This post was written by Member Scholar Amy Sinden and Policy Analyst Lena Pons.
Last week, the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) sponsored a fly-in lobby day to support an amendment that would strip EPA of the authority to set greenhouse gas emission standards for passenger cars and light trucks for 2017-2025. The amendment, offered earlier this year by Rep. Steve Austria (R-Ohio), would prevent EPA from spending any money to implement the 2017-2025 standards. NADA wants the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to have sole responsibility for regulating vehicle efficiency. Dealers want NHTSA to run the show because, they claim, EPA does not give adequate consideration to costs of the standards.
One problem: the auto dealers have completely misrepresented how EPA and NHTSA’s joint standards work. In fact, EPA, just like NHTSA, kept considerations of cost and technological feasibility front and center in developing the joint fuel economy and greenhouse gas standards for 2012-2016. There is no reason to think they will approach the 2017-2025 standards differently.
Full textIt all started Monday on the Daily Caller. The story claimed that the EPA, in planning regulations on greenhouses gasses, is “asking for taxpayers to shoulder the burden of up to 230,000 new bureaucrats — at a cost of $21 billion — to attempt to implement the rules.” The story spread like wild among many of the usual suspects, like National Review, Red State and Fox News. And it was promoted by some of the top anti-regulation advocates in Congress: Senator Jim Inhofe, House Energy & Commerce’s Environment and the Economy subcommittee chair John Shimkus, and Rep. Geoff Davis, chief sponsor of the REINS Act. Inhofe and Davis both reprinted the original article directly on their site.
One problem: the story isn’t true.
Daily Caller writer Matthew Boyle found the 230,000 stat in a brief the EPA filed on September 16. That brief defends the “tailoring rule,” which is the agency’s method of limiting which greenhouse gas emitters will be regulated under the Clean Air Act’s PSD Program. The EPA has said previously that it would be very impractical to require all small emissions sources (i.e., any facility emitting over 100 or 250 tons per year of CO2) to get a permit; instead, it will focus on large sources, such as big industrial facilities that emit at least 75,000 – 100,000 tons per year of CO2.
In the brief (see pages 48-49 of the PDF), EPA says that “immediately applying the literal PSD statutory threshold of 100/250 tpy to greenhouse gas emissions” – that is, no tailoring rule – would “overwhelm[] the resources of permitting authorities and severely impair[] the functioning of the programs…” It would necessitate, the EPA estimated, 230,000 new hires.
The irony here is that in worrying specifically about a hypothetical 230,000 new EPA hires, the anti-regulatory crowd has a great ally on this matter – one who just laid out a 149-page case against the non-tailored GHG regulation that could theoretically require it. That was the EPA.
Full textIn toxics regulation, environmental lawyers face an uphill battle when they challenge a risk assessment performed by a protector agency. Courts review the agency’s risk assessment under a deferential “arbitrary and capricious” standard, and courts are reluctant to second-guess an agency’s calculation of the risks of a pesticide or other chemicals.
So it was a victory for both children’s health and sound science earlier this month when the Natural Resources Defense Council prevailed in its challenge of EPA’s flawed risk assessment for a commonly-used pesticide called dichlorvos. (NRDC v. EPA, 08-3771-ag, 2nd Cir. September 16, 2011). The unanimous decision by the 3-judge panel is here.
The Second Circuit vacated a 2006 EPA order denying NRDC’s request to pull dichlorvos off the market. The court held that EPA acted arbitrarily and capriciously in denying the request and that EPA had failed to carry out Congress’s clear mandate, in the 1996 Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA), to protect children’s health. Now EPA must reconsider NRDC’s petition using better science and the correct statutory standard.
Dichlorvos is an organophosphate pesticide that has been in use since 1948 in homes, restaurants, and commercial buildings. It is a vapor-based pesticide, commonly used in pet collars and also sold on strips to attract aphids, mites, and other insects. Vapor-based pesticides pose particular risks to children through inhalation exposure. In the 1980s, EPA had considered pulling dichlorvos off the market because there was evidence that it was a carcinogen, but in 2000, the agency approved continued use. That decision was based primarily on a single study involving only nine adult volunteers – and the study was paid for by the pesticide’s manufacturer.
Full textCPR Member Scholar David Driesen has an op-ed in this morning's Syracuse Post-Standard discussing the Administration's punt on the smog standard, arguing it's "unfortunate that President Obama has decided to embrace the Republican narrative about regulatory burdens instead of explaining the true causes of our economic woes."
Remembering the role of financial deregulation in our economic crisis, Driesen writes:
The lesson is that we need government standards to safeguard the economy, just as we need them to safeguard the environment. But government bashers have mounted a campaign to create a different narrative — a diversion — blaming economic weakness not on deregulation and reckless financial institutions, but on government regulation.
By defending his withdrawal of the anti-smog standard as a measure to reduce economic burdens, Obama lends authority to this ongoing campaign to render government incapable of establishing adequate standards to protect the economy or the environment. Rampant speculation, diminished public health and destruction of natural resources, however, do not a strong economy make.
Check out the full op-ed here.
Full textGuest blogger Peter T. Jenkins is a lawyer and consultant working with the National Environmental Coalition on Invasive Species (NECIS), committed to preventing further harm from invasive, non-native plants and animals. He is Executive Director of the Center for Invasive Species Prevention (CISP).
If the federal government cannot regulate huge constrictor snakes that have already invaded twice in Florida, are preying on Endangered Species Act-listed species, can readily invade in other States and have killed more than a dozen people in recent decades, then what can it regulate? This all came to a head in Congress last week.
On Tuesday of last week, the National Environmental Coalition on Invasive Species learned from a friendly Capitol Hill source that the following day the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, under Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA), was going to highlight this issue of regulating invasive snakes as part of his running assault against federal rulemaking. (The September 14th hearing promised an exploration of "How a Broken Process Leads to Flawed Regulations".) The late notice Majority staff gave to Minority staff and the public on the substance of the hearing and the witness list speaks for itself.
Representative Issa’s staff had invited a snake breeder, David Barker, to testify against a long-standing proposal by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list nine species of large constrictor snakes - boas, pythons, and anacondas - as prohibited “injurious species” under the Lacey Act (Issa also dedicated four pages to criticizing the listings in a report released that day). The injurious species section of the Act (18 USC § 42) is 111 years old and it is widely criticized as too slow and ponderous to be effective, but the Service does occasionally list dangerous non-native species under the Act. After five years of study, preparation and analysis, the agency is finally on the verge of prohibiting these snakes from private importation and interstate commerce. There are some upset constrictor snake breeders out there who appear blind to the public interest, focused on preserving their apparently lucrative businesses.
Full textSenator Susan Collins announced last week the “Regulatory Time-Out Act” (S. 1538), which would put a one-year moratorium on most “economically significant” regulations. On Monday, she said she had 16 other Senators on board – all Republicans. So while I’m not under any illusion this is going anywhere, one point jumped out at me for discussion.
One of Senator Collins’ top targets in the past year has been the boiler MACT rule, which would require certain facilities to reduce their emissions of mercury, soot, lead and other pollutants that harm our health. At first glance, it appears this bill would serve to delay the boiler MACT rule even further than it already has been. (How a 12-month delay, starting presumably sometime during the current 10-month delay, adds up to being the exact right fix is anyone’s guess, and it’s also not clear how this would reduce “uncertainty.”)
But consider this. Collins’ press release says: “The moratorium would not apply to rules that address imminent threats to human health or safety or other emergencies, or that apply to the criminal justice system, military or foreign affairs.”
It may have been meant as a throw-away line to make the bill sound more reasonable. But the proposed boiler MACT, in its most recent form, would prevent 2,600 to 6,600 deaths per year. Are 2,600 to 6,600 preventable deaths each year caused by pollution from industrial boilers not an imminent threat to human health? How many more people would need to die for it to be an imminent threat to human health?
Full textFrom what we hear, EPA is not a happy place these days, and we don’t wonder why. Never did a hard-pressed staff deserve so much guff, less. Politico reported that the White House is treating Lisa Jackson with kid gloves, hoping against hope that she won’t up and quit on them over the outrageous White House trashing of the efforts to update an outmoded, unhealthy, and legally indefensible 1997 ozone standard. Good thinking for a change. With the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) sending e-mails to 1.3 million members and online activists declaring that the White House “threw you overboard,” it’s way past time for the President, his Chief of Staff, and regulatory czar Cass Sunstein to remember they are Democrats, not soldiers in the Boehner army.
Obviously, no one knows what Jackson will do and the decision is both a personal and a difficult one. Ozone was extraordinarily offensive, and good arguments can be made that resignation is her best alternative. On the other hand, she has more work to do and only a hard kick in the rear will force the White House to let her do it. The least we can do is watch EPA like hawks, standing ready, willing, and able to call out industry interference at the earliest possible stage.
In that regard, we smell a rat chewing on the power cords that support EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS), the internationally renowned database of toxicological profiles that garners 2,000 hits a day (for a scientific database like this, that’s a lot). The American Chemistry Council has IRIS in the cross hairs, recently testifying before Congress that it should have all its work checked by the National Academies of Science. Then, on August 31, EPA published a notice that it would take public comment on its draft assessment of 1,4-dioxane, a Hazardous Air Pollutant under the Clean Air Act because it is a probable human carcinogen (cancer-causing agent). The chemical is used to stabilize trichloroethylene and perchloroethylene, especially in a military context. The draft IRIS profile would set an inhalation value—the amount that can be breathed in without adverse health effects--for the chemical because new studies have been done since IRIS first posted a profile in 1988. According to the EPA Toxics Release Inventory, 47 percent of releases of the chemical are in air.
Full textIn May 2010, EPA sent a draft “Chemicals of Concern” list, including bisphenol A (BPA) and five other chemicals, to the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) for review. The proposed list would be the first time EPA has used its authority under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to publish such a list of chemicals that “may present an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment.” Today marks one year since OIRA exceeded the 120-day deadline for completing its review of EPA’s proposed chemicals of concern list.
The proposed list has met with fierce industry resistance, even though being added to the list only requires some minor additional reporting requirements. Between Jun. 2010 and Jan. 2011, OIRA hosted eight meetings to discuss the proposed list. Of those meetings, seven were with industry groups and trade associations including ExxonMobil, Dow Chemical, the American Chemistry Council, and the Society of the Plastics Industry. One meeting was with public health and environmental advocacy groups including the American Association of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, and the Natural Resources Defense Council. Listing carries no regulatory action. Manufacturers are required to comply with some additional reporting requirements, but only if EPA conducts additional rulemaking.
Industry groups object to chemicals being listed because they say the substances might obtain a stigma. But considering the chemicals on the list – BPA, phthalates, and flame retardant polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) – many of these already have a stigma because they have for years been linked with harmful health effects. Ultimately, stigma is not a strong argument, and attaching stigma to these chemicals is at least part of the point. EPA has a responsibility to protect human health and the environment from hazardous chemicals, but its legal authority to regulate and reduce exposures to chemicals is weak under TSCA. The next best thing the agency can do is inform the public, and encourage companies to seek less dangerous alternatives.
Full textLast Friday, President Obama ordered EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to withdraw EPA’s new ambient air quality standard for ground level ozone (smog). The order came in a letter from Cass Sunstein, the head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Office of Management and Budget.
The order does not pretend to be based on science. Indeed, it flies in the face of the available science on the human health effects of ozone as determined on at least two occasions by EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC). The White House acknowledges – even touts – that the order is based on economic considerations (President Obama wrote in a statement Friday that “I have continued to underscore the importance of reducing regulatory burdens and regulatory uncertainty, particularly as our economy continues to recover. With that in mind, and after careful consideration, I have requested that Administrator Jackson withdraw the draft Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards at this time.”) But the Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision written by Justice Antonin Scalia, held that costs are not to be considered in setting ambient air quality standards.
If Administrator Lisa Jackson obeys the order, her action may not strictly violate the letter of Clean Air Act, but it will violate the spirit of that statute. It will also be the wrong thing to do from a public policy perspective. Leaving the current standard in place will (according to EPA’s own calculations) result in up to 2,200 heart attacks and up to 4,300 deaths per year.
Administrator Jackson should therefore disobey the order or resign.
Full textIn perhaps the most troubling sign of his determination to pander to business at the expense of public health, President Obama announced this morning that he had blocked EPA’s science-based efforts to lower the levels of smog that drive children and the elderly inside on Code Red days. Automobile manufacturers, power plant operators, the oil industry, and the Chamber of Commerce are breaking out the champagne, while the public health community despairs of the President who promised so much and has delivered so little.
The hard truth is that in this case the President has decided to flout the Clean Air Act to precisely the same extent as his predecessor.
The Act established a panel of doctors and scientists, known as the Clean Air Act Science Advisory Committee (CASAC), a blue ribbon panel with impeccable credentials. The panel has pleaded with EPA to lower ozone to at least 70—and preferably 60—parts per billion in the air. President Bush shoved aside these recommendations, setting a 75 ppb standard. President Obama has just ensured that this harmful level will persist for another several years.
The White House is spinning this as an effort to ease the burden on states and industry for the sake of the economy. In fact, it’s a cave-in to political pressure. No one should be fooled. As it turns out, "yes we can" has once again become "no, we daren’t."
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