Gristmill

Ineffectual protest: it’s what minority parties do

Earlier this week we pointed to a story about the Bush administration going lightly on a practice called "hydraulic fracturing," a method of getting more oil and gas out of the ground that may or may not pollute groundwater and most definitely represents considerable profits for a lil' company called Halliburton.  An EPA official -- Weston Wilson, an environmental engineer -- involved into the agency's analysis of the practice is seeking formal whistle-blower protection, saying the study was flawed and biased.  (He is one of an unusual number of whistle-blowers popping up in the Bush administration, as this story makes clear.  Wonder why?)

Anyway, it's unlikely it will go anywhere, but five members of Congress -- four Dems and Jim Jeffords (I!) -- have petitioned the EPA inspector general to investigate the matter. Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) even had the temerity to wonder whether "political considerations improperly influenced" the EPA study.  Perish the thought!  

Developing.  (Maybe.)

The environmental issue in the debates

In comments here, clark and da silva agree (more or less) on the following proposition:  It would be great if the environment mattered more to swing voters, but it doesn't, and the tactical goal of the debate is to move swing voters, so maybe a green rooting for Kerry should be happy the question didn't come up -- particularly given how Kerry botched it in the second debate.

Well, yes and no.

Judicial rulings on environment split along party lines

An analysis of judicial rulings by the Environmental Law Institute shows that judges appointed by Democrats are markedly more likely than judges appointed by Republicans to rule in favor of plaintiffs who sue the feds for violating certain environmental regulations -- and the disparity is even more striking when the focus is on judges appointed by President Bush.

White House favoring Halliburton over clean water

OK, you might want to sit down, because we've got a real shocker here: The Bush administration, headed by two former oil executives, one of whom was the CEO of Halliburton, from which he still receives payments, may be pulling strings to help shield the company against environmental regulation. The issue in question is "hydraulic fracturing," a relatively new technique for extracting oil and gas that generates about a fifth of Halliburton's energy-related revenue -- $1.5 billion a year. Since a group of Alabamans sued in 1995, saying the practice fouled their drinking water and seeking to have hydraulic fracturing regulated under federal drinking-water law, Halliburton has lobbied aggressively to avoid such regulation. The U.S. EPA recently finished a study of the practice, concluding that it is benign, but agency insiders have heaped scorn on the report, saying it was produced by a highly biased panel containing at least one Halliburton employee. One 30-year EPA veteran last week submitted a statement to Congress and the EPA inspector general seeking whistle-blower protection and calling the report "scientifically unsound and contrary to the purposes of the law."

Bush admin fights off environmental restraints on military

In the presidential campaign of 2000, Bush vowed to force the military to "comply with environmental laws by which all of us must live," but according to a comprehensive investigation by USA Today, he has done the opposite. Since assuming power, the Bush White House has worked closely with the Defense Department to deflect military responsibility for cleanup of polluted sites, ward off new regulations on contaminants like perchlorate and trichloroethylene, and reduce the U.S. EPA's power to investigate and enforce environmental violations at military sites. Though the $4 billion a year the Pentagon spends on environmental compliance represents less than 1 percent of defense spending, the administration is determined to reduce the number. The Pentagon has argued that environmental compliance reduces military readiness, but has offered no evidence, and according to an internal Pentagon memo recently obtained by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, cuts in military environmental programs may actually cost more, and have a more substantial effect on readiness, than compliance.

Umbra explains ultraviolet ratings

Whatever are we to make of the UV ratings bandied about on some radio and TV stations?

Enviro group launches campaign against Victoria’s Secret catalogs

An enviro group called ForestEthics has trained its sights on the Victoria's Secret catalog, urging the company to make the shift to more eco-friendly paper and avoid fiber that comes from endangered forests. The real target is Victoria's parent company, Limited Brands Inc. Limited Brands procures coated paper from an International Paper Co. plant near Jasper National Park in Alberta, Canada, which ForestEthics charges has damaged surrounding forests and wildlife. "We're exposing Victoria's Dirty Secret, which is that the million catalogs that it mails a day are destroying some of the world's last remaining old-growth forests and threatening endangered species," said ForestEthics' Tzeporah Berman. Limited Brands denies everything and claims to be environmentally sensitive, as does International Paper. Speaking of exposing, a Grist editor has volunteered to do further investigation into this vital story. He will report his results in a week. Maybe two weeks.

A visual guide to global pollution

New Scientist has a nifty piece running.  Eighteen months of satellite data was aggregated to show a pictorial representation of concentrations of nitrogen dioxide around the globe -- i.e., pollution.  Things aren't looking too good for the American Northeast, bits of Europe, or China.

The flu?

Following up on Shalini's post below:  Where the $#%! was the environment last night?  I actually think Bob Schieffer did a decent job overall, but he found time to ask about gay marriage, strong women, and ... the flu?  Listen, I love marriage, and gay people, and strong women, and I don't like the flu, and I don't want strong married gay women in this country coughing and sniffling, but those are relatively peripheral issues, are they not, compared to mercury in our fish? Soot in our air? Shortages in our water supply?  Oil and gas execs swarming over our public land like ants on a discarded Krispy Kreme?

Kerry wisely ignored the flu question and addressed health care squarely.  Bush unwisely ignored jobs questions and talked about education -- several times.  And Bob Scheiffer unaccountably ignored one policy area about which majorities in this country consistently express concern, over which the executive branch has considerable control: the environment.  A full debate transcript is here.