A government report indicates to clean up fewer than half of the leaky
underground storage tanks in the nation it would cost billions of
dollars. But the Bush administration budget only calls for millions.
Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
A government report indicates to clean up fewer than half of the leaky
underground storage tanks in the nation it would cost billions of
dollars. But the Bush administration budget only calls for millions.
Lester Graham reports:
Leaking underground storage tanks of gasoline or other hazardous
liquids can contaminate drinking water and soil. There are 117,000
known leaks from underground storage tanks across the nation.
A Government Accountability Office report indicates to clean up just
half that number would cost 12 billion dollars. The Bush
administration has requested less than 73 million dollars in the budget
currently before Congress.
The chair of the House Energy and Commerce committee, John Dingell,
calls the Bush request disgraceful and inadequate. But in the last
budget, Congress only appropriated 70 million to clean up leaky
underground storage tanks.
States across the nation expect to discover more than 16,000 new leaks
in the next five years. That could mean the current government funding
of clean-ups will never catch up with the actual number of leaky
underground storage tanks.
For the Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.
The mid-term elections caused a major power shift in Washington. Democrats say they plan to rev up Congress’ power of oversight. (Photo courtesy of Architect of the Capitol)
The political landscape in the U.S. changed overnight last week. The Democratic takeover will mean a big shift in policy-making efforts in Washington. Mark Brush has more on how environmental issues played out in the election, and what this new Congress might do on the environmental front:
Transcript
The political landscape in the U.S. changed overnight last week. The Democratic takeover will mean a big shift in policy-making efforts in Washington. Mark Brush has more on how environmental issues played out in the election, and what this new Congress might do on the environmental front:
Environmentalists say some of their biggest enemies were defeated in the midterm election. And top on their list of the worst environmental offenders was California Congressman Richard Pombo.
(The “Pombo Mambo” plays: a catchy ad jingle whose lyrics expose Richard Pombo’s environmental record, produced and run by the League of Conservation Voters.)
Environmentalists spent millions of dollars on radio and television ads to defeat Pombo, and they say it was money well spent. They came to really despise Pombo because of his work to weaken the Endangered Species Act.
Tiernan Sittenfeld is the legislative director for the League of Conservation Voters. She says many Republican committee chairs, such as Richard Pombo, simply obstructed environmental legislation. She says now that will change.
“It’s not that even that Congress has even voted to pass particular pro-environment legislation; it’s that the house leadership and the committee chairs haven’t even allowed such legislation to come to the floor. They haven’t even wanted a debate on it. So I think having different leadership, having different committee chairs who care about protecting the environment, who care about clean air, clean water, and open space is going to be a whole world of difference.”
So now that the Republican leadership is out who is taking their place? One legislator who is expected to gain a lot of power is Democrat John Dingell of Michigan. He will chair the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Dingell says he, and other Democratic committee chairs will first use their power to make sure that existing environmental laws are being enforced by the Bush Administration.
“This administration has been totally unsupervised by the Congress, and checks and balances which are so important to the Founding Fathers, and legislative oversight, have simply not taken place since the Bush Administration came in.”
Dingell will be joined by many other legislators who are likely to have strong environmental agendas. People like Barbara Boxer, Harry Reid, and Henry Waxman. They have several issues in mind that they feel have been mishandled by the Bush Administration. Top on their list is energy policy and global warming.
On energy, environmental lobbyists say high gas prices have made the issue one that resonates with voters.
Karen Wayland is the legislative director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. She says the new Congress will revisit the tax breaks and other financial incentives given to oil companies in the last energy bill.
“I think what something the House will do at least will be to look at the royalty relief that Congress has given to the oil companies and sort of try to roll back some of the royalty relief; make the oil companies pay full price for extracting oil from our public lands and then use that money to invest in clean energy.”
Democrats are also expected to make a push for national renewable energy standards, and higher fuel economy standards for cars and trucks.
As for global warming, the Democrats say the Bush White House and the Republicans in Congress have completely ignored the issue. The Democrats are expected to introduce several global warming bills in the next session.
But while the Democrats gained a lot of power, they still will have to work around the threat of a presidential veto. And in the Senate, the republicans still hold more than enough seats to block legislation.
Darren Samuelsohn is a senior reporter with Greenwire, a Washington DC based news service covering energy and environmental policy. Samuelsohn says while the Republicans still hold a lot of power, it’s interesting to see how much of it was eroded overnight.
“As you start to talk about it and think about it, it’s across the board: it’s judges, it’s legislation, it’s oversight. And then the thing that really nobody outside of Washington ever really kind of knows what’s going on about, but the whole huge appropriation – the whole federal budget process. That will now be Democrat controlled and we’re talking about hundreds of billions of dollars that get spent every year.”
Samuelsohn says the Democrats will now face the challenge of finding more money for their favorite environmental programs, while at the same time making good on campaign promises to cut the huge federal budget deficit.
A federal judge says the Bush Administration broke the law when it opened up protected forestland to logging. A rule under the Clinton Administration kept nearly one third of all national forestland off limits to logging and new road building. But last year the Bush Administration repealed that rule. Mark Brush has more:
Transcript
A federal judge says the Bush Administration broke the law when it opened up protected
forestland to logging. A rule under the Clinton Administration kept nearly one third of all
national forestland off limits to logging and new road building. But last year the Bush
Administration repealed that rule. Mark Brush has more:
The federal judge said the Bush Administration did not comply with environmental laws
when it repealed the so-called Roadless Area Conservation Rule.
The Administration opened the door to more road-building and logging. And it
required states to petition the federal government if they wanted their roadless areas
protected.
Just last month in Oregon, the first protected roadless area was opened up to logging. The
trees were killed four years ago in a fire. Patty Burel is a spokesperson for the U.S.
Forest Service. She says the federal court’s ruling won’t affect the current timber sale:
“It’s our understanding, from what we’re hearing from our legal counsel, that nothing
prohibits us from continuing, so we’re continuing to proceed with the plan of operation
with these two fire salvage sales.”
It’s expected that the timber industry and some states like Idaho will appeal the judge’s ruling.
The Bush Administration is proposing a Renewable Fuels Standard Program. It aims to double the use of renewable fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel. The GLRC’s Lester Graham reports:
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The Bush Administration is proposing a Renewable Fuels Standard Program. It aims to
double the use of renewable fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel. The GLRC’s Lester
Graham reports:
This new regulation would require more renewable fuels at the pumps. The Bush
Administration predicts we’ll cut petroleum use by nearly four billion gallons a year.
Most of those fuels are expected to come from crops such as corn for ethanol and soy
beans for soy-diesel. But some scientists say using food crops for renewable fuels is a
short-term fix.
That’s because it takes a lot of energy to produce ethanol from corn. At best, the net
energy gain in growing, harvesting, and processing corn into ethanol is: one energy unit
input producing a one-and-a-quarter energy unit output. And, ethanol production has been
heavily dependent on government subsidies.
The Environmental Protection Agency notes that new technologies might be able to
produce ethanol from agricultural and industrial waste, such as scrap wood chips,
at a cost that’s competitive with today’s gasoline prices.
The Environmental Protection Agency says it will start monitoring the air around some large livestock farms this winter. The EPA says it will help them develop better air quality standards for these farms. But critics say the project is too soft on polluters. The GLRC’s Mark Brush has more:
Transcript
The Environmental Protection Agency says it will start monitoring the air around some
large livestock farms this winter. The EPA says it will help them develop better air
quality standards for these farms. But critics say the project is too soft on polluters. The
GLRC’s Mark Brush has more:
Thousands of farms have agreed to be a part of a voluntary air pollution monitoring
project. Big hog, poultry, and dairy operations produce a lot of manure. The manure
releases gases that can cause health problems. As part of the agreement with the EPA,
the farms will be immune from most federal lawsuits while the monitoring is done.
Jon Scholl is with the EPA. He says this voluntary approach will bring more farms into
compliance faster than direct enforcement:
“We have 2,568 agreements covering 6,267 farms that have a written agreement with the
agency that they’re going to come into compliance with applicable air quality laws, and
we think that’s significant and certainly much better than taking it on a case by case
basis.”
Critics of the voluntary project say there is enough evidence now to force these large
farms to comply with air quality laws. They say the Bush Administration lacks the
political will to do so.
After the release of a new report, the Environmental
Protection Agency is one step closer to developing new standards
for dioxin exposure. But as the GLRC’s Mark Brush reports,
some scientists say the standards have been delayed by the Bush Administration:
Transcript
After the release of a new report, the Environmental Protection Agency is one step closer
to developing new standards for dioxin exposure. But as the GLRC’s Mark Brush
reports, some scientists say the standards have been delayed by the Bush Administration:
The EPA decided to reassess the standards for dioxin exposure 15 years ago. That was
after scientists found that dioxin can alter human cells. The EPA spent nine more years
researching the chemical. And in 2000, the EPA released a draft of the new standards,
but the Bush Administration wanted more research.
Boston University’s Richard Clapp reviewed the EPA’s draft report in 2000:
“And it was, I thought, very complete and very accurate up to that point. And it was at
that point that we got a new Administration and the decision was made that this needs to
be reviewed yet again by the National Academy of Sciences.”
The authors of this new NAS report say their findings shouldn’t get in the way of
finalizing the EPA’s new dioxin standards.
The watchdog agency for Congress says the President’s greenhouse gas reduction programs don’t hold companies accountable.
Four years ago, the Bush Administration unveiled its plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions. At the time critics said the voluntary programs simply wouldn’t work. The GLRC’s Mark Brush has more:
Transcript
The watchdog agency for Congress says the president’s greenhouse gas reduction
programs don’t hold companies accountable. Four years ago, the Bush Administration
unveiled its plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions. At the time critics said the voluntary
programs simply wouldn’t work. The GLRC’s Mark Brush has more:
In 2002 president Bush announced a plan to cut the nation’s output of heat trapping
gases:
“My administration is committed to cutting our nation’s greenhouse gas intensity, how
much we emit per unit of economic activity, by 18% over the next ten years.”
What followed were two government programs that called on businesses to voluntarily
reduce their greenhouse gases. The Government Accountability Office recently put out a
report on those two programs run by the Department of Energy and the EPA. It found the
businesses that volunteered make up only half of all greenhouse gas emissions in the US.
It also found there’s no system in place to verify whether companies are meeting the
goals of the programs. The GAO recommends the agencies make policies that will track
a company’s progress, and hold companies accountable if they don’t meet their goals.
A group of electric utilities hopes the EPA appeals a recent ruling in a major air pollution case. Coal-burning power plants, refineries and older factories are watching the case closely. The GLRC’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Transcript
A group of electric utilities hopes the EPA appeals a recent ruling in a major air
pollution case. Coal-burning power plants, refineries and older factories
are watching the case closely. The GLRC’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:
A court in Washington D.C. recently ruled against the EPA’s plan to
make changes in the new source review portion of the federal Clean Air
Act. The Bush Administration had wanted to make it easier for utilities to
make major upgrades at power plants without having to install expensive
pollution controls. But fourteen states worried the plants would just get
bigger and pollute more…so they had sued the EPA.
The Electric Reliability Coordinating Council represents some power
companies across the U.S. Council Director Scott Segal says the federal
agency ought to appeal the new source ruling.
“Because they would not want this court case to stand as a principled
statement of environmental law.”
Environmentalists have cheered the recent court decision on new source
review, but said they expected it would be a while before utilities and the
EPA would accept the decision.
The Bush Administration is proposing to sell more than 300-thousand acres of public forest land to raise money for schools in rural communities. Lawmakers, environmentalists and former Forest Service directors have come out against the plan, calling it short-sighted and shameful. The GLRC’s Erin Toner reports:
Transcript
The Bush Administration is proposing to sell more than 300-thousand
acres of public forest land to raise money for schools in rural
communities. Lawmakers, environmentalists and former Forest Service
directors have come out against the plan, calling it short-sighted and
shameful. The GLRC’s Erin Toner reports:
The goal of the plan is to raise 800 million dollars for schools that have
lost money generated by timber sales, but lawmakers from both parties
say auctioning off forest land is short-sighted. Environmental groups say
it’s one of the latest attempts by the Bush administration to give oil,
timber and mining interests access to pristine natural areas.
Amy Mall is with the Natural Resources Defense Council.
“These lands are part of America’s natural legacy. Some of them are really wild
areas where there is very high-quality wildlife habitat. They might be
areas where a lot of people recreate. They might go hunting or fishing.
Or they might just think that these areas should remain wild.”
An agriculture department official described most of the land proposed for sale
as isolated and expensive to manage.
The Bush administration is proposing to sell 200 thousand
acres of national forest land. The proposal has drawn fire from environmentalists who are concerned about the long-range effects of the plan. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Steve Carmody reports:
Transcript
The Bush administration is proposing to sell 200 thousand acres of
national forest land. The proposal has drawn fire from environmentalists
who are concerned about the long-range effects of the plan. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Steve Carmody reports:
The National Forest Service is proposing to sell hundreds of small
parcels of forestland over the next five years. The parcels average 40
acres in size, and the forest service says the sales would generate roughly
800 million dollars, which would be used for rural schools and roads.
Sean Cosgrove is with the Sierra Club in Washington D.C. He says
these parcels may be small, but the effects on larger eco-systems could
be significant.
“It’s kinda like taking a handful of buckshot and throwing it at a large
piece of butcher block paper. You may not cover that whole entire area,
but you can put holes all the way thru it, where it’s going to have an
impact.”
In this region, Michigan would be the most effected state, with nearly six
thousand acres in the Hiawatha and Ottawa National Forests on the
block.
In Minnesota, nearly three thousand acres in the Superior National Forest
are also targeted under the plan.
