Watering Down ‘Open Government’

Critics say President Bush is trying to block part of a new law that makes the government
more accountable. The Open Government Act is supposed to improve access to
government information. But as Mark Brush reports, the Bush Administration’s recent
budget request attempts to strip a key provision of the new law:

Transcript

Critics say President Bush is trying to block part of a new law that makes the government
more accountable. The Open Government Act is supposed to improve access to
government information. But as Mark Brush reports, the Bush Administration’s recent
budget request attempts to strip a key provision of the new law:


The new Open Government Act tries to address complaints about government secrecy by
creating an impartial mediator: an ombudsman who will help resolve disputes over
information requests. But in his budget, President Bush calls for the elimination of the
new ombudsman.


Rick Blum is the coordinator of the Sunshine in Government Initiative. That’s a
collection of news media groups working for a more open government. Blum says
having an impartial mediator is critical to resolving disputes:


“Right now, if you get denied, if an agency says, ‘No, you can’t receive this document.’
Well, your only recourse is to hire a lawyer at tens of thousands of dollars, or maybe even
over a hundred thousand dollars to pursue a legal case.”


Blum says he’s hopeful that the President’s attempts to eliminate the ombudsman position
will not stand.


For the Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush

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Fed Dollars for the Birds

A conservation group says birds would get much needed help from President
Bush’s proposed federal budget. Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

A conservation group says birds would get much needed help from President
Bush’s proposed federal budget. Chuck Quirmbach reports:


The National Audubon Society and other organizations have been warning that
many bird species are in decline because of threats such as loss of habitat. The
President’s budget would put 36 million dollars more into wildlife refuges.
There’d be another eight million dollars for keeping track of bird populations and
helping migrating birds.


The Bush Administration has often focused on birds that are hunted. Greg
Butcher is with the Audobon Society. He says the budget initiative would help
wetlands birds:


“And that’s going to include ducks and geese that are hunted, but it’s also going
to include herons and terns, and other species that aren’t hunted. So it’s a very
habitat-focused initiative.”


Congress still has to act on the President’s budget. It contains many
controversial items, so that could delay final passage.


For the Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

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Bush Brushes Over Environment

  • Bush has spoke of plans to fund clean energy and reduce dependence on oil but did not elaborate on how he would put these plans into action. (Photo courtesy of whitehouse.gov)

President Bush is echoing his past calls to wean the country from foreign oil, but his
most recent State of the Union speech quickly brushed over the topics of energy
independence and global warming:

Transcript

President Bush is echoing his past calls to wean the country from foreign oil, but his
most recent State of the Union speech quickly brushed over the topics of energy
independence and global warming:


The President says the U.S. is committed to energy security and confronting global
climate change:


“And the best way to meet these goals is for America to continue leading the way
toward the development of cleaner and more energy-efficient technology.”


The President called specifically for funding new clean coal technology. That came
at the same time his Energy Department pulled funding for a major clean coal
technology project in Illinois. Mr. Bush also called for better battery technology and
renewable fuels for automobiles, but did not mention additional government support
for research.


A proposed investment in clean energy in developing countries and completing an
international agreement on global warming was noted by environmental groups. But
then they criticized the Bush administration for not implementing a mandatory
greenhouse gas cap and trade program in the U.S.


For the Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

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California Sues Epa

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.

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Energy Bill by the Numbers

  • George W. Bush signed the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. (White House photo by Chris Greenberg)

The energy bill signed by President Bush has a little bit of something to make almost
everyone happy. Lester Graham reports on some of the highlights:

Transcript

The energy bill signed by President Bush has a little bit of something to make almost
everyone happy. Lester Graham reports on some of the highlights:


The Energy Independence and Security Act is massive, but it can be boiled down to
just a few numbers. First, 35 miles per gallon by 2020… That’s when automakers
have to increase the fleet average by ten miles per gallon.


Second, 36 billion gallons by 2022. That’s when ethanol producers have to increase
production by a factor of five. And two-thirds has to come from sources other than
corn.


And these numbers – 100 watts, 60 watts – those kinds of incandescent lightbulbs
are to be phased out, replaced by more energy efficient lighting.


Most environmental groups can find something to like in the bill. Farmers like it for
the ethanol mandates. And big oil companies like the Act for what’s not in it:
billions of dollars of proposed taxes blocked by Republicans in the Senate.


For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Bush Calls for Lower Emissions

President Bush has called on federal
agencies to develop an energy plan. He wants
them to cut oil use and reduce vehicle emissions
before he leaves office. But as Dustin Dwyer
reports, some environmentalists are
not impressed:

Transcript

President Bush has called on federal
agencies to develop an energy plan. He wants
them to cut oil use and reduce vehicle emissions
before he leaves office. But as Dustin Dwyer
reports, some environmentalists are
not impressed:


The president says he wants to cut oil use 20% in the next ten years.
The question is how to get that done. He prefers that Congress pass
new laws to make the cut happen.


While they debate the issue, the president has ordered the
Environmental Protection Agency to work with the Departments of
Transportation, Energy and Agriculture to finalize their own approach
by the end of 2008.


But the Sierra Club says the president could get his plan done right
now by raising federal fuel economy standards. The President has
already called for raising the current standards by four percent per
year.


But right now, the standards are at the same level they’ve been at for
the past 17 years.


For their part, auto executives have opposed any plan to raise the
standards. They say the regulations could cost them billions of dollars
to implement.


For the Environment Report, I’m Dustin Dwyer.

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A Better Bacteria for Bio-Fuel?

President Bush and others are promoting more use of plant-based
material to fuel our vehicles. Scientists say they’ve taken an
important step toward more efficient production of bio-fuels. Chuck
Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

President Bush and others are promoting more use of plant-based
material to fuel our vehicles. Scientists say they’ve taken an
important step toward more efficient production of bio-fuels. Chuck
Quirmbach reports:


Biofuel producers say they need to get a common plant sugar called
xylose to ferment to get an efficient conversion of plant material into
fuels like ethanol.


Researchers from the US Forest Products Lab and the Department of
Energy are working on the problem. They say they’ve now completed a
genetic map of a yeast that helps xylose ferment faster.


Micro-biologist Thomas Jeffries says with the new information about the
yeast, researchers plan to do more genetic tweaking:


“Well, we’ve been able to increase the specific fermentation rate of
this organism with one of our mutations, we’ve been able to increase it
by 50%, we really are aiming to get a four-fold increase.”


But Jeffries cautions there are still many steps before the work with
the yeast might pay off at your local gas station.


For the Environment report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach

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Money for Great Lakes Restoration?

The federal government, states, and Indian tribes recently finished a plan to restore the Great Lakes. The plan is expensive, but environmentalists hope federal money is in the works. They’re looking to other restoration projects for inspiration. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee
reports:

Transcript

The federal government, states, and Indian tribes recently finished a plan
to restore the Great Lakes. The plan is expensive, but environmentalists
hope federal money is in the works. They’re looking to other restoration
projects for inspiration. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn
Allee reports:


Congress already backs cleanup plans, such as the one in Chesapeake
Bay, but will Congress support Great Lakes restoration, too?


One advocacy group says the track record’s unclear. A report by the
Northeast Midwest Institute compared seven eco-restoration efforts. Co-
Author Karen Vigmostad says Congress starts projects, but doesn’t
always stay committed.


She cites the Florida Everglades.


“There’s been some planning money, but in terms of actually
implementing the plan, the money has not been forthcoming. The state
of Florida’s pretty much been footing that bill.”


The Great Lakes restoration plan faces its first major hurdle soon.
President Bush will release his budget by February. Great Lakes
advocates want 300 million dollars to kick-start the project.
The administration staff is divided on whether to spend that much.


For the GLRC, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Ten Threats: Southwest After Great Lakes Water?

  • This billboard was displayed along several major highways in Michigan. The sponsors were hoping to raise awareness about water diversion, but do these arid states really pose a threat to the Great Lakes? (Photo courtesy of Central Michigan Life )

We’re continuing our series on the Great Lakes. One of the Ten Threats to the Great Lakes that experts identified was water withdrawals. Our guide in this series, Lester Graham, says the next report looks at one of the myths of water withdrawals:

Transcript

We’re continuing our series on the Great Lakes. One of the Ten Threats
to the Great Lakes that experts identified was water withdrawals. Our
guide in this series, Lester Graham, says the next report looks at one of
the myths of water withdrawals.

Environmentalists and policy makers say a thirsty world could pose a
major threat to the Great Lakes. Water wars have been predicted in arid
parts of the globe, and some say the laws of supply and demand might
one-day lead to a raid on the region’s fresh water. Reporter Mark Brush takes a
closer look at one claim: that states in the southwest will one day come
after the Great Lakes water… and finds that it might just be H2O hype…


Taking water out of the Great Lakes is a hot button issue, and no one is
more aware of this than politicians looking for votes. In the 2004
campaign, President Bush used the issue to rally a crowd in Traverse
City, Michigan:


“My position is clear. We are never going to allow the diversion of
Great Lakes water.”


(Sound of applause)


The issue taps into people’s emotions. People get outraged when they think
of someone taking water out of the Lakes – especially when they’ve seen lake
levels dropping over the years, and the region’s political leaders have listened
to those concerns. The states and provinces that surround the world’s largest fresh
water system are working on a compact that will prevent water diversions.


But where is the threat to Great Lakes water coming from? We
conducted an informal poll on the streets of Ann Arbor, and we asked
people: “who wants water from the Great Lakes?” Six out of the ten
people we talked to pointed to the west:


(Sound of street)


“Las Vegas, the Southwest.”


“Probably the dry states in the West. Arizona, Nevada.”


“I think the west should keep their damn hands off our water.”


But do the arid states in the West really pose a threat to Great Lakes
water? It turns out – this same question was asked more than twenty
years ago.


In the 1980s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers studied the possibility of
moving Lake Superior water to the Missouri River. It’s a distance of
about six hundred miles. Farmers in the High Plains states were hoping
to use this water to irrigate their crops.


Jonathan Bulkley is a professor of civil and environmental engineering at
the University of Michigan. Bulkley and his colleagues analyzed this
diversion plan, and he says the whole project would have been too
expensive:


“We found it would take seven 1000 megawatt power plants dedicated to
lifting the water, because water needs to be lifted to reach these distant
locations, and in addition there would have to be conveyance structures
built to transport the water, and our conclusion was the total cost would
far exceed the value of the water.”


In other words, Bulkley found that it would be cheaper for these states to
find other sources of water – or to find ways to conserve the water they
had left, and this was a diversion of only 600 miles. A diversion all the
way to the Southwest would mean piping the water almost twice that
distance.


“We are always looking for extra water – everyone in the Southwest is
looking for extra water.”


Bob Barrett is a spokesperson for the Central Arizona Project. It’s one of
the biggest water suppliers in the Southwest. The Project pulls water
from the Colorado River and delivers it to southern Arizona. Barrett
says he can’t imagine a situation where Great Lakes water is pumped for
more than a thousand miles to the Colorado River:


“Most people don’t realize it, but a gallon of water weighs about eight
pounds, and if you’re going to push that up and over the Rocky
Mountains you’re going to need a lot of power. (Laughs) So, it’s a good
idea, but I don’t see how anybody could pay for it.”


But some observers say even though it might not happen today – it could
happen in the future. They point to a fast-growing population and a fast-
dwindling fresh water supply in the southwest. They say that
combination could drive engineers and policy makers to devise a way to
get Great Lakes water.


But Barrett says for states like Arizona, California, and even Texas – it
would be cheaper for them to build desalinization plants… these plants
convert ocean water into drinking water:


“I mean why should Texas build for a canal and then have to maintain it
from the Great Lakes down to the state of Texas when they can go to the
Gulf Coast and build several desalinization plants, and then just pipe it
wherever they need it?”


So, a large-scale water diversion to the southwest seems unlikely.
Experts say water from the Great Lakes is much more likely to go to
cities and towns right on the edge of the basin, but as legislators move to
tighten restrictions on diversions – even these places will
have a hard time getting access to the water.


For the GLRC, I’m Mark Brush.

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Ten Threats: Pollution Hot Spots

  • Ruddiman Pond has been listed as a Great Lakes 'Area of Concern' for more than 18 years. (Photo by Michael Leland).

For decades, heavy industries made the Great Lakes a center of manufacturing
and employment for the United States. Those factories also left polluted waters
in many areas. In 2002, Congress passed and President Bush signed legislation
that promised to clean the Lakes’ pollution hot spots, known as Areas of Concern.
So far, work has only begun at three of those sites. Reporter Michael Leland
visited one of them:

Transcript

We’re continuing our series Ten Threats to the Great Lakes. Our guide
in the series, Lester Graham, says one of the threats identified by experts
across the region is known as “Areas of Concern.”


For decades, heavy industries made the Great Lakes a center of manufacturing
and employment for the United States. Those factories also left polluted waters
in many areas. In 2002, Congress passed and President Bush signed legislation
that promised to clean the Lakes’ pollution hot spots, known as Areas of Concern.
So far, work has only begun at three of those sites. Reporter Michael Leland
visited one of them:


Picture what you might think one of these heavily polluted sites looks like.
Did you think of a big park in a quiet neighborhood, with lots of tall
trees, and a bandstand next to a lagoon? No? Well, welcome to McGraft Park
in Muskegon, Michigan, the home of Ruddiman Pond, one of the most polluted
spots in the Great Lakes.


“This little lagoon here is a sediment basin. It is a sediment trap.”


Rick Rideske is a research scientist at the Annis Water Resource Institute
in Muskegon. It studies the quality of Michigan’s lakes and rivers.


“All of the contaminated sediment from the upper part of the watershed has made
its way down here and is being deposited. They are taking out, in some places,
15 feet of contaminated sediment.”


Beginning in the 1930’s, heavy industries began setting up shop along
Ruddiman Creek, a few miles from the park. Many dumped their toxic wastes
into nearby storm sewers, which emptied into the creek, and flowed toward
Ruddiman Pond. Toxic heavy metals like chromium and lead, along with
hazardous chemicals like PCB’s, settled to the bottom. It’s been a long
time since the pond has been safe for swimming.


Rideske points to a yellow sign nailed to a tree next to the pond. It says,
“No entry. Hazardous substances.”


“If you look at that sign over there, that sign was put up in maybe 1997, 98.
You can see the tree has grown over the sign.”


But beyond that sign is some hope for Ruddiman Creek and Pond. Workers are
scooping toxic mud from the bottom of the lagoon. The material is trucked
to a landfill licensed to receive toxic stuff like this. The project should
be finished by next summer.


Ruddiman Creek and Pond make up one of 43 pollution hot spots in the Great
Lakes that the U.S. and Canada call Areas of Concern. So far, two in Canada
have been cleaned up. Ruddiman Creek is one of only three in the U.S. being
cleaned.


David Ullirch would like to see that work move a lot faster. He directs the Great
Lakes Initiative. It’s a group of mayors and other officials from the U.S. and
Canada that works to preserve the Lakes.


“This is a serious problem, not only in terms of a threat to the natural environment,
there are public health issues associated with them and often, even worse, is that
they are a stigma to those areas, whether it is Waukegan Harbor, or Gary, Indiana, or
Ashtabula Harbor, these are things that these cities have had to live with for
years, and it’s time to get them cleaned up and get on with it.”


The government is supposed to provide 270-million dollars over five years to
clean up the Areas of Concern in the United States, but so far, congress
has appropriated only about 35-million dollars. That relatively small amount
of cash has limited the number of cleanups that can be started, and it frustrates
Dennis Schornack. He’s the U.S. chairman of the International Joint Commission.
It’s a watchdog group that monitors the water quality treaty between the U.S. and
Canada.


“These areas were identified back in 1987, and only two, both of which are in Canada,
have been delisted since that time. At that pace of progress, it will be 400 years
before we are so-called clean, and I think that is very disappointing.”


In the case of Ruddiman Creek, they’re glad at least one site is being cleaned up.
Rick Rideske of the Annis Institute says the fact that it’s in a neighborhood park
played a big role in attracting the attention, and government cash needed to clean
it up.


“It really took the local residents, public advisory council, we have a Ruddiman
Creek Task Force, which is made of local people from this neighborhood. They called
frequently state representatives, federal representatives. Getting this site on the
priority list was a community effort for a lot of people.”


Rideske and people who live near McGraft Park are looking forward to celebrating a
small victory in the fight to restore the Great Lakes, and they’re looking forward to
taking down that yellow warning sign next year.


For the GLRC, I’m Michael Leland.

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