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Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Environmental Integrity

In a comment on my post Waking Up at the Mad Teaparty, my friend and colleague Tankwoman asked this question: "Do real scientists work at the EPA, or are they all incompetant yes men?" I can't really answer that question, though more and more it would appear that the answer to the first part is "no," and to the second part "yes." That, however, is pure speculation, not scientific fact. What I do know is that more and more EPA officials who actually care about the environment are leaving the agency.

I'd like to introduce you to one of them, and to what he is now doing since leaving the agency. Eric Schaeffer had worked for the EPA for twelve years and at the time of his resignation in late February 2002,was one of the top officials at the agency: head of the U.S. EPA's Office of Regulatory Enforcement. His resignation was in protest of the efforts on the part of the White House and the Energy Dept to weaken federal clean air policy. Please read his letter of resignation to then EPA head Christine Todd Whitman. It's a masterpiece of contained, though passionate, fury and frustration at being unable to perform his job. An expanded statement of his reasons for leaving the agency is here, Clearing the Air: Why I quit Bush's EPA. It was written four years ago, but it explains the ongoing strangulation of the EPA's powers to actually accomplish much in the way of environmental legislative enforcement.

Before Schaeffer left the EPA he had already made connections with the Rockefeller Family Fund, and obtained a grant to set up the Environmental Integrity Project. This project now enables Schaeffer to work on exactly the sort of thing he had been trying to do within the EPA, only to find his hands tied by the administration's loyalties to energy companies and lobbyists. The EIP's own apologia of its work:

The Environmental Integrity Project is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization established in March of 2002 to advocate for more effective enforcement of environmental laws. The organization was founded by Eric Schaeffer, with support from the Rockefeller Family Fund and other foundations. Mr. Schaeffer directed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Regulatory Enforcement until 2002, when he resigned after publicly expressing his frustration with efforts of the Bush Administration to weaken enforcement of the Clean Air Act and other laws.

The Environmental Integrity Project has three objectives:

To provide objective analysis of how the failure to enforce or implement environmental laws increases pollution and affects the public's health;
To hold federal and state agencies, as well as individual corporations, accountable for failing to enforce or comply with environmental laws;
To help local communities in key states obtain the protection of environmental laws.
EIP's work, which is frequently based on extensive review of government records and peer-reviewed by recognized experts, has been cited in Congressional hearings and debates, in reports by the U.S. General Accounting Office, and in frequent news articles. EIP periodically evaluates the effectiveness of federal and state environmental programs, offering recommendations for improvement while recognizing outstanding performance. The organization also works closely with grassroots organizations in Iowa, Pennsylvania, Texas, and other states to assist communities that are trying to get neighboring polluters to reduce their emissions and comply with environmental laws. Resource limitations limit EIP to certain issues, and EIP does not as a general practice provide legal representation to individuals or organizations in lawsuits. (Environmental Integrity Project)

One of the issues currently on the table for the EIP is one I wrote about in my collection of Flotsam and Jetsam last Saturday, the EPA's Performance Track Program. This truly SNAFU program lets companies into its ranks, based on very shaky standards of environmental performance, then leaves them to their own vices, uninspected for years at a time. The EIP has found that this system is leading to more pollution and other environmental malpractice than the industries evinced before being admitted to the "Performance Track." The report is on the EIPsite, as a PDF document, but this press release is pretty comprehensive: Press Release: EPA 'Honor System' Leads to More Pollution at 10 Out of 13 Industrial Sites Getting Less Oversight. Certainly not surprising, that foxes left unsupervised in henhouses would be scattering a lot of bones and feathers, is it?

So, let's hear it for the good guys, and thank with brief thanksgiving whatever gods may be, that there are people like Eric Schaeffer, committed to not just a job in the government's nominal environmental protection, but to the cause of policing the environment's police, for the real protection of our skies, waters, soil.

posted at 3:03:00 PM by marigolds2

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