Frank O'Donnell is president of Clean Air Watch, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization aimed at educating the public about clean air and the need for an effective Clean Air Act.
It’s the season for giving, but the Bush administration is taking this concept to an absurd level with a series of early holiday presents to big polluters.
Indeed, the Environmental Protection Agency has been a not-so-secret Santa as it stuffs the stockings of polluters with all sorts of goodies, while giving the public the proverbial lump of coal.
Is this happening because, as conservative columnist Bob Novak has reported, top Bush political appointees are getting ready to jump ship rather than “undergo two years of hell” from a new Congress headed by bird-dog investigators like Reps. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and John Dingell, D-Mich.?
Or is it just the throes of a regime that will be out of power in due time?
Either way, it is worth pointing out a few of these blue-light specials, in hope that the new Congress will remember them in the coming months:
Lead lunacy: In a shocking statement, the Bush EPA said it is considering eliminating national clean air standards for lead, a highly toxic pollutant that can damage the brains of children.
The Bush team claims that we’ve done so well with lead that perhaps we can declare victory and stop. (Now if they used that logic with Iraq…). Who got this gift? The lead smelting and battery industry, which is lobbying to prevent further cleanup.
Censoring science: The Bush EPA said it is “streamlining” the way it sets clean air standards. What’s really going on is that EPA is planning to censor its pesky career scientists and downgrade its independent science advisers, while letting political hacks make bad decisions with less public scrutiny. Who got this gift? The oil and electric power industries, which lobbied for the new EPA policy.
Cement shoes: EPA put out new “toxic” pollution standards for cement factories, but decided that existing factories didn’t have to reduce toxic mercury at all. Who got this gift? The cement industry, which lobbied the White House to avoid mercury controls.
And there are other possible gifts still being wrapped.
Chemical cloud: The chemical industry went to Santa’s elves at the White House last week to kill possible new standards on emissions from large chemical factories. Usually EPA people are at least invited to meetings of this sort, but no one from EPA was present. (By the way, the EPA previously reported that most people live in areas with unusually high risks of getting cancer from chemicals in the air, so you’d think tougher new standards would be in order.)
Who may get this gift? The chemical industry.
International incident? Citizen groups in both Canada and the U.S. have appealed to an international watchdog group, the Commission on Environmental Cooperation, to lean on the U.S. to enforce laws designed to protect lakes and streams from mercury poisoning. The organization plans to meet on this issue next week. Will the U.S. put the kibosh on the complaint? Who may get this gift? The electric power industry.
Supreme speciousness: Last month, the Bush administration argued before the Supreme Court in favor of a program that would require dirty electric power plants to clean up when they try to pollute more. Now, the White House elves are reviewing an EPA rule that would permit the industry to escape that very requirement. Who will get this gift? Again, it's the electric power industry.
The Bush strategy of playing Kris Kringle to corporate polluters is all the more maddening because the government has been so slow to take action that it has already promised to reduce risks to health and the environment.
The EPA has been promising for years, for example, that it would propose new standards to limit deadly pollution from diesel trains and big diesel boats. The Bush EPA actually made this promise in May of 2004—or more than two and a half years ago. Since that time, we’ve learned that the problem is actually worse than what was known back then—that at least several thousand people are dying prematurely each year from breathing train smoke alone.
Who’s getting this gift of delay? Train engine makers like greenwashing General Electric (don’t expect to see this story on GE-owned NBC) and big freight-hauling companies like CSX and Union Pacific Railroad.
The EPA did do something positive this week: After seemingly endless delay, it approved California’s request to set tougher pollution standards for lawn mowers and other small engines. (The biggest corporate opponent of this move, the Briggs & Stratton Corporation, finally gave up after tiring of all the bad publicity it had received.)
Still pending, however, is California’s even more important request to enforce its greenhouse gas standards for motor vehicles, which have been adopted by 10 other states.
Who’s getting this gift of delay? The car companies.
No wonder so many corporations are saying “Ho-ho-ho” this holiday season.
