en-us 30 140 20 http://www.progressivereform.org http://www.progressivereform.org/imgs/printPageLogo.gif http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=44D92EB4-F79F-8DE3-D652FF0FB834A54A http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=44D92EB4-F79F-8DE3-D652FF0FB834A54A Mon, 6 Feb 2012 08:48:14 EST In an article in the most recent issue of The Abell Report, the newsletter of The Abell Foundation, CPR President Rena Steinzor and CPR Policy Analysts Aimee Simpson and Yee Huang take a look at what ails the Chesapeake Bay (Spoiler Alert: it involves years of inaction on pollution), and offer up a number of practical steps the state of Maryland could take to make good on its commitments to clean up this most precious of natural resources. The article draws on a day-long forum CPR co-sponsored this past October with the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, an event that gathered federal and state officials, as well as leading environmental activists from around the region. Steinzor, Simpson and Huang make the case that the reason efforts to clean up the Bay have largely failed to date is that the Bay states are fundamentally unaccountable. They write: For more than two decades, the primary Bay states (the District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia) have engaged in a series of round-robin consultations held under the auspices of the Chesapeake Bay Program. Progress was made in diagnosing the causes and implications of dead zones; diminishing crab and fish populations; algal blooms; and pollution that made rivers, lakes, creeks, and streams unusable for drinking, swimming, and boating. Individual states implemented innovative and effective pollution-control programs; glossy reports were produced; and every year, governors and the administrator of the EPA gathered for a photo op on the banks of picturesque Bay waterbodies. Despite the analyzing, meeting, planning, and talking, the Bay's health remains tenuous, and the Bay states have repeatedly failed to meet the pollution-reduction goals set during these appearances. Matt Freeman http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=44D92EB4-F79F-8DE3-D652FF0FB834A54A http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=3E932693-F5E5-965F-47BA602B12D47008 http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=3E932693-F5E5-965F-47BA602B12D47008 Thu, 2 Feb 2012 09:59:02 EST In its public meeting records, the White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) frequently misspells the names or affiliations of the attendees. Senator Jon Kyl was once listed as "Sen. Rul." And John Ikerd, affiliated with the University of Missouri (MO) and the Sierra Club, was listed as "John Ikend, University of MD/Siemen Club." Sometimes the misspelled names or affiliations are easy to figure out; other times they aren't (see page 77 of our OIRA white paper from November for more examples). The public is supposed to be able to tell who these people are - that's the whole point, transparency. The misspellings are troublesome, but a new OIRA meeting record I just noticed takes the cake for leaving the public uninformed: Why list the affiliation of the attendees at all?! The occasional typo is one thing, but when OIRA gets it wrong so regularly - or now simply leaves out the affiliations of individuals seeking to influence the outcome of public health and environmental safeguards - it's a mission-defeating problem. James Goodwin http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=3E932693-F5E5-965F-47BA602B12D47008 http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=3FF9CB09-E7F7-EB6E-DA43495189B9762D http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=3FF9CB09-E7F7-EB6E-DA43495189B9762D Fri, 3 Feb 2012 10:19:05 EST The White House announced Tuesday a legislative agenda it is sending Congress as part of its Startup America initiative to foster the growth of new businesses. The White House was under some pressure to do wrong here: the President's "Jobs Council" - a group mostly of CEOs - issued a report last month that included a perhaps unsurprising pile of old anti-regulatory proposals. And Senators Mark Warner and Jerry Moran were pushing the White House to endorse their bill, the Startup Act, which includes anti-regulatory measures that would weaken our existing environmental, health, and safety laws. But here's a bit of good news: the White House didn't include any anti-regulation measures in the Startup America legislative agenda. The document gives just a polite nod to Warner-Moran: The Administration looks forward to working with sponsors of similar initiatives including S. 1965 (Warner-Moran), S. 1866 (Coons-Rubio), S. 1544 (Tester-Toomey), S. 1933 (Schumer-Toomey), S. 1970 (Merkley-Bennet), H.R. 2930 (McHenry), H.R. 1070 (Schweikert), as well as with leaders from the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committees, including Chairwoman Landrieu, Senator Snowe, Chairman Graves and Representative Velazquez. Too often this White House has tried to appease big business on the regulatory front, even adopting anti-regulation rhetoric. This has hurt, not helped, the White House politically. And it does nothing to create jobs. So it's worth noting that the Administration got this one right. A new poll out Wednesday shows that small business owners' top concern is lack of demand (echoing previous polls). Weakening health and safety protections, on the other hand, is not popular with most of the electorate, and it hurts the public. Stalling the establishment of badly needed public safeguards and undermining federal agencies will not create new jobs. The Administration should keep that in mind, and resist pressure to endorse any anti-regulatory initiatives as it continues to work with Congress on these bills. Rena Steinzor http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=3FF9CB09-E7F7-EB6E-DA43495189B9762D http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=1A965E0D-E361-9CA4-24ADBEFA89AF0751 http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=1A965E0D-E361-9CA4-24ADBEFA89AF0751 Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:16:12 EST Today CPR releases Protecting the Public from BPA: An Action Plan for Federal Agencies (press release), outlining steps the FDA, EPA, and OSHA can take to use existing authorities to warn the public about the dangers of the chemical, and prepare longer-term regulatory controls. The paper was written by CPR Member Scholars Tom McGarity, Noah Sachs, and Rena Steinzor, and Senior Policy Analyst Matthew Shudtz and myself. Bisphenol A (BPA) makes me want to cry. Not in the sad or mournful way, but in the "I want to kick and scream on the floor and throw a tantrum like my toddler" kind of way. I didn't always feel this way. These feelings concerning BPA (an endocrine-disrupting chemical added to plastics to increase clarity and durability, and used in myriad other sources such as can linings, kitchen appliances, and water bottles) began to arise when I started working with CPR Member Scholars and fellow staff on BPA policy. The more I learned about BPA, the more I felt like its presence in my life was like mosquitoes in D.C. - a summer BBQ killjoy. Then I became a parent, and the frustration and concern escalated, because the more I found out about BPA, the more I recognized that the industries using it did not truly understand how it affected my health, but more importantly, the health of my child. Even worse, the new approaches to testing its "safety" and potential adverse health effects were churning out new evidence of its dangers. Evidence that did not fit the traditional "risk assessment" model used by health and safety regulators and thus spurred no change in protective standards. Aimee Simpson http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=1A965E0D-E361-9CA4-24ADBEFA89AF0751 http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=1607A9F5-D173-A250-0A4784FA7961A8D6 http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=1607A9F5-D173-A250-0A4784FA7961A8D6 Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:01:48 EST Last week, a reporter asked me, "How's science doing these days?," "Science" is an impossibly big category, of course, but the answer was easy: "Badly," I said. Exhibit number one is climate change. The frightening truth is that no fewer than 84 percent of scientists in this country surveyed by Pew say that the earth is warming because of human activity; 70 percent describe the problem as "very serious." Although much is made of the supposed "dissenters" on the issue, no one with any educated familiarity with the subject doubts that the vast - and I mean virtually all - scientists with meaningful credentials to understand the subject agree that precipitous climate change is happening and that curbing human-generated carbon emissions must be done to avert disasters so grave we can barely imagine them. Human beings have a hard time making sacrifices today to avert problems that seem remote, but the public's ambivalence on this subject is reinforced by a steady and effective public relations campaign by fossil fuel companies to make the science of climate change seem fraught with doubt. I am not willing to argue here that if we could only get the scientific truth straight, we could gallop across the tundra and solve this problem. How to apportion responsibility for sharply decreasing emissions between the developed and developing world is a challenge that may be the toughest we have ever faced. Not only do we lack the policymaking framework for negotiating such changes, but decades of flawed energy policies have hindered and continue to hinder the development of available and affordable solutions. But as long as we are stuck on the science - denying the consensus, elevating the few deniers to a position of equal authority as the well-informed - the short-term, self-serving concerns of a few trump the urgency of the problem for the many. What leadership can we expect from politicians of both parties as we embark on contentious, high-stakes electoral season? Rena Steinzor http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=1607A9F5-D173-A250-0A4784FA7961A8D6 http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=11578D15-CB75-1B2C-CF970D853ACFF655 http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=11578D15-CB75-1B2C-CF970D853ACFF655 Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:11:00 EST A new study underscores the wisdom of reducing the risks of mercury and other pollutants rather than relying on risk avoidance measures such as fish consumption advisories. Mercury's adverse effects are not limited to human health; its harms are felt throughout our ecosystems. According to this most recent study, released today by the Biodiversity Research Institute, mercury harms a broader swath of wildlife than previously recognized, including many bird species that are not piscivorous. This finding echoes those of studies in the Great Lakes published this fall, which concluded that a larger number of species were adversely affected by mercury contamination than previously understood by scientists. From a regulatory perspective, the harms of mercury contamination might be addressed by risk reduction - measures that require the sources of mercury pollution to reduce or prevent mercury releases into the environment - or by risk avoidance - measures that leave it to those who are exposed to protect themselves from mercury permitted to enter or remain in the environment. The EPA's recent rule regulating coal-fired power plants' mercury emissions is an example of the former approach. An example of the latter approach was the George W. Bush administration's suggestion, upon proposing an exceedingly lax rule for power plants (ultimately vacated by the D.C. Circuit), that people protect themselves from the continued mercury contamination by consulting national and local fish consumption advisories. I have elaborated the many perils of relying on risk avoidance in lieu of risk reduction elsewhere. Among the limitations of depending on risk avoidance measures such as fish consumption advisories, ozone alerts, and "keep out" signs, are the facts that these measures are unjust and ineffective in practice. They simply don't result in "the same amount" of protection for human health, as proponents of such measures hope. Catherine O'Neill http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=11578D15-CB75-1B2C-CF970D853ACFF655 http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=FB9153F2-ABFE-3CF2-8053EAF1ED929DB8 http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=FB9153F2-ABFE-3CF2-8053EAF1ED929DB8 Fri, 20 Jan 2012 09:42:27 EST For more than a century, the United States took the lead in organizing responses to international environmental problems. The long list of environmental agreements spearheaded by the United States extends from early treaties with Canada and Mexico on boundary waters and migratory birds to global agreements restricting trade in endangered species and protecting against ozone depletion. In the last two decades, however, U.S. environmental leadership has faltered. The best-known example is the lack of an effective response to climate change, underscored by the U.S. decision not to join the Kyoto Protocol. But the attention climate change receives should not obscure the fact that the United States has also failed to join a large and growing number of treaties directed at other environmental threats, including marine pollution, the loss of biological diversity, persistent organic pollutants, and trade in toxic substances. Today CPR publishes Reclaiming Global Environmental Leadership: Why the United States Should Ratify Ten Pending Environmental Treaties. My co-authors and I show the importance of ten treaties and urge the Obama Administration and Congress to work together to ratify them. Unlike the Kyoto Protocol, these treaties do not generally raise difficult partisan issues. They were all negotiated with substantial U.S. input, and they all provide clear benefits to the United States - or they would if only the United States belonged to them. John Knox http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=FB9153F2-ABFE-3CF2-8053EAF1ED929DB8 http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=F6D6344D-DC21-4E76-3129DF8D6591EBC1 http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=F6D6344D-DC21-4E76-3129DF8D6591EBC1 Thu, 19 Jan 2012 11:39:32 EST The Clean Air Act's potential to address the nation's greenhouse gas emissions is slowly being unveiled. EPA's expected announcement of highly-anticipated new source performance standards for power plants by the end of January will reveal whether the agency has the political will to use its existing authority to re-shape the United States' dependence upon high-carbon power. Section 111 of the Clean Air Act is a potentially potent tool. It arguably allows EPA to re-direct new investment away from heavily-polluting coal-fired power and toward less polluting alternatives. It also gives the agency the authority to address on-going emissions from existing power plants. Weaning the nation from its dependence on coal-fired power is essential to a new energy future. While EPA may fear the political storm generated by the prospect of change, it has the opportunity to begin a positive transformation to a more sustainable energy infrastructure. The current rulemaking initiative arose out of a lawsuit brought by states and environmental groups, who argued that EPA was required to develop nationwide performance standards for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from new and existing stationary sources. In December 2010, EPA and the plaintiffs reached a settlement that required EPA to propose performance standards for power plants and for oil refineries. Although both rulemakings have been delayed, EPA sent proposed standards for new power plants to the White House Office of Management and Budget in November 2011, and now estimates that it will be authorized to release that proposed rule in late January. We will not know the full picture of how aggressively EPA plans to use its Section 111 authority to shape the future of fossil fuel use in the electricity sector until EPA actually publishes all of the rules. In the meantime, however, the following is a guide to the issues at stake. The first critical issue is the recent decision to proceed with new source rules and delay proposals for existing sources. Critical issues for the new source rules are whether they will force a switch away from coal and whether the agency will allow facilities flexibility in meeting the new standards, through mechanisms such as emissions trading. Alice Kaswan http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=F6D6344D-DC21-4E76-3129DF8D6591EBC1 http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=ED96CCF2-A968-F5FF-98F8418454AE742D http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=ED96CCF2-A968-F5FF-98F8418454AE742D Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:34:02 EST A panel of business leaders comprising President Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness today published a "Road Map to Renewal," including proposals for expanded oil and gas drilling, and, of particular interest, five pages of policy recommendations related to regulation. Among them were procedural proposals aimed at further hamstringing regulatory agencies in their effort to promulgate badly needed safeguards for health, safety, and the environment. For example, the Council proposes: lengthening the regulatory process by adding in an additional public-comment period so that commenters can comment on other commenters' comments, requiring independent regulatory agencies be required by statute to conduct cost-benefit analyses of their regulations, presumably so that regulations that do not sufficiently benefit industry's bottom line would be rejected, and creating a group of economists within regulatory agencies, separated in some fashion from the legal and scientific issue experts, who would pass judgment on proposed regulations. It's worth noting that several of the proposals from the Jobs Council are ideas industry and its Republican allies have been pushing for a while; the cost-benefit requirement for independent agencies, for example, was included in the Regulatory Accountability Act and CURB Act, two bills popular in the GOP. The comments-on-comments concept, meanwhile, has been touted by the anti-regulation Center for Regulatory Effectiveness. All in all, the recommendations start from a false premise - that environmental, health and safety safeguards are the economy's problem - and proceed toward an unwise conclusion - building in further layers of review by economists. In fact, the regulations that industry is most distressed by already undergo a cost-benefit analysis at the agencies and then endure an industry-friendly second review at the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. As a recent CPR report demonstrates, OIRA's review is the gateway to a gross politicization of the process, one that commonly results in weaker safeguards. Further review by another team of economists will only serve to slow and weaken needed protections. Rena Steinzor http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=ED96CCF2-A968-F5FF-98F8418454AE742D http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=DE4240B8-F8B7-6436-B57CABD9667D53AB http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=DE4240B8-F8B7-6436-B57CABD9667D53AB Sat, 14 Jan 2012 17:07:09 EST Cross-posted from Legal Planet. Clearly I need to slow down Rick's internet connection to get him to stop scooping me. Rick reported earlier that the President has floated a proposal to reorganize the Commerce Department and related agencies which would apparently include moving NOAA (all of NOAA, according to OMB's Jeffrey Zeints, not just its ESA functions) into the Department of Interior. Actually, although that's the way the story is being spun out in the media, it's not exactly what's going on. What the President has really proposed is that Congress give him the authority that presidents routinely enjoyed before 1984 to reorganize and streamline government agencies. That proposal makes all kinds of sense, both substantively and politically. Substantively, of course as circumstances and societal priorities shift, government agencies should not permanently remain static. But the current Congress is so shameless and so obsessed with micromanaging the executive branch that it refuses to confirm presidential appointees if a minority objects to the agency those appointees will oversee and holds sham sessions at which no business may be conducted to try to prevent the President from making recess appointments. This Congress is not going to give President Obama what he's asking for, which makes the proposal a smart political move. It gives Obama a concrete way to campaign against the Congress, and to put the Republicans on the defensive. No doubt to maximize that political benefit, or perhaps just to tweak his most dedicated congressional opponents, the example the President is offering is the merger of a number of agencies, including many functions of the Department of Commerce, focused on business and trade. Those, of course, are typically viewed as higher Republican than Democratic priorities. Obama asserted in his remarks today that the changes he wants authority to make respond directly to feedback that what businesses really hate in dealing with government is not the fact of regulation but "a system that [is] too much of a maze." Holly Doremus http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=DE4240B8-F8B7-6436-B57CABD9667D53AB http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=CD2BE23B-CAB2-F5DA-04F6391BA069730F http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=CD2BE23B-CAB2-F5DA-04F6391BA069730F Wed, 11 Jan 2012 09:29:04 EST Cross-posted from Legal Planet. As usual, I'm behind Rick on commenting on the latest Supreme Court development. (In my defense, it is the first day of classes, although I know that's not much of an excuse.) Unlike Rick, I didn't attend the oral argument (see lame excuse above), but having read the transcript I agree with the general consensus that EPA is going to lose this case. However, I don't agree with Rick's conclusion that "the Sacketts will wind up winning their long legal battle with federal regulators." That remains to be seen. Remember, this is all a preliminary skirmish. EPA has said at this point that it believes the Sacketts are in violation of the Clean Water Act. Sacketts disagree, and think they should be able to challenge EPA's view without waiting for EPA to bring an enforcement action against them. The lower courts said no to that. The Supreme Court seems certain to reverse, but all that means is that Sacketts will get their day in court. If EPA is right, Sacketts will still not be able to fill their parcel without a permit, and they'll still be subject to EPA's order that they remove the fill and restore the property. Three other things I take away from my read of the transcripts. 1. This decision is going to be statutory, based on the Administrative Procedure Act and Clean Water Act. The Court showed no interest in the due process claim, which it doesn't need to reach if it holds there is a statutory right of pre-enforcement review. Holly Doremus http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=CD2BE23B-CAB2-F5DA-04F6391BA069730F http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=C8127954-DE46-74A8-0A1A145E668A93FF http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=C8127954-DE46-74A8-0A1A145E668A93FF Tue, 10 Jan 2012 09:43:12 EST On Monday, GAO released its latest installment in what has become a somewhat regular series of reports on EPA's Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program. In 2008, GAO warned that "the IRIS database was at serious risk of becoming obsolete because the agency had not been able to keep its existing assessments current, decrease its ongoing assessments workload to a manageable level, or complete assessments of the most important chemicals of concern." Although IRIS didn't get a clean bill of health, this new report highlights some important improvements in the last few years. To begin, GAO praised EPA for its decision to start publishing comments that other agencies submit during interagency review of draft IRIS documents. The interagency review process was first instituted during the Bush Administration and because it was originally run by OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), often resulted in long delays for draft chemical assessments. One of the biggest problems was that it gave agencies like NASA, DOD, and DOE - whose budgets and operations could be impacted by further regulation of toxic chemicals - a privileged opportunity to shape EPA's risk assessments. Now that interagency review is run by EPA, which has better policies on transparency than OIRA, we at least get an opportunity to see the other agencies' comments and judge them on their merits. Of course, as we've said before, the interagency review process ought to be scrapped. The IRIS process needs to be streamlined and the best thing to do would be to combine the recursive review periods into a single comment period for all stakeholders, be they government agencies, chemical manufacturers, or public interest groups. Doing so could help speed up the publication of new assessments. Matt Shudtz http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=C8127954-DE46-74A8-0A1A145E668A93FF http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=C2E51045-FD08-D886-159878EF37A7536D http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=C2E51045-FD08-D886-159878EF37A7536D Mon, 9 Jan 2012 09:35:59 EST If environmental cases had their own Olympics, the dispute between Chevron and Ecuador would be a contender for multiple gold medals. It seems to have a shot not only at winning the award for the largest damages, but also for running the longest and appearing in the most courtrooms. To recap: Residents of the Amazon have been trying for nearly 20 years to receive compensation for massive environmental damage Chevron's predecessor, Texaco, allegedly caused in Ecuador in what's been called the "Rainforest Chernobyl." In February, their efforts culminated in an $8.6 billion judgment by an Ecuadorian court against Chevron. Chevron attacked the decision on several fronts, including by appealing to a higher Ecuadorian court and by suing the plaintiffs in U.S. federal court to stop them from enforcing the judgment. Last week, Chevron suffered setbacks in both courts. On Tuesday, the Ecuadorian appellate court affirmed the judgment. If Chevron doesn't publicly apologize to Ecuador, the award will be doubled, to nearly $18 billion. Chevron responded by saying that the decision "is another glaring example of the politicization and corruption of Ecuador's judiciary that has plagued this fraudulent case from the start." As I've noted before, this is ironic. The plaintiffs originally sued in U.S. federal court, and it was Chevron (still Texaco at the time) that persuaded the court to dismiss the case in favor of the Ecuadorian judicial system. In response to the plaintiffs' warnings that Ecuadorian courts were "subject to corrupt influences" and "incapable of acting impartially," Chevron persuaded Judge Rakoff in the Southern District of New York and, on appeal, the Second Circuit, that Ecuadorian courts would be just fine. Chevron had argued (among other things) that "because these cases will be the subject of close public and political scrutiny, as confirmed by the Republic's involvement in the litigation, there is little chance of undue influence being applied." Oh well, Chevron might add today, we were mistaken about that. Oops. John Knox http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=C2E51045-FD08-D886-159878EF37A7536D http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=C36DC41F-FF4B-40D5-937E8307EB6FFCC8 http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=C36DC41F-FF4B-40D5-937E8307EB6FFCC8 Mon, 9 Jan 2012 12:04:52 EST With a reverential nod to maverick economist Jeff Madrick, who wrote a popular book of the same name, I begin today a series of blog posts entitled "The Age of Greed" that is designed to shine a bright spotlight into the dark corners where Washington lobbyists are busy looting the protection of public health, worker and consumer safety, and the environment. Business-as-usual efforts to stall or derail regulation won't make it into this space. Rather, behavior has to be demonstrably and extraordinarily egregious to qualify for ridicule here. My first candidate: The largely successful efforts by the American Chemistry Council (ACC) and the American Forest and Paper Association (AFPA) to derail the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) study of the devastating health effects of dioxin - you read that right, dioxin! - for more than two decades, capped last week by its letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson deliberately misreading an appropriations rider in the Omnibus budget bill as a further excuse to suppress this basic science. Everyone knows dioxin is terrible stuff. The chemical first became a household word in the 1970s when Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange staggered home with the symptoms of dioxin exposure, among other debilitating health effects. In 2006, the National Research Council (NRC), normally a staid, hide-bound group of blue ribbon scientists more accustomed to scolding EPA than supporting it, opened its report on EPA's star-crossed, two-decade effort to issue a final dioxin assessment under its Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program as follows: 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD), also called dioxin, is among the most toxic anthropogenic substance ever identified. TCDD and a number of similar polychlorinated dioxins, dibenzofurans, and coplanar polychlorinated biphenyls (dioxin-like compounds [DLCs]) have been the subject of intense scientific research and frequently controversial environmental and health policies. Animal studies have demonstrated potent effects of TCDD, other dioxins, and many DLCs on tumor development, birth defects, reproductive abnormalities, immune dysfunction, dermatological disorders, and a plethora of other adverse effects. Because of their persistence in the environment and their bioaccumulative potential, TCDD, other dioxins, and DLCs are now ubiquitous environmental pollutants and are detected at low concentrations in virtually all organisms at higher trophic levels in the food chain, including humans. Inadvertent exposures of humans through industrial accidents, occupational exposures to commercial compounds (primarily phenoxyacid herbicides), and through dietary pathways have led to a wide range of body burdens of TCDD, other dioxins, and DLCs, and numerous epidemiological studies have attempted to relate exposures to a variety of adverse effects in humans. Rena Steinzor http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=C36DC41F-FF4B-40D5-937E8307EB6FFCC8 http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=A3E4AEDB-B39B-CE32-808184A475107122 http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=A3E4AEDB-B39B-CE32-808184A475107122 Tue, 3 Jan 2012 09:07:38 EST It's my great pleasure to announce that the Board of Directors of CPR has selected Jake Caldwell to serve as our new executive director. He succeeds Shana Jones, who earlier this year announced she would be leaving CPR to teach environmental policy at Old Dominion University. Jake comes to CPR after six years at the Center for American Progress, where he was the Director of Policy for Agriculture, Trade and Energy. His research and writing in that capacity frequently focused on environmental issues, including climate change regulation, renewable energy financing, clean energy and conservation, biofuel production and more. From November 2008 to January 2009, Jake served as a member of President Obama's Transition Team, in the Energy and Natural Resources Section of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Agency Review. He has served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law, teaching a course on International Environmental Law and Trade. Jake has also worked with the Clinton Global Initiative's Global Poverty Working Group and the National Wildlife Federation, among others. Jake brings a wealth of experience to CPR with the environmental and regulatory issues that are the core of our work, and knows how to make scholarship influential in the political and policymaking process. I know CPR will grow and flourish with his leadership. He will assume his new position next week. I'll end with the warmest farewell to Shana Jones. Shana presided over a period of significant growth for the organization, in its resources, its base of Member Scholars, and its staffing. Significantly, that growth came at a time when many nonprofits were forced by the recession to make cutbacks. She's done wonderful work for the organization, and we're stronger, smarter and faster for her leadership. We all appreciate her hard work and know she will excel in the work that awaits her. Rena Steinzor http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=A3E4AEDB-B39B-CE32-808184A475107122 http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=A706AFFB-D70B-9B5D-C6405D7D8237CEF9 http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=A706AFFB-D70B-9B5D-C6405D7D8237CEF9 Wed, 4 Jan 2012 07:53:11 EST On January 9th, the Supreme Court will hear Sackett v. EPA, which concerns whether an individual has a right to a judicialhearing before, rather than after, an agency finalizes a so-called administrative compliance order. The case has important potential to undermine the environmental protection, including the government's ability to promptly respond to environmental threats such as factory outfalls leaking pollutants into rivers. The lawsuit involves an Idaho couple, Chantell and Mike Sackett, with a .63 acre property overlooking Priest Lake, Idaho. The Sacketts cleared and filled about a half acre of the property with gravel to ready it for building a house. EPA officials discovered the fill and notified the couple that they had filled a "jurisdictional wetland," meaning a wetland covered by the federal Clean Water Act. (Mike Sackett has publicly stated that although the property could get "wet" in the spring, it was not, in his view, a wetland.) EPA issued a so-called Administrative Compliance Order directing the couple to remove the fill and replace the vegetation they had cleared. If EPA follows up the order with a judicial enforcement action and a judge agrees that the Sacketts violated the Clean Water Act, the trial court could impose civil penalties of up to $37,500 for each day the Sacketts were not in compliance. The exact amount of penalties would be up to the trial court, considering factors such as the Sacketts' good faith in complying with the Act, the seriousness of the violation, and "such other matters as justice may require." A court could also agree with the Sacketts that they did not violate the Clean Water Act, find the order invalid, and dismiss EPA's lawsuit outright. The Sacketts do not wish to wait for EPA to seek civil penalties to have a court hear their arguments, however. What they seek is judicial review prior to EPA's issuing the Administrative Compliance Order. Nina Mendelson http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=A706AFFB-D70B-9B5D-C6405D7D8237CEF9 http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=8A3735AA-A63E-ED5A-C2315C5505E2D255 http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=8A3735AA-A63E-ED5A-C2315C5505E2D255 Thu, 29 Dec 2011 09:27:01 EST Senators Mark Warner (D-VA) and Jerry Moran (R-KS) introduced a bill earlier this month that proposes to change regulatory and tax policies with the goal of encouraging more entrepreneurial activity and creating more jobs. The legislation contains a grab-bag of proposals, such as allowing more aliens with professional expertise in stem cell research to become permanent residents and extending an income tax credit for certain small businesses. I can't speak to the merits of these and other proposals in the bill with one exception. The legislation would codify the current requirement found in executive orders that federal agencies complete a cost-benefit analysis of proposed and final "major" rules. This idea may sound reasonable on its face, but ultimately it would hinder the ability of federal agencies to issue health and environmental safeguards, and provide no help to the economy. As other CPR scholars and I have discussed (see here, here, here, here and here, for example), the policy evidence refutes arguments that regulation is somehow at fault for the slow economic recovery. Ignoring the evidence, House Republicans have spent countless hours on hearings and legislation that is intended to slow down and impede the regulatory process. It is therefore disappointing that Senators Warner and Moran include cost-benefit analysis, one such anti-regulatory idea repeatedly endorsed in the House, as one of their proposals to jump start entrepreneurial activity. When it comes to deciding the level of protection for people and the environment, Congress most of the time has adopted a precautionary stance - requiring risk creators to do the best they can to reduce safety, health and environmental harms. But every President since Ronald Reagan has required agencies to analyze potential costs and benefits, even though agencies usually do not base regulations on a comparison of costs and benefits. Proponents of this requirement insist that it helps agencies focus on adopting the most appropriate regulation, but this claim ignores the fact that many health, safety and environmental benefits cannot be easily stated in dollar terms. As a result, cost-benefit often consists of incomplete benefit estimates and complete cost estimates (or over-estimates), skewing the analysis in favor of less protection. Sidney Shapiro http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=8A3735AA-A63E-ED5A-C2315C5505E2D255 http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=67A1DEC4-B1DF-5C5A-BADE31A2B852E13B http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=67A1DEC4-B1DF-5C5A-BADE31A2B852E13B Thu, 22 Dec 2011 16:16:41 EST On Tuesday, the American Chemistry Council sent EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson a letter about the provisions regarding IRIS toxic chemical assessments in the omnibus spending bill. The ACC said: H.R. 2055 also directs EPA to include documentation describing how the NAS Chapter 7 recommendations have been implemented or addressed in all IRIS assessments released in Fiscal Year 2012. The documentation is to include an explanation for why certain recommendations were not incorporated. Thus, it is incumbent on EPA to fully explain how the IRIS assessment of dioxin comports with the NAS recommendations. To comply with Congress's direction, EPA should withdraw the dioxin assessment from interagency review and take the necessary steps to implement the NAS recommendations. Withdrawing the dioxin assessment would be a huge deal, setting back progress on protecting the public from the chemical. But is this what Congress directed in the omnibus? Luckily, no. CPR President Rena Steinzor and Senior Policy Analyst Matthew Shudtz wrote to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson today to correct the record on the ACC's false claim. Their letter explains how the House had earlier considered a version of the bill that required EPA to rework all draft and final IRIS assessment due out in FY 2012, but ultimately went with a bill that requires revision of only the draft assessments and not the final assessments. Ben Somberg http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=67A1DEC4-B1DF-5C5A-BADE31A2B852E13B http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=6660FDD2-F289-AE16-9891C611E32E07E4 http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=6660FDD2-F289-AE16-9891C611E32E07E4 Thu, 22 Dec 2011 10:26:11 EST Three years ago today, an earthen wall holding back a giant coal ash impoundment failed in Kingston, Tennessee, sending more than a billion gallons of coal ash slurry over nearby land and into the Emory River. The ash had chemicals including arsenic, lead, and mercury. Clean up costs could be as much as $1.2 billion. Public policy progress often comes in the wake of disasters. But three years after Kingston, it very much remains to be seen whether that disaster will at least lead to the needed regulations to stop the next one. Can EPA get the train back on the track? I hope so. EPA had pledged that it would publish a proposed rule on coal ash by the end of 2009. But because OMB all but hijacked the process, the proposed rule didn't come until May 2010, and it was actually multiple proposals, not one, adding unnecessary complexity to EPA's task of producing a draft final rule. Okay, I lifted those first three paragraphs from my post on the Kingston anniversary last year, changing the "two years" to three. The sad truth is, not all that much has changed on the coal ash front in the last year. Ben Somberg http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=6660FDD2-F289-AE16-9891C611E32E07E4 http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=621F829F-F4A4-30C5-AF3FD8E9447D36E5 http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=621F829F-F4A4-30C5-AF3FD8E9447D36E5 Wed, 21 Dec 2011 14:36:17 EST It was October 1990, George H.W. Bush was President, and the vote wasn't close in either chamber: Congress overwhelmingly passed the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments, including provisions requiring EPA to reduce mercury emissions from major sources such as power plants. Today the EPA at long last released its rule regulating mercury emissions from coal-fired utilities. The fact that the largest remaining sources of mercury will finally be required to reduce their emissions is an important and historic development. And EPA's steadfastness in the face of kicking and screaming by the dirtiest of the utilities down to the bitter end is a cause for celebration. But thousands were needlessly poisoned during years of delay, and today is less an occasion for a victory lap than one for sober reflection. How is it that one industry has wrangled nearly a quarter-century delay from the time Congress mandated "serious" reductions in toxic pollutants to the time it will actually be required to spew less mercury into our air? How have coal-fired utilities secured this reprieve despite the proliferation of advisories warning children and women of childbearing age to curtail - or cease entirely - their consumption of certain species of fish due to methylmercury contamination? These advisories now blanket our nation's inland and coastal waters, nevermind the importance of fish for neurological development, cardiovascular health, and its other nutritional benefits. How have coal-fired utilities been granted this "pass" when it has become clear that mercury contamination is an environmental injustice - that among the people most exposed are low-income fishers, Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders, and members of the various fishing tribes. In a recent national study of women of childbearing age, whereas 15.3% of self-identified "White" women of childbearing age had blood mercury levels above the level deemed safe by EPA, fully 31.5%, of women who identified themselves as "other" - a category composed primarily of Native Americans, Pacific Islanders, those of "Asian origin," and those of "mixed race" - had unsafe mercury levels. Moreover, many American Indian tribes in the Great Lakes and elsewhere have rights to catch and consume fish, including rights protected by treaties with the United States. Those rights have been undermined by mercury contamination. Catherine O'Neill http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=621F829F-F4A4-30C5-AF3FD8E9447D36E5