Environmental groups are lining up behind California in a lawsuit against the
Environmental Protection Agency. Lester Graham reports, the EPA is trying to stop
California from mandating stricter greenhouse emission standards for cars and
trucks:
Transcript
Environmental groups are lining up behind California in a lawsuit against the
Environmental Protection Agency. Lester Graham reports, the EPA is trying to stop
California from mandating stricter greenhouse emission standards for cars and
trucks:
The Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Defense
and other big environmental groups have filed a petition with an appeals court. They
want to overturn a decision by the EPA. As soon as President Bush signed the
Energy Bill into law, the EPA Administrator said the new 35
mile per gallon standards in the Energy Act would reduce greenhouse gas emissions
enough that California’s stricter emissions standards were not necessary.
In response, California and 15 other states sued the EPA. California often leads the
nation in stricter pollution reduction standards. The Sierra Club called the EPA’s
decision – quote “another example of the Bush administration’s bad habit of ignoring
laws that is finds inconvenient.”
The EPA argues the better mileage standards will adequately lower greenhouse gas
emissions because less gasoline will be burned.
For the Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.
Low-flow toilets left some people flushed with anger when the products
debuted in the 1990’s. But the Environmental Protection Agency is
pushing ahead with a voluntary program to create toilets that use even
less water. Chuck Quirmbach reports some toilet manufacturers say they
want to join the new water-saving market and hope consumers are ready
to buy:
Transcript
Low-flow toilets left some people flushed with anger when the products
debuted in the 1990’s. But the Environmental Protection Agency is
pushing ahead with a voluntary program to create toilets that use even
less water. Chuck Quirmbach reports some toilet manufacturers say they
want to join the new water-saving market and hope consumers are ready
to buy:
Rob Zimmerman admits there are plenty of jokes about toilets, but the
water engineer for the Kohler Corporation takes the bathroom commode
very seriously.
“I’ve heard people say that the toilet is kind of the foundation of
modern civilization… that modern sanitation allowed for the growth of
cities and allowed for the decline of infectious diseases.”
And now Zimmerman has a handle on a new role for toilets: saving water.
Studies have shown that toilets can account for up to 30% of
a household’s water use. Water prices are going up and in some fast-
growing communities water supplies are growing more scarce.
So, the EPA created a voluntary program it calls Water Sense. It aims
to get toilets to use 20% less water than the newer toilets you’ve
probably seen that were mandated back in the 1990’s. This new
generation of toilets goes from 1.6 gallons per flush to about 1.3
gallons, and still meets performance guidelines for producing a clean
bowl.
(Sound of flushing)
Kohler and other toilet makers are trying various ways to get to 1.3
gallons. After looking at a 1.6 gallon model, Rob Zimmerman lifts the
tank lid on a 1.3:
“What you see that’s different here… is remember the other one had
that red flapper? This canister here, that lifts straight up when you flush
it, so all the water can move from all different directions and go down
down the valve. It’s a bigger rush and so the actual time that this
flushes is a little bit shorter than the other one.”
Zimmerman says other higher efficiency models use what’s called a dual-
flush system that sends away one amount of water for liquid waste and
another for solids, with an average of 1.3 gallons.
Another type is the so-called pressure assist, a louder system that
compresses air to force the smaller volume of water out quickly.
Under its new Water Sense Certification program, the EPA has put out
final specifications for the 1.3 models.
Kohler is getting ready to submit six toilet models for certification,
which the EPA compares to its Energy Star program for things like
computers. EPA Water Administrator Benjamin Grumbles says the public
can be confident about a third party certification system the EPA has
created:
“The agency working with the scientific community and with independent
testing organizations want to make sure that consumers, when they see that
Water Sense label, they will be able to have confidence that the
product will perform well, and it will lead to increased savings. Not
just in terms of water, but also reduce the water bill and reduce the
energy bill as well.”
But it may take a while to build that confidence. At a home remodeling
show, bathroom fixtures store owner Rich Libbey said he’s seen low-flow
toilets elsewhere that have not worked properly.
“Some of the Carribean Islands that are desert islands flush on a
European quart of water, but they don’t clean the bowl. So, later on in
the evenings, for example at a bar or resort, the toilet gets kind of
gamey.”
But Libbey says he’s willing to give companies like Kohler the benefit
of the doubt of reliably getting to 1.3 gallons per flush. Like most
high-efficiency energy-saving systems, the up-front costs are a little
higher.
The Kohler Corporation says its new high-efficiency toilets might cost
an extra fifty dollars to buy, but estimates the financial payback of
using less water could come in just a couple years.
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.
