Tag: president bush

Cut in Farm Subsidies Might Hurt Midwest Vintners

Votes from many of Ohio’s farmers helped President Bush win re-election last year. Now many of them feel betrayed because the President’s 2006 budget proposal calls for federal agriculture spending to be cut by nearly ten-percent. The cuts would drastically reduce farm subsidies… and they would curtail agricultural research efforts. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Kevin Niedermier reports that would be an especially big problem for a fairly new crop in the Midwest… grapes for wine:

Transcript

Votes from many of Ohio’s farmers helped President Bush win re-election last year.
Now many of them feel betrayed because the President’s 2006 budget proposal calls for
federal agriculture spending to be cut by nearly ten-percent. The cuts would drastically
reduce farm subsidies… and they would curtail agricultural research efforts. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Kevin Niedermier reports that would be an especially big
problem for a fairly new crop in the Midwest…grapes for wine:


President Bush wants to cut agriculture spending by more than eight billion dollars as he
looks for ways to reduce the federal deficit. If Congress approves the proposed cuts,
agricultural research at all of the nation’s land grant universities would suffer. For
example, Ohio State University’s Agriculture Research Center in Wooster, Ohio, would
lose six-million dollars. Director Steven Slack says, when you multiply that reduction by
all the research universities across the region… it could mean a lot of cuts.


“If that budget goes through this October, we would see an impact that would reduce
about 200 faculty positions, about 400 staff positions, and about 550 graduate students
that are supported in the north central region, and these are the states from Ohio to the
east and Iowa to the west.”


One of the newer ag industries that has benefited greatly from federally supported
agricultural research is America’s wine producers. For instance, university research into
“bio-dynamic” farming can help vineyards produce wines that don’t rely on synthetic
fertilizers, pesticides or fungicides. Instead, it uses natural methods. It’s like organic
farming…. only it limits the materials used to grow a crop to the farm on which the crop
grows. It’s a closed system.


Under the President’s budget, that kind of research and much more would be cut
at a time when the Midwest wine industry is just getting a good start.


During the last few decades, U.S. wineries have grown from a few hundred, to more than
35, 000 according to the Ohio Wine Producers Association. Most of them are small,
family run operations.


Near the Lake Erie shore just outside Cleveland, Lee Kling-Shern runs the
ten-thousand gallon a year Klingshirn Winery. As wineries in this part of the world go…
his is an old one. His grandfather began growing grapes and making wine on this farm in
1937. Klingshirn says federally funded research made it possible for Midwest vineyards
to grow better varieties of wine grapes…like Viniferas.


“And it’s only been in the last 30 years that technology and research has brought
recommendations to ambitious growers like ourselves to explain how best to handle these
tender varieties and make them work in the field. And thus, today our business is now at
a competitive level with other wine-producing areas of the world as far as the varieties
that we can produce and the quality that we can make. And allows us to be something
worthwhile to come see and do and experience.”


Like Ohio wineries, vintners in states such as New York, Michigan, Illinois, and Missouri
have turned out higher and higher quality wines. Klingshirn is worried that federal cuts
to research spending will make it harder for small vineyards to stay competitive….


“There was finally a research development operation slated to be built at Cornell-New
York which would apply to our style of viticulture here, that as far as I understand has hit
the trash can at this point. So, that’s something we’ve needed for years and years and
years and just as we’re on the cusp of getting it, it’s pulled away.”


Klingshirn and other vintners are also upset that the Bush budget proposes a fifty dollar
fee be paid by winemakers anytime they change the label on a bottle. The money would
be used to pay inspectors who make sure the new labels meet federal standards for health
warnings and other required information.


The vineyard owners and winemakers say the new fees and research cuts are bad timing
for the wine industry in the Midwest, just as many of the vintners were beginning to win
gold medals nationally and internationally.


They’re afraid their progress will be tarnished by the Bush Administration’s proposed
budget.


For the GLRC, I’m Kevin Niedermier.

Related Links

New Epa Administrator to Prioritize Lake Cleanup?

  • President Bush recently nominated Steve Johnson to be the EPA's Administrator. (Photo courtesy of the EPA)

Midwest officials say they hope the new administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will continue to push for better coordination of Great Lakes clean up. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

Midwest officials say they hope the new administrator of
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will continue to push for better coordination of Great
Lakes clean up.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:


President Bush has nominated longtime EPA scientist Steve
Johnson to take over the Environmental Protection Agency. Todd Ambs
is a natural resources official in Wisconsin, who’s active with
the Great Lakes Commission and Council of Great Lakes Governors.


Ambs says despite the change in EPA leadership he expects an
interagency task force to keep working on prioritizing Great Lakes
protection and clean up. Ambs says committees are drafting a list
that will eventually be sent to Congress.


“Identifying what are the top two or three most important things that
we really need to have happen right now and be able and go as a
unified voice.”


Ambs says
some of the topics that could move to the top of the list are cleaning
up toxic hot spots around the Lakes, controlling invasive species and
dealing with chemicals that build up in fish and wildlife. A draft plan is
due to be released this summer.


For the GLRC, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

Related Links

Watchdog Group: Forest Service Violating Laws

A government watchdog group says a slew of recent court rulings against the U.S. Forest Service show that the agency isn’t doing its job. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports:

Transcript

A government watchdog group says a slew of recent court rulings
against the
U.S. Forest Service show that the agency isn’t doing its job.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports:


The group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility – or
PEER – cites 44 cases over the last two years in which the Forest Service violated
environmental laws it’s supposed to enforce. PEER cites an internal Forest Service memo. It details instances in which the agency had to pay attorney fees to environmental groups that
successfully sued over issues like illegal logging and over-grazing on forest lands.


Jeff Ruch is the executive director of PEER. He says during the
Clinton
Administration, there were only a handful of adverse rulings each year.


“And they’re now losing these cases at a greater rate than two a month. So
roughly every 10 days, the Forest Service is found guilty of violating a law
they’re supposed to be implementing, in a federal court.”


But a spokeswoman for the Forest Service says a closer look at the
rulings
shows a different picture. She says almost half the cases cited by PEER were
based on decisions the Forest Service made prior to President Bush taking
office.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Sarah Hulett.

Related Links

Venturing Down Into the Seaway Locks

  • People have depended on the locks of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway for decades. (Photo by David Sommerstein)

The locks and channels for ships in the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway are getting old. Some were built more than 75 years ago. The U.S. and Canada are conducting a multi-million dollar study to determine how to keep the aging waterway functional, so ships can continue to haul cargo between the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean. While the Seaway is closed in winter, workers empty the locks of their water for annual maintenance. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein climbed eight stories down to the bottom of one lock on the St. Lawrence River to see how it’s going:

Transcript

The locks and channels for ships in the Great Lakes
and St. Lawrence Seaway are getting old. Some were built more
than 75 years ago. The U.S. and Canada are conducting a multi-
million dollar study to determine how to keep the aging waterway
functional, so ships can continue to haul cargo between the Great
Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean. While the Seaway is closed in winter,
workers empty the locks of their water for annual maintenance. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein climbed eight stories
down to the bottom of one lock on the St. Lawrence River to see how
it’s going:


If you’ve never seen a lock before, it’s basically a long, concrete channel filled with water. A freighter goes in one end. Gates close in front and behind it, so the water level can be raised or lowered to move the ship up or down, and out the other end.


Here, that channel’s empty and dry and you can see how huge this lock really is. I get a queasy feeling as I ease onto the steep metal stairs. I can see the lock floor 80 feet below me. Maintenance director Jesse Hinojosa radios down to the bottom. He says workers lose track of how often they climb the stairs.


“We should get a good count of that. They go up and down all day long on it.”


(sound of steps)


I take it step by step. There’s a temporary roof overhead. The only light comes from floodlamps.
The lock gates are open so they can be worked on, so at one end of the lock are stoplogs – stacked steel that temporarily keeps the river out. Still, some water rushes through and has to be pumped out.


(sound of water rushing)


Paul Giometta tops off the fuel tank of one of 10 furnaces that heat the area. He wears a fleece hat and big yellow boots. During the shipping season, he helps guide freighters’ in and out of the lock. But in the winter, he shifts to a totally different line of work.


Giometta: “Chipping concrete, stuff like that, painting, whatever has to be done.”


Sommerstein: “It’s an old lock, there’s a lot of chipping concrete.”


Giometta: “Oh, yeah, there’s no end to that. What you fix today, years later you start all over again.”


Winter maintenance has been an annual job on this lock since the Seaway system opened in 1959. The scale of the work is almost impossible to wrap your mind around. To raise or lower a freighter, the lock flushes 22 million gallons of water in just 7 minutes. It uses gears, valves, tunnels, and huge gates to accomplish the task. Most of that equipment is original, now almost 50 years old. Every winter, it all has to be checked out and tested. Some parts are replaced.


Tom Levine directs the Seaway’s engineering department. He points to the lock’s crumbling concrete walls. He says that’s one of the biggest problems.


“The bad stuff, where the bad concrete is, you take a hammer, it sounds like a hollow wall, and these walls where you’re looking at are like 60 feet into the backfill. I mean, solid concrete, I mean, you wouldn’t believe it.”


Albert Jacquez holds his hardhat and looks up at the walls. He’s the St. Lawrence Seaway’s U.S. Administrator, based in Washington. His demeanor is like that of a homeowner wincing at his rickety porch or rotting roof.


“Well, what I see is a system that has worked well for half a century, but that in the near future needs a major overhaul.”


There are 22 other locks in the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway system. Most are owned by Canada. A binational study is underway to answer a critical question: how much will it cost to keep repairing all these locks and other infrastructure so they work for another 50 years? Jacquez says the answers the study finds could determine whether the Seaway gets a facelift or is left as is until it fails.


“Whatever those decisions are will be what they are, whether it’s ‘we’re gonna invest or we’re not gonna invest’, but they at least need the baseline numbers so that they know what they have ahead of them.”


But the study has been delayed. Lawmakers will have to wait at least a year longer than they expected because the project is so big. And President Bush has cut funding for the study in his budget plan by more than a half, which could delay it even further.


Meanwhile, keeping the Seaway open becomes more of a challenge every year. Jacquez says it’s like an old car.


“As it ages, we have to spend more and more time on it because we have more work to do.”


And workers face a hard deadline. Before spring shipping begins, where we’re standing will be flooded under 30 feet of water, so the lock can be ready to welcome the first freighter of the season.


For the GLRC, I’m David Sommerstein.

Related Links

Congress Approves Asian Carp Barrier Funding

  • U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service catch an Asian carp. This invasive species can grow up to four feet long, and the U.S. House and Senate have agreed to supply funds to try to keep them out of the Great Lakes. (Photo courtesy of U.S. Fish and Wildife Service)

The U.S. House and Senate recently passed a bill that will help keep Asian carp out of the Great Lakes. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Celeste Headlee reports, the federal government will contribute nearly two and a half million dollars to help repel the fish:

Transcript

The U.S. House and Senate recently passed a bill that will help keep Asian carp out of the Great Lakes. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium Celeste Headlee reports, the federal government will contribute nearly two and a half million dollars to help repel the fish:


Asian carp are huge, often growing to be four feet long and weighing 80 pounds. They are also extremely prolific and voracious. Most Asian carp consume up to 40 percent of their body weight every day. There is currently an electric fish barrier strung across the bottom of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal to keep the fish out of the Great Lakes. The barrier creates an underwater field of electricity that repels the carp.


Andy Buchsbaum is the director of the National Wildlife Federation’s Great Lakes Office. He says the current barrier is temporary and due to fail next year.


“Today the Great Lakes really dodged a bullet. Right now, the carp are poised 20 miles away from the failing barrier, which is just downstream from Lake Michigan. And if that barrier fails, then essentially the Great Lakes as we know them are over.”


The U.S. House and Senate passed a bill that will supply 75 percent of the funds for building a new barrier. The Great Lakes governors have agreed to supply the rest of the money. President Bush has said he will sign the bill when it reaches his desk. Buchsbaum says the new barrier can be completed within 60 to 90 days.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Celeste Headlee.

Related Links

David Orr Speaks Out About Oil Consumption

Many Americans don’t see a connection between the war in Iraq and the price of gas at the pump, but a leading environmentalist says they should. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant reports:

Transcript

Many Americans don’t see a connection between the war in Iraq and the price of gas at the pump, but a leading environmentalist says they should. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant reports:

Soon after George W. Bush took office, David Orr was asked to join a presidential committee aimed at improving environmental policies. They wanted the Oberlin environmental studies professor because he was considered a quote “sane environmentalist.” The group’s recommendations were supposed to be presented to Administration officials in September 2001, but after the 9-11 terrorist attacks, committee members felt their report was shelved.

“And the essential message of it was that this really is one world and what goes around comes around. And things are connected in pretty strange, ironic, and paradoxical ways and the long-term future isn’t that far off. So you really cannot make separations of things that you take to be climate, from economy, ecology, fairness, equity, justice, and ultimately security.”

But Orr says the Bush Administration and much of the nation weren’t ready for that message. People felt the need to retaliate against Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. Many political analysts also agreed with President Bush, that the United States had an important role to play in ousting Saddam Hussein in Iraq. But Orr believes the U.S. invasion of Iraq was less about terrorism than it was about America’s need for Middle East oil.

“If you remove the fact that Iraq has 10-percent of the oil reserves in the world and Saudi Arabia has about 25-percent, that’s about a third of the recoverable oil resource on the planet, take the oil out, would we be there? And that’s a major issue. We’re there, in large part, because we have not pursued energy efficiency.”

Orr says reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil would make the nation more secure than spending billions of dollars in military costs to fight for those oil reserves.

Some lawmakers say reducing dependence on Middle East oil is one reason to drill for oil at home, in places such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. But Orr says political leaders and citizens should instead find ways to use less oil and reduce the need for it. He says the federal energy bill should force automakers to build cars that get better gas mileage.

“If we bumped our energy efficiency up from 22 miles per gallon to 35 or 40, which is easily achievable, that’s not difficult. The technology already exists to do that. We wouldn’t have to fight wars for oil, we wouldn’t be tied to the politics of an unstable region.”

“But the car makers aren’t being forced to…”

“No – the CAFEs? no. If we had a decent energy policy, it would be a strategy not of fighting oil wars, but using in America what is our long suit: our ability with technology to begin to move us toward fuel efficiency, and that process is actually well under way. It just doesn’t get the support of the federal government.”

Instead of trying to encourage fuel efficiency, Orr says Congress is thinking about short-term answers. With the price of gas at the pump more than two dollars a gallon, the Senate recently approved a tax break package to encourage further domestic oil and gas production.

Orr wants consumers to push for energy alternatives, rather than finding more places to drill, but Americans like their big SUVs, and Orr says few politicians would risk asking them to forgo the comfort, luxury, and perceived safety of big trucks as a way to preserve energy for future generations.

“Everybody knows gas prices have to go up, everybody knows that. The question is whether we have somebody who is say a combination of Ross Perot and Franklin Roosevelt who would sit down and level with the American public. We have got to pay more.”

Orr says even if you don’t mind paying the price at the gas station, there are higher costs we’re paying for oil consumption.

“You pay for energy whatever form you get it, but you pay for efficiency whether you get it or not. You pay by fighting oil wars. You pay with dirty air and you pay at the doctor’s office or the hospital or the morgue, but you’re gonna pay one way or the other, and the lie is that somehow you don’t have to pay. And sometimes you don’t have to if you’re willing to offload the costs on your grandchildren or on other people’s lives, but somebody is gonna pay.”

And Orr says that payment is going to be either in blood, money, or public health. He outlines his thoughts on the motivations for the war in Iraq in his new book “The Last Refuge: Patriotism, Politics, and the Environment in an Age of Terror.”


For the Great Lakes Radio
Consortium, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

Sierra Club Bashes Bush Administration

One of the leading environmental groups is traveling the country criticizing the Bush Administration’s environmental policies. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

One of the leading environmental groups is traveling the country criticizing the Bush
Administration’s environmental policies. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham
reports:


The Sierra Club has been at odds with President Bush’s approach to the environment from the
start. Now, during this election year, the Sierra Club’s Executive Director is touring the country,
taking the concerns to anyone who’ll listen. Carl Pope recently visited the Great Lakes region.
There, he complained about the Bush administration’s loosening of mercury restrictions, its
exemption of factory feedlots from the Clean Water Act and a proposal to allow cities to blend
raw sewage with rainwater during big storms and release it into streams and lakes.


“It doesn’t make any sense to allow people to contaminate the waters and then spend a lot of
money a decade later, cleaning it up. It’s much cheaper to keep contamination out of the Great
Lakes.”


The Bush administration says rather than cleaning pollution at any cost, its environmental policies
consider the financial cost versus the benefit to the environment.


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

Senators Rally for More Efficient Air Conditioners

More than half of the U.S. Senators are urging the Bush White House to allow more energy-efficient air conditioners. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

More than half of the U.S. Senators are urging the Bush White House to allow more energy
efficient air conditioners. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


The Bush administration proposed reducing the minimum energy efficiency standard for central
air conditioners and heat pumps. It would roll-back a Clinton-era requirement that home air
conditioners be 30 percent more energy efficient starting in 2006. The Bush administration didn’t
want to force the air conditioning industry make the more efficient air conditioners. A federal
court stopped the roll-back to the Clinton rule. The air conditioner industry has dropped its
efforts to overturn the more efficient standard. Now 51 Senators have signed a letter urging
President Bush not to appeal the court’s ruling to the next level. The letter says in part that
making air conditioners as efficient as possible will quote “begin to reduce the stress on the
electricity generation and transmission network and decrease the likelihood of blackouts…” The
Senators indicate that more energy efficient air conditioners is an idea that should be embraced
and encouraged, not appealed.


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

Farm to Wetlands Program to Be Scaled Back?

A popular federal program that pays farmers to restore wetlands on their property is underfunded in President Bush’s budget proposal. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein has more:

Transcript

A popular federal program that pays farmers to restore wetlands on their property is underfunded
in President Bush’s budget proposal. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein
has more:


The 2002 Farm Bill called for turning 250,000 acres a year of marginal farmland into wetlands.
Wetlands on farms help control pesticide run-off, replenish aquifers, and provide wildlife habitat.
And the effort gives farmers some extra cash in lean times. The Bush Administration wants to
downsize the program by 50,000 acres a year. But critics say it’s too popular to reduce.


“For every acre that gets enrolled, there are five acres waiting to get enrolled.”


Julie Sibbing is the wetlands policy specialist for the National Wildlife Federation. She says millions
of acres of wetlands nationwide are under threat from development. And farm conservation
programs are a crucial way to preserve them.


“There’s been a lot of talk about how the farm programs have expanded under the Bush
Administration. It’s really not been the great expansion that we would have liked to have seen.”


Last year, the program helped convert 213,000 acres of unused farmland into wetlands, short of the
250,000 acre goal.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m David Sommerstein.

Related Links

Epa Punishes Fewer Polluters

The Environmental Protection Agency under President Bush is punishing fewer polluters than under previous administrations. That’s according to analysis done by the Knight Ridder news service. More from the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush:

Transcript

The Environmental Protection Agency under President Bush is punishing fewer
polluters than under previous administrations. That’s according to analysis
done by the Knight Ridder news service. More from the Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Mark Brush:


Investigators looked at environmental enforcement records dating back to
1989. They found that under the current Bush administration – enforcement
has dropped significantly when compared to the Clinton and the first Bush
administration. The EPA averaged close to 200 citations a month under Bush
Senior. And now, that average has dropped to 77 citations a month under
George W. Bush.


Joel Mintz is the author of a book on the history of EPA enforcement. He
says enforcement is crucial to the agency.


“I think it’s critical really. It’s at the heart of what any regulatory
agency does. Without enforcement, environmental laws would have no teeth.
They just would not be taken seriously.”


EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt says the numbers are lower because they’re
practicing what he calls “smart enforcement.” He says they’re working with
businesses – developing incentives for companies not to pollute – instead of
focusing on punishment.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links