said in a statement.
The Government Accountability Office is expected to issue a report that addresses Boxer’s concerns (Greenwire, April 11).
But some Republicans hope the hearing will give EPA a chance to promote the progress they have made on knowing and understanding the many chemicals that are out in the public sphere.
“The perception is that there are all of these chemicals in commercial use that EPA doesn’t know about,” said a Republican aide to the committee. “We think that’s erroneous. EPA has done a good job in recent years to try to increase what we know about the risks and toxicity [of chemicals]. It’s done a lot through voluntary steps, as well as some statutory ones, so I think it’s important that EPA talk about what they’ve been doing.”
10:00 Boxer The levels set in IRIS are used for most EPA regulatory programs and many state programs. The level set for arsenic in water and benzene in air went through IRIS. Early in the Bush administration, they acted to bring OMB in the process. Administrator Johnson made changing IRIS a high priority. Noone can explain to me where there is room for politics when you’re determining the health of the American people. Instead of having scientists at EPA deciding, we now have contractors effectively at the table. The entire process is kept secret. Here’s the irony: this administration has no end in sight for funding for the DoD. Isn’t it ironic that they are derailing the census of toxic chemicals. Similarly GAO found delays in risk assessments of formaldehyde. Scientists told our committee staff the process was delayed and people continued to be exposed.
Scientists reported, “De facto, EPA can’t go ahead without DoD and White House sign-off.”
The role of independent scientists at EPA must be restored.
10:10 Inhofe The witness invited runs the TSCA program, not the IRIS program. This GAO report was distributed on Friday. But it was completed on March 7, and then embargoed. My concern is that this hearing seems to be set up as a gotcha hearing. If the chairman were truly concerned about oversight, she would have shared the report with the minority and invited the right administrator. I believe there should be oversight of the ethanol program, which has raised food prices and caused riots. We should be concerned about this diversion from fuel to food.
10:13 Boxer We did tell your staff IRIS was an important part. We wanted Administrator Johnson. We think this is bigger than the IRIS program. I don’t mind that you are unhappy with me. What’s important is the bottom line. This is a scandal, frankly. Our families are being put at risk because politics has entered the process.
10:15 Inhofe I didn’t attack you on this. I think if we ask for an embargo we should share with each other.
10:15 Lautenberg How nice it is to start this spring day with a discussion not of the issues, but the process. While bisphenol-A is being developed, the EPA did nothing. They were silent. Out of the 80,000 chemicals used now, the EPA has only tested 200. It’s unacceptable. I refuse to let my grandchildren to become the new canaries in the coalmine. I will soon introduce a new version of the Kid Safe Chemical Act. This legislation would direct the EPA to make sure every chemical is safe before they end up in products. We do this with pesticides and pharmaceuticals already. It seems to make sense to do that with industrial chemicals as well.
10:21 Barrasso There is nothing we would not provide for our children. The question we should ask is, has the chemical industry helped improve the lives of our children? Is TSCA perfect? No. Could it be improved? Perhaps. Can it be better implemented? Certainly… PVC is used in prosthetics.
10:27 Boxer We’re talking about protective standards in our water and our air, not in prosthetics.
10:28 Barrasso The plastics that I’ve seen use chemicals.
Boxer We’re not talking about banning them, we’re talking about regulating them. Nothing that you said I object to. I’m saying we need to control them when scientists say they cause birth defects, when they cause cancer.
10:29 Whitehouse We have 80,000 chemicals to which American families are exposed, very few of which are tested.
10:31 Craig We have to talk about the role of chemicals in society. I’m going to err on the side of a doctor, not a politician—Barrasso. Our history is replete with the lack of knowledge and understanding with respect to the pollution of chemicals in our society. We’re talking about jobs.
10:36 Boxer It is not our job to keep the chemical industry at the table. It might be in another committee. When it comes to the profitability of the chemical industry, let them do that in the Commerce Committee. Dr. Barrasso is an orthopedic surgeon. On this panel we will have a pediatrician and an ob/gyn. The people who know about this are the experts. All this “confusion” about this hearing. The title of this hearing is “Oversight of EPA Toxic Chemical Policies.” Policies. We can talk about TSCA, we can talk about IRIS. I’m a little stunned that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle aren’t working with us. There’s a train leaving the station with Admin Johnson and Bush’s OMB on it trying to derail a very important program to keep our children safe.
10:39 Klobuchar I see our role as oversight of enforcement. I’m not just a mother but also a prosecutor. If you don’t have the enforcement angle, then we’re not doing our job, and Congress has to come in. I come at this not naively, but look at these toys. Our Consumer Product Safety Commission wasn’t looking at these toys. I was shocked to read the testimony of Ms. Gellert.
10:58 Boxer You’re getting tainted information, and that’s a problem.
11:00 Gulliford It’s important for us to prioritize chemicals.
Barrasso So the chemical industry doesn’t always agree with you.
Gulliford Our job is to take industry information.
Boxer The progress on lead was made under the old rules.
11:01 Whitehouse The carveout is for other federal agencies. Everyone else has to be public. You go to the White House and you can stick any comments in. Isn’t that a legitimate concern?
Gulliford I don’t believe that would happen.
Whitehouse What prevents the OMB from inserting political influence?
Gulliford You’re making the assumption OMB is political.
Whitehouse We generally try to prevent problems. If you leave a door open to that, it’s not adequate to say, “Well, we can’t prove it’s used for that.”
Gulliford The final products of the IRIS process are reviewed by third-parties. It’s a very transparent process.
11:06 Boxer I just want to say, you’re a very good witness. GAO said it’s a black box. It is secret. Sen. Whitehouse is just reiterating what we know is the truth.
11:07 Craig I’m trying to understand the process because it seems to be the process that is under attack, not the outcome. How many premanufacturing notices has the EPA received versus notices to commence?
11:25 Whitehouse There’s nothing in the process that would prevent or disclose whether a polluter made campaign contributions, was a Pioneer or whatever, and then went to the OMB to influence this process.
Stephenson That’s our fear.
Boxer The whole spirit of this country is openness and trusting citizens with information. Noone should be in that room in the early risk assessment process except the scientists and those concerned with public health. When I go home, I hear all the time about the fears of my constituents. I wish I could tell them we’ve done a stellar job. We haven’t. This process will institutionalize this nightmare. This is a secret process. It’s a nightmare.
Walls And Waivers: Expedited Construction Of The Southern Border Wall And The Collateral Impacts On Communities And The Environment
Witnesses:
Panel I
- Rick Schultz, National Borderland Coordinator, Department of the Interior
- Ronald D. Vitiello, Chief Patrol Agent, Rio Grande Valley Sector, Office of Border Patrol, United States Customs and Border Patrol, United States Department of Homeland Security
- The Honorable Chad Foster, Mayor, City of Eagle Pass, Texas
- Ned Norris Jr., Chairman, Tohono O’odham Nation
- Juliet V. Garcia, Ph.D, President, University of Texas at Brownsville and Southmost College
- The Most Rev. Raymundo J. Pena, Bishop of Brownsville
- Betty Perez, Local private land owner
- Rosemary Jenks, Director, Government Relations, NumbersUSA
- Joan Neuhaus Schaan, Executive Director, Houston-Harris County Regional Homeland Security Advisory Council
- John McClung, President and CEO, Texas Produce Association
- Ken Merritt, Private Citizen Laura Peterson, Senior Policy Advisor, Taxpayers for Common Sense
- Zack Taylor, Supervisory Border Patrol Agent (Retired)
Lecture Hall Science, Engineering and Technology Building (SET-B) University of Texas-Brownsville
E&E News:Two House subcommittees will be in Texas today to discuss the implications of the Homeland Security Department’s decision to bypass environmental laws and begin construction of 267 miles of fence along the U.S-Mexico border.The House’s National Parks, Forests and Public Lands Subcommittee and Fisheries, Wildlife and Oceans Subcommittee will hold their joint field hearing at the University of Texas in Brownsville to hear from witnesses about the effect constructing a border fence will have on the environment and communities along the border.
Earlier this month, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced plans to use his authority under REAL ID to dismiss all environmental laws so it can finish building 470 miles of border fence by year’s end.
The waiver would allow the federal government to sidestep the National Environmental Policy Act, Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, Coastal Zone Management Act and other cultural and environmental laws and regulations.
Officials at the Lower Rio Grande National Wildlife Refuge in Texas have told Chertoff he would need to invoke his waiver authority to build the fence through the refuge, because the project would conflict with the refuge’s mission to protect important cross-border wildlife migration corridors.
Chertoff has previously invoked environmental exemptions for two other sections of the fence. The most recent waiver is by far the largest to date (Land Letter, April 3).
“The decision to invoke a waiver for fence construction will devastate the region and is an insult to those of us who live near the border,” Parks Subcommittee Chairman Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) said last week. “This administration believes that it is above the laws that protect the environment, health and human safety of border communities.”
Defenders of Wildlife and the Sierra Club have challenged the REAL ID provision in court, and 14 members of Congress, including the chairmen of the Energy & Commerce, Homeland Security, Judiciary, Transportation, Rules, Intelligence, Veterans Affairs and Education and Labor committees, have indicated they wish to file an amicus curiae brief asking the Supreme Court to hear the case (E&E Daily, April 8).
The hearing will also touch on Grijalva’s H.R. 2593, to allow DHS to determine the best approach to securing a particular area of the border, ranging from fences to detection technologies such as cameras and sensors to other options, and calls for full public input. It would also fund mitigation initiatives to address environmental impacts. It would also repeal the wavier authority granted to Chertoff under REAL ID.
Biofuels, Land Conversion and Climate Change
Are all biofuels equal in terms of their capacity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions relative to the use of gasoline? If not, what factors determine which biofuels have greater capacity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions? What is the most reliable method of measuring a biofuel’s effectiveness for reducing greenhouse gas emissions? What role does land conversion make in determining the effectiveness of biofuels in reducing greenhouse gas emissions? Which biofuels of the future are likely to result in maximal reductions in greenhouse gas emissions? How close are we to that future?
Moderator:- Dr. Anthony Socci, Senior Science Fellow, American Meteorological Society
- Dr. Joseph E. Fargione, Regional Science Director, The Nature Conservancy, Central US Region, Minneapolis, MN
- Timothy Searchinger, Visiting Scholar and Lecturer in Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton, NJ
- Dr. Daniel M. Kammen, Class of 1935 Distinguished Professor of Energy, Professor in the Energy and Resources Group Energy and Resources Group (ERG) , Professor of Public Policy in the Goldman School of Public Policy, Professor of Nuclear Engineering in the Department of Nuclear Engineering, and Co-Director, Berkeley Institute of the Environment, and Founding Director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory (RAEL), University of California, Berkeley, CA
- Dr. G. David Tilman, Regents’ Professor and McKnight Presidential Chair in Ecology, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN
Program Summary
Biofuels: Threats and Opportunities
- It is possible to make biofuels that reduce carbon emissions, but only if we ensure that they do not lead to additional land clearing.
- When land is cleared for agriculture, carbon that is locked up in the plants and soil is released through burning and decomposition. The carbon is released as carbon dioxide, which is an important greenhouse gas, and causes further global warming.
- Converting rainforests, peatlands, savannas, or grasslands to produce food crop–based biofuels in Brazil, Southeast Asia, and the United States creates a “biofuel carbon debt” by releasing 17 to 420 times more carbon dioxide than the annual greenhouse gas reductions that these biofuels would provide by displacing fossil fuels.
- Depending on future biofuel production, the effects of this clearing could be significant for climate change: globally, there is almost three times as much carbon locked up in the plants and soils of the Earth as there is in the air and 20% of global carbon dioxide emissions come from land use change.
- Global demand for food is expected to double in the next 50 years and is unlikely to be met entirely from yield increases, thus requiring significant land clearing. If existing cropland is insufficient to meet imminent food demands, then any dedicated biofuel crop production will necessarily create demand for additional cropland to be cleared.
- Several forms of biofuels do not cause land clearing, including biofuels made from algae, from waste biomass, or from biomass grown on degraded and abandoned agricultural lands planted with perennials.
Present Generation of Biofuels: Reducing or Enhancing Greenhouse Gas Emissions?
Previous studies have found that substituting biofuels for gasoline will reduce greenhouse gasses because growing the crops for biofuels sequesters takes carbon out of the air that burning only puts back, while gasoline takes carbon out of the ground and puts it into the air. These analyses have typically not taken into consideration carbon emissions that result from farmers worldwide converting forest or grassland to produce biofuels, or that result from farmers worldwide responding to higher prices and converting forest and grassland into new cropland to replace the grain (or cropland) diverted to biofuels. Our revised analysis suggests that greenhouse gas emissions from the land use changes described above, for most biofuels that use productive land, are likely to substantially increase over the next 30 years. Even advanced biofuels from biomass, if produced on good cropland, could have adverse greenhouse gas effects. At the same time, diverting productive land raises crop prices and reduces consumption among the 2.8 billion people who live on less than $2 per day.
Simply avoiding biofuels produced from new land conversion – as proposed by a draft European Union law – does not avoid these global warming emissions because the world’s farmers will replace existing crops or cropland used for biofuels by expanding into other lands. The key to avoiding greenhouse gas emissions and hunger from land use change is to use feedstocks that do not divert the existing productive capacity of land – whether that production stores carbon (as in forest and grassland) or generates food or wood products. Waste products, including municipal and slash forest waste from private lands, agricultural residues and cover crops provide promising opportunities. There may also be opportunities to use highly unproductive grasslands where biomass crops can be grown productively, but those opportunities must be explored carefully.
Biofuels and a Low-Carbon Economy
The low-carbon fuel standard is a concept and legal requirement in California and an expanding number of states that targets the amount of greenhouse gases produced per unit of energy delivered to the vehicle, or carbon intensity. In January 2007, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed Executive Order S-1-07, which called for a 10-percent reduction in the carbon intensity of his state’s transportation fuels by 2020. A research team in which Dr. Kammen participated developed a technical analysis of low-carbon fuels that could be used to meet that mandate. That analysis employs a life-cycle, “cradle to grave” analysis of different fuel types, taking into consideration the ecological footprint of all activities included in the production, transport, storage, and use of the fuel.
Under a low-carbon fuel standard, fuel providers would track the “global warming intensity” (GWI) of their products and express it as a standardized unit of measure—the amount of carbon dioxide equivalent per amount of fuel delivered to the vehicle (gCO2e/MJ). This value measures vehicle emissions as well as other trade-offs, such as land-use changes that may result from biofuel production. For example, an analysis of ethanol shows that not all biofuels are created equal. While ethanol derived from corn but distilled in a coal-powered refinery is in fact worse on average than gasoline, some cellulosic-based biofuels – largely those with little or no impact on agricultural or pristine lands have the potential for a dramatically lower GWI.
Equipped with detailed measurements that relate directly to the objectives of a low-carbon fuel standard, policy makers are in a position to set standards for a state or nation, and then regulate the value down over time. The standard applies to the mix of fuels sold in a region, so aggressively pursuing cleaner fuels permits some percentage of more traditional, dirtier fuels to remain, a flexibility that can enhance the ability to introduce and enforce a new standard.
The most important conclusions from this analysis are that biofuels can play a role in sustainable energy future, but the opportunities for truly low-carbon biofuels may be far more limited than initially thought. Second, a low-carbon economy requires a holistic approach to energy sources – both clean supply options and demand management – where consistent metrics for actual carbon emissions and impacts are utilized to evaluate options. Third, land-use impacts of biofuel choices have global, not just local, impact, and a wider range of options, including, plug-in hybrid vehicles, dramatically improved land-use practices including sprawl management and curtailment, and greatly increased and improved public transport all have major roles to play.
Biofuels and Greenhouse Gas Emissions: A Better Path Forward
The recent controversy over biofuels notwithstanding, the US has the potential to meet the legislated 21 billion gallon biofuel goal with biofuels that, on average, exceed the targeted reduction in greenhouse gas release, but only if feedstocks are produced properly and biofuel facilities meet their energy demands with biomass.
A diversity of alternative feedstocks can offer great GHG benefits. The largest GHG benefits will come from dedicated perennial crops grown with low inputs of fertilizer on degraded lands, and especially from those crops that increase carbon storage in soil (e.g., switchgrass, mixed species prairie, and Miscanthus). These may offer 100% or perhaps greater reductions in GHG relative to gasoline. Agricultural and forestry residues, and dedicated woody crops, including hybrid poplar and traditional pulp-like operations, should achieve 50% GHG reductions.
In contrast, if biofuel production leads to direct or indirect land clearing, the resultant carbon debt can negate for decades or longer any greenhouse gas benefits a biofuel could otherwise provide. Current legislation, which is outcome based, has anticipated this problem by mandating GHG standards for current and next generation biofuels.
Biographies
Dr. Joseph E. Fargione is the Regional Science Director for The Nature Conservancy’s Central US Region. He received his doctorate in Ecology from the University of Minnesota in 2004. Prior to the joining The Nature Conservancy, he held positions as Assistant Research Faculty at the University of New Mexico (Biology Department), Assistant Professor at Purdue University (Departments of Biology and Forestry and Natural Resources), and Research Associate at the University of Minnesota (Departments of Applied Economics and Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior).
His work has focused on the benefits of biodiversity and the causes and consequences of its loss. Most recently, he has studied the effect of increasing demand for biofuels on land use, wildlife, and carbon emissions. He has authored 18 papers published in leading scientific journals, including Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the Royal Society, Ecology, and Ecology Letters, and he was a coordinating lead author for the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment chapter titled “Biodiversity and the regulation of ecosystem services.” His recent paper in Science, “Land clearing and the biofuel carbon debt” was covered in many national media outlets, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio, NBC Nightly News, and Time Magazine.
Timothy Searchinger is a Visiting Scholar and Lecturer in Public and International Affairs at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School. He is also a Transatlantic Fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, and a Senior Fellow at the Georgetown Environmental Law and Policy Institute. Trained as a lawyer, Dr. Searchinger now works primarily on interdisciplinary environmental issues related to agriculture.
Timothy Searchinger previously worked at the Environmental Defense Fund, where he co-founded the Center for Conservation Incentives, and supervised work on agricultural incentive and wetland protection programs. He was also a deputy General Counsel to Governor Robert P. Casey of Pennsylvania and a law clerk to Judge Edward R. Becker of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He is a graduate, summa cum laude, of Amherst College and holds a J.D. from Yale Law School where he was Senior Editor of the Yale Law Journal.
Timothy Searchinger first proposed the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program to USDA and worked closely with state officials to develop programs that have now restored one million acres of riparian buffers and wetlands to protect important rivers and bays. Searchinger received a National Wetlands Protection Award from the Environmental Protection Agency in 1992 for a book about the functions of seasonal wetlands of which he was principal author. His most recent writings focus on the greenhouse gas emissions from biofuels, and agricultural conservation strategies to clean-up nutrient runoff. He is also presently writing a book on the effects of agriculture on the environment and ways to reduce them.
Dr. Daniel M. Kammen, Class of 1935 Distinguished Professor in the Energy and Resources Group (ERG), in the Goldman School of Public Policy and in the Department of Nuclear Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also the founding Director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory (RAEL) and Co-Director of the Berkeley Institute of the Environment.
Previously in his career, Dr. Kammen was an Assistant Professor of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, and also played a key role in developing the interdisciplinary Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy (STEP) Program at Princeton as STEP Chair from 1997 – 1999. In July of 1998 Kammen joined ERG as an Associate Professor of Energy and Society.
Dr. Kammen received his undergraduate degree in physics from Cornell University (1984), and his masters and doctorate in physics from Harvard University (1986 & 1988) for work on theoretical solid state physics and computational biophysics. First at Caltech and then as a Lecturer in Physics and in the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, Dr. Kammen developed a number of projects focused on renewable energy technologies and environmental resource management.
Dr. Kammen’s research interests include: the science, engineering, and policy of renewable energy systems; health and environmental impacts of energy generation and use; rural resource management, including issues of gender and ethnicity; international R&D policy, climate change; and energy forecasting and risk analysis. He is the author of over 200 peer-reviewed journal publications, a book on environmental, technological, and health risks, and numerous reports on renewable energy and development. He has also been a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.
Dr. G. David Tilman is Regents’ Professor and McKnight Presidential Chair in Ecology at the University of Minnesota. He is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences, and has served on editorial boards of nine scholarly journals, including Science. He serves on the Advisory Board for the Max Plank Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena, Germany. He has received the Ecological Society of America’s Cooper Award and its MacArthur Award, the Botanical Society of America’s Centennial Award, the Princeton Environmental Prize and was named a J. S. Guggenheim Fellow. He has written two books, edited three books, and published more than 200 papers in the peer-reviewed literature, including more than 30 papers in Science, Nature and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. The Institute for Scientific Information recently designated him as the world’s most highly cited environmental scientist of the decade.
Dr. Tilman’s recent research explores how managed and natural ecosystems can sustainably meet human needs for food, energy and ecosystem services. A long-term focus of his research is on the causes, consequence and conservation of biological diversity, including using biodiversity as a tool for biofuel production and climate stabilization through carbon sequestration. His work on renewable energy examines the full environmental, energetic and economic costs and benefits of alternative biofuels and modes of their production.