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« Whither plastics and whither humanity? | Main | Ready, Set, No Plastic »
White House going-out-of-business sale
Whoever takes over the White House is sure to do more for the environment than the current occupants.
Well, it would be hard do less.
In fact, doing nothing would be better than the administration’s current drive to help favored industries lock in their gains by knocking a few more loopholes into already porous regulations.
For example: in 2007, the Environmental Working Group found that rising prices for uranium, gold and other metals had caused some 810 mining claims to be staked within five miles of Grand Canyon National Park and that more than 21,000 claims to mine for uranium, gold and other metals had been filed near national parks and other American treasures. To prevent mining near the Grand Canyon while mining reform legislation is being debated, a Congressional committee invoked a little-known emergency rule that enabled it to take quick action to protect threatened public lands.
But on Oct. 10, the Interior department’s Bureau of Land Management announced a plan to eliminate that rule. The deadline for public comment expires today (Oct. 27), after which BLM can proceed with the paperwork to make the change permanent.
Meanwhile, the Interior’s Office of Surface Mining is taking good care of Big Coal. On Oct. 17, it moved a giant step closer to enacting regulations promoting the controversial practice of mountaintop removal coal mining. In 1983, the Reagan administration wrote regulations that barred surface mining companies from dumping piles of debris within 100 feet of mountain streams. Surface miners have targeted those regulations as an impediment to coal production, though many mining operations have simply ignored them. The US Environmental Protection Agency has calculated that mountaintop removal mining has damaged or destroyed at least 400,000 acres of southern Appalachian forests and 1,200 miles of mountain streams since the 1980’s.
Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama have both pledged to stop mountaintop mining, but it will take months for a new President to put a new team into place and work through the issues, especially with a global economic crisis and two wars on the front burner. In the meantime, the Bush administration’s legacy will be more decapitated mountaintops: the new rule will allow mining operations to dump debris in waters whenever they find it necessary – which, of course, they will, since Appalachia is laced with sparkling springs and streams. Only a few more bureaucratic hurdles remain for the new regulation to go into effect.
On the toxic chemicals front, the story is much the same. On Oct. 20, with no public discussion, the Environmental Protection Agency relaxed safety standards for an antimicrobial agent widely used in cleaning solutions for commercial food preparation facilities and hospitals. The chemical -- alkyl dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride, or ADBAC -- is regulated under the federal pesticides law and is suspected of causing asthma and reproductive system damage.
Digging into federal records, Environmental Working Group scientist Rebecca Sutton discovered that the EPA was about to gut the rules on ADBAC, in response to a request from a single disinfectants manufacturer - Edwards-Councilor Co., Inc. of Virginia Beach, VA. Sutton quickly filed an objection. EPA has not responded.
On Oct. 31, the federal Food and Drug Administration is scheduled to hear a key science advisory panel’s recommendations on the toxicity of the plastics chemical bisphenol A (BPA), a synthetic estrogen linked by dozens of scientific studies to a variety of problems, including cancer, brain and nervous system disruption, behavioral issues, reproductive system damage, cardiovascular disease, obesity and adult onset diabetes. The National Toxicology Program terms the chemical a possible threat to fetuses, infants and young children, and EWG and other health and environmental groups are pressing to remove BPA from food packaging. EWG studies have found that infants are exposed to excessive amounts of the chemical because it leaches into baby formula from can linings and also from polycarbonate baby bottles.
But the FDA, relying on chemical industry studies and advice, has rebuffed all demands for tighter regulations. Friday’s session is unlikely to spur change: the chair of FDA’S so-called BPA subcommittee is a University of Michigan toxicologist currently under an FDA ethics inquiry. The reason: failing to disclose a $5 million gift to the center he directs from a retired businessman who happens to be an outspoken critic of environmental regulation in general and restrictions on BPA in particular.
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