Green Options

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The Environmental Protection Agency has begun a “National Dialogue” about what information the public needs from the agency and how the agency can better provide that information.

Interested parties can now let the agency know what they think on EPA’s new interactive Web page (I’d love to a fly on that digital wall). Additionally, agency officials will be made available occasionally online for interactive chat sessions. The first of these was held last Thursday, when EPA’s chief information officer Molly O’Neill was made available for answering questions interactively online.

It is no secret that, under the Bush administration, the EPA has cut back on information available to the public through channels like the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) and the EPA libraries. The administration has also been under tremendous scrutiny for interference with EPA science on several separate occasions throughout the last seven years. And in a recent report published by the Union of Concerned Scientists, 900 employees of the EPA feel like their work has been interfered with for political reasons; sixty-percent of those who responded to the Union’s survey encountered some form of executive manipulation.

Over the last 7 years, the current administration has meddled with the affairs of the Environmental Protection Agency to such a degree, that the badgering and tampering is having a detrimental effect on the morale of agency staffers. And the latest news that EPA officials have ceased their efforts to follow a Supreme Court order to propose regulations for carbon dioxide emissions from automobile tailpipes is, yet another, in a long list of examples where the Bush administration has overstepped its legal boundaries and asserted its political will in matters where it shouldn’t. Even though EPA administrator Stephen L. Johnson agreed with the court’s findings and proposed motor vehicle regulation to the Department of Transportation back in December, the agency has not evaluated dangers nor proposed any regulations - and is not expected to.

Will we survive George W. Bush’s presidency? Not if you think clean air is necessary for your life and the life of the planet. Last week, Bush overruled the EPA’s efforts to set lower smog-forming ozone limits. Bush actually ordered the agency to increase the limit!

According to the Grist, “the EPA set both the ‘public health’ standard (how much ozone is permitted in one place at one time) and the ‘public welfare’ standard (consideration of the long-term effect of ozone) at the same level.” Before Bush’s command, the EPA had planned to make the “public welfare” standard more stringent, though not as low as their scientists were recommending. Bush’s orders sent the agency scrambling to avoid conflict with past EPA statements on the harmful effects of ozone.

Giuliani Firm to Do Legal Bidding

A Navajo Nation enterprise has filed a lawsuit against the US Environmental Protection Agency Tuesday for dragging its feet on an air permit for a proposed coal-fired power plant. Dine Power Authority of the Navajo Nation and Houston-based Sithe Global Power have partnered to build the $3 billion, 1500 megawatt Desert Rock plant. The group filed for a permit back in 2004 and is still awaiting a final decision. “Time is money,” said Steven Begay, the general manager of DPA. Begay added, “Sithe is spending money, and we’re spending money. The longer we wait, the more money we spend … and we don’t want to do that. We want to move forward.”

Sithe has alredy invested about $20 million in the project and the lawsuit claims the tribe is losing $5 million per month in tax revenue for each month the permit is delayed. The investor group announced in January that they would be suing the agency, and that they would be represented by friend of ‘big energy,’ Giuliani and Bracewell. Apparently Rudy Giuliani will find ways to assert his political will, even if he can’t be President.

George W. Bush has definitely been a polarizing personality in his two terms as leader of the United States of America. From the beginning and his War on Iraq he has seemingly attempted to paint himself as nothing more than a moronic menace. Of late, Bush has turned his sights on becoming the world’s greatest environmental foe.

Some may call my words harsh. Others will praise them. They are however, nothing more than my personal opinion about him.

However his actions against the environment are both unquestionable and unconscionable.

A recent Reuters article stated that ‘In cases this week dealing with polar bears, ozone smog and environmental research, groups that monitor these decisions faulted the Bush administration for slighting science in favor of politics.’ I feel that, in looking at the past few months, this statement fails to explain just how Bush has thrown his weight around.

Ag industry lobbyists and lawmakers from agricultural states have pressured the Environmental Protection Agency to drop requirements that factory farms report their emissions of toxic gases — even though the EPA’s findings show the gases pose a health threat.

In a head-spinning move, the EPA complied, citing that the reports are not used by local emergency workers and are thus, unnecessary. Unnecessary to whom? It seems valid that the acknowledged threat to residents living and working nearby would be important information.

Unless, of course, they could be used in a lawsuit against you, which has happened with several industrial farms since 1980 when the EPA was first required to document the emissions of ammonia and hydrogen sulfide. These reports are one of the few tools rural communities have for holding large livestock operations accountable for the pollution they produce.

Last December, EPA administrator Stephen Johnson denied California’s request to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Today, the Senate released documents putting Johnson squarely in opposition with the scientific and legal experts on his staff when he denied the request.The documents were requested by Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works chair Barbara Boxer (D-CA), who said:

“These documents paint a picture of an Environmental Protection Agency in crisis. They show the dedicated professional staff of the EPA working hard to do what they are paid to do by the American people - protect our health and our environment. At the same time, we see more and more evidence of Administrator Johnson ignoring the science and the facts, and discarding the advice of his professional staff.”

“I believe this decision will be reversed by the next President or by the courts, but the Administrator can save the taxpayers time and money, and can get us started cleaning up our air if he would simply follow the law, the facts, and the advice of his agency professionals.”

The guy in the picture is JP Patten, entrepreneur and computer expert, shown with his newly outfitted biodiesel lawn mowers. Now, I think this guy’s got a great idea, he buys lawnmower motors from China, takes them apart, rebuilds them so they burn waste grease from deep fryers.

So far, so good. He says the engines are more powerful and more efficient than their gas counterparts, and they cause much less pollution. Ok, I’m sold, but how much are they?

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They’ve done it, and help from other states is on the way. California’s Attorney General Jerry Brown has filed a lawsuit with the US court of appeals challenging the EPA’s decision to block California from implementing tough new standards on vehicle emissions. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is quoted as saying;

“It is unconscionable that the federal government is keeping California and 19 other states from adopting these standards. They are ignoring the will of millions of people who want their government to take action in the fight against global warming. That’s why, at the very first legal opportunity, we’re suing to reverse the US EPA’s wrong decision. By implementing these standards, California would be eliminating greenhouse gases equivalent to taking 6.5 million cars off the road by the year 2020.”

As I suggested in my “Open Challenge to California and all State Governments” of Dec. 20, 15 other states or state agencies are joining the action, including Maine, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico and New York.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been ordered to release all documents pertaining to Administrator Stephen Johnson’s controversial blocking of California’s waiver to control greenhouse gasses in that state.

The announcement came in an email released by Public Employees forEnvironmental Responsibility (PEER), saying Johnson has bowed to a Congressional request for the information, following the controversy sparked by his controversial decision.

PEER’s Executive Director Jeff Ruch is quoted as saying: “What made Johnson’s decision so striking is that for months he said he was basing it on the scientific and legal merits and then did the precise opposite. One employee told me ‘I am ashamed to admit that I work at EPA’ and another asked ‘What am I supposed to tell my children when they ask me what I am doing to fight global warming?’”

Johnson has said he will not attend a field hearing of Senator Barbara Boxer’s (D-CA), Senate Environment & Public Works Committee on January 10th in Los Angeles. His appearance before Congress, however, promises to be contentious at best.