Peter Lehner's Blog: Curbing Pollution

The Clean Energy Bill Is No Place For Dirty Energy Attacks on Public Health

2010-05-14T21:42:38Z

There is much to commend in Senator Kerry’s and Senator Lieberman’s just-released comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation, beginning with solid core carbon pollution limits. These emission limits tighten every year and will drive investments in clean energy that create jobs, cut pollution, and end our addiction to oil from dangerous locations, both offshore and overseas.

Then there’s a nasty provision that will do none of those things.

The draft legislation creates a roving commission that gives power plant polluter lobbyists a platform to make unsupported claims about supposed conflicts between protecting health and cutting carbon pollution.

Specifically, the draft bill establishes a highly objectionable task force to examine utility industry calls for exemptions from federal environmental laws and regulations that utilities allege are impeding power plant retirements or transitions to cleaner energy. The provision’s language is suffused with utility industry complaints and rhetoric and pleas for payment, making clear the design for a biased exercise. Polluter lobbyists deliver a deregulatory wish list to Congress and federal agencies. The agencies then are authorized by this bill to propose regulatory changes to carry out those wishes.

Instead of leaving EPA to do its job to protect the American people, the draft bill would compel EPA and states and public health supporters to spend huge amounts of time fending off industry wish lists to weaken virtually every regulation that affects power plants.

The scope of the provision is so broad that it anoints this commission with the power to go after every health and environmental safeguard that has been adopted through decades of effort – from Clean Air Act protections against smog, soot and toxic pollution to the Clean Water Act to hazardous waste laws to the Endangered Species Act.

But the real target of utility industry fire is the Clean Air Act: current and upcoming EPA rules to cut deadly soot pollution, smog pollution, and toxic air pollution like mercury, arsenic and lead.

Power plant air pollution is responsible for an estimated 20,000-24,000 deaths annually. Each year this pollution is linked to tens of thousands of non-fatal heart attacks, hundreds of thousands of asthma attacks and other cardiac problems, and tens of thousands of emergency room visits, hospitalizations and lost work days.

More than half of coal-burning power plants today lack basic cleanup equipment called scrubbers that control deadly soot pollution, sulfur dioxide pollution and toxic air pollution like mercury and acid gases. As recently as 2006, only one-third of coal plants had these scrubbers.

But there have been nearly 90 scrubbers installed at power plants in just the last two years without causing any electricity reliability problems. And since 2006, dangerous sulfur dioxide emissions from power plants have dropped by a very impressive 3.5 million tons to just under 6 million tons each year, with 1.7 million tons cut in the past two years alone. During that period smog-forming nitrogen oxide emissions from power plants dropped from 3.5 million tons to nearly 2 million tons annually.

Upcoming EPA rules to cut smog, soot and toxic air pollution will require many more scrubbers, cutting power plant pollution by millions of tons more and saving many thousands of lives. Recent experience has shown that we can clean up these plants, protect public health and safety, provide affordable electricity, and power our transition to a clean energy economy.

These life-saving clean air rules are what the utility industry is targeting with this commission and its roving industry agenda.

The draft bill calls out by name three clean air programs for special attack and consideration for “exemption[s].” Not coincidentally, these safeguards long have been targeted by power sector lobbyists:

(1) New source review: a Clean Air Act permitting program for smog, soot and carbon pollution that power plant operators have violated for the past three decades. These violations prompted successful enforcement cases by the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations, joined by state attorneys general, and generated many billions of dollars in injunctive relief requiring pollution control equipment. When I worked on these cases in the New York attorney general’s office, we saw how valuable this clean air law was to control dirty coal-burning power plants and just how much these plants endangered our health. The Bush administration tried repealing these new source review safeguards in its ultimately unsuccessful “Clear Skies” legislation, and now utility lobbyists are trying a new tactic to seek to weaken or eliminate these protections.

It’s worth emphasizing that the draft bill’s invited attack on the new source review program is a reach well beyond the idea of eliminating best available control technology for greenhouse gases. It’s an attack on applying best available control technology to other health-endangering pollutants, like sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, that the Clean Air Act has covered for decades.

(2) New source performance standards: this clean air program establishes national performance standards for power plant pollution like smog and soot. EPA is expected to update these standards and propose standards for power plants’ carbon pollution next year.

(3) Air toxics standards: this clean air program establishes national performance standards for toxic air pollution like mercury, arsenic, lead, acid gases and heavy metals. Power plants have escaped meeting these standards for nearly two decades while other industries did their part and complied. During that period the Bush administration stalled the utility industry’s obligation for eight years by adopting thoroughly illegal rules that were struck down after NRDC and other environmental groups joined New York, New Jersey and other states to challenge the rules in court. EPA now must propose these crucially important standards next spring and finalize them next fall, some 21 years after these standards first were authorized in the 1990 Clean Air Act.

These important clean air rules finally will require many power plants to install cleanup equipment like scrubbers that they have escaped for decades due to violations of the law, or illegal delays and exemptions undertaken by EPA. Dirty power plants will need effective pollution controls by no later than 2015, but utility lobbyists argue that they should be allowed to escape those cleanup obligations if they were just given more time to shut down instead.

The draft legislation leaves an ominous blank for when any future shutdown date might be, but power plant lobbyists have been pushing for 2020 or 2025 or even later. Of course they don't want to clean up their toxic or smog or soot pollution during the period between now and 2020 or 2025 or later. Or if they did agree to better controls it would only be at the margins since they do not wish to install meaningful controls like scrubbers.

As a nation we have suffered the deadly consequences of this dangerous shell game for the past three decades. When the 1977 amendments to the Clean Air Act were adopted, dirty, decades-old power plants were grandfathered from strong cleanup requirements due in part to the prospect held out by the utility industry that waves of plants would shut down soon and it was not necessary to require them to incur the capital costs to clean up.

History has proven that prospect to be a fraud. The dirty old coal plants did not shut down and they did not clean up. Instead they continued to evade cleanup by going so far as to break the law themselves, then persuading the prior administration to break the law on their behalf.

There is a surefire way to cut all of this dangerous air pollution – smog, soot, toxins, carbon pollution – and that is to shutter these dirty old coal plants and replace them with cleaner resources. The American public should not be asked to offer their children's health as a bribe to shut these dirty plants. Congress should just set a schedule for these plants to clean up or shut down. But that schedule must not be one that allows these plants’ air pollution to continue sickening or even killing people, nor one that delays or weakens vitally important health safeguards.

Our friends at the American Lung Association have rightly noted that “[p]rovisions in this draft bill create an irresponsible process to roll back tools every community needs to protect its most vulnerable residents – children, seniors and those with chronic diseases – against dangerous air pollution.” The Association urges that these unnecessary and objectionable provisions be stripped from the bill.

We agree.

Clean energy legislation is the last place we need more damage from dirty energy.

Cleaner Cars and Strong Climate Policy Can Create up to 150,000 American Jobs, new report says

2010-03-16T20:03:51Z

Today, NRDC with the UAW and the Center for American Progress released a new report that demonstrates that fuel efficiency can go hand in hand with creating tens of thousands of high quality, clean energy manufacturing jobs. This is a text-book example of how with the right policies, we can create a win-win situation for the environment and the economy. Building more fuel efficient cars will, without doubt, reduce harmful pollution that threatens our environment but by putting the unemployed back to work, it can help save the economy too.

The report released today, called “Driving Growth: How Clean Cars and Climate Policy Can Create Jobs” was written by two Michigan-based researchers, Alan Baum from the analysis firm, The Planning Edge and Daniel Luria from the Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center. Building more efficient vehicles, the study concludes, would create a need for additional clean car technologies, (think improved transmissions, hybrid drive trains, turbo chargers, etc.) throughout the car supply chain that would, in turn, create tens of thousands of new jobs in many different states.

According to the study, increasing a car's fuel use to 40.2 miles per gallon by 2020 could create more than 190,000 jobs through the world. We believe cars could go to an even higher fuel standard, which would create even more jobs but the bottom line is: Better fuel economy means more clean technology components and more manufacturing jobs.

The key challenge is ensuring to the greatest degree possible that these jobs are created and remain domestically. Depending on policies, the study estimates between 49,000 and 151,000 of the jobs will be in the United States. Most experts, including those in the auto industry, understand that the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation are likely to strengthen greenhouse gas and fuel economy vehicle standards for the post 2016 period.

However, it is up to Congress to make sure the jobs that come along with new vehicles stay within the United States. Creating the right incentives can make sure that up to 150,000 of these new jobs stay here. The study sponsors agree with the report’s recommendations: “Comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation is the ideal policy tool because it provides support at the scale, predictability and duration needed to a fund a meaningful economic and technological transition. Domestic manufacturing incentives funded through steady allowance revenues, could prove crucial in the choices firms make where to locate production decisions and our economic stake in these emerging trends.” Clean energy, climate protection bills in Congress, including the House-passed American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R. 2454) and the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act (S.1733, the Manager’s Mark), can help ensure the auto jobs of the future are American jobs. Each of these bills provide more than $23 billion dollars in long-term funding, stretching from 2012 to 2025, to retool manufacturing facilities for the production of advanced combustion vehicles and the next generation of clean vehicles powered by grid electricity.

We have often said clean energy is the cleaner, cheaper, and faster way to meet our nation’s energy needs. Now we can add to that list “and create more good-paying jobs in the United States.” The report we released today demonstrates that building better cars is good for the environment and good for the economy. We urge Congress to act to ensure the U.S. does not lose out in the race for clean energy jobs.

High Speed Rail: $8 Billion Down Payment on Jobs, Security, and Sustainability

2010-01-28T18:45:57Z

Last night, I wrote that I was excited to hear President Obama lay out plans to recover the economy, enhance our energy security, and cut pollution by investing in an efficient, 21st-century high-speed rail network. But I had no idea how thrilled I’d be to actually see the Administration’s plans on paper.

Today, the president announced the first big steps toward a network of high speed rail corridors across the nation. The $8 billion in awards will touch 30 states in every region of the country, and are a down payment on a truly visionary transportation system.

Completed in 1992, our highway system is second to none in the world (though it is in dire need of repair and rehabilitation, which must be the focus of new highways investments). But in other areas, our transportation system is woefully behind our competitors in the global economy.

High speed rail has been up and running in Europe and Japan for years, and their systems continue to expand. China is investing tens of billions of dollars in their rail system, as are other Asian nations. Other emerging economies such as Brazil, Argentina, and South Africa all have major systems scheduled to come on line in the next decade.

As I said last night, President Obama’s commitment to high speed rail is a commitment to build the other half of the transportation system. Paired with new investments in local transit, commuter rail, and local pedestrian and cycling infrastructure, it is a key part of a rebalancing of our national transportation system. With $2.5 billion more from Congress on the way in 2010, and plans for major new investments proposed by House Transportation Chairman Jim Oberstar, this rebalancing starts now.

So what exactly does the president’s plan look like? Eventually, each of the major regions of the US will have high-speed rail connecting most major cities. Though this is a long term goal, today’s announcement will take a big step toward achieving it. The strategy is to invest in key corridors in a phased approach, building on our successes with each phase.

The first phase will concentrate funding in the West, Midwest, and Southeast.

West - $2,942,000,000
Midwest - $2,599,600,000
Southeast - $1,870,000,000
Northeast - $485,000,000

Grants fall into three categories: 1) true high-speed rail service, aimed a projects that will run at up to 150 miles per hour when completed; 2) emerging high-speed rail, which will bring existing passenger rail corridors up to speeds of 110 mph, with plans to increase speeds in the future; and 3) a series of projects to lay the groundwork for future high-speed rail corridors.

Largest awards

California High-Speed Rail: $2.25 billion
Tampa-Orlando Phase 1: $ 1.25 billion
Chicago-St. Louis Midwest: $1.1 billion
Madison-Milwaukee Midwest: $810 million
Seattle-Portland: $590 million
Charlotte-Richmond-Washington, DC: $520 million

The president’s rail initiative will have both an immediate and lasting impact on our country. Not only is this investment going to create tens of thousands of jobs and build our economy in the near term, it is going to continue to contribute to our economy in the long term.

When trains start running in each corridor, it is going to be a boon to both American businesses, which will benefit from better, more efficient mobility. Since rail is much more efficient than flying or driving, it will also help our energy security and our environment. A major study of transportation and climate change found that high-speed rail investments can help to save millions of tons of global warming pollution.

Fully building a national high speed rail system is something that will take time, stretching long beyond President Obama’s term of office. However, his vision extends beyond politics to the good of the country. The high-speed rail system that American begins building today will be a legacy ensuring that tomorrow, our country continues to have the best, most efficient transportation network in the world.

High-Speed Rail Tops Obama Plans for National Investments

2010-01-28T02:56:44Z

As I watched President Obama’s State of the Union speech tonight, I was excited to see the President connect the nation’s most pressing priorities with his vision of a modern high-speed rail network, following in the footsteps of President Dwight Eisenhower.

President Eisenhower told the nation in his 1955 State of the Union Address, “A modern highway system is essential to meet the needs of our growing population, our expanding economy, and our national security.” A year later, construction began on the largest infrastructure project America had ever attempted: the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways. Building the Interstate System would put Americans to work, help our nation’s businesses to prosper, and make the country more secure.

In tonight’s State of the Union Address, President Obama pledged economic recovery and national security through a similarly historic commitment to build the other half of America’s transportation system. The president will announce the first $8 billion of high-speed rail investments tomorrow, a down payment on a bigger plan to connect America with fast, efficient, modern trains. But I don’t need to hear his plan to understand how it will move this nation forward, because I know from experience.

I frequently travel between NRDC’s New York headquarters and our Washington office. My priority is getting there quickly, safely and with minimal impact on the environment. I choose high-speed rail whenever I can. It’s the quicker, easier, and cleaner than driving or flying. I don’t have to deal with airport delays and I am reducing pollution. The fact that these trains frequently sell out tell me many others agree. But too few Americans have this choice to begin with.

As much as America needs high-speed rail service, we will also see its benefits before a single high-speed train leaves the station. These investments will have an immediate impact on the U.S. economy, creating construction, manufacturing, and engineering jobs that can’t be outsourced. Last year, 32 rail manufacturers and suppliers pledged to expand or establish U.S.-based operations as a result of the Administration’s funding of high-speed rail.

High-speed investments will have a lasting impact on America as well. An efficient high-speed rail network will help us cut oil use in transportation, which will increase our energy independence and enhance our national security. It will help to improve the environment and avoid the impacts of climate change. It will also help America grow and prosper by improving mobility across the country, relieving gridlocked roads and crowded airports, which helps American commerce to thrive.

Eisenhower’s transportation vision helped America to prosper for 55 years. President Obama’s commitment to high-speed rail and a modern, efficient transportation system will put America on track to another century economic success.

Driving Toward Clean Air at Our Nation’s Ports

2009-10-27T21:41:31Z

This post was co-written with Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club. NRDC and Sierra Club are members of the Coalition for Clean and Safe Ports, supporters of the clean truck program.

"Cancer alley." That's what many Southern Californians call the 23-mile rail and truck corridor connecting our nation's largest seaport to massive distribution centers east of Downtown Los Angeles. In California alone, diesel air pollution from ships, trucks and trains kills more than 3,700 people every year -- more than died in the 9-11 attacks.

Despite this stunning death-toll, the American Trucking Association is aggressively trying to dismantle a successful program adopted a year ago this month by the Port of Los Angeles that is well on its way to reducing diesel emissions from port trucks by 80 percent, and establishing a model that diesel-afflicted communities around the nation are beginning to follow.

California's diesel body count may be highest, but concentrations of cancer, asthma and other diseases caused by air pollution occur wherever large amounts of cargo move by ship, truck and train. The victims tend to be poor people of color who live or work alongside our ports, freeways and cargo hubs. But toxic diesel smoke knows no boundaries. It follows the wind, depositing carcinogenic particulate matter in the lungs of rich and poor alike.

By banning the oldest trucks outright, putting cleaner trucks on the road, and creating powerful rules to move cargo greenly, Los Angeles officials have removed 2,000 of the dirtiest rigs from service and helped business put nearly 6,000 clean-burning and alternative fuel trucks on the road.

The landmark clean truck program at the Port of Los Angeles sets the standard because it ensures that trucking companies that can afford to meet increasingly stringent environmental standards are responsible for clean-up, instead of independent truck drivers, who have been historically underpaid. Under the program, trucking companies agree to meet environmental, safety, and security standards in exchange for access to port terminals.

However, the trucking industry is spending millions of dollars to undermine this progress and the progress of like-minded ports nationwide that want to adopt clean-up plans. In an ongoing lawsuit against the Port of Los Angeles, the trucking industry is trying to weaken the progressive clean truck program, arguing that the port has no authority to reform port trucking operations that occur on its own property or even cure inefficiencies that affect the bottom line. Industry representatives go so far as to argue that the port should be barred from verifying whether trucks comply with clean air standards when entering port facilities.

Municipal airports and privately-owned stadiums place conditions on those who want to do business there, increasing the odds that vendors operate safely and consistently provide a high level of service. Ports should feel empowered to do the same.

The litigation by the trucking industry relies on obscure federal law that wasn't designed to restrict the right of local governments to protect their residents' health. That's why Congress should act now to clarify the right of states and municipalities to protect their citizens from the lethal byproduct of cargo transport.

Los Angeles has survived these challenges so far, but the specter of intense litigation with the trucking industry may dissuade other ports and municipalities from pursuing similar programs to reduce diesel pollution and save lives. Mayors Bloomberg and Booker of the Ports of New York and Newark respectively, Mayor Ritter of the Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Port of Oakland Mayor Dellums, and officials in Virginia, Charleston, Houston, and Tacoma know that unchecked diesel pollution degrades and shortens lives and causes tens of billions of dollars in health-related costs every year. They are all calling to regulate and reduce truck-produced pollution at their ports.

Our collective failure to protect the public from diesel pollution is a moral outrage and a shame on our nation. Fortunately, the Obama Administration appreciates that Americans want and deserve clean air and the sustainable jobs that accompany it. In the case of Los Angeles, there's a proven track record of success. As we celebrate the program's first year, Congress should embrace this local green-growth model and take action to protect it.

The Judiciary's Role in Protecting Clean Air

2009-10-05T20:45:00Z

It's been a good couple of weeks for the clean air advocates.

First the federal appeals court in New York decided that a group of states and others could bring a nuisance case seeking to require the country's largest global warming polluters to reduce their emissions. Soon after Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson declared an end to "business as usual" as she announced the Obama administration plans to issue regulations to force large power plant and factory operators to track and report greenhouse gas emissions for the first time.

Taken together, these developments constitute important steps in the battle to reduce global warming pollution. Granted, neither victory is conclusive and major legal battles probably still lie ahead on both fronts. But both are signs of a shift in the debate.

The Sept. 22nd federal appeals court ruling is especially gratifying. In my former role as the head of the as Environmental Protection Bureau of the New York State Attorney General's Office, I was a lead litigator in the successful effort by eight states and several land trusts to sue American Electric Power Company and four other large electric power companies. These companies, which together own dozens of power plants throughout the United States, jointly emit 650 million tons of carbon dioxide pollution each year-as much as all of Canada emits.

The ruling that the states can, in fact, bring legal action against each company as a public nuisance is extremely important and upholds a long tradition of judicial protection for the environment.

In a 1906 ruling known as Missouri v. Illinois, for example, the Supreme Court -- long before Congress or state legislatures limited water pollution as they do now -- allowed Missouri to sue Illinois for dumping raw sewage into the Mississippi River, threatening the St. Louis drinking water supply. The Court held that, under our Constitution, "if the health and comfort of the inhabitants of a state are threatened ... it was to be expected that upon the [federal courts] would be devolved the duty of providing a remedy."

And one year later, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes -- often held up as one of the lions of judicial conservativism -- not only allowed Georgia to sue polluters in Tennessee (Georgia v Tennessee Copper Co.) for "sulphurous fumes" wafting across the border, but imposed precise pollution limits on the upwind copper smelter.

He built upon one of the most profound principles of our Union: that states cannot wage economic or other war against other states. That core concept, which has pulled together the 50 states into one country for more than 200 years, came with the need for the federal government, including the courts, to solve inter-state disputes. "When the states by their union made the forcible abatement of outside nuisances impossible to each ... they did not renounce the possibility of making reasonable demands [to protect] their quasi-sovereign interests ... in this court."

As Justice Holmes recognized, peaceful resolution of disputes by the courts is not a radical or liberal notion; it is a core part of America.

In the American Electric Power case, the power companies argued that any court ruling would be tantamount to re-ordering all U.S. economic activity by imposing broad new limits on carbon dioxide.

Just as had courts before it, this appeals panel saw the difference: "Nowhere ... do Plaintiffs ask the court to fashion a comprehensive and far-reaching solution to global climate change, a task that arguably falls within the purview of the political branches. Instead they seek to limit emissions from six domestic coal-fired electricity plants."

The court closed by quoting a 1981 Supreme Court decision (City of Milwaukee v Illinois) that allowed Illinois to sue Milwaukee for dumping sewage into Lake Michigan and threatening its drinking water because no federal law clearly prohibited such pollution: "It may happen that new federal laws ... may in time pre-empt the field of the federal common law of nuisance. But until that comes to pass, federal courts will be empowered to appraise the equities of the suits alleging creation of a public nuisance" by pollution.

Last week, the federal court did its job -- moving forward to resolve the dispute before it peacefully. The court noted that it is Congress's job to develop a comprehensive solution to global warming. Rather than criticizing the courts for doing what the Constitution empowers and expects them to do, we should all work together to get Congress to do what the Constitution empowers and expect it to do -- enact a comprehensive solution to global warming.

Meeting the Enemy

2009-09-15T20:53:28Z

During eight years as chief of the Environmental Protection Bureau in the New York State Attorney General's Office, I had the political backing necessary to take on large corporate polluters.

Such support is crucial to enforce the hard-won standards contained in our environmental legislation. If there was any doubt, The New York Times ("Clean Water Laws Neglected, at a Cost") has laid bare just want happens when political will fails: polluters with deep pockets and millions-sometimes billions-of dollars at stake run roughshod over our country's cornerstone environmental laws.

Public records, government documents and even reports submitted by polluters themselves analyzed by the Times set out a stunning portrait of non-compliance across the country that includes over half a million violations of the 1972 Clean Water Act since 2004. Well over half of these were described as "significant non-compliance". Still, the Times' research found fewer than 3% of these Clean Water Act violations resulted in fines or other significant punishment.

For anyone in the business of enforcing environmental law, these figures merely provide unsettling detail for a broader picture they already know all too well. The numbers underscore a stark reality: our environmental laws have not failed us; we have failed our environmental laws. To quote the comic strip character Pogo, "We have met the enemy and he is us." Without enforcement, even the finest laws protect little.

Environmental regulation was rarely a Bush administration priority and the New York Times report has given a whiff of what that low priority has produced. Today, there is a new administration in Washington and the appointment of Lisa Jackson as head of the Environmental Protection Agency is encouraging. She told The Times that "strengthening water protections is "among her top priorities."

It will be important that she repeatedly shows her attention to water quality because political direction-and political will-flow from the top. If the EPA shows determination on enforcement, then state regulators will get tough, too. Success in just one high profile case can cause a ripple effect with a far broader impact.

While political will is crucial, it's not enough. Government regulators at both federal and state levels often lack the resources needed to enforce key provisions of the Clean Water Act and other environmental legislation. In New York state, for example, the number of regulated polluters has doubled over the past decade, yet the number of government inspectors has remained roughly the same, according to the Times. When the economic slowdowns force governments at all levels to tighten their belts, enforcement budgets are often among the first cut.

But beyond these staffing numbers there's also a more subtle-equally damaging-barrier to enforcement that has grown steadily over the past two decades: the ability of defendants to drag out enforcement cases to the point that the process itself becomes a deterrent to regulators. If they launch an enforcement case today, they know they are taking on a long and exhausting battle, one that could last years-while still dealing with everything else on their plate.

For example, it took the New York State Attorney General's office, working with EPA, the Department of Justice and other states and environmental organizations (including NRDC) ten years to win cases against major polluters who had violated the Clean Air Act's New Source Review Provisions.

It was an important case because the pollution was costing thousands of lives each year and although we won it, the very length of such a fight raises questions about the balance of public interests versus the interests of private polluters; between public health and private gain. To protect the public, the pace of these cases must go faster at both the administrative and judicial level. There needs to be greater presumptions favoring the public interest.

To achieve that, we have to ask ourselves how we feel as a people about environmental law, the value we place on it and the value we place on those who regulate it. All too often, the regulator's public image is a negative cliché: a bureaucrat interested mainly in disrupting business and endangering jobs. The truth is far different. The New York Times story provides a glimpse of what happens when regulators are unable to enforce environmental laws. Law enforcement is critical to leveling the playing field and ending the competitive advantage given to polluters. Consistent enforcement is also crucial to create the kind of predictability needed to justify for new investment. But the real evidence of under-enforcement is that, years after the deadlines imposed in key environmental legislation, we haven't yet met the goals set out in those laws and people still get sick from drinking water.

Greening the U.S. Open

2009-09-02T18:46:58Z

This weekend, I had the pleasure of participating in a US Open event. No - not a tennis match - but something that is still an integral part of the US Open: the announcement of this year's greening initiative.

This is the second year now that NRDC has worked with the US Tennis Association to make the US Open an increasingly sustainable sporting event.

I was in good company at the press conference, with fellow spokesperson Alec Baldwin. We spoke about the genesis of this initiative, how it has progressed, and why it matters. That last part is key. It matters a lot for several reasons.

The US Open is an international platform, receiving attention from tennis fans worldwide. By making sustainability a priority at this event, the USTA is sending a message to their fans that environmental stewardship is a value they hold dear. We've been proud to be a part of this outreach and have even helped them produce PSAs for their jumbotrons and elsewhere, incorporating the assistance of their spokespeople - Alec as well as Billie Jean King and Venus Williams among others. Check them out here:

But the greening of the US Open is important for another reason - its impact in the marketplace.

When the USTA decided they were going to make a change, that inspires their vendors to change. And a ripple effect occurs - more businesses sell sustainable products. Companies that once didn't have enough hybrids in their fleet to service such a big event or couldn't produce napkins with post consumer content expanded and improved the products they had to offer. Today, multiple companies have fully developed green offshoots of their core business, and can now offer these eco-friendlier services for other clients moving forward.

While a full list of the USTA's achievements can be found here - I thought I'd take the time to highlight a few items I think are especially important:

Recycling Measures:

The USTA has made recycling a priority. They have placed recycling bins throughout 100% of the complex next to each and every trash can. This is one of the fastest expansions of a recycling program we've seen.

They are recycling the overwhelming majority of the 20,000 tennis ball cans they'll use during the event. To do this, they had NRDC find a recycling company that could figure out how to recycle the cans that contain two different kinds of plastic (in the can body and lid) and a metal ring that has to be removed. That's a lot of plastic that will no longer be landfilled - and also a reminder that most things should be recycled.

Energy:

Another important achievement is their efforts make energy improvements. They have reduced the number of energy servers they use for this event from a whopping 60 to just 6. That's a huge step in the right direction toward energy efficiency. And for the energy they're still using, they have purchased wind power through Green-e renewable energy certificates. By purchasing with Green-e they've ensured that the credits meet the standards we think are meaningful for renewable energy and make renewables that much more cost-competitive.

Concessions:

Lastly, it's important to note their work with Levy - their concessionaire. Levy is in charge of all the food, utensils, paper, etc (basically all the stuff that people normally identify as source of a stadium's waste).

The US Open worked closely with Levy to make sure they would source food from about a dozen local farms, create a pilot composting program, recover cooking oil for use as biodiesel fuel, and ensure that products including utensils and napkins were made out our recycled and/or biobased content.

And to do all this, Levy had to reach back to their own group of vendors and oftentimes seek out new ones to fulfill the US Open's request. It's another great precedent-setter for the marketplace.

In the end, I'd say I was part of a great US Open event, even if it wasn't the finals. On the cusp of the event's opening day was an ideal time to highlight all the equally great achievements happening off the court. From the upstream message the US Open is sending to companies they work with to the downstream message they're sending to their fans worldwide, the USTA has proven that - as they say - "their courts may be blue, but they're thinking green". Indeed.

But while the press event was important, I admit that watching tennis is more fun.

Rainstorm Couldn't Stop the Made in America Jobs Tour

2009-08-25T16:30:11Z

A ferocious storm provided an electrifying backdrop for the recent kick-off of the Made in America Jobs Tour, the first of 22 rallies across the country to promote the job creating potential of a new clean energy economy.

This tour offers an opportunity for people to tell a new story- and hit back on those "opponents of change" who are trying to block progress for America. Over the past several weeks, we have heard too much fear-mongering and misinformation sponsored by front groups of big oil and coal associations. Now, it's time for a new story about how we can create good-paying jobs through clean energy investments in Cleveland and across the country.

The quick moving storm did not dampen the enthusiasm of the rally near the Cleveland Science Center. As lightening bolts danced off Lake Erie, the rally shifted to the center's parking garage. Outside, the center's iconic 150 foot wind turbine provided a fitting image for a new clean energy future in the job hungry rust belt.

Speakers from all walks of the labor, business, education and environmental communities came forward to talk about how the clean energy economy can help American workers.

Speakers like United Steelworkers metal greaser Lee Geisse, who builds titanium hubs for wind turbines in Louisville, Ohio. Lee, wearing her union hard hat, said: "I'm lucky enough to have worked in a place that worked all through the downturn. My company had the foresight to invest in the clean energy economy."

I had a few minutes after the rally to talk with Lee. When I asked her about the response she gets when she talks to her colleagues about clean energy, she said my question is a fairly typical one from the "green" world. But she added that union members completely understand. "The workers know we need to move to clean energy," she said. "We're smarter than they think."

You can see Lee in short video clip, here:

Lee understands that clean energy policies can create good-paying jobs in Cleveland and across the country. According to the Political Economic Research Institute (PERI), we can create over a million and a half jobs across America by investing in clean energy. In the Cleveland metropolitan area, investment in clean energy would produce more than 10,000 jobs-and more than half of them would go to people with a high-school degrees or less.

Investing in clean energy will have additional benefits, like weatherizing homes so people in Cleveland save money -- up to 4 percent of their income-- on heating and cooling bills. And these investments will improve access to public transportation so that people can save money -- 1-4 percent of their income -- getting to work.

Tom Conway, the international Steelworker's Union vice president, was emphatic about the growth potential from clean energy technologies in Ohio, where turbines are being build in abandoned and converted steel mills. As he said: "When you think about green jobs, green jobs are just a lot of regular, traditional jobs that help reduce the carbon footprint and help our planet be cleaner...it's work that we know we can do, that Americans can do. This is the way to move forward and rebuild manufacturing that we need so importantly in this nation."

By the time the rally came to an end, the sun was peaking through the crowds, glinting off the powerful turbine blades nearby. Mother Nature had demonstrated that she is nothing to tamper with.

There's no doubt that people like Tom and Lee get it. And I know they are not alone. Across America people understand that we can make our air safer and our communities stronger by moving to clean energy. We don't have to choose between good jobs and the environment- we can have more good jobs and a safer environment.

The Made in America Jobs Tour, organized by the Alliance for Climate Protection and the Blue Green Alliance, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, will sponsor more than 50 events in 22 states, including St. Louis, Missouri; Detroit, Michigan; Gary, Indiana; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Check the website www.repoweramerica.org/tour for more information about when a rally will be coming to a community near you.

Secretary LaHood and Shifting the Way we Build

2009-06-20T15:30:27Z

President Obama reached across the political aisle when he selected Representative Ray LaHood, a Republican from Illinois, as his Transportation Secretary. The appointment was met by some skepticism: LaHood's resume on transportation issues was decried as very thin.

But Secretary LaHood earned special praise earlier this week when he joined the leaders of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Housing and Urban Development in a new Partnership for Sustainable Communities, a landmark effort in recognizing the vital and logical but not always well understood relationship between housing, transportation and the environment.

The ambitious, collaborative approach these three agencies are taking will have a positive impact on the lives of millions of Americans and represents a shift in the way we build our country and protect our environment.

Considering that housing and transportation account for two of the largest slices of our emissions pie, the Partnership and its forthcoming work will be essential to America's continued prosperity in the 21st century.

In testimony before a Senate committee, Secretary LaHood noted the urgent need to reduce emissions, the health benefits of well-designed efficient communities and the savings associated with public transit. As my colleague Kaid Benfield noted in his blog, Secretary LaHood's testimony painted a clear picture for the future of transportation:

"Transportation can play an enhanced role in creating safer, healthier communities with the strong economies needed to support our families," he said.

"Integrating transportation planning with community development and expanding transportation options will not only improve connectivity and influence how people choose to travel, but also lower transportation costs, reduce dependence on foreign oil and decrease emissions," LaHood continued. "All segments of the population must have access to safe and convenient transportation options to get to work, housing, medical services, schools, shopping and other essential activities including recreation."

As EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson succinctly put it in her own testimony before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, "where you live affects how you get around, and how you get around often affects where you live. Both decisions affect our environment."

Secretary LaHood's statement, which highlighted the economic and environmental importance of developing a new transportation network (and ethos) in the United States, showed strong vision in thinking outside the highway box. And the Partnership for Sustainable Communities is poised to do just that.

Describing the Devastation of Mountaintop Mining

2009-01-29T14:00:55Z

As a lawyer, I've written about environmental harms quite often. Yet as I recently flew over several of the larger mountaintop mines in eastern Kentucky, I struggled to find the words to describe the devastation. The scars where trees, topsoil and many feet of unwanted rock have been ripped off, leaving barren rubble behind. The dams at the head of the valleys (known locally as "hollows") that fill the steep valleys with the rubble and other fill. Unnaturally colored ponds sitting behind the dams.

I visited eastern Kentucky at the invitation of Marianne, a friend from school, and her husband Jim. While there, we met many people engaged in fighting mountaintop removal and took an air tour of the mining sites. Appropriately enough, after our tour, we landed at Wendell Ford airport, the site of a former mountaintop mine now turned into a flat table where a steep mountain had once been. Greeting us at the airport were posters claiming that "coal is the future," with photos that can only be described as Orwellian:

Before: a mountain, looking barren and useless.
During: big trucks and bulldozers, implying jobs.
After: animals and grasses and specific claims that reclamation of mined areas "improves" the land.

The lie represented by those photos was seen clearly from the air where all we could see for miles was barren rock, not fertile productive farms. Rick, who has lived in the area his entire life, told us that there are no animals in mined areas. Animals, he explained, need nuts to last through the winter. Nuts obviously come from trees and the biggest piece missing from these lands are trees.

Truman, another life long resident of the area, put it simply: "Trees don't grow in rock rubble."

Another area resident showed us where coal companies, rushing to mine before the end of the Bush Administration, pushed over all the trees, further devastating the landscape without any regard for logging income and jobs that would be lost.

I asked our companions why so few people complain about the mines destroying their water supplies, covering their houses with toxic dust and cracking their foundations with blasting?

Carl, a third-generation miner now retired, says he's speaking out and many people tell him privately that they agree, but can't speak publicly because a family member has a job with a mine and would lose it if they did. "It's the only way to support their families now; that's why we need some wind farms and other energy sources around here," he said.

Yes, indeed. Renewable energy is part of the answer. So is energy efficiency - I did not see one compact fluorescent bulb in or on any of the houses or buildings in the hollows. We also need to cap carbon and make coal pay its true price so that clean energy can compete with it. NRDC will be working on all of that.

Oh, and we found out that the coal ash that caused the big spill in Tennessee at the TVA Kingston plant came from the very hollow - Montgomery Creek - that we visited. The coal destroyed one community when it was dug up and another when it was dumped.

Seems so last 18th century. I know that a 21st century technology and policy can do better. Working with the new Administration in Washington and the local communities that are literally being blown away, we will.

The photographs that accompany this post were taken by NRDC member J. Henry Fair. They were both taken at Kayford Mountain in Southern West Virginia in late 2005. Additional photographs by Henry can be found at http://www.jhenryfair.com and http://www.industrialscars.com

Taking a Break to Plant a Tree

2009-01-28T15:50:54Z

TURRIALBA, Costa Rica -- There is a reason they call them rainforests. It was pouring as I put the first tree into the ground here in a new forest that NRDC is planting with the support of our members. The one good thing about all that rain: it made it easier to dig the hole.

We’re planting the rainforest in Costa Rica in an area that long ago was a rainforest, but for the last 50 or 100 years has been a cattle farm. Nearby are other existing forests as well as some other acreage that we hope will also get replanted as forest. The seedling I planted, a native species called Vochysia, was about 10 inches high. I had just stood by a Vochysia tree that was about 30 feet high and only 5-6 years old. Trees and other plants grow so quickly here that it is very exciting to think that birds will be perching in the tree I planted within a couple of years.

Jose Joaquin Campos, the director of CATIE – the Center for Tropical Agriculture, Investigation, and Education – showed me the area and also planted a tree. Campos works with students from more than 20 countries in Latin America, teaching them all sustainable farming and other practices.

In the area of the new rainforest, they have carefully studied the watershed. The area feeds one of Costa Rica’s largest rivers but it has a lot of small towns with few sewage facilities and farms that cause a great deal of erosion. So they are working hard to restore the area and to teach farmers how to conserve their soil.Many of the trees in NRDC’s forest will be planted by local school children or by local farmers learning about tree planting so they can plant native trees on some of their land.

It’s quite something to drive around this part of Costa Rica. It rains a lot so it’s very lush. But much of the lush greenness is pasture for dairy cows. Some call it the Switzerland of Latin America. But those lush fields are almost all former rainforests so to understand lushness is only possible when you go into the rainforest itself.

In the forest, the vegetation is so think it’s impossible to go anywhere not on a path. I counted about 15 types of ferns in a few minutes (and I’m no expert). Trees of all sizes and shapes. I could hear lots of birds, but see few of them in the foliage. Even the air smells and feels vibrant. Of course, with all this tree cover, the land retains its soil moisture better and there is far less erosion and runoff so the nearby streams are richer as well.

Indeed, not so long ago, I walked up a stream to see a big waterfall nearby the new forest. There was no path and the only way was to go up the stream itself, walking in the water. The rainforest – also a second growth forest that is now legally protected – came right down to water’s edge. Blue morpho butterflies and many others I don’t know the name of flitted by. Small waterfalls brought little rivulets into the stream. It was clear that stream and rainforest were one joint ecosystem.

The NRDC forest-to-be will connect several of Costa Rica’s parks, allowing animals to freely roam amidst the rivers and streams crossing the area like arteries. It’s nice to be able to take a break from law books and memos to see our work literally take root.

True Leadership Coming to EPA, Part III

2009-01-17T17:00:40Z

This is the final part of my three-part open letter to the new EPA administrator, Lisa Jackson, regarding the changes that are needed to help us tackle urgent environmental problems more effectively.

Yesterday, I wrote about how we can better implement our environmental laws by using the precautionary principle that is already written into the nation's environmental laws.

Another critical improvement would be to change how we shape our laws and their relation to the market. For too long, environmental protections have had to swim against the current of private profit. We impose pollution mandates, but fail to address the market in which polluters act. Fines are supposed to address profit margins, but, as I noted, they are not fully enforced or implemented and thus do not change the overall bias against protection. With minor exceptions, pollution controls cost money and thus run against private profit.

We need to flip that so that our laws and private interest are aligned as much as possible. And the main way to do that is to put a price on all pollution. A price would encourage private actors to reduce pollution. I'm not suggesting, as some do, that we replace the current Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act and other laws but rather that we use a wide array of economic tools to bolster our legal mandates. In addition to specific pollution limits, as we now have in many statutes, we need market incentives.

If we were to require better and more truthful information about the true costs of wasted energy, for example, energy efficiency standards would be more easily adopted, implemented and followed.

Another example: Put a price on pollution by beefing up the natural resource damages provisions so they apply more generally and, in almost all cases, you'll probably find less violation of permits. Put a price on all the types of pollution and make the polluter pay for every bit that is discharged, even pollution within permit limits, and the dialogue over permit limits will change dramatically. Every pound of heavy metal pollution discharges to our streams, every ton of NOx emitted to our air, every pound of pollution from farm runoff -- put a price on all of it. Again, the answer is both, not either alone.

With reference to climate change, there are both price and non-price barriers to clean and efficient energy. Thus, we must put a price on carbon through a cap-and-invest system. But we must also develop efficiency and renewable energy standards, provide financial incentives from auction revenues for clean and efficient energy and transportation, and take other steps.

This approach to climate security legislation draws on lessons from the past. And we can revisit rules under existing laws to create systems where prices and roundtable safeguards mutually support each other. Put a pollution fee on every ton of SO2 or NOX emitted, put a fee on every pound of biochemical oxygen demand or metal discharged and make that fee large enough to provide funds to restore the damage.

In the last 25 years I've spent practicing environmental law, I've come to think that real change requires at least two or three laws mandating the change. Polluters too easily ignore or find ways around any one law. To achieve our environmental goals, the reality of the last decade shows that we need more information and disclosure, more facility specific pollution limits, more ambient environmental targets, and more positive market support. It's not either/or, but both/and.

I urge the new EPA to use all existing laws and regulations to their fullest potential. Once all the existing power is leveraged, it should also go before Congress and seek stronger, more effective measures. These dual efforts should also be complemented by support from the Department of Justice, so that those who harm the environment feel the full force of government - from the executive, the legislature and the judiciary. The nature of the crises we face calls for this type of historic, unified effort. We have serious environmental challenges ahead of us and we have a lot of work to do.

True Leadership Coming to EPA, Part II

2009-01-16T23:13:41Z

This is part two of my three-part series on the ways the new administration, guided by a revitalized EPA, can strengthen environmental protections, and steer America away from the threats of climate change, toxic pollution and other environmental disasters. Yesterday, I wrote about how we can better enforce our existing laws.

In addition to enforcing the laws, we need to change how we implement them, moving from what could be called the "pollution principle" to the "precautionary principle."

Let me give you an example. Under the Clean Water Act, water pollution permit hearings can drag on for months or more. Yet even with such lengthy proceedings, regulated utilities or businesses are able to push back against regulators who seek to set pollution permits at protective levels by insisting on extensive analyses that overburden available resources.

This has created a process so time consuming and expensive for governments that permitting bodies have learned to err in favor of the polluter in the hopes of avoiding litigation. So when there is doubt as to the amount of stress a system can take -- pollution in a stream, grazing or timbering on land, or the like -- the default ends up being to allow as much pollution as doubt allows. That gets the permits out faster and is more likely to avoid litigation by regulated businesses.

I've seen this personally many times. Good people are pressured to reduce public protections more than they believe appropriate. Polluters have so intimidated those who set effluent or emission standards that now there is effectively a right to pollute unless proven otherwise.

This is backwards. To solve it, we need to change the burden of proof when it comes to pollution and environmental harm. The default in case of uncertainty should be toward less, not more pollution. The burden of proof at every stage should be on the polluter, not the public; the presumption should be public health.

Here's another instance. In the judicial realm, when an agency action -- a regulation for example -- is challenged, the standard of review courts must follow is established by the Supreme Court's decision in Chevron v. NRDC (467 U.S. 837 (1984) available at http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=CASE&court=US&vol=467&page=837 ). That standard is entirely procedural and devoid of substantive direction. But the standard of review should not ignore substance particularly when Congress acted. The congressional preference expressed in most environmental statues is not neutral; environmental laws favor public health protection over private profit. And the intent of the statue should affect the deference courts give agencies.

For example, when EPA issues a rule under the Clean Air Act, a statute Congress enacted to improve air quality, there should be more leeway given to the agency if someone challenges the rule as being overly protective, but little leeway given if the claim is the rule is not protective enough. Similarly, any uncertainty or ambiguity in a Clean Water Act permit decision that imposed more stringent discharge limits to protect water purity should be reviewed with greater deference than one that allowed higher pollution levels because greater deference would give more meaning to the Act's goals that all waters should be clean enough for drinking, fishing and swimming.

In most statutes, Congress has indicated the position to which we should default. Congress wants us to err on the side of caution. The Clean Air Act talks about setting healthy levels with "margins of safety." The Clean Water Act has different systems overlaying each other to ensure full protection. CERCLA, the statue that set up the "Superfund" for pollution remediation, is intended to be read broadly. The National Environmental Policy Act does more than just require agencies to write environmental impact statements; it establishes a "national policy" to consider environmental impacts in all decision making and "to promote efforts which will prevent or eliminate damage to the environment and biosphere and stimulate the health and welfare of man." The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act ensures that hazardous wastes cannot be buried out of sight and out of mind; its mandate applies without regard to site-specific demonstration of harm. The Endangered Species Act has a zero extinction policy.

When we look at the intent of our environmental statutes, we find clear meaning to protect the land, air and water. But when regulators or the courts treat each case separately, we fail to see the forest for the trees.

In July 1869, the great naturalist John Muir wrote, "When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe." Just as those opposing environmental protections have been able to infuse the entire system to bias private profit, non-governmental organizations and their allies must seek to change the systemic bias of our laws, our public laws, to one of public benefit and inter-connectedness.

Tomorrow, I'll post my third and final part of this series on how we must change our environmental laws to meet the challenges ahead.

True Leadership Coming to the EPA

2009-01-14T16:00:59Z

My colleagues and I at NRDC were pleased at President-elect Obama's recent announcement that Lisa Jackson will head the Environmental Protection Agency. Lisa has been a strong, honest and knowledgeable voice for the environment as Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. Her vigorous advocacy for the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) showed true leadership. It is thus exciting news that the EPA will have her at the helm.

Jackson will have a tough job reversing many years of rollbacks and making up for lost time. In this blog post and the following two, I offer a few thoughts on some larger scale themes that might help a re-invigorated EPA. Others should also think hard and offer helpful suggestions as the task will require the support of all of us. (These ideas are taken from recent presentations I made at New York University Law School and Pace Law School.)

Right from the beginning, EPA needs to bring back the culture of enforcement, of making sure the laws on paper make a difference in the real world. Real enforcement has three components.

First we must be able to bring the cases. For years, access to the courts has been eroded by an ever-more constrained view of what is known as "standing," the shorthand term for who is entitled under law to bring cases to the courts. We must reexamine and find a way to restructure our understanding of public interest standing, so issues of broad concern, like many environmental matters, can be more easily heard by the courts. EPA should be sure to acknowledge the broad benefits of its actions so that such benefits can form the basis of their own and citizen enforcement actions. Also, the Department of Justice should re-visit and revise its policy of when to raise standing challenges in cases brought by public interest plaintiffs. (DOJ has often revised its policy on this issue in the past.)

Second we must actually bring the cases. Right now, frankly, most violations are ignored. In part, there just are not enough enforcement resources. For example, the Clean Air Act New Source Review (NSR) program mandates that upgraded power plants, refineries, and factories install state-of-the art pollution controls. These controls would avoid over 20,000 premature deaths each year and reduce hundreds of thousands of hospital visits every year. (Those are the EPA's numbers, not mine.) But the NSR program for years had been ignored or underutilized by the federal and state governments. Indeed, non-enforcement was such the norm that when the government at the end of the Clinton administration began enforcing the NSR program against power plants, industry squealed, even persuading the media and the incoming President Bush to take seriously the notion that aggressive law enforcement is unfair. When non-enforcement becomes a right, we have a sad state of affairs.

Third, we must insist making polluters pay the full penalties the law provides. Right now penalties are almost always cheaper than cleanup so it's almost always cheaper to wait to until caught. When scofflaws do this, the good companies that actually comply with the law have to compete in the market against the violators who have lower costs. That's not fair to those who follow the law.

Take another NSR example. After a decade-long battle, NRDC, EPA, New York and several other states and environmental organizations agreed to settle a lawsuit over American Electric Power's violations of NSR requirements. In the settlement, AEP agreed to install almost $4.5 billion of pollution controls that should have been installed a decade ago, to pay $15 million dollars in civil penalties, and to pay $60 million dollars in environmental mitigation projects. That's $75 million and that sounds like a lot. However, in the same year, AEP's revenues exceeded $13 billion. That's nearly 200 times the penalties and projects. More important however, AEP's violations allowed it to delay the installation of $4.5 billion of controls for a decade. That delay was worth hundreds of millions of dollars to AEP. Indeed, the penalty of $15 million is less than the time-value of that $4.5 billion for four weeks. (I'm not criticizing the lawyers who reached this settlement; over the years I've also been involved in many cases with penalties less than what they in theory should be. I was involved in the early stages of this AEP case. We cannot make the change we need in one case, but only through articulated policies and consistent practices supported from the top.)

Imposing real penalties -- that even when discounted by the risk of actually getting caught -- would exceed the benefits of polluting and would create financial incentives for compliance. It would shift the advantage to those who comply, creating a real "market-based" approach in the process.

Tomorrow I'll post the second part of this series on the changes we need in environmental law to ensure that the EPA, as well as independent advocacy groups like NRDC, can seek the levels of protection that are truly needed.