The Bush Administration's 11th Hour Environmental Shenanigans

As someone who is concerned about the environment, it has been agonizing for me to live through the Bush presidency. Because the current administration (and most conservatives) believe that this country would be better with less regulation, the president has installed pro-industry, anti-regulation fanatics into government agencies so that they can dismantle generations of protections that have been put in place for things like consumers and the environment. Fortunately, the financial crisis has shown that de-regulation can have dangerous consequences. Unfortunately, people have been so concerned about the economy that they have not had time to consider the environment.

I believe that the best thing we can do for this country is to preserve its natural resources for future generations. People should have to pay a heavy cost for damage that they do to what should be all of ours to share and appreciate. Even if that makes it harder for people to make a buck.

I have high hopes that the Obama administration will do what it can to reverse the damage that has been done, but some regulations will be difficult to undo. Congress may have an easier time than the executive branch, due to the Congressional Review Act of 1996, as explained here. Although I was pleased to see a democrat win the election, my enthusiasm has been offset by my dismay at watching government agencies pushing through last minute anti-environmental policies. Since government regulations have a 60-day review period, the various agencies have been rushing to get them done by November 22nd, so that they go into effect just before the inauguration. Examples have abounded in the newspapers in the last few months.

There are many good webpages that spell out some of these new rules.

Propublica article
Propublica Complete List
The New York Times editorial/ overview on all of the regulations
The Washington Post article with list of specific examples
The Guardian
Associated Press story on changes to endangered species regulation
Washington Post on some permanent appointments of previously political appointees to government agencies
The Chicago Tribune on weakening of lead regulations
The Salt Lake Tribune on oil and gas drilling in or near national parks
The New York Times on irradiation of produce
The New York Times on easing of mountaintop removal mining restrictions


There is one regulatory action that is open for public comment until November 28th. The EPA has decided not to regulate perchlorate in drinking water after finding that there are no currently unsafe levels. This is based on their determination that a safe level is anything lower than 24.5 parts per billion (ppb). Some states, however, regulate perchlorate at as low as 1 ppb. This new standard will pre-empt any state regulations. Perchlorate gets into drinking water when rockets, flares, and fireworks are manufactured or exploded. It persists in the environment and eventually ends up in the water. Many scientists disagree about what a safe level is, whether it causes cancer, and what kinds of effects it has on the thyroid. Read this congressional report.Regulation could potentially be very costly for Department of Defense facilities, construction sites, and manufacturers, however the cost is necessary if it is damaging to our health. It seems that more study is needed before concluding that no regulation is necessary. This EPA site provides instructions for making a public comment.

One piece of good news is that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on November 20th that the US Government is required to do a more extensive environmental review before allowing oil drilling in the arctic. This effectively leaves this important issue for the next administration to re-think.

Are Neonicotinoid Pesticides Killing the Honeybees?

Photo credit: Michelle Barte Photography

On May 27th, 2007, I first wrote about the mysterious illness that has been killing off honeybees in hives across North America known as 'colony collapse disorder,' or CCD. One of the bizarre aspects of CCD is that the worker bees just disappear and leave behind the queen, the honey, and the brood (or non-adult bees). It is assumed that they are going off to collect honey and either dying before they return or becoming disoriented and are unable to locate the hive again. One-third of the produce that Americans consume is pollinated by honeybees (including tomatoes, peppers, apples, cucumbers, broccoli, onions, squash, carrots, avocados, berries, melons, and almonds), so this is a serious threat to our food supply.

From the Milford, MA Daily News, May 10, 2008: A national survey of bee health from the Apiary Inspectors of America showed 36.1 percent of beehives were lost since last year. That's up from the previous year's losses of 32 percent. Some commercial beekeepers had far greater than 36 percent losses. "For two years in a row, we've sustained a substantial loss," Dennis vanEngelsdorp, president of the group, told the Associated Press. "That's an astonishing number. Imagine if one out of every three cows, or one out of every three chickens, were dying? That would raise a lot of alarm."

Back in 2007, when I wrote the first article about bees, many people theorized that the possible culprit was a pesticide called imidacloprid, manufactured by Bayer, AG, a German company. It is part of a class of insecticides called neonicotinoids, which are derived from nicotine. Now, scientists are even more concerned about another pesticide from the neonicotinoid class called clothianidin (also a Bayer product). Clothianidin is used on corn and canola and sold under the brand name Poncho. Many beekeepers and scientists suspect that it, in combination with other pesticides they are exposed to, weakens the immune system of bees, making them more susceptible to viruses and parasites such as the varroa mite.

The Popular Science website explains further: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulates agricultural pesticide use, but this regulation does not account for the interaction of these chemicals that inevitably takes place through the bees' pollination processes. Some of these combinations of pesticides have been found to have a synergistic effect hundreds of times more toxic than any of the pesticides individually, says James L. Frazier, professor of entomology at Penn State. Bees' exposure to these toxic chemical combinations both outside of, and within, the home -- er, hive -- may cause behavioral changes. These changes include immune system blocks and disorientation, which may help to explain the CCD crisis of late.

The EPA fact sheet, which is posted online even admits that clothianidin is dangerous to bees: Clothianidin has the potential for toxic chronic exposure to honey bees, as well as other nontarget pollinators, through the translocation of clothianidin residues in nectar and pollen...
Clothianidin is highly toxic to honey bees on an acute contact basis (LD50 > 0.0439 μg/bee). It has the potential for toxic chronic exposure to honey bees, as well as other nontarget pollinators, through the translocation of clothianidin residues in nectar and pollen. In honey bees, the effects of this toxic chronic exposure may include lethal and/or sub-lethal effects in the larvae and reproductive effects in the queen.

That sounds pretty alarming, but there may be even more alarming research that is being withheld. The Raleigh News & Observer reports that a German investigation began on August 13th into whether Bayer submitted flawed studies on their product in order to get approval for its use. And recently, the National Resources Defense Council filed suit against the EPA because they failed to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request for the results of studies on clothianidin. In 2003, it was granted conditional approval by the EPA provided that they perform the studies. The EPA has never indicated whether the studies were done, and if they were, what the results were.

As explained by the San Francisco Chronicle, On July 17, after getting no response from the EPA about securing the studies, the environmental group filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act, which requires the records within 20 business days absent unusual circumstances. When the federal agency missed the August deadline, the group filed the lawsuit, asking the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., to force the EPA to turn over the records.

Scientists presenting at the American Chemical Society national meeting reported that dozens of pesticides had been found in samples of adult bees, broods, pollen and wax collected from honeybee colonies suspected to have died from symptoms of colony collapse disorder, including some neonicotinoids.

The Organic Consumers Association reports that in recent Congressional hearings, USDA was unable to account for the $20 million that Congress has allocated to the department for fighting CCD in the last two years. "This is a real mystery right now," said Dr. Gabriela Chavarria, director of NRDC's Science Center. "EPA needs to help shed some light so that researchers can get to work on this problem. This isn't just an issue for farmers -- this is an issue that concerns us all."


LINKS:
60 Minutes Segment on Colony Collapse Disorder
Video of bees that have adapted to have the ability to remove varroa mites from their bodies.
Video about applying even more pesticides to the bee hives to kill the mites.
Athens Herald, July 6th, 2008
San Francisco Chronicle, April 19th, 2008 (Quote: The hand of Congress works in equally mysterious ways: A new five-year farm bill under negotiation may spend a few million dollars saving bees, but definitely will spend billions on farm subsidy policies that contribute to their destruction.)
The Daily Green, August 1, 2008
The Guardian, September 29th, 2008
Vanishing Bees Movie

The EPA Decides There's Nothing Wrong with Rocket Fuel in Your Glass of Water

Image courtesy turbojoe at Flickr (Creative Commons)


Continuing its' run of impeccable judgements, the EPA has decided that perchlorate (rocket fuel) contaminated water isn't a problem (according to an Associated Press advance review of a report not yet made public by the EPA.) Slightly more accurately, the agency feels that there's no point in trying to clean up perchlorate contamination, because... well... take their word for it, there's just no point. It certainly has nothing to do with the Pentagon's efforts to discredit EPA efforts that could link their rocket tests with the contamination.

REACH: What Effect Will European Legislation Have on Your Life?

In December 2006, the European Union enacted legislation entitled REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and restriction of CHemicals). It requires industries to gather information on the chemicals they produce or import, and to register that information with a database run by the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) in Helsinki.

Furthermore, it will restrict the use of or require substitution for chemicals shown to be harmful. From the website of the European Commission Environment Directorate General: Substances with properties of very high concern will be made subject to authorisation; the Agency will publish a list containing such candidate substances. Applicants will have to demonstrate that risks associated with uses of these substances are adequately controlled or that the socio-economic benefits of their use outweigh the risks. Applicants must also analyse whether there are safer suitable alternative substances or technologies... The Commission may amend or withdraw any authorisation on review if suitable substitutes become available... The restrictions provide a procedure to regulate that the manufacture, placing on the market or use of certain dangerous substances shall be either subject to conditions or prohibited.

The website has a timeline for enactment of the legislation: By 1 June 2008 the Commission will review Annex I (rules for chemical safety reports), Annex IV (substances exempted from registration where sufficient information is known showing that they cause minimal risk because of their intrinsic properties) and Annex V (substances exempted from registration under the pre-REACH legislation) of the REACH Regulation. By 1 December 2008 the Commission will review Annex XIII (criteria for identification of persistent, bio-accumulative and toxic or very persistent and very bio-accumulative substances (PBTs and vPvBs). By 1 June 2012, the Commission will review the scope of the REACH Regulation. This is to avoid overlaps with other relevant Community provisions and the rules concerning the European Chemicals Agency. By 1 June 2013, the Commission will review whether or not substances that have endocrine disrupting properties should still be authorised if a suitable safer alternative exists. By 1 June 2019, the Commission will review whether or not to extend the obligation to submit a Chemical Safety Report (CSR) to CMR substances below 10 tonnes and after twelve years a similar review will consider all substances below 10 tonnes. Furthermore, by 1 June 2019, the Commission will also carry out a review on whether or not to extend the duty to inform consumers about substances in articles to other substances which are not of very high concern but which could still be dangerous or unpleasant (e.g. allergens). The requirement for a reproductive toxicity test for volumes between 10 and 100 t per year (laid down in Annex VIII) will be also reviewed by the same date.

So what does this mean for American consumers and industries? Currently, we are protected by the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), passed by Congress in 1976. The act authorizes, but does not require, the EPA to review the risks of a new chemical, require testing if it deems necessary, and regulate its use if it is found to show harmful effects on humans or the environment. The EPA must impose the least burdensome regulations possible. They are allowed to require warning labels if appropriate. However, any chemical already on the market before 1981 was grandfathered in, and is not regulated under this act (that's a total of 62,000 chemicals). I found some well-written descriptions of the TSCA on the Government Accountability Office (GAO) website: and the the Environmental Health Perspectives website:

The US chemical industry (as well as then Secretary of State Colin Powell) lobbied heavily against the passage of REACH out of fear that changing their formulations will be costly. This angered many officials in the European Union and may have backfired, according to Mark Schapiro, in his article for the Nation magazine and in his book Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What's at Stake for American Power. I enjoyed this passage from the Nation article:

Never before has an EU proposal drawn fire from such heavy guns. The US chemical industry, like other American industries, has been discovering that a presence in Brussels is now a must, and has had to learn new ways to exert influence in a governing institution with three chambers, twenty-five countries and twenty national languages, and in which the usual cocktail of campaign contributions, arm-twisting and seduction are neither warmly received nor, in the case of campaign contributions, legal. "We've certainly had to learn a lot about a new parliament, new procedures, new political parties," says Joe Mayhew, senior adviser to the American Chemical Council.

I heard an interview with Mr. Schapiro on the Leonard Lopate show on WNYC. He explained that now that the legislation has passed, many manufacturers will be changing their formulations for the European market, and US consumers may be the accidental beneficiaries. I attended a "modern materials" course for art conservators. An art material manufacturer and a distributer that spoke at the conference said that the law will have a big impact on the formulations of their products available worldwide.

It may also have a negative impact on the products available to US consumers. Since Japan already has stricter regulations that the US, and China has passed stricter regulations that will go into effect next year, the US may become the dumping ground for products that can't be sold in many other countries. Mark Schapiro cites this as an example of the diminishing influence of the United States as the rest of the world moves forward with greener laws and initiatives.