May 17, 2012

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EPA admits to wanting to “crucify” energy producers

April 25, 2012 By Carol Greenberg 1 Comment

Update 4/27/12. Per the Daily Caller Almendariz received $540,000 in taxpayer money to “fund his projects.”

Today a vid surfaced from an EPA administrator comparing its tactics to “Roman crucifixions.” Yes, you heard that right:

Pertinent part of the text which shows a top EPA official, Region VI Administrator Al Armendariz stating the following:

“But as I said, oil and gas is an enforcement priority, it’s one of seven, so we are going to spend a fair amount of time looking at oil and gas production. And I gave, I was in a meeting once and I gave an analogy to my staff about my philosophy of enforcement, and I think it was probably a little crude and maybe not appropriate for the meeting but I’ll go ahead and tell you what I said. It was kind of like how the Romans used to conquer little villages in the Mediterranean. They’d go into a little Turkish town somewhere, they’d find the first five guys they saw and they would crucify them [emphasis mine].And then you know that town was really easy to manage for the next few years. And so you make examples out of people who are in this case not compliant with the law. Find people who are not compliant with the law, and you hit them as hard as you can and you make examples out of them, and there is a deterrent effect there. And, companies that are smart see that, they don’t want to play that game, and they decide at that point that it’s time to clean up. And, that won’t happen unless you have somebody out there making examples of people. So you go out, you look at an industry, you find people violating the law, you go aggressively after them. And we do have some pretty effective enforcement tools. Compliance can get very high, very, very quickly. That’s what these companies respond to is both their public image but also financial pressure. So you put some financial pressure on a company, you get other people in that industry to clean up very quickly. So, that’s our general philosophy.”

Via Heritage a statement from Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK):

His comments are indicative of the “EPA’s war on fossil fuels,” claimed Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) in a news release on Wednesday.

Yes, via a speech on the House floor Inhofe stated “this video gives us a rare glimpse into Obama’s true agenda” and he has launched investigations.

Crossposted at Unified Patriots

Filed Under EPA Tagged With Al Armendariz, energy, EPA, Heritage, Obama, Sen. Jim Inhofe

Mud puddles may be next on EPA’s hit list

January 26, 2012 By Carol Greenberg 1 Comment

Mud puddlesYou may want to run out to your backyard and make sure any mud puddles or water-filled ditches are being properly maintained, or you could be violating the EPA’s Clean Water Act.

The Washington Examiner reports on the latest job-killing regulatory overreach that may be forced on the logging and forestry industries – which incidentally employ 2.5 million American workers and are one of the few vibrant manufacturing industries we have left in this country.

Let’s break this down:

For the past several decades, the EPA has followed a sensible policy when enforcing the Clean Water Act as it relates to forest roads:

For 35 years, the Environmental Protection Agency has understood silviculture — the act of harvesting trees, as opposed to processing them — to be an agricultural activity, not a manufacturing one. The distinction is vital because of particulars in the Clean Water Act. Runoff from “point-source” manufacturing facilities (including saw mills) is closely regulated. Permits are required, and an involved monitoring and remediation process is prescribed.

On the other hand, the “natural runoff” from forest roads — basically mud puddles that accumulate in ditches — has never required such permits or monitoring. It is cared for through what is known as “best management practices.”

However, a suit brought against paper company Georgia-Pacific by leftist environmental group Northwest Environment Defense Center led to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling against this longtime EPA precedent:

But in the case Georgia-Pacific West Inc. v. Northwest Environmental Defense Center, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals turned this long-standing rule on its head. The court said that the EPA has been misinterpreting its own rules for 35 years, and that, in fact, forest roads must be regulated in similar fashion to factories and power plants.

The Ninth Circuit decision, if upheld, would crush forestry in the Pacific Northwest. As Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon put it, “One court would shut down forestry on private, state and tribal lands by subjecting it to the same, endless cycle of litigation.”

There’s that pesky Ninth Circuit again.

The case heads to the Supreme Court this spring, where until recently the Obama administration and the EPA had remained consistent with the standing policy:

So far in the litigation process, the Obama EPA and Justice Department have sided with the industry, adhering to the traditional, 35-year-old interpretation of EPA rules.

But before we get too excited that Obama may actually stand up to radical environmentalists for once, his lawyers’ latest brief puts that up for debate:

But in its most recent brief, the federal government’s lawyers included a curious passage that has caused a small panic among the logging industry’s legal team.

It essentially asserts that EPA has never before officially stated its decades-old position in writing, that runoff collected in man-made roadside ditches counts as “natural runoff.”

If the Supreme Court upholds the Circuit Court decision, it will bring the forestry industry to a standstill as businesses worry they’ll be sued at every turn. At a time when our economy is struggling and we hear a lot of talk about the government “creating jobs” it would be a bit absurd if we didn’t move to protect the few thriving industries that we have.

The ask of Obama here really isn’t a large one – he simply needs to uphold his own agency’s longtime policy. As the Supreme Court (and the 2012 election) moves closer, we’ll see if he will once again take the side of the environmental left over American workers and the businesses that employ them.

Crossposted at Unified Patriots

Filed Under EPA Tagged With Clean Water Act, EPA, forestry, Georgia-Pacific, mud puddles, Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Northwest Environment Defense Center, Obama, silviculture

EPA’s latest overreach may devastate the small trucking industry

January 8, 2012 By Carol Greenberg Leave a Comment

semi truck

Anyone who reads my website has probably figured out I’m no fan of the EPA, in fact if I had my way it would go in the dumpster along with most of the other government alphabet soup agencies.

Almost three weeks ago the EPA pulled probably the most egregious and costly overreach ever, the one President Obama promised in 2008 would bankrupt the coal industry: the MACT/MATS Act which will regulate mercury and other so-called *HAPS* or “hazardous air pollutants.”

But just like the Energizer Bunny this agency chaired by Lisa Jackson is on overdrive and doesn’t know when to quit. Now it’s the buses, RVs and diesel truckers who are her target who may very well “run out of gas” over this new regulation which was effective January 1, 2012. According to Fox News:

The Environmental Protection Agency is ordering large trucks and buses to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 20 percent and overhaul engine design starting with models built in 2014. Most operators will need to spend thousands upgrading their rigs or buying new vehicles, with prices starting at $50,000 and going up from there, depending on the model.

The American Trucking Association welcomed the news, but surely because they know these new regs will devastate the independent and “Mom & Pop” truckers and put them out of business taking away competition. But some truckers are fighting back. Four small California trucking companies are suing the EPA claiming they did not submit the new regulations to their SAB or “Science Advisory Board” for approval:

Should anyone get the urge, you can take a look at the EPA’s “Science Advisory Board” which was set up in 1978 to “advise” the EPA on scientific matters. The Board is packed with the *usual suspects* from liberal universities which is certainly no surprise to this writer. Click on any of the committees to get the names and universities they represent.

The truckers’ suit was filed in federal court and the Pacific Legal Foundation is representing them. Attorney Ted Hadzi-Antich stated the EPA must follow the rules and laws just anyone else and in this instance they did not. If this is allowed to stand truckers will most undoubtedly pass on their higher cost of operation to the consumer.

Filed Under EPA, trucking industry Tagged With American Trucking Association, EPA, MACT/MATS Act, Science Advisory Board, trucking industry

Another #EPAfail: AWOL on U.S. corn crop problems

January 1, 2012 By Carol Greenberg 3 Comments

H/t to Kenny Solomon for bringing this to my attention.

westernCornRootwormAdult

Oh Lisa, Lisa Jackson? Wherefore art thou, Miss Lisa Chair of the EPA?  No presser on this one? Only one on your plan to bankrupt coal?

No, this is not an article about endangered bugs, but endangered corn. Above is a picture of the adult western corn rootworm. It infects corn: ya know that stuff we and farmers depend on a lot for food, export and livelihood. Well, these little buggers and other rootworms have been a thorn in the side of farmers for quite some time and in the past pesticides were used to get rid of them.

In the 1990’s Monsanto had the idea of building into some of its corn seed a natural toxin to this little creature, a genetically engineered corn seed containing the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis, or “Bt” for short.

With the approval of the EPA, who was glad to know that farmers would be able to dump a lot of insecticide usage in combating this little creature, not to mention the ecstasy of environmentalists, Bt-corn was born and was launched in 2003. For those farmers using Bt corn seed the EPA decreed that Monsanto was to instruct farmers to plant a “refuge crop” of non-Bt corn alongside so that mating would occur between the rootworm of both crops thus diluting any resistant strain, but the size of the “refuge crop” was in disagreement. Monsanto supposedly argued for a 20% refuge when scientists had recommended 50%.

For a few years Bt corn was a rousing success and farmers saw increased yields of corn production. But then nature always seems to find a way eventually around man’s supposed *successes* and stories and studies are coming to light that this *miracle corn* which contains its very own little big-killer has begun to stop working.

Just like cockroaches have survived nuclear bombs, and DDT lost its efficacy, and we now have *super bugs* which have become resistant to many antibiotics, and the *super weeds* are becoming resistant to Monsanto’s Roundup weed killer, the corn rootworm seems to have been able in many places to become resistant to Bacillus thuringiensis. Bad news for farmers, bad news for environmentalists and bad news for Monsanto.

And it appears the EPA may have dropped the ball and not kept an eagle eye on this like it was supposed to. I don’t normally read Mother Jones but for once they have a good group of articles on the subject which are substantiated elsewhere. The states at this point most affected are Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois and Nebraska with suspected areas in Wisconsin, South Dakota and Colorado. The rootworm begins devouring the corn from the root upward, hence its name and most times farmers are unaware their crop has been infected until they see the below:

corn damaged by rootworm

The corn stalks just topple over and there is no saving them. The EPA put out a 20-page memo in November of 2011 discussing Monsanto’s failed resistance monitoring of the rootworm. Basically the EPA concluded:

  • Monsanto proposed to collect insects from problem fields within 1-2 miles [emphasis mine and a huh??, 1-2 miles? ] from neighboring sites of failed fields [page 2]
  • Monsanto’s “greater than expected damage” threshold was too high
  • Monsanto concluded that farmers not rotating crops were the cause of the increased number of rootworms and therefore kept their threshold too high
  • Many of Monsanto’s reports were unclear about the number of insects in a given area and whether or not they were adults or larvae

So the EPA’s instructions are in cases of suspected resistance, Monsanto will instruct growers to do one or more of the following [page 6]:

  • During the present season, use conventional insecticides to control the adult stage of the suspected pest;
  • During the following season, use an alternative pest control method to deter establishment of potentially resistant insects.

So we are back to using pesticides again.  Wasn’t this supposed to be the purpose of developing a genetically engineered product, to lessen the use of pesticides?

EPA also recommends on page 6 under certain circumstances using Monsanto’s newer product SmartStax which contains 2 types of Bt protein.

According to Bloomberg Monsanto denies there are problems with its Bt corn which was planted on more than 37 million acres of land last year and accounts for 1/3 of the U.S. corn crop. However the question then arises, if there was no problem why did they develop SmartStax?

Interesting that 10 days after the EPA’s report Monsanto came out with a press release excerpted below, lauding its product SmartStax:

“We take the stewardship of our products seriously,” Vaughn said. “Our corn rootworm products continue to provide U.S. corn farmers with strong protection against this damaging pest as well as a higher yield potential than competitive rootworm-protected technologies across more 37 million acres today.”

Two items remain unclear:

  1. What effect if any this rootworm and the dropping of ethanol subsidies will have on U.S. corn production and sales of Monsanto’s products.
  2. I found close to 400 articles on EPA’s website on Bt corn. Since I don’t have a secretary :D I couldn’t possibly go through them all. Was the EPA too darned busy going after coal, oil and natural gas and missed the possible looming “corn crop crisis”? And did they cave to the demands of Monsanto on the smaller refuge crop so they could sell the more expensive BT corn?

Some critics say “yes”:

Like its predecessors, the variety was approved by regulators, including the Environmental Protection Agency. The agency gave the green light to the corn only if farmers agreed to certain growing conditions, among them the requirement to plant non-Bt “refuge” corn on 20 percent of their Bt corn acres.

This, the agency maintained, would limit potential resistance to the protein by, in effect, ensuring that the insects can multiply and dilute the resistance genes in their offspring.

But scientists sitting on a scientific review board before the approval later complained that the agency ignored their recommendations and caved to the company’s demands for a 20 percent refuge.

They said farmers should instead have been required to plant 50 percent non-Bt corn.

The failure to listen to the review board, critics say, is largely responsible for the evidence of growing resistance [emphasis mine].

My guess is that Monsanto lobbyists hit EPA pretty hard and got that 50% refuge requirement knocked down to 20%. Monsanto had been chomping at the bit to get this BT corn approved by EPA as they knew farmers would consider it a God send and make them a lot of money. Bt corn costs 30-35% more than none BT corn (top of page 3)  but Monsanto was betting the farmers would be willing to pay the higher price because of the promise of higher yields. Many growers have contracts with ethanol producers or need feed corn for livestock and so have not always planted refuge fields or rotated their crops.

So failure on the part of EPA to adhere to recommended scientific practices with minimal oversight has given us a huge problem. Nice going.

Related article: Bt toxins, the lesson not learned.

Crossposted at Unified Patriots

Filed Under Bt corn, EPA Tagged With Bacillus thuringiensis, Bt corn, corn, EPA, Monsanto, rootworms, SmartStax

#EPA FAIL

April 15, 2011 By Carol Greenberg Leave a Comment

Can’t even comment on this one. Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Co) drilling Mathy Stanislaus on whether they take into account jobs impacted. Too painful.

Filed Under EPA Tagged With Cory Gardner, EPA, Mathy Stanislaus