11.29.07
The Federal Government in Business’s pocket
Things get bad for the people when the government abandons its role as a counter-balance to Business. In this case, though, the state governments are still being responsible:
Twelve states, including New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, sued the Environmental Protection Agency yesterday for weakening regulations that for two decades have required businesses and industries to report the toxic chemicals they use, store and release.
The suit, filed in the Federal District Court in Manhattan, asks the court to reverse the agency’s move and so restore all the chemical reporting requirements that were previously part of its Toxics Release Inventory program, or T.R.I.
Community groups across the country have used the program to track the amounts of hazardous chemicals in local neighborhoods. Under the program, companies must provide information about the types of toxic chemicals stored at plants and factories in each state, as well as the quantities discharged from each plant.
Besides the states of the New York tristate area, the plaintiffs are Arizona, California, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Vermont.
Their suit takes aim at a change, adopted by the environmental agency last December, that streamlined the T.R.I. process by reducing the amount of information that companies are required to report. The new rules allow them to file shorter, less detailed forms if they store or release less than 5,000 pounds of toxic chemicals. The old rules required a longer, more comprehensive form whenever a company stored or discharged as little as 500 pounds.
In addition to making compliance less burdensome for businesses, the agency says the new regulations provide an incentive for them to eliminate the release of the most dangerous chemicals, including those known as persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic pollutants, like lead and mercury. Last December’s change allows companies that handle those chemicals to use the shorter reporting form, but only if they can certify that they are not releasing them into the environment.
Molly A. O’Neill, assistant administrator for the agency’s Office of Environmental Information, defended the new rules in a statement yesterday, saying they were “making a good program better.”
But Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, who is leading the plaintiffs, said, “The E.P.A.’s new regulations rob New Yorkers — and people across the country — of their right to know about toxic dangers in their own backyards.”
Mr. Cuomo said the lawsuit sought to restore a public right to information about chemical hazards, “despite the Bush administration’s best attempts to hide it.”
The Toxics Release Inventory program was enacted in 1986, two years after a deadly cloud of chemical gas was accidentally released from a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, killing thousands. The law quickly became a kind of “community right to know” rule.
Information on the location of dangerous chemicals is posted on the environmental agency’s Web site. Environmental organizations, community groups and labor unions across the country have used the inventory to prevent exposures to toxic chemicals in neighborhoods and at workplaces.
The first reporting deadline under the new rules was July 1. But officials say it is not yet clear whether individual companies have substantially reduced the amount of information they provide, or voluntarily decided to comply with the old rules.
Raymond McInnis said,
30 November 2007 at 6:44 am
mike, how do i post something on your site? do i have to jump through some hoops? or is it just not something that you allow?
LeisureGuy said,
30 November 2007 at 7:44 am
This is a traditional blog, where I write the entries and others can comment. Sometimes (though it happens rarely), if a comment is of general interest I’ll bring it up and post it as an entry. I believe that what you’re thinking of is a forum, where all the members can post, like http://www.shavemyface.com. Blogs usually have just the one blogger.
Raymond McInnis said,
30 November 2007 at 9:10 am
Yeah, you are the chief, and can determine things like this. and i don’t blame you at all. when i blogged, alone, very seldom did i get comments, which was kind of downer, and perhaps was the reason why i quit. also it was time consuming, and i wanted to get on with my history of woodworking.
what i am thinking about, though, is your post on the inside-the-beltway-pundits. much more can be said about this issue, especailly in light of the era of murdochian journalism. i commented on your post, but did not receive a response from you — haven’t checked lately, though.
this morning, in the nyt, juan williams — a beltway pundit — has a good piece on obama, and wednesday, clarence page — evidently a beltway pundit now, no longer exclusively with the CT — wrote an equally good piece on obama’s surging, especially in iowa.
both say things that can only be taken on trust, because no smoking gun evidence exists as proof, but nonetheless their claims are to be taken seriously. why?
such evidence only goes to my claim (in the comment box) that, when sorting out the “truth”, especially “truth” in op eds– the reader needs to bring his/her critical thinking skills to bear on determining how much stock to put into acceptance vs rejecting a specific writer’s claims.
perhaps it can be argued that readers are as much to blame as writers. many readers today want to read want they want to hear. like, the invasion of iraq is justified. that the illegal immigration mess can be fixed with a Berlin-wall, regardless of what that does to america’s putative claims about “constitutional rights”.
in other words, one might ask, on whom does the responsibility lie for sorting out the truth in journalism? the writer? or the reader? (trust, though, needs to exist between the writer and his editor, or journalism itself breaks down.)
writing in this box is like writing a letter on a postage stamp, so i’ll quit. anyway, i am so supposed to be finishing up a copy-editing job for a friend in GA, so better get back to that task.
LeisureGuy said,
30 November 2007 at 9:30 am
So far as facts are concerned, the journalist has responsibility, and the editor has more responsibility (to check the journalist’s work). If they fail, the reader simply can no longer trust them and has to check everything.
As a result, I like pundits who explain where they got their facts than simply asking us to trust them. Andrea Mitchell, for example, said that one point, “Everyone wants the President to pardon Scooter Libby” the day after the results of a poll on that very question had been published. According to the poll, 69% did NOT want the President to pardon Libby, and only 18% actually did want Libby pardoned. It was but the work of a moment to realize that “everyone” and “18%” are very, very different. So from that point on, I don’t trust a single word that Andrea Mitchell says unless she provides a reference for her statement—which she does not do, of course: she just says whatever occurs to her and states it as fact.
Take, for example, Paul Krugman’s column on Obama this morning. I like it because he explains the reasons for his conclusions. That’s what I want from pundits: not just conclusions, but how they arrived at them. “Show your work.”
Raymond McInnis said,
30 November 2007 at 11:46 am
OK. since i also have a mail subscription for nyt, i didn’t yet read krugman. (my preference is paper, because my critical skills are better there than on the screen.)
and i mentioned the other day that krugman claims that most of what he says — i guess the stuff on “facts” like stats, can be documented.
i have however a real problem with “public opinion polls”: where do they come from, and how reliable are they in getting a cross-section?
here are two issues i have with ph polls:
first, there is a generational gap between those who use line-phones — listed in publicly accessible directories — and cell ph, where directories do not yet exist. in this instance, when ph polls are conducted, it’s my opinion that only one set of ph subscribers — those with line ph — are included.
second, and this is more insidious: with caller identification on phones, people called decide — on the basis of who’s calling — whether they will respond. those who don’t, select themselves OUT of the poll; those who do pick up the ph, select themselves IN the poll.
in other words, this whole system turns out to be a narrow, “self-selected” group, for me, entirely unrepresentative group of americans: older generation, more conservative, for sure.
Listen to mark shields — fridays, on jim lehrer newshour — pontificate about this, especially in considering polls conducted in iowa.
While i don’t know mitchell, i agree with your assessment of the practice. sort of like jonah goldberg. i read him for fun, but definitely not for solid info. it’s more of a surprise when he says something that you can agree with.