Last week, the Washington University Journal of Law and Policy published New Directions in Environmental Law, a symposium issue featuring articles from six CPR Member Scholars. The articles explore how lessons learned from first generation environmental statutes should be applied to future legislation in order to accomplish the original goals of the environmental movement.
Thanks to a strong ruling from a federal judge in Baltimore Wednesday, large poultry companies are one step closer to being held accountable for the pollution (manure) the small farms that grow chickens for them generate. Responsibility: it’s not just for the little guys anymore.
In March, several environmental groups in Maryland sued Perdue Farms, Inc. and Hudson Farm, a chicken farm that raises Perdue’s chickens, alleging violations of the Clean Water Act. (I blogged earlier about the political brouhaha that erupted here.) Samples taken on five different occasions from a ditch flowing from Hudson Farm showed excessive levels of fecal coliform, E. coli, nitrogen, phosphorus, and ammonia. Agriculture is the largest source of nutrient pollution in the Chesapeake Bay, contributing an estimated 38 percent of the nitrogen and 45 percent of the phosphorous.
The groundbreaking suit not only targeted the specific geographic source of the pollution – Hudson Farm and its stockpiles of uncovered poultry manure – but it also alleged that Perdue, a poultry company with $4 billion in sales annually, was responsible for the mess as well. The court rightly rejected Perdue’s argument that it should be dismissed from the lawsuit because it was a poultry integrator – not a grower – and was, the company asserted, not required to obtain a discharge permit under the Clean Water Act.
Full textSenator Cardin's bill to reauthorize the Chesapeake Bay program passed a committee vote this morning, though not before significant amendments were made (see Baltimore Sun, E&E).
We'll have more on the specifics in the future. But for now it's worth noting that one of the amendments takes away EPA’s authority to write permits for nonpoint sources, a much-needed tool in EPA’s toolbox to bolster accountability if the states fail to address nonpoint source pollution.
It’s too bad that, once again, the agricultural interests who collectively constitute the largest source of nitrogen pollution to the Bay want to avoid accountability.
Full textToday the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will discuss Senator Cardin’s Chesapeake Clean Water and Ecosystem Restoration Act of 2009 (S. 1816), along with a suite of other bills to protect the great waterways of the United States.
Critically, the bill codifies the Bay-wide Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL), requiring it to be implemented and enforced. To remedy the pervasive lack of accountability in prior Bay restoration agreements, the bill requires states to submit biennial progress reports and to commit to fulfilling biennial milestones and empowers the EPA to withhold funds, develop and administer a federal implementation plan, or require new or expanding dischargers to acquire offsets that result in a net decrease of pollution. The bill makes progress in other significant areas, including:
If I remember my Sunday School lessons correctly, “clean living” should result in a lot of good things in addition to a heavenly reward: a strong character, an orderly home, and a healthy body and environment. Ironically for the Amish, a clean living group if there ever was one, clean living also produces dirty waters.
As yesterday’s New York Times article reminds us, Amish farms in Lancaster county generate more than 61 million pounds of manure a year – much of which ends up in waterways that run straight into the Chesapeake Bay. Dealing with the farmers in Lancaster county is a challenge: How do you encourage a population that resists change to adopt new farming practices? Impose stronger regulations? Do what we usually do with farmers, which is to pay them using grant dollars to change?
The challenge is even greater when you consider how strongly the Amish value self-sufficiency and distrust government. Unlike many who loudly profess such values, the Amish practice what they preach: they live genuinely self-sustainable lives, and they don’t take government benefits, refusing even Social Security. I was struck in the article by a farmer declaring he had vowed never to take a government grant – quite a different mindset from our culture of subsidies for agribusiness, corporate welfare, and bank bailouts.
Full textWe’ve all seen the dramatic headlines recently concerning large-scale environmental disruptions, including a catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf and mining disasters killing workers from West Virginia to China. Meanwhile, in Congress, climate change bills are proposed, altered, weakened, and eventually shelved, and the United States still fails to take action on climate change. CPR’s Member Scholars march forward, however, proposing reforms that range from creating transparency in agency decisions to protecting animal migrations. Below is a quick overview of some of their recent publications.
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The proverbial poop has hit the fan in Maryland this month after two environmental groups – the Assateague Coastal Trust and the Waterkeeper Alliance – sued Perdue Farms, Inc. and Hudson Farm, a Perdue-contract chicken factory farm in Berlin, Maryland, for violating the Clean Water Act. Water sampling from ditches next to Hudson Farm found high levels of fecal coliform and E. coli. Phosphorus and nitrogen – nutrients killing the Chesapeake Bay – were also found.
The two environmental groups are represented by pro bono student attorneys at the Environmental Law Clinic at the University of Maryland School of Law (where I was once a student; I should also note that CPR President Rena Steinzor is the former director of the clinic). The groundbreaking suit not only takes on a chicken farmer, it also targets Perdue – which contracts with farms throughout the state to raise the chickens it processes.
Perdue’s response? To cry "fowl," pardon the pun, of course. Instead of just fighting the lawsuit fair and square in court, Perdue also took its ruffled feathers to the Maryland General Assembly, pressing it to muzzle the student attorneys and send a message to the clinic. Perdue’s claims that the sky is falling have apparently worked. Last week, budget language approved by the Maryland Senate included a provision ordering the law school to produce a list of the clients it has represented over the last two years or lose funding – $250,000 in one version, $750,000 in another. Students take note: this is what happens when you take on the nation’s third-largest poultry company with $4.6 billion in sales annually.
Full textTuesday, the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released an Interim Progress Report of the Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force, a group charged by President Obama in Executive Order 13514 to develop (by Fall 2010) recommendations for the federal government for adapting to climate change. More than 20 federal agencies, departments, and offices are participating in the task force.
The progress report notes that some agencies are taking action toward implementing programs and policies to deal with the changes and risks climate change will bring. But it also notes many significant gaps remain, including:
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Yesterday, the White House released a plan to restore Mississippi and Louisiana wetlands and barrier islands, which have been disappearing at a rapid clip for decades and continue to do so. Hurricane Katrina brought to the fore what many residents of these states already knew: federal, state, and local authorities were neither coordinated nor prepared to protect the Gulf Coast, its ecosystems, and its people from Mother Nature’s worst. (See CPR's report on Katrina).
The White House roadmap is designed to bring some much-needed order and leadership to Gulf Coast restoration efforts. It’s a strong sign from the Obama Administration that it is serious about protecting the Gulf Coast.
The roadmap also strives to put ecosystem restoration and sustainability “on a more equal footing with other priorities such as manmade navigation and structural approaches to flood protection and storm risk reduction.” It rightly notes that these priorities make up complex pieces of a larger whole: wetlands protect inland ecosystems and communities from dangerous storm surges, for example; bayous, bays, and estuaries produce much of the fish and wildlife that coastal fishermen and communities depend upon for their livelihoods. The elevation of these “ecosystem services” to having “value” on par with priorities such as river navigation is a heartening sign.
Full textTen years ago, after NHTSA received reports of numerous deaths and injuries linked to Firestone tires and Ford Explorers, Congress passed the TREAD Act, bolstering the authority of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to identify possible defects in vehicles and tires by collecting information (“early warning data”) from auto and tire manufacturers. The law requires disclosure of data about incidents involving deaths or injuries, injury and property damage claims (including lawsuits), consumer complaints, warranty claims, field reports (problems reported from dealers, for example), and production data. Ten years later, the Toyota scandal is here, with lives lost. NHTSA is blamed for failing to connect the dots, and Toyota is criticized for a “culture of secrecy.”
What happened? How could a law designed to improve access to early warning signs of trouble apparently fail so spectacularly? The story is complicated and still emerging, but we will surely miss some important lessons from it if stereotypes -- faceless bureaucrats and secrecy-minded Japanese businessmen! -- become convenient whipping boys.
Lesson 1. An all-too-common occurrence in Washington has recurred: when Congress passes a law industry doesn’t like, industry turns to the agency in charge of implementing the law for relief – a particularly shrewd tactic during the Bush II years. In this case, in 2002, NHTSA dutifully issued its regulation requiring “Early Warning Reports” from manufacturers on a quarterly basis. One year later, however, at the behest of automakers, NHTSA began what would become a five-year effort to keep much of this information secret from the public, accepting industry claims that the information requested was “confidential business information” (or “CBI”). (For more about NHTSA’s CBI rule and its tortured history, see Public Citizen. For government secrecy issues generally, see CPR’s perspective.)
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Guest Blogger: Liz Borkowski