How Bush Spent His Summer Vacation

[Guest guest]

How Bush Spent His Summer Vacation -- Undermining Environmental Protections

 

Friday, 6 September, 2002

 

President Bush spent most of August vacationing at his Texas ranch but,

unfortunately, his administration kept busy. The following list summarizes how

the Bush administration spent its summer vacation undermining environmental

protections. Check out NRDC's " Bush Record " at

http://www.nrdc.org/bushrecord/default.asp

 

8/03/02: EPA fails to meet pesticides review deadline:

The Environmental Protection Agency falsely claimed that it has met a legal

deadline for reassessing the safety of pesticides as mandated by the Food

Quality Protection Act of 1996. The FQPA requires the EPA to complete safety

reviews of two-thirds of all pesticide tolerances (individual uses of

pesticides) -- about 6,000 tolerances -- by this date. Under the FQPA, Congress

required the EPA to look at the worst pesticides first when reviewing

tolerances, and the agency has repeatedly promised to do so. Five years ago, the

EPA identified the most dangerous pesticides and promised to take action on the

most toxic of those chemicals -- the organophosphates -- by 1999. The EPA today

claims it completed its reassessment of 6,000 tolerances. In fact, the agency

did not completely review all 6,000 tolerances, many of the pesticides it

reviewed were already off the market or rarely used, and it failed to review the

worst pesticides first.

 

" EPA is using Enron-like accounting to claim that it has met the mandate of the

law, " said NRDC attorney Erik Olsen. " As this latest deadline passes with little

agency action on the most toxic and highest-priority pesticides, EPA's delay

only benefits the chemical industry at the expense of our children's health. "

 

8/07/02: EPA rolls back Clean Water Act's water cleanup program:

This year marks the 30-year anniversary of the Clean Water Act, yet the U.S.

Environmental Protection Agency is moving forward with a rule to cripple the

Act's primary program for cleaning up the nation's more than 20,000 polluted

rivers, lakes and estuaries.

 

For three decades, national water pollution control efforts have been guided by

the fundamental goals of the Clean Water Act: that all rivers, lakes, estuaries

and coastal waters be safe for swimming and boating and any fish caught should

be safe to eat. Although progress has been made, today, close to half of our

assessed waters are still considered impaired for human or aquatic life use. The

EPA's recent National Coastal Condition report acknowledged that the overall

condition of our coastal waters is only fair to poor. The key provision of the

Clean Water Act governing the cleanup of these polluted waters is the Total

Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) program. The TMDL program requires states and the EPA

to identify polluted waterways, rank them for priority attention, and then

develop pollution limits for each water body. Despite the law, the EPA and

states largely failed to clean up waterways under the program until a wave of

citizen lawsuits forced them to begin doing so. Over the last few years,

Americans' demand for clean water succeeded in generating momentum to improve

implementation of the clean up program. Now, the Bush administration hopes to

derail the citizen-led effort to finally cleanup the nation's polluted waters.

 

In keeping with the Bush administration's disregard for mandatory regulations

and strict enforcement, the EPA's proposed rule would stress " voluntary efforts "

and possibly the establishment of a system in which states could trade pollution

" credits. " By making it easier for states to remove waters from the list of

those needing to be cleaned up and making it more difficult for additional

waterways to be added to that list, the new rule would ensure that America's

dirty waters remain polluted -- and perhaps become more so -- for decades to

come.

 

" Thirty years is too long to wait for clean water, " said Daniel Rosenberg, an

attorney in NRDC's clean water program. " Rather than writing new rules, the Bush

administration should focus on implementing the TMDL program and get on with the

job of cleaning up the nation's polluted rivers, streams, lakes, ponds and

coastal areas. "

 

8/10/02: White House looks to sink environmental law:

Coming soon to an ocean near you: unfettered waste dumping, commercial fishing,

oil and gas construction, and military maneuvers. These and other harmful

activities could become rampant if the Bush administration succeeds in lifting

environmental review provisions as they apply to vast tracts of oceans under

U.S. control.

 

In the administration's legal fight with NRDC over the use of Navy sonar

technology, the Justice Department is arguing that the landmark National

Environmental Policy Act of 1970 -- the Magna Carta of environmental law -- does

not extend beyond U.S. territorial waters three miles beyond the nation's

shorelines. If the court agrees, then federal agencies would no longer be

required to review the environmental effects of their projects, opening up the

oceans to a host of unregulated activities that could damage and destroy marine

life. NRDC is challenging the administration's argument and asserting that in

addition to territorial waters, the law covers all activity within the nation's

so-called exclusive economic zone. Stretching 200 miles off shore, this zone

covers more than 1 million square miles off all American coasts, including those

of Alaska and Hawaii.

 

" It's quite alarming that the White House is seeking to impose the Navy's

restrictive view of the statute regardless of the implications on a wide range

of practices that could pollute our coasts and harm wildlife, " said NRDC

attorney Andrew Wetzler.

 

8/12/02: Bush administration allows energy development in national monument:

For the first time ever, energy development activities will be permitted outside

already-leased areas at a national monument, courtesy of the Bush

administration. The Bureau of Land Management has decided that companies can

expand oil and gas exploration beyond the boundaries of their existing leases at

Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in Colorado. With about 85 percent of

the 164,000 monument already leased for energy exploration, the BLM approved a

seismic exploration project on nearly 1,900 acres of unleased monument land that

was scheduled to begin in a few days, but a federal judge halted the project

when environmental groups filed suit. Environmentalists say further exploration

would damage sensitive biological and archeological areas and set a dangerous

precedent of increased energy development on prized public lands.

 

" The Bush administration should be protecting our national treasures, not

bending over backward to hand them over to the energy industry, " said Johanna

Wald, director of NRDC's land program. " Bush officials may not understand the

meaning of the word monument, but they've made a monumental mistake if they

think the American people will let them get away with this. "

 

8/13/02: EPA cedes Idaho cleanup authority to state:

In a strange and unprecedented move, the Environmental Protection Agency ceded

control of the cleanup plan for Idaho's highly polluted Coeur d'Alene Basin to

state, local and tribal officials. For more than a century, mining waste from

the Silver Valley washed down the Coeur d'Alene River into Lake Coeur d'Alene

and the Spokane River, and from there into Lake Roosevelt, where fish have shown

elevated levels of mercury and other toxins. The cleanup of the area, one of the

nation's largest Superfund sites, has long been a contentious issue, with locals

fearing that extensive federal involvement would create negative publicity and

harm the local economy. The transfer of authority means that a new

state-dominated commission will oversee the EPA-authored, $359-million plan to

clean up pollution across a watershed larger than Rhode Island.

Environmentalists and some local residents voiced skepticism about the unusual

agreement because the same state officials who downplayed the need for a cleanup

in the past will now decide how to proceed.

 

" There's a reason why federal officials normally direct Superfund cleanups, "

said NRDC director of advocacy programs Greg Wetstone. " The EPA has the

experience and expertise, and is less likely to be influenced by local

concerns. "

 

8/15/02: Bush skipping U.N. Earth Summit:

A decade ago the first President Bush attended a world summit on the environment

in Rio de Janeiro, where he agreed to tackle problems in forestry, biodiversity

and climate change. Unlike his father, President George W. Bush will not attend

the U.N. World Summit on Sustainable Development, to be held later this month in

Johannesburg, South Africa. Instead, Secretary of State Colin Powell will lead

the U.S. delegation.

 

The Johannesburg summit is expected to draw more than 100 presidents and prime

ministers and thousands of other governmental officials, environmentalists,

scientists and business people. The lack of action to address the state of the

world's environment remains a serious concern -- as evidenced by a new United

Nations report on the earth's rapidly declining " ecological condition. "

President Bush's failure to attend the Johannesburg Summit, on top of his

rejection last year of the Kyoto climate treaty, add to questions in the

environmental community about the administration's lackluster approach to global

environmental challenges.

 

" Johannesburg will not save the planet, but it will make progress, " said Jacob

Scherr, director of NRDC's international program. " Unfortunately, the White

House refuses to recognize the nation's disproportionate role in polluting our

planet, and is ignoring the urgent need to join other countries in working on

solutions. "

 

8/16/02: Fish and Wildlife Service ordered to develop list of manatee protection

zones:

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service suffered another embarrassing blow, as a

federal judge gave agency officials one week to provide a list of waterways

where manatees in Florida face imminent danger of being killed by boats and to

report on plans to turn these areas into emergency protection zones. The judge

also instructed agency experts to consult on the matter with the local

environmental groups that filed suit against the government for failing to abide

by an earlier legal settlement to protect the endangered species. Last year, as

a result of the legal settlement, federal officials agreed to create statewide

manatee refuges and sanctuaries by September 28, 2001. But the judge ruled that

the Fish and Wildlife Service violated the agreement by designating only two

protected areas -- and not until January 2002 -- while delaying action on 14

other areas. Last month, the judge ruled that the agency has to designate the

remaining refuges and sanctuaries by November 1.

 

" The judge obviously has little faith in the agency's willingness or ability to

establish the remaining manatee protection zones, so he's issuing specific

orders as to how they should proceed, " said Karen Garrison, Co-Director of

NRDC's oceans program. " With manatees being killed by boats at a faster rate

than last year, their needed protection is more urgent than ever. "

 

Statewide through early August of this year, 236 dead manatees have been

reported, and 74 of those were killed by watercraft. Last year, a total of 233

manatees died and 53 were boat-related.

 

8/19/02: Bush administration backing away from California coastal protection:

A proposal to designate one of the last undeveloped stretches of Southern

California's coast as a national seashore is in danger of being scuttled by the

Bush administration. Since 1999, the National Park Service has been studying the

feasibility of permanently protecting 46 miles of coastline just north of Santa

Barbara from the threat of urban sprawl. The plan, which involves a federal land

purchase in order to create a new national seashore (to be called Gaviota

National Seashore), is bitterly opposed by property rights activists and real

estate developers who fear possible restrictions on the use of their land. At a

public meeting on the proposal, Lynn Scarlett, assistant secretary of the

Interior Department, dashed environmentalists' hopes when she expressed a

preference for private land ownership over federal control, and acknowledged

that " land acquisition is not a priority of this administration. " Previously,

Interior officials showed interest in the proposal to protect the dramatic

cliffs, remote beaches and terraced grasslands by designating 200,000 acres as a

national seashore. Scarlett said the administration is retreating in the face of

feedback received from local landowners during the last 13 months.

 

" This is really the last best opportunity to protect a dwindling resource in

California, land largely unmarred by out-of-control development, " said Chuck

Clusen, director of NRDC's parks program. " The Bush administration has made a

mockery of the public process by ignoring strong local support for environmental

protection and by tipping its hand to the pro-sprawl crowd. "

 

The NPS plans to release a draft outlining the five alternatives for the coastal

stretch in January. Besides designating the land as a national seashore, the

study considers no action, enhancing state and local protections and setting up

a national reserve or preserve. After 90 days of public comment, the final

report will recommend to Congress what option is best.

 

8/19/02: EPA forced to withdraw new penalty calculations scheme:

Congressional investigators called into question the U.S. Environmental

Protection Agency's methodology for calculating enforcement penalties, forcing

the agency to withdraw its controversial plan to modify how it accounts for

inflation when assessing fines against polluters. The General Accounting Office

determined that the penalty calculations the EPA proposed using would in many

cases have resulted in a smaller increase in penalties than provided by federal

law. The agency's proposed method for increasing the penalties -- levied against

regulated industries for clean water, clean air, pesticide and waste management

violations -- were unlawful, according to GAO.

The Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act requires federal agencies

to periodically increase their penalties to account for inflation. The EPA's

final rule, released in June, proposed boosting its penalties by 13.6 percent --

the rate of inflation since 1996 -- but wanted to round up those increases based

on the actual increase to each penalty category, as opposed to the penalty

itself. The net effect of the EPA's modified calculation would significantly

lower penalty increases than if the agency used the language of the statute, an

approach that " did not conform to the clear intent of Congress, " according to

the GAO.

 

" EPA's flimsy, pro-polluter enforcement scheme might have pleased the folks at

Arthur Andersen, but the GAO didn't fall for it, " said John Walke, director of

NRDC's clean air program.

 

8/19/02: EPA cracking down on North Dakota air polluters:

Federal officials and their state counterparts in North Dakota find themselves

in a brouhaha over the state's air quality. The U.S. Environmental Protection

Agency insists that the state is in violation of air quality standards because

of sulfur dioxide pollution at Theodore Roosevelt National Park and a nearby

national wildlife refuge. North Dakota environmental officials say the EPA data

is wrong and that their own tests show no violation. The dispute could force

some power producers in North Dakota to clean up their act by scrubbing sulfur

from power plant emissions. Federal officials also have threatened to take over

the state's pollution program.

 

" This is the role that EPA, when forced, should be playing nationwide, to

protect not just national parks but all areas of the country, " said John Walke,

director of NRDC's clean air program. " EPA's tough stance against polluting

power plants in North Dakota makes it even more curious that the Bush

administration is feverishly working to undermine the Clean Air Act and allow

dirtier air all across America. "

 

8/21/02: Bush administration employs stonewall strategy at World Summit:

The good news is the White House announced its goals and strategies for the

upcoming World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The bad news is that the U.S. delegation, led by Secretary of State Colin

Powell, will use the summit as a platform to rebut international criticism of

Bush's environmental policies and his failure to be a team player in global

issues. White House officials also said they will resist any changes to

international agreements on trade and development, and oppose any new targets or

specific aid figures. And although the Bush administration is offering an aid

package worth nearly $4.5 billion, the bulk of the funds will be shifted from

existing efforts and given a new name.

 

" What the world needs from the U.S. now is full participation on global issues,

not excuses and empty promises, " said Jacob Scherr, director of NRDC's

international program.

 

8/22/02: Interior Department allows more air pollution at national park:

The Interior Department reversed a National Park Service finding that air

pollution from a proposed coal-fired power plant in western Kentucky would

significantly hamper visibility at nearby Mammoth Cave National Park. In an

August 22 letter to the state of Kentucky, Interior Assistant Secretary Craig

Manson rejected the conclusions of career Park Service officials after meeting

with Peabody Energy Corp., one of the nation's largest coal companies and one of

President Bush's major campaign contributors. Peabody wants to build a

1,500-megawatt plant, dubbed Thoroughbred, 50 miles west of the park, and then

find an operator to run the plant. The plant would burn Peabody's dirty

high-sulfur coal and emit 22 million pounds of sulfur dioxide into the skies

over Kentucky every year. The air at Mammoth Cave is already more polluted than

at nearly every other park in the country. The proposed plant would only make

that pollution worse.

 

According to internal Interior Department documents obtained by NRDC, Park

Service officials found that Peabody's Thoroughbred power plant would have an

adverse impact on visibility at Mammoth Cave National Park at the level at which

Kentucky wants to allow the plant to pollute. Park officials determined that the

level would need to be reduced by nearly half for there to be no adverse effect

on visibility at Mammoth Cave. Manson's letter to Kentucky air quality officials

reverses the National Park Service finding that air pollution from Peabody's

proposed plant would have an adverse haze impact on Mammoth Cave. The Interior

Department letter also describes a deal cut by Peabody, Kentucky and the Bush

administration in which the Thoroughbred plant would be allowed to operate at a

level that would hinder visibility in the park, while being given a two-year

operating window at the end of which the state would determine whether Peabody

would be willing to accept a lower limit.

 

" It's a sad day for America's parks when the policy of the Bush administration

is 'Pollute first and ask questions later,' " said McIntosh. " Since the Park

Service recognizes that we need stricter pollution limits on Thoroughbred to

prevent visibility haze at Mammoth Cave, the agency should be a guardian of the

national parks instead of protecting a big Bush campaign contributor. "

 

8/22/02: Bush calls for increased logging in the name of fire prevention:

President Bush has a simple solution for preventing forest fires: Cut down the

trees. His new forest management plan essentially would do just that by

rewriting environmental rules to allow timber companies to increase commercial

logging in national forests. The president unveiled his plan in Oregon, one of

the Western states suffering from a season of devastating wildfires. He said

reducing the risk of fires requires " extensive thinning " of forests, as well as

federal legislation aimed at " streamlining " or relaxing environmental laws so

the timber industry can step up logging across millions of acres of national

forest land.

 

Loggers and conservationists agree that the catastrophic fires of recent years

resulted in large part due to a variety of Forest Service policies, including

the practice of extinguishing low-intensity fires. The policy, pursued since the

1920s, resulted in much denser forests and a buildup of smaller trees and brush.

In the meantime, timber companies harvested the larger, most fire-resistant

trees. These were perfect conditions for high-intensity fires that can destroy

ecosystems. With two of the last three summers having been among the worst fire

years on record, Congress has already thrown its support and hundreds of

millions of dollars behind a plan to remove more brush, small trees and

undergrowth from public lands to make them less susceptible to blazes.

 

The National Fire Plan, launched in 2000, is designed to thin forests that are

dangerously overgrown with trees and brush than can quickly become kindling for

wildfires. Also central to the plan is the principle that many fires in remote

forests are beneficial and should be allowed to burn unless they threaten homes.

Two years later, the effort has cost more than $6 billion and implementation has

been slow. President Bush now appears to want to go further by giving the timber

industry greater leeway to cut larger, more commercially valuable trees as well

as worthless brush, and denying citizens the legal tools they have used to block

such logging. In particular, Bush wants Congress to waive provisions of the

National Environmental Policy Act, which dates from 1970. His plan also would

exempt almost all forest management projects -- from controlled burns to

mechanical thinning projects virtually identical to commercial logging -- from

judicial review. The impacts of such an exemption would likely be similar to the

1995 Salvage Rider, which effectively barred appeals and lawsuits of salvage

timber sales and generated tremendous controversy. Environmental groups, long

critical of the president for appointing friends of timber and other industries

to top posts, accused the president of using Western wildfires to justify

increased logging. They point out that cutting would likely target the most

valuable large trees instead of the smaller wood that poses the greatest fire

risk.

 

" If President Bush was seriously interested in reducing wildfires, he would

focus on thinning underbrush and small trees -- which fuel the fires -- close to

homes, rather than make it easier for timber companies to remove larger, older,

fire-resistant trees far away from communities. " said Nathaniel Lawrence,

director of NRDC's forests program. " The fact is this administration was pushing

logging before these fires, it's pushing logging because of these fires, and

it'll be pushing logging after these fires. "

 

Lawrence noted that the president's proposal contrasts dramatically with a plan

offered by the environmental community, dubbed the Community Fire Protection

Plan. That plan, designed with the aid of Western governors, would concentrate

on reducing fire risk to communities on the urban-wilderness boundary -- the

area where most firefighting efforts, and dollars, are now spent in protecting

homes and businesses. Forest Service research shows that effectively protecting

homes and communities from fire risk involves measures taken in the immediate

vicinity of homes and other structures -- such as clearing land and fireproofing

roofs. NRDC supports these activities, and encourages funding to ensure they are

conducted quickly and comprehensively.

 

8/23/02: Bush administration abandons California water plan:

Interior Secretary Norton quietly dropped her agency's appeal of a court ruling

involving a critical component of California's widely supported water plan. The

state-federal " CalFed " plan is designed to restore the San Francisco Bay-Delta

and improve water supply reliability for California. Congress currently is

considering legislation to authorize funding for the CalFed plan. However, a

federal judge in Fresno ruled in February that federal regulators improperly

allocated water to fish and wildlife. If upheld, the decision will reduce the

amount of water available for protecting the environment.

 

Environmentalists say that by withdrawing the government's appeal in the case,

Secretary Norton is undermining the very cornerstone of the plan. The appeal was

filed by the Department of Interior in May in a suit filed by Central Valley

agribusiness interests in an attempt to weaken the CalFed plan.

Environmentalists also are questioning the role played by a former water

industry lobbyist who now advises Norton on California water issues. That key

staffer, Jason Peltier, previously was a longtime lobbyist for Central Valley

agricultural interests. For over a decade, as the head of the Central Valley

Project Water Association, Peltier led efforts to oppose federal water reform.

Despite Peltier's efforts, President George Bush Sr. signed into law the Central

Valley Project Improvement Act (CVPIA) in 1992. The CVPIA was a major overhaul

of the federal project that delivers water to farmers and other California water

users. It guaranteed that water would be made available for environmental

protection. The Department of Interior wrote rules to implement the CVPIA, which

serve as the foundation of the CalFed plan. On October 31, 1992, the day after

CVPIA became law, Peltier pledged in the San Francisco Chronicle, " We'll do

anything and everything to keep from being harmed. If that means obstructing

implementation [of the bill] so be it. "

 

The Westlands Water District, the largest and most powerful member of Peltier's

former employer, brought the lawsuit in question. If upheld, the decision by

U.S. District Judge Oliver W. Wanger in Fresno will dramatically reduce the

amount of water available for Bay-Delta restoration. But environmentalists say

the damage could go beyond fish and wildlife; the ruling threatens no less than

to bring down the carefully balanced CalFed program and its promise of reliable

water supplies for the rest of the state. NRDC and other environmental groups

are appealing the ruling to the Ninth Circuit court of appeals.

 

" In yet another environmental rollback by the Bush administration, Secretary

Norton is walking away from CalFed, even though she had pledged to support it, "

said Barry Nelson, senior policy analyst for NRDC (Natural Resources Defense

Council). " If Peltier influenced her decision, it means he is finally delivering

on his promise to special interests. "

 

8/26/02: White House Utah drilling plans under fire from local businesses:

A coalition of small businesses sent a letter to President Bush opposing his

administration's plans to allow oil drilling on public lands in southern Utah.

They are worried that drilling and related activities will mar the landscape

that is " the bedrock for drawing significant revenue to our local businesses. "

They pointed out that oil produced in the state generates $1 billion annually,

while tourists visiting Utah's popular canyons and other natural treasures spend

$4.25 billion. The 52 businesses that signed the letter -- including

bed-and-breakfasts, sightseeing firms, and restaurants -- said they don't oppose

oil drilling outright but prefer that it take place in less sensitive areas in

the state.

 

" It's not just environmentalists who oppose the Bush administration's

drill-dig-burn energy plan, " said Johanna Wald, director of NRDC's land program.

" But so far the president has only listened to big business, not the smaller

ones. "

 

8/27/02: U.S. undermines renewable energy proposal at World Summit:

Just two days into the U.N. summit in Johannesburg, the U.S. joined Saudi Arabia

and other nations in resisting promises to expand the use of clean, renewable

energy technologies around the globe. Renewable energy sources like wind and

solar power produce smaller and more expensive amounts of electricity than a

traditional power plant, but without adding to the pollution caused by burning

oil, coal and other fossil fuels, as well as carbon dioxide and other gases that

contribute to global warming. A proposal for the World Summit on Sustainable

Development's action plan calls for increasing the world's use of renewable

energy to 15 percent by 2010. But the U.S. delegation, led by Secretary of State

Colin Powell, opposed any target.

 

" The effort to provide cleaner sources of electricity to the 2.5 billion people

who do not have it today went up in smoke, " said Jacob Scherr, director of

NRDC's international program. " Without U.S. commitment, it will be next to

impossible to expand clean energy worldwide and curb global warming pollution. "

 

8/30/02: Bush's new wildfire expert no friend of forests:

This just in: The man chosen to direct the Bush administration's efforts to

reduce wildfire danger on public lands doubts the existence of ecosystems and

thinks the extinction of the nation's threatened and endangered species might

not be a bad idea. Allan Fitzsimmons, the new head of the Interior Department's

wildfire prevention program, is tasked with implementing President Bush's new

fire reduction strategy, the so-called Healthy Forests Initiative. His

appointment confirms the fears of environmentalists that the new program is a

thinly disguised effort to accelerate logging in national forests.

 

Fitzsimmons is a free-market policy analyst who formerly consulted for

libertarian and conservative think tanks. In " The Illusion of Ecosystem

Management, " published in 1999 by the Political Economy Research Center -- a

group that applies market principles to environmental problems -- Fitzsimmons

wrote that because ecosystems exist only in the human imagination and cannot be

delineated, federal policies should not be used to try to manage or restore

them. In another paper he took the position that the nation is not experiencing

a biodiversity crisis. In fact, the loss of all of the species currently listed

by the government as threatened or endangered, he argued, would be balanced out

by an increase in non-indigenous species -- many of which are taking over native

landscapes with devastating results.

 

" Putting Fitzsimmons in charge of forest health is like entrusting Enron with

your retirement savings, " said Nathaniel Lawrence, director of NRDC's forest

program.