Complete list of press releases

(3 November, 1997 — Washington) The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) today released a letter signed by fifteen national environmental and landowner organizations which calls for guaranteed funding of the landowner incentives provisions contained in S.1180, the Endangered Species Recovery Act. The letter, addressed to Senator Trent Lott (R-MS), is part of an effort to make clear to the Senate that though a wide range of views still exists about efforts to reauthorize the Endangered Species Act (ESA), support for guaranteed funding for the landowner incentives contained in S. 1180 cuts across that range of views.

“On this one issue, there is clear agreement,” said Steve Cochran, EDF’s legislative director. “The Senate should, and politically it can, provide guaranteed funding for these incentives. As is stated in the letter, ‘The promise of these new programs will never be realized … unless they are funded.’ “

S. 1180 authorizes significant new programs to provide incentives — in the form of cost-sharing assistance — to private landowners who agree to carry out management practices to help endangered species. These incentives for private landowners are essential because the active management needed by many endangered species can be expensive, and because the majority of species protected by the ESA have most of their habitat on private land. These cost-sharing programs will specifically help landowners who might otherwise be unable to bear the costs of carrying out essential actions for improving the well-being of endangered species. However, the potential benefits of these new provisions will only be realized if the programs are assured of substantial funding.

“The President’s plan declares ‘open season’ on greenhouse gases and puts America’s business creativity to work for the environment. It creates strong incentives for industry to hunt down the largest possible cuts in pollution and quickly reverse the dangerous growth of US greenhouse gases,” said EDF executive director Fred Krupp.

“The President’s proposal puts the US in the thick of the negotiations rather than on the fringe. For the first time there is a good chance of a constructive outcome at Kyoto. We look to the negotiators to produce a final agreement that is stronger than any of the proposals by industrial nations that are now on the table,” said EDF atmospheric physicist Dr. Michael Oppenheimer.

The administration’s plan calls for emissions of greenhouse gases by industrial countries to return to a cap matching 1990 levels during the period 2008-2012, with further cuts below the capped level in the succeeding five years. The plan calls for reductions to be achieved in part through an international system of emissions trading that is expected to achieve maximum reductions at minimum cost. In addition, the plan provides incentives by enabling firms that reduce emissions early to earn emissions credits that they can save or sell in the future. The plan also provides tax credits for firms that invest in technologies related to efficiency and renewable energy. It also contains incentives for developing countries to participate in emissions reductions such as joint implementation for credit.

“Swift action is needed to begin the long process of bringing emissions down. Early cuts in emissions and incentives that spur innovation are the key to protecting Earth’s climate. The administration’s package of emissions credits for early reductions creates powerful incentives for the business community. If implemented, these incentives can help the US meet its greenhouse gas reduction target ahead of schedule, while helping industry create the new products that will keep our country’s economy growing,” said Dan Dudek EDF senior economist.

“International agreements are effective only if the will exists for domestic implementation. Just this week a Department of Energy analysis showed that emissions of greenhouse gases from cars, factories and power plants in the US rose sharply last year. The Clinton Administration must develop strong domestic proposals to turn around the destructive trend of emissions growth,” said Krupp.

(22 October, 1997 — Washington) The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) reacted strongly today to House passage of H.R. 1534, a bill by Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-CA) which would override basic local protections for private property, health, safety and the environment.

“Final passage of this bill would accomplish one thing,” said EDF’s legislative director Steve Cochran. “It would give big developers a new litigation stick which they can use to threaten state and local governments to get their way. It should not become law.”

In short, the bill as passed by the House would force federal courts to preempt state court consideration of takings claims against cities and towns. Rather than allowing local processes to work to resolve local land use issues, such as the negotiation of alternatives to a proposed development, local officials would find themselves in federal court whenever a takings is alleged. The bill would allow companies to sue in federal court once a single land use proposal is denied, even if the proposal would harm neighboring homeowners and even if local officials would approve other equally valuable uses that would not violate local zoning. It would, quite literally, make a “federal case” out of virtually all land use decisions that involved any alleged “takings,” pitting local governments against developers in a battle of lawyers rather than ideas.

The bill would also ignore established Supreme Court decisions. Some of these decisions have defined what information a court needs to decide whether a regulation results in a taking of private property. As a result of ignoring these precedents, cases under this new law would proceed past state court to federal court even without a complete factual record. Other decisions have defined a takings such that it deals with the use of property as a whole. This bill would overturn that definition and allow developers to demand compensation for any limitation on any part of a property.

In addition to adding litigation to an already over-crowded federal court, this bill would likely result in small towns, cities and counties across America being forced to continually defend against very expensive, premature, unwarranted takings lawsuits in federal courts. And the threats of repeated federal lawsuits by large developers will likely force unwarranted compromises as communities seek to avoid the costs of litigation. These compromises may force communities across the nation to abandon fundamental safeguards and allow destruction of valuable natural habitat, the siting of toxic waste dumps, landfills and other inappropriate activities that harm neighbors and communities.

“The good news is that bill did not get enough support to beat a veto,” said Cochran, “so the Senate should not follow this path. And if it does, we expect the President to veto such a special interest give-a-way.”

EDF’s analysis, Something to Hide: The Sorry State of Plastics Recycling, stands in stark contrast to the rosy, highly selective picture painted by APC in its press materials issued last spring — months before the council’s full report was completed. EDF obtained a copy of the report this year despite APC’s new policy denying the public access to its report.

“When APC’s numbers are examined, it becomes clear why they would want to hide this report,” said Dr. Richard Denison, EDF senior scientist and author of the analysis. “It vividly documents the continuing neglect of plastics recycling as the abandoned stepchild of the plastics industry.”

EDF’s analysis reveals the following facts about the current state of plastics recycling:

• Less than 10% of plastics packaging is being recycled. As shown in the attached chart, that rate is a third that of the next closest packaging category, glass.
• Again in contrast to all other major packaging types, growth in recycling of plastics packaging has been at a snail’s pace over the last decade, capped with an actual decline over the past year.
• Even plastic bottle recycling — the mainstay of plastics recycling and the only numbers APC mentions in its public materials —  declined in 1996. Recycling of plastic soda bottles — the industry’s only real success story — dropped sharply for the second consecutive year, from 45% in 1994 and 41% in 1995 to 34% in 1996 — the lowest level since 1990.
• Of particular note is the recycling rate for polystyrene packaging and food service items, which has hovered around 1.5% for the last several years, a rate far below the polystyrene industry’s much-touted goal set in 1990 — and abandoned last year — of achieving a 25% recycling rate by 1995.

EDF’s analysis found that the cumulative effect of this poor showing by the plastics industry year after year was most telling of the state of plastics recycling. Each year from 1990 to 1996 — for every additional pound of plastic packaging that was recycled, nearly 4 pounds of additional virgin plastic packaging was produced on average. All told this decade, over 13 times more virgin plastic packaging was produced than was recycled.

“Producers of every other type of packaging — glass, aluminum, steel and paper — have stepped up to the plate by investing the dollars needed to incorporate recovered materials back into the mainstream of production,” said Denison. “The plastics industry sinks its dollars into its latest national PR campaign to tell us all the ways that ‘plastics make it possible,’ while trying to make it impossible for the public to learn the truth about how little it has done for recycling.”

“This is the largest scientific and fully funded plan to restore the wetlands and natural boundaries to an estuary or a large river ever approved. It is large enough to place a natural buffer between farmland and every stream in Maryland,” said EDF executive director Fred Krupp, who participated in the announcement of the program on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay today. “Vice President Gore and Secretary Glickman deserve great praise for committing to

pursue as many Conservation Reserve Enhancement Programs as possible to restore ecosystems around the country.”

“The program combines state efforts with the massive, fully funded, federal Conservation Reserve Program to achieve a degree of environmental restoration neither Maryland nor the Agriculture Department could achieve alone,” said EDF senior attorney Tim Searchinger, who first proposed the concept of Enhancement Programs to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) in June of 1996.

“Through Enhancement Programs the federal government helps states to implement restoration plans they have developed with intensive science and citizen input. State funds are used to assure wetlands and forests remain beyond the 10 to 15 year temporary benefits of traditional Conservation Reserve Programs, and to fund more complicated and valuable forms of restoration,” said Searchinger.

Beginning in 1996 Searchinger worked with Governor Glendening of Maryland, Governor Bob Edgar (R. Illinois) and Governor Arne Carlson (R. Minnesota) to submit pilot programs to serve as models for USDA. “The program has support from both Democrats and Republicans,” said Krupp. “The other two Enhancement programs each contemplate restoring wetlands, forests and prairies on roughly 200,000 acres of chronically flooded land along the Illinois and Minnesota River.”

“The Environmental Defense Fund is deeply concerned by reports that the administration is considering a ‘capbusting’ escape clause to the climate treaty that would allow greenhouse gas emissions to grow beyond safe levels,” said EDF executive director Fred Krupp. “If you go on a diet and then gain the weight back, plus more pounds, it’s bad for your health. If a climate treaty only cuts greenhouse gas emissions for a short time and then allows them to grow past proposed cap levels the results could be devastating for the health of our planet and our children’s future.”

According to EDF economists, the administration’s ill-considered capbusting clause would make controlling climate change more expensive, because it will discourage companies from innovating to develop cost-effective greenhouse friendly technologies and processes and to take advantage of technology export opportunities. The emissions trading market that the President and Vice-President envisioned, unfettered by price interference, will do a better job at spurring US business to do what it does best: produce better, cheaper, greenhouse-friendly products and technologies that compete and win in the global marketplace.

“The administration has been leaning toward a weaker and slower approach than other nations. Now it’s looking for a way to back out altogether,” said EDF chief scientist Michael Oppenheimer. “If nations can simply abandon emissions reduction commitments made in Kyoto, the climate treaty would be completely ineffective, allowing warming with all its disruptive economic and human consequences. The northward spread of tropical diseases, flooding, rising sea levels affecting coastal cities, destruction of forests and wildlife habitat are just some of the potential outcomes if nations fail to slow the global warming trend.”

“The US must support a treaty that ensures substantial industrialized country emissions reductions below 1990 levels starting no later than the year 2005, in order to make meaningful progress towards addressing the global warming problem. Numerous studies indicate that such reductions are achievable with current and near-term technologies at very reasonable costs,” said Krupp. “A treaty that only freezes greenhouse gas emissions at 1990 levels by 2010 or later, or that includes a capbusting escape clause would be opposed by EDF.”

“A year ago Congress voted overwhelmingly to change course and put the nation’s fisheries on a sustainable basis,” said Eleanor Dorsey, a senior scientist at CLF. “We need full implementation of this law to bring our fisheries back to health. Despite some recent improvements, most New England stocks are still in trouble.”

The NMFS report lists 15 of 35 fish stocks managed by the New England Fishery Management Council as overfished or approaching that status. On the list are traditional favorites such as lobster, sea scallops, cod, and flounder, as well as newly-prized species like monkfish. In addition, the status of several heavily fished species remains unknown and NMFS says the list will likely be expanded in response to new information and the Act?s tougher conservation standards.

“The next 12 months are critical, both for the overfished stocks and for the ultimate success of the Sustainable Fisheries Act,” said Doug Hopkins, an EDF attorney recently appointed to the New England Fishery Management Council. “The New England Fishery Management Council can bring back lost jobs by rebuilding depleted stocks. But to succeed and to prevent further tragedy, the Council must work fast and must avoid protracted wrangling over how to fairly allocate the cutbacks among different sectors of the industry.”

In 1984 New England fishermen landed 97 million pounds of cod, but by 1996 cod landings had dwindled to only 32 million pounds. This loss of landings equates to lost jobs and revenue and is directly attributable to depletion of the cod stocks.

“In the coming year, the Council and NMFS face an uphill battle as they work to enact unpopular but necessary cutbacks in fishing for a wide variety of commercially and recreationally caught species,” said Sonja Fordham, a CMC fisheries specialist. “Public support for conservation measures will be crucial to fulfilling Congressional mandates and restoring the abundance of New England’s ocean fish.”

The Center for Marine Conservation, the Environmental Defense Fund, and the New England based Conservation Law Foundation are leading nonprofit environmental advocacy organizations with strong commitments to protecting and restoring marine environments. Their combined memberships exceed 400,000 people.

The recent BART strike spotlighted the need for more travel options across the Bay Bridge, the country’s worst congestion choke-point. More people per car means fewer cars, less congestion, and less pollution.

Currently each weekday morning over 12,000 commuters carpool from the East Bay to San Francisco. Of these, 8000 use casual carpools, where drivers and passengers meet between 6 and 9 AM each morning near BART stations and freeway on-ramps. By helping to organize east-bound evening car pools, EDF is providing commuters with more travel options.

“People need all available options in order to solve the Bay Area’s transportation problems,” says EDF Senior Economic Analyst Daniel Kirshner, who has been instrumental in organizing the new program.

“Casual carpooling reflects the independent, entrepreneurial spirit of commuters to find what’s best for them,” says John Hirten, Executive Director of RIDES for Bay Area Commuters, an organization working with EDF and the S.F. Department of Parking and Traffic in a broad-based effort to establish the east-bound casual carpool program. “We support it because it means fewer cars on the road.”

“We are in favor of encouraging transportation options to the single occupant car both to relieve congestion and ‘spare the air’,” says Joyce Roy, speaking for the League of Women Voters of the Bay Area.

“The Bay Area needs creative solutions to tough transportation problems ? to both congestion and poor air quality,” says EDF Transportation Program Manager Michael Cameron. “The success of this program depends on providing people with both good incentives and good opportunities. The existing car pool on-ramp to the Bay Bridge provides an incentive: time savings getting onto the Bridge. By helping organize car pools we give commuters a better opportunity to save time and money by ride sharing.”

On October 6, at 13 major East Bay morning pick up sites, commuters can get more information from flyers and pick up hand-held signs for their evening commute, indicating their destination. Commuters can also visit the web at: www.edf.org/programs/Transportation/carpool.html or call RIDES at 1-800-755-POOL.

The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) today applauded the move as a model of international corporate leadership in confronting the problem of global climate change. Mr. Browne announced in his speech today that EDF, a non-profit environmental organization based in New York which has pioneered the development of policies which use market-based mechanisms to help protect the environment, will work with BP to develop the company’s pilot internal emissions trading program.

“BP has made a major statement today with its words and with its actions ? that the problem of climate change can be addressed,” said Fred Krupp, executive director of EDF. “BP is demonstrating the truest form of leadership ? because Mr. Browne’s plan of action makes it clear that other emitters of greenhouse gases can and should measure and control them; and implicitly makes it clear to governments negotiating a treaty on climate change that this problem can be addressed, and addressed in efficient ways. BP is showing the world the way ? and the company should be congratulated.”

“For EDF, BP’s leadership presents a unique opportunity to help develop concrete solutions to a difficult problem. Our focus has always been on solutions ? and we accept the challenge and look forward to working with BP on this hugely important project. They are a thoughtful and creative partner,” said Krupp.

In May, Browne delivered a speech in which he acknowledged that the threat of global climate change caused by the emissions of GHG resulting from human activities such as the burning of coal and oil was serious enough to merit public attention and action. At that time, BP and EDF also announced their intent to form a Joint Working Group to focus on the use of emissions trading to reduce GHG emissions. The process outlined in Browne’s speech today comes out of the initial efforts of the Joint Working Group.

Daniel J Dudek, EDF senior economist, who is leading the EDF team participating in the Joint Working Group, said, “BP is giving fresh meaning to the idea of enlightened self-interest. The company itself is bound to be the biggest beneficiary of its ‘learning by doing’ approach which doubtless will allow it to master GHG emissions control and trading ahead of much of the rest of the global business community. At the same time, both the environment and policy-makers will benefit, too, from the emissions reductions achieved by BP, from the learning and experience generated and shared by BP and from the company’s successful honing of the emissions trading tool, which is so critical to efforts to control pollution in a cost-effective way. BP will be getting a jump on the world’s efforts to confront GHG emissions, but the world will be benefiting, too.”

EDF senior attorney, Joseph Goffman, also a member of the Joint Working Group, said, “BP’s commitment to these three key steps — measuring and reporting GHG emissions; setting targets; and using emissions trading — is particularly constructive. International negotiators will be meeting this December in Kyoto, Japan to create a protocol on GHG emissions. If such a protocol is to work, it must incorporate exactly the elements on which BP is focusing ? setting targets, measuring and reporting emissions, and using emissions trading. BP’s commitment today throws down a clear challenge to the negotiators and the governments they represent to make sure that they craft an agreement that measures up to the standard that BP, a major oil company, has set through its example here today.”

Under the agreement that BP and EDF entered into in May, each organization will pay its own expenses, continue to pursue its business and advocacy activities fully and independently and as it sees fit, and retain the right to withdraw from the agreement at any time.

A total of 19,115 fires are reported from the NOAA-12 satellite images in the sample in 1996, while 24,549 fires appear in the 1997 data over the period, an increase of 28%. The average number of fires per day increased from 466 to 599. The actual increase for the year may be even greater, since 1997 is drier than 1996 and burning continues.

“Increased burning strongly suggests that deforestation rates continue to rise,” said EDF senior scientist Stephan Schwartzman. “Along with new data from the region showing that what appears on the satellite pictures is only half the story, this is cause for serious concern. ”

Burning was concentrated principally in the Amazon states of Mato Grosso, and Par

EDF wildlife program chair Michael Bean offered support for provisions in the bill to give financial incentives to private landowners who agree to implement beneficial management practices on their land, but noted that without substantial, assured funding the potential benefits of such incentives won’t be realized. “Without cost sharing assistance, many landowners can’t implement the needed management measures,” said Bean. “Without such active management, the continued decline of many of these species is inevitable.”

EDF applauded a requirement that federal agencies enter into agreements to help implement recovery plans for endangered species, but criticized new procedures for developing such plans as too costly and complex. “Instead of getting recovery plans that play a vital and central role in the implementation of the Act, you will get a major diversion into unproductive bureaucratic procedures of scare resources that could have gone into on-the-ground conservation, a paucity of recovery plans, and a proliferation of litigation over non-compliance with deadlines and content requirements,” said Bean.

EDF also criticized new hurdles that must be cleared before a species can be protected. “Rare species are often already reduced to near-extinction by the time they make the endangered list, yet the bill adds new layers of review to a listing process that often comes too late for many species.” Bean also called for creating an “insurance fund” to enable the government to take action when habitat conservation plans with landowners fail to work as expected.

The bill codifies authority for “safe harbor” agreements, a new conservation tool that EDF has championed under which landowners voluntarily create, restore, or enhance habitat for an agreed-upon period, but do not have to maintain those voluntary improvements in perpetuity. At present, landowners often refrain from management practices that could benefit endangered species for fear of incurring added legal liability.

“There is no doubt that global warming is the environmental problem of our generation,” said EDF atmospheric physicist Michael Oppenheimer. “No environmental issue is more critical to the Earth or raises the possibility of so many tragic economic, ecological, and human consequences as global warming.”

“Secretary Babbit’s speech ‘brings home’ the issue of global warming to the people of Colorado,” said EDF scientist Dan Luecke. “This speech should serve as a wake up call to all of us that global warming is not a distant or remote threat. Under very plausible scenarios, global warming could rob future generations of the beauty and resources of Colorado. The United States should be a leader to stop global climate change to protect our environment in Colorado and around the world.”

“Possible impacts of global warming on Colorado could include the destruction of alpine meadows, and, if the link between El Ni