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Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Public Data Show Chemicals in Tap Water
So what's in your water? The Environmental Working Group knows:

Drinking water may have a lot more in it than just H₂0 and fluoride, according to an environmental group's analysis of records in 42 states.
A survey by the Environmental Working Group released on Tuesday found 141 unregulated chemicals and an additional 119 for which the Environmental Protection Agency has set health-based limits. Most common among the chemicals found were disinfection byproducts, nitrates, chloroform, barium, arsenic and copper.

The research-and-advocacy organization compiled findings from the states that agreed to provide data they collected from 1998 to 2003. That data comes from nearly 40,000 water utilities, serving 231 million people. The utilities were required by federal law to report that data to consumers.

Even worse: for many of these chemicals ,we just don't begin to know how dangerous they are to human health:

For the unregulated chemicals, EPA is still identifying and considering the potential risks for possible future regulations. Nineteen of those chemicals exceeded EPA's unenforced safety guidelines for tap water systems serving at least 10,000 people, according to the advocacy group. . . .
Jane Houlihan, EWG's vice president for research, said the group's findings show that the United States allows millions of people to be exposed to some chemicals for which EPA either has never considered the risks or if it has, has no enforceable limits.

"So in many communities the water that comes out of the tap could be contaminated with scores of chemicals. People shouldn't be alarmed, but they should be concerned. Our system of public health protections isn't working in this case," Houlihan said.

Check it out for yourself: Public Data Show Chemicals in Tap Water

Posted by Robert Shull, 12:27:08 PM

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Lacking the Information We Need to Protect the Public
Information gaps put us all at risk, and there are perverse incentives in current law and policy that exacerbate this problem, argues this new law review article. From the abstract:

One of the most significant problems facing environmental law is the dearth of scientific information available to assess the impact of industrial activities on public health and the environment. After documenting the significant gaps in existing information, this Article argues that existing laws both exacerbate and perpetuate this problem. By failing to require actors to assess the potential harm from their activities, and by penalizing them with additional regulation when they do, existing laws fail to counteract actors' natural inclination to remain silent about the harms that they might be causing. Both theory and practice confirm that when the stakes are high, actors not only will resist producing potentially incriminating information but will invest in discrediting public research that suggests their activities are harmful. The Article concludes with specific recommendations about how these perverse incentives for ignorance can be reversed.

Commons Ignorance: The Failure of Environmental Law to Provide the Information Needed to Protect Public Health and the Environment
Duke Law Journal, Vol. 53, No. 6, p. 1619, April 2004
Wendy E. Wagner

Posted by Robert Shull, 01:49:50 PM

Friday, December 09, 2005

Biopharming: Not a Boon for Rural America
The Union of Concerned Scientists is announcing a new report on biopharming:

States like Missouri and Iowa are lining up to grow crops genetically engineered to produce pharmaceuticals and industrial chemicals, in large part because proponents have touted the crops as an engine of rural economic development and farmer prosperity. But a new report by a leading agricultural economist finds that while some drug and biotechnology companies may profit from these "pharma crops," aggregate farmer benefits are likely to be small and rural community benefits may be much more modest than often portrayed.
"Proponents of pharmaceutical crops have inflated the rewards and downplayed the risks," said Dr. Jane Rissler, Deputy Director of the Food and Environment Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, which commissioned the study. "State officials, farmers and rural communities should be wary of rosily optimistic claims."

Nanotech, Genetically Modified Crop News Spotlights Regulatory Gaps

Posted by Robert Shull, 06:37:02 PM

Protecting the Right of Environmental Scientists to Express Professional Opinions
Check out this interesting law review article concerned with protecting scientists from retaliation in the current anti-science climate. From the abstract:

Science plays a central role in ensuring that environmental laws and regulations are protective of human health and the environment. This article chronicles many instances where environmental scientists were fired or otherwise attacked because employers or others were disturbed by the results of their research or professional opinions. The article surveys the legal protections available to scientists when disputes over scientific speech arise and concludes that additional protections are needed to ensure that scientists are free to present their findings without fear or retribution.

Scientific Speech: Protecting the Right of Environmental Scientists to Express Professional Opinions
Environmental Law Reporter, Vol. 35, p. 10857, 2005
Robert R. Kuehn University of Alabama - School of Law
Date Posted:December 9, 2005
[Via SSRN - Environmental Law]

Posted by Robert Shull, 01:27:36 PM

Thursday, December 08, 2005

Time Again for Polluter Pays?
Congress Daily is reporting that 23 members of the House are going to hold a press conference today to announce a bipartisan bill to reinstate the industry taxes that made Superfund a "polluter pays" program. Superfund worked for years because the polluters themselves were held responsible for cleaning up after themselves when they left toxic garbage in the environment. Without these industry fees, that burden is shifted onto the innocent: the taxpayers, who are the very same people who are subject to the potential harms from industry's hazardous spew. "Supporters say the expiration of those fees has depleted a $3.8 billion federal Superfund cleanup surplus, slowed cleanup efforts and increased costs to taxpayers from $300 million to $1.2 billion," Congress Daily explains.

The latest twist, according to Congress Daily, is that the bill to be announced will earmark a portion of the revenue for post-Katrina cleanup efforts.

Posted by Robert Shull, 12:12:05 PM

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Who Needs Regs When You Can Self-Regulate?
In another sad day for ocean life, EPA announced Dec. 2 a new proposed rule that will allow oil facilities handling up to 10,000 gallons of oil to write their own oil spill prevention plans, without seeking certification by a professional engineer. The proposed rule also indefinitely postpones compliance dates for farms holding up to 10,000 gallons of oil to write their own prevention plans. The proposal "streamlines" the approval process under the auspices of relieving regulatory burden for small businesses. Coincidentally, OMB met with the Small Business Administration in September over the rulemaking.

Posted by Genevieve Smith, 06:07:32 PM

Friday, December 02, 2005

EPA Subverts Science to Justify Clear Skies
A new Congressional Research Services report finds Clear Skies will have far fewer health benefits than competing pollution legislation. Moreover, EPA exaggerated the costs of more stringent pollution controls to justify the administration's bogus Clear Skies Initiative. From the report:

CRS reexamines EPA's data, producing cost and benefit estimates for each bill incremental to the costs and benefits of current law and promulgated regulations. The reanalysis finds that Clear Skies would have negligible incremental costs and added benefits of $6 billion in 2010 and $3 billion in 2020. For the same years, S. 843 would have annual net benefits 8 and 5 times as great as Clear Skies at annual costs of $4.2 billion and $3 billion, and S. 150 would have annual net benefits 10 and 16 times those of Clear Skies at annual costs of $23.6 billion and $18.1 billion.
EPA conducted limited sensitivity analyses to examine the effect on cost of select combinations of assumptions, including (1) the responsiveness of electricity demand to changes in price; (2) the availability of skilled labor to install control equipment; and (3) the growth of electricity demand and natural gas prices. However, some potentially useful combinations of assumptions were not examined. For example, if EPA had combined a relaxed skilled labor constraint with some responsiveness of electricity demand to changes in price, the cost of S. 150 and S. 843 would be substantially reduced. CRS also concluded that the Hg control costs used in the analysis may be substantially overstated because of dated assumptions.
Numerous benefits were not estimated by EPA, partly because of methodological difficulties. Benefits not estimated include the environmental (as opposed to health) benefits of controlling the pollutants; the health effects of mercury control; and any benefits from controlling CO₂ emissions. Thus, even though benefits exceeded costs for each of the options in both EPA's and our analysis, one should perhaps view the benefit estimates as a floor rather than a best estimate, particularly for S. 150 and S. 843, which include significant Hg and CO₂ reductions.

Even by EPA's numbers, Clear Skies is no better at controlling pollution than existing regulations.

Posted by Genevieve Smith, 12:22:15 PM

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