Controversies:
Since its inception, the EPA has often failed to be perceived as a protector of the environment, instead being seen as a federal facilitator of industry interests. From energy and chemical companies, automobile manufacturers and mining consortiums to the manufacturing industry writ broad, the EPA frequently finds itself embroiled in conflict between corporate interests, political pressure and conservationists.
EPA Memo Links Pesticide to Honey Bee Die-off
An Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) memo surfaced in 2010 that attributed the massive die-off of honeybees to the pesticide clothianidin. The revelation sparked calls for the government to ban the chemical produced by Bayer CropScience. Clothianidin has been banned in Germany, where it was first made and where another wave of honeybee deaths occurred, since 2008.
The EPA took no action against the pesticide, even though it was revealed, in a leaked memo, that its own scientists had deemed “deficient” the one study submitted to the agency in the chemical’s provisional approval process.
Subsequently, a study from Purdue University showed that honeybees’ exposure to clothianidin was greater than previously thought by scientists, and that it continues to poison bees during the whole foraging season, even if it isn’t applied to the plants at that time.
The EPA is reviewing clothianidin’s registration and plans to complete the review by 2018.
The Clothianidin Controversy (Culinate)
EPA Defends Approval of Bayer's Bee-Killing Pesticide (by Sarah Parsons, Change.org)
Study Shows Honey Bees Exposed to High Levels of Bee-Killing Pesticide (Beyond Pesticides Daily News Blog)
Clear Skies
The Clear Skies Initiative was announced by President George W. Bush in 2002 and was presented to Congress as the Clear Skies Act in 2003. Clear Skies was an amendment to the 1963 Clean Air Act, ostensibly purposed to reduce air pollution. But Clear Skies won a host of critics, including members of Congress and various conservationist groups such as the Sierra Club and the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Its critics called Clear Skies propaganda created to mask relaxed regulations on polluting industries. Among the fallibilities of the Clear Skies Act, it would allow an additional 42 million tons of pollution to be emitted by industry and weaken controls on mercury and nitrogen oxide set by the existing Clean Air Act.
As the Clear Skies Act was unfolding, the EPA was bending to presidential pressure that sought to undermine the New Source Review (NSW). The NSW is a key element of the Clean Air Act that allows for older power plants and factories to continue operations in expectation of the factory’s immanent retirement. However, NSW requires older plants to install modern air pollution controls if they make changes that increase their traditional emission levels. In 2003, the EPA acquiesced and adopted changes that relax restrictions on 20,000 facilities. These facilities represent the nation’s industrial base and include power plants, chemical plants, incinerators, iron and steel foundries, paper mills, cement plants, and a broad array of manufacturing facilities.
When last introduced to Congress in 2005, the Clear Skies Act was effectively blocked, but the damage was done in the public’s opinion of the EPA. The EPA, whose job it is to provide scientific facts on proposed legislation, was expected to analyze Clear Skies through an empirical lens. However, as opposed to critiquing the Clear Skies Act, the EPA, headed at the time by Administrator Christine Todd Whitman, supported the measure regardless of its flagrant fallibilities.
9/11
Following the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001, the White House directed the EPA to funnel all of their media communications through the National Security Council. As a result, the danger of airborne particles was diluted at the direction of the Bush administration. Rescue workers as well as other New Yorkers who lived or worked in the area were affected; many have experienced Ground Zero illness, a respiratory condition resulting from inhaling alkaline particulates and asbestos.
The 9/11 controversy came to light in August 2003, following the release of a report by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of the EPA. The OIG report traced the White House’s influence on the EPA, beginning on September 12 when a memo was issued throughout the EPA saying all statements to the media must be cleared with the National Security Council. The EPA, and then-administrator Christine Todd Whitman, issued a public statement on September 18, saying the air around Ground Zero was safe. Rudy Giuliani, then mayor of New York City, echoed the safety statement. The OIG report found that the EPA did not have sufficient data on September 18 to issue such a statement of air safety and that the Bush administration pressured the EPA to remove cautionary information regarding air safety
hazards at Ground Zero, apparently in order to keep Wall Street operating.
In a 2006 class action suit on behalf of New York residents and schoolchildren in the Ground Zero vicinity, a federal judge for the court district in Manhattan recognized that the EPA failed in its responsibility to protect New Yorkers, and ruled that Whitman made statements that mislead the public regarding safety. In June 2007, the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that the public was misled by federal environmental officials about the extent of air contamination following the 9/11 attacks. However, a panel of judges in 2008 ruled that Whitman could not be held liable for false public statements she made regarding Manhattan air quality in the weeks following 9/11.
In November 2010, plaintiffs in the lawsuit against New York City accepted a settlement designed to pay $625 million to more than 10,000 workers who have experienced health problems. By then, the number of first responders who died from 9/11-caused illnesses had reached 1,000.
On January 2, 2011, President Barack Obama signed into law the
James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, which provides $4.2 billion over the next five years for health care to emergency workers who suffered illnesses as a result of the rescue efforts they made on the day of the terrorist attacks. The law also includes a Victim Compensation Fund to assist attack victims. The original bill proposed $7.4 billion for victim compensation, but it was derailed by Republican opposition.
Christine Todd Whitman
Leadership of the EPA has fluctuated in ideologies over the years, often following a presidential trend. The Agency was run during the 1970s by Russell Train, who later served as President of the World Wildlife Fund, and by Douglas Costle, a former civil rights attorney appointed to the EPA by President Jimmy Carter. Conversely, the EPA has existed under the leadership of Lee M. Thomas, who went on the become President and Chief Operating Officer of paper giant, Georgia-Pacific Corporation, and by William K. Reilly who has been a director of oil consortium, ConocoPhillips, and chemical megalith DuPont. Paradoxically, Reilly was also president of the World Wildlife Fund and the Conservation Foundation.
Yet no director has proved as controversial as Christine Todd Whitman, who served as the Administrator of the EPA from 2001–2003. Shortly after taking office in January 2001, the World Trade Center was attacked and the 9/11 controversy began to unfold (see section above). In addition to lying to the public about the dangerous state of air around Ground Zero, financial affiliations have come to light that place Whitman’s dishonesty within the framework of personal gain, not simply bending to presidential pressure. Christine Whitman’s husband, John R. Whitman is a former Citigroup vice-president and still manages hundreds of millions of dollars of the bank’s assets. As a result of the air conditions at Ground Zero, Travelers Insurance, which is a Citigroup subsidiary, stood to loose millions in medical claims. The previous year in 2000,
John Whitman received a six-figure bonus from Citigroup. During her time at the EPA, Whitman also challenged the validity of a government-commissioned report that suggested anthropogenic or human-caused elements of global warming.
Christine Todd Whitman is related to President George Bush’s family. Her brother, Webster B. Todd, married Sheila O'Keefe, the stepdaughter of James Wear Walker, whose sister
Dorothy Walker Bush was the mother of
George H.W. Bush and grandmother of
George W. Bush. Christine Todd Whitman graduated from Wheaton College in 1968 with a bachelor’s degree in government. She headed the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities before becoming governor of New Jersey in 1994. She served as New Jersey’s governor until 2001.
State-Mandated Emissions
During President George W. Bush’s administration, California and 16 other states were embroiled in a battle with the EPA over the states’ right to set their own emissions standards for automobiles. The states have wanted to mandate tougher emission standards to reduce their pollution levels, especially carbon dioxide. But on December 19, 2007, the federal government via the EPA ruled against the state’s authority to set emission standards. Many suspect the decision was motivated by the automobile industry, which was in strict opposition to the state’s higher standards.
Democratic California Rep. Henry Waxman, then-chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said the decision not only had important ramifications to the health of the nation, but also raised concern about the integrity of the EPA’s decision-making process. Waxman noted that then-EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson overruled the unanimous recommendations of the EPA’s legal and technical teams. In addition, 16 of the states, including California, sued the EPA over the decision.
Immediately after taking office in January 2009, President Barack Obama—fulfilling a campaign promise—reversed Bush administration policy by directing federal regulators to grant a waiver to California and 13 other states, allowing them to set their own emission standards. In addition to California, the states include: New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Arizona.
Conflicts of Interest
Times)
Working Group)
Defunding the EPA
Greenhouse Gases: Not a Problem
In February 2011, a bipartisan group of legislators launched an effort to block or delay the EPA from regulating greenhouses gases under various environmental laws, including the Clean Air Act, as well as reverse previous EPA actions. Two of the bills would undo President Obama’s 2009 California waiver grant and prevent the EPA from granting the state a future waiver. Republicans have also introduced a funding measure to block certain EPA regulations. In addition to these congressional actions, over 80 lawsuits have been filed against EPA greenhouse gas regulations.
In an action to save industry money, the Obama administration—in May 2011—announced reforms at the EPA that included easing a rule that had classified milk as an oil, since that rule was found to be an unjustifiable burden to dairy farmers; and lifting the requirement that gas stations have air pollution recovery systems, because it claims that modern cars do that job. It was said that the first reform will save the industry $1 billion in the coming decade, and the latter will save $60 million annually.
(by Russell Prugh, Marten Law)
(Greenberg Quinlan Rossner)
Walke, Grist)
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