Tag: barack

Candidates’ Promises for Great Lakes Cleanup

  • Both Obama and McCain say they support fixing the Great Lakes (Photo by Lester Graham)

Barack Obama and John McCain
are greening up their effort to win
some battleground states in November.
The Obama campaign has released a five
point plan for protecting the Great Lakes.
Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

Barack Obama and John McCain
are greening up their effort to win
some battleground states in November. The Obama campaign has released a five
point plan for protecting the Great Lakes.
Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Great lakes advocates have been urging Washington to approve a 20 billion dollar restoration package for the lakes.

Illinois senator Obama says he’s willing to come up with an additional 5 billion dollars. He’d get the money by rolling back tax breaks for oil and natural gas companies.

Michigan Democratic senator Debbie Stabenow is helping promote Obama’s plan. She says it goes well beyond the Bush Administration’s unmet promises to pay for lakes cleanup.

“What we are seeing through this plan is actually putting the dollars into a trust fund so the dollars would be there.”

Senator Obama also wants a coordinator of Great Lakes programs to tackle toxic hot spots, invasive species and enforcing a compact to protect the lakes from large water withdrawals.

The McCain campaign says Senator McCain supports fixing the Great Lakes, but he’s not
ready to commit to an amount yet.

For The Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

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People Power vs. Bp

Earlier this summer, a state agency gave a refinery permission to increase pollution in
the Great Lakes. Commentator Cameron Davis takes a look at lessons learned and
what they mean for the future of the nation’s waterways:

Transcript

Earlier this summer, a state agency gave a refinery permission to increase pollution in
the Great Lakes. Commentator Cameron Davis takes a look at lessons learned and
what they mean for the future of the nation’s waterways:


When the Indiana Department of Environmental Management gave approval for BP’s
refinery to pollute more in Lake Michigan, who would have guessed that within weeks
more than 100,000 people would sign petitions against the proposal?


The people of the region seemed to instinctively know that more pollution had to be
stopped. After all, millions of us rely on Lake Michigan for drinking water and recreation.


Of course, coverage of the pollution proposal took off, with the Chicago Sun-
Times calling for a boycott of BP gasoline. The New York Times and CBS
Evening News ran national pieces about the pollution increases. A bi-partisan coalition
of politicians from neighboring states cried foul, including Chicago Mayor Richard Daley,
U.S. Senators Dick Durbin and Barack Obama, Representatives Rahm Emanuel, Mark Kirk, Jan
Schakowsky, Vern Ehlers and the entire Michigan Congressional delegation, among
others.


But while the media, elected officials, and even those of us in the conservation
community talked about the permit, the real story wasn’t about the permit. It wasn’t
about its allowance for 54 percent more ammonia and 35 percent more suspended
solids from treated sludge to be discharged.


It wasn’t even an argument about jobs versus the environment. That debate was discounted long
ago by the many businesses that decided or were mandated to pollute less and then
still prospered.


The real story was what you, the public, said and what you are saying now: how we
treat the Great Lakes is emblematic of how we treat our waterways all around the
country. You’re saying that you want a new standard of care for the nation’s waters. You
don’t want the standard to be “to keep things from getting worse.” You don’t want the
status quo. You want our waters to be proactively restored. You want it better.


Like those of us who used to be in the cub scouts, inspired to leave our campsites
better than the way we found them, you want the standard for our waters to be: leave
things better for the next generation.


HOST TAG: Cameron Davis is the president of the Alliance for the Great Lakes.

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Progress on Lead Rules?

In 1978, the U.S. banned lead-based paint because kids
exposed to it developed learning disabilities. But lead paint remains in some older homes, and rules to deal with it have been in limbo for 13 years. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee reports why that might change soon:

Transcript

In 1978, the U.S. banned lead-based paint because kids exposed to it developed learning
disabilities, but lead paint remains in some older homes, and rules to deal with it have
been in limbo for thirteen years. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee
reports why that might change soon:


Home rehab contractors sometimes dislodge old lead-based paint. The debris and dust
threaten kids. So, Congress asked the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate rehab
work. That was in 1992, but there are still no rules.


Recently, though, Illinois Senator Barack Obama challenged the EPA. He said he’d
block a key EPA staff appointment until the agency proposed regulations. Now, the
EPA’s promised a draft by year’s end, and that’s welcome news to children’s advocates, but some of them like Anita Weinberg of
Lead-Safe Illinois are wary.


“We want to make sure that they are substantive and that they’re going to have an impact.
So it’s great to have regs being drafted, but we don’t yet know what the content is going to be.”


It’s unclear whether Congress will approve any lead paint rules at all. They might
hesitate, because new regulations could increase home repair costs.


For the GLRC, I’m Shawn Allee.

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