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April 20, 2004
The concept of environmental justice in the United States has historically
related to the need to redress the disproportionate effects of pollution on
low-income and minority communities. However, today the problems associated with
mounting pollution—in our air, water, and land—go far beyond these communities,
affecting virtually every part of the country.
Since the first Earth Day in 1970, a growing political and cultural consensus
in the United States has supported environmental protection even in the absence
of a formally recognized constitutional right to a clean environment. According
to a 2003 national poll, 75 percent support greater enforcement of our
environmental laws, and over 75 percent support stronger emissions standards for
business and industry. Pollsters report that the public expects their leaders to
share this basic value—and that environmental policies should not put the
public’s health at risk.
Nonetheless, the Bush administration and its congressional allies have led a
systematic effort to undermine the country’s keystone environmental and public
health protections, as well as the protection of national parks and public
lands. Clearly, the interests of industry take a far higher priority within
national leadership than do the rights of the American people to a healthy
environment—which raises the question of whether we can afford to subject the
protection of our communities and our planet to the whims of politics. While
these anti-environmental efforts are unprecedented in their scope, I will focus
on just three issues: the administration’s assault on the Clean Air Act, its
relaxed enforcement of environmental laws, and its de-funding and slowdown of
toxic waste cleanups.
Assault on the Clean Air Act
As many as 60,000 Americans die prematurely each year as a result of exposure
to fine particulate pollution. More than 130 million Americans—almost half the
population—are exposed to unhealthy levels of air pollution. Power plant
emissions in particular are linked to a host of pediatric health problems, from
asthma attacks and slowed neurological growth to stunted lung development and
neonatal death.
In the face of these realities, the administration has nonetheless partnered
with industry lobbyists to begin a vast rollback of Clean Air Act protections.
In early 2002, the administration proposed the passage of its “Clear Skies
Initiative,” which would amend the Clean Air Act requirements. Although
President Bush claims this initiative will reduce air pollution, according to
the government’s own numbers it would actually result in an increase in
emissions of harmful air toxins: nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide, and mercury.
Additionally, it fails to take steps to regulate and limit carbon dioxide
pollution, the prime cause of global warming.
The Clean Air Act requires power plants to make deep reductions in their
output of soot-forming sulfur dioxide (SO2) and smog-forming nitrogen oxide
(NOx) within this decade in order to meet public health standards. The “Clear
Skies Initiative” allows more than one-and-a-half times as much NOx and more
than twice as much SO2 for nearly a decade longer (2010-18) than the current law
allows. As dangerous as these pollutants are, perhaps the greatest threat to the
right to health is the direct and growing risk of exposure to mercury, a
neurological poison that can cause birth defects. Twelve percent of American
women of childbearing age have mercury levels in excess of what is considered
safe by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Prenatal exposure to methyl
mercury can cause adverse developmental and cognitive effects in children even
at low doses that do not harm the mother. Indeed, the EPA announced in early
2004 that more than one child in six could be at risk of developmental
disabilities, twice the previous estimate.
Incredibly, the administration’s initiative would allow power plants, the
main source of mercury emissions in the air, to emit more than five times as
much mercury pollution for a decade longer (2008-18) than currently allowed—
ignoring a 1998 court order that requires the EPA to establish by December 15,
2003, how it will cut mercury pollution by greater levels than required
by the Clean Air Act. In December 2003, while the administration was working to
allow more leeway for mercury pollution, the Food and Drug Administration
reiterated its 2001 warning to women of childbearing age to avoid consuming
certain fish such as shark, swordfish, king mackerel, and tilefish due to
mercury contamination. At that time, 44 states had advisories in effect for
mercury in non-commercial fish and 17 states had statewide advisories in effect.
Nine states had statewide advisories for mercury in their coastal waters.
Superfund: No Funds?
One in every four Americans lives within four miles of a toxic waste site—an
area contaminated by chemicals that can cause cancer, reproductive diseases, and
other serious health problems for nearby communities. To protect public health
and the environment, Congress passed the Superfund law in 1980. The law requires
polluters to pay for their contamination of land, and establishes a trust fund
to clean up properties where the polluting company cannot pay or be identified.
Taxes on corporations that have historically generated the most toxic waste—such
as oil and chemical companies—endowed the fund. The legal authorization for the
fund expired under the Clinton administration, which pursued its reauthorization
from Congress to ensure full funding. The Bush administration, however, has not
pursued its reauthorization, instead choosing to shift the cost of toxic waste
cleanup to the taxpaying public. As a result, the fund is running out, and the
rate of site cleanups has been cut in half since the Bush administration came
into office.
Furthermore, the administration has proposed to exempt military bases and the
defense industry from much of their liability for toxic waste cleanup on the
grounds that such exemptions are needed for proper training and military
readiness. Toxic byproducts of military uses can have potentially devastating
health effects. For example, perchlorate, an ingredient in rocket and missile
fuel found at many defense related sites, has contaminated drinking water in at
least 20 states. In addition, studies from 2003 suggest that much of the
nation’s lettuce supply might be contaminated through contact with perchlorate
in irrigation water. Perchlorate is a powerful thyroid toxin that interferes
with normal thyroid function and may cause cancer.
Nonenforcement of Environmental Laws
The Environmental Protection Agency plays a vital inspection and enforcement
role for the country’s basic public health and environmental protections. EPA
enforcement agents pursue some of the nation’s worst polluters, those who defy
environmental controls and recklessly harm the air, water, and land. Yet the
Bush administration has taken the environmental cop off the beat by diverting
funds, mismanaging limited resources, and sending a signal to polluters that
enforcement is not a priority. In his first budget, Bush proposed to cut $25
million from the agency’s operating budget and 270 EPA enforcement jobs.
Although Congress blocked those budget cuts, the administration was still able
to reduce enforcement staff by 210 positions, or nearly by half. Consequently,
enforcement activities have declined: EPA personnel conducted 13 percent fewer
inspections in fiscal year 2002 than in 2000.
The funding shortage at EPA is so severe that an EPA manager ordered agents
to surrender either their cell phones or satellite text pagers, despite
acknowledging in the order that field investigators “need both to do their job
effectively and, most importantly, safely.” One supervisor commented to a
journalist, “I am struggling with dwindling resources in an attempt to
keep...the investigation of environmental crimes alive within my area of
responsibility.”
What Can Be Done?
Even before the current administration’s anti-environmental policies,
politics and public pressure failed to protect the health and environment of the
country’s low income and minority communities, who are often located in close
proximity to polluting facilities, and who are disproportionately harmed by
pollution. Local officials frequently claim that the pollution is worth the job
creation; and those who are harmed have little power and few resources to
challenge these decisions. Indeed, often they are willing to make what they
understand to be a necessary trade-off of health risks for jobs.
The Bush administration’s approach to environmental justice issues is only
deepening the disproportionate impact on these communities. Indeed, the EPA’s
Inspector General reported that the Bush administration has reinterpreted an
Executive Order calling for special attention to the affects on minority
communities to instead apply to everyone. The Inspector General’s office
chastised the Bush administration, saying that the EPA mandate already aims to
protect everyone, but that the Executive Order (issued in 1994 by President
Clinton) was intended to bring necessary focus on these most hard hit
communities. Thus, the administration delivers a double blow to environmental
justice: creating a greater health risk for all Americans by undermining the
Clean Air Act, and stripping away protections for our most vulnerable
communities.
Those who advocate a constitutional right to a healthy environment seek to
use the country’s highest law to place environmental protection above political
pressure, to ensure that the rights to health and a healthy environment are
formally incorporated into the concept of due process—in short, to live up to
the Declaration of Independence’s unalienable rights, including life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness. Such an effort—whether through the courts or an
explicit amendment—could galvanize a movement in support of the protection of
the environment. It is a noble fight, but one that faces significant hurdles in
the current political climate.
In the meantime, we rely on politics, public pressure, and engagement to
protect our environment. To that end, my organization, Environment2004, aims to
reach out to voters to inform them of the ongoing attacks on our environment,
while also making the link between environmental protection and such broader
issues as quality of life, children’s health, and job opportunities.
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