Citizen Health & Safety

More Indication that Polluters are Being Let Off the Hook

Nov 12, 2004 by Guest Blogger

The Environmental Integrity Project recently released a report showing that civil penalties against polluters are at a 15-year low, with penalties dropping to $56.8 million in 2004 compared to $96 million in 2003. Enforcement of major environmental legislation has declined sharply in the past three years, contributing to the steep decline in civil penalties. Whereas the Department of Justice filed 152 lawsuits in federal courts against polluters in the last three year of the Clinton administration, in the first three years of the Bush administration only 36 such lawsuits were filed.

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What Bush means for the environment

Nov 12, 2004 by Guest Blogger

Be sure to check out this excellent report on the prospect of further Bush administration rollbacks of the environment. Unlike most press coverage, this story goes the extra step and addresses how the Bush administration can have far-reaching consequences not just through rollbacks of individual rules but also through broadly applicable technical policies, such as cost-benefit analysis.

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EPA rollback is killing children

Nov 11, 2004 by Guest Blogger

Tens of thousands of children are poisoned every year from accidentally ingesting rat poison. EPA responded in 1998 with a rule that added a bitter taste to the poison and a dye to make it more obvious that a child has ingested rat poison. The Bush administration promptly reversed course in 2001 and repealed these requirements, even though they do not make rat poisons any less effective at killing rats.

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So where are the anti-regulatory zealots now?

Nov 10, 2004 by Guest Blogger

Funny how the critics of regulation only seem to care about regulations of the environment, public health, consumer protection -- the areas that hit business in the pocketbook -- but they don't scream their anti-regulatory screeds when the FCC goes on crusades to protect us all from such ghastly offenses as the baring of Janet Jackson's nipple. Now comes word that some local ABC affiliates are declining to participate in the network's Veterans Day airing of Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg's over-praised mix of treacle and WWII battlefield realism.

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Costs outweighing benefits of cost-benefit analysis

Nov 10, 2004 by Guest Blogger

Interesting tidbit in Cindy Skrzycki's Washington Post column about OHSA. Charged with protecting the men and women of America who work for a living, OSHA has become, during the Bush administration, the black hole of government: nothing comes out of it, certainly not light. As we found in a recent report, the Bush OSHA has failed to produce a single economically significant protection of workplace health or safety.

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The coming attacks on the environment

Nov 8, 2004 by Guest Blogger

Don't miss the New York Times's coverage of the administration and GOP Congress's plans for weakening and dismantling environmental policy. The article identifies several specific targets:

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    The coming attacks on regulatory policy

    Nov 6, 2004 by Guest Blogger

    Election day results portend a new wave of attacks on the ability of the people to use their federal government to serve the public interest. More Destruction of Public Safeguards. The Bush administration mounted an all-out assault on regulatory safeguards in its first term. An exhaustive catalogue of these attacks is available in our reports Special Interest Takeover: The Bush Administration and the Dismantling of Public Safeguards and The Bush Regulatory Record: A Pattern of Failure.

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    Coming attack on tire pressure monitoring rule?

    Nov 4, 2004 by Guest Blogger

    Remember the tire pressure monitoring rule? NHTSA was forced by law to require automakers to implement systems that alert drivers when air pressure in their tires becomes dangerously low. There was unnecessary brouhaha (and lives were needlessly lost) because White House regulatory czar John Graham forced the agency to select a less effective alternative.

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    Healthy forests policy: wrong cure for this disease

    Nov 4, 2004 by Guest Blogger

    The Bush administration's plan to allow loggers into national forests and "thin" the growth was from the get-go an obvious use of a real problem (forest fires) in order to give away the nation's resources to industry interests. Now here's some evidence that an unaddressed environmental problem -- global warming -- may be to blame instead of overgrowth: The raging Western wildfires of recent years have often been blamed on management practices that promoted dense, overpacked forests. But a new study indicates global warming may be the main culprit.

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    U.S. Resists Global Warming Policy

    Nov 4, 2004 by Guest Blogger

    The Washington Post reported today on the Bush administration's efforts to suppress the conclusions of an eight-nation report that endorses broad policies aimed at mitigating global warming. The 1,200 page report, leaked to reporters last week, chronicles historic increases in Arctic temperatures due in part to human-generated greenhouse gas emissions. The State Department argued that the report, which represents the work of over 300 scientists, "lacks the evidence to prepare detailed policy proposals," according to the Post.

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