Complete list of press releases

The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) hailed California Senate Bill (SB) 1727, which calls for labeling lumber by country of origin and species, as a key step towards mobilizing market forces to protect threatened forests around the world. The bill will be heard on Tuesday in the California State Senate Natural Resources Committee.

“SB 1727 is an important step toward giving the consumers of California the right to choose whether their wood purchases will be part of the problem or part of the solution to the global forest crisis,” said Steve Schwartzman, senior scientist with the EDF.

Global forest destruction has reached new levels in recent months with massive forest fires in Indonesia and Brazil burning millions of acres. Fires, smoke and drought have created a public health calamity in Borneo and the northern Brazilian Amazon with tens of thousands going hungry and suffering severe water shortages. Scientists have now found smog levels in the middle of the South Pacific similar to those found in Los Angeles.

Logging is a key cause of deforestation and fires in the tropics. The US, as the largest timber market in the world, fuels the flames through imports. About half of US hardwood plywood imports come from Indonesia, while the US is the largest export market for Brazilian mahogany. Scientists fear that coming months may bring even more massive fires in the Amazon, as previously logged forests begin to burn. New research by the Woods Hole Research Center and the Institute for Man and Nature in the Amazon shows that an area of the Amazon roughly half again as large as the state of California is particularly fire prone this year. This is about 30 times larger than the region in which unprecedented forest fires raged out of control last month. Almost all of the South American mahogany sold in the US comes from this threatened region. Logged forest, with gaps and wood and leaf debris left by timber extraction, is a tinderbox for forest fires. The area of the Amazon most at fire risk this year contains approximately 35 billion tons of carbon, or the equivalent of six years worth of northern industrial emissions of the carbon dioxide which contributes to global warming.

“Logging in tropical forests is the key catalyst to deforestation and a critical factor in forest fires,” said Schwartzman. “It is also the direct link between California’s consumers and one of the greatest ecological threats facing the planet today. Consumers have the right to know what their wood purchases mean for the future of the world’s forests.”

The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) today joined with American Rivers in calling the Colorado River delta in Mexico one of the most endangered rivers of 1998. The announcement was made at a press conference in Phoenix earlier today.

“EDF joins American Rivers in recognizing the delta as an endangered river,” said EDF scientist Dan Luecke. “Few people realize the tremendous beauty and conservation potential in the delta, but conservationists and scientists in both Mexico and the US are working there now. This is an unusual and important example of international cooperation in environmental restoration.”

EDF has been working for several years on a bi-national effort to restore remnant wetlands in the Colorado River delta. The delta, where the Colorado meets the Gulf of California in Mexico, was once a vast area of wetlands and salt flats covering over 3,800 square miles in the Sonoran Desert. However, the delta has been significantly altered by human activity, principally through the development and diversion of water for upstream use. Despite a century of degradation, significant wetland areas remain in the delta and provide critical habitat for shorebirds and migratory waterfowl, as well as habitat for several endangered species including the desert pupfish and the Yuma clapper rail.

EDF, together with scientists, resource managers and environmentalists from both the US and Mexico, are working to assess the condition of ecological resources in the delta and identify water management measures in the river basin that will help to restore critical wetland and riverine habitats. These results will be published in an upcoming EDF report.

Currently the delta receives water from agricultural drainage from the US and Mexico, and periodic flood flows. According to Luecke, “the long-term restoration of the delta will depend on securing a dedicated supply of water for the wetlands there, and better coordination of periodic flood flow releases from the US to Mexico. These are the types of changes needed to secure a healthy future for the delta.”

Recent water management changes proposed by the US. Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) could undermine these goals. These changes would alter the allocation of surplus water and allow off-stream banking of Colorado River water in the US, which could reduce the quantity of flood water available to the delta. A proposal by the BOR to operate the moth- balled Yuma Desalting Plant in Arizona would severely curtail agricultural drainage flows available to a major wetland area. Finally, it appears that a major US effort on the lower Colorado River to address endangered species issues will ignore the implication of those decisions for species or habitat in the delta, just downstream in Mexico. “Ultimately, we should be managing water in the Colorado River basin in a way that treats the river as a whole, rather than unrelated parts,” said EDF resource analyst Chelsea Congdon. ” Right now, the Colorado River delta is easily overlooked in water management decisions for the region. It lies across the invisible barrier that is the border between the US and Mexico. In fact, decisions made now about how water will be allocated or species will be protected could lock in management practices that make it much more difficult to accomplish environmental restoration in the delta in the future.”

As California’s electric utilities were deregulated today, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) urged customers to vote with their pocketbooks for environmentally-preferable electricity. “Competition in the electric industry means that for the first time consumers have the power to directly choose how their electricity is made,” said Daniel Kirshner, senior economic analyst with EDF’s Energy Program. “The power of choice is the power to make a positive difference for the environment.”

Customers’ ability to choose clean, renewable energy sources is one of the important benefits of electricity deregulation. Renewable energy — electricity made from sources such as wind, solar, geothermal (earth heat), biomass (organic waste), and some hydroelectric power — helps reduce the environmental impacts of electricity production.

“EDF hopes that buying ‘green’ electricity will soon be as popular as recycling is now. It’s a simple and important thing that each person can do for the Earth,” said Kirshner.

“Buying ‘green’ electricity is a meaningful way to affect electricity production,” Kirshner said. “You can think of the electricity grid as a ‘lake.’ Renewable generators pour clean water (green electricity) into the lake. Consumers take water out of the lake. While you can’t insure that the clean water flows precisely to an individual house, what you can insure is that clean water is poured into the lake at the same rate you take it out. Over time, and with success in the market, the water in the lake all becomes clean as more customers place ‘orders’ for clean water-that’s the power of green power.”

EDF’s web page comparing “green” electricity products in California will be featured on EDF’s home page to coincide with the start of electricity deregulation in California. “Our web page compares the prices and sources of each provider’s green products, and discusses what to look for when choosing a product,” said Christo Artusio, EDF research associate. The page links to each provider’s web page, so customers can compare products first-hand, and then sign up on the web.

The Green Electricity Comparison Page can be found by pointing your Internet browser to:

http://www.environmentaldefense.org/article.cfm?ContentID=770

The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) praised the approval today by US Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman of the Illinois River Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program. The program will restore 230,000 acres of wetlands, forested floodplains and rapidly eroding lands around the Illinois River and its tributaries.

“This program provides the funds to restore more of the flood plain forests, marshes and buffer zones around a river than any program in the nation’s history,” said EDF executive director Fred Krupp. “It can remake the Illinois River as one of the country’s greatest natural resources.” “Lieutenant Governor Bob Kustra deserves great credit for launching the state’s effort to restore the Illinois River and Governor Jim Edgar and Secretary Glickman have shown vision by proposing and approving this restoration plan,” said Krupp. The Illinois River Enhancement Program follows a 100,000 acre program on the Chesapeake Bay approved last October and a 190,000 acre program on the Minnesota River approved in February. Enhancement Programs combine state funds with the $2 billion annual federal Conservation Reserve Program to follow scientifically based plans to restore habitat and filter polluted runoff for a river or bay. EDF senior attorney Tim Searchinger first suggested the concept of Enhancement Programs to the US Department of Agriculture in the spring of 1996 and started working with state officials in Illinois, Maryland and Minnesota at that time to develop model plans.

“The Illinois and Minnesota River plan announced last month together launch the large-scale restoration of the Upper Mississippi River system,” said Searchinger. “They will result in cleaner rivers and nearly double the habitat for fish, ducks and other wildlife in the entire ecosystem. And because they target flood prone, marginal cropland, they should help farmers and reduce the annual costs to taxpayers for flood damages.”

“The Illinois River once supported 2,000 commercial fishermen, but today, two thirds of the river’s fish barely survive because of pollution by sediments and fertilizer,” said Searchinger. “Wetland preservation under this program should help clean up the river habitat.”

A fact sheet is available from EDF describing the program in greater detail. Fact sheets are also available about the Minnesota and Maryland Enhancement Programs and about Enhancement Programs generally.

Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt and the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources today unveiled a statewide “safe harbor” program designed to benefit private landowners, the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker and its preferred habitat — mature southern pine forests. Through safe harbor agreements with the Department of Natural Resources, landowners voluntarily commit to create, restore, or enhance habitat for endangered species without the risk of incurring legal liability if, as a result of their efforts, endangered species appear or increase in number on their land.

The Westvaco Corporation will be among the first landowners to join the program. The company will enroll a 10,600 acre property adjacent to the Francis Marion National Forest. Also, enrolling is Mepkin Abbey, a 3,128 acre property (two thirds of which is forested) that is home to a group of Trappist monks and is renowned for its natural beauty and landscaped gardens. Safe harbor agreements have been used successfully to enhance and restore endangered species habitat in North Carolina and Texas.

“Prior to safe harbor, many private landowners feared that if they managed their land to benefit the red-cockaded woodpecker, they would be subject to increased regulation under the Endangered Species Act,” said Michael Bean, an attorney at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). “As a result, many landowners prematurely harvested pine trees or refused to use prescribed fire in their woods for fear that woodpeckers might colonize the property. Safe harbor removes this disincentive by assuring landowners who protect and enhance woodpecker habitat that their legal responsibilities will not increase.”

The plan was developed jointly by the Department of Natural Resources, the South Carolina Forestry Commission, the South Carolina Red-cockaded Woodpecker Conservation Coalition, Westvaco Corporation, the US Fish and Wildlife Service and EDF. The South Carolina safe harbor program is based on a plan first developed in the Sandhills region of North Carolina for the endangered woodpecker. There, over 25 landowners have enrolled more than 23,000 acres in the program.

“This program demonstrates that solutions do exist to reconcile endangered species conservation with the needs of private landowners,” said Robert Bonnie, an EDF economist. “This plan will benefit landowners and endangered species while helping to protect and restore a forest that is an important part of South Carolina’s natural heritage.”

EDF’s Bonnie and Westvaco’s Robert Fledderman were recently honored with conservation awards from the South Carolina Wildlife Federation for their roles in developing the statewide agreement.

The endangered red-cockaded woodpecker inhabits mature, fire-maintained pine forests of the southern coastal plain from southern Virginia south to Florida and east to Texas. This woodpecker has declined over the last century due to loss of habitat and fire suppression. In 1970, the bird was listed as an endangered species.

Support for EDF’s work on both the South Carolina program and the original Sandhills program was provided by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) today praised the Clinton Administration’s plan for electric utility restructuring as a good first step. The plan recognizes that in order for electric utility restructuring to benefit the country, environmental concerns must be incorporated into the process.

“If it’s done correctly, customer choice in electricity can result in environmental improvement. If it’s done incorrectly, electric utility restructuring can mean dirtier air and harm our children’s health,” said Jim Marston, an EDF attorney. .

EDF believes that establishing a cap and trade system on nitrous oxide emissions from power plants is a smart and efficient way to improve air quality in this country. This program builds on the successful tradable allowance program for sulfur dioxide that EDF helped design in the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act. In addition, the Clinton Administration’s programs to support investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy protect investments in cutting edge technologies that will result in health benefits and lower costs to all Americans.

“The plan also recognizes that in order for choice to be meaningful, Americans must be given important information about power choices. EDF is pleased that the plan would require all marketers to disclose information about the source and emissions of any product they are offering,” said Marston. “Given information about the environmental harm and benefits of particular power choices, EDF is confident that significant numbers of Americans will vote with their pocketbooks for clean power.”

Although EDF had hoped for more progress on greenhouse gas emissions in this plan, it does require monitoring of carbon dioxide emissions which is laudable, but its failure to have a regulatory limit of this pollutant means that the administration must push must harder for meaningful incentives and voluntary programs to reduce the threat of global climate change. One such voluntary program is the early reduction credit program being advocated by EDF.

Superfund reauthorization legislation scheduled to be voted on today by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee would lead to weaker and slower cleanups, according to the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). The bill is a revised version of S.8, initially introduced by Superfund Subcommittee Chairman Bob Smith (R-NH) and others last year.

“The revised bill has a number of seriously flawed provisions that will result in inadequate cleanups and continued threats to public health,” said Karen Florini, an EDF senior attorney. “It allows contamination of clean ground water in too many instances, weakens treatment requirements, and exempts Superfund cleanups from requirements that apply to all other hazardous wastes. It also fails to assure that any ‘institutional controls’ adopted as part of cleanups — such as restrictions to prevent digging at former waste sites are effective and fully —enforceable. And its provisions on compensation for natural resource damages would fail to provide for full restoration and public compensation.”

“In addition, S. 8 undercuts the polluter-pays principle. For example, the bill’s pay-the-polluters provision requires the Superfund Trust Fund to partly reimburse polluters who already agreed to carry out cleanups, a clearly unwarranted windfall,” said Florini. “Meanwhile, the bill introduces a plethora of new terms that will give rise to delays while everyone argues about what the new terms mean. Eventually, those arguments will wind up in court.”

“The bill has several sins of omission as well,” said Florini. “It doesn’t do anything to enhance public Right to Know, or to strengthen environmental justice considerations in the cleanup program.”

In a letter distributed yesterday to all members of the Committee, EDF joined with the Friends of the Earth, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, US PIRG and Clean Water Action in urging opposition to the bill. Attached to the letter was a three-page fact sheet detailing problems with the bill. A separate letter from Robert Bullard, Charles Lee, and other leaders in the Environmental Justice community was also delivered, urging opposition to the bill’s “Brownfields” provisions because they would undercut EPA’s ability to assure effective cleanups.

The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) praised Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt during his visit to Texas today for use of a new policy tool called “safe harbor” that encourages protection of endangered species on private land in the state. Through safe harbor agreements with the Fish & Wildlife Service, landowners voluntarily commit to create, restore, or enhance habitat for endangered species without the risk of incurring legal liability if, as a result of their efforts, endangered species appear or increase in number on their land. In Texas more than one million acres of habitat for endangered species have been enrolled in safe harbor plans. Safe harbor is being used to accomplish the reintroduction of the Aplomado falcon — the rarest falcon in North America — on south Texas ranch land; restore coastal prairie habitat for the Attwater’s prairie chicken, a bird whose numbers have dwindled to 42; and enhance the quality of long leaf pine forests in east Texas that are habitat for the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker.

“Safe harbor is a policy that works for endangered species and works for landowners,” said Melinda Taylor, senior attorney for EDF. “In Texas, where more than 97% of the land is privately-owned, endangered species’ only chance for survival and recovery is the use of policies that encourage landowners to voluntarily protect habitat.”

Safe harbor has been praised by an unusual spectrum of agricultural, timber, environmental, scientific, and other interests. The American Farm Bureau Federation, for example, praised safe harbor as “a step in the right direction toward creation of [a] ‘win-win’ scenario for species and landowners.” A senior official of Westvaco Corporation, a major timber company, wrote “The Safe Harbor concept can be an important tool to involve private landowners proactively in the conservation of threatened and endangered species.” Fourteen of the nation’s leading conservation scientists, including E.O. Wilson, wrote that safe harbor agreements are “a practical and necessary way to encourage the restoration and enhancement of habitat by private landowners.”

EDF called for the use of safe harbor to protect additional endangered species in Texas. “It’s a tool that can be effectively used to protect an array of declining species in the state, including the golden-cheeked warbler, black-capped vireo, lesser prairie chicken, and Houston toad,&qquot; said Taylor. “It’s a mechanism for making private landowners willing partners in conservation.”

The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) praised federal Judge Thomas Hogan’s ruling late yesterday refusing to grant the preliminary injunction requested by plaintiffs in Tozzi, et al. v. EPA (Civ. No. 98- 169, District Court for the District of Columbia). Tozzi, a deputy administrator with the Office of Management and Budget in the Bush Administration who is now a consultant with industrial clients, and the US Chamber of Commerce sought an injunction barring the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from placing publicly-available information on the Internet. This EPA effort, known as the Sector Facility Indexing (SFI) project, will place on the Internet information on plant releases, size, enforcement history, and surrounding populations for five industries: auto manufacturing, oil refining, pulp and paper, iron and steel, and non-ferrous metal (e.g., lead and aluminum) plants. EPA is expected to post the SFI information on the Internet within the next month.

The court yesterday handed down its ruling denying the preliminary injunction, and Judge Hogan will release his opinion within the next few days.

The lawsuit asserted that EPA failed to comply with certain procedures under the Paperwork Reduction Act. According to EDF senior engineer Lois Epstein, however, “far from failing to comply with the Paperwork Reduction Act, EPA went beyond what the Act required, and was very responsive to comments from industry, states, and environmental organizations.”

“Mr. Tozzi and the US Chamber of Commerce want to return to the past, to a time before computers and the Internet, when government data were stacked in boxes and the public and regulators couldn’t find what they needed. Making publicly available data accessible on the Internet is the right course for EPA and the rest of government,” said Epstein.

SFI data will greatly enhance the public’s right-to-know by providing facility enforcement data (i.e., the number of violations of laws) on the Internet for the most important environmental laws — the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (which covers hazardous and solid waste). This information, along with facility release and size information, will help the public make better comparisons among similar plants than are possible today. SFI data also will enable the public to compare state enforcement programs under the major environmental laws.

“This lawsuit against EPA’s SFI project, a model governmental effort, never should have been filed,” said Epstein.

So-called regulatory “reform” legislation (S. 981) scheduled to be voted on today by the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee provides far too many opportunities for the regulated community to delay new public protections and divert resources from enforcement of existing ones, and will hinder and delay governmental decisions on health, safety, and the environment, according to the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF).

“The serious problems with this bill are made evident by its shocking exemption of decisions on new products,” said Karen Florini, an EDF attorney. “If the bill’s complex procedures are really designed to produce better governmental decisions about restricting products to protect health and safety, why are all decisions about introducing products exempt from the process? The new-product exclusion heightens concerns that this legislation can be expected to hinder and delay governmental decisions on health, safety, and the environment.”

According to EDF, the legislation exacerbates many existing problems:

• Industry lawyers will have new and expanded opportunities to delve into agency cost-benefit determinations and cost-benefit analyses in lawsuits challenging newly adopted rules.
• Regulated agencies will move even more slowly in preparing new rules than they currently do, in an attempt to minimize the chances of unfavorable court action.
• Significant agency resources will be consumed in reviewing existing regulations, litigating over which ones warrant review, and defending second-bite-at-the-apple lawsuits involving rules already in effect.
• Substantial additional delays will be introduced by the bill’s complex 10-step process for preparing and reviewing risk assessments, without improving the ultimate outcome.
• Peer review panels are likely to be biased, given that the bill fails to bar participation by industry employees, although it bars all agency personnel.

Following the hearing, Florini submitted a letter to the hearing record further addressing one of the issues discussed during the hearing: the dissimilarities between key provisions of S. 981 and the so-called “Glenn-Chafee substitute,” which received 48 votes on the Senate floor during 1995 debates on regulatory reform. (No bill was enacted at that time.) Major distinctions include the much weaker “savings” language in S. 981, and significantly more expansive judicial review provisions in S. 981.

The Environmental Resources Trust (ERT) announced today that it has entered into agreements with Syracuse- based Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation and Calgary-based Suncor Energy Inc. to provide comprehensive reporting and tracking of each company’s total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and GHG reductions portfolio. The ERT announcement comes on the same day that Niagara Mohawk and Suncor are announcing an innovative agreement to trade GHG emissions reductions.

ERT, a not-for-profit organization, was founded in 1996 with the assistance of the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) to promote, support and carry out pioneering transactions - such as the sale and purchase of pollution reductions - that produce net environmental benefits. Under the agreements announced today, ERT will work with both companies to develop a comprehensive system for validating, reporting and tracking their GHG emissions and emissions reductions. ERT will receive surplus GHG reductions from the companies, which ERT will hold indefinitely

“Coming just after the historic Kyoto climate agreement to limit GHG emissions, these companies are offering an actual example of international GHG emissions reduction trading — one of the most critical elements of the climate agreement, yet one that is not widely understood in many quarters. Thanks to this trade, Niagara Mohawk and Suncor are offering the world an opportunity for learning by doing. At the same time, Niagara Mohawk is earning an economic return on its forward-looking environmental investment and Suncor is acquiring GHG emission reductions that it hopes to use to offset its own emissions while carrying out its strategic business plan. This is the kind of climate-friendly business deal that the market-based principles of the Kyoto agreement will encourage,” said ERT board member Daniel J. Dudek, who is also a senior economist at EDF.

“Today’s announcement illustrates ERT’s mission of harnessing the power of environmental markets to create environmental benefits. By setting up a comprehensive system for tracking Niagara Mohawk and Suncor GHG emissions and reductions, ERT will ensure that the companies are accountable for their GHG emissions performance both overall and in connection with their GHG emissions trading transactions. In so doing, ERT will provide a public service and make it easier for these companies and others to reap the environmental and economic benefits of a GHG emissions reduction trading market,” said Joseph Goffman, also a board member of ERT, and an EDF senior attorney.

Suncor today announced its commitment to purchase carbon dioxide emissions reductions from Niagara Mohawk that will result, in part, from the utility’s new renewable energy initiatives including development of wind, solar and biomass energy resources.

The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) criticized the draft US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) strategy for controlling water pollution from industrial-sized hog, poultry and other livestock feeding operations because it fails to address the environmental and public health threats posed by factory farms. Large animal operations contaminate drinking water used by people and other livestock, spread diseases, cause fish kills and shellfish contamination, and emit dangerous air pollutants. EPA’s plan would not require better pollution controls until 2005 for most facilities. Rejecting the plan, EDF and SELC urged EPA to impose a moratorium on new and expanding factory farms until it puts meaningful regulations in place to deal with the thousands of existing factory feedlots in the US. Currently, livestock produce an estimated 5 tons of animal manure for every person in the US each year.

The strategy, released today as part of the President’s recently announced Clean Water Initiative, would phase in permitting and planning requirements for all large factory feedlots over the next seven years. Under the plan, many facilities would not need to obtain permits or even comply with minimal technical and planning standards until 2005.

“EPA’s strategy fails to address the immediate impacts of current poor animal waste practices,” said Joe Rudek, NCEDF senior scientist. “Today’s typical manure management leads to the contamination of groundwater, runoff of waste into streams, and the release of vast quantities of pollutants into the atmosphere — all of which add up to a totally unacceptable threat to public health and the environment.”

“It has taken EPA far too long to recognize that under current law factory farms should be required to have Clean Water Act permits, just like many other industries,” said Daniel Whittle, attorney for the North Carolina EDF. “The agency should immediately require all new facilities to obtain National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permits, without any phase-in period. As proposed, EPA’s strategy allows new factory farms to continue spreading throughout the country long before meaningful controls are in place to reduce their serious impacts on the environment and communities.”

“North Carolina learned the hard way that postponing environmental controls over industrial-sized hog operations is a formula for disaster,” said Michelle Nowlin, attorney for the SELC. “Unfortunately, EPA’s plan lacks any sense of urgency in dealing with this chronic problem. North Carolina and other states cannot wait another 5-10 years for adequate reforms to be put in place. We must hold the line on new growth until EPA develops an effective plan to clean up the environmental problems created by thousands of existing factory farms.”

Under the draft plan, EPA only requires facilities in sensitive watersheds to obtain permits by 2002, while facilities not located in those special areas will have until 2005 to meet permitting and planning requirements. In addition, EPA plans to revise its so-called effluent guidelines for concentrated animal feeding operations by 2001. Not until that time will EPA assess the adequacy of waste management technologies and practices typically used by factory feedlots.

Superfund reauthorization legislation scheduled to be voted on today by the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure would lead to weaker and slower cleanups, according to the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). The bill is a revised version of H.R. 2727, initially introduced by Subcommittee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) last year.

“Though the revised version of H.R. 2727 has some good provisions, it has too many loopholes that will result in inadequate cleanups and continued threats to public health,” said Karen Florini, senior attorney with EDF. “It allows clean ground water to get dirty in too many instances, weakens treatment requirements, and exempts Superfund cleanups from requirements that apply to all other hazardous wastes. It also fails to assure that any ‘institutional controls’ adopted as part of cleanups - such as restrictions to prevent digging at former waste sites - are effective and fully enforceable.”

“In addition, H.R. 2727 undercuts the polluter-pays principle. For example, the bill’s pay- the-polluters provision requires the Superfund Trust Fund to partly reimburse polluters who already agreed to carry out cleanups, an unwarranted windfall. It also lets large businesses off the hook for messes created by oil ‘recycling’ operations. And it provides preferential treatment that assures that ‘liability relief’ funds will be available, while cleanup funding may fall short. Funds for cleanups must be given top priority,” said Florini. “Meanwhile, the bill introduces a plethora of new terms that will give rise to delays while everyone argues about what the new terms mean. Eventually, those arguments will wind up in court.”

“The bill has several sins of omission as well,” said Florini. “It doesn’t do anything to enhance public Right to Know, or to strengthen environmental justice considerations in the cleanup program.”

In a letter distributed yesterday to all members of the Subcommittee, EDF joined with the Friends of the Earth, Natural Resources Defense Council, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Sierra Club, and US PIRG in urging opposition to the bill. Attached to the letter was a two-page fact sheet detailing problems with the bill.

Environmentalists and public health groups today joined together in opposition to anti-environment amendments that have been introduced or are expected when the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) reauthorization (S. 1173) is considered by the Senate. They also voiced concern that expanded transportation funding would favor unnecessary road construction rather than programs that could curb air pollution and sprawl.

“These anti-environment amendments would gut the protections against increased air pollution and environmental damage that communities have fought to preserve in this bill,” said Michael Replogle, Federal Transportation Director for the Environmental Defense Fund. “We must stop proposed amendments that threaten public health and the environment.”

The key anti-environment amendments would:

• take needed funding away from transit systems and redirect these dollars to unnecessary highway projects;
• ignore the clean air goals of congestion reduction and air quality improvement by allowing Congestion Mitigation Air Quality (CMAQ) dollars to be spent on expanding or constructing highways;
• block the implementation of new clean air standards for smog and soot that protect the health of children, the elderly, and those with respiratory illness;
• weaken the National Environmental Policy Act by allowing environmentally destructive projects to proceed without adequate evaluation, oversight, or review; and
• make the Transportation Enhancements program “optional”, thereby gutting one of the most important sources of support for very popular bike and recreation trails and community-building projects across the country.

“The environmental and public health communities are unified in their commitment to defeating these amendments,” said Kaid Benfield, Transportation Program Director at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “When will the anti-environmental forces realize that the American public supports these programs and efforts to clean-up their communities?”

Environmental groups also voiced concerns about transportation budget discussions among congressional leaders this week. “Transit and other alternatives to highway construction must be given a fair share of any new funding,” said David Hirsch, Transportation Policy Coordinator at Friends of the Earth.

The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) today applauded the introduction by Reps. Frank Pallone (D-NJ), John Lewis (D-GA) and others of the Children’s Protection and Community Clean-up Act. The measure was introduced with more than 40 original co-sponsors.

“The bill introduced today will enhance cleanups, reduce litigation, and improve community right-to-know,” said EDF senior attorney Karen Florini. “This bill is a breath of fresh air compared to most of the other Superfund bills introduced to date in this Congress. Those bills have largely emphasized revamping Superfund to make it less onerous for industry. It is essential to remember that the most urgent needs are to ensure that cleanups effectively protect the public, particularly children and other sensitive groups, and preserve groundwater as a resource for the future. It’s also important to assure that communities get better information and opportunities to participate in cleanup decisions. The bill introduced today accomplishes all that and more.”

Among other provisions, the bill requires use of cleanup standards that expressly protect children’s health, and assures protection of land and water resources. The bill also maintains Superfund’s polluter-pays approach while adopting provisions to curtail polluters’ abuses of the contribution system. In addition, the bill strengthens community right-to-know about toxics and inadequately tested chemicals, adds environmental justice features such as mandatory evaluation of potential Superfund sites in certain economically distressed areas, and enhances community participation.

“The Pallone-Lewis bill contrasts dramatically with H.R. 3000, introduced last fall by Rep. Mike Oxley (R-OH), Chairman of the Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Finance and Hazardous Materials, and others. The Commerce bill erodes polluter-pays liability principles, fails to assure treatment of even highly toxic hot spots, heavily emphasizes cost in cleanup decisions, lets unlimited amounts of clean ground water get dirty, allows states to take over cleanups without assuring public involvement, and has a host of other flaws,” said Florini.