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Deborah
Joined: 30 Jul 2000
Posts: 731
Location: East Coast |
 Sun Jan 11, 2004 2:46 am
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A Matter of "Convenience"
Our Energy Policy in-progress:
7 January 2004
MSNBC
Execs get access on environmental issues
WASHINGTON - Western business executives will get to wine, dine and golf with members of Congress and top Bush administration environmental officials at Arizona gatherings this week that start with a fund-raiser for the lawmakers.
Companies whose employees or political action committees donate $3,000 can send two people to the “Mulligans & Margaritas” fund-raiser Wednesday for the Western GOP Majority Committee, with $1,000 charged for each additional company representative who attends.
Donors can schmooze members of Congress at a golf tournament at the Arizona Biltmore Golf Course in Phoenix and a private dinner at a local restaurant. Their contributions will be divided among 20 Republican congressional candidates from Western states.
The fund-raiser was organized by Jim Sims, executive director of the Western Business Roundtable. It is the first event listed on the agenda of this week’s “Roundtable Summit of the West,” a conference sponsored by the Colorado-based organization and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce at the Arizona Biltmore Resort.
Chance to 'strategize'
The conference registration form offers participants the chance to “strategize in a casual setting with members of Congress, White House officials, federal agency leaders, Western governors, CEOs, senior business executives and policy-makers from across the West.”
The goal is to make sure the West’s interests are factored in when Washington writes energy and environmental policies, Sims said.
“We prefer to think we are the nation’s energy breadbasket, and we are,” Sims said.
Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles, a former energy industry lobbyist, was to give the keynote address at a Thursday luncheon after sessions on the Clean Air Act and federal energy policy.
The prospectus for one conference promised participants could help write a “Top Ten ‘To Do’ List for the Congress.” They also can get training on dealing with the media and attend two more golf tournaments before the event ends Saturday.
In addition to Griles, speakers include Jeff Holmstead, the Environmental Protection Agency’s assistant administrator in charge of air quality and the administration’s point man on changes to the Clean Air Act; and Republican lawmakers including New Mexico Sen. Pete Domenici, chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and Montana Gov. Judy Martz.
Also scheduled to attend are several House members whose campaigns are taking part in the Western GOP Majority Committee.
They include Utah Reps. Chris Cannon and Rob Bishop; New Mexico Rep. Steve Pearce; Arizona Reps. John Shadegg, J.D. Hayworth, Rick Renzi and Jim Kolbe; Montana Rep. Denny Rehberg; Wyoming Rep. Barbara Cubin; California Rep. Darrell Issa; Colorado Reps. Joel Hefley and Tom Tancredo; Nebraska Rep. Lee Terry; Idaho Rep. Butch Otter; and Nevada Rep. Jon Porter.
Organizer rejects criticism
Activists criticized the events. "This junket is set up for industry to have its way with Congress and to exclude the public from having a say in whether America's natural treasures are protected or destroyed," Peter Altman, director of the Campaign to Protect America's Lands, said in a statement.
Added Friends of the Earth staffer Kristen Sykes: "The prominence of Deputy Secretary Griles in this blatant 'cash-and-carry' political setting shows that both he and the Bush Administration are not serious about addressing his grave ethical lapses when it comes to inappropriate dealings with industry."
But Sims said the fund-raiser was not a part of the conference and was not sponsored by the Western Business Roundtable or the U.S. Chamber.
“There is no connection between the two events, other than the fact that it is convenient for me to hold a fund-raising event for members of Congress I support who will be in Phoenix this week,” Sims said.
Sims said he set up the Western GOP Majority Committee to hold the fund-raiser and may use it to raise money for others in the future. He expected Wednesday’s event to raise less than $100,000. The committee was paying for room and board for members of Congress.
Conference participants were covering their own airfare, Sims said. The Western Business Roundtable is nonpartisan and has held similar conferences in past years featuring federal officials, including members of the Clinton administration, Sims said.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/Default.aspx?id=3898750&p1=0 |
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Deborah
Joined: 30 Jul 2000
Posts: 731
Location: East Coast |
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Fri Jan 16, 2004 2:29 am
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Who needs the Environmental Protection Agency (what a silly concept) when you can go right to the White House? Looks like that's going to be standard practice for The New Century.
15 January 2004
The Satanic Left Observer
Pentagon Appeals to White House on Pollution Limits
WASHINGTON — The Defense Department, having won exemptions from three major environmental laws in the last two years, now is seeking to be excused from three more.
Requirements of the Endangered Species Act, the Marine Mammal Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act already do not apply to the Pentagon. Now it wants exemptions from the Clean Air Act and two toxic waste laws, which Congress has refused to grant in each of the past two years.
So last month, the Pentagon asked the White House to let it fight those battles once more, according to documents obtained by The Times.
Congressional opponents say that the proposed exemptions would cause more damage than the previous ones because they would jeopardize human health.
The military, however, argues that it needs the three exemptions so that pollution laws do not get in the way of training exercises and other war preparations. "We think those three are the three initiatives that would probably go forward this year," said Bruce Hill, a Defense Department contractor in the office of the deputy undersecretary for readiness.
Many state officials and congressional Democrats disagree.
"Once again, the Department of Defense is using the war on terrorism as an excuse and an opportunity to jam through Congress broad and unnecessary exemptions for itself from three of our most important public health and environmental protection laws," said Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.).
The Clean Air Act proposal would extend by three years various deadlines for the Pentagon to comply with health-based standards for ozone and fine particulates. These air pollutants aggravate asthma, intensify heart and lung ailments and cause early deaths in thousands of Americans.
The other proposals would make it harder for the Environmental Protection Agency and state officials to regulate toxic substances, such as perchlorate, that seep into ground or surface water.
Opponents in Congress and the states argue that the Pentagon has not shown any examples of how these laws have hindered readiness.
"As former EPA Administrator [Christie] Whitman and numerous state officials have testified, there is no evidence or examples where these three laws have ever adversely impacted military readiness," said Dingell. "Never has a set of legislative proposals had so much audacity and so little merit."
So far, Pentagon officials agreed, the Clean Air Act has not thwarted military preparedness, but there have been some close calls.
The Navy, they said, was able to add some F-14 fighters to the Naval Air Station Lemoore in the heavily polluted San Joaquin Valley only because nearby Castle Air Force Base had closed and its pollution allotments could be transferred to the aircraft at Lemoore. Similarly, the Navy sent aircraft to Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia because the state was willing to shift industrial pollution allotments to the military.
"As these near-misses demonstrate, under the existing requirement there is limited flexibility to accommodate readiness needs," Benedict S. Cohen, the Defense Department's deputy general counsel, told a Senate committee in April.
Under the changes the military seeks to the toxic pollution laws, state, local and federal agencies would no longer be able to regulate military emissions, including unexploded ordnance, on operational training ranges.
Water agencies and state attorneys general, including California's, argue that the exemptions would inhibit their ability to prevent the contamination and loss of drinking water.
"Our concern is that when we don't have any authority, [military officials] tend not to listen to us," said Dan Miller, an assistant attorney general in Colorado.
States are in the midst of wrestling with releases of perchlorate, a hazardous chemical used in rocket propellants and explosives, into the ground or surface water at 27 Defense Department facilities. In at least two cases — the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland and the Massachusetts Military Reservation — drinking water supplies have been contaminated and state and federal officials are trying to force the military to clean up.
"This legislation could eliminate our ability to require them to investigate or clean up soil or groundwater contamination that has military munitions in it," Miller said.
Waiting to address the problem until the pollutants flow outside of the boundaries of the ranges, some of which are massive, could mean that the states have much more expensive and health-threatening problems to deal with, state officials said.
"By the time it starts escaping off the military property, you've got a huge problem coming right after you, said Krista Clark, regulatory specialist for the Assn. of California Water Agencies. "You don't wait until you have a huge problem and it's about to impact someone before you take control."
Perchlorate has turned up in drinking water across California, and some districts have shut off wells because of contamination. The military and its contractors are the largest perchlorate polluters in the state.
Brian Hembacher, a deputy California attorney general, said the military could already get exemptions on a case-by-case basis. State officials, he added, were eager to find solutions that do not impair military readiness.
"There is no justification," he said, "for any of these changes.”
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-na-pollute15 |
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Deborah
Joined: 30 Jul 2000
Posts: 731
Location: East Coast |
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Thu Feb 19, 2004 3:33 am
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Capstone / Thread Completed
18 February 2004
Union of Concerned Scientists
For Immediate Release
Preeminent Scientists Protest
Bush Administration's Misuse of Science
Nobel Laureates, National Medal of Science Recipients, and Other Leading Researchers
Call for End to Scientific Abuses
in global evironment
Washington, D.C. — Today, more than 60 leading scientists—including Nobel laureates, leading medical experts, former federal agency directors and university chairs and presidents—issued a statement calling for regulatory and legislative action to restore scientific integrity to federal policymaking. According to the scientists, the Bush administration has, among other abuses, suppressed and distorted scientific analysis from federal agencies, and taken actions that have undermined the quality of scientific advisory panels.
"Across a broad range of issues, the administration has undermined the quality of the scientific advisory system and the morale of the government's outstanding scientific personnel," said Dr. Kurt Gottfried, emeritus professor of physics at Cornell University and Chairman of the Union of Concerned Scientists. "Whether the issue is lead paint, clean air or climate change, this behavior has serious consequences for all Americans."
"Science, to quote President Bush's father, the former president, relies on freedom of inquiry and objectivity," said Russell Train, head of the Environmental Protection Agency under Nixon and Ford, who joined the scientists in calling for action. "But this administration has obstructed that freedom and distorted that objectivity in ways that were unheard of in any previous administration."
The statement notes that while scientific input to the government is rarely the only factor in public policy decisions, this input should be weighed from an objective and impartial perspective. However, the administration of George W. Bush has disregarded this principle.
"The Earth system follows laws which scientists strive to understand," said Dr. F. Sherwood Rowland a Nobel laureate in chemistry. "The public deserves rational decisionmaking based on the best scientific advice about what is likely to happen, not what political entities might wish to happen."
"We are not simply raising warning flags about an academic subject of interest only to scientists and doctors," said Dr. Neal Lane, a former director of the National Science Foundation and a former Presidential Science Advisor. "In case after case, scientific input to policymaking is being censored and distorted. This will have serious consequences for public health."
In conjunction with the statement, the Union of Concerned Scientists today released a report Scientific Integrity in Policymaking that investigates numerous allegations in the scientists' statement involving censorship and political interference with independent scientific inquiry at the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Departments of Health and Human Services, Agriculture, Interior and Defense.
One example cited in the statement and report involves the suppression of an EPA study that found the bipartisan Senate Clear Air bill would do more to reduce mercury contamination in fish and prevent more deaths than the administration's proposed Clear Skies Act. "This is akin to the White House directing the National Weather Service to alter a hurricane forecast because they want everyone to think we have clear skies ahead," said Kevin Knobloch, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists "The hurricane is still coming, but without factual information no one will be ready for it."
Comparing President Bush with his father, George H.W. Bush and former president Richard M. Nixon, the statement warned that had these former presidents similarly dismissed science in favor of political ends, over 200,000 deaths and millions of respiratory and cardiovascular disease cases would not have been prevented with the signing of the original Clean Air Act and the 1990 amendments to that Act.
The statement demands that the Bush administration's "distortion of scientific knowledge for partisan political ends must cease" and calls for Congressional oversight hearings, guaranteed public access to government scientific studies and other measures to prevent such abuses in the future. The statement further calls on the scientific, engineering and medical communities to work together to reestablish scientific integrity in the policymaking process.
# # #
Among the statement signers are:
Philip W. Anderson*†
David Baltimore*†
Paul Berg*†
Lewis Branscomb
Thomas Eisner*
Jerome Friedman†
Richard Garwin*
Walter Kohn*†
Neal Lane
Leon Lederman*†
Mario Molina†
W.H.K. Panofsky*
F. Sherwood Rowland†
J. Robert Schrieffer*†
Richard Smalley†
Harold E. Varmus†
Steven Weinberg*†
E.O Wilson*
* National Medal of Science
† Nobel laureate
http://www.ems.org/rls/2004/02/18/preeminent_scien.html#top_release |
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