Tag: federal government

States to Have Bigger Enforcement Role?

The Bush Administration wants to shift more of the job of enforcing environmental laws to the states. The Environmental Protection Agency proposes to give states twenty-five million dollars to do the job. However, environmentalists, the General Accounting Office and even the EPA’s own Office of Inspector General find problems with the plan. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham has more:

Transcript

The Bush administration wants to shift more of the job of enforcing environmental laws to the states. The Environmental Protection Agency proposes to give states 25-million dollars to do the job. However, Environmentalists, the General Accounting Office and EVEN the EPA’s own Office of Inspector General find problems with the plan. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports.


Although the EPA is responsible for enforcement of national environmental laws, in most cases it assigns much of that authority to the states. Already 44 state environmental agencies act as the enforcement agency for the EPA. Now in its fiscal year 2002 budget, the Environmental Protection Agency’s Administrator, Christie Todd Whitman, proposes cutting the agency’s staff and giving more money to the states to enforce environmental laws. This move would only shift a little more of that burden to the states.


Some members of Congress have been pushing for shifting many of the federal government’s enforcement duties to the state level, arguing that the people at the state level are more attuned to the effects that strictly enforcing regulatory laws can have on the local economy.


The EPA has found that’s sometimes true. But in considering the economic impact, the state regulators don’t always enforce the law the way the EPA wants it to be done and that can be bad for the environment. Eileen McMahon is with the EPA’s Office of the Inspector General.


“We have –going back to 1996– been doing reviews and evaluations of different areas of enforcement, air enforcement, water enforcement, other enforcement and have found, certainly, cases where the states could be doing a better job.”


In a report released just last month the EPA’s Inspector General found that while some states have great records at enforcing environmental laws. But in many other cases some states have simply looked the other way.


“We found that states’ concerns with regulating small and economically vital businesses and industries had an impact on whether or not they were effectively deterring non-compliance.”


Some environmental groups are not surprised by those findings. Elliot Negin is with the Natural Resources Defense Council. He says he wouldn’t expect much good to come from letting states take more responsibility for enforcing environmental laws.


“Well, it’s gonna open a whole can of worms. The states, many states have pretty bad track records when it comes to upholding environmental laws. And, the state politicians are, unfortunately, sometimes too close to the polluters through campaign contributions and what not.”


Despite those concerns, some members of Congress feel the US EPA has been too aggressive in its application of environmental laws, and that shifting more of the enforcement authority to the states would bring a certain measure of common sense to the process.


As, the two sides argue about the merits of enforcing environmental laws at the federal level or the state level. One government office says no decision should be made at all just yet. The General Accounting office says the states and the EPA should take stock of how things are working now.


The GAO just released a report that finds cutting staff at the federal level and shifting resources to the state level — in other words, just what EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whittman is proposing— is premature. John Stephenson is the Director of Natural Resources and Environment for the GAO. He says the EPA has no idea how many people it takes to properly enforce the law because its workforce plan is more than a decade old.


“And, so, that’s basic information you would need to determine, number one, how many enforcement personnel that the states might need and number two how many personnel EPA headquarters might need to oversee the states.”


The GAO’s Stephenson says until some kind of workforce assessment is done. There’s little point in debating whether the EPA or the states are better suited to enforce environmental laws.


“This shift in authority, as you know, is an ongoing debate in the Congress and we feel like that there needs to be this basic workforce analysis done before either side is in a position to support their relative positions.”


The EPA agreed with the General Accounting Office’s findings. But it’s unclear whether there’s enough time to assess the agencies and states’ workforce needs before Congress approves the budget that could shift some of the enforcement authority to the states.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

STATES TO HAVE BIGGER ENFORCEMENT ROLE? (Short Version)

The Bush Administration is proposing the Environmental Protection Agency turn over more of its enforcement authority to the states. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham explains:

Transcript

The Bush administration is proposing the Environmental Protection Agency turn over more of its enforcement authority to the states. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports.


In the fiscal year 2002 budget, EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whittman proposes cutting agency staff who enforce environmental laws and in their place giving states additional money to do that job. Some environmental groups say that’s a bad idea because some states have a terrible track record on enforcing environmental laws. Eileen McMahon is with the EPA’s Office of the Inspector General. That office reports states sometimes look the other way.


“We found that the state enforcement programs could be much more effective in the deterrence and non-compliance of permits.”


The Inspector General says sometimes the states don’t enforce the law when the business is vital to the local economy. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

Jet Ski Ban to Take Effect

The National Park Service is banning jet skis and other personal
watercraft from most of its parks. However, industry officials say the
ban
will be short-lived. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham
reports:

Validity of Corps Study Questioned

The Upper Mississippi River is a key navigation route for
commercial vessels traveling to and from the Great Lakes. The U-S
Army Corps of Engineers is studying ways to enhance the river’s traffic
capacity. One option is to expand some of the locks. That would reduce
the time it takes for barges to travel between ports. But one Corps
economist says the benefits of lock expansion don’t outweigh the costs.
Now, he’s blowing the whistle on those whom he says have fixed the
numbers to justify a one billion-dollar construction project. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Kevin Lavery reports:

Transcript

The Upper Mississippi River is a key navigation route for commercial
vessels traveling to and from the Great Lakes. The U-S Army Corps of
Engineers is studying ways to enhance the river’s traffic capacity. One
option is to expand some of the locks. That would reduce the time it takes
for barges to travel between ports. But one Corps economist says the
benefits of lock expansion don’t outweigh the costs. Now, he’s blowing the
whistle on those whom he says have fixed the numbers to justify a one
billion-dollar construction project. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Kevin Lavery reports:


Lock and Dam number 25 near Winfield, Missouri straddles the upper
Mississippi 40 miles north of St. Louis. Last year, 39 million tons of
grain, soybeans and other cargo passed through here. Though it’s winter,
water continues to rush through the dam. However, ice on the river farther
north has slowed barged traffic here to near non-existence.


A lock is essentially a watery elevator that raises and lowers boats to
different depths. Each lock is 600 feet long, but a typical 15-barge tow is
12-hundred feet long. Walter Feld is with the Corps of Engineers’ St.
Louis District. He says a tow has to break apart to negotiate the lock’s
narrow chamber:


“One lockage would take about 30 minutes. When you break that tow
apart and put two pieces together, it takes probably closer to 90 minutes.
So all that delay adds up to triple the length of time to get through
it.”


In 1993, the Corps began a 58-million dollar study of the upper
Mississippi in an attempt to plan for the needs of the navigation industry
over the next 50 years. Dr. Donald Sweeney was named the lead economist
for the study:


“The feasibility study is a planning and implementation
study.
You’re required to investigate the economic effects and environmental
consequences of whatever actions you might propose.”


At the start of the study, Sweeney says his team was told to give its best
unbiased estimate of the situation:


“And I believe that was truly the spirit of the study up
until
late 1997, at which it turned 180 degrees.”


Among other alternatives, the Corps looked at doubling the size of seven
locks to reduce congestion on the river. But the economics team concluded
the benefits gained would not be worth the cost of construction. Sweeney
says the analysis showed such a project would result in a loss of up to
20-million dollars a year.


In a written affidavit, Sweeney testified that top Corps officials
the economists to alter their analysis to justify spending a billion
dollars to expand the locks. The report points to a number of internal
memos indicating the Corps’ desire to appease the barge industry. In 1998,
Sweeney was relieved as head of the economics team, five years after the
study began.


Corps spokesman Ron Fournier says the media has underplayed the full scope
of the navigation study, and that lock expansions are not the only option at
the agency’s disposal.


“The study is actually navigation improvements, which is
variety of alternatives for the river. We have alternatives such as
extending the guide walls, adding mooring cells or buoys for barges to
tie up to, and then again also the expansion of the lock chambers
themselves.”


Fournier says Sweeney failed to take into account some of those
alternatives, many of which he says were added since the economist left the
study team.


“The navigation study has been evolving for the past seven
years; and as new data is received from the shipping industry, from the
farm growers and from a variety of other economists throughout the
country, new calculations are being used and different results are
being obtained.”


Aside from the financial issues associated with large-scale construction,
environmentalists say lock expansion would jeopardize wildlife on the river.


Washington D.C. based Environmental Defense has taken a leading stance in
the issue by releasing many of the internal Corps documents to government
officials. Senior attorney Tim Searchinger says the papers clearly show
most of the people in the study had a great deal of professional integrity,
and that some may have been pushed into doing the wrong thing.


“There is a top ranking leadership that’s willing to cause
environmental harm, even when the analysis clearly shows that from a
purely economic standpoint, the project isn’t justified either.”


Another reason why economist Donald Sweeney says the Corps is pushing
expansion is because such projects would bolster the agency’s stagnant budget.


“They’re trying to become a bigger, more vital agency.
And
sometimes that conflicts with a purely unbiased scientific analysis of
potentially a billion dollars worth of expenditures.”


Late last month, the Office of Special Counsel declared the Corps likely had violated the law in

catering to the interests of commercial navigation. The OSC is the independent federal agency with

whom Sweeney filed his affidavit. The office has ordered Defense Secretary William Cohen to

conduct an investigation and report back by the end of April. Spokesman Ron Fournier says from the

start, the Corps has been forthright about the
study both with Congress and the public.


“We feel that when this investigation is complete,
they’ll
find there’s no wrongdoing, and of course the
study has been done in an above
Corps will prove that the
board, upright manner.”


The investigation has also reached the congressional level. The Senate
committee on Environment and Public Works is conducting a number of public
hearings on the study this month.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium,
I’m Kevin Lavery in St. Louis.

Feds Criticized for Lead Strategy

The U-S-E-P-A is working on a new set of standards for lead content indust and soil in and around homes. Those standards will be mandatory forall federally-owned or assisted housing and voluntary for other homes.Lead is of concern for the E-P-A because studies have found that one outof every 20 children in the U-S suffer from elevated blood-lead levels.But in a September issue of the journal "Science", one physician iscriticizing the way federal authorities are developing those newstandards. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Steve Hirschberg hasmore: