Green Daily

Last week, the International Center for Technology Assessment and a coalition of environmental and public health groups, including the the Center for Food Safety, Greenpeace, and Consumers Union, filed a citizen petition asking that the EPA regulate nanosilver as a pesticide under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act .

Nanosilver has been added to a host of consumer products -- everything from sheets to bus handrails to children's toys -- for its antimicrobial properties.

The House and Senate are just about finished with conference negotiations over the reauthorization of the farm bill (HR 2419). The farm bill is sprawling, $570 billion piece of legislation, containing provisions on everything from Food Stamps and WIC to crop subsidies to biofuels to drought and flood aid.
This year's reauthorization looked all but dead as conferees from the House and Senate fought over protectionist subsidies and tariffs, the competing demands of a tight budget v. the need to increase food aid, conservation measures, and more.

But, after months of intense negotiations between House Agriculture Committee Chair Collin Peterson, Sens. Tom Harkin, Pat Roberts, and Kent Conrad, is the farm bill dead on arrival?

A silent tsunami which knows no borders sweeping the world.

That is how Josette Sheeran, head of the UN World Food Program, described the worsening global food crisis. Food shortages have caused riots in Haiti, Cameroon, Indonesia and Egypt, among others.

The sharp increases in food prices are attributed to several factors, including (1) an increased demand for biofuels (corn being made into ethanol rather than sold on the food market), (2) drought (e.g., in Australia) or flooding (Bolivia, South Asia, some parts of E. Africa), (3) surging demand from developing nations like China and India, (4) shortages of fertilizer, and (5) property rights.

So what's being done to ease the burden on the world's poor?

America's Climate Security Act (S. 2191) is supposed to be coming to the floor of the Senate sometime in early June.

Even though S. 2191 hasn't yet reached the floor, an alternative is already percolating. Sen. George Voinovich plans to introduce his own climate change bill: the Incentives-Based Climate Policy Act.

The Voinovich bill -- still in draft form -- looks like an attempt at a real, middle-of-the-road compromise in the increasingly partisan debate over reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

So, it appears that Sen. McCain isn't alone in his need for an Econ 101 refresher.

Today, presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton criticized Barack Obama for not supporting the plan to suspend federal taxes on gasoline and diesel from Memorial Day through Labor Day. "I understand the American people need some relief," said Sen. Clinton.

There's no denying that the Americans are cash-strapped. As oil prices climbed toward $120 a barrel, food costs continue to skyrocket, and access to credit tightens, suspending the gasoline tax would almost certainly provide some small measure of short-term relief. But suspending the tax, in the long-term is a terrible idea.

Presidential candidate John McCain is calling for a Memorial Day-to-Labor Day moratorium on collecting the 18.4 cent-a-gallon federal gasoline tax and 24.4 cent-a-gallon federal diesel tax.

Yes, gasoline is very expensive. The price for one barrel of light, sweet crude hit $114.08 on April 15. The national average for a gallon of gasoline is $3.386; diesel is $4.119 per gallon. And yes, prices will increase as more refineries move to summer-blend gasoline, a lower evaporation formula that causes less air pollution (for more on blended gasoline, check out this Slate article.)

But reducing the cost of gasoline by reducing or eliminating the federal tax is a phenomenally bad idea.

Last week, Richard Cabrera, a geological engineer, recommended that Chevron pay $8-16 billion in damages if it loses a lawsuit brought by indigenous groups.

The groups allege that Texaco, bought by Chevron in 2001, dumped tons of oil-mining waste into waterways. Chevron points to Petroecuador, in which Texaco had a minority business interest, as the culprit.

The lawsuit is garnering a lot of American interest. It was originally filed in New York in the early 90s, but the District Court ruled that it did not have proper jurisdiction to hear the case. In 2003, the lawsuit moved to Ecuador.

In February 2006, Sens. Barack Obama and Patrick Leahy, both members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sent a letter to Trade Representative Rob Portman asking that his office ignore lobbying efforts by Chevron on the Andean Free Trade agreement to get Ecuador to drop the lawsuit.

They wrote, " We are writing to seek your assurances that the U.S. Trade Representative will not allow negotiations over the Andean Free Trade Agreement to interfere with a case involving Chevron that is under consideration by the Ecuadorian judiciary, particularly one involving environmental, health and human rights issues that have regional importance. While we are not prejudging the outcome of the case, we do believe the 30,000 indigenous residents of Ecuador deserve their day in court."

As food prices continue to rise -- especially for corn given the mandate in the 2005 energy bill to produce more ethanol – fewer farmers are letting their land lay fallow and accepting payments for not planting.

The payments for not-farming come via the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). The program is designed to prevent soil erosion, reduce sedimentation and pollution in waterways due to runoff, and increase habitat for wildlife. In February 2008, some 34 million acres were part of the CRP with farmers paid between $44 and $125 per acre, on average, to refrain from farming. The upper end of the scale is from the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP). CREP is for land that abuts ecologically sensitive habitat like wetland; here in Maryland, it applies to land near the barely-hanging-on Chesapeake Bay

But now, the per-acre payments are paltry when compared to wheat at $9 a bushel (yield is about 50 bushels per acre, or $450) and corn at $6 a bushel (yield is about 140 bushels per acre, or $840). And farmers want out of their decade-long contracts with the CRP.

This coming week, the House of Representatives will take up H.R. 2537, a bill to reauthorize the Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health (BEACH) Act of 2000, also known as the "Clean Water Act."

The bill would authorize $40 million per year through 2012 for grants to help states develop and implement for source tracking, sanitary surveys, and prevention efforts to address beach pollution.

Give your representative a ring or write them an email and urge them to support this legislation. (Don't write a letter. Since 9/11, and the Senate anthrax scare, all mail going to Congress is shuttled to an off-site facility for inspection. It takes forever for snail mail to reach offices.)

And while you're at it, urge 'em to support full funding for the bill in this year's appropriations bill. But the bill says $40 million? Doesn't that mean it will get $40 million? Not necessarily.

On April 4, Harry Reid introduced a cloture motion for S. 2739, the Consolidated Natural Resources Act. Included along with S. 2739 are S. 520, the Wild Sky Wilderness Act of 2007 and S. 2483, and the National Forests, Parks, Public Land and Reclamation Projects Authorization Act of 2007. When a bill is composed of several stand-alone piece of legislation, it is usually called an omnibus).

Cloture requires 60 members to vote "yea" to close debate on a bill and move to a vote. If the Senate can't reach 60, then debate can continue indefinitely.

Some people want to call what I've termed "debate" by a different name – filibuster. I don't see it. A true filibuster is when one person holds the floor for hours and hours (think Mr. Smith Goes to Washington or Strom Thurmond reading the phone book to prevent civil rights legislation from passing). In any case, the result of debate or filibuster is the same – obstruction of final passage of the underlying measure.

The bill has been in a holding pattern because of the new "Mr. No," Senator Tom Coburn.

Last week, Sens. Maria Cantwell and John Ensign introduced the Clean Energy Tax Stimulus Act of 2008 as an amendment to H.R. 3221, the New Direction for Energy Independence, National Security and Consumer Protection Act.

The CETS Act, at a cost of around $6 billion, would extend the Production Tax Credit for one year. The credit reduces the tax liability for companies that generate power from renewable sources such as hydropower, wind, biomass, etc. It also would extend for eight years a tax credit for investment in solar energy and credits for energy efficient homes, commercial building and appliances.

Unfortunately, the amendment is facing some hurdles.

The Bush administration is waiving environmental laws, including the National Environmental Policy Act, in order to finish building the controversial border fence between the U.S. and Mexico.

Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff released a statement reading in part, "Criminal activity at the border does not stop for endless debate or protracted litigation. Congress and the American public have been adamant that they want and expect border security. We're serious about delivering it, and these waivers will enable important security projects to keep moving forward."

How can the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) get away with this?

As I mentioned in a previous post, 18 states, two cities and 13 environmental groups are suing the EPA over their failure to issue regulations on greenhouse gas emissions following last year's Supreme Court ruling.

Piling on in what is most certainly becoming a trying week for EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming voted, 12-0, to issue a subpoena for EPA documents showing the agency's "progress in making the 'endangerment' finding and proposing national emissions standards."

Eighteen states, plus the Corporation Counsel for the City of New York, the City Solicitor of Baltimore, and 13 environmental advocacy groups announced that they are taking the EPA back to court over the agency's failure to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

Last April, in Commonwealth of Massachusetts et al. v. Environmental Protection, the Supreme Court ruled that the EPA improperly declined to regulate pollutants that contribute to climate change.

One year later, the states are still waiting on the EPA to, I dunno, actually do something. Apparently, the EPA sent a draft of the regulations over to the Office of Management and Budget (an arm of the White House) in December 2007. And since then? Radio silence.

In the FY2008 appropriations bill there was a tiny, $1.6 million set aside for a government study of nanotechnology. OK, not tiny to you and me, but tiny when compared to the $3 trillion total budget.

I'll leave far more brilliant scientific minds to explain the problems with the current regulatory scheme: Richard Denison, PhD, senior scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), has written a couple of posts on the White House's approach to nanotech regulation (or lack thereof).

In any case, the FY2008 appropriations measure asked the EPA to take a look at current policy by March 25, 2008. They missed the deadline.