Bush admin.
weakens wetlands protections
By Cat Lazaroff
Washington, DC, Jan. 10 (ENS)— The Bush administration issued new,
and immediately controversial, guidelines today regarding federal authority
over the nation’s wetlands. While the administration claims the guidelines
reaffirm federal authority "over the vast majority of America’s
wetlands," conservation groups charge that the administration’s
action will repeal Clean Water Act protections for a large percentage
of the nation’s waterways.
The new guidelines attempt to clarify the authority of the US Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) and the US Army Corps of Engineers over isolated,
non-navigable wetlands. Federal authority to protect such wetlands from
development was called into question by a 2001 Supreme Court decision
in Solid Waste Agency of Northern California v. the US Army Corp of Engineers
brought by a developer who was penalized for filling manmade ponds that
were providing habitat for migratory birds.
For the rest of this article please see www.ens-news.com
BRIEFS
FDA lacks data, power to review GM
foods
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) lacks both the authority and the
information to evaluate the safety of GE foods, according to the nonprofit
Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI).
A new report from the group says that the FDA is ill equipped to ensure
the safety of future foods that will be engineered in complex ways. Biotechnology
companies are encouraged -- but not required -- to submit safety testing
data to the FDA for review. CSPI’s examination of 14 such submissions
obtained under the Freedom of Information Act found that companies sometimes
refused FDA requests for more information.
The FDA’s lack of legal authority, combined with it’s failure
to detect errors in testing and safety data supplied by biotech companies,
makes it much less effective as a protector of consumers’ health
and safety than it could be if supplied with the right resources. The
CSPI report recommends that the voluntary notification system be replaced
with a mandatory pre-market approval system that requires biotech companies
to submit much more detailed testing information and obtain FDA approval
before marketing a product. The group also recommends that the FDA develop
detailed safety testing guidelines for biotech developers. (ENS)
ELF hits housing development in Philadelphia
In what was likely its final act of 2002, the Earth Liberation Front (ELF)
has claimed an action in Northeast Philadelphia targeting urban sprawl
and the development of "luxury houses." Construction vehicles
and a show home were damaged by "long-time residents of Philadelphia…
who are tired of seeing the earth destroyed for money." The letter
claiming the action went on to say, "we pray the destruction of developers
in Philadelphia/the suburbs has stopped – and that our kids don’t
grow up in a concrete world, built over ashes of the destroyed earth."
The ELF press office received the letter of claim via a Philadelphia newspaper
for the Dec. 28 action.
The ELF is an international organization that uses direct action in the
form of economic sabotage to stop the destruction of the natural environment.
In North America alone since 1997, the ELF has caused over $45 million
in damages to entities who profit from such destruction. (Frontline
Information Service)
Debunker of global warming found guilty
of scientific dishonesty
Bjorn Lomborg, the director of Denmark’s Environmental Assessment
Institute and a leading would-be debunker of mainstream scientific opinion
on issues like global warming and overuse of natural resources, has been
found guilty by a Danish government committee of "scientific dishonesty."
Professor Lomborg, whose work has been championed in the international
press, was subject to a year-long investigation by the Danish committee
on scientific dishonesty. The committee, made up of eminent scientists,
concluded: "Based on customary scientific standards and in light
of his systematic one-sidedness in the choice of data and line of argument,
[Lomborg] has clearly acted at variance with good scientific practice."
Prof. Lomborg’s contrarian views made him a favorite of Denmark’s
rightwing establishment after the 2001 publication of his book, The Skeptical
Environmentalist. The committee was appointed to look at four complaints
against the book, which it said concluded that life for humankind had
never been better, pollution levels were falling, and there were enough
resources for current levels of prosperity to continue. The book also
concluded that the "colossal sums it is planned to deploy on reducing
global warming will be money ill spent." (UK
Guardian)
Nevada fileschallenge to Yucca repository
The state of Nevada has filed another lawsuit in an attempt to halt the
construction of the nation’s only high-level nuclear waste repository
at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The Bush administration and Congress have approved building of the Yucca
Mountain facility, but legal and licensing hurdles are still blocking
the underground repository that is supposed to contain 77,000 tons of
waste from power plants and defense sites.
Joined by the city of Las Vegas and Clark County, the state Jan. 9 filed
suit in the District of Columbia Circuit of the US Court of Appeals, claiming
that Nevada has been unfairly selected and unfairly burdened with this
repository, contrary to the US Constitution. It is the sixth Yucca Mountain
lawsuit filed by the state.
The lawsuit asks the court to declare the Yucca Mountain resolution unconstitutional
and order the federal government to stop "all activities relating
to the development licensing of a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain."
(ENS)
US says Pacific arms tests use depleted
uranium
The US Navy confirmed Jan. 9 that it uses depleted uranium (DU) shells
in arms tests off the Washington state coast but rejected criticism that
the radioactive ammunition could harm people and the environment. Peace
activist Glen Milner said he discovered through a Freedom of Information
Act filing that the Navy, every three months, test-fires Phalanx anti-missile
guns using shells containing the armor-piercing metal in prime Pacific
Ocean fishing waters. Depleted uranium has been linked to kidney damage
and leukemia.
Navy spokeswoman Karen Sellers said the uranium was fully encased inside
the ammunition to protect military personnel who handled and stored it.
"The DU rounds dissolve so slowly that they would not contribute
to naturally occurring [radiation] levels… and do not pose a significant
risk," she asserted, referring to the radioactive material’s
effects on the environment once discharged into the sea.
But Milner and other critics call depleted uranium highly toxic. Douglas
Rokke, a former US Army health physicist assigned to monitor the effects
of DU battlefield use, accused the Pentagon of not providing adequate
medical treatment and testing for soldiers exposed to the substance. "These
individual rounds are solid chunks of uranium. You can’t hold them
in your hand. It’s too dangerous," he said. (Reuters)
Nuclear licenses need not consider
terrorism threat
The threat of terrorism is too nebulous to be considered when licensing
nuclear reactors and other such facilities, the Nuclear Regulatory commission
(NRC) has concluded.
The NRC, responsible for reviewing the environmental and safety impacts
of proposed new and renewed nuclear materials licenses, said that despite
the concerns raised by the Sept. 11 attacks, it considers the potential
for such attacks too speculative to be considered in licensing reviews.
The NRC concluded that it is not obligated to evaluate the environmental
impacts of terrorist attacks in reviews required under federal law by
the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). " The possibility of
a terrorist attack… is speculative and simply too far removed from
the … consequences of agency action to require a study under NEPA,"
the NRC wrote.
The Nuclear Control Institute (NCI), a non-proliferation research and
advocacy center, condemned the NRC’s decision.
"NRC’s ruling that the risk of terrorist attack is ‘speculative’
is completely absurd in the post-Sept. 11 era," said NCI president
Dr. Edwin Lyman. "For a government agency to make such a statement
in today’s elevated threat environment is irresponsible and dangerous."
(ENS)
Staff of nuke reg. agency concerned
about safety
The top officials of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) say it is
committed to safety, but they’re having trouble convincing many of
the agency’s own workers. A survey of NRC employees shows that a
third of them question the agency’s commitment to public safety and
nearly half are not comfortable raising concerns about safety issues within
the agency. A significant number of workers expressed concern about the
nuclear industry influencing regulations.
The survey, which covered about half of the agency’s 3,072 employees,
from clerical workers to nuclear engineers to senior managers, showed
that nearly half of them don’t feel that it’s "safe to
speak up in the NRC" about safety issues. Some NRC employees worry
that safety training requirements for nuclear facilities are outdated
and "leave the security of the nuclear sites… vulnerable to
sabotage." (AP)
Smog not beneficial, EPA concludes
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has rejected an argument
that ground level ozone, or smog, provides protection from harmful ultraviolet
radiation, and should therefore be considered beneficial to humans.
A final decision published by the EPA on Jan. 6 found a lack of scientific
support for industry claims that ground level ozone is beneficial, and
states that it would be inappropriate to weaken existing smog standards.
The finding came in the EPA’s response to a May 1999 court ordered
remand in the lawsuit American Trucking v. USEPA, a case in which industry
launched a multi-pronged challenge to the 1997 national air quality standards
for ozone.
"These industry claims are nonsense," said John Kirkwood, president
and CEO of the American Lung Association, "Ozone is a toxic gas that
is like getting a sunburn on your lungs. How can this possibly be beneficial?
We applaud the EPA for rejecting this pseudo-science argument."
(ENS)
The sky is slowly rising, scientists
say
Contrary to Chicken Little’s warning, the sky isn’t falling
– it’s rising.
An important part of it, anyway – the "tropopause," the
roof of Earth’s lower atmosphere. Its rise – by an average of
about 650 feet globally over the last 22 years – is new evidence
for the reality of global warming, scientists say.
New computer models show that humans are largely to blame for the rising
of the tropopause, says physicist-atmospheric scientist Ben Santer of
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He and 11 colleagues announced
the finding in the latest issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research.
Greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil
fuels, trap infrared radiation, warming the atmosphere. Santer and his
associates believe that as the warming accelerates, the troposphere expands,
just as a balloon warms and expands when it drifts from a cool room into
a warmer one. Tropospheric expansion nudges the tropopause upward. Possible
consequences of this include more violent downdrafts and taller thunderclouds,
but it’s too early to say exactly how a higher tropopause will affect
terrestrial weather, scientists say. (San
Francisco Chronicle)
Federal rule could allow more roads
on public lands
Dirt paths, old wagon trails and even dry washes on public lands could
be paved into highways under a new Bush administration policy making it
easier for states and local governments to claim rights of way. The controversial
rule change drew fire from a host of conservation groups and at least
one prominent member of Congress.
The new regulation is based on a Civil War era regulation known as Revised
Statute 2477, which was designed to encourage western settlement. The
1866 law allows states to claim rights of way and build highways across
federal lands, as long as the lands were "not specifically reserved
for public uses."
Under the revised regulation, any entity claiming an interest in a right
of way — not just the "present owner of record" of the
property — may seek a disclaimer of interest or right of way from
the federal government. The rule also gives states unlimited time to file
their claims, rather than imposing a 12 year deadline for such claims.
According to a 1993 National Park Service (NPS) memo, RS 2477 claims could
potentially affect up to 17 million acres of national park lands. According
to the memo, the impacts "could be devastating. [They] could cross
many miles of undisturbed fish and wildlife habitat, historical and archeological
resources, and sensitive wildlands. [They] would undoubtedly derogate
most unit values and seriously impact the ability of the NPS to manage
the units for the purposes for which they were established."
Studies have found that roads and vehicle use lead to fragmentation of
wildlife habitat, soil erosion, and to the increased use of off road vehicles
in adjacent undeveloped areas. (ENS)
Back to top
|
