The Bush agenda concerning our environment is a four pronged attack on regulations that protect Americans from polluters and exploitationists.
Tine number one on this fork is the use of "Stealth Government" or the rewriting of regulations to ease the effects of environmental protections regarding air and water; and while they are about it, to privatize our national assets.
The second tine on the fork is the use of the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 to make environmental class action suits more difficult.
Tine three is the nomination of judicial activists like William J. Myers III to the 9th Circuit Court.
And, the fourth tine is the frontal assault, exemplified by the budget insertions allowing drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and the upcoming Pombo proposals to overturn the National Environmental Policy Act.
Please read on for more source material for your letters to editors, messages to Congressional Representatives, and general good ranting--before the Administration has a chance to "stick the fork in us because we're done."
Tine One: Stealth Government
The last example of this government by quietly changing the regulations to hit the headlines concerned the rewriting of rules on "cap and trade" mercury pollution. We duly noted that this was done without acknowledging that the government's own study was ignored because it didn't come out the way the Administration wanted. This will be the subject of litigation. (More on this in "Tine Two".) The Forest Service is currently making `rules' that could allow logging in the Sequoia National Monument.
link here Rules were rewritten to change management plans for public lands to allow everything from snowmobile use to privatizing reservation systems for national parks using no bid contracts. Lobbying groups like the American Recreation Association (read: motorized vehicle lobby) and the American Chemistry Association (read: chemical manufacturers) have unprecedented influence in the Bush Administration. Note the GAO report conclusion on conflicts of interest:
"The report examines how American Chemistry Council (ACC) financial donations to EPA and NIH research projects may pose a conflict of public and private interests. The GAO investigation focuses on studies that examine the health effects of chemical exposure, and are partially funded by the ACC. The GAO report found that funding by the ACC could potentially influence regulatory rules that are based on the studies.
The ACC is an industry trade group that represents several chemical manufacturing companies. It has funded 17 NIH proposals and 2 EPA-related projects. [1] "
BushGreenWatch
Tine Two: The Class Action "Unfairness" Act of 2005.
This was a classic weapon of mass deception. While the media focused its attention on medical malpractice lawsuits the "Unfairness Act" made it exponentially more difficult for environmental groups to file suits against major polluters and exploitationists. PL 109-2 could have been amended to protect environmental suits, but it wasn't. Just as it could have been amended to protect civil rights and wage payment suits (Kennedy S5 amdt 2) but wasn't. Or, amended to allow suits against manufacturers who market products in more than one state (Feinstein S5 amdt 4) but wasn't. John Conyers' attempt to add civil rights and corporate responsibility language in the House (H amdt 11) was voted down 178 to 247.
What does PL 109-2 do?
2. The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action in which the matter in controversy exceeds the sum or value of $5,000,000, exclusive of interest and costs, and is a class action in which--
`(A) any member of a class of plaintiffs is a citizen of a State different from any defendant;
`(B) any member of a class of plaintiffs is a foreign state or a citizen or subject of a foreign state and any defendant is a citizen of a State; or
`(C) any member of a class of plaintiffs is a citizen of a State and any defendant is a foreign state or a citizen or subject of a foreign state.
source
And why should we be concerned?
There's the matter of carbon dioxide pollution: New York Times Should EPA regulate carbon dioxide April 8, 2005
"In arguments on a suit that consolidates a number of legal actions, opposing lawyers cited the same words of the Clean Air Act and drew entirely different conclusions. The plaintiffs are 12 states, a territory, 3 cities and 13 nongovernment organizations, most of them environmental groups. ....Regulation of carbon dioxide emissions has been a major national environmental issue since President Bush first won election. Despite a campaign promise in 2000 to include carbon dioxide as an air pollutant that should be regulated, the administration has resisted regulations on such emissions from mobile as well as stationary sources. Conflict over carbon dioxide is one major reason Congress has not passed new antipollution legislation for power plants."
And the matter of MTBE's:
"Environmentalists cite the widespread occurrence of groundwater contamination from MTBE, a gasoline additive, to show that the Class Action Fairness Act will jeopardize swift resolution of the problem.
MTBE has been found in groundwater in 35 states, and thousands of families across the country have been affected by MTBE pollution. If S.5 becomes law, the class action suits filed under state law would be moved to federal courts, making them far more expensive and more difficult for the victims." source
Tine Three: Judicial Activism
One of the nominees who has the party-line approval from the Senate Judiciary Committee is William J. Myers III. His nomination will no doubt be wrapped in the flag of "culture of life" and other right wing code words. However, Myers is not known for his "Pro-Life" record; he is known for his anti-environmental activism in the Interior Department.
William Myers treated his time at the Interior Department as another influence-peddling assignment for his industry clients. In two short years with the government, he overturned decisions and erased regulations, effectively giving the mining and grazing industries free rein over our precious natural resources. Myers' unwillingness to put private corporate interests aside when he assumed the very different role as Interior solicitor, coupled with his embrace of a dangerous neo-federalist legal philosophy, should lead to the rejection of his nomination.
source.....
When he joined the Department of Interior, however, Myers continued to disparage federal environmental protection efforts. In a speech to the Cattlemen's Association given during his tenure as Interior Solicitor he told the audience, "[t]he biggest disaster now facing ranchers is not nature . . . but a flood of regulations designed to turn the West into little more than a theme park." 47 At another Cattlemen's Association meeting, he "promised to ease Clinton-era restrictions on livestock grazing, repeated a Bush administration pledge to look at
rolling back environmental reviews" and insisted "we should not be using the Endangered Species Act . . . as a land management tool. It is not there as a tool for zoning federal lands." --
source
Tine Four: Outright Assault
We saw this in the budgetary provision for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. We are seeing this played out in the Colorado legislature over the rights of landowners versus the privileges of oil and gas drilling companies. April will bring a gale force shower on the National Environmental Policy Act.
"Next week (week of April 4, 2005) Richard Pombo (R-CA) and other pro-industry members of Congress will unveil their plan to gut the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), one of America's bedrock environmental laws. In an attempt to soften their message and appear "balanced" and "reasonable," Pombo and key leaders of the House Resources Committee will publicly claim that they intend to "streamline" and "modernize" the Act. The fact of the matter is that this group of legislators has an ambitious agenda to get rid of the most important components of NEPA and to make sure Americans will no longer be able to participate in decisions that impact us and the air, land and water that we, and future generations, depend on. Industry, developers and polluters are lining up and are organized already to support this effort.
Pombo and company will launch their campaign from an economic angle. Simply put, that NEPA is costing too much. They will claim that NEPA has crippled state economies and harmed the "common man," but the fact of the matter is NEPA has saved Americans innumerable tax dollars in environmental destruction clean up costs and burdens. And as we have heard many times before, Pombo and company will argue that NEPA is tying up the courts due to litigation by "environmental extremists" and preventing "reasonable" projects from moving forward." For more information on Pombo's assault: American Lands Alliance
What to do?
- Keep apprised of the stealth government. There are numerous web sites with updated information on the re-writing of environmental regulations. The American Lands Alliance, the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the League of Conservation Voters are all good places to look.
- Keep the pressure on. Write to your senator about the nomination of activists like Myers to the federal bench. Contact your senators and representatives about the Pombo assault of environmental regulations.
- Change the frame: This isn't about saving owls and snail darters. These issues aren't about protecting big trees. The endangered specie about which we should be most concerned is the imperiled human being. The planet will keep spinning in its orbit (until the Great Big Coming?) whether WE can live on it is another matter entirely.