Bush's stealth attack on the atmosphere

[Guest guest]

>

> Bush's stealth attack on the atmosphere

> The same administration that denies global warming now wants to

> dramatically increase the use of an ozone-eating chemical. Agribusiness is

> very happy.

>

> - - - - - - - - - - - -

> By Glenn Scherer

>

> Aug. 20, 2003 | Day and night, ships arrive from around the globe at

> America's ports. Sealed steel boxes are hoisted from hulls onto waiting

> trains and trucks that roll to every state in the nation. Roughly 21,000

> such containers enter the country each day, packed with millions of wooden

> crates and pallets. Along with their cargo, they can also hold invasive

> insects like the Asian long-horned beetle, which if it escaped to U.S.

> forests, could defoliate millions of trees and do billions of dollars in

> damage.

>

> The Bush administration, to combat this very real problem, wants to force

> foreign countries and American ports to fumigate nearly every last

> board-foot with methyl bromide, a deadly pesticide. There's just one

catch:

> methyl bromide is a direct, dangerous threat to the ozone layer, and

> because it's mandated for a total phaseout under both the Clean Air Act

and

> the Montreal Protocol ozone-protection treaty, a massive production

> increase would violate both U.S. and international law. Bush's plan, which

> purports to benefit the environment, instead appears calculated to

> undermine the Montreal Protocol while wildly profiting some of the GOP's

> staunchest financial backers -- a handful of methyl bromide manufacturers

> and the agribusiness interests that are the biggest users of the chemical.

>

> The Montreal Protocol has been called the greatest environmental victory

in

> history and hailed as a triumph of international cooperation. Starting in

> 1987, the United States, under the Reagan administration, worked with 166

> other nations, plus corporations like DuPont, to ban manmade chemicals

that

> were allowing more deadly ultraviolet rays to reach the earth.

>

> Now the Bush strategy could delay or even reverse the healing of the ozone

> layer, scientists say. It could derail the treaty itself, posing a

> significant health risk to humans and other life across the globe. The

> administration has launched a two-pronged attack on the protocol: A newly

> proposed rule by the Department of Agriculture would demand methyl bromide

> fumigation for nearly all imported raw-wood packaging, and the

> Environmental Protection Agency wants to allow U.S. farmers and businesses

> to use millions of added pounds of the poison on crops and golf courses.

>

> " I think it is quite serious, " says Don Wuebbles, a University of Illinois

> researcher who has studied the ozone layer for 30 years. " I would be

> concerned about anything that will lead to a potential increase of methyl

> bromide ... It's still one of the most important contributors to ozone

> depletion. "

>

> Methyl bromide is an odorless, colorless, little known but lethal

> agricultural pesticide. And its byproduct, bromine, " kills ozone something

> like 50 times more effectively than chlorine on an atom-for-atom basis, "

> says William Randel, the senior atmospheric scientist at the National

> Center for Atmospheric Research.

>

> The Bush initiative comes at a time when reports and studies show that,

> after years of concern and global action, Earth's protective ozone layer

is

> starting to heal. Human output of chlorofluorocarbons has fallen

> dramatically; atmospheric levels of methyl bromide have been falling, too,

> as the phaseout of the chemical is beginning to take effect.

>

> Just this month, the Christian Science Monitor

> <http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0801/p01s02-ussc.htm>reported that

> scientists have found " unambiguous evidence that Earth's sunscreen, the

> tenuous shield of ozone in the stratosphere, is slowly beginning to

recover

> from nearly thirty years of human triggered loss. " One key reason for the

> recovery, said the newspaper, is the declining use of methyl bromide, one

> of the most worrisome gases now threatening the ozone layer.

>

> " Methyl bromide has decreased [in the atmosphere] more than 10 percent

> since 1998, " Steve Montzka, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric

> Administration scientist who made the discovery, told Salon. " We think the

> most likely explanation of where that decrease in atmospheric methyl

> bromide is coming from is due primarily to the Montreal Protocol

> restrictions on its production. "

>

> If all human production of methyl bromide ceased today, says a 2002 World

> Meteorological Organization scientific assessment, global ozone depletion

> <http://www.unep.org/ozone/index-en.shtml>would be reduced by 4 percent.

> That doesn't sound like much, but a total ban could curb harmful

> ultraviolet rays, cutting non-melanoma skin cancers by about 8 percent and

> eliminating up to 600,000 cases of cataract-induced blindness annually,

> according to the United Nations Environment Program.

>

> Under the Montreal Protocol, methyl bromide production has already been

> curtailed by 70 percent of 1991 baseline levels, with a total ban due in

> 2005. But by playing a cagey numbers and lawyers game with the treaty, the

> administration hopes to keep the chemical in use at high levels after the

> phaseout date both in the United States and abroad, pleasing its

> agribusiness patrons while maintaining the appearance of staying within

the

> letter of the law.

>

> " There is no question that this is a case of another big polluter, of an

> industry well connected to the administration -- just like coal or oil --

> looking for multimillion-dollar favors, " says David Doniger, policy

> director of the Climate Center of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

> The new rule proposed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to fumigate

all

> raw solid-wood packaging shipped into the United States, could skyrocket

> global methyl bromide production. (While heat treatment is a suggested

> alternative, its higher cost would likely result in methyl bromide being

> the method of choice.)

>

> The department says it is merely implementing a mandate of the U.N.'s

> International Plant Protection Convention, agreed to by 118 nations. But

> that agreement offers only guidelines, not strict rules, and it allows for

> multiple forms of treatment, including the use of chemicals that wouldn't

> damage the ozone.

>

> The Agricultural Department concedes that its universal fumigation plan

> could raise methyl bromide's use from current global levels of roughly

> 55,500 metric tons to as much as 158,500 metric tons. That worst-case

> scenario could triple production of the pesticide worldwide, and in the

> department's own estimation,

> <http://www.aphis.usda.gov/ppd/es/mb.html>increase human-made methyl

> bromide emissions by a staggering 155 percent, enough to cause significant

> harm to the ozone layer. The Agriculture Department did not respond to

> several requests by Salon to speak with the lead scientific author of this

> damning report. However, the agency insists that this scenario is

unlikely.

> Unfortunately, if the department approves the new rule, it will have

almost

> no control over the amounts of methyl bromide actually used, since most

> fumigating would occur abroad, before shipment. The U.S.-imposed

regulation

> could also force developing countries to use far more methyl bromide than

> they now need, hampering their efforts to cut future use of the chemical

as

> required under the Montreal Protocol.

>

> Typically, treaty exemptions must be approved by the U.N. Ozone

> Secretariat, the Montreal Protocol's governing body, but a loophole allows

> the Agriculture Department to put its rule into practice without such

> approval. That's because quarantine and pre-shipment applications for

> invasive-pest control accounted for a minuscule amount of methyl bromide

> use in the past and weren't banned.

>

> " What you have is a situation where the quarantine use was a small but

> important one, the tail on the dog, " explains Doniger, of the Natural

> Resources Defense Council. " What the Montreal Protocol parties decided to

> do was phase out the dog -- the many agricultural uses for methyl bromide

> -- and live with the tail. Now the Bush administration wants to reverse

the

> situation. Under the Department of Agriculture proposal, the tail will

> become three times larger than the dog. "

>

> The Agriculture Department admits in its environmental assessment that its

> strategy, while putting the ozone layer at risk, may not even be

effective.

> Some bugs will survive methyl bromide fumigation, and even a few will be

> harmful since they can multiply, eventually ruining crops and ecosystems.

> The department even admits to better alternatives. One surefire approach

> would be to ban all raw-wood packing, a viable global goal if done over a

> reasonable transition period.

>

> The Agriculture Department isn't the only agency spurring methyl bromide

> production. The Environmental Protection Agency is seeking methyl bromide

> " critical use " exemptions at the U.N. Ozone Secretariat meeting in

Nairobi,

> Kenya, in November.

>

> The EPA, reportedly under pressure from the White House and Agriculture

> Department, wants exemptions to raise methyl bromide use by 39 percent

> above 1991 baseline levels for 16 crops, including strawberries, tomatoes,

> ginger, sweet potatoes and turf grass. The agency says there is no

> technically or economically viable alternative for these crops. If

granted,

> these exemptions alone would stop and reverse the pesticide's total

> phaseout in 2005.

>

> While EPA claims its exemption request doesn't violate the letter of the

> law as stated in the treaty, Doniger, a Clinton administration diplomat,

> disagrees. " What we negotiated in 1997 was a total global phaseout of

> methyl bromide in four steps, [reaching] a total phaseout in 2005, " he

told

> Salon. " An exemption was included, in that last step, that allowed

> continued production for 'critical uses,' in order to help the

> manufacturers and users achieve a soft landing before total phaseout. "

>

> But the Bush exemptions, if approved, would roll back a 70 percent methyl

> bromide reduction already in place, to a 61 percent reduction. Instead of

a

> total ban, it would permit the manufacture of 10,000 metric tons of the

> pesticide, not counting the Agriculture Department's quarantine and

> pre-shipment request.

>

> " If the Bush administration interpretation of the treaty were followed,

the

> parties could agree to any amount of exemptions, " says Doniger. They could

> raise production all the way back " to 100 percent of each country's 1991

> baseline, " he adds. " This is an absurd reading of the protocol. " The U.S.

> also wants an added exemption in 2006, a contingency not ever addressed by

> the treaty.

>

> The EPA says that its exemptions " reflect a downward trend, " but anyone

> doing the math can see that the U.S. is asking for a 9 percent increase

> over current production. When asked whether Salon's math was correct,

> Drusilla Hufford, director of the global programs division at EPA, skirted

> the question repeatedly.

>

> " We are absolutely not in violation of the Montreal Protocol, " Hufford

> asserts. " I think that looking at it as a setback is a mistake. It isn't

an

> appropriate question to ask ... We have conducted very successful

phaseouts

> of a number of chemicals that included this kind of policy approach. "

True,

> the phaseout of other ozone depleters allowed exemptions, but not of such

> massive proportions. For example, a tiny exemption for chlorofluorocarbons

> was allowed for personal asthma inhalers.

>

> When asked when a total ban of methyl bromide might happen, Hufford said:

> " I really couldn't predict that. "

>

> Doniger worries that the Bush administration request, if approved by the

> United Nations, may weaken the will of other nations. " If the United

States

> backs out of its methyl bromide phaseout, you could see the developing

> countries balking not only about phasing out methyl bromide, but other

> chemicals as well. Why should they go to strenuous efforts to get rid of

> [them] ... when America isn't meeting its commitments? We could see the

> whole treaty unravel. "

>

> Josh Karliner, a board member with Corporate Watch, an anti-globalization

> activist group, expresses another worry about a failed ban. " This is also

a

> Homeland Security issue. A few weeks after 9/11, " he says, " I got a call

> from the Coast Guard wanting to track down information on methyl bromide

> production and distribution because it is a highly toxic, colorless,

> odorless gas. This is not the kind of chemical you want to be freely

> proliferating at this dangerous time in history. "

>

> EPA claims that there are no viable alternative to the pesticide. But as

> long ago as 1995, a U.N. scientific panel concluded that alternatives to

> methyl bromide were either available or at an advanced stage of

development

> for more than 90 percent of methyl bromide uses. That puts the lie to an

> EPA claim that there has been insufficient time to approve substitutes.

>

> That's also a far cry from a methyl bromide industry claim that farmers

> worldwide have absolutely no " effective alternatives " to the poison,

> reports Corporate Watch. It is to those industries -- the methyl bromide

> makers, users and lobbying groups -- to whom one must look to understand

> the Bush administration's attempt to backpedal on its treaty commitments.

> Just three companies dominate 75 percent of all methyl bromide production:

> U.S.-based Albemarle Corp. (a spinoff of the Ethyl Corp.), along with the

> Great Lakes Chemical Corp. and Israel's Dead Sea Bromine Group. They make

> up what the Chemical Marketing Reporter calls " the global bromine industry

> oligopoly. " Both U.S. companies have poor environmental records: Albemarle

> has been fined nearly a million dollars for violations since 1993, while

> Great Lakes Chemical was rated Arkansas' worst polluter during the 1990s,

> based on annual federal Toxic Release Inventory Data, says

> <http://www.corpwatch.org/>Corporate Watch.

>

> In truth, methyl bromide might have been disposed of as toxic waste had

not

> the companies contrived its use as lethal pesticide. Methyl bromide is a

> highly poisonous byproduct in the manufacture of a popular flame

retardant,

> tetrabromobisophenol-A (TBBA), used increasingly by the computer industry.

> As demand for TBBA grows, so does the amount of toxic methyl bromide

> resulting from the industrial process, as does a need for the companies to

> sell or dispose of it.

>

> Besides its ozone-depleting characteristics, methyl bromide is designated

a

> Class 1 acute toxin by the EPA, with a reputation for killing humans as

> well as insects and weeds. It's been used for 50 years to sterilize soils

> prior to the planting of crops. Injected into the ground, it kills

> virtually every living thing, good or bad. It's also used to fumigate

> fruits, vegetables, dried nuts and grains before they're sent to market,

> and to fumigate homes, warehouses and grain elevators. The exposure of

> humans to it can cause nausea, chest pains, numbness, convulsions, coma

and

> death. The U.S. National Cancer Institute recently linked methyl bromide

to

> increased prostate cancer in product handlers. Farm workers and

> environmentalists have sought a ban for decades.

>

> Which is perhaps why the methyl bromide makers and users are such generous

> political patrons. For example, the Floyd D. and Thomas E. Gottwald family

> of Virginia, controllers of Albemarle and Ethyl corporations, gave roughly

> $345,000 in the 2000-02 election cycle to the Republican National

> Committee, the Bush campaign, GOP congressional candidates and others,

> according to the <http://www.opensecrets.org>Center for Responsive

Politics.

>

> Methyl bromide producers and agribusiness interests belonging to the

> influential Crop Protection Coalition have

>

<http://www.commoncause.org/publications/nov99/environmental.html>vigorously

> fought the ban on methyl bromide, while giving $2.3 million in political

> contributions in the 1990s, according to Common Cause.

>

> From 1990 to 2002, agribusiness gave more than $203 million to Republican

> candidates and $93 million to Democrats. George W. Bush received $2.7

> million for his 2000 campaign from the industry, while Al Gore culled just

> $314,000. <http://www.opensecrets.org/>Agribusiness contributions to the

> Bush 2004 campaign, at $697,000, already nearly equal those of energy and

> natural-resource interests ($736,000), likely assuring both sectors

> continued favor in the Bush-Cheney administration.

>

> The Center for Public Integrity in its report,

>

<http://www.publicintegrity.org/dtaweb/index.asp?L1=20 & L2=31 & L3=0 & L4=0 & L5=0>

" Unreasonable

> Risk: The Politics of Pesticides, " relates how Texas Republican Rep. Larry

> Combest paraded the Crop Protection Coalition's 35 member groups through a

> 1998 congressional hearing, then decided in favor of the absolute

necessity

> of the chemical: " We have no proven cost-effective substitute for methyl

> bromide, " he said. " Methyl bromide is an essential tool for many aspects

of

> our modern agricultural industry. " Combest

>

<http://www.opensecrets.org/1998elect/dist_sector/98TX19sector.htm>received

> about $196,000 in contributions during the 1998 election cycle from

> agribusiness,

>

<http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/detail.asp?CID=N00006055 & cycle=2000>

plus

> another $320,000 in 2000.

>

> House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has strong agribusiness connections, as

> demonstrated by his support for the industry -- and by his campaign war

> chest. A pest exterminator by trade, he has fought all Clean Air Act

> amendments since 1990, especially those attempting to ban methyl bromide.

> When ozone-depletion researchers won the Nobel Prize in 1995, DeLay said:

> " I am puzzled at how the Swedish Academy of Sciences could award to these

> professors the Nobel Prize in chemistry for theories that have yet to be

> proven. " He then <http://www.globalchange.org/sciall/95oct67d.htm>accused

> Sweden of being " dominated by the agenda of radical environmentalists " and

> derided the award as " the Nobel appeasement prize, " according to Global

> Change magazine and the Sierra Club. During that election cycle DeLay

> <http://www.opensecrets.org/1996os/detail/H4TX22023.htm>accepted $108,900

> in contributions from agribusiness.

>

> Political contributions seem to have brought dividends to the industry,

> along with the occasional grand jury investigation. While he was

> California's governor, Republican Pete Wilson received $190,000 in

campaign

> contributions from 1989 to 1996 from Sun-Diamond Growers of California, a

> major methyl bromide industry player, according to the San Francisco

> Chronicle. As governor, Wilson worked diligently to delay, then prevent, a

> statewide methyl bromide ban, even though the pesticide had killed 19

> California residents and poisoned 400 since the early 1980s, according to

> the San Diego Union Tribune. The poison is still legal there even near

> schools and homes.

>

> In 1996, a federal jury found Sun-Diamond guilty of offering thousands of

> dollars in illegal gifts to Clinton administration Secretary of

Agriculture

> Mike Espy (the unfolding of the scandal had caused Espy's resignation in

> 1994). According to the grand jury, one of the things Sun-Diamond sought

> was the help of Espy and the Agriculture Department in persuading the EPA

> not to ban methyl bromide, reported the New York Times.

>

> As evidence comes in demonstrating the atmospheric healing power of the

> methyl bromide phaseout, the U.N. Ozone Secretariat remains silent about

> how it will respond to the EPA exemption demand at the November Nairobi

> meeting. America stands nearly alone in its large request, with only Italy

> and Greece seeking large exemptions. How the protocol parties will respond

> to the Department of Agriculture's abuse of the quarantine and

pre-shipment

> exemption is also unknown.

>

> However, a U.S. response to any opposition offered by the secretariat is

> less in doubt. Should America fail to get its exemptions approved, House

> Energy and Commerce Air Quality Subcommittee chair Joe Barton, another

> Texas Republican, stands ready to create a legislative fix that would

allow

> the continued production of methyl bromide, putting the United States in

> direct violation of the Montreal Protocol, according to the Environment

and

> Energy Daily news service.

>

> The " Barons of Bromide, " as Corporate Watch calls Albemarle, Great Lakes

> Chemical, Sun-Diamond and other methyl bromide purveyors, are brokering

for

> a big boost in business, even at the cost of an international treaty

> crisis. If they and the Bush administration succeed in cowing the Montreal

> Protocol parties, their strategy could keep methyl bromide on the market

> forever, or at least until the ozone layer fails.

>

> salon.com

> http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/08/20/ozone/index.html

>