Philadelphia Inquirer Series on Bush’s EPA
posted by Frank Pasquale
Someone should be calling the Pulitzer Committee to nominate the Philadelphia Inquirer’s fantastic series of articles on the Bush administration’s environmental policy, titled “Smoke and Mirrors: The Subversion of the EPA.” Here’s just one part of one story that sets the tone for the series:
In January 2005, residents near the chlorine plant here discovered that it was the biggest mercury emitter in the state. Environmentalists warned them against eating fish from their beloved Hiwassee River. They appealed to the plant’s owners, Olin Corp., to do what 100 other chlorine producers had done: abandon a 19th-century process that emits tons of the dangerous neurotoxin. Olin refused.
In fall 2005, the Environmental Protection Agency weighed in – but not to take up the cause of residents. Instead, EPA called Olin with an offer. Would the Charleston plant like to be enrolled in Performance Track, an elite green club of the nation’s most environmentally progressive companies?
In return, Olin could expect regulatory breaks, such as fewer inspections and loosened requirements on hazardous waste disposal, not to mention positive publicity. Sherry Neidich, who has lived half her life a mile downriver from Olin’s plant, was stunned. “The EPA is a toothless dog,” she said. “What right does someone have to ruin my river? To poison our playground?” . . .
[The Inquirer has found that] the EPA has recruited companies with mixed – even dismal – environmental records to become Performance Track members. Despite offering members regulatory breaks and promoting the program as one that improves environmental performance, the EPA fails to independently verify that Performance Track companies actually reach their goals.
According to the series, there is widespread exasperation in the courts (even among very conservative Republican nominees) about Bush-era extremism. As James R. May, (a Widener University lawprof and chair of the American Bar Association’s annual Environment and Energy Resources conference) puts it, “All across the spectrum, judges are finding that virtually every environmental initiative of the Bush administration is illegal.”
December 15, 2008 at 9:00 am
Posted in: Environmental Law
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Responses (5)
Will conduct doc review for food - December 15, 2008 at 12:46 pm
Performance Track was ostensibly designed to reward those in the regulated community with less burdensome oversight in exchange for consistent compliance. Some of it, certainly the Environmental Management System requirement, seemed more like making sure a corporation put cover sheets on TPS reports rather than actually implementing a comprehensive environmental plan with any depth. Presumably, if EPA adds enough layers of paperwork to the permitting and remediation processes, then the regulated community might avoid having to actually do anything.
While agency capture certainly seems to be the legacy of this administration, has there ever been a strong example of ‘corporation capture,’ where a corporation inadvertantly absorbed the regulator’s viewpoint? E.g., did the World Bank become more like the Dept. of Defense after Sec. McNamara came on board?
Will conduct doc review for food - December 15, 2008 at 1:49 pm
The World Bank is a poor example, not a lot of profit motive there. How about Weyerhaeuser after they took on Bill Ruckleshaus?
Margaret Motheral - March 15, 2009 at 4:36 pm
As a private citizen’s whose health and home and all aspects of my life have been destroyed by Philadelphia’s pay to play games under the Street administration, I learned a lot about how this particular city has made some kind of “deal with the devil’ to keep EPA out of Philadelphia.
In Jan. 2009, I attended an EPA conference at Loewe’s on Market . The topic was Vapor Intrusion, a hazard usually created by chemicals in ground water. House or other building act as a vacuum cleaner to suck up the hazardous fumes. I attended as a stakeholder, a private resident affected by something toxic that had put me in the hospital and displaced from my home for the past three years.
My own detective work showed the site that Council Woman Donna Reed Miller and East Mt Airy Neighbors decided to develop was a contaminated brownfield siding a railroad stop, The lastest in a long line of chemical polluters were the Joseph Anastasi Masonry Co. now moved to Florida and called Pompano Masonry Corp. I sent all this info, names, addresses, etc to the
DA and the Inspector General Seth Wiliams who is now running for DA. Apparently DA offices all over the country actual prosecute polluters , expect for Philadelphia.
In my ordeal of trying to get help from the city, which never came, I called EPA offices in other cities, like Baltimore and when I told them that I was in PHilly they said’ “Oh Philadelphia does things differently.” At the EPA conference, not a single representative from the city was present. No one from Planning. No one from Zoning or Public Health or L&I or anybody even though it was a few blocks from City Hall and Free.
One EPA rep from Toxicology came up to me and told me they had tried to help me but the city would not reveal the data on the contaminated soil. They refused to give the info to two of my doctors as well, even though the developer’s attorney and work crew admitted that they had removed truckloads of contaminated dirt. They did it on the sligh, no notice to neighbors in the middle of a small street of lots of kids and just regular folk. My house was directly adjacent so I got a direct hit
of vapors as they were released in the excavation.
There’s lot to this story, including the fact that Philadelphia Air Management under Morris Fine had somehow disengaged any responsibility to the EPA and allowed uncontrolled fugitive brick dust , contaminated dust and who know what to infect out street for years and NEVER gave a citation. For a city that loves ot collect money– that in itself is suspicious.
Anyway, there is fraud, cover ups, violations all over the place on the project, political fingers, etc. But in spite of all their efforts to slander me , even deny me police protection, the project has gone to the bank.
Another EPA rep came up to at the conference and told me that if there was anything I could do to help change the way building was done in Philly, they would appreciate it.
Most of the city hates me fro being so verbal and “telling on the them” but there are a few who are cheering me on because they
want to get “the way things are done in Philly” changed.
Meanwhile I’ve been the sacrificial lamb. It’s going to take a story to reveal this to turn things around. I’m writing Obama next because Nutter really isn’t interested in rocking the political apple cart either even if it does mean poisoning his own citizens.
Thank you,
Margaret Motheral
Margaret Motheral - March 15, 2009 at 4:36 pm
As a private citizen’s whose health and home and all aspects of my life have been destroyed by Philadelphia’s pay to play games under the Street administration, I learned a lot about how this particular city has made some kind of “deal with the devil’ to keep EPA out of Philadelphia.
In Jan. 2009, I attended an EPA conference at Loewe’s on Market . The topic was Vapor Intrusion, a hazard usually created by chemicals in ground water. House or other building act as a vacuum cleaner to suck up the hazardous fumes. I attended as a stakeholder, a private resident affected by something toxic that had put me in the hospital and displaced from my home for the past three years.
My own detective work showed the site that Council Woman Donna Reed Miller and East Mt Airy Neighbors decided to develop was a contaminated brownfield siding a railroad stop, The lastest in a long line of chemical polluters were the Joseph Anastasi Masonry Co. now moved to Florida and called Pompano Masonry Corp. I sent all this info, names, addresses, etc to the
DA and the Inspector General Seth Wiliams who is now running for DA. Apparently DA offices all over the country actual prosecute polluters , expect for Philadelphia.
In my ordeal of trying to get help from the city, which never came, I called EPA offices in other cities, like Baltimore and when I told them that I was in PHilly they said’ “Oh Philadelphia does things differently.” At the EPA conference, not a single representative from the city was present. No one from Planning. No one from Zoning or Public Health or L&I or anybody even though it was a few blocks from City Hall and Free.
One EPA rep from Toxicology came up to me and told me they had tried to help me but the city would not reveal the data on the contaminated soil. They refused to give the info to two of my doctors as well, even though the developer’s attorney and work crew admitted that they had removed truckloads of contaminated dirt. They did it on the sligh, no notice to neighbors in the middle of a small street of lots of kids and just regular folk. My house was directly adjacent so I got a direct hit
of vapors as they were released in the excavation.
There’s lot to this story, including the fact that Philadelphia Air Management under Morris Fine had somehow disengaged any responsibility to the EPA and allowed uncontrolled fugitive brick dust , contaminated dust and who know what to infect out street for years and NEVER gave a citation. For a city that loves ot collect money– that in itself is suspicious.
Anyway, there is fraud, cover ups, violations all over the place on the project, political fingers, etc. But in spite of all their efforts to slander me , even deny me police protection, the project has gone to the bank.
Another EPA rep came up to at the conference and told me that if there was anything I could do to help change the way building was done in Philly, they would appreciate it.
Most of the city hates me fro being so verbal and “telling on the them” but there are a few who are cheering me on because they
want to get “the way things are done in Philly” changed.
Meanwhile I’ve been the sacrificial lamb. It’s going to take a story to reveal this to turn things around. I’m writing Obama next because Nutter really isn’t interested in rocking the political apple cart either even if it does mean poisoning his own citizens.
Thank you,
Margaret Motheral
Philadelphia Inquirer Profiles Bush’s EPA | owl and bear - May 6, 2009 at 5:58 pm
[...] Frank Pasquale at Concurring Opinions wants the Pulitzer Committee to consider the Philadelphia Inquirer’s series on Bush’s environmental policy, titled ‘Smoke and Mirrors: The Subversion of the EPA‘: According to the series, there is widespread exasperation in the courts (even among very conservative Republican nominees) about Bush-era extremism. As James R. May, (a Widener University law professor and chair of the American Bar Association’s annual Environment and Energy Resources conference) puts it, “All across the spectrum, judges are finding that virtually every environmental initiative of the Bush administration is illegal.” [...]
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