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PEEReview
A Publication of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility
Fall
2008
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5
Mad Offshore Drilling Dash
W
ith cries of “Drill, Baby, Drill” still echoing
from the floor of the Republican Convention, Congress reconvened and rescinded
the 1981 moratorium on drilling off America’s coasts.
The result of this policy shift opens the long-closed
coasts of California, Oregon and Washington in the
West, and Florida, the Carolinas, Virginia, Maryland,
Delaware and New Jersey, in the East, to petroleum
development.
Despite vows to do so in an “environmentally responsible manner” offshore drilling is an inherently
dirty business. Besides the risks of catastrophic spills
both from drilling or, more likely, crude transport (the
source of one-third of all spills), oil and gas activities pollute surrounding waters with a witches’ brew
of contaminated cuttings (these “drilling muds” typically contain arsenic, cadmium, benzene and mercury)
dumped in areas teeming with marine life.
These activities also emit
huge amounts of greenhouse
gases and volatile organic
compounds into the atmosphere. Seismic guns and
towed-arrays used in exploration and associated ship
traffic harm and harass marine wildlife, from whales to
polar bears. The ships and
equipment also introduce
exotic species into often
pristine waters.
These effects are compounded by the almost complete
breakdown in the federal
regulatory apparatus charged
with protecting the environment. Permit conditions to
minimize or mitigate harm
INSIDE
X
X
X
often are unenforceable or inadequate. For example,
use of seismic equipment is supposed to be delayed if
whales are spotted but is routinely deployed at night
and in fog or weather conditions where no whale could
be spotted.
Monitoring environmental effects is left to industry as
the federal agencies make no effort to collect or even
spot-check industry data. Moreover, the agencies are
impotent when the industry refuses to monitor or submit data.
The alphabet soup of federal agencies has been captured by the oil industry. In one key agency, a string
of top Minerals Management Service executives have
continued on page 12
Sex, Drugs & Royalties
PEER has harped on the integrity breakdown
within Interior Department agencies, especially those dealing with Big Oil. So we were not
shocked by an Inspector General report that key
Interior staff running a multi-billion dollar royalty-in-kind program were sleeping with oil company lobbyists and having frequent snorts (both
powder and liquid) with petroleum execs during
ski trips and golf outings.
Here is how bad it is -• A new GAO report says Interior may
be losing taxpayers billions each year because it does not bother to check industry
documents or actually inspect well outputs;
• Another $20 to $50 billion may have
been looted from taxpayer pockets in
sweetheart Gulf leases; and
continued on page 12
Surrender on the Little Bighorn, page 4
Mud Wrestling with the Pentagon, page 6
Battling the Growing Gulf Dead Zone, page 11
From the Executive Director
Transition to Nowhere?
T
wo of the most sobering words in the English language might be – President Palin. That prospect also
illustrates that it is an open question whether the next
election will transform environmental policy out of its current doldrums.
Recent events do not inspire confidence that a bright new
day is about to dawn. Truth be told, the biggest environmental policy change produced this year by a Democratic
Congress was to open America’s coasts to offshore drilling.
Similarly, an utter breakdown in the budget process meant
that Democrats forfeited the means to check an array of lame
duck Bush initiatives. Passing a continuing resolution instead of detailed appropriations bills allows Bush operatives
to shift funds and gut programs without constraint. As a
result, committee chairpersons fulminate impotently as proposed regulations to hobble the Endangered Species Act and
cripple workplace safety regulations move to finalization.
reversed by a new Democratic president who may be beset
with financial and foreign policy crises is anyone’s guess.
For its first two years, the Clinton presidency was “blessed”
with a Democratic Congress but those two years were most
notable for their lack of achievement and gridlock, not unlike the current session.
Among the initiatives being shelved in the final days of the
110th Congress is strengthening whistleblower remedies
and extending legal protections to government scientists. It
bodes ill if the 111th Congress does not finish this work,
leaving the public’s paid experts gagged and unable to speak
candidly.
Our job is to help public servants speak truth to power. We
are working to enable activists and reformers inside the
agencies to safely and effectively assist in the executive
transition and advise on legislative proposals. The change
we need depends on being able to hear unvarnished truth.
— Jeff Ruch
Whether or when any of these pernicious initiatives will be
Mission Statement
PEER protects public employees who protect our environment. We are a service organization for local, state, federal
and tribal law enforcement officers, scientists, land managers and other professionals dedicated to upholding
environmental laws and values. Through PEER, public servants can choose to work as “anonymous activists” so
that public agencies must confront the message, rather than the messenger.
PEER Refuge Keeper • P.O. Box 359 Aurora, NY 13026
tel: 315-364-7495 fax: 315-364-7810 email: [email protected]
PEER DC Headquarters Staff
Florida PEER • P.O. Box 14463 Tallahassee, FL 32317-4463
tel: 850-877-8097 fax: 850-942-5264 email: [email protected]
Executive Director • Jeff Ruch
Associate Director • Carol Goldberg
Legal • Paula Dinerstein & Adam Draper
Development • Angela Welsh
Membership • Debbie Davidson
PEEReview Layout • Dana Serovy
New England PEER • P.O. Box 574 North Easton, MA 02356
tel: 508-230-9933 fax: 508-230-2110 email: [email protected]
PEER Board
California PEER • PO Box 4057, Georgetown, CA 95634
tel: 530-333-2545 fax: 530-333-1113 email: [email protected]
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tel: 303-316-0809 fax: 303-322-4689 email: [email protected]
Southwest PEER •738 N. 5th Ave., #210, Tucson AZ 85705
tel: 520-906-2159 email: [email protected]
Tennessee PEER • 4443 Pecan Valley Road Nashville, TN 37218
tel: 615-313-7066 email: [email protected]
Alaska Forum for Environmental Responsibility
P.O. Box 188 Valdez, AK 99686 tel: 907-835-5460 fax: 907-835-5410
2
Chair • Howard Wilshire (USGS, retired)
Vice-Chair • Magi Shapiro (Army Corps, retired)
Member • Frank Buono (National Park Service, retired)
Member • Louis Clark (G.A.P. President)
Member • Dr. Adam Finkel (former OSHA Executive)
PEEReview is the quarterly newslettter of
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility
2000 P Street, NW • Suite 240 • Washington, D.C. 20036
tel: 202-265-7337 • fax: 202-265-4192
email: [email protected] • website: http://www.peer.org
PEEReview
Army Corps of Engineers
Kayaking the Mighty L.A. River
I
n an unexpected move to protect Western rivers, the Environmental Protection Agency has taken jurisdiction
away from the Army Corps of Engineers
to determine whether two rivers are covered by the Clean Water Act. The move
by EPA trumps recent steps by the Corps
to severely diminish federal safeguards for
the Los Angeles River and Arizona’s Santa
Cruz River systems.
In an unusual August 17 letter, EPA Assistant Administrator Ben Grumbles informed
his counterpart overseeing the Corps,
Assistant Army Secretary John Woodley,
that –
“I am designating the Los Angeles
and Santa Cruz Rivers as Special
Cases…and therefore EPA Headquarters will make the final determination of their jurisdictional status
under the CWA [Clean Water Act].”
At the urging of the National Association
of Homebuilders, the Corps had sent signals that it would radically narrow its standard for whether rivers that flow intermittently should be protected. PEER activists
helped engineer this reversal, as well as
sparking congressional calls for reviewing
a series of Corps actions jeopardizing wetlands, streams and other waters. Reform
of the Clean Water Act will be high on the
agenda of the next Congress.
Yukon Flats Wins Reprieve
In the past two issues we alerted
you about a pending land exchange that would open one of
North America’s greatest waterfowl
breeding grounds to widespread oil
and gas development. That proposed land exchange in the middle
of the Yukon Flats National Wildlife
Refuge has been put on hold because Interior’s Office of Land Appraisals (created following a PEER
campaign five years ago) found
that the exchange was nowhere
close to being of equal value – a
polite way of saying it is a taxpayer
rip-off.
Fall 2008
Paddling for Protection. Protesters kayaking portions of the L.A. River the Corps had stripped of
“Traditional Navigable Waterway” status, thus becoming ineligible for CWA protection.
Whistleblower Victory on Nevada Mine
A federal review panel has ruled that the
U.S. Bureau of Land Management illegally dismissed a manager overseeing the
cleanup of a huge toxic mine site for raising serious worker safety, radiation, air and
water pollution concerns. This decision
represents a rare pro-whistleblower verdict
from the Bush administration.
Earle Dixon, the Project Manager for the
Anaconda Mine at Yerington, Nevada,
clashed with top BLM officials for raising
public health issues that would drive up
clean-up costs and raise political hackles. As a result,
BLM removed Dixon from
his position one day before
his probationary period ended, over objections of his direct supervisors.
The Anaconda Mine is an
abandoned copper mine
covering more than 3,600
acres where acid run-off and
waste rock containing low
levels of uranium, thorium
and other toxic metals have
been deposited in unlined
ponds. Dixon pursued persistent clean-up failings and
his concerns were validated when the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency stepped
in and took control of the site under the
Superfund law, shortly after Dixon was
removed.
“I’m glad to have this vindication and
achieve closure on this matter,” stated Earle Dixon, who continues to oversee toxic
clean-up operations for a state agency.
PEER and attorney Mick Harrison represented Dixon throughout his legal challenge.
Vindication. Earle Dixon, shown above one of Anaconda’s
toxic ponds, put his job on the line to sound alarms that were
finally heeded.
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National Park Service
Park Service Waves White Flag on Last Stand Hill
F
acing a lawsuit by PEER, the National Park Service has
abandoned a controversial plan to build a theater at the base
of Last Stand Hill on the Little Bighorn Battlefield National
Monument. PEER’s federal suit on behalf of retired battlefield
superintendents and NPS historians contends the plan violates environmental and historic preservation laws.
In a August 19th announcement, NPS Regional Director Michael
Snyder seemed to agree:
“Sometimes you just have to admit that you didn’t do your
homework as well as you might have thought…that is really the case here…we’ve concluded there are other ways
that we can achieve those goals without encroaching further
onto the battlefield.”
“Well, it looks like we won’t be seeing them in court,” said PEER
Senior Counsel Paula Dinerstein, noting that the battlefield’s General Management Plan has long called for removing the old visitor center altogether because it is a major intrusion on the historic
landscape and replacing it with an off-site facility. “We and our
clients will be watching closely to make sure that the Park Service
Mail Call for Rep. Brown
In the last issue, we detailed how U.S. Representative
Henry Brown (R-SC) has, for four years, avoided paying a fine for letting a fire on his land burn out of control
onto a national forest. After pressure from PEER, on
March 12, 2008, the U.S. Forest Service finally issued
a notice of indebtedness by certified mail against Rep.
Brown charging him for the cost of putting out the fire
with interest for ignoring earlier billings.
But that certified letter was intercepted. It took us another month to find out who gave that order. A top Bush
political appointee and former timber lobbyist, Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey, gave the order because,
according to a memo obtained by PEER –
“Mark Rey would be testifying before a U.S.
House of Representatives committee of which
Henry Brown was a member and Mark Rey did
not want Henry Brown to receive the Notice of
Indebtedness. I told [him] I would do my best to
retrieve the letter.”
The letter was returned and Rey promptly negotiated
a deal with Rep. Brown to waive more than $1,000 in
penalties. When confronted by reporters, Rey admitted
his role and conceded that this sort of political interference should not be a regular occurrence. Hopefully, in
the next administration it will become so irregular that it
will be unheard of.
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Last Stand Hill. Park Service has shelved a plan to build a 200-seat
theater where General George Armstrong Custer and five companies of
the 7th Cavalry were wiped out.
takes a fresh and candid look at fulfilling the vision of allowing
visitors to see the entire battlefield.”
When a Howitzer Is Not Enough
Sylvan Pass, the eastern gateway to Yellowstone National Park, is
the only place in the park system where high explosive projectiles
are used for avalanche control. A howitzer blasts snow buildups to
keep the pass open for snow coaches from Cody, Wyoming.
Following a PEER exposé, the park concluded that the hazards of
hundreds of unexploded shells buried in the snow, the dangers to
its staff (one ranger died in an avalanche while checking the road
in 1994) and the inordinate costs justified retiring the cannon and
closing Sylvan Pass from December to April.
That decision brought howls from Wyoming and intercession of
Vice President Cheney (from his undisclosed Wyoming hunting
lodge). After weeks of arm-twisting, Yellowstone relented and
will deploy the howitzers, supplemented by helicopter-dropped
charges, for another
season.
The cost?
Based upon last
year’s traffic, taxpayers will spend more
than $8,000 for every
traveler this winter
from Cody, making it
far cheaper to fly each
one – in a Lear jet.
Political Firepower.
Yellowstone howitzer crews must cross four major avalanche zones
“during high hazard to reach the gun and perform a mission”, says an
agency briefing document obtained by PEER.
PEEReview
Florida
EPA Killing the Everglades
A
long series of federal court rulings that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been derelict in protecting
the water quality of the Everglades has prompted calls for a
probe of the EPA regional operations by PEER and the Council of
Civic Associations, based in Lee County, Florida. These decisions
take EPA to task for repeatedly violating the very Clean Water Act
that it is supposed to administer, principally for allowing destruction of wetlands and other over-development.
On July 29, 2008, Miami U.S. District Judge Alan Gold excoriated
EPA, finding that the agency had shirked its duty to enforce basic
water quality standards and, in so doing, “violated its fundamental
commitment and promise to protect the Everglades” and “acted
arbitrarily and capriciously.” This is only the latest in a long series
of cases stretching back more than a decade that have all gone
against EPA.
EPA finances and is supposed to oversee the State of Florida’s
clean water program, but EPA has almost uniformly deferred to
the state even when the state’s actions have been clearly wrong.
Meanwhile, restoration of the Everglades, the largest public works
project on the nation’s docket, revolves around restoring water
quality, but official missteps have the mega-project mired in delays and uncertainty.
Sea Cowering
In our Spring issue, we profiled our lawsuit charging the U.S. Fish
& Wildlife Service (FWS) with violating the Freedom of Information Act for failing to release basic information about signage,
speed limits and other steps to prevent boat strikes, the leading
cause of death for the endangered Florida manatee.
Under threat of court order, FWS
agreed to surrender the records
and it became clear why it had not
been forthcoming. The resulting
data show a pattern of dereliction. Most striking was evidence
of widespread boater non-compliance with speed limits. A multiagency detail in Miami last Christmas confronted a Mad Max-type
scene, with law enforcement overrun by speeding boaters. Yet FWS
designated the area “adequately
protected.” Despite near-record
levels of watercraft-caused manatee deaths in recent years and a record pace so far in 2008, FWS has
signed off on more marinas and
docks, paving the way for more
speedboats in manatee habitat.
Fall 2008
Doomed Domain. The National Academies of Science finds that the
Everglades ecosystem is facing “irreversible losses to its character and
functioning” in large part due to overdevelopment.
The upshot of EPA maladministration is that Florida waters, especially in the southern portion of the state, are in perilously poor
shape. Algal blooms, fish kills, saltwater intrusion and drinking
water emergencies are becoming ever more common. PEER is
defending a state lab manager who was fired after reporting water
pollution levels in South Florida waters so bad that they were off
the chart {see PEEReview Spring ‘08}.
“Federal judges appointed by both Republican and Democratic administrations have repeatedly found EPA guilty under the highest
standard in civil jurisprudence which cannot be explained away
as mistakes or misunderstandings,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. Meanwhile, EPA Southeast Regional Administrator
Jimmy Palmer has ordered his top staff to prepare a list of achievements to justify remaining in their jobs in the next administration.
A Question of Priorities
Unwanted Souvenir. Manatee
with a propeller gouge.
In a surprise end-of-fiscal-year move, the Bush
administration announced it was axing an 18-year
program that tests for the amount of pesticides
found in fruits, vegetables, nuts and grains. The
USDA declared it could no longer afford the Agricultural Chemical Usage Program, whose data
is used by federal and state health and toxic control agencies as the basis for risk assessments
and safety standards. “We can’t do everything
we have been doing and what are we going to
get rid of?” explained a spokesman. The annual
cost of this supposedly budget-busting program
is $8 million.
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Department of Defense
Wrestling the 500-Pound Pentagon Gorilla
T
he challenge of ensuring eco-compliance by Pentagon
agencies is illustrated by their recent refusals to obey U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency clean-up orders. The
Army and Air Force are ignoring EPA findings of “imminent and
substantial threats” to public health and the environment at Fort
Meade (MD), Fort McGuire (NJ) and Tyndall Air Force Base
(FL).
Drink Deeply from Tainted Taps
Many regard perchlorate, a chemical used in rocket fuel and
munitions, as the nation’s top clean water threat. Perchlorate
now taints underground drinking water supplies in 35 states
and contaminates 153 public water systems in 26 states. The
chemical is associated with thyroid damage, particularly in
children, as well as other health effects.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is supposed to set
perchlorate safety limits, which then would guide clean-up efforts. But the Pentagon and White House have successfully
blocked EPA action for six years. In late September, EPA announced that it simply will not set a drinking water standard
for the chemical. EPA’s “preliminary regulatory determination”
was heavily edited by the White House, even excising references to studies on thyroid effects, such as lost IQ points and
behavioral problems, from childhood perchlorate exposure.
Perchlorate has become the most prominent example of the
Pentagon suppressing agency science and silencing civilian
scientists. In the absence of a national response, states, notably California and Massachusetts, have been forced to set
their own standards.
The Pentagon does not recognize EPA authority over it and has
asked the White House to intervene. In addition, the Pentagon
has rebuffed Superfund clean-up plans for 11 other military sites.
The Defense Department has more Superfund sites that any other
entity, more than 10% of the national total.
Even if it was inclined to take enforcement action, executive branch
protocols prevent EPA from suing the Pentagon for environmental violations. State agencies, however, may bring enforcement
against the military but the Pentagon has threatened to withhold
grants it is supposed to disburse for environmental oversight of
military sites to states which dare sue them. For example, after
Alabama issued a clean-up order for Camp Silbert, the Pentagon
blocked funding until the state withdrew its order.
During the Bush years, the Pentagon made repeated attempts in
Congress to obtain statutory exemptions from virtually all antipollution laws on national security grounds. PEER vigorously and
loudly opposed these efforts, which failed although the Pentagon
did win some loosening of wildlife protection laws (see sonar article on Page 7).
The Defense Department characterizes the “encroachments”
caused by environmental compliance as a threat to readiness and,
hence, national security. While the Pentagon has not been able to
offer proof of this conflict, despite three GAO reviews that failed
to find any evidence, it remains official policy. The task for PEER
in the next administration will be making the case that a national
security/environment dichotomy is not only false but also that
good stewardship actually enhances readiness and makes us more
secure.
Hangared Out to Dry
Aircraft Maintenance Hangar No. 6 on the grounds of Alaska’s
Fort Wainwright was constructed in the 1940’s but burnt down
in 2004. Base officials decided to rebuild Hangar 6 but construction was halted in June 2006 after construction crews became violently ill.
Although the Corps of Engineers work-up stated “No contaminated soils are suspected at this project location,” base veterans
knew that chemical weapons were dumped there. When the
workers broke through a cap covering a black, oily substance
they immediately required hospitalization.
Hazardous Duty. Construction workers play Russian roulette on
military bases never knowing if they will uncover a toxic nightmare.
6
To date, the workers are completely disabled and have sued the
Army for damages but the Army is denying legal responsibility,
claiming that it is a matter for state workers’ compensation. Nor
will the Army confirm whether chemical agents are the cause
for the illnesses it still regards as a “mystery”. Alaska’s state
toxicologist expects to release a report on the Hangar 6 incident
before the end of the year. Meanwhile, the Hangar 6 site has
been paved over.
PEEReview
Department of Defense
Suing the Navy to Stop Needless Carnage
A
fter repeated attempts at persuasion have failed, PEER and Wild
Fish Conservancy have filed a federal lawsuit charging that the U.S. Navy is
illegally killing marine life by setting off
scores of underwater explosive charges
each year in some of the most sensitive waters of Puget Sound.
On a regular basis, the U.S. Navy detonates
live explosives in Puget Sound waters to
provide “realistic” training for its divers in
destroying mines. Unfortunately, the detonations also blow up marine life. In one
exercise, for example, observers counted
1,000 dead fish on the surface but estimated
that up to another 5,000 fish died and sank
out of sight following a five-lb. charge set
off near Whidbey Island Naval Air Station.
The negative effects are magnified because
the navy demolition exercises usually occur in the wildlife-rich shallows of Crescent
Harbor, Port Townsend and Hood Canal.
“The Navy has been repeatedly warned
but feels it does not have to comply with
laws unless it is sued,” stated PEER Staff
Counsel Adam Draper, who also released
a series of e-mails obtained under the Freedom of Information Act showing continu-
Open Water Detonation. The Navy conducts
approximately 60 demolition exercises each
year using C4 plastic explosives, far more
powerful than dynamite, in packets ranging in
size from 2.5 to 20 lbs.
ing frustration about Navy intransigence in
the face of evidence about harm to wildlife.
“We are not trying to stop training; we are
simply trying to induce the Navy to train
responsibly.”
Since 2002, the National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service have urged the Navy to change its
practices to minimize damage to marine
life, including deploying bubble curtains to
drive away fish, using containers to muffle
blast impacts or moving exercises to less
Federally Protected Species Not Safe
from Navy. The PEER suit cites violations
of the Endangered Species Act for the threat
detonations pose to protected wildlife in the
Sound such as Chinook salmon, bull trout and
marbled murrelets (pictured).
sensitive sites such as submerged quarries
or the open ocean rather than in the Puget
Sound.
“The Navy doesn’t need to destroy Puget
Sound’s wildlife to protect us,” said Kurt
Beardslee, Executive Director of Wild Fish
Conservancy. “Juvenile salmon and the
food web of Puget Sound would be much
better protected if the Navy would simply
take the measures suggested by the government’s own scientists.”
Navy Supremacy Slated for Supreme Court
The ability of President Bush to suspend
environmental laws by simply invoking national security in the absence of any facts
to support that action will be heard by the
U.S. Supreme Court this term. The case in-
volves the Navy’s determination to deploy
low frequency sonar arrays in the Pacific
without regard to the damage caused to
marine mammals which are protected from
harassment under federal law.
Now the Navy has announced plans to open
a new, 500 square-mile Undersea Warfare
Training Range in the Atlantic off the coast
of Jacksonville, FL. This will put marine
mammals, including endangered species
such as the North Atlantic right whale, at
risk.
Collateral Damage. Killer whales and other
marine mammals risk fatal harm to their
acoustical systems by swimming too close to
Navy low-frequency sonar arrays.
Fall 2008
In the next administration, one of the key
issues for PEER will be eliminating environmental immunities for Pentagon agencies and ensuring that civilian oversight is
not trumped by trumped-up national security claims.
Coasts as No-Swim Zones. Navy says new
sonars are needed to detect North Korean
diesel submarines.
7
Environmental Protection Agency
Do Not Speak When Spoken To
T
he 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
even by its own Office of Inspector General, according to documents released by PEER.
In a June 16, 2008 e-mail, managers were asked to “remind your
staff” to comply with “these important procedures” which forbid
them from speaking with any reporters or representatives of the
Government Accountability Office or the EPA Inspector General
(IG). If contacted, EPA employees are not supposed to answer but,
instead, are to immediately refer the person to a designated public
affairs official.
“Candor has become the cardinal sin inside the current EPA,”
stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that while this
directive is of questionable legality, an agency employee risks discipline or even termination for disregarding a direct order. “There
is no longer even a token attempt at subtlety.”
EPA’s Office of Public Affairs defended the order as “standard operating procedures” to promote efficiency in responding to official
investigations, claiming that the IG “signed off on” the gag order
– a statement hotly denied by the IG. On its face, the directive ap-
pears to illegally obstruct IG and
GAO investigations.
Today, EPA has become a bunker, blocking even congressional attempts to subpoena agency
files. Following increasingly
contentious hearings, Administrator Johnson has taken to long
trips, sometimes to foreign lands,
to avoid any more appearances
on Capitol Hill. By contrast,
25 years ago EPA Administrator William Ruckelshaus proclaimed:
“EPA would operate ‘in a
fishbowl’. We will attempt to
communicate with everyone
… as openly as possible.”
While this 1983 Ruckelshaus
“fishbowl” policy was never rescinded, it clearly (or opaquely) no
longer reflects agency practice.
Half Right Whales
As profiled in previous PEEReviews, shipping speed limits and course corrections to
protect the North Atlantic right whale have
been held hostage for almost two years by
the White House at the behest of Vice President Cheney. After a relentless campaign
by PEER and other groups, the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA) is now finalizing speed limits of
10 knots (or 11.5 miles per hour) for shipping along the eastern seaboard during the
migration of right whales between Florida
and New England.
measures. “This compromised rule cuts
the margin for error razor thin. The right
whale population is at a tipping point where
any more ship strike deaths, particularly of
pregnant females, may doom the species.”
The problem is that the White House cut
back the NOAA speed zone areas considerably, bypassing coastal waters and compromising the plan’s overall effectiveness.
Massive container ships move at speeds
that do not allow the slow-moving whales
feeding at the surface to get out of the way
before being struck. “For right whales,
speed kills,” stated New England PEER
Director Kyla Bennett, a former federal
biologist, who led our four-year effort for
speed limits and other ship strike reduction
8
Peeking from the Bunker.
Playing in Traffic. Ship strikes are the leading
cause of death for the North Atlantic right whale,
considered one of the planet’s most threatened
species with 300 animals left in existence.
Life Just
Got Cheaper
Without public announcement,
EPA lowered the economic
value assigned to a human
life in its cost-benefit analyses
on the necessity for new regulations. The move makes its
harder to justify public health
measures which carry economic costs.
Overall, human life lost more
than 11% of its value (or more
than a million dollars) during
the Bush years. Economists
saw no scientific basis for the
devaluation, with one former
EPA official from H.W. Bush
administration concluding, “It
is hard to imagine that it has
other than a political motivation.” Maybe it is an inflationfighting measure.
PEEReview
Global Warming
States Off to Shaky Start on GHG
I
n the absence of federal action, a number of states have stepped
into the climate change chasm. With the exception of California (which is still developing implementation plans for its
legislation), many of the state efforts are placeholders, designed
mainly to occupy space until federal intervention.
New Jersey, which claims to be a leader in combating greenhouse
gases (GHG) that cause global warming, is a classic example.
Thus far New Jersey’s efforts have just added only hot air to the
atmosphere:
• The state missed its first major statutory milestone in implementing the emission reduction goals of its highly touted
Global Warming Response Act, leaving it with no guide
for achieving GHG reductions and no new completion date
set;
• Then it unveiled an energy plan highly reliant on importing coal-generated power, which it exempted from GHG
targets; and
• Finally, the state sat on the sideline for the first auction of
GHG allowances under the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (or RGGI) this September but Governor Jon Corzine
showed up anyway for a photo op. New Jersey will also
miss the next auction in December because it still will not
have finished its trading rules.
Dubious Victories
Within EPA we have some hard-earned wins to report but
each has a dubious quality which robs us of any triumphalism:
• Fearing a pre-election furor, EPA is temporarily
shelving two experiments that involve exposure of
infants (under 3) and school-kids to pesticides and
other noxious chemicals. These tests are reminiscent of the infamous CHEERS experiment which
PEER helped force EPA to cancel. Human subject
testing, especially with children, has been a big EPA
initiative under Bush;
• In response to a PEER-led campaign, EPA has
backed away from an effort to have celebrity or other third-party endorsements and cause-marketing
on pesticide labels {see PEEReview Winter ‘08}.
Unfortunately, the agency has left the door open for
“case-by-case” exceptions; and
• EPA has re-opened libraries it has kept shuttered
for more than two years. Some of these libraries,
however, still lack shelves and furniture and have
only limited “core reference” holdings – but at least
they are open.
While this is only incremental progress, we will take it.
Fall 2008
The RGGI system is an experiment but is not expected to have any
real short-term effect since it set GHG allowances at least 10% of
current usage, lowering that cap by 10% over ten years. All this
means that states like New Jersey can talk a big game but not have
to do any heavy lifting for the foreseeable future. In the meantime,
the federal government may finally get its act together and create a
national system which preempts state plans.
EPA Blindsides Its Own
Following last year’s landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision Massachusetts v. EPA, the Bush administration grudgingly allowed
EPA staff to start preparing national greenhouse gas regulations.
This July, EPA published an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) that was pronounced dead on arrival.
Although Administrator Stephen Johnson signed the ANPR, he
included a transmittal letter indicating his disagreement with his
own agency’s proposal. In a further departure from protocol,
he prefaced the filing with lengthy objections from other federal
agencies and then denied his own staff the opportunity to reply to
those adverse comments.
Unions representing the EPA staff that drafted the ANPR asked
PEER to distribute a letter to Johnson calling his actions “troubling
and, quite frankly, unprofessional” and urging that he allow “EPA
experts to submit responses” to opposing submissions.
Ironically, Johnson cited decision-making “transparency” as his
reason for airing opposition memos at the same time he is fighting congressional subpoenas for documents supporting his own
GHG decisions. Besides delaying any coherent response to global
warming until the next administration, these episodes aggravate
sharply deteriorating morale. This spring PEER posted a letter
from EPA employee unions which suspended any further collective bargaining with Johnson, citing a basic lack of trust.
9
PEER Perspective
Send Lawyers, Guns and Money
'
Labor Secretary Elaine Chao
On Labor Day, while America celebrated its workers,
Secretary Chao and her minions were plotting how to
subvert them. She is concocting ways to weaken workplace
safety by making it harder to assign risk posed by exposure
to toxic chemicals. These stealth rules, written with industry
consultants, are a corporate wet dream. They are also displacing 38 draft safety rules Labor is supposedly developing, on
issues ranging from crane accidents to popcorn lung. This
caps a tenure that has become radically anti-worker, causing
many to suggest that this Secretary of Labor should be re-titled
Secretary of Toil and Trouble.
&
Tom Coffin, Atlanta’s (ex?) Senior
Arborist
Atlanta has strong laws protecting its trees but the
city had no more vigorous enforcer than Coffin who issued
three times more citations than the other five arborists in his
division combined. “There’s essentially no enforcement going on, except in my region. We need to account for why,”
he said shortly after he was fired this August with no notice
and no explanation other than his services were “no longer
required.” Coffin is fighting to get his job back with a lot of
support from tree-lovers in the Peach Tree State.
'
U.S. Senator Richard Burr (R-NC)
After conservation groups won a lawsuit forcing
the Park Service to finally restrict beach driving on
Cape Hatteras National Seashore to protect endangered shorebirds and sea turtles, Burr and his congressional colleagues
introduced legislation to nullify the ruling. Burr explained
that the off-road vehicles needed to return so his constituents
could enjoy the Seashore “in a way that God meant it to be
enjoyed.” Providentially, his bill met a quick demise in the
godless U.S. Senate.
'
Idaho Fish & Game Director Cal Groen
Groen summarily demoted regional supervisor,
David Parrish, for writing a letter-to-the-editor alluding to “negative implications on Idaho’s wildlife” from a
huge proposed wind farm. “It’s a no-brainer – the footprint
…will cover prime habitat [for] sage grouse, mule deer,
antelope and other sagebrush dependent species,” he wrote,
noting the turbines will be “enormous”. A legislator favoring
the project complained to Gov. Butch Otter and Parrish was
shuffled off to Buffalo, though Fish & Game said the letter
was only “one factor.” Carl Nellis, a retired agency veteran,
10
commented “When I was a supervisor, I did that all the time.
In this case it looks like a couple of politicians are in charge
of personnel. The big fallout [is] the rest of the folks in the
agency are afraid to open their mouths because they’re afraid
they’ll be next.” Who can fight the wind? – Especially when
it blows money at politicians.
&
Mark Jorgensen, Supervisor of the
Anza-Borrego Desert State Park (CA)
California’s peninsular bighorn sheep are an endangered species which loses 90% of its lambs to disease, mostly
from contact with livestock. So it shocked many when the
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service proposed to cut its critical habitat
in half and isolate two populations. “The recovery plan has
been working...Why take out 500,000 acres of it and say that
it’s not a big deal? And that it’s based on science? Why not
come out and say it’s just politics?” asked Jorgensen who has
worked with the bighorn for 40 years. Why? Because, it’s
not politic to say it’s politics.
'
West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin
III (D)
The first time a governor intervened in a legal case
where the state was not a party occurred in August when
Gov. Manchin submitted a brief to the state Supreme Court
asking it to review a $382 million judgment against DuPont
for dumping tons of arsenic, cadmium and lead around its
Spelter zinc-smelter. Manchin claimed he was not taking
sides, even though his office used a brief written by DuPont
lawyers, who also showed the governor’s staff how to file it.
Manchin says he only wanted to make sure the issue had “a
full airing” before the court. Yet, he refuses to release e-mails
between the company and his staff while some e-mails have
been erased before they, too, could be given a full airing.
&
Former President Jimmy Carter
As president, Jimmy Carter fought the Army Corps
of Engineers, blocking plans to build three dams on
the Flint River, which runs 30 miles from his Plains hometown. Fast forward 30-plus years and two congressmen now
want dams on the Flint to create reservoirs for drought-plagued
Georgia. This summer, Carter joined a “Paddle Georgia” rally,
saying “There will be tremendous pressure to go along with
these congressmen that somehow think it’ll solve the water
problems and allow people to sprinkle their lawns seven days
a week” and concluding with this vow: “If you need my help,
I’ll be here.” Thank you, Mr. President.
PEEReview
Tennessee
Breathing Life into the Dead Zone
E
very day, the Mississippi River
carries surges of nutrient pollution
into the Gulf of Mexico, feeding a
huge dead zone where oxygen levels are so
low that no marine life can survive. Ten
years ago, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency gave the states along the
Mississippi a deadline for adopting limits
on nutrient pollution flowing into the river
or EPA would impose standards on them.
That deadline came and went and the Bush
EPA took no action.
The pollution creates problems not only in
the Gulf but the inland states are plagued
by growing algal blooms, fish kills and
threats to drinking water. Principal culprits
include sprawl, wetlands destruction, farm
and urban run-off.
Conservation groups from the nine Mississippi River states, including Tennessee
PEER, are now demanding that EPA adopt
the long overdue standards it promised.
The action forces the issue to the top of
EPA’s agenda for 2009.
Don’t Fence Me In
Wyoming Game & Fish has decided to allow four hunting outfitter camps to install
electric fences to deter bears drawn by
stored food, livestock and cooking smells.
The fences are solar powered and pack a
7,000 volt wallop (about one seventh the
jolt of a taser).
clients who are often from out-of-state and
have no experience with bears, especially
ursus horribilis (AKA, grizzly). The fences require maintenance but the state grizzly
management officer is still worried: “The
thing that scares me about this is getting
a bear inside with a bunch of dudes running around and screaming.” Sounds like a
screenplay waiting to be written.
You Have Just Entered the Dead Zone.
Stretching some 8,000 square miles, the Gulf
dead zone is the second largest in the world.
No Bending on
Bells Bend
Comings & Goings
Garbage to Go
This has been a season of changes at PEER, starting with our membership program. Justin Haas is
the new Intake Specialist for the
Lawyers Serving Warriors project of the National Veterans Legal Services Program. Replacing
Justin as membership coordinator
is Debbie Davidson who comes to
us from the Association of American Colleges & Universities.
As reported in the last issue, Tennessee PEER is leading an effort to
stop a giant development to create
a second downtown on the edge of
Nashville in a bend of the Cumberland River known as Bells Bend.
This sprawl-promoting project is
backed by a few wealthy developers and opposed by many citizens
as well as current and former government officials.
The Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area has announced
that it can no longer afford to
collect visitor trash. BLM will
phase out all its dumpsters by
January and is trying to educate the public about its new
approach with the slogan “Pack
It Home”. Litterers face up to
a thousand dollar fine and possible jail time.
In the field, we are proud but sad
to announce that the Pew Charitable Trusts has hired New Jersey
PEER Director Bill Wolfe to work
on mid-Atlantic fishery issues. Bill
has been a one-man wrecking
crew in the Garden State and we
will miss him just as much as some
state political leaders will breathe
a sigh of relief. In the interim, our
New Jersey work will shift to D.C.
Following a marathon public hearing in July, the Nashville Planning
Commission met in August to discuss and vote. They came down 10
to 0 against the project. This was a
major blow to the developers, who
somehow claimed to the press that
they “didn’t lose” since their portion
of the plan was “deferred indefinitely” and not technically denied, so
they can come back and try again.
Trash has been a big problem
on the Dunes. Whether this
attempt to instill personal responsibility works may depend
upon how vigorously no-littering rules are enforced. But this
would require BLM to channel
any savings into a law enforcement program already overwhelmed by off-road vehicle
violations.
To block this development Lazarus
rising from the dead, the community
has obtained nearly a million dollars
in grants to buy development rights
on one 118-acre farm – where two
whooping cranes spent last winter
– along with funds for conservation
easements on other area properties.
Locals are also seeking to create a
conservation district to preserve
Bells Bend’s rural character.
Game & Fish is allowing the outfitters to
deploy fencing to protect their well-heeled
Fall 2008
11
Minerals Management Service
Drilling Dash
Interior Dept.
continued from page 1
been sleeping and partying with oil lobbyists while improperly accepting industry
gifts (see accompanying story). One MMS
manager is already headed to prison with
others to follow.
At present, the oil industry enjoys extraordinary license to run rampant with no one
really watching. PEER is already working
with cadres of frustrated specialists from
the MMS, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
to expose lease and permit problems on the
Arctic Outer Continental shelf.
As the oil rush blooms offshore, we are
preparing to fill this regulatory vacuum by:
• Challenging unenforced and unenforceable permit conditions on offshore permits issued by MMS and
NOAA “consultations;”
• Pushing for analysis and consideration of cumulative impacts so that
resources are no longer piecemealed
to death; and
• Seeking to remedy dysfunction
within agency management, particularly MMS, with respect to scientific
continued from page 1
suppression, sweetheart deals and
revolving door collusion.
From these efforts, PEER hopes to ensure
independent monitoring of all drilling operations; scientific calculation of cumulative
effects; a tighter, more rigorous offshore
permit process; new, stricter limitations on
industry air, water and waste discharges;
tougher spill prevention measures in both
drilling and transport; and enactment of
agency reforms, including legal protection
for agency scientists, transparency in decision-making and
tighter revolving-door restrictions.
E
Printed on Recycled Paper
Not included in these recent reports is how
top Interior oil watchdogs are leaving in
droves and going to work for ... (wait for
it)... oil companies. The kicker is that the
same week the Inspector General concluded that Interior suffers from “a culture of
ethical failure” the U.S. Office of Government Ethics gave Interior an award for ethical achievement. Go figure...
Perhaps the next
President
and
Congress will
ignore the calls
of “Drill, Baby,
Drill” and re-enact the moratorium while adopting reforms on
their own. We
are not counting
on it.
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility
2000 P Street, NW, Suite 240
Washington, DC 20036
Return Service Requested
• As far as any environmental monitoring, forget about it (see accompanying story).
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WASHINGTON, DC
PERMIT NO. 6094