Rewriting the Rules, April 2004 Edition
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REWRITING THE RULES REWRITING 3RD ANNUAL EDITION THE RULES 3RD ANNUAL EDITION The Bush The Bush Administration’s Administration’s Assault on the Environment Assault on the Environment April 2004 Principal Author Robert Perks Project Director and Editor Gregory Wetstone Natural Resources Defense Council April 2004 Natural Resources Defense Council ACKNOWLEDGMENTS NRDC acknowledges the generous support of The Bauman Foundation, Edward John Noble Foundation, Inc., Orchard Foundation, and Wallace Genetic Foundation, Inc. The author would like to thank the following NRDC experts for their review: Sharon Buccino, Hal Candee, Drew Caputo, Sarah Chasis, Chuck Clusen, Jon Coifman, REWRITING Aaron Colangelo, Jon Devine, Geoffrey Fettus, Karen Garrison, David Goldstein, THE RULES Linda Greer, Jeff Fiedler, David Hawkins, Rich Kassel, Jessica Landman, Dan Lashof, 3RD ANNUAL EDITION Nathaniel Lawrence, Amy Mall, David McIntosh, Elliott Negin, Robert Norris, Erik Olson, Joel Reynolds, Daniel Rosenberg, Jennifer Sass, Jacob Scherr, Brad Sewell, The Bush Melanie Shepherdson, Gina Solomon, Lisa Speer, Nancy Stoner, Johanna Wald, Administration’s John Walke, Wesley Warren, Andrew Wetzler, and Louisa Willcox. Assault on the The author would also like to thank the following staff and interns for their Environment research and production assistance: John Grant, Teryn Hanggi, Christine Hoekanga, April 2004 and Sarah Schoenbach. ABOUT NRDC The Natural Resources Defense Council is a national, nonprofit environmental organization with more than 1 million members and online activists. Since 1970, our lawyers, scientists, and other environmental specialists have worked to protect the world's natural resources, public health, and the environment. NRDC has offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Visit us on the World Wide Web at www.nrdc.org. NRDC Reports Manager NRDC President Director of Advocacy Alexandra Kennaugh John Adams Gregory Wetstone Production NRDC Executive Director Bonnie Greenfield Frances Beinecke Cover Design NRDC Director of Jenkins & Page Communications Alan Metrick Copyright 2004 by the Natural Resources Defense Council. For additional copies of this report, send $7.50 plus $3.95 shipping and handling to NRDC Publications Department, 40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011. California residents must add 7.5% sales tax. Please make checks payable to NRDC in U.S. dollars. This report is printed on paper that is 80 percent recycled, 80 percent post-consumer waste, processed chlorine free. ii CONTENTS Executive Summary iv Friday Follies vii Chapter 1: Failure to Enforce 1 REWRITING Chapter 2: Dirty Science 6 THE RULES 3RD ANNUAL EDITION Chapter 3: Corporate Takeover 13 The Bush Chapter 4: Industry-Driven Energy Policy 20 Administration’s Assault on the Chapter 5: Laundering Dirty Air 28 Environment Chapter 6: Global Warming Heating Up 34 April 2004 Chapter 7: Clean Water at Risk 38 Chapter 8: Hazardous Health Policies 44 Chapter 9: Pulp Fiction Forest Policy 53 Chapter 10: Mining Profits, Grazing the Range 58 Chapter 11: Empty Promise on Parks 62 Chapter 12: Taking Aim at Wildlife Protections 70 Chapter 13: All Nuked Up, No Place to Go 79 Appendix: Letter to President Bush from Scientific Community, 82 February 18, 2004 Endnotes 90 iii EXECUTIVE SUMMARY fter three years, the Bush administration’s environmental record is unambiguous: A landmark environmental programs protecting our air, water, lands, and wildlife are weaker. This third edition of “Rewriting the Rules” documents more than 150 assaults on our environmental safeguards between January 2003 and March 2004, reflecting a destructive pace that has only accelerated during President Bush’s tenure. REWRITING This report also presents the recent emergence of independent voices and docu- THE RULES mentary evidence exposing the inner workings of the Bush administration’s environ- 3RD ANNUAL EDITION mental onslaught, and examines the long-term repercussions of these policies. The Bush THE YEAR’S MOST NOTABLE ENVIRONMENTAL ASSAULTS Administration’s Below are some of the past year’s most troubling Bush administration environmental Assault on the actions. Environment Sewage in Our Waterways April 2004 Beaches and rivers across the country are exposed to bacteria, viruses, fecal matter, and a host of other wastes from sewage releases. In the Clinton administration, the EPA proposed to address the problem through a new Clean Water Act rulemaking, the result of a lengthy consensus process that included environmentalists and federal, state, and municipal authorities. But when the Bush administration took office in January 2001, it shelved the proposal for three years of “internal review.” In November 2003, the Bush administration proposed to legalize the release of inadequately treated sewage into waterways, as long as it is diluted with treated sewage, a process the agency has euphemistically labeled “blending.” Sewage in Our Drinking Water Florida is injecting treated sewage into so-called deep wells. The injection of treated sewage has continued despite concerns that, in Florida’s hydrogeology, contaminants in the treated sewage could migrate upward into the drinking water supply. Recent studies finding cryptosporidium and giardia, two bacteria that cause illnesses in people, show that this is exactly what is happening in south Florida aquifers. How- ever, rather than bringing the waste injection to a halt, as current Safe Drinking Water Act rules require, the EPA has proposed a special exemption, just for Florida, that allows injection of treated sewage to continue. The End of New Wilderness In April 2003, the Bush administration reversed the federal policy at the core of the U.S. wilderness preservation system. This policy protected public lands while federal land managers assessed them for possible protection as officially designated wilder- ness areas. In a sweeping legal settlement with then-Utah governor and current EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt, the administration renounced the government’s authority to conduct wilderness inventories on public lands or to protect more areas for their wilderness values. The sudden settlement involved no public comment or open deliberations. This new policy threatens to open millions of acres of wilderness- quality public lands to drilling, mining, road building, and other development. iv Rewriting the Rules 3rd Annual Edition More Mercury Pollution in Our Air Last year, 44 states issued warnings for eating mercury-contaminated fish, a 63 per- cent jump from 1993 when 27 states issued such warnings. The central sources of the problem are U.S. power plants and other industrial facilities, which together spew more than 150 tons of mercury into the air each year. But the Bush administration has refused to regulate mercury through the same tough approach used for other hazard- ous air pollutants, which are subject to rigorous standards under the Clean Air Act, using advanced pollution control technology. Rather than protect the public from this persistent hazard, the EPA announced a plan that allows nearly seven times the mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants than would be allowed if mercury were to be regulated like other hazardous air pollutants, and gives industry decades longer to comply. Originally, a 2018 deadline was contemplated, but the EPA is now looking at even further delay. Reckless Energy Development New Mexico’s spectacular Otera Mesa is a banner example of the pervasive threat to our last wildlands posed by the current drive for energy development at any cost. Otero Mesa boasts more than a million acres of Chihuahuan grassland and, in a state plagued by drought, holds enough fresh drinking water to sustain half of the state’s population. Although previously protected by the Bureau of Land Management policies, the Bush administration eased environmental safeguards in January 2004 to allow drilling after limited environmental analysis and public review, despite wide- spread local opposition. DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE EXPOSES INDUSTRY INFLUENCE The direct influence of industry on Bush environmental policies was made painfully clear through recent documentary evidence. The documents expose the direct role of major polluters in drafting Bush administration policy, and undercut industry arguments embraced by the administration. Industry’s role in crafting the administration’s plan to regulate mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants was exposed in January 2004, when it was revealed that at least a dozen paragraphs in the EPA’s mercury proposal were lifted, sometimes verbatim, from memos sent by a law firm that represents the utility industry. A month later, a New Jersey official pinpointed additional verbatim and paraphrased wording from a report sponsored by an industry association representing two-dozen large Western utility companies. Meanwhile, a Department of Justice brief disclosed internal industry documents that were used as the basis for weakening the Clean Air Act new source review (NSR) rules. The Justice Department brief also says the utility industry has known for more than a decade that massive air pollution increases from coal-fired power plants violated the Clean Air Act. Industry has claimed that the NSR rules were “ambiguous” and that they were unaware of violations until the first of several high- profile enforcement lawsuits in 1999. Because the documents were given to the government in November 2003, it seems the Bush administration has been promoting v Natural Resources