ENVIRONMENT
Swift and Steady Sabotage
Last week, the Washington Post reported thirty-four Superfund projects in 19 states will go unfunded this year. The Environmental Protection Agency acknowledged that Superfund, which is the government's toxic waste cleanup program, is now nearly bankrupt. Why are these crucial sites being neglected? Carol Browner, the administrator of the EPA from 1993-2001, explains, "Because the fees that are used to pay for these cleanups are no longer being collected." In a sop to the oil industry, the Bush administration ended the tax on corporate polluters that funded the program by refusing to ask Congress to reinstate the fee oil and chemical companies paid that generated the money for cleanups. This is part of an overall pattern of a swift and steady sabotage of environmental safeguards.
THE ENVIRONMENT AT A GLANCE: A new study by Knight Ridder, for example, found that the steady improvement in air and water quality of the past three decades "has stalled or gone in reverse in several areas" since January 2001. Specifically, Superfund cleanups of toxic waste fell by 52 percent; fish-consumption warnings for rivers doubled; the number of beach closings rose 26 percent; civil citations issued to polluters fell 57 percent; asthma attacks increased by 6 percent; and there were "record-low" additions to national parks, wilderness, wildlife refuges and the endangered species list. (For a look at how your state stacks up with health, safety and the environment, check out American Progress's new interactive map.)
LETTING THE INMATES RUN THE ASYLUM: The Washington Post reports that the chemical industry has given $2 million to the EPA for a study supposedly "exploring the impact of pesticides and household chemicals on young children." (For those of you keeping track, the American Chemistry Council is the same group that fought against the finding that wood treated with arsenic shouldn't be used in playground equipment.) The EPA already has a $572 million research budget; no word on why the agency needed to take money from the chemical industry to conduct an independent study. The EPA admits the money means "We will seek their opinions." Carol Henry, a vice president at the American Chemistry Council, also acknowledges the association has set up a board of hand-picked academics and industry officials to be a "resource to investigators," adding, "We'll give them our guidance." (The administration has a track record of allowing corporations to call the regulatory shots; check out this comprehensive report about the special interest takeover.)
DRILLING AWAY THE WILDERNESS: President Bush has claimed, "I guess you'd say I'm a good steward of the land." Not really. According to the Los Angeles Times, environmentally damaging policies put in place by Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton take away the safeguards which for decades have protected potential wilderness areas. Even more egregious, the administration claimed that the Department of the Interior "is barred – forever – from identifying and protecting wild land the way it has for nearly 30 years." In effect, "The administration is giving industry virtual carte blanche to look for oil and gas wherever it wants outside of existing parks and wilderness areas." The Washington Post points out that President Bush has "approved about 70 percent more drilling permits on public lands during the first three years of his administration" than the three preceding years. And, writes the New Yorker, "By stripping away restrictions on the use of federal lands, often through little-advertised rule changes, the Administration has potentially opened up sixty million acres, an area larger than Indiana and Iowa combined, to logging, mining, and oil exploration."
GLOBAL WARMING: A top NASA climate expert yesterday joined a long line of scientists in criticizing the Bush administration for its disregard of science. Dr. James E. Hansen, who has twice briefed Vice President Dick Cheney's task force on global warming, charged, "In my more than three decades in government, I have never seen anything approaching the degree to which information flow from scientists to the public has been screened and controlled as it is now." Hansen also "said the administration wants to hear only scientific results that 'fit predetermined, inflexible positions.'" Specifically, he charged the White House edited reports that outline the potential dangers of global warming to make the problem appear less serious. "This process is in direct opposition to the most fundamental precepts of science," he said. "This," he warned, "is a recipe for environmental disaster."
