You may have read of a letter sent by 31 Representatives to the EPA today to complain about coal ash regulation. I wasn't planning on dignifying it with a response, but sometimes something just calls out for a little highlighting. Like when the members write:
"States have been effectively regulating CCRs"
That's actually a case they want to be on record making? Really?
View of the TVA Kingston Fossil Plant fly ash spill. Photo used under Creative Commons by Brian Stansberry.
Full textNow that Congress has passed legislation creating a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in the Treasury Department, attention has shifted to how the Obama Administration will implement the new law.
The issue of who President Obama should appoint to head the new agency is now front and center. Consumer groups and many members of Congress believe that Professor Elizabeth Warren, who came up with the idea for a consumer protection agency for the financial sector and has been an aggressive consumer advocate during the entire financial crisis, should be the President’s choice. The banking industry’s position is “anyone but Warren.”
Elizabeth Warren (who was my colleague at the University of Texas for many years) is the most qualified candidate. Although she would inevitably have to make compromises in launching the new agency, she is a charismatic leader who would remain a strong consumer advocate and will not be bullied or hoodwinked by the banking industry.
As importantly, the appointment will make a strong symbolic statement about the President’s priorities. The appointment offers a unique opportunity for the President to demonstrate to the American public that he is on the side of consumers and not Wall Street.
We should bear in mind, however, that the future of this important agency also depends on other decisions that are being made in the Administration over the next few months. The bureaucratic realities facing a new agency may have as great an impact on its future as the credentials and personality of its first leader.
Full textThe EPA released a guidance document on Monday that promises to integrate environmental justice considerations into the fabric of its rulemaking efforts. Titled the Interim Guidance on Considering Environmental Justice During the Development of an Action, EPA’s Guidance sets forth concrete steps meant to flag those instances in which its rules or similar actions raise environmental justice concerns. Specifically, the Guidance directs agency staff involved in rulemaking to “meaningfully engage with and consider the impacts on” communities of color, low-income communities, indigenous populations, and tribes.
EPA’s Guidance responds to an issue raised by CPR Member Scholars at the dawn of the Obama Administration. In our 2008 report, Protecting Public Health and the Environment by the Stroke of a Presidential Pen, we observed that efforts to address environmental injustice had languished in the 15 years since President Clinton issued the Environmental Justice Executive Order (Executive Order 12898). We urged the new president to use his authority to, among other things, alter a status quo in which agencies too often simply failed to see that their actions had environmental justice implications:
Full textAgencies issue scores of regulations each year that have environmental justice implications. But these agencies often fail to ask who will bear the burdens and who will reap the benefits of a regulation, or to consider whether the regulation ameliorates or exacerbates current inequities. As a result, environmental justice often fails to make it onto agencies' radar screens.
When agencies do identify environmental justice as a potential concern during the rulemaking process, their responses often indicate a misunderstanding of the relevant issues. For example, when EPA purported to assess the environmental justice impacts of its final “Clean Air Mercury Rule,” which would have postponed and weakened reductions in mercury emissions, EPA observed that Native Americans, Southeast Asian Americans, and others would be better off with the rule's meager reductions than with nothing. Indeed, in a particularly callous twist, EPA asked “whether high fish-consuming (subsistence) populations would be disproportionately benefited by the final rule,” despite EPA's own data showing that many in these groups would be left exposed to unsafe levels of mercury in fish.
The Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 2010 (H.R. 5381/S. 3302), the primary legislation on the table in response to the Toyota unintended acceleration fiasco, went through the committee process in the House and Senate earlier this summer. The bills, as introduced, included some tough provisions to respond to gaps exposed by the Toyota episode.
Among important reforms included in the bills currently:
Cross-posted from Legal Planet.
A key figure in behavioral economics recently issued a warning about over-reliance on its findings. In a NY Times op. ed, Dr. George Lowenstein raised questions about some uses of behavioral economics by government policymakers:
As policymakers use it to devise programs, it’s becoming clear that behavioral economics is being asked to solve problems it wasn’t meant to address. Indeed, it seems in some cases that behavioral economics is being used as a political expedient, allowing policymakers to avoid painful but more effective solutions rooted in traditional economics.
Behavioral economics should complement, not substitute for, more substantive economic interventions. If traditional economics suggests that we should have a larger price difference between sugar-free and sugared drinks, behavioral economics could suggest whether consumers would respond better to a subsidy on unsweetened drinks or a tax on sugary drinks.
But that’s the most it can do. For all of its insights, behavioral economics alone is not a viable alternative to the kinds of far-reaching policies we need to tackle our nation’s challenges.
“Very interesting,” you might think, “But what does this have to do with environmental law?”
Full textAfter endless negotiations and draft bills, the Senate has given up on climate legislation that would place any sort of cap on the nation’s emissions, and will likely settle for a few select energy initiatives. Congress’ failure to act is galling. Hand wringing is fully justified. But what now? State and local governments have become accustomed to federal paralysis, and will, I hope, continue to march on notwithstanding the tight lock that certain vested fossil fuel interests and industry have clamped on congressional action. Moreover, EPA’s efforts to regulate greenhouse gases (GHGs) under the Clean Air Act have become all the more critical in the absence of comprehensive federal climate legislation. A key question, however, will be whether state, Clean Air Act, and existing federal energy laws can make up for the absence of more comprehensive federal climate legislation.
In the last several years, over half the states have moved forward with climate action plans that set climate reduction goals and provide a framework for comprehensive statewide emission reduction initiatives. The prospects for full implementation and achievement of state climate goals are, however, uncertain. Only 10 states have established their emissions targets through state legislative action that would give the states the legal authority to implement measures to achieve their goals. Many other states have established climate programs through executive initiatives that might not be fully implementable without additional state legislative action.
While the Senate rejected efforts to cap GHG emissions and establish a cap-and-trade program for utilities, industry, and other sources, state programs continue to evolve. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) a cap-and-trade program for utilities in northeastern and mid-Atlantic states, has been humming along since January 2009. Regulated utilities covered by the program buy carbon allowances at quarterly auctions that have operated smoothly and economically. The states are then using the revenue to invest in energy efficiency and other energy programs, programs that will help reduce emissions and make the emissions caps easier to meet.
Full textJuly 1 marked the 35th anniversary of the effective date entry-into-force of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). While CITES is among the stronger international conventions, its strength is diminished by a lack of an enforcement mechanism and political maneuverings.
The arrests and cargo seizures may not make headlines often, but international trade in endangered species is one of the most valuable illegal markets, behind drugs but potentially comparable to arms and human trafficking. According to a 2008 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report, the global trade in illegal wildlife is valued at more than $5 billion and potentially exceeds $20 billion annually. For example, the Queen Alexandra’s Birdwing butterfly (Orinthoptera alexandrae), which can have a wingspan of up to 14 inches, sells for as much as $10,000! Some of the more valuable species commodities are tiger parts, caviar, elephant ivory, rhino horn, and exotic birds and reptiles. Although no official statistics exist, the CRS report estimates that the United States purchases as much as 20% of the global market in illegal species. Other main importers include China and countries in the European Union.
Full textThanks to a strong ruling from a federal judge in Baltimore Wednesday, large poultry companies are one step closer to being held accountable for the pollution (manure) the small farms that grow chickens for them generate. Responsibility: it’s not just for the little guys anymore.
In March, several environmental groups in Maryland sued Perdue Farms, Inc. and Hudson Farm, a chicken farm that raises Perdue’s chickens, alleging violations of the Clean Water Act. (I blogged earlier about the political brouhaha that erupted here.) Samples taken on five different occasions from a ditch flowing from Hudson Farm showed excessive levels of fecal coliform, E. coli, nitrogen, phosphorus, and ammonia. Agriculture is the largest source of nutrient pollution in the Chesapeake Bay, contributing an estimated 38 percent of the nitrogen and 45 percent of the phosphorous.
The groundbreaking suit not only targeted the specific geographic source of the pollution – Hudson Farm and its stockpiles of uncovered poultry manure – but it also alleged that Perdue, a poultry company with $4 billion in sales annually, was responsible for the mess as well. The court rightly rejected Perdue’s argument that it should be dismissed from the lawsuit because it was a poultry integrator – not a grower – and was, the company asserted, not required to obtain a discharge permit under the Clean Water Act.
Full textCross-posted from Legal Planet.
Last year, I noted that the interim report of the Interagency Ocean Task Force appointed by President Obama marked a promising step toward a national ocean policy. Now the Task Force has issued its final recommendations, which the President promptly began implementing.
A national ocean policy has been a long time coming. Back in 2003, the Pew Oceans Commission called for a new “unified national ocean policy based on protecting ecosystem health.” A year later, the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy echoed many of the Pew Commission’s recommendations. But the Bush administration sat on those recommendations. President Bush did create an executive-branch Committee on Ocean Policy, but failed to give it any substantive mandate.
President Obama has filled that gap. On Monday, he issued an Executive Order (as yet unnumbered) replacing the Committee on Ocean Policy with a National Ocean Council jointly chaired by the Council on Environmental Quality and the Office of Science and Technology Policy. That’s important because it means that the Council will have a strong voice in the White House.
Full textJust before the July 4 recess, Representative George Miller, Chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, introduced the Miner Safety and Health Act of 2010. Recent explosions at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch Mine, Tesoro’s Anacortes (WA) refinery, BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling platform, and U.S. Steel’s coke oven in Clairton (PA), highlight the life-threatening hazards that American workers face on a daily basis. Despite these hazards—and the myriad other less serious or even chronic hazards that don’t make headlines—workers continue to do their jobs day in and day out.
Contrast these workers’ diligence with that of certain members of Congress, who, in advance of today’s committee vote on the Miner Safety and Health Act, have said that they want to hold off on legislating until they see the official reports on the causes of the Upper Big Branch explosion. Sure, official reports on that explosion will reveal important details about exactly what caused that particular disaster, notable for its severity and harrowing death toll. But as MSHA proved with its five-day “inspection blitz” of 57 underground coal mines in April, miners continue to work in conditions that we know are hazardous. The problem isn’t that we don’t understand the hazards that lead to explosions or other dangerous conditions, it’s that companies are choosing not to comply with the standards that would protect their workers. In just three days, MSHA issued more than 1,500 citations for violations of federal mine health and safety standards. MSHA had to order a halt to operations at six mines in Kentucky because of rampant violations. Clearly, economics—not workers’ safety—is the driving force for these companies’ decisions about compliance with federal law.
The Miner Safety and Health Act is designed to alter the current economics of noncompliance, where the penalties for violating worker safety protections are too often seen as just the cost of doing business. Among other things, the law would increase penalties, force mining companies to fix workplace hazards while they contest citations, and give whistleblowers a right to sue employers on their own behalf when the government’s whistleblower protection agency works too slowly. The bill is a systemic response to systemic problems. Waiting for official reports about the specific causes of one disaster will only shift the debate toward piecemeal reforms that will leave millions working in the same dangerous conditions without the full array of new protections afforded by the bill as introduced.
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