Recently in Environment Category

• China Delays Censorship Software

  The New York Times reports that China will delay their rule requiring all new PCs to come installed with the Green Dam Youth Escort" censoring software that we wrote about earlier this month.

• EPA Grants California Waiver

  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) granted California the waiver the state has long sought which will allow it to set emissions standards that are stricter that the federal government's. We wrote about this in several posts including "Clean, Clear Air, Nothing To See Here, Drive Through Please".

• Bisphenol A in the NYT and Journalistic Fence-Sitting That Must Hurt

  Yesterday we wrote about Nicholas Kristof's NYT article on the disturbing research on endocrine disruptors. We talked about what we called 50-50 science journalism, where you erode your science article by giving credit to the "other side", a global warming denier, for instance, or the chemical lobby if you're talking about endocrine disruptors.

  Another play in this balanced journalism practiced by media is when a publication like the New York Times or the Economist or LA Times run conflicting articles to appeal to all paying advertisers. For instance John Tierney's column in the NYT today, written by Tina Kolata, quoted STATS and stats.org to deny the dangers of bisphenol A, an endocrine disruptor, which is pretty much the opposite of what Kristof wrote yesterday.

  Both STATS and Tierney are solidly in the science and environmental deniers camp. We wrote about John Tierney's denialism in "Scientist Columnists Sell You Short". Tierney has long expressed his devotion to bisphenol A -- "if they ever try recalling it, they'll have to pry [my Nalgene bottle] from my cold dead fingers", he wrote last year, and routinely comes out against science.

  Acronym Required previously wrote about STATS in "Yotta-Yotta-Yottabytes: Content Makes Kings, Print Dies", and various posts on bisphenol A. STATS, reported on here at Sourcewatch, claims to be a "non-partisan" think tank, but they are funded by conservative sources and consistently produce reports that fly in the face of science.

• Climate Bill's Mixed Reports

  The Waxman-Markey Climate Bill passed last week by Congress received mixed reports on its predicted effectiveness. The National Resource Defense Fund sent an email screaming euphorically, "Well, we did it! And we did it because millions of people like you made their voices heard on Capitol Hill."

  On the other hand, Clive Crook, who we previously highlighted for his climate denialism had an opposing opinion. Read his "The Steamrollers of Climate Science", for instance, in which he wrote that the IPCC report on climate change was biased, and what the world needed was some opinions from people affiliated with the Marshall Institute, Fraser Institute, and Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) (all funded by ExxonMobil), and you think you'd know where he stood.

  But Crook, climate science denier last time we looked, said yesterday that the President was being too weak on climate change. Accompanied by a cartoon of the president ripping open a Superman t-shirt to reveal a cute little Hello Kitty, Crook said:

  "The cap-and-trade bill is a travesty. Its net effect on short- to medium-term carbon emissions will be small to none. This is by design: a law that really made a difference would make energy dearer, hurt consumers and force an economic restructuring that would be painful for many industries and their workers. Congress cannot contemplate those effects. So the Waxman-Markey bill, while going through the complex motions of creating a carbon abatement regime, takes care to neutralise itself."

  Conservatives argue that the climate bill will negatively effect the economy for a very small pay-off, whereas some environmentalists argue that the cap-and-trade regime proposed will not work, that there a giant loopholes, and that coal gets too much of a boost from the legislation.

  RealClimate, for its part, is taking a break, a little bummed out about the Groundhog Day aspect of the internet, where you explain the science that all the deniers deny, then they pop-up again. How true, though more a game of Whac-A-Mole than Groundhog Day perhaps. Tenacity wins.

  Joseph Romm of Climate Progress weighs in favorably on the bill.

Nicholas Kristof wrote about endocrine disruptors in his column this weekend. He cites some of the evidence for disturbances in sexual development -- "bizarre deformities in water animals" -- and accumulating evidence of the same disturbances occurring in humans.

Acronym Required first wrote about endocrine disruptors back in 2005, with Plastic Bottles- Protecting Your Baby, by the ACC". Hundreds of studies in the past 20 years have documented disturbing effects of endocrine disruptors, which are widely used in industry and agriculture to make the food you eat, the containers you eat out of, and the products that surround you as you sit and read this post. Endocrine disruptors act like hormones to effect physiological actions in species from fishes to humans. Here's some of the evidence Kristof cites from the research literature on different chemicals:

• "Frogs, salamanders and other amphibians began to sprout extra legs."

• "In heavily polluted Lake Apopka, one of the largest lakes in Florida, male alligators developed stunted genitals."

• Researchers found in 2003 that "in the Potomac watershed near Washington, male smallmouth bass have rapidly transformed into "intersex fish" that display female characteristics." Today 80% of these male fish lay eggs.

• Scientists are concerned with "large increases in numbers of genital deformities among newborn boys."

• "7 percent of boys are now born with undescended testicles, although this often self-corrects over time."

• "And up to 1 percent of boys in the United States are now born with hypospadias, in which the urethra exits the penis improperly, such as at the base rather than the tip."

• "DES, a synthetic estrogen given to many pregnant women from the 1930s to the 1970s to prevent miscarriages, caused abnormalities in the children."

• "evidence from both humans and monkeys [suggests] that endometriosis, a gynecological disorder, is linked to exposure to endocrine disruptors."

• "Researchers also suspect that the disruptors can cause early puberty in girls."

"research has also tied endocrine disruptors to obesity, insulin resistance and diabetes, in both animals and humans."

• "mice exposed in utero even to low doses of endocrine disruptors appear normal at first but develop excess abdominal body fat as adults."

• Kristof notes a recent statement from the Endocrine Society. The group of scientists says: "In this first Scientific Statement of The Endocrine Society, we present the evidence that endocrine disruptors have effects on male and female reproduction, breast development and cancer, prostate cancer, neuroendocrinology, thyroid, metabolism and obesity, and cardiovascular endocrinology."

• Kristof quoted Dr. Ted Schettler of the Science and Environmental Health Network, who said, "'this can influence brain development, sperm counts or susceptibility to cancer, even where the animal at birth seems perfectly normal."'

There's a lot more evidence showing that chemical disruptors produce widespread harm over the environment to produce abnormal reactions. As one John Hopkins scientist told Kristoff: "It's scary, very scary."

But in a completely curious turn, halfway through the article, Kristof capitulates to the winds of "50-50 science journalism". Here's how "50-50 science journalism" works.

1. Accumulate your evidence.
2. Make a strong case for your point, citing the evidence.
3. Then abruptly cripple your whole point, smash it across the knees, by writing a one or two statements for the "other side", thus appeasing some readers and advertisers.

Kristof writes: "The scientific case is still far from proven, as chemical companies emphasize, and the uncertainties for humans are vast." To be fair, Kristof's reference to the "other side" could be considered merely a polite and politic mention. "Vast uncertainty" for humans could mean anything. But even at best this doesn't line up with the rest of his article and all the evidence he cites. What about his lists of studies?

Scientists are "connecting the dots" he writes. I know this may sound trifling but scientists are well into the data. It's only recently that the public is realizing that this problem is real -- a realization that's more substantial, quite un-dot-like. Some journalists are farther behind, but again, the evidence is accumulating at a brisk pace.

My small reservations with his article aside, Kristof often takes on controversial issues, especially in international development, that are easy for the mainstream press to ignore. While coverage of bisphenol A is surprisingly robust, now that states and cities have initiated legislation restricting its use, the larger questions of pervasive chemical use without regulation remain largely ignored. Importantly, this topic has been very easy for federal agencies to ignore. Therefore, it's great to see coverage of endocrine receptors by an influential New York Times journalist who will help inform the public, who will in turn demand that government act more aggressively on chemical oversight.

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Acronym Required writes frequently on journalism that remains faithful to all sides of science policy issues despite the evidence, for instance Climate Change: Fueling the "Debate", "Science Editors Sell You Short", and Phthalates and Bisphenol A: Media and Politics

Sunstein Confirmation Hearing

Before John Roberts stood before the Senate committee as a witness to his qualifications for Chief Justice, Cass Sunstein opined on NPR and in several editorials about what sort of Supreme Court judge he would be. Sunstein wrote in the Washington Post: "In recent weeks countless people have pored over his voluminous writings, but they have learned relatively little."

When Chief Justice John Roberts testified at his confirmation hearing before the Senate, Orrin Hatch (R-UT) asked him if he had read any of Cass Sunstein's books. The future Chief Justice had a quick reply: "I didn't have a chance to read Professor Sunstein's book....He writes a different one every week. It's hard to keep up with him."

Of course these were just quips. Sunstein said that Roberts would be conservative, but rule narrowly and not overreach. Sunstein's book argued that for the Supreme Court, the a minimalist approach was better than fundamentalist one, which merely served a radical right agenda -- Sunstein said Roberts was a minimalist. ¹

Most people expressed angst about Roberts' lack of published record, not its volume, as Sunstein proposed. Sunstein provided considerable verbal and written reassurance for those who thought Roberts was extremely conservative based on his writing. He advised everyone that to understand Roberts, they'd have to listen to his confirmation testimony, not read documents he wrote for the Reagan administration.

To Hatch's question, during the hearing Roberts explained modestly that he was "a modest judge". Liberals hoped for the best, hoped that "modest" meant minimalist. Later they became disappointed when Roberts hewed to the Bush administration agenda -- Sunstein's reassurances about Roberts didn't really pan out as liberals had hoped. Harry Reid (D) went so far as to claim recently (and incredibly lamely) that Justice Roberts had "lied" to the Senators.

But Sunstein and Roberts had a mutual admiration society on a couple of different levels. They both admired and worked for Reagan, they both claim to be minimalists and to approach their jobs as pragmatists working under direction. And they both thoroughly confuse analysts with their writing by claiming their written work doesn't reflect their current inclinations.

A Foolish Consistency is the Hobgoblin of Little Minds

If you write nothing, no one will know what you think. This is ok, but its much better to give the chattering classes something to latch on to. If your writings are voluminous, everyone will also be left as grasping as if they're nil, so if you can predict ahead of time how ambitious you may become for public appointment in the future, this is a clever strategy. So when you're in the company of liberal say such and such, which might appeal to liberals, then over there in the company of conservatives write that, which might appeal to conservatives. Crumbs for all leaves no trace. Obviously, this might not even be strategy but an inadvertent response to scholarly immersion and changing politics. After all, one might mature over time, become more liberal or less, either because one gains wisdom, or events influence one's thinking. Or, it might be none of the above, but simply, as Emerson said, because "[a] foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

When President Obama nominated Cass Sunstein to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), people started reading Sunstein's voluminous writings and many books. The blog for his book "Nudge" announced Obama's choice and linked to some "chatter" about the appointment.

The American Prospect blog wrote that the appointment was "a bit low on the totem pole for Sunstein", that Obama was trying to relive the "New Deal", and finally: "Bonus Sunstein Fact: He's married to foreign policy expert Samantha Power" -- as if it were the liberal stamp of approval -- magic Power dust.

Blogs of varying liberal slants quoted from his book "The Second Bill of Rights", while more conservative blogs quotes from his writings for free-market organizations like Cato. No matter what you think you can pick and choose among his writing to find a supporting or opposing idea.

The blog Maine Hunting Today wrote that Sunstein was a "Radical Rights Activist", based on one book he edited, which they seem to think meant starvation for hunters. On the other hand, Sunstein's work on behalf of Exxon Mobil about juries' tendencies to overcompensate victims of corporate malfeasance was used by the Supreme Court in a case which ruled in favor of Navy training that would further endanger whales, an end result that reflects a position that Sunstein has written about and seems to agree with.

Sunstein's proposal in the book "Republic.com" that the internet was gymnasium of polarization and that among other things, websites should be forced to crosslink to politically opposed sites (something he later recanted) worried The Ayn Rand Center for Individual rights. The libertarian organization wrote wrote: "Welcome to the mind of a regulator: I will decide what's best for individuals. If I think conservatives don't read enough liberal articles, I'll devise some clever way to make them." The Wall Street Journal's piece "A Regulator With Promise - Really", said the opposite, noting in a recent editorial co-authored by Sunstein "argued that better disclosure, combined with technology, would be more effective than playing "regulatory whack-a-mole" with unpopular industry practices."

WSJ continued about Sunstein's idea of "availability cascades" that "It's also a useful concept for resisting political fads -- killer apples with Alar, silicone breast implants causing cancer, oceans rising to swallow Florida from global warning -- that can impose huge economic costs when not challenged." Notice the hyperbole, and the mix of the ill-fated alar controversy, with real threats proven by science, like global warming.

No matter what their political proclivities, organizations and individuals at every end and the middle of the political spectrum will claim Sunstein as either an ally or an enemy, apparently with equal ease and zeal. Cost benefit analysis will impede important environmental regulation, as it has in the past, say some people. Others hail 'Sunstein's unique more humanist take' on cost benefit analysis as superlatively sane.

The confirmation committee should have lots of questions, I can't get through a page of any one of his writings without at least ten -- all the better to fool me, I sometimes believe, in cynical moments. And how will the nominee testify before the Senate? Probably just as smartly as he has crafted his reputation. The Senate hearing can be heard here, and as I write, Chairman Joe Lieberman (CT) fawns about Sunstein in his introduction.

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¹"Radicals in Robes: Why Extreme Right-Wing Courts Are Wrong for America"

To the relief of many environmentalists and scientists, last week the Obama administration's EPA issued a finding on endangerment for six greenhouse gases -- as ordered by the Supreme Court. But many in business jeered and booed and issued misleading and false complaints with hyperbolic gusto. Also last week, the EPA issued a preliminary review of the energy bill released by Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Congressman Edward Markey (D-MA) and concluded that the cap and trade portion would not handicap the economy (pdf). Leaders in Congress said that cap and trade legislation might be preferable to EPA regulation. Yet sectors like the chemical industry as well as free-market think tanks and their dedicated columnists have gone apoplectic. How will Congress deal with all sides? Or, how will the Obama administration -- led by its famous mediator -- mediate?

Industry's Place at the Table and Bush's EPA

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), found that high concentrations of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride endangered human health and welfare. Environmentalists and lots of others, basically anyone who cares a whit about life or Earth or species, not to mention human health, etc., cheered -- action, finally. But as we know, this wasn't really such a bowl-me-over stupendous accomplishment. The Bush Administration's EPA had also found that greenhouse gases endangered human health and welfare (and they weren't the first) -- but of course they famously smothered their findings.

Let's briefly recall some highlights -- and yes, this is brief. Consider that Congress passed the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act in 1970 under President Nixon. Industry and those in Congress whose dispositions trend radically free-market, or whose campaigns certain industries help finance, have since fought vigorously against the legislation.

The battles go back decades, familiar faces in familiar roles. For instance in 1983, when President Ronald Reagan steadfastly tried to undermine Clean Air and Clean Water, House Representative Barbara Boxer (D-CA) noted:

''They can't get the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts amended, the way they want to. So they weaken them through regulation, and defy the intent of Congress. They are the best at figuring out ways to legally undermine the will of Congress, but this time, in the E.P.A. case, we caught them.''

Boxer was a junior member of Congress in 1983. Did she know how many rounds were left to go? Some recent history, starting 20 years after Boxer's comment:

• 2003: The states petitioned the Bush Administration to regulate CO2 emissions from motor vehicles. The administration refused, asserting that CO2 wasn't a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. (The states sued.)

• April, 2007: Massachusetts vs. EPA finally ended up in the Supreme Court. The court ordered the EPA to determine whether greenhouse gases endangered human health and welfare, saying the administration needed to ground its assertions in some science, as required by the Clean Air Act. Acronym Required talked about the court's findings in "Supreme Court Rejects EPA & Coal Plants' Nonsense".

  In a darker moment of EPA history, the agency defended its mulish inaction by citing in testimony an old tobacco case, Brown v. Williamson. Then, the court ruled that the FDA couldn't regulate cigarette smoke on account of "tobacco's unique political history", which, the EPA reasoned, shared that of greenhouse gas's "unique political history". In addition, the EPA argued that it couldn't be effective against such a "global problem", and that tailgate regulation was the place of the Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Any attempt at EPA regulation, the agency said, would would be "piecemeal" and cause "agency overlap". The Supreme Court categorically rejected all of these arguments. (Environmentalists -- my shorthand for anyone who cares a whit -- cheered.)

• May 2007: Bush announced: "Today, I'm directing the EPA and the Departments of Transportation, Energy, and Agriculture to take the first steps toward regulations that would cut gasoline consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles." (Environmentalists -- and anyone who cared a whit --cheered.)

• May 2007-November 2007: Bush's EPA hired a 70 person team to investigate endangerment, vehicle and fuel issues after the Supreme Court ruling. The EPA found that based on the "underlying science" CO2 emissions cause "consequences for public health". The resulting report included costs and benefits. At about 300 pages the EPA conducted the study in consultation with the DOT's NHSTA. The 2007 report budget --for six months of work? -- was $5.3 million. (Who knew?)

• November 2007: EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that he would propose EPA regulation by the end of the year. (Environmentalists cheered.)

• December 2007: EPA finding of endangerment emailed to the White House Office of Management and Budget. Johson's proposal for regulating CO2 emissions was sent to the National Highway Safety and Transportation Agency (NHSTA). The documents disappeared into the black hole of the White House. (Few knew.)

• March 2008: EPA administrator Stephen Johnson writes to Congressman Waxman to advise him that the EPA will issue an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR), rather than a finding on endangerment. (Business cheered.)

• July 2008: The EPA follows through on Johnson's promise and releases the ANPR. (Business complained.)

• July 2008: Jason Burnett (remember him?) resigned as the chief climate-change adviser to then EPA administrator Stephen Johnson, alleging that VP Cheney and the White House Council for Environmetal Quality redacted parts of CDC documents about greenhouse gases and human health. Burnett's move seemed overtly political, nevertheless, he helpfully detailed in a letter to Senator Boxer how findings on public health were manipulated by the White House: "CEQ requested that I work with CDC to remove from the testimony any discussion of the human health consequences of climate change". (Environmentalists gasped.)

Pressuring the EPA for the ANPR

How will the Obama administration's EPA differ from the Bush administration's? When Obama campaigned for President, he promised that industry would have a seat at the table, but not the only seat, which sounded great. How does it work though, when industry lobbyists spend billions of dollars for their seats, while the majority of citizens, who don't have such power, sit on a rickety perches -- if they're even allowed to voice an opinion? Pollution disproportionately effects poor neighborhoods and the economically disadvantaged, who don't fund campaigns and rarely get seats. Will their Representatives really represent them despite their disproportionate campaign donations? How does it work when corporations don't play to compromise, don't accept "fair" solutions?

To get perspective on this, let's look quickly at the EPA's handling of the Supreme Court ruling last year via their Advance Notice of Public Rulemaking (ANPR). At the time of Johnson's decision last year to issue the ANPR we quoted from the Heritage Foundation's letter to -- as the conservative think tank put it -- "everyone that we could think of" in Congress. Heritage Foundation implored Senators and Representatives to pressure the EPA for an ANPR rather than find on endangerment. They said the extended public comment period would "start a record of", the "cost and burden of carbon caps and Clean Air Act expansion".

Note the Heritage Foundation didn't say "costs and benefits", but "cost and burden".

The Heritage Foundation also urged the EPA to issue an ANPR in a March 28, 2008 article published on its website, titled, "The EPA's Prudent Response to Massachusetts v. EPA". Heritage wrote "a wave of costly new regulations is the last thing the economy needs. An ANPR is the best option at this time."

The Response the EPA's ANPR

As the Heritage Foundation requested, the EPA issued the ANPR, so you'd think Heritage would be happy, maybe send a bouquet of flowers. But even though Stephen Johnson's EPA sycophantically curtsied more deeply to industry than Margaret Thatcher did to Arab princes back in the 1980's, once the EPA issued the ANPR, the Heritage Foundation got mad. Rather than happy, they were extremely displeased, along with organizations like the US Chamber of Commerce.

The Heritage Foundation couched its displeasure in technocratic terms. They issued warnings to business came in dry, authoritative press releases filled with charts and graphs, like the October 29, 2008, "CO2-Emission Cuts: The Economic Costs of the EPA's ANPR Regulations". The conservative think tank warned that the ANPR would "damage the U.S. economy severely", cause a "large loss of national income" , "throw a monkey wrench into the production side of the economy", accumulate job losses that "exceed 50 percent" for some industries, in excess of "800,000 for several years". Despite new technology investment, reported the Heritage Foundation, "more capital is destroyed than created." Heritage constructed a scary cliff-hanger of a bar graph that showed GDP sinking dramatically for nearly a quarter of a century.

Yet analysis done EPA and non-partisan sources shows the opposite, that investment in green economy and reduction of destructive greenhouse gases will help the economy.

Of course you can get perspective on the Heritage Foundation's ominous forecasting by acknowledging the result of the past 8 years of deregulation -- the conservatives' reasonably ideal model. Their ideal deregulatory ideology has not been good for labor or the economy. In 2008 job losses were 2.6 million, more than 3 times Heritage Foundation's yearly job loss scenario for the green economy. Under conservative tutelage, manufacturing has been decimated. 2009 has been even worse for jobs, the US economy has shed over 2 million jobs so far this year.

And Now, A New Round of Warnings for Endangerment

Now that the EPA has found on endangerment, as it is required to under the Clean Air Act, and as was ordered to by the Supreme Court, the right again comes out swinging, and has also found a cadre of columnist flacks willing to take up the rhetoric of deception. The thrust of these arguments is: 1) the EPA has suddenly grabbed unprecedented amounts of power, (no mention of the Supreme Court order), and 2) The EPA will ruin your life and steal your job.

Despite how misleading and misinformed, these pieces are being published by still working newspaper editors all over the US. With all the newspaper layoffs of talented journalists, somehow these hyperbolic, mendacious columnists and their (dare I say, shameless) editors seem unreasonably spared. Wrote the Augusta Chronicle: "The EPA recently announced it has authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.....You pretty much have to be a piece of antique furniture not to emit something".

"Antique furniture" in Maine turned out to be Northeast quaint compared to other commentators who used more extreme examples. Perhaps talking to the swaths of Americans who are desperately arming themselves while flinging Lipton teabags around, Time and Red State this and Free America that complained that the EPA was "putting a gun to Congresses head". In California an LA Times columnist sunk even further, writing "the EPA has launched its power grab over all that burns, breathes, burps, flies, drives and passes gas." (As an aside, the LA Times had more than 1200 people in its newsroom in 2001, and now has less that 600. And this guy remained in the keeper pool? Oh, and why is the public misinformed?)

The Obama administration certainly takes a different, far more skilled public relations tack than the Bush administration, with nods to the "left" and nods to the "right". However skilled the public relations of the administration, though, what will the end result look like? The idea that market based solutions are the best is not in question in the Obama administration. Senator Boxer generally aligns herself with the president in her cap and trade propositions and many agree that that tactic will be the most amenable to busiess. Even automakers have offered guarded support for the Markey/Waxman bill. But of course cap and trade is under attack from conservatives. Will congressional "compromise" successfully curb greenhouse gas emissions when no solution will satisfy conservatives? I guess we can hope.

Most people acknowledge global warming and understand that the research is correct and the scientists' aren't running some elaborate conspiracy. Sure there are naysayers, those pugnacious commentators and columnists we don't even bother naming anymore, who we wrote about two, and three years ago. Now that public opinion seems mostly to support the solid scientific evidence for global warming, fewer and fewer denialists seem willing to forsake their reputations or souls by refuting climate change. So don't you wonder what drives those who still insist climate change is a hoax? Do they get paid very handsomely, either by lies per column inch, by special honorariums for dishonest speakers, or perhaps by the sheer number angry blog referrals they receive in any given week. What else makes sense?

This week the Joint Institute for the Study of Atmosphere and Ocean and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory issued a report in Geophysical Research Letters, suggesting that the arctic is melting so fast that it could be gone in 30 years. Meanwhile, as the science rolls in, the politicians weigh in, and petroleum dependent companies finagle mostly secret deals to keep the profits rolling in.

• Wagoner Walks

• A year ago we wrote about the auto industry pressuring the EPA to stall and obfuscate rather than act on the Supreme Court order to regulate emissions. When we wrote The EPA: Mulish Days, Staring out to Pasture" the auto industry had just posted 18% losses. All it had to offer customers was large, gas-guzzling, air-polluting vehicles at a a time when the economy was sinking, gas was expensive, and some families already owned four new cars bought with cheap credit.

  As the poles melted, we watched industry lobbies instruct the EPA to "abstain from attempting" to regulate emissions and limit its actions to identifying "technical feasibility". One lobbying document warned that the sector's innovation to improve emissions couldn't require "extra costs", and that if "additional technology" were needed, then the EPA could "properly decide to not adopt standards under the Clean Air Act".

  As it had for 30 years, the auto industry assumed it could hold innovation, emissions control and government at bay while continuing to build vehicles that benefited not the environment, not oil independence, not customers long-term needs, not future business, and certainly not autoworkers working for an ever failing sector. Rather its strategy benefited a few well-placed individuals and executives holding the majority of "shareholder value". In the end the strategy did little but assure US auto manufacturing expiration. Long ago the auto companies had become no more than magical slot machines for select executives, who quarter by quarter, hook or by crook, extracted huge windfalls.

  Last year we concluded facetiously that "if 'the health of the industry' is truly still a goal", as one briefing paper aimed to stay EPA regulation stated, than "maybe the government's kindest move would be to shoot it, or drown it in the bathtub, or whatever libertarian types do these days with ponderous, surly sectors."

  This week, Rick Wagoner, the General Motors CEO who seemed to most flagrantly flout common sense and economic sensibilities, abruptly stepped down from GM under pressure from Barack Obama.

  We're not saying there's not more to this story. What sort of deal made Wagoner step down? What about the banks? Certainly a solution where Wagoner gets his $20 million, but workers and their pensions and healthcare are left dangling is not the ideal deal. It would have been better if the manufacturers had innovated smaller more efficient cars sometime during their multi-decade slide into the abyss, or been righted years ago with a few swift legislative kicks -- before major shareholders squeezed their companies to death. But if that hadn't happened for 30 years would/will it ever happen?

Waxman and Markey Unveil ACES, An Energy Bill

On a positive note, Representatives Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Ed Markey (D-MA) released a 648 page draft global warming and energy bill (PDF), the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES). The legislation proposes a cap and trade system to reduce US emissions 20% below 2005 levels by 2020, a more aggressive goal than the cap and trade recently cut from Obama's 2009 budget.

The Waxman-Markey bill would require every region of the country to produce a quarter of its electricity from renewable sources like wind, solar and geothermal by 2025, would modernize the electrical grid, and would encourage the production of more electric vehicles and energy efficient buildings. Out of the gate, the congressmen refute Republican criticism of the bill. Ed Markey's office released their own forceful rebuttal to GOP criticism and called opponents on four "distortions" being forwarded by the GOP (more details on the site):

• "Distortion #1-Clean energy and climate legislation will cost $1,300 per family.
  
  FACT: The Republican "experts" who did this math should get an F for 'False.'"

• Distortion #2: Democratic proposals would cost families up to $3,100 per year.
  
  FACT: More fuzzy math from Republicans, this time by distorting a study by MIT. Republican leaders like Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) are attacking clean energy and climate legislation, claiming that it would "cost every American family up to $3,100 per year in higher energy prices"....The author of the MIT study [the authors reference] has said this figure is "wrong in so many ways, it's hard to begin," and today sent a sharply-worded letter to Rep. Boehner pointing out the inaccuracies in his statements about the report. The letter can be found by clicking here."

• "Distortion #3-There are great costs to transitioning to a low-carbon economy, but no benefits.
  
  FACT: Oscar Wilde once said that cynics "know the cost of everything and the value of nothing." In a real cost-benefit analysis, you look at both sides of the equation. Industry-friendly analysis like that done by Charles River Associates, commissioned by the Edison Electric Institute, grossly overstate the cost of climate protection..."

• "Distortion #4-The technology isn't ready for us to move to a clean energy economy.
  
  FACT: This is Republican pessimism that runs directly counter to American optimism, ingenuity and our proven ability to meet great challenges. History has demonstrated over and over again that if policy creates the right ground rules, entrepreneurs and American businesses find solutions that were previously unimaginable."

Serving up the necessary messaging with your energy legislation. But how will the bill fare?

• On Behalf of Wildlife and Forests

  Last year we wrote in When To Chop A Tree" that the Bush administration was turning 500,000 acres of California forest into roads and thoroughfares for oil drilling. This was just the tip of the iceberg (so to speak) for the Republican administration, which had spent eight long years decimating protections not only for clean air and water, but endangered species and the environment.

  Even in the last moments of Bush's administration, we wrote in "The 43rd President's Grand Finale of Rulemaking" that Bush proposed to allow mining companies to lop of mountains to allow the refuse clog rivers and streams, and was permitting companies to pollute streams with factory farm run-off, lifting regulations on placing power plants near national parks, exempting factory farms from reporting air pollution, loosening ocean fishing management regulations, and doing nothing about oil refinery toxic emission control which Congress mandated.

  In some encouraging moves, President Obama has now stepped in on behalf of some endangered species like the flying squirrel. This week Obama signed the 2009 Omnibus Public Land Management Act which included 160 separate proposals covering public lands in nine states. The bill adds and expands wilderness areas and national forests.

• Meanwhile, Making Mountains into Molehills

  But we never forget that politics is politics and not everything turns out just as you like it. The House of Representatives failed to reverse the mountaintop removal mining bill.

• BP's Solar Energy Burn-Out

  British Petroleum (BP) -- motto: "Beyond Petroleum" -- recently cut 620 jobs from its solar business, which employed 2,200 people worldwide. Two years ago, we wrote about BP's econ-marketing push in "Green Spirit". Green spirit lives on.

  In other BP news, the Department of Justice, Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation brought a civil suit against the company for two 2006 spills from the Alaska pipeline. The plaintiffs request maximum civil penalties and charge that the company did not adequately prevent or clean up the spill. In a separate suit, Alaska charged the company with environmental damage and lost state revenues due to BP cost-cutting and business practices.

• Gulled?

  Once upon a time, kids had very little to play with. Video games were not yet invented and children no longer had to herd farm animals, so they amused themselves by playing jacks, and red-light/green-light, and games like "telephone", also known as "Gossip", or "Chinese Whispers" and other ethnocentric names. Have you heard of this game? Children sit around a circle and whisper a message one to another and then at the end marvel and laugh at how distorted the message turns out when the last child announces what he heard. You probably don't remember, I don't, but that's what they say. The point is, this happens in science too.

  

  An essay by Carel ten Cate in the journal Animal Behavior criticizes a foundational study of animal behavior, ethology, one that scores of biology textbooks feature. In ten Cate's "Niko Tinbergen and the red patch on the herring gull's beak", she closely reads Nikolaas Tinbergen's Noble Prize winning research, which describes how herring gull chicks beg to be fed by pecking on the red dot on the adult gull's beak. Tinenberg found that the baby gulls will peck at a red spot, rather than black or other colors, and called the red dot phenomena "signal stimuli". In response to the chick peck the adult bird regurgitates half-eaten food for the chick to eat. You can read the essay in Animal Behavior Volume 77, Issue 4, April 2009, Pages 785-794 (via Nature, and see the experiments graphically summarized in this textbook here.

  (Photo: Herring Gull Chick, by John Haslam, via Wikipedia licensed under Creative Commons 2.0.)

  When ten Cate looked over the research she found that Tinbergen never did the definitive experiment to prove his theory, rather he extrapolated from data collected in various of his experiments, then in a series of retellings, came to an abridged tale of his actual research experiments which he printed in own books and which has been subsequently retold incompletely in many textbooks.

  The latter version makes his experiments look much more clear cut then they actually were. Ten Cate's assessment of Tinbergen's research contradicts what the Noble Prize Committee wrote in 1973:

  "One of Nikolaas Tinbergen's most important contributions is that he has found ways to test his own and other's hypothesis by means of comprehensive, careful and quite often ingenious experiments."

  Of course all the history books have it that Tinbergen did the research, but ten Cate not only vigorously questions her subject's methods, but then helpfully points out that "mostly undergraduate students" did the work.

  But wait. Ten Cate's lab actually repeated Tinbergen's experiments and found that his theories did hold true, that is herring gull chicks do peck at red more than other colors. Bottom line, he took some shortcuts that make modern scientists blanche? Or blush? Or nothing?

  Why the ta-do? The experiments have been proved, behavioral psychology and ethology are solidly established as branches of science -- decades of pigeons pecking at red and green lights, mice running through their paces. Before ten Cate's analysis of Tinbergen's post-experiment data analysis, other scientists had also pointed to various experimental flaws in Tinbergen's research. But many scientists say that criticism of experiments from 50 years ago is unfair and unwarranted. What then should we make of the results? Can scientists use ten Cate's sort of analysis, or will such revelation just languish about until some creationist tries to use it as the next peppered moth experiment?

  Should we examine more closely the work of priests and their peas, or experiments done by neurobiologists in their lonely labs? Should we comb through all the textbooks with all those way too neat, way too definitive descriptions of historically worthy experiments? Would that benefit the science endeavor? Or should ten Cate's findings be incorporated into science learning for how not to follow-up with data?

• Ancestor Confusion?

  A fossil find in China reported by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences adds a new twist to scientists' understanding of dinosaurs. Scientists discovered a 28 inch fossil of a young dinosaur in a rock slab in Liaoning Province in China. Tianyulong confuciusi lived about 125 million years ago during the Early Cretaceous period. The fossil has long filamentous structures that some scientists speculate may be progenitors to avian feathers or "dino-fuzz".

  Scientists long ago designated two orders of dinosaurs, Ornithischia("bird-hipped) and Saurischia(lizard-hipped), based on the confusing 19th century classifications of differences in the two order's pelvic structures. Modern day birds actually descended from the Saurischia dinosaurs, which includes Tyrannosaurus rex and Archeopteryx, and scientists discovered protofeathers in the order Saurischia about ten years ago. At that time scientists were surprised to learn that dinosaurs, as well as birds, had feather-like structures. Now with the Ornithischia find, scientists wonder whether both orders evolved feathers separately, or whether all dinosaurs, even the most primitive ones, had feathers.

  But that question won't be answered quite yet, since scientists don't know whether the filament structures in Tianyulong originated in the epidermal or dermal layer. If they originated in the epidermis then they could be protofeathers with implications for behavior, flight and physiology, according to Ohio University professor Lawrence M. Witmer, whereas if they originated in the dermis they would be structural and interesting, but without the same implications for evolution.

  In the meantime, artist Li-da Xing has rendered Tianyulong confuciusi with what looks like a decorative boa pasted to its back. No not that boa or http://dept.sfcollege.edu/zoo/animals/BoaConsitrictor.HTM">that one, the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lautrec_woman_with_a_black_feather_boa_c1892.jpg">other one.

• Slick

  Although it's been twenty years since images of oil-drenched birds (~250,000 initially killed) filled our newspapers after the huge Prince William Sound spill, the damage remains.

  The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council recently reported on the status of some species in the Sound. Ten species are "recovering, ten are considered "recovered", and two, the Pacific Herring and Pigeon Guillemots, are "not recovering". The fate of many more species is unknown. We last wrote about the Exxon Valdez spill when we looked at the stated reasons the Supreme Court decided to lower the damages in the case to $500 million.

  16,000 gallons of oil continues to seep out into the ecosystem bit by bit during rains. To address the ongoing pollution, the US Government and the State of Alaska sent Exxon-Mobil a demand for $92 million dollars to fund the joint-federal restoration plan in 2006, but then President George Bush and Governor Sarah Palin didn't press the company to pay up. The Public Employees for Environmental Safety (PEER) and Professor Rick Steiner from the University of Alaska have written the Obama administration and the Attorney General of Alaska asking them to act to collect Exxon-Mobil's debt.

• When Banks Will Be Banks

  As background for current events, authors write and publishers publish, eager to meet the demands for new knowledge. Name the event -- 9-11, terrorism, the Chinese economy, global warming, one banking crisis or another -- each motivates its own little publishing industry. The financial crisis got people thinking about recessions, depressions, credit default swaps, mortgages, and financial markets, and now you can read any number of best sellers, "The Subprime Solution..", and "The New Paradigm for Financial Markets..", "The Trillion Dollar Meltdown..","The Forgotten Man", "The Ascent of Money..", "The Return of Depression Economics.." -- more titles everyday. These new books are intriguing and fun, and hopefully help the floundering publishing industry keep its head above water.

  But really, when it comes to banking, you don't have to buy a new book, you can just as well read an older one such as John Galbraith's 1975 "Money: Whence it Came and Where it Went". The book works its way from the Mississippi Bubble to the Bank of England, through the history of the American monetary system up until 1971, with plenty of applicable insights. Many people have heard of the Mississippi Bubble and its architect, John Law, but I especially like Galbraith's telling.

  John Law moved to France in 1716, fleeing a murder charge after dominating a duel in England. Law had inherited a fortune and won even more as a gambler. In France, Law set up a bank and began to issue guaranteed notes, something that France appreciated. The country found Law's entrepreneurial effort a great solution to its fiscal insolvency, having gone broke under the reign of Louis XXVI. With Law's notes, which he instituted in lieu of gold, which was the standard at the time, France paid its bills and Law's bank flourished. His bank issued more and more notes issued.

  Law then decided to issue notes for a land bank in what was the large land mass of Louisiana. Rumor had it that America's southern swamps were filled with gold. Buoyed by the fame his bank brought him, Law also turned his efforts to economic and social reform. He lobbied to get rid of tolls and tariffs and rallied the clergy to give unused land to peasants.

  Wrote Galbraith (28):

  "The miracle of money creation by a bank, as John Law showed in 1719, could stimulate industry and trade, gave almost everyone a warm feeling of well-being. Parisians had never felt more prosperous than in that wonderful year."

  Law's economic plan began to unravel along with this first bank, when one day one of his note-holders decided they wanted their gold. They cashed in their notes. Then others cashed theirs. Then more and more people got nervous about whether the bank had enough gold to meet all its obligations.

  To restore confidence, the government recruited slum-dwellers to march through the streets of Paris with picks and shovels, as if gold really had been found in Mississippi and France was dispatching miners to ships which would sail to America and cart gold home. No sooner were folks were paraded to the docks, however, then they were found back at home in the ghettos, and people got wise to the ruse. The giant scheme caved, leaving note-holders with nothing but songs and bitter ditties to sing. As Galbraith writes (p28):

  "...Here, in the briefest form, was framed the problem that was to occupy men of financial genius or cupidity for the next two centuries: How to have the wonder without the reckoning?"

  Some people think this version of Law's story is to harsh, and modern bibliographies are much more flattering to John Law's legacy then John Galbraith. Calling Law a forward thinking economist, Antoin E. Murphy wrote in a recent book, "John Law: Economic Theorist and Policy-Maker". Murphy cautioned against leaping to judgment: "just as Napoleon cannot be judged by his defeat at Waterloo, so also the theory and policy of Law should not be judged by the financial crash of 1720." See?-- Napoleon historians would no doubt dispute that comparison too.

  Galbraith was a Keynesian, and it's not clear that his opinion of John Law, which fit with his opinion of bankers in general, would have been changed by the recent, more favorable bibliographical accounts. Here's his 1970's impression of the banker community (p302):

  "[I]n money matters as in diplomacy, a nicely conformist nature, a good tailor and the ability to articulate the currently fashionable financial cliche have usually been better for personal success than an inquiring mind....failure is often a more rewarding personal strategy than success."

  His judgement derived from the belief, simply, that economic and monetary systems can be well managed.

  "There is reluctance in our time to attribute great consequences to human inadequacy -- to what, in a semantically less cautious era, was called stupidity. We wish to believe that deeper social forces control all human action....But we had better be aware that inadequacy --- obtuseness combined with inertness --- is a problem..."

  How would he have felt about the current crop of bankers (p303)?

  "It will be no easier in the future than in the past for layman or the lay politician to distinguish between the adequate individual and the others. But there is not difficulty whatever in distinguishing between success and failure. Henceforth it should be the simple rule in all economic and monetary matters that anyone who has to explain failure has failed. We should be kind to those whose performance has been poor. But we must never be so gracious as to keep them in office."

  He would most likely not have been any more charitable to those who architected our current economic mess, then he was to the bankers of his day. There's no substitute for his insights though.

• But Papers Won't Be Paper

  In our last post ("Yotta-Yotta-Yottabytes: Content Makes Kings, Print Dies") we touched on themes in ongoing conversations all over the web and in newspapers about the seeming demise of reporting -- not just science reporting -- any reporting. We mentioned copyright and aggregators, and questioned trends towards online aggregation that mimic print monopolization. Clearly aggregators add value by collecting in one accessible place news for all the readers. Aggregators also fulfill their own business goals by collecting more advertising revenue than, say, two person online content generators. But lots of unresolved issues need to be ironed out.

  To me a key question is intellectual property -- I know, so yesteryear. But consider the site that collects all the free Creative Commons lectures from Universities like Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Stanford and Berkeley, and posts these under a non-Creative Commons site license with prominent use of the Ivy's names (to establish the site's credentials). "Academic Earth", not to be confused with LexisNexis's "Academic Universe", now promises that they will "try" to keep the content as "open as possible". In another move bound to endear AE to the professors whose lectures they use, the site owners "grade" the lectures, starting with "B".

  Last week, I saw another site with text and photos from older works (before 1921) released into the public domain, with warnings that the company had "added value" (imperceptibly), so that now all the works were copyrighted and needed to be purchase. ¹ These are two examples in the wide open arena where creative content producers try to eek out a living, copyright protection flounders under the ubiquitous ease of internet infringement, and sites that recycle, remix, or analyze content (including this one), navigate sometimes unclear boundaries.

  This week Google removed thousands of videos from its YouTube site, based on a Warner's demand to removed all of its copyrighted songs, even including those obscure videos where your aunt Milly sings her favorite 60's tune while your uncle plays the piano. As of last week, every video was taken down, robotically removed.

  In another case, last week BoingBoing posted a note submitted by site "Apartment Therapy" about a take-down notice the NYT sent to the home decorating site. A.T. said:

  "We are shocked & disappointed their [NYT] first contact with concerns about our use of their images (in posts about their stories!) was a threatening letter & DMCA takedown notice to our ISP who have warned us they will disable our servers if we don't comply with the NY Times request." (emphasis ours)

  To be fair, it's not the first time NYT contacted Apartment Therapy. BoingBoing wrote another post five years ago excerpting another AT protest about the New York Times, who in that June, 2004 case, contacted them by phone to again request they take down copy-righted content. Was that the "first" time? Who knows.

  BoingBoing had one take on the Apartment Therapy/NYT mediation: "Pop quiz: You're a troubled media dinosaur struggling to find your way on the Web. What steps can you take to actively discourage people from linking to you, thus reducing your pageviews and revenue?" BoingBoing readers weighed in on whether that was a fair assessment. Some BoingBoing commenters observed that the decorating site actually posts all the photos and content from NYT articles, making the link to NYT several clicks in totally meaningless. While AT may come to some agreement with NYT the larger issue of copyright is less likely to sort itself out prettily.

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¹ I stumbled on several sites like this last week -- unknown name.

Aspiring to be FOX News

We often take to task those who would begrudge science research money. Politicians like to use science projects to make points about "pork", but often the projects they begrudge involve piddly dollar amounts, especially considering the pay-offs science yields. Science research has both long term and short term benefits -- more efficient food production for example, as well as employment and livelihoods for scientists, farmers, workers in start-ups, marketing professionals, accountants, and maybe even bankers. None of these positives are trivial or laughable. But politicians like John McCain won't readily point out the benefits. McCain ranted recently about about a "honey bee factory", because as always, the ha-ha-ha value of these rants is apparently priceless. ¹

In ¹ In Science as Political Joke Fodder we looked at John McCain's multiple attacks on science and asked why science? In "Fruit Flies, Astronomy, DNA...There Goes The Economy", we analyzed Sarah Palin's attack on olive fruit fly research in France and the source of her information, the lobby group Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW).

Yesterday we came across a Harper's blogpost that pulled information straight from CAGW talking points.² The author criticized the $410 billion omnibus spending bill for earmarks in his "Weekly Review", focusing on two projects that have been circulating in the news:

"more than 8,000 congressional earmarks, among them provisions for improving blueberry products in Georgia and controlling the spread of Mormon crickets in Utah."

Was Harper's jumping on the whole earmarks bandwagon? We hadn't been following the earmark protests, but where did the Harper's information come from? John McCain talked about both science projects the Georgia blueberries and the Mormon Crickets in his speech to the Senate on the Bill. CAGW called out the Mormon cricket research this year and mentioned listed the blueberry research last year in its 2008 budget pork database.

Viral FOX

A few weeks about FOX News composed a video called "$209, 000 for Blueberries? From there blueberry research story went viral, to the New York Times, blogs, and sites that aggregate press releases. For politicians and media flexing against "pork", science spending is a favorite target, because face it, the organic dried blueberry lobby hardly buys a lot of advertising on FOX News.

People criticize earmarks as a way of securing funding and say that these no bid grants should go through the appropriate venues and compete for money. (I'm sure scientists might do this, if science were funded to adequate levels. Or maybe scientists wouldn't -- since this must be easier than writing a grants?) But, confusingly, some of the people who make these points about the harmful, not transparent nature of earmarks, like the group Americans For Prosperity, take distinctly anti-science positions. Americans For Prosperity for instance ran a "Hot Air Tour campaign" in 2008, where they completed a hot air balloon cross-country tour under the slogan, "Global Warming Alarmism: Lost Jobs, Higher Taxes, Less Freedom." According to the group: "Climate alarmists have bombarded citizens with apocalyptic scenarios and pressured them into environmental political correctness. It's time to tell the other side of the story." CAGW attacks particular research based on who funds their lobby efforts.

Taxpayers for Common Sense calls earmarks a "petri dish of corruption". Perhaps they make a valid point that calls for a more thorough exploration of alternative means of funding. But simply calling out research that sounds silly, as Harper's did seems less productive.³

209,000, How Much is That?

Why focus on $209,000 worth of blueberry research anyway? Why such a relatively tiny number? Is it because most people make less than that in a year and can actually fathom the number? To get perspective, consider this:

• $209,000 is the amount FOX News and Harper's are up in arms about. 209,000 seconds is 2.42 days, 1/137th of a year.
• 165 million was paid in AIG executive bonuses this week (because of "the contracts" -- pardon me while I die laughing). 165 million seconds is 1,910 days, or 5.23 years.
• In the past 6 monthes, AIG has taken out $170 billion in loans from the US government, which in seconds, is 5,387 years.
• The Service Employees International Union criticizes Geithner's trillion dollar Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF) because the taxpayers absorb significant risk and there's no guarantee that the money will be used to make new loans. 2 trillion seconds is 63,377 years.

Buy a Scientist a Petri Dish, He's Corrupt for a Lifetime

It's all relative. And as we've pointed out before, scientists work for much less than your average banker. Today with AIG's multi-million dollar "retention" bonuses, 20K-40K for a scientist is small change. But every person who is kept off the unemployment rolls keeps money in the taxpayer's pocket -- so to speak -- momentarily anyway, oops, now AIG has it.

New York State Attorney General Cuomo released details today of his AIG investigation and reporting that 73 employees received bonuses of $1 million or more in 2008. Say the average scientist make 50K per year, and no bonus was over 1 million, two generous assumptions. What would taxpayers rather do with that money? Employ 1460 scientists? Or keep 73 bankers on the dole?

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¹Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) is an organization started by the late J. Peter Grace, who was CEO of W.R. Grace & Co. for 45 years and Jack Anderson, a syndicated columnist. CAGW was an extension of the Grace Commission formed when President Ronald Reagan, who appointed J. Peter Grace to aim at decreasing the role of government. CAGW extended from the Grace Commission.

W.R. Grace is a chemical company whose pollutants contaminated Woburn, Massachusetts well water, causing cancers and resulting in a drawn out court case chronicled by Jonathan Harr in "A Civil Action". CAGW is a lobby favorite of conservatives and lobbies. We previously noted that attacks on science from Sarah Palin and John McCain originated with CAGW. CAGW works with a wide range of industries tobacco, software, pharmaceutical, to avocado growers in Mexico, targeting specific actions based on the desires of groups who pay CAGW.

² In my opinion, Harper's is sort of a mixed bag on science and sciencey subjects. They've published some great pieces on the environment like Tom Bisell's excellent "Eternal winter: Lessons of the Aral Sea disaster", in 2002, or Erik Reece's "Death of a Mountain: Radical strip mining and the leveling of Appalachia."(April, 2005) On the other hand they've published some infuriating articles from a scientist's perspective, like Celia Farber's ridiculous "AIDS and the corruption of medical science", a misleading and factually false view on HIV and the treatment of AIDS, that was criticized by top doctors, virologists, researchers, microbiologists, immunologists, the Treatment Action Campaign, a South African NGO. (Here's the 37 page PDF that documents the errors)

³Harper's has published some great pieces about lobbyists. See for instance Ken Silverstein's "Invisible hands: The secret world of the oil fixer", in the March issue maybe still on the newstand, or Silverstein's Their men in Washington: Undercover with D.C.'s lobbyists for hire, or his piece on John McCain and the Reform Institute.

Congress Takes on Bisphenol A

The US House and Senate introduced bills last week that would ban bisphenol A (BPA) in all food and beverage containers. The proposed bills are the latest federal legislation to try to curb the used of BPA, even as production of the chemical continues to increase worldwide.

Studies conducted by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) have found that bisphenol A is found in 92.6% of people tested. For years consumers assumed that the chemical was benign. However BPA has now been shown through hundreds of science studies to be linked to prostate and breast cancer, obesity, neurological problems including behavioral problems in children, precocious puberty, altered sperm counts, immune disorders and other problems.

For a long time, even though more and more studies showed the dangers of BPA, legislation was nowhere to be found. Now legislative efforts are starting to gain traction following increasing public awarenes and outcry on bisphenol A. In 2005 Acronym Required reported on the first bisphenol A legislation out of California, introduced by Wilma Chan, that proposed a limit to bisphenol A in childrens products. "Plastic Bottles- Protecting Your Baby, by the ACC", focused on the industry's use of misinformation about baby bottles to protect their plastics and bisphenol A market. Reporting on San Francisco's attempt to clamp down on the use of BPA in baby bottles and children's products, we wrote: "It will be interesting to watch the progress of this legislative attempt to control use of this chemical". The California legislation was swiftly defeated under industry threats.

In the four years since, the accumulation of science research attracted public attention then propelled citizen action, which in turn motivated city, state and federal legislatures to pay heed. Not coincidentally, the companies who we chronicled vehemently denying the dangers of BPA, now "voluntarily" discontinue some of their controversial uses for the chemical. Not all lobbies are so agreeable however. The Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association (JPMA), which currently owns the site www.babybottle.org that we took exception to 4 years ago, still runs under a banner of blatant lies "PLASTIC BABY BOTTLES ARE SAFE. Convenient. Tested. Trusted."

Taking a Stand on the Precautionary Principle?

Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) sponsored the Senate bill S. 593, which Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) co-sponsored. Said Feinstein when introducing the bill:

"I strongly believe that the time has come to utilize a precautionary standard in all food and beverages with respect to chemical additives. If you do not know for certain the chemical is benign, it should not be used. Bisphenol A, known commonly as BPA, is one such example. It is used in consumer products all around us: plastic containers that store food, compact discs, water bottles, canned soups and other canned foods, even baby bottles. More than 100 studies suggest that BPA exposure at very low doses is linked to a variety of health problems..."

America consumers should not be "guinea pigs", Feinstein said. The bill would ban Bisphenol A from all food and drink containers, effective 180 days from enactment. The chemical is ubiquitous, found in pipes, baby bottles, infant formula cans, dental sealants, and car parts. But the Environmental Working Group commissioned research showing that half of the cans they tested had detectable levels of BPA that would not only expose adult consumers to levels of BPA considered dangerous, but could expose unborn children whose mothers eat canned food to up 200 times safe levels. Therefore a bill that targets the use of bisphenol A in food containers would help keep the chemical out of humans.

Feinstein's legislation would allow companies to petition for renewable waivers by claiming that it was "technologically impossible to replace BPA in that time frame", an interesting and potentially problematic criteria.

The language Senator Feinstein used in her statement is interesting for other reasons too. "Precautionary Standard" is similar to "Precautionary Principle", which is a sort of loaded term, one that industry and free trade organizations detest. The presumed head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) (in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in the Executive Office of the President), Cass Sunstein -- unofficially nominated but at large (maybe somewhere in the bowels of OIRA) -- has periodically taken a strong stand against the Precautionary Principle. (For instance read the paper "Laws of Fear: Beyond the Precautionary Principle", the book of the same tittle, papers or the related less conciliatory CATO article on the subject. Some of these same ideas which are propagated throughout his writing including in "Nudge"). If Congress goes forward with the legislation, will it bring the US stance on chemicals closer to the European one? Will the "Precautionary Standard" edge its way into policy or become more mainstream?

Whatever the outcome, if you were to take a stand on the unfortunately named but potent and historically interesting Precautionary Principle, would the chemical bisphenol A, which has been thoroughly researched, be the chemical you'd choose? (It's not clear whether Feinstein is doing this or whether this is just convenient, casual wording.) Acronym Required has written about the disconnect between the hundreds of studies showing potential dangers of the chemical, legislative action, media coverage, and stalling action by lobbyists, in Phthalates and Bisphenol A: Media and Politics".

The research on bisphenol A does not leave very much doubt as to the dangers of this chemical. So then is this "precaution"? Or even "caution"? Or is it legislation that is very late in to the scene, slowed by chemical companies and their intense lobbying, which makes it simply "reactionary". Not to dredge up an overused cliche here, but is this that different from warnings on cigarette boxes, decades after the first health studies came out? I'm not answering, just asking.

Making this a joint congressional action, Congressman Edward Markey (D-MA) introduced the companion bisphenol A legislation in the House. Markey's bill will be known as "Ban Poisonous Additives Act of 2009".

Senator Feinstein also helped write a 2008 amendment to the Consumer Product Safety Commission which banned the sale of phthalate containing products to children under seven. California passed a similar law in 2007.

Communities Take On Bisphenol A and Companies Suddenly Choose Science

As we mentioned above, Acronym Required previously chronicled San Francisco's failed efforts to ban bisphenol A legislation. The San Francisco City Council members deleted language that would have restricted the use of bisphenol A in certain infant and children's products when sued by plastic manufacturers. We also wrote on Chicago's city legislation and Canada's, and Canadian communities' bans. Since then, more communities have taken on bisphenol A, and Suffolk County" is the latest to institute a ban on the chemical. While manufacturers can afford to take one city to court, if multiple states and cities are introducing legislation, the balance of power changes. Steve Hentges, the prolific American Chemical Council spokesman and author of editorials proclaiming BPA's safety must be spinning (as in 360s) trying to keep up.

American manufacturers are expert at stalling legislation. But at some point, they too, glance over their shoulders an realize that legislation and negative public opinion is bearing down on them. Six companies, Playtex Products, Gerber, Evenflow, Avent America, Dr. Brown's and Disney First Years said they would stop the sale of plastic polycarbonate baby bottles in the USA, in response to action by Connecticut attorney general Richard Blumenthal, and the attorneys general in Delaware and New Jersey.

In other company responses to public outcry, Sunoco wrote a letter to investors saying that they would stop selling bisphenol A to companies that can't assure that BPA won't be used in food and water products for children under 3. Sunoco noted they couldn't assure that bisphenol A was safe. Sunoco's action, though rather anemic, was in response to investor actions and queries to the company. Interviewed by the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Tom McCaney, associate director for corporate responsibility at the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia, a group of about 600 nuns who petitioned Sunoco on BPA: "We thought this was a really bold step, especially for a company that's a member of the American Chemistry Council." Bold indeed. Not the adjective I would choose perhaps, since Sunoco's not guaranteeing anything, but a "smart" business move? Sure.

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• Science Budgets That Look Friendly: Barack Obama's budget proposal looks good for science although we know this will get kicked around in Congress. Science reports these proposed budget increases:

  * NIH is slated to receive $7 billion over the $70.5 billion dollar budget, including $6 billion for the National Cancer Institute.

  * NSF: The budget asks for a 8.5% increase to $7.045 billion dollars.

  * DOE: The projection for 2009 is $33.9 billion, in addition to $39 billion for energy programs under the stimulus package, and $1.6 billion for the Office of Science.

  * NASA: $18.7 billion has been requested, which is a $700 million increase over this year's figure. The stimulus package included $1 billion.

• Public Health, Thai Style: Thailand's Anti-Smoking campaign run by the Thailand Health Promotion Institute demands that all cigarette boxes be printed with one of several disconcerting graphics, to dissuade smokers from smoking. So smokers will be able to blow artful cigarette rings while regarding a box adorned with rotting teeth, a body tethered from emphysema to hospital ventilators, lung cancer, or skeletons. The country intends to run similar warnings to dissuade alcohol drinking.

• Branding Triplets: Peter Orszag started an Office of Management and Budget (OMB) blog last week. The first title announced a new slogan: "Discipline, Efficiency, Prosperity". Perhaps the OMB is signaling that branding strategists have swept through to overhaul the agency's image, and that the marketing team incredibly found a few unspoken for adjectives still available after the run of the late 90's. Or perhaps enough companies have gone out of business now that some adjectives are newly available for government agencies to use.

  The OMB promises a turnaround from the apparent Bush era slogan: Dissemble, Procrastinate and Ruin -- and offers the new blog to open up channels of communication.

  Our only experience with Cabinet blogs was reading Mike Leavitt's blog, a communique that wasn't usually a font of transparency. For instance, Leavitt traveled to Africa several times to support PEPFAR and the Bush public health agenda. During Leavitt's 2007 visit, African president Thabo Mbeki was be writing about Leavitt's endorsement of the African National Congress's (ANC) nutrition and HIV/AIDS policies (in Mbeki's usual misleading manner). However, Leavitt's blog of his trip would read like a vaguely concerned tourists introduction to the country. 'All these orphans -- that's going to be a problem....' No mention of HIV/AIDS policies. Dissembling.

  I guess there's only so much transparency allowed on a government blog.

• Paper Cuts: This map shows the distribution of 15,590+ jobs lost from newspapers since 2007. Unlike many online denizens, I actually still subscribe and enjoy paper media. Oh well.

• Poland Spring and Nestle Deterred?: The town of Shapleigh, Maine voted against Nestle in the company's bid to test the spring water in their town for possible bottling. The townspeople reject the idea of Nestle extracting water from their springs. Their vote may or may not accomplish their objective, pending likely legal challenges and the fact that the townspeople don't have say over state owned or private drilling sites in the town. The movie, "Flow" documented the extraction of water in Michigan.

• Rahm Emmanuel Runs the Republican Party: Sunday, Rahm Emmanuel told Bob Schieffer that Rush Limbaugh was "voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican Party." Emmanuel explained that when Republicans "attack" Limbaugh they have to then "turn around and come back and basically said that he's apologizing and was wrong." Sure enough, a couple of days ago, RNC chairman Michael Steele told CNN's D.L. Hughly that he, Steele, not Limbaugh, was the "de facto leader" of the party, and Limbaugh merely had a show that was "incendiary" and "ugly". Today Steele apologized to Limbaugh.

• Measles -- Science In Action: Last week a man returned from Europe with measles symptoms, caught from a friend. Once home, he came into contact with 73 people, which the San Francisco Communicable Disease & Prevention (CDCP) center contacted after activating an Infectious Disease Emergency Response. The man claimed to have been vaccinated twice against measles but couldn't document this. Instead he asserted that his disease symptoms proved that vaccinations don't work. Two of the man's children were also unvaccinated.

  The aptly named Andrew Resignato, the director of the San Francisco Immunization Coalition, noted that since the average person doesn't understand vaccines or disease or science, these perennial outbreaks among the unvaccinated are to be expected. Last year a measles outbreak infected 12 people in San Diego. Earlier this year, a different man returning from India set off another Emergency Response in San Francisco.

• Octopus Are Our Friends: Nothing like an octopus that inadvertently manipulates the water flow in its pool to plunge reporters into anthropomorphic sentiment. The Los Angeles Times reported that a female octopus at the Santa Monica Aquarium "disassembled the recycling systems valve, flooding the place with 200 gallons of seawater". This octopedal dexterity motivated quite a few comparisons to humans.

  The two-spotted octopus, which if spread out, according to LA Times reporter Bob Pool, would be "the size of a human forearm", "floated lazily in the water that remained in its tank", then "watched intently through glass walls and portholes as workers struggled to dry the place out in time for the day's first busload of schoolchildren to arrive on a 9:30 a.m. field trip." (Emphasis mine) Octopus fans immediately started writing in to suggest that the aquarium should name the unnamed octopus, from "it" or "she", to "Flo". Sure, why don't we just invite "Flo" to tea and sandwiches while we're at it?

Judd Gregg withdrew his name from consideration as Secretary of the US Department of Commerce yesterday. Early in his career, when CATO was pushing the idea and it was trendy, Gregg suggested that the department should be eliminated. This fact got some progressives apoplectic when Obama nominated him, although Gregg had been very supportive of certain parts of Commerce, like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Gregg's NOAA sponsorship paid off for New Hampshire, but many Republicans, would abolish NOAA, along with the parts of Commerce that oversee trade, the census, and programs to benefit minority businesses. ¹ The Financial Times noted today:

"The New Hampshire Republicans would have spared himself and Barack Obama...had the measure succeeded. Instead, the commerce department survived and, with it, the job of commerce secretary"¹

Paradoxically, if Commerce had been eliminated, Barack Obama would have been spared Gregg's waffling, but CATO, would-be killer of the Department of Commerce, would be in a pickle. Where would it turn to the get evidence it uses in arguments before Congress for unregulated free trade?

Even considering that Obama has said he is open to doing away with ineffective parts of government, and some arguments that the Department of Commerce is mostly heavy on http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0209/18836.html">partisan perks, it's clear that the appointment was never a good fit. Really, if you need to take the centennial census away from the guy you nominated to the department that oversees the census? Not exactly ISO 9000 level of trust.

But does Gregg's sudden realization that he doesn't want what he asked for, that he's not willing to endure a spot on the team of rivals, bode ill for Obama's "bipartisanship"? Well, the team of rivals is perhaps overrated, apparently "Chase and Seward and Cameron and Stanton were in fact a crew of venomous enemies, all of whom underestimated their leader." Who needs "rivals" when you have bloggers, anyway?

Gregg was apparently pressured by his party. Obama will not cease working across the aisle, said his administration. But Congress? Republicans? GOP strategists eat bipartisanship rhetoric up like the monsters on Rampage World Tour.

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¹ The photo was taken by NOAA. It shows Judd Gregg's wife signing the keel of a newly built NOAA ship in 2004. The ship was named by high school students as part of a program to engage students with scientific studies. The ship was named after Henry Bryant Bigelow, an oceanographer who worked as a researcher, instructor and professor of zoology at Harvard from 1906 to 1962, and who founded Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in 1931. The former Senator Trent Lott (R-MS), Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH), and Senator Thad Cochran (R-MS) were thanked at the "traditional keel laying ceremony".

• Globalization 3.0 -- Sneakers, Call Centers, Banking?

  When the Obama administration suggested a cap executive salaries for banks on national dole, news quickly bubbled up about all the loopholes behind the announcement. Bankers bristled at the mere idea of caps. It occurred to Bank of America that they really didn't need any federal money after all. Deutsche Bank cheekily predicted that US bankers would defect to Europe. But according to this news report, bankers don't earn as much in Europe or anywhere else as they do in the US. Not only that, excessive banker salaries are being criticized in Europe, Japan, and China, although in Japan and China bankers reportedly make about $400K per year. So far China's not recruiting US bankers, although they are recruiting scientists. Maybe someday soon, when bankers think the rules are too tough to grapple with in the US, they'll be able to seize the day in China.

• California Floods of the Future

  Rain may be causing consternation about flash floods in California, but scientists are thinking about even more intense flooding when global warming causes the seas to rise. A study by the U. of Oregon and University of Toronto published last week in Science, found that the melting Antarctic and resultant collapse of the ice sheet would cause sea levels to increase differently in different parts of the world.

  The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that the Western Antarctic ice sheet would melt and cause the sea level to rise 5 meters. However this uniform rise of sea levels may not happen. Instead the seas will rise more in some places, like North America and the Indian Ocean, than others, like Antarctica.

  The paper's authors discuss with the NSF three effects that will contribute to the uneven rise in sea levels. Now, because of the ice-water gravitational attraction, the Antarctic ice sheet draws water to it. But as the ice sheet melts, less water will be drawn to it and more will flow to North America. Second, the Antarctic ice sheet now sits in a hole, caused partly by the weight of the ice mass. As that mass melts, the depression will become smaller -- so more water will flow to North America. Finally, the melting ice sheet would alter the rotational force of the Earth, so the South Pole will move, shifting water away from the pole to other places, like the west coast of the United States.

  In California, $2.5 trillion in real estate assets is endangered by climate change.

• Dams for Water -- And Quakes?

  Speaking of water damage, was the earthquake in China hastened by the dam? Scientists are suggesting that the weight of water in the Zipingpu reservoir, created by the massive Zipngdu dam in the Minjiang river affected the seismicity of the Beichaun fault a mile away and perhaps contributed to the timing and dynamics of the 7.9 Sichuan earthquake. The excellent movie "Up The Yangtze" followed the dam building on the lives of one family.

• Worst Job -- Marine Biologist?

  Rising seas, more marine biology? It was my dream job as a child, but apparently it doesn't suit everyone. Unable the get a job for three years as a graduating economist from UC Davis, Daniel Seddiqui set out to try 50 jobs in 50 states. His best job so far, he says, was border patrol, tracking immigrants on the border. His worst? Working as a marine biologist in Seattle. "Boring", he said. At the moment you can't find out the details of his ennui on account of the 404, but a couple other scientific-ish careers seemed to please him more. See him on Fox News or wait for the book.

• A World of Cheaters and Crooks?

  Some of Obama's recent picks for leadership positions have stepped aside with tax payment problems. Tom Daschle will not head Health and Human services. Nancy Killefer withdrew her name as chief performance officer. And Friday the Senate committee reviewing Rep. Hilda Solis's nomination for Labor Secretary canceled their meeting because of outstanding liens -- some 16 years old -- on Solis's husband's business. Timothy Geithner managed to get through with his much larger unpaid tax obligations, that's before we understood how trendy tax evasion was.

  While Republicans rally for some populist rage around these tax missteps, one "senior Democratic official" told the Financial Times (Feb. 3, 2009): "In practice, you have to make exceptions for individuals. Very few people can withstand such scrutiny." Really?? I will never apply then. How embarrassing would it be to admit to some wealth-conscious senatorial committee that my only perk is an annual Medecin Sans Frontieres map of the world's trouble spots?

• The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act: Senators Sing, Dance, and Beg for Phthalates and Lead

  The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act that goes into effect Tuesday will make it illegal for stores to sell products for children under twelve that contain dangerous levels of lead, and products for kids under three that contain dangerous levels of phthalates that cause deleterious effects on development in babies. Consumer groups were denied their request to delay the law by federal Consumer Product Safety Commission last week.

  But some US senators chafe at the idea of losing toys like the Valentine's Day mechanical singing-and-dancing plush animals with red plastic guitars -- the toxic lead containing "Wild Thing Gorilla", "Ain't Too Proud to Beg Dog", the "Sing & Dance Puppy". The LA Times reported last week that Sen. Robert F. Bennett (R-Utah) "introduced a bill Thursday that would postpone the law, and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) introduced a stimulus package amendment that would block the law.

The Inauguration

Many wept. Some for Obama, some for a lifetime of waiting; some because they'd miss Bush, still others because they'd thought Bush would never leave. Even Bush himself brushed tears from his face as he hopped up the helicopter steps. (The loss of power must be a blow.)

Who wasn't somehow moved by the reality of new presidential leadership? Less often now, my stomach churns before I check the news. I'm slowly deprogramming my habit of bracing for the next stunner, the next mendacious policy announcement, the next hair-raising revelation from the White House. I'll admit, in the past couple of weeks I've even lapsed into moments of (naive) hope.

• Hope for inclusiveness, triggered by small, many would think irrelevant episodes. Like when Pete Seeger showed up at the preinaugural concert to sing an Arlo Guthrie song with his grandson and Bruce Springsteen. Seeger may be an ever popular folk hero now as he approaches 90 years, with a new album and glowing biographical movie. But it wasn't always like this. He was blacklisted and banned from radio in the 1950's and 1960's on account of his "subversiveness".

  In the early 1960's Seeger refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) on First Amendment grounds, a decision which through him into economic hard times and patriotic hot water. But before that he had performed for US military chiefs in Theodore Roosevelt's White House. His father administered music programs as part of FDR's New Deal.

  Patriotism is so subjective isn't it?

• Hope derived from the crowds at the inauguration, good-natured people of cultural, racial and political diversity. Hope for religious tolerance. In his inaugural address Obama described a "nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers". How observant. According to a Pew Center report, about 16% of Americans identify as non-believers, but not one member of Congress does. It was surprising recognition for what a Beliefnet writer calls the "untouchables".

• Words that warmed my heart on a chilly day, Obama promising in his speech to "restore science to its rightful place". Indeed, on the first couple of days of his administration Obama overruled the ban on international funding for organizations that provided contraceptives, overturning Bush's ruling which overturned Clinton's policy. Obama also promised to revive stem cell funding.

  Bravo for science awareness!

Dashing Hope

Obama's first moves gave us plenty to be optimistic about. But as Mark Slouka wrote in this month's Harper's:

"It would be churlish to quibble.

Still, let's."

Slouka points out that Obama won in a perfect storm of economic disaster and Republican failure, that Obama was an exceptionally talented and articulate candidate. Given all this he still only got 53% of the vote. What about the others Slouka asks, those who thought Palin would be a fine Vice President, or who couldn't discern any difference between the candidates therefore didn't vote? Slouka worries about American citizens' choices and what he sees as an overwhelming contentment with ignorance.

"When one of us writes a book explaining that our offspring are bored and disruptive in class because they have an indigo "vibrational aura" that means they are a gifted race sent to this planet to change our consciousness with the help of guides from a higher world, half a million of us rush to the bookstores to lay our money down."

We're doomed, he concludes.

I'm not quite so cynical. But the barriers to "change" look high. Not to be a wet sock, but should stem cell policy changes and international funding for organizations that inform people about birth control options assure us that science is in its "rightful place"? Of course not. From these quick executive changes, we're convinced only that politics determines the place of these science policies.

True, nothing can happen overnight. More policy changes are in the works. Obama is set to increase NIH biomedical funding. He ordered the Department of Transportation to get to work completing emissions standards. He's told the EPA to review California's request for a waiver. But we have a long way to go to meet the President's promises on the environm ent and science.

Tunnel Vision

Will it happen in time? If the citizens cannot to be trusted, than we should look to their leaders. While the Republicans argue about every aspect of the stimulus bill, the economy sinks further. And if politicians seem unbearable, what about the corporations groveling about, looking for their next hand-out, planning their next party, all the while complaining how they can't possibly improve their product, honor a warranty, concede a dollar, accept a regulation.

Will we emerge from this tunnel in time? Or are Americans indeed doomed? While carmakers argue that technology doesn't allow them to raise emissions standards, a Chinese engineer, one year out of college, cooly introduced a new electric car from Chinese automaker BYD (Build Your Dreams) at a recent autoshow. The car? "A $20,000 plug-in hybrid that can go 60 miles before the gas engine kicks in, or the e6, an all-electric crossover that cruises 250 miles on a single charge."

According to The Atlantic the BYD car was parked next to the $500,000 Maybachs, the Lamborghinis, Maseratis, and Bentleys. Taking in the expensive American cars draped with bejeweled women, the Chinese engineer noted: "Those beautiful vehicles are for the very handsome men, those high in society. They're not for the everyday man."

Will Congress please slap its cheeks to alert itself to the dire straits of the situation and start working for us, the everyday man?

The unraveling of the financial economy shocked many who predicted endless prosperous times for unregulated capitalism in its zenith. Alan Greenspan and Robert Rubin scratched their heads with airs of befuddlement. However others weren't surprised. Some Chinese now recall how they compared derivatives to mirror images of mirror images of mirror images of a book as far back as 1999 (and perhaps amassed U.S. treasuries in anticipation.)

I'm sure you've heard the one about the word "crisis" in Mandarin being the same as the word for "danger" plus "opportunity"? It's a myth about the Chinese language that persists, famously forwarded by presidents like JFK in 1959. Ancient Eastern philosophy didn't predict today's New Age affirmations. But yet people from all sides of the political spectrum insist that crisis brings opportunity, brings change. True?

In August, the Financial Times wrote an article titled "Fannie and Freddie crisis is Paulson's big moment". According to the FT, US Treasury Secretary would "make use of the virtually unlimited powers he was given by Congress" to avert further disaster. Paulson et al. eventually architected a solution and after some finagling the banks got cash infusions, but the efforts failed to jumpstart or even stabilize the economy. Last week Paulson talked to FT about his lack of power, and what turned out to be his not so "big moment". The FT headlines tell his spin on the protracted tale:

• On December 30th:"Paulson rues shortage of firepower as battle raged".
• December 31st: "US lacked the tools to tackle crisis, says Paulson".
• January 1st and 2nd FT: "Paulson says crisis sown by imbalance" (version I), and version II: "Paulson says excess led to crisis". ¹

Often what looks like the silver bullet, the gold ring from a distance, is really tarnished nickel once you gallop into close range on your plastic merry-go-round horse. The first bailout round of $700 billion got grabbed up quickly, but still, banks don't lend, job losses accumulate and the economy sputters. Whose opportunity was this crisis? Who spews forth these dubious little ditties?

Sure, some cash rich people are traipsing around the suburbs cash in hand looking good deals, including Chinese tourists who set out of house hunting tours in Los Angeles. A few of the most cash rich institutions (the top four are: Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway and the Bank of China, ICBC and China Construction Bank) But as time goes on, more and more people people lose confidence in capitalism, monetary policy, even macroeconomics.

Paulson's plan didn't do the trick and there was no great "defining moment" for him, rather an ongoing crisis. Barack Obama warned yesterday that the financial crisis demands more government cash, which will further deepen the country's debt, accruing years and years of trillion dollar deficits. Grim.

Change In Crisis

But if opportunities look sparse don't crises still present openings for change? So they say. For some, like George Soros it's the end of a certain fundamentalist capitalism. For others, like the Cato Institute, it's a time to pursue greater deregulation. Cato blames government intervention for the crisis, saying government precipitated ruin by pursuing a bastardized version of laissez-faire economics.

Even scientists see an opening with the financial crisis. For Bruce Alberts, the Editor-In-Chief of Science the "financial meltdown", brings the hope for recognition of the "centrality of science and engineering for successful modern societies", and promise of a "new sense of reality". Everyone hopes for change.

Same, Same?

We're skeptical. Not of change necessarily. After the Asian Tsunami they built a warning system. After denying global warming for decades, the world woke up. After eight years of the Bush administration the world's a different place. Change happens.

But some thirty percent of the population approves of the job Bush is doing. And people who forecast or promise change are often plain wrong. After 9-11 we heard about "the end of the age of irony". After the Berlin Wall fell we listened to the folks at the US Department of State and scholars like Samuel Huntington (RIP) predict a "new" era, when tribal and religious strife would threaten the relevancy of states and a "clash of civilizations" would dominate politics.

We can't predict precisely what might change, or whether the future government and it's financial policies it will benefit more people than current policies, or less. But we should be alert to our own fatal collective tendency for hopeful thinking. Now is the time to speak up for change, about science, about laissez-faire, and most of all, about the evolving new government.

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¹ And is he engaged in a little what psychologists interviewed by the NYT called "ego protecting?"

• USA Loves BPA

  The FDA, pressed to change its safety assessment of bisphenol A (BPA), announced this week that it needed to investigate the safety of BPA some more. It refused to defer to science on BPA, rather offered up this stalling device. Laura Tarantino, the director of the FDA's Office of Food Additive Safety said "I can't tell you when we will finalize this," she said. "There is a lot of work." Clearly the Bush administration wasn't going to besmirch its environmental record by ruling against BPA.

  Acronym Required has been following BPA in the USA for a few years. Hundreds of studies suggest BPA has negative health consequences.

• New's York's Soda Tax

  The state of New York will raise $404 million by taxing sugary sodas with an "obesity tax". The state is looking not only to raise money, but to help stem the obesity epidemic in a state where 1 in 4 citizens is considered obese by CDC standards. Although the state's obesity incidence increased by 14% since 1995, New York's obesity rates are actually lower than the national average of 1 in 3. The American Beverage Associaton decried the tax on "hard-working families", warning robotically that the new law could cost jobs.

  Acronym Required has written on the politics of the obesity epidemic, for instance in Childhood Obesity, The American Way"

• Stevia -- Safe says the FDA?

  The FDA cleared the used of a stevia extract for sodas this week, giving the substance a "generally recognized as safe" (GRAS) designation. Pepsi and Coke eagerly awaited clearance of rebaudioside A (rebiana), a compound from Stevia rebaudiana. Pepsi will start selling SoBe Lifewater nationwide next year. Coke will market rebiana sweetened Sprite Green. Coke will also begin sweetening its Odwalla fruit drinks with stevia. This has some scientists concerned.¹

  The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) is opposed to the FDA approval because the safety profile for the chemical is worrisome. Rebaudioside A is a steviol glycoside which is 40 to 300 times sweeter than sucrose. A review study by UCLA scientists notes that Rebaudioside A and its gut intermediary steviol are potentially mutagenic (PDF). Noting that the data on the chemical is sparse and conflicting, the study authors recommended:

  "the FDA should require carcinogenicity and toxicology studies in rats and in mice before accepting rebaudioside A as a GRAS substance or approving it as a food additive. Ideally, all those studies would be conducted by an independent party, such as the National Toxicology Program of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences."

  Consider the FDA's different regulatory approach with BPA. Over one hundred studies show deleterious effects of bisphenol A on behavior and health, yet the agency says it needs to do more research. But with rebaudioside A, there are a few conflicting and/or disturbing studies. Yet the FDA doesn't need more research. In "Phthalates and Bisphenol A: Media and Politics" we wrote:

  "If bisphenol A were a therapeutic drug going to market, instead of a chemical with an established global market, and there were 700 studies (LA Times) showing hormone effector effects in animals, but also "two dozen" human studies showing the same responses in humans -- therefore if bisphenol A, the hypothetical drug, had passed through the equivalent of Phase I safety, Phase II efficacy and was well into Phase III trials -- the stock of a certain pharmaceutical company would be skyrocketing based on the evidence. Financial analysts would be jumping up and down in their Aeron chairs predicting sales of the next blockbuster drug....But bisphenol-A is not a drug..."

  Rebaudioside A is not a drug but a sweetener that will bring in profits when kids slurp it down in their Odwalla fruit smoothies. So no holds barred by the FDA! CSPI calls the FDA's move premature and a parting gift by Bush to the soda companies.

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"Carbonated Water, caramel color, phosphoric acid, aspartame, potassium benzoate (preserves freshness), caffeine, natural flavor, acesulfame potassium, citric acid, calcium disodium EDTA (to protect flavor), Panax ginseng extract, phenylketonurics: contains phenylalamine"

I'm sure you could do more harm by adding rebaudioside A, but this isn't the most healthy assortment of ingredients to begin with. And I'm curious what "unfresh" carbonated Water, caramel color, phosphoric acid, and aspartame tastes like?

The Emperor

Obama is making infrastructure and energy a central goal of his administration. Therefore people were heartened when they heard that Obama will nominate Steven Chu, Nobel Laureate in Physics and Director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (not to be confused with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) to head of the Department of Energy. Chu has led LBL since 2004. He's a Nobel Laureate who has formed collaborations in the LBL, the Joint BioEnergy Institute, the Energy Biosciences Institute with Heliosgovernment, industry and universities to forward technological solutions to alternative and renewable energies.

Environmentalists like how Chu sounds because he says things like: "If I were emperor of the world, I would put the pedal to the floor on energy efficiency and conservation for the next decade", as he told Reuters last year. Business likes him because they know that the Energy Biosciences Institute was funded by British Petroleum -- Chu works with industry, of course.

Almost everyone is thrilled that Obama will nominate Chu for this position, and he gets fantastic ratings for his accomplishments to date. Of course there are always naysayers, like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, representing business. Said William Kovacs, vice president of the organization:

"What you've got are people who are committed to moving forward with regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, which we believe is a huge mistake"...If we're embarking on a new infrastructure program that's going to involve building a lot of roads and bridges, the last thing we want to do is hold it up with CO2 regulations."

There's more than some gobbledygook here, but at least one aspect of his argument, that the economy is too fragile for "green initiatives" is a common kneejerk fallacy of "pro-business" camps. In today's Financial Times, for instance, Phillip Stevens wrote:

"The EU leaders have set a target of cutting greenhouse emissions in the EU by 20 per cent by 2020. They have pledged to increase energy efficiency by 20 per cent and to draw 20 per cent of energy from renewable sources...All this seemed challenging, but possible at a time of prosperity. The voters would surely accept a degree of pain to safeguard the future for their children and grandchildren. Industry had the cash (or cheap credit lines from the banks) to adjust...[but] no longer."

This is course a myth, a common one. People like Joseph Romm have long dispelled these assertions, but business persists. Mr. Chu addressed this himself in an interview last September, when he said: "if you went to an energy-efficient economy, you will kill the economy. That is just demonstrably not true." In fact it's the opposite. Businesses can become more cost efficient by becoming more energy efficient. Changing light bulbs in schools is just a start.

Mr. Chu will not be emperor, but part of Obama's climate team. The Department of Energy focuses on nuclear weapons disposal of nuclear waste and basic science. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) carries tremendous influence on emissions and health through its administration of the Clean Air Act, for instance -- or as we're accustomed with the Bush administration, by eviscerating the Clean Air Act.

The Chief Administrator

Not everyone is applauding Obama's choice for EPA head , Lisa P. Jackson. She has won accolades for diplomacy and her handling of various New Jersey environmental problems. However Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) wrote a scathing review (some say unfair and uninformed) of her tenure as the Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.

PEER even went so far as to say she was worse than former New Jersey governor Christie Whitman. Ms. "your air is safe" Whitman not only launched New Jersey's path to fiscal insolvency, her state environmental policies weren't necessarily "environmental". Interesting how the "Garden State", known affectionately as the "Armpit of the Nation", or "What exit?", holds such a reservoir of EPA administrators.

Jackson has opposed the EPA's recent handling of California's bid to waive Clean Air to act its own program. She also said, "When it comes to the auto industry, the E.P.A. apparently is the Emissions Permissions Agency."

The Czar

Obama picked Carol Browner, Clinton's former EPA head, to be Climate Czar, to coordinate all the agencies involved with climate policy, such as the the EPA, DOE, the DOT, the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

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Acronym Required writes frequently on the EPA. We've also written on effective, versus ineffective government agencies in articles like

From Taiwan: BPA "Potentially Toxic"

Taiwan is considering listing bisphenol A (BPA) as a "potentially toxic substance". Companies that used BPA would be required to notify the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of Taiwan. Taiwan is one of the primary manufacturers of BPA in the world. ¹ The country produced 635 megatons of BPA in 2005, compared to about 2260 megatons produced in the US during the same year. Japan, Western Europe, Korea and South American also manufacture large quantities of BPA. (Chemical Week, October, 2005.)

From Canada: CBC's "Disappearing Male"

The Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) recently aired a program on bisphenol A called "The Disappearing Male", available here and at CBC. The program broached a subject that hasn't been discussed too much in the media, the effect of certain chemicals on male sexual development, both in humans and other species.

The report reviews the effects of plastics on health and environment according to scientists who have long sought to bring attention to the deleterious effects of endocrine disruptors. The film also reports on a Canadian town called Aamjiwnaang Canada, that sits by a toxic chemical plant, where girl babies outnumber boy babies by about 2:1.

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¹ We previously looked at the response of politicians to citizens' safety concerns in terms of the economics of bisphenol A in Canada and the US.

² The film also provides a brief demo on mouth pipetting.

Obama Change? Like Island Time?

When the Obama team signaled this week they would not follow through on their campaign promise to impose a windfall tax on oil profits, people wondered whether "Obama Change" was "change" only in some warped sense of the word -- like being on "Island Time" -- elusive, non-committal, eventual perhaps. After all, he did say back in the day:

"I'll make oil companies like Exxon pay a tax on their windfall profits, and we'll use the money to help families pay for their skyrocketing energy costs and other bills,"

That was June, 2008. So what was that campaign promise about? Easing the worries of families who were broke? Did Obama sense his audience's disapproved of oil companies getting unseemingly rich while the economy flagged? Was it just an empty promise as some people suspect? Or perhaps now with oil prices so low windfall taxes wouldn't suffice to help individual energy bills. Did the president-elect's threat influence the price of oil? Perhaps oil executives lowered prices only so as to dip below the radar a bit.

It's hard to know who's being wily. But before we can spend too much time wondering why the president-elect changed his mind on windfall taxes; Barack Obama comes back to remind us of other promises. We reported a couple of weeks ago on Obama's address to the Governors' Global Climate Summit about his administration's intentions to act on climate change with investments to provide "500 million new green jobs that pay well and can't be outsourced."

In Obama's latest address to the nation yesterday, he re-presented the idea of the "National Infrastructure Reinvestment", which he also talked about during the campaign.

Highways, Information Super Highways, Technology, more Technology

On energy, Obama's promising to produce jobs by making buildings more energy-efficient:

"We need to upgrade our federal buildings by replacing old heating systems and installing efficient light bulbs. That won't just save you, the American taxpayer, billions of dollars each year. It will put people back to work."

When Obama ran for president interviewers would ask him what he did to save energy and light bulbs became a bit of a joke. Here was his take on it:

"...Brian Williams is asking me about what's a personal thing that you've done [that's green], and I say, you know, 'Well, I planted a bunch of trees.' And he says, ''I'm talking about personal. What I'm thinking in my head is, 'Well, the truth is, Brian, we can't solve global warming because I f---ing changed light bulbs in my house. It's because of something collective'."

When Barbara Walter's asked Obama about the light bulbs a couple of weeks ago, they both laughed -- as if it really were a joke. Now he's launching his "collective" light bulb plan. Is America really fixated on lightbulbs? Obama's also promising a "sweeping effort" to modernize schools -- to make them energy efficient also.

Additionally Obama's administration will invest in infrastructure, new highways and bridges. And not only tarmac highways but information super-highways too. Reviving a term from the early internet days will hopefully relax the taxpayers. Party like its the dot-com! Oh, no that didn't end well -- but the bad ending was at least brief. Saturday Obama also mentioned technology that will solve problems like healthcare -- by networking hospitals, increasing broadband penetration so everyone is on the internet, and getting more computers to students.

Infrastructure without the B-Word?

Obama is following through with planning his campaign plan to launch a 21st century "New Deal" and says such an investment hasn't been made since the Eisenhower days. Surely America needs it.

As a Senator, Obama co-sponsored related bill, the National Infrastructure Bank Act of 2007" introduced by Senator Christorpher Dodd (D-CT) in August 2007. The House of Representatives forwarded a similar bill. Those in-process bills would establish a bank to fund the a subset of the projects Obama spoke of yesterday.

When Obama campaigned last summer on "rebuilding America", he also talked about a bank, as well as promisng to withdraw support from Iraq to fund infrastructure.

So no bank? And as everyone knows, Iraq is a bit in limbo. Well, plans change to fit the times.

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Acronym Required wrote on infrastructure and the Minnesota Bridge collapse in "Guano Takes the Bridge, Pigeons Take the Fall". We wrote about infrastructure and the levees in "FEMA and Disaster Preparedness", "Disaster Preparedness - Can We?", and "Levees - Our Blunder". We're fascinated with technological salves for problems.

"...Manufacturers told the subcommittee Monday that some faced financial ruin without the bill, which the Congressional Budget Office estimates could cost taxpayers...."¹

"We appeal to your sense of justice!"

That's how the American Apparel Manufacturers Association begged the Senate for $50 million in 1981, pleading with legislators to approve the Tris Indemnification Act. Tris (2,3-dibromoprophyl) phosphate (tris) was used as a fire retardant in children's sleepwear in the 1970's, but the government banned its use in kids' pajamas when studies showed that it could be absorbed into the skin and could cause cancer. The apparel association wanted some payback.

$50 million seems like pittance now, given the billions flying around as the 2008 US government hopefully sprinkles newly minted, crisp Treasury dollars about. The back story of American Apparel Manufacturing in the 1970's is clearly different than the insurance, bank and auto-industries of 2008. But there are similarities. Behind many bailout stories, it turns out, is a coincidental trail of deregulation. Deregulation that's good for business.

Autos and Chemicals in Deregulated America

Today's beggarcorps, the auto, bank, and insurance companies, greedily sucked as much money as possible out of the Great Market and its Invisible Hand until it showed signs of withering. Companies shunned deregulation, oversight and caution. Once market money dried up, like insatiable green blooded Aliens or Predators, the CEOs stoop to clamber out of their Neon concept cars and pursue taxpayer dollars.

In the case of the auto industry, history repeats itself. Reagan bailed the industry back in the 1980's after Carter left the White House. Carter tried to wean the US, but Reagan declared morning in America. As they say in Michigan, Reagan "really pulled the fat out of fire for the auto industry". But how did the automakers use the good will, deregulation and limits imposed on Japanese import cars, grandly granted to them by Reagan?

Not to pursue wise business practices. Reagan's bailout not only bought the auto industry time, it helped cement expectations for habitual handouts. Auto CEO's learned how to fly to Washington on a Jet, fling out minimal rhetoric circa 1970 about: "the health of the industry", then fly back to Michigan and continue to sell good 'ole oil-hungry "safe" cars -- at a rate of two and three per household. Now, they're forced to offer two-for-one sales and occasionally even drive to bailouts in their own vehicles.

The chemical industry did even better under Reagan. It never floundered like the auto industry has, but thrived under deregulation and continued to grow into the behemoth we know today. Its size allows the chemistry industry to produce more and more consumer products, under less and less scrutiny. On occasion citizens become apoplectic about something like bisphenol A, but the industry's size make it more than capable of mowing down potential regulation or even, heaven forbid -- threats to remove a chemical from the market. As with the auto industry, "idealistic" long-term consumer goals like non-polluting products routinely fall by the wayside to quarterly profits.

Tris History - In Brief

The story of Tris is interesting, because it was banned in the US before the chemical industry became adept at protecting its economic interests so thoroughly. Tris was an unusual chemical in that it only had a quick sojourn in pajamaland before being banned. In 1971 the U.S. produced about 3 million pounds of tris. That year the Department of Commerce established flammability standards for children's pajamas. The chemical industry saw the opportunity in that particulas regulation and promoted tris for use as a fire retardant in children's sleepwear, essentially without any preliminary studies on the chemical's safety. 3 years later Tris production in the U.S. was 12 million pounds.

Then rat studies showed toxicity and kidney cancer from exposure to tris and rabbit studies showed that the chemical was absorbed through the skin. These were followed by human studies showing that kids absorbed tris too. Congress had just established the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) in 1972 as part of the Consumer Product Safety Act. The Environmental Defense Fund, also recently formed after its successful legal action against the use of DDT, threatened to sue the CPSC if it continued delaying. The CPSC banned tris in 1977.

Carter: The Presidential Scrooge of Toxic Chemicals

Once the US banned tris, textile manufacturers sold their tris pajamas overseas until President Jimmy Carter ordered them to stop. Carter said he wanted countries to know "that the United States is a responsible trading partner and that they can trust goods bearing the label 'Made in the U.S.A." (AP Feb., 1981)

Despite their overseas sales, however the textile industry claimed losses of $50-$100 million in business as a result of the ban. Textile manufacturers demanded government compensation via a bill passed by Congress in 1978, saying that they tried to abide by government regulation and took a loss.. But Jimmy Carter vetoed the indemnification bill, saying the resulting litigation would cost too much and only large retailers would be able to fund lawsuits. Carter noted that the companies had alternatives flame retardants to tris, and advised that the bill would set "an unwise precedent [to] paying industry for losses" incurred to industries when subsequent research showed a particular chemical was dangerous. Instead Carter offered business loans.

The Greatest Presidents

When President Reagan was elected, he promptly revoked Carter's executive order on exports. This allowed US companies to ship abroad hazardous products banned in the US. This is now a common practice known as dumping. A Reagan congress promptly rewrote a Tris Indemnification Act to allow textile manufacturers to sue for damages, which the legislature estimated would cost taxpayers $56 million dollars or more. Senators like Strom Thurmond (R-SC) and Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) helped sponsor the bill that Reagan signed into law.

US citizens have been swept along for years of these policy battles over fire retardants. In the 1970's California was one of the first to require fire retardants, and California children became some of the first in the nation to wearing tris pajamas. When tris was banned in 1977, the chemical industry replaced it with dichlorinated tris, which the CPSC then also banned from pajamas.

The chemistry industry then quickly introduced chemicals called polybrominated diphenylethers (PBDE's). Europe and Sweden banned all PBDE's. In the US, anufacturers of Penta and Octa PBDE's only recently stopped producing these chemicals due to toxicity. But individuals states first had to pass legislature which threatened the PBDE market. Now, many US states plan to ban Deca-PBDA. For each chemical banned, however, which is few and far between, several more spring up, all untested for safety. But chlorinated tris, banned from pajamas years ago, is now used to flame proof furniture today.

The cigarettes that ignited most fires that these anti-flammability chemicals protect consumers from are not only less in use, but they're finally required by law to be self-extinguishing. Now fire deaths from flaming pajamas are even less than when tris was introduced. Despite the decreased home fire risk, in 2007 the Bush administration pushed through a nationwide flammability law. The law attracted attention mostly for clauses it contained that pre-empted states from taking their own measures against flammable products, either by stricter laws or as a result of tort law.

Acronym Required discussed this trend in the Bush administration to hoard power at the executive level when we talked about greenhouse gas emission regulation in The EPA and the Automobile Manufacturers Lobby, Snuggly Under their "Patchwork Quilt"?, and http://acronymrequired.com/2008/07/clean-air-one-two-punch.html">"Clean Clear Air, Nothing To See Here, Drive Through Please". In the case of flammability chemicals, the states are now forced to the Bush administration standards, despite the limited proof that deaths due to fire are effectively decreased by stricter flammability laws requiring more chemicals. California is now working to amend its own laws to accommodate evidence about toxicity.

Toxic Chemicals Persist

The story of tris's demise as an anti- flammability product is often portrayed by the chemisty industry as a huge regulatory mistake, a case of overzealousness. But was it overzealousness? Or did science work as it should -- but just in that case?

Federal agencies and politicians are exceedingly cautious about banning chemicals when faced with the expanded clout of industry. Take bisphenol A, an endocrine disruptor with far reaching effects in experiments with rats, which seem to be replicated in humans. Children are heavily exposed to BPA as neonates, infants and toddlers. Meanwhile, Canada recognizes BPA as a toxin. Yet despite hundreds of research papers, and decades of questions about the safety of BPA, US politicians are still debating the pros and cons.

Public attention to an issue is influential as the history of BPA shows. But the underlying process for assessing chemical safety is flawed -- if it could be considered in existence at all. The European Union recently implemented REACH to deal with the more systemic problems of regulation for toxic chemicals, as we wrote about here and here. The US has no such program.

Lobbyists persist, and "risk benefit analysis" is often spun-out to cover for politicians dragging their feet on telling chemical companies to come up with a better product. The chemical lobby is so strong that as BPA history shows, even the most convincing body of evidence can be trounced by a few well placed lobbyists who don't let any public conversation stray from industry talking points.

Chemisty Lobbyists -- Planted on the Down Side of the SeeSaw?

Not to say that many organizations don't try to balance the scales. But as the global warming and BPA debates show, their voices are weaker and budgets smaller.

This week the Purpose Prize, funded by the John Templeton Foundation and the Atlantic Philanthropies, awarded six individuals 60 $100,000, and nine others $10,000. The recipients were chosen from 1000 60+ nominees "who are taking on society's biggest challenges". Arlene Blum, a chemist whose research helped convince regulators to remove tris from the market 30 years ago, received the award to continue her work at the Green Science Policy Institute she founded.

Blum is a chemist who worked on the the flame retardant tris (2,3-dibromopropyl) phosphate (tris) in the 1970's. In threeScience articles she published with Bruce Ames et all, the authors looked at the history of flammability chemicals and the toxicity of tris ², ³. They then analyzed urine samples from kids wearing tris treated pajamas and showed that children absorbed the chemical through their skin.⁴ Months later tris was banned. In the 1978 paper, Gold, Blum, and Ames wrote. In their 1978 paper Blum and Ames concluded that testing of chemicals and labeling of products was essential to consumer safety.

Despite this quick seeming success, chlorinated tris is in heavy use today Thirty years later, as progress on this aspect of protecting consumer health seems elusive. Blum will put $100,000 to the task. And its a far more daunting task today than it was 30 years ago. The industry is dependent on being unregulated, and has a gargantuan marketing budget with which to keep things laissez-faire, status quo.

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¹ The Associated Press, May 5, 1981 "Sleepwear Manufacturers Call Tris Ban 'Regulatory Overkill'"

² Blum A, Ames BN. Flame-retardant additives as possible cancer hazards. Science. 1977 Jan 7;195 (4273):17-23.

³ Gold MD, Blum A, Ames BN et al. Another Flame Retardant, Tris-(1,3-Dichloro-2-Propyl)-Phosphate, and Its Expected Metabolites Are Mutagens: Science, New Series, Vol. 200, May 19, 1978 (4343), pp. 785-787.

⁴ Blum A, Gold MD, Ames BN et al. Children absorb tris-BP flame retardant from sleepwear: urine contains the mutagenic metabolite, 2,3-dibromopropanol. Science. 1978 Sep 15;201(4360):1020-3.

The Exxon-Valdez and Whales in the Supreme Court

The New York Times recently published a story about the Supreme Court decision in the Exxon Valdez case. In 1989 Exxon's tanker ran aground in Prince William Sound, piloted by an overworked seaman and his drunk master. The ship spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil over 1,200 miles of Alaska shoreline. The livelihoods of 32,000 plaintiffs were ruined.

The jury awarded the plaintiffs $5 billion in damages, a sum the district court reduced to $2.5 million. The Supreme Court then lowered the punitive award from "$2.5 million to $500 million. Exxon-Mobil made about $40 billion dollars in profits in 2006. $5 million accounts for about 4 days of Exxon-Mobil profit. By the time the Supreme Court ruled on the case, in June of this year, 20 years after the accident, about 20% of the plaintiffs had died.

From the title of the NYT article, "From One Footnote, a Debate Over the Tangles of Law, Science and Money", I thought that the Times story would have similar themes to the recent case about Navy sonar testing off the California coast. In that case, Winter vs. NRDC, (we wrote on this in "Whales in the Supreme Court"), the justices seemed to take at face value oral assertions by the Navy that their sonar caused no harm to whales, despite government funded research proving sonar did indeed cause significant harm to marine animals. In fact the Navy's own research -- both published and suppressed -- also found risks for significant damages to marine mammals. The damning evidence was significantly downplayed in the Navy's arguments.

The science in Navy case, Winter vs. NRDC also seemed for the most part to be explicitly ignored by the Supreme Court. Said Justice Breyer: "you are asking us who know nothing about whales and less about the military to start reading all these documents to try to figure out who's right in the case where the other side says the other side is totally unreasonable." The court appeared to perfunctorily reduce the case to a question of national defense vs. an incidental whale, and naturally ruled in deference to defense.

The ruling in the Navy training case was narrow, which environmentalists like NRDC and the Sierra Club took as a good sign. Despite NRDC's sanguine public relations statements in face of their defeat, however, it is not clear to me that the court's decision was even any real calculation of the risks the Navy's training efforts would face by making efforts to spare whales. Rather, it seemed more simply to be a nod to the Bush administration and its callous approach to the environment when it comes to the military, commerce (or, well, anything else)?

Scientific details which could have influenced the decision were ignored. While the court didn't say that the military would never have to do environmental impact statements, the ruling hinted that they were thinking in that direction.

When Exxon Recruits Researchers

The Times article on Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker ended with a quote from Prof. William R. Freudenburg, who teaches sociology at UC Santa Barbara: "The legal system and the scientific method, he said, co-exist in a way that is really hard on truth."

Freudenburg had been recruited by Exxon to do sociological research showing (basically) that juries are too generous in awarding damages. His initial research apparently offended people at the company, so Exxon terminated his contract. Exxon than paid other sociologists and legal experts to do the work and published their findings in two prestigious law journals. The Supreme court read these articles, and wrote the following footnote to their decision.

"The Court is aware of a body of literature running parallel to anecdotal reports, examining the predictability of punitive awards by conducting numerous "mock juries," where different "jurors" are confronted with the same hypothetical case. See, e.g., C. Sunstein, R. Hastie, J. Payne, D. Schkade, W. Viscusi, Punitive Damages: How Juries Decide (2002); Schkade, Sunstein, & Kahneman, Deliberating About Dollars: The Severity Shift, 100 Colum. L. Rev. 1139 2000); Hastie, Schkade, & Payne, Juror Judgments in Civil Cases: Effects of Plaintiff's Requests and Plaintiff's Identity in Punitive Damage Awards, 23 Law & Hum. Behav. 445 (1999); Sunstein, Kahneman, & Schkade, Assessing Punitive Damages (with Notes on Cognition and Valuation in Law), 107 Yale L. J. 2071 (1998). Because this research was funded in part by Exxon, we decline to rely on it."

However the court's decision concurred with this Exxon funded research, despite the footnote saying the opposite. This, combined with the fact that the court misinterpreted non-Exxon funded research to show that jury awards were generally fair compensation, led Freudenburg to comment on science and the court.

The Supreme Court's footnote has led to a maelstrom in the legal world over both the validity of the sociological research and the court's treatment of it. After the June decision, some writers were alarmed about the court's assertion since they considered the legal research in question ""top notch work". Others voiced a completely different concern -- "skepticism about these particular mock jury trials."

These two vastly different interpretations of the validity of sociological research and its place in the court distract from a different problem evident in both the Navy and the Exxon-Valdez case. Science brought before the courts can easily be sidelined as it was in Baker in favor of sociology research, or denigrated, as it was in the Navy case when the court simplified the question to one of national security. The environment lost in both cases and the plaintiffs lost in the Exxon Valdez case.

Of course sociological research is different than science research. Exxon is well known for supporting "anti-research", for example stating that global warming doesn't exist. In the current case, Exxon didn't deny damages to the plaintiffs rather they supported research claiming that juries are rather simple-minded and over compensate, research that doesn't hold up in other studies. This is more useful to them in the long run and allows them to skirt the real questions.

Despite my initial impression, the Exxon case did not resemble the NRDC case in a simple way. But the two cases are similar in how predictably the court seems to decide, despite whatever science research is out there. The footnote is a puzzle, and seems politically motivated rather than anything else. It's either cover for a court decision that actually was influenced by Exxon's research, or evasive action based on the acknowledgment that the reader might suspect this.

It's hard to ignore the fact that corporations have long worked to eviscerate the ability of the public to impose financial damages because of bad behavior. Corporations have also long worked to reduce consideration of the environment when doing business. The court seems merely to be codifying these goals.

Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA) won the vote to displace Representative John Dingell (D-MI) as chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Waxman won the 137-122 vote to take over the leadership role that Dingelll held sine 1981. Waxman told reporters after the vote: "Seniority is important, but it should not be a grant of property rights to be chairman for three decades or more." The committee rules on health care, energy and telecommunications, all key issues for the incoming Obama administration. Nancy Pelosi named Dingell "chairman emeritus", which, as the Washington Post puts it: "is an undefined title".

Dingell has been instrumental in protecting the auto industry from higher fuel economy while couching his reasons for doing so in the same terms that the auto industry and its lobbies use. As we wrote in "Congress on CAFE: Detroit misled us", Dingell said last summer about the American consumer's car tastes: "He likes it sitting in his driveway, he likes it big, he likes it safe". The American consumer at that time was clamoring for more fuel efficient vehicles. His wife was a senior executive at GM and her family started the company.

Representative Dingell was also overseeing FDA issues. Dingell and another Michigan Democrat, Representative Bart Stupak were taking the FDA to task over their handling of bisphenol A, and vetting the potential conflict of interest of Martin Philbert. Philbert is a University of Michigan researcher who heads a Risk Center that is largely supported by a private grants from a retired manufacturer who thinks BPA is being maligned by "mothers' groups and others who don't know the science."

Dingell fought to keep his position, emphasizing his work on the FDA issues. Indeed a flurry of recent communication from the House Energy and Commerce Committee underlined the committee's work in this area. Dingell and Stupak said yesterday that they would review "compelling evidence" that the FDA approved some medical devices despite safety concerns. They released an October 14th letter by FDA agency employees who said their managers "ordered, intimidated and coerced FDA experts to modify their scientific reviews", in order to release medical devices despite safety concerns. The October 14th letter described "corruption, illegality, gross mismanagement and retaliation at the hands of FDA managers."

While Dingell might have released the letter to emphasize the important work his committee is doing, FDA employees also have an interest in airing their grievances now, while change is in the air.

Obama On Climate Change

Barack Obama spoke to the bi-partisan Governors' Global Climate Summit in Los Angeles today. In Obama's recorded message he said his administration would act immediately on climate change. Everyone dismayed by the Bush administration's serial denials of climate change and ongoing combativeness with environmental policy leaders welcomed Obama's words.

The President-elect listed some of his broad plans for action, as put forward in his campaign:

• Establish a federal cap and trade system with strong annual targets, to reduce emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, and an additional 80% reduction by 2050.
• Budget 15 billion dollars each year in "catalyze private sector efforts" on 'safe nuclear power', wind power, solar power, next generation biofuels, and "clean coal technologies".
• The new thrust will provide "500 million new green jobs that pay well and can't be outsourced"

Obama said: "When I am president any governor willing to promote clean energy will have a partner in the White House in government." California has been repeatedly thwarted by the Bush administration in its attempts to pass stricter emissions rules than those laid out by the federal government.

Likewise, Obama noted, any company investing in clean technology had an ally in Washington, and any nation had an ally in the United States to combat climate change. Addressing those who have been clamoring that he attend the UN meeting on climate change in Poland next month, he reminded them that he's not acting president yet, but would keep abreast of the progress via observers. Obama promised that the U.S."will engage vigorously in these negotiations" in the future, and lead a "new era of global cooperation on climate change".

New Home for Maldivians? Or All Scuba All The Time

There's no time to waste. In related news, the government of the Maldives Islands is looking to buy land on higher ground. Approximately 300,000 citizens call the 1200 islands of Maldive home. The human rights activist president, Randeep Ramesh said he had broached the idea with India and Sri Lanka, because they have the same culture, cuisine and climate, and Australia, because it has open land. According to The Guardian the president said he was starting a relocation fund, by planning to sell of some state assets, turning the government palace into a university, ¹ and saving money earned from tourism.

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Acronym Required writes regularly on environment and public policy, and occasionally on island living in the age of anthropomorphic global warming.

¹ Scuba School at Maldive U?

Some recent news stories:

• Whales:

  The Supreme Court ruled that the Navy trumps whales. Acronym Required commented on the arguments presented to the court in "Whales in The Supreme Court".

• Corn Conquistadores: (?)

  Nature writes this week (doi:10.1038/456149a) that a paper to published in the journal Molecular Ecology reports on transgenes from genetically modified corn planted in Mexico found in tradition maize. The work confirms the findings of a disputed 2001 paper published in Nature. The new paper found that 4 of 23 sites reported in the 2001 work had evidence of genes from the GM corn in the native maize.

Mars Lander, No Goodbye, Just Kaput:

NASA is ceasing operation of the Phoenix Mars lander. The $428 million dollar mission began operations in March of last year, outlasted it's scheduled usage, and died in a dust storm of Mars winter. Winters don't provide enough solar energy to keep the lander running.

• Plasticware In the Lab:

  In last week's Science, McDonald et al, report that plastic labware can leach manufacturing agents into dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and ethanol solutions. As polycarbonate plastic leaches bisphenol A into water, for instance, other plastics can leak manufacturing agents into solutions. This could possibly change the outcomes of experiments.

• Your Secret's Safe, or Not:

  Google Flu trends tracks flu outbreaks before the CDC, the company reports. A study by Yahoo and researchers at the University of Idaho confirmed that search engine results produced a faster indication of disease that traditional tracking methods. This is pertinent news for tracking deadly pandemics. So if one typed "itchy bottom" into the computer, would Google be tracking the data in some database, say Pinworm Trends across the US? Don't worry. The researchers scrub the data of personal information.

• Old, Older, Oldest:

  Gobekli Tepe is in the news again. Archeologists continue to excavate the temple site containing 11,300 year old carved stones in southern Turkey. The pillars were built in circles in with pillars up to 16 feet tall, some carved with foxes, lions, scorpions, and vultures. One of the sites lead archeologists, Klaus Schmidt, suggests that culture and building proceeded and then necessitated farming. Scientists have thought that the domestication of nomad hunter societies to farming societies proceeded the building of communities.

The Bush administration is busy trying to push through 90 new laws with abbreviated public comment periods and accelerated rule-making procedures. Many of these last-minute laws would benefit industry by reducing regulation. Earlier this month OMB Watch summarized some of the action items the Bush administration is trying to roll out before the end of the 43rd presidential term. Some of the alarming changes would devastate certain environmental protections and affect the EPA's oversight of the environment. The proposed changes include:

• Allowing mining companies to dump refuse into rivers and streams.
• Weakening the Endangered Species Act.
• Allowing factory farm run-off to pollute streams.
• Loosening regulations on placing power plants near national parks.
• Exempting factory farms from reporting air pollution.
• Loosening ocean fishing management regulations.
• Doing nothing about oil refinery toxic emission control which Congress mandated.

In other odious news, a Department of the Interior rule proposed at the beginning of the year would get rid of the ban against carrying loaded firearms in National Parks. 77% of retired National Park Service employees oppose this change. The Park Service might be thinking along the lines of, how would you like to run into a retired Vice President Cheney taking popshots at birds while you're hiking with your family though the Grand Tetons? The other danger is that lifting the ban would increase "impulse" kills of wildlife by gun-toting hikers.

Some more Bush rules, these from the Department of Health and Human services, would allow healthcare workers to deny certain services that they morally oppose, and would strengthen the requirements on certain HIV and AIDS grantees to explicitly oppose prostitution and sex trafficking. These populations are the very populations that most need the services and education about HIV/AIDS, and who are at risk of spreading the disease throughout the population.

The only good news is that some of these rules are the type of regulations that the Obama administration plans to reverse. The administration appointed Susan Wood to be co-chair of the president-elect's advisory committee for women's health. She recently told Bloomberg News: "We have been going in the wrong direction and we need to turn it around and be promoting prevention and family-planning services and strengthening public health."

However OMB Watch warns:

The next president will be unable to repeal or reverse any Bush-era regulations that are final and in effect. Short of actions taken by the courts in the face of potential lawsuits, the new administration's only option would be to restart the rulemaking process. A typical rulemaking can take years to complete.

The Washington Post reports that the Obama team is targeting administrative actions and executive orders that would be quickly undone "to reverse White House policies on climate change, stem cell research, reproductive rights and other issues, according to congressional Democrats, campaign aides and experts..."

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Acronym Required Wrote on Susan Wood's resignation from the FDA over the agency's handling of Plan B in 2005 and 2006 in "FDA -- Calling Off The Dogs" and The FDA's Medical Ideology". Acronym Required writes often about environmental regulation, or the lack thereof, and about the EPA.

Who's Nice, Who's Not

President-Elect Barack Obama and his team won the election with good campaign leadership, a calm temperament, intelligence, savvy, perseverance, some luck, and lots of other things. Obama is quickly moving to assemble his teams. Such decisions will of course elicit approval from some, condemnation from others. Obama picked his Chief of Staff this week, Rahm Emanuel, a man with a fearsome reputation. Everyone has an opinion, with some claiming that the Rahm pick indicates a partisan direction for Obama's governance style.

For the rest of the top positions each media publication seems to have its own list of "probable picks". FoxNews writes it's list under the happy title: "Obama, Leaning on Clintonian Dems, Might Tap Republicans". The Nation encourages Obama to depend on Robert Reich and David Bonior more than the many "investment-banker, free-trader" types who dominate the stages.

The lists from disparate political camps overlap, but can be improbably different from each other. They're perhaps "predictive", by certainly sometimes no more than "wishful thinking". It seems that the more the individual has been in the news, the bolder the media opinions about the suitability of their role and the quicker the lines are drawn.

For instance Larry Summers' name arose as possible Treasury Secretary. The Financial Times, favors Larry Summers, who has been a columnist for the paper since he resigned the Harvard presidency. Summers got himself in trouble at Harvard most famously by stating at a woman's conference that women's abilities in science and math might be limited by genetics or personal preferences.

His opinion elicited furor from men and women alike, especially scientists who knew better. For all the disputation, however, if there was any time in the past couple of decades when such regressive ideas might gain public traction, 2005 seemed like a ripe time. There were plenty of people who jumped at the opportunity to riff off Summer's comments under the guise of "what's wrong with asking for more research on the issue?" Perhaps arguing for Dr. Summers, or appropriating his views for an ascendant ideology, one Financial Times columnist wrote:

"The trouble is not that Mr Summers is too self-satisfied. It is that Harvard is. Harvard - and US universities like it - tend to promulgate a set of views - global warming is a crisis; the US is to blame for the world's troubles; governments of developed nations ought to be large; and quotas or some form of affirmative action is required when it comes to the advancement of women and minorities. These same universities often shut out, or look away from, arguments that do not support these beliefs. The result is not "neo-Stalinist" monoliths - novelist Michael Crichton's description of universities in his current bestseller, State of Fear. But it is universities that are boring, provincial, shut in.

Mr Summers was trying to kick open doors - to recapture for Harvard the sense of intellectual possibility that leads to progress. The "woman" controversy is a good example. The fact that more maths prodigies are boys is not even hypothetical; the data have been out there for decades. When tested in hard sciences girls tend to clump in the middle of the statistical range. Boys, by contrast, are more spread out - hitting stellar highs and humiliating lows more frequently.

If, after decades of promoting girls, boys still do better, it is not crazy to wonder whether the difference is hardwired....(Shalaes, A. FT, 01/2005)"

The columnist's assertions about math and science skills, as well as Summer's, are dead wrong. We all know this, these opinions have been disproved by many a study. Summers' apologized profusely and explained he didn't mean it as it was taken. He stepped aside as Harvard's president, but continues to work in positions of prestige and influence.

This one episode in Summers' long career may or may not influence whether Obama chooses him, however it's fresh in people's minds. The National Organization for Women, (NOW), decried the idea of Summers for Treasury Secretary, citing his gaffes about gender as well as his leadership on some deregulatory points that contributed to the current financial market strife.¹Time lists more Summer's misteps (such as the Summer's memo) of Summers past, then balances the list of cons by noting his intelligence. Each source draws their own conclusion about his suitability. Some students support his possible nomination, writing odes to him based on their favorable experiences as female students.

Pick Me! Pick Me!

There's also a general shuffling around in congress, with key players circling key leadership roles. Of great interest to many of people, Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA), is vying to replace Congressman John Dingell's (D-MI) on the Energy and Commerce Chairman. Waxman has been a bulldog on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee and Dingell's powerful position on Energy and Commerce has long checked the Democrat party's efforts on emissions. Dingell is a vigilant protector of the American auto industry status quo who fought against CAFE standard updates, and against California's attempts to pass a bill to allow states to pass their own global warming legislation. In "Congress on CAFE: Detroit misled us", we mention Dingell's history of successes.

Some of Dingell's other work on the committee is fighting against bisphenol A (BPA). As we've mentioned, the congressman burnishes his credentials by balancing his anti-environment stances on emissions. In a letter to his committee members asking for support he wrote that his current objectives were working healthcare reform, global warming, and overhauling the FDA.

There's not too many people who think Dingell's work on global-warming has been noteworthy. A couple of weeks ago EnergyWashington Week reported that the Ways and Means Committee introduced its own cap-and-trade legislation and is attempting to circumvent Dingell's more lax Energy & Commerce Committee cap-and-trade legislation.

YAY!

It's a new day.

"...His triumph was decisive and sweeping, because he saw what is wrong with this country: the utter failure of government to protect its citizens. He offered a government that does not try to solve every problem but will do those things beyond the power of individual citizens: to regulate the economy fairly, keep the air clean and the food safe, ensure that the sick have access to health care, and educate children to compete in a globalized world..." (NYT)¹

Yes, there's work to do. Yes, it will be difficult. But today we recognize how much America's just accomplished.

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¹Obama won despite warnings about possible GOP ballot fraud stemming from information dribbling out of the Ohio trial concerning 2004 Ohio ballot fraud. In the latest episode, Michael Connell, a consultant whose firm has been accused of computer manipulation, denied knowing anything about GOP rigging the 2004 Ohio election results. Connell works for Randy Cole. Cole owns 15 companies that work simultaneously on GOP election campaigns (Bush/Cheney 2000/2004, McCain 2008, many others), anti-Abortion groups and churches, GOP mass mailings, government contracts, etc. Stephen Spoonamore, a key witness in the trial brings the allegations, explains in a multi-part series starting here.

When Sarah Palin took a rhetorical whack at a research grant worth $211,000 last week scientists angrily reacted to her characterization of research as "pork". Palin's tip came from CAGW, who in 1997 raised funds to rid the taxpayer of science research expense and "target agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Mental Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Environmental Protection Agency". The group enjoys a collaborative relationship with John McCain and was also the source of McCain's comments on grizzly ecology research and planetarium equipment. Why does olive fly research rate special attention from CAGW? Who is CAGW? Does any of this matter if McCain isn't elected?

Science Jokes for Dummies

As Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin put it: "Sometimes these dollars they go to projects having little or nothing to do with the public good. Things like fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not!" The audience snickered. Palin's fruit fly joke continued the comedic run that McCain began with his "grizzly bear DNA" comment and his "overhead projector" joke. They could author a book.

It's theater, some say, arguing that McCain always talks like this but doesn't vote against the measures. Case in point, Adler Planetarium's equipment grant got rejected, but McCain keeps it as a talking point. But the fact is, the GOP campaign team relegates science to political joke fodder used to misinform the masses, which doesn't endear them to Acronym Required as we previously commented. Will electing Obama put an end to this silliness?

Entomology Etymology

The "fruit fly", as every science blogger pointed out -- (and, on a positive note, so did tons of non-science bloggers, writers, and reporters) -- refers to the Drosophila melanogaster, an important model organism that scientists have employed to further research in such things as human development, disease and genetics. Scientists reacted ferociously to Palin's fruit fly research talk.

However Palin was actually referring to the olive fruit fly. The olive fruit fly which is indigenous to the Mediterranean and an invasive species of California arrived on California soil in the late 1990's. The fly poses an economic threat to California's olive crops. Olive trees are usually protected from olive fruit fly with insecticides, but from their research, scientists now know of at least six natural predators to the olive fruit fly.

The research station in France gives US based researchers a chance to study the fly in its native territory, where scientists have been dealing with the pest for years. Their research is beneficial because it will explore ways that these predators could be used as an alternative or extension of insecticides. Insecticides are a thriving part of the chemical industry however, so not all lobbyists will appreciate this new research.

Confusingly, some scientists interrupted the anger about Palin's attack to explain that Drosophila melanogaster, wasn't really a "fruit fly". The labeling confusion probably occurred sometime in the early 20th century or maybe with Aristotle, and "fruit fly" is the part of scientists' and lay persons' vernacular. Even the staid Entomological Society of America calls them "fruit flies". The real point was that Palin was referring to the olive fruit fly (Bactrocera oleae) -- a tephritid -- not THE "fruit fly".

Of course Palin supporters swarmed all over the fruit fly labeling mix-up and went on about how scientists didn't do their research, totally missing the fact that scientists really do call the ubiquitous Drosophila melanogaster "fruit fly". Acronym Required doesn't want to diminish the importance of accuracy, but in this case the label is superfluous to the larger crime of denigrating science for fun. ¹

Plus de hits, Plus de fun

Does the story just contain certain poll-tested key words -- "fruit fly", "French", "California" that Palin can throw out to elicit an audience reaction? Or shall we go out on a limb and try to guess who's is behind it the attack? Unfortunately scientists don't have comedy prank team at a radio station like CKOI ("Plus de hits, Plus de fun") at our disposal. ².

Clearly the French olive industry isn't behind the lobbying. Despite the fact that Palin said we "loved" the French, CAGW and McCain campaign aren't enamoured. The bottom line is we don't know who is behind the attack.

The olive fruit fly funding story originated with Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW), an organization that started by J. Peter Grace, heir to founder of the W.R. Grace & Co, the chemical company. W.R. Grace & Co. is famous for polluting and environmental damage (as well as not paying taxes). Jonathan Harr chronicled one of W.R. Grace's pollution debacles in the memorable book "A Civil Action". President Reagan initially appointed Peter Grace to an internal government agency aimed at decreasing the role of government. This government agency which morped into CAGW. CAGW has in the past attacked teenage alcohol education, science education programs and lots and lots of science research. The goal of the organization was initially to target "meritless" science research by government agencies.

So if you're trying to figure out why CAGW opposes $200,000K for olive fly research, you'd probably be on the wrong track. CAGW and their catchy anti-government hotline --1-800-BE ANGRY -- receives corporate donations in turn for their targeted lobbying efforts. CAGW funding comes from many companies, including Merrill Lynch & Company Foundation, Exxon Corporation (now ExxonMobil), Ingersoll-Rand Company, Johnson & Johnson F.M. Kirby Foundation, Philip Morris, RJR Nabisco (now part of the Altria Group) Sears Roebuck & Company, John Deere Foundation, Eaton Charitable Fund, Columbia/HCA Foundation.

Shooting Down Science, Contract by Contract

Among the thousands of campaigns CAGW runs, only occasionally does the media uncover or even pay attention to the source of funding. CAGW was behind a Northrup Grumman case and Microsoft's funded lobbying and astroturfing in the anti-open source.

Bill Adair of the St. Petersburg Times's did a great investigative stories on CAGW in April, 2006. In "For Price, Watchdog Will be an Advocate", Adler described how $100,000 from the Mexican avocado growers motivated a public relations effort against the California Avocado Commission's resistance against the import of Mexican avocados.

In another case, Public Citizen revealed that CAGW worked with PhRMA, a lobbying group for the pharmaceutical industry, to scuttle efforts for a government health care plan. However thousands of CAGW campaigns, and their donors remain unknown. A St. Petersburg Times article in December, 2006 described how the group's tax exempt status hides their defacto corporate lobbying role. The IRS code allows them to keep from the public records of who funds them (which is tax deductible) and other important details.

But you can get the gist of the game reading Adair's account. In "When Tobacco Needed a Voice, CAGW Spoke up and Profited" the St. Petersburg Times described how the tobacco industry donated at least $245,000 to CAGW to target movement put the FDA in charge of regulating tobacco.

CAGW and Tobacco

For years, CAGW worked with the tobacco industry. In 1997, the group lobbied the Tobacco Institute for $25,000 for the production of a publication called "Weird Science." The goal of CAGW, according to internal Tobacco Institute documents was to:

"...'expose federally "taxpayer-funded research projects that have little or no scientific merit.' The group will target agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Mental Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Environmental Protection Agency. In addition to researching agency spending, the publication will look at the issue of risk-assessment."

The Tobacco Institute memo recommended giving CAGW $5,000, instead of $25,000, because in the "wide array" of subjects CAGW proposed, "our story could get lost in the mix." You can find anti-regulatory rhetoric about tobacco and alcohol on CAGW's website.

McCain, Swindle, CAGW....

Earlier this year, Democrats, labor unions and concerned Americans criticized McCain for snubbing Boeing (headquartered in Chicago) by awarding a $40 billion contract to Northrup Grumman and European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company EADS. McCain struck back at his Democratic critics through CAGW.

CAGW has worked very closely with John McCain since at least 1990, when they collaborated to initiate a presidential line item veto. From all accounts its been a fruitful collaboration. Orson Swindle, a fellow Vietnam veteran, works for both CAGW and the McCain campaign.

Defining Cynicism.

In their annual 1995 "Pig Book Summary", the CAGW nominated Senator Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, as one of the 14 worst offenders their so-called "Oinkers", for securing a $400,000 grant through the EPA to study algal blooms in Hawaii. Senator Byrd, also called out that year by CAGW, commented on the report: "It is old propaganda. It is a yawn and a boar." (an intentional mispelling) It may be a bore, but it's a persistent one. CAGW has only increased it's influence in the last 13 years, working hand in hand with John McCain, as well as some illustrious lobbyists.

A senate report by Senator Charles E. Grassley (R-IA), condemned Citizens Against Government Waste. Grassley singled out 5 tax exempt groups who

"who violated their tax exempt status 'by laundering payments and then disbursing funds at Mr. Abramoff's direction; taking payments in exchange for writing newspaper columns or press releases that put Mr. Abramoff's clients in a favorable light.."

The Washington Post wrote about the incident: "The e-mails show a pattern of CAGW producing public relations materials favorable to Mr. Abramoff's clients."

CAGW denied the charges and left the room when things got hot. Then when Senator Steven's (R-AK) was found guilty of accepting $250,000 in bribes last week, Citizens Against Government Waste sent out a press release that read: "The Stevens trial will go down in history alongside the trials of lobbyists Jack Abramoff...as just another sad, but not surprising spectacle of corruption and cynicism in the nation's capital."

Does It Matter?

John McCain mentioned "Citizens Against Government Waste" in each of the three presidential debates. In return, the group's political action committee called McCain a "taxpayer hero" in TV ads airing in Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida. CCAGW, a PAC associated with CAGW ran TV ads for a presidential candidate.

But if John McCain isn't elected does it matter? Clearly I'm not going to say no. In our last post we quoted Studs Terkel, who once said, "given the facts and an opportunity to act, the body politic generally does the right thing." But as Winston Churchill once said: "Americans will always do the right thing... after they've exhausted all the alternatives." If Congress doesn't ensure that the people can get the facts, then we have no chance of ever doing "the right thing".

Acronym Required agrees that not all science research is beneficial -- for the economy, for science, or for education. Furthermore, who could malign CAGW's ostensible mission? As people have said before us, who does support government waste? And while earmarks may be an expeditious route to funding, should we all pay for that? But if CAGW's projects are motivated by donors, who's to say which of the group's targets is fair game and which are solely contract political targets?

On its face, why is $200,000 fruit fly research so outrageous? You know that Goldman Sachs set aside $6.85 billion for this year's employee bonuses right? According to CAGW, the downside of the bank bailout was that it would "draw socialist vampires to Washington for decades to come."

CAGW has been around since the 1980's and their work will continue unless we change the laws and demand greater transparency. There's been only occasional chatter about discontinuing the veiled lobbying, despite the wisdom of Senator Byrd and others that "it is old propaganda." At the root of the McCain campaign's choice to play enfant terrible to scientists and science, there's a very popular ideology at work that will not die with an incoming Obama administration.

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¹ Palin's naivete about the latter bit her later when she didn't recognize the Canadian comedy team's faux President Sarkozy, with his faux Fraauunch accent -- even when he asked Palin to take him up hunting by helicopter: "I just love killing those animals. Hmm-hmm. Take away a life, that is so fun." "Kill two birds with one stone", she responded gamely. Palin exclaimed to "Sarkovy" "we love [the French]!".

Several recent studies measuring biodiversity have found significant losses due to global warming and human activity. We know of course, that this has been happening for a while, but its good to be reminded of the path we're headed down. The scale of these species losses is challenging to fathom, and will be challenging to stem.

• In the latest issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a group of Stanford scientists found significant amphibian decline in Yellowstone National Park. The researchers found that the number of permanently dry ponds in the northern end of the park increased 4-fold due to changes in the park including rises in annual temperature and decreases in precipitation and snow packs. McMenamin et al found in "Climatic change and wetland desiccation cause amphibian decline in Yellowstone National Park" (doi: 10.1073/pnas.0809090105) that three amphibian species suffered significant declines in numbers since the 1990's. Ambystoma tigrinu decreased by 50%, Bufo boreas decreased by 68%, Pseudacris triseriata; and Rana luteiventris decreased by 75%. The numbers of a fourth species did not decrease -- Bufo boreas however, the scientists found only eggs or juveniles of that endangered species.


• In another PNAS article scientists from Boston University and Harvard found that 27% of the species documented by Thoreau in his studies of Walden Pond in Concord Massachusetts in the 1850's are now gone. The article "Phylogenetic patterns of species loss in Thoreau's woods are driven by climate change" (doi: 10.1073/pnas.0806446105) Another 36% were found in low numbers. The temperatures in Concord rose 4 degress Fahrenheit during that time.


• In the UK, the Department for Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs found that the number of "breeding pairs of farmland birds" is down 62% due to changes in agricultural processes including the use of chemicals and the decrease in mixed farming. Some species have decreased by more than 85%, and the several are now extinct.

Biodiversity is important for many reasons, some of which are documented in the book: "Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends on Biodiversity". Eric Chiverian and Aaron Bernstein edit the book, with contributions by 100 scientists. The book takes the perspective that losing species will impact humans in many ways, including incidence of infectious disease, medical research, and food supplies.

Subcommittee to FDA: Room For Improvement

The FDA subcommittee reviewing the FDA's August 2008 draft report has released its first recommendations(PDF) on the draft BPA report. The subcommittee brought lots of suggestions for improvement.

They wrote that the draft did not adequately provide scientific support for their method of choosing which studies to include: "Specifically, the Subcommittee does not agree that the large number of non-GLP studies should be excluded from use in the safety assessment."

The subcommittee also questioned the use of "no observed adverse effect level" (NOAEL) standard the FDA employed to determine the safety of exposure. The panel pointed out that so many studies show effects in neurobehavioral development, prostate gland, mammary gland and puberty in females, that it seems BPA must bind to gonadal hormone receptors during development. The panel said this suggests safe exposures "at least an order of magnitude below the 5 mg/kg/bw/day NOAEL identified in the draft assessment." The panel authors suggest several alternative ways to measure dose response that would model findings across the many studies that the FDA excluded in its draft.

The subcommittee offered additional point by point criticism and noted that the studies cleared by the NTP's Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction (CERHR) indicate that the FDA standard should be "substantially below (i.e., at least one or more orders of magnitude lower than) the 5 mg/kg bw/day level selected in the draft FDA assessment."

Living Through Chemistry -- U. Michigan and Dow

The FDA panel released their draft at an opportune time. Philbert was under increasing pressure about his role on the panel given appearances of conflict of interest. Acronym Required wrote a couple of weeks ago on Philbert's directorship of the University of Michigan SPH Risk Science and Analysis program, founded and heavily contributed to by Charles Gelman, a retired manufacturer and tireless critic of chemical regulation. Had the subcommittee's report dared reach the opposite conclusion than the pressure would have increased.

Following our post Martin Philbert wrote a letter to the editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel protesting the paper's allegations that his work would be influenced by the donations he accepted from Gelman: "This simply is not true", he said.

To illustrate his point he described in his letter the $15 million dollar grant the Risk Science Center took from Dow Chemical for a dioxin study. Philbert told how, given the grant, his colleagues "still found that people living near the Dow plant had higher levels of dioxins in their bodies."

Nobody found Philbert's assurance about his work for Dow Chemical comforting since Dow manufactures bisphenol A and takes political action to protect its market when necessary. For instance at (http://dowaction.com/grassroots/notice-description.tcl?newsletter_id=30665022), you can read Dow's letter thanking their employees for their "Best in Class", 31.5% "grassroots" effort in defeating California SB 1713 Bisphenol-A Ban.

The University of Michigan task in the Dow study was to measure blood dioxin levels of home-owners in different geographic areas -- not to investigate health affects. In that sense the dioxin study is not an analogous situation to the BPA panel. But even if were comparable, the University of Michigan results got Dow off the hook in a way, by finding that the variation in dioxin levels was due to things like age and body mass index (BMI), not levels of dioxins in the air or soil.

Media, politicians, citizens and scientists criticized the study because Dow had long been under pressure from the EPA to clean up dioxin contamination ¹ and the study was seen as a stalling technique. The EPA had this to say in one memo: "the study was initiated at the request of Dow in order to downplay the risks of exposure to dioxin contaminated soils." The EPA went on to say:

"public presentations of the preliminary results have emphasized how little effect living on contaminated soils has one an individual's dioxin blood level. This emphasis has resulted in numerous media stories, an understanding by some members of the public, that remediation of dioxin contamination is unnecessary."

The BPA memo on the FDA draft will no doubt assure the doubters in the public that Philbert's panel has their best interests in mind. ² If not, Philbert warns that he will "think long and hard" before taking time to "perform this kind of public service".

Stay on your toes...

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¹ Burnham, D. "1965. Memo Show Dow's Anxiety on Dioxin.", NYT 1983)

² Perhaps Dow's BPA economy is not at stake in Michigan? John Dingell (D-MI), bulldog for the auto-industry, has also taken on BPA.

Methods Suspect. Evidence of BPA Harm Swept Under the Rug?

In their August 2008 draft evaluation (PDF) on the safety of bisphenol A (BPA), the FDA used industry studies to reaffirm that an older, no observed adverse effect level (NOAEL) for humans. Their evaluation that BPA was safe flew in the face of hundreds of peer-reviewed studies that show low doses of BPA has potentially damaging affects on human development. In our last post we described how congress is closing in on the FDA, criticizing their methods for evaluating the safety of BPA and questioning FDA conflicts of interest.

Last week, 36 bisphenol A researchers also called into question the FDA's procedure for evaluating BPA science. In their published paper Myers et al analyzed an industry study authored by Tyl et al, (including authors from Bayer, Dow, ACC, TRI, and SABIC Innovative Plastics) paper ¹, used by the FDA in their draft assessment, earned ten pages of criticism from Myers et al.

Neurobehavioral Affects Swept Under the Rug?

Two recent NIH reports, the 2008 NTP report, and Chapel Hill Consensus Statement indicate that the "greatest level of concern [for BPA] was directed towards possible neural and behavioral effects caused by BPA exposure in utero." Low dose bisphenol A is implicated in "changes in brain structure, brain chemistry and behavior represent the largest portion of the published low-dose BPA literature."

The NTP is supposed to advise the FDA on regulatory matters, but the FDA's draft report did reflect NTP conclusion that there was "some concern" about neurobehavioral effects. Instead, the FDA draft said that there was no evidence to support such a warning. Included in " documents on the FDA site is a research review of neurobehavioral studies contracted by The American Chemistry Council's (ACC) to Exponent ¹, a consulting company in San Francisco, California. Exponent unsurprisingly found "no consistent adverse effects of perinatal exposures to low doses of BPA on neurobehavioral endpoints based on the 18 studies," a decision reflected in the FDA draft.

Good Laboratory Practice: "FDA's Misguided 'Gold Standard'"

The many, many low dose studies should convince anyone that BPA is not safe. Yet the chemistry industry keeps coming up with its own studies, one after another, which show the opposite results of non-industry scientists. The 2008 FDA draft gave the most weight to two industry studies that followed Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) standard.

Myers et al explain that the FDA designed the GLP standard to stop widespread private lab fraud in the 1970's, following a federal investigation of private lab practices. Scientists in the 1970's investigation needed to re-run 4000 tests by 235 companies and re-examine safety profiles of 15% of all U.S. pesticides on the market. Several men from one company were sent to prison for doctoring data. The Myers et al authors note:

"...fraudulent results were possible because contract lab studies used in the regulatory process are rarely subject to the checks and balances that peer-reviewed, replicated scientific findings undergoes."

The FDA's resultant industry GLP standards require extensive record-keeping to halt the type of fraud that Myers et al say is largely prevented in peer-reviewed research conducted under NIH grants. Another impediment of using GLP in academia is that GLP standards require large sample numbers of rats. 8000 rats were killed in a 2002 industry BPS study (a distressingly gross pile of dead rats). Such a large number of sacrificed animals would violate the animal care guidelines under the NIH grants.

GLP Trumps Good Methodology?

Among the supporting documents for the FDA draft here on the FDA site, you can find the ICF consulting product that Acronym Required mentioned in our last post, the neurobehavioural review contracted by ACC to the consulting company Exponent², and various other reviews and communications.

There's obviously industry involvement in the FDA review. However, it is the government agency's job to consider the arguments of all constituents. I challenge anyone who doesn't know BPA research very well to make too much out of the content of these documents. However, given the FDA's conclusion you can's help infer that some of the industry sponsored research on the site influenced their decision. One you suspect that the FDA is influenced by industry, every document could look suspect.

For instance in one document ("Bisphenol A - Review of studies conducted by Vom Saal et al, Nagel et al, and MPI Research"), an FDA scientist, Dr. Sprando, compared low-dose studies on prostate development from Frederick Vom Saal's lab to an industry study where the scientists tried (and failed, with much public ado) to repeat Vom Saal's results. The MPI study used more animals in its experiments, which Sprando says makes the industry study "more powerful", an assertion that's not necessarily true.

More disconcerting, MPI's positive control failed. The FDA noted the lack of positive result, dismissed it, and concluded that all the results conflicted on neurobehavioral affects, therefore no decision was warranted.

Who To Trust?

On one hand you have several studies from Vom Saal's labs, as well as a later study from another academic lab showing negative affects of BPA on prostate development. On the other hand you have the MPI study sponsored by The Society of the Plastics Industry, Inc. which finds nothing. As with every other endpoint, the FDA compares NIH studies to an industry study, a "GLP" study, and favors or heavily weighs the industry result.

Myer's et al have concluded that the industry studies used by the FDA are "invalid":

"The fact that the U.S. regulatory community is willing to accept these industry-funded, antiquated and flawed studies as proof of the safety of BPA, while rejecting as invalid for regulatory purposes the findings from a very large number of academic and government investigators using 21st century scientific approaches, is of great concern."

"Industry research" shouldn't be code for "fraudulent", but it's difficult to read through these documents and not be suspicious. The GLP standard intended to lend credence to industry research which is not peer-reviewed, research that is subject to conflict of interest and historically littered with fraud. Now GLP is ironically being used for an important health decision on BPA to exclude over a hundred peer-reviewed studies.

Not only does this blemish industry research, it makes you wonder about academic research. Taxpayers invest in unbiased, peer-reviewed research on issues like whether BPA is safe for human consumption. The far wealthier chemical industry can fund a study showing some opposite result every time it sees something that might impede business. The FDA appears as if at times to be in cahoots with industry -- no? But what about the people? There's got to be a better way.

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¹ Tyl et al: Two-Generation Reproductive Toxicity Study of Dietary Bisphenol A (BPA) in Mice. April, 2008: Toxicol Sci 104: 362 - 384.

² Exponent is chemical consulting company located in San Francisco. Elizabeth Anderson, who is on the management team, was previously the president of Sciences International, the company fired for conflict of interest from the NIEHS bisphenol A contract, which we wrote about here and here, founded the journal Risk Analysis.

Once Red State - Blue State, Now Internetland - Radioland?

The news is all economy and election: Warren Buffet, accustomed to being courted by the press, software tycoons and presidential candidates flexes his muscles and asks that everyone go buy stocks. The people totally ignore him. Greenspan rears his head, a haunting apparition, moaning about 'the one thing he didn't know'...The market swoons again....

Sarah Palin goes for the rich little poor girl image...McCain supporters stage increasingly hostile and bizarre threats to Obama supporters and all the media...The liberal Internet pulls for a landslide Democrat win that I believe parts of the blogosphere could accomplish by sheer force of editorial will. The liberal-nets feature daily reports from conservatives and their sons and daughters and commentators who either disapprove or are defecting from the Republican Party (Goldwater,Schwartzenegger, Powell, Buckley, Brooks, Adelman...) If Huff Po ran out of Republican offspring essays to feature I'm sure campaign enthusiasm would give editorial space to increase the pixel size of their headlines from 70-80 to 700.

Bloggers predict that the internet is bringing an end to the era of Rove style politics...Karl Rove writes a letter to the editor of Harper's to point out that Grover Norquist, not him, said: "We can go to students at Harvard and say, 'There is now a secure retirement plan for Republican operatives'"

The media talks about back-stabbing and Republican Hill staff's curriculum vitae reportedly flying out to corporations...Nobody's too happy that Imelda Palin spends a lot on make-up in addition to shoes. (Still, I think it's way to soon too start cheerfully humming 'We never promised you a rose garden')

Meanwhile in science news:

The Oddities in Commodities

• Chinese Milk Scandal: We last reported on melamine in milk made in China when the tainted milk had killed three kids and sickened a couple of thousand. Now 5000 are hospitalized in China, and products across the world are found to be toxic with melamine. Along with the "rabbit hole" of the economic despair and the "rabbit hole" of the McCain's campaign strategy, there's the imported melamine tainted "White Rabbit" candies found on candy shelves throughout the world. The United Nations noted this week that the Chinese government's oversight system needs "urgent review and revision".
  
  
• Scientists are Eager to Explore your Genome: Last month Sergey Brin advertised on his blog that his genome indicated an increased risk of Parkinson's. This week George Church announced the first 10 volunteers had signed up for the Personal Genome Project and release parts of their genetic information and medical records to Harvard investigator. Church is "hoping to offset ethical concerns" that the data may breed discrimination in jobs, health insurance and how volunteers and their families are perceived."

  Before you sign up, the "Personal Genome Project" wants you to know a couple of things. On the positive side they say you're doing good for "society" and your "donation" (if you will) might allow you to indulge in a little "self-curiosity". One possible negative they mention is that someone could "claim statistical evidence that could affect employment or insurance or the ability to obtain financial services for the participant."

• Open Access: In "Publish and be Wrong", earlier this month, the Economist pointed to a PLoS Medicine article that argues the science publishing model is seriously flawed. According to he authors, there's a false scarcity of publication slots at top science journals, and the criteria for publication doesn't assure that quality papers get published.

  The weight of the article rests with its title: "Why Current Publication Practices May Distort Science". Along with some familiar points, the writers offer shaky economic comparisons, vague criticism and recommendations. In one line of argumentation, the authors rework the idea that journals should include more negative results and fewer positive results. However its hard to see how publishing negative results (along with analysis, peer review, time) would help solve the problem of too much data and too few publication outlets, which is their primary concern. Peer review is so flawed they say, let's allow the more unprepared, less science literate readers, as opposed to scientists familiar with the research, sort through the data. Make sense?

  The team writes that many top journal publication results turn out to be flawed, and bases this on previous research by lead author John Ioannidis, an epidemiologist at Ioannina School of Medicine, Greece, who in 2005 wrote "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False". I didn't pick through the 2005 study, but assuming his assertions are true -- for the sake of discussion -- lots of published results get overturned. Therefore as I read it, lots of research is "negative", but published. So why isn't that "negative" research coveted as much by the authors of the current PLoS Medicine as the unpublished "negative" research they say are so important?

  Ioannidis et al assert that "scientific information is a commodity" and say there's a "moral imperative" to consider how its judged and disseminated. Maybe so, but if that then why separate the publishing from the foundation that its built upon (academia, tenure, granting)? And to be consistent, can we talk about drugs as commodities? And the moral imperative for generics?

  There's more to say, but in short, from my view, some of the most spurious research emanates from public relations departments of universities, or lobbyists in the form of press releases. Some of the most flawed research (sometimes what seems like reworked press releases) shows up in esteemed media outlets (for instance FT and the related Economist). And if I were a certain type of policy advocate who wanted to push policy under the guise of science I'd welcome the chance to elevate my editorial -- I'd pay to publish my "research" in PLoS Medicine along with all the genuine great research, and if I got rejected there than I'd settle for PLoS One, with all its real research. Upon publication I'd mail out press releases touting my PLoS research.

  Sure we have far from a perfect system, but open access has its pitfalls too.

  Along with Ioannidis, the collaborating authors are Neal Young, an MD at the NIH, and Omar Al-Ubaydli, an assistant professor of economics at George Mason University and a research fellow at the Mercatus Center.

Seen In Space

• India to the moon: India is aiming for the nation's first lunar exploration by putting an unmanned spacecraft, Chandrayaan1, into orbit for a 2 year mission on the moon.
  
  
• NF₃: The journal nature Nature reports that scientists found much higher levels of nitrogen trifluoride 3 from plasma TV's in the atmosphere then they had predicted.3 replaced perfluorcarbons and is "12,000-20,000 times more efficient at trapping heat than carbon dioxide". A UC Irvine scientist correctly predicted earlier this year that the emission rate of the chemical was more that previously assumed by scientists. An alternative technology to the plasma screens is LCD screens.

Picking Teams

• The American Bar Association lists lawyers who might be chosen by Obama or McCain to serve their administrations. For Obama they list Robert Sussman for the EPA, a former Clinton administration deputy administrator. They name Cass Sunstein as possible White House Policy Advisor (a libertarian, but "no idealogue" writes ABA). Sunstein has written extensively on various topics; see for instance "The Paralyzing Principle" about the precautionary principle in the December, 2002-2003 issue of Cato's journal Regulation. ABA also picked Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick as possible attorney general choice.

Charles Gelman, retired from Gelman Sciences, now donates his wealth through the Gelman Educational Foundation. Gelman is a vocal critic of chemical regulation and supporter of free-market organizations that fight regulation. The foundation gave a 5 million dollar gift to the University of Michigan School of Public Health Risk Science and Communication Center, which Gelman has called his "legacy". That center is directed by the head of the FDA panel which will review the safety of bisphenol A (BPA). Will the decision of the FDA committee be compromised?

Canada just announced its plan to place BPA on its toxic or hazardous chemical list, which will give the government unprecedented authority to ban the sale of bisphenol A containing polycarbonate baby bottles and to demand bisphenol-A-free packaging from baby formula makers.

The US lags behind Canada in the regulation of bisphenol A for a number of reasons, like the different politics and economics of BPA in each country; therefore the US moves ahead on regulating BPA more slowly, in a sort of two step forward, one step back pattern.

Last week, the Attorneys General from Connecticut, Delaware, and New Jersey asked 11 manufacturers of baby bottles and infant formula to stop using bisphenol A. Yet the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) steadfastly maintains that Bisphenol A poses little risk for humans. The agency contends that the estrogen related chemical is not dangerous in the doses the FDA predicts people will ingest, despite research showing otherwise.

In the FDA's last review, issued last April, the agency used industry sponsored studies to make its decision. People tend to jump to conclusions about the validity of industry data, using a study's funding source as a proxy for trustworthiness rather than examining the data. But their correct to be concerned about industry research in the case of BPA because hundreds of government and university studies show very different, more alarming results.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee plans to interview FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach to question him about the agency's procedure for rating the safety of BPA. While the first FDA results are under congressional investigation, a second committee chaired by Martin Philbert was also set up to review the first FDA decision.

Last week, in the continuing saga of bisphenol A policy, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel revealed that the University of Michigan center that Martin Philbert heads received a $5 million dollar gift coincident to his appointment to the FDA BPA review committee. (The FDA would not be the first government agency to have a conflict of interest on BPA, recently an NIH subcommittee studying BPA was also found to have controversial links to industry.)

The donation was given to the University of Michigan's School of Public Health (SPH) Center for Risk Science and Communication by Charles Gelman, a retired manufacturer with strong views on regulation and chemical safety. The Sentinel reports that Gelman told them in an interview that bisphenol A was perfectly safe, despite the opinions of - in his words - "mothers' groups and others who don't know the science." According to the Sentinel's report, Gelman passed his opinions about bisphenol A on to Philbert, who claims to have refused to discuss the issue with his benefactor. Philbert's conflict of interest statement for the FDA did not list the donation.

Industry Secret: Can't Beat the Law? Make The Law.

Acronym Required dug around a little more. Charles Gelman is a well known figure in Michigan. He made his fortune founding and running Gelman Sciences, a maker of plastic filtration devices. For several decades the company polluted groundwater and aquifers in Michigan with 1,4-dioxane, (PDF!) listed in California as a known cancer causing chemical. The pollution was discovered in wells near the plant in the mid-eighties and the state's Department of Natural Resources (DNR) rated the Gelman Sciences site the second worst industrial waste site in the state. The DNR then took regulatory steps to ensure that the company cleaned up the waste. In response, Charles Gelman launched an offensive that included everything from suing one of its main customers, Dow Chemical for 'falsely advertising' that it stewarded its chemicals "cradle to grave" (dismissed in court); to staging a boisterous parade through town with local business leaders when the DNR was scheduled to meet.

While settling homeowners lawsuits against the company, Gelman Sciences staged an epic fight with the state documented extensively by the local media. The company commissioned its own $50,000 study from the University of Michigan to show that other commercial products also contained the chemical. Gelman Sciences installed their own copier at the DNR while it tried to dredge up evidence against the state. The company also ran smear campaigns against people and non-profits involved with any actions against the company. Several years into the battle, the company had spent more on lawsuits against the state than it would if it had cleaned up its pollution, according to a September, 1991 article in Corporate Detroit (Waldsmith, L.,The revenge of Charles Gelman.; Gelman Sciences' legal battle with the Department of Natural Resources).

Then Gelman began pouring efforts into public policy, as he told the Corporate Detroit reporter:

"One thing I've learned is that business has some responsibility to participate in drafting legislation and being active in the legislative process, rather than paying no attention to it at all. That's the way bad laws are written."

Charles Gelman has stuck to his belief that he was wrongly accused, in his experience with the state set a course for his future actions. In 1994 while criticizing the state's lack of science knowledge, Charles Gelman told a state hearing on natural resources that 1,4-dioxane is not harmful, and no scientific evidence proved it was. When Charles Gelman's Foundation gave the $5 million dollar gift to the university last summer, Gelman noted that his gift was driven by his experience with the state on 1,4-dioxane.

I have Five Million Dollars. Would you Like some Job Security?

In gifting his millions to the university center, according to announcements the University published, Gelman noted that chemicals are complicated, and "our vision is to help inform industry, government and the public about how to properly assess the benefits and hazards posed by technology (and chemicals in particular) in our society." His wife Rita added that they were particularly interested in assessing the risks versus benefits of chemicals.

The gift establishes an endowed professorship for the UMRSC Director (Philbert is now the acting director), and will pay for two new faculty, scholarship support for students, and the Risk Science Master's in Public Health curriculum.

The gift from Gelman Education Foundation to the Risk Center certainly wasn't an out of the blue. The U. Michigan risk center was originally established with a $2.9 million dollar grant from the Gelmans, which David Garabrant, the director at the time called, "the foundation upon which the center will be built". The Gelmans also make frequent smaller (hundred thousand dollar) donations. According to Gelman, the center is his "important legacy", something that "will make a difference" as the Gelmans noted when they gave the initial 2.9 million dollar grant.

It would be a quandary. If you were a professor, in times when grants are tight, and someone offered to give you that amount of money what would you do? Perhaps you'd open the center too, while promising on your home page that your work "adheres to the highest standards of academic and professional integrity", and secure your employment security. Would the money change your politics? Even a little? One can suspect that a five million dollar donation might sway a recipient, but there's no real proof. Furthermore, it's not clear what sort of FDA opinion the $5 million dollars to the center could buy. But distrust seems warranted in this case.

Spreading the Wealth Around

Gelman's education foundation gives hundreds of thousands of dollars yearly to various religious, education, medical and political organizations. Aside from the Risk Center, his science and political donations are a nominal slice of the pie, a thousand dollars here or there which amounts to a nod to a cause or ideology. But do these donations portend an agenda that belies a neutral mission for the Risk Center? Gelman's only political donations are predictable neoconservative organizations dedicated to free-market proliferation and opposed to regulation. These are the organizations listed on the Gelman Foundation's 2007 990:¹

• The CATO institute
• The Competitive Enterprise Institute
• CFACT
• The Heartland Institute
• George Mason's Tyler Cowen, who runs the Mercatus Foundation, the Center for Public Choice, and the James Buchanon Center for Political Economy.
• The Mackinaw Center for Public Policy
• The Manhattan Institute for Public Policy
• Reason Foundation
• American Counsel on Science and Health
• The Science & Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) (Fred Singer's Global Warming Skeptism organization)
• Capital Research Center
• The Independent Institute

Incidentally, FDAreview.org is also a project of the Independent Institute. FDAreview.org advocates that "FDA control over drugs and devices has large and overlooked cost that almost certainly exceed the benefits." FDAreview.org "favors adult freedom and hence the repeal of all forms of premarket approval."

Gelman is clear about his mission to fund the Risk Science and Communication and as he says, to provide the Risk Center with contacts that will help its mission. When Gelman gave the originating grant to the center he referred to Gelman Science's protracted fight with the state's Department of Natural Resources "a case in public confusion", which would have benefited from the center's 'neutral' science.

But is an organization really "neutral" towards public policy if one person with a very clear agenda establishes it, funds the director, the professors, the students and the post-docs, and provides the contacts to help define the mission? If you're a professor doing science and didn't share Gelman's strong ideological stance, could you endure the pressure? Would Gelman endow with his legacy an organization that didn't share his views? What say does the founding funder have in the backgrounds of the professors whom he funds?

Congress is asking whether this donation will sway the the FDA's bisphenol A committee chair. Members of the Energy and Commerce committee plan to investigate the donation, and House Appropriations agriculture subcommittee members are calling on Philbert to recuse himself from the committee. If Philbert remains on the FDA committee, and then goes on to OK BPA, can that decision be trusted by US citizens? Can the University of Michigan's School of Public Health Risk Science and Communication be trusted?

¹ Acronym Required has previously written about a number of these organizations and you can find more information at Sourcewatch, ExxonSecrets.org and other websites.

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Acronym Required has written numerous articles on BPA, starting with the 2005 article "Plastic Bottles: Protecting Your Baby, by the ACC"

In Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the court heard arguments from the Navy and the NRDC about probable injuries to marine animals due to sonar, and whether the Navy had to file an EIS as established under EPA law. The justices seemed to clearly lean on the side of the Navy and the Navy's interpretation of the science, in fact Justice Scalia seemed to coax the Navy's counsel through his arguments. How does that bode for whales? For environmental impact statements?

What Environment?

In February 2007, the Navy initiated training exercises without filing the EIS required by the National Environmental Protection Act of 1969 (NEPA). The EIS is required by law and is meant to predict possible environmental harm from the sonar training. Various groups challenged the Navy in court, and the case wound up in the Supreme Court yesterday, where the prosecution and defense presented their arguments (NRDC). The counsel for the Navy, General Garre, summarized for Justice David Souter the Navy's decision to go ahead without the EIS, saying: "it doesn't specifically say what happens if they [the laws] are not followed".

A District Court had originally found in favor of NRDC, deciding that the Navy had violated (NEPA). Instead of complying with the court injunction, however, the Navy wrote its own environmental assessment EA and presented this to an executive-branch administrative agency called the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). The CEQ found that the Navy's mission constituted "emergency circumstances" that would allow the Navy to circumvent the law.

The Navy took this opinion back to the court, arguing that the court should dissolve its injunction. In more court reviews Los Angeles U.S. District Judge Florence Marie Cooper sifted through scientific evidence and determined criteria for when the Navy should turn off sonar. According to the NRDC brief, the courts reviewed "thousands of pages of briefing and evidence over the course of many weeks, and tour[ed] a Navy destroyer--to assess the Navy's contention that the mitigation measures would risk the Navy's ability to train and certify its strike groups."

The mitigations the NRDC asked for weren't new. In making its decision, the District Court heard how in previous training exercises, the Navy had "trained and certified its strike groups using the two mitigation measures at issue in this appeal". Following the lower court's decisions the Navy continued training exercises in the Pacific Ocean, "completing the last 13 of 14 training exercises, 8 of which were under the current rules", and did not appeal to the court for relief. Richard Kendall, who argued on behalf of NRDC pointed this out to the Supreme Court. The lower court has also loosened its initial ruling to accommodate the Navy.

But the Navy doesn't want to take any more steps to mitigate environmental damage (It did concede several points before bringing its case to the high court.) Despite the fact that the Navy's training was not impeded by the mitigations, the Navy and the President appealed to the Supreme Court to overrule any measures imposed by the lower courts. Yesterday the Supreme Court questioned the two sides about whales, sonar, and impact statements. It considered issues of standing and equity, as well as the role of the executive branch in determining the fate of the environment and endangered species.

Sometimes the court seemed aloof to the information in the briefs. In balancing the possible harm to marine animals, Chief Justice Roberts suggested the possible harm on the other side was: "the potential that a North Korean diesel electric submarine will get within range of Pearl Harbor undetected". NRDC counsel Kendall corrected the Chief Justice, noting that the questions in the case concerned only military training, not combat. Justice Breyer, also confused, elicited a laugh by suggesting that all military exercises were destructive: "You go on a bombing mission, do they have to prepare an environmental impact statement first?" Mr. Kendall again: "No." NRDC was arguing for basic mitigation measures during training, ones that the Navy had previously followed, which had not stopped training.

Whales & Sonar: It's Not Pretty

Research shows that whales become disoriented, injured or die after sonar testing. Strandings and deaths that have been frequently documented; in North Carolina (2005); at Haro Strait off the coast of Washington State (2003); in the Canary Islands (2004, 2002, 1989, 1986, 1985); in Madeira (2000); the U.S. Virgin Islands (1999, 1998); Greece (1996), and the Bahamas (2000), and off the coast of Spain (2006), and more The coincidence of whale strandings or deaths and naval sonar testing exercises seems too obvious to ignore, but cause and effect scientific data on the whales are more difficult to compile. That said, recent research points to how the marine mammals become injured and die.

After the 2003 mass strandings in the Canary Islands, Nature published a report by Jepson et al, showing that beaked whales had gas filled cavities and emboli in their organs and tissues. The animals hemorrhage around their ears and brain. According to Jepson's theory the whales died from decompression sickness.¹ A subsequent study in Science, 2004 found the same effect in sperm whales. ². Jepson later reported that embolisms were also present in whales stranded off the coast of Spain in 2006. ³ More studies of strandings found the same. ⁴ So common to the many government funded reports and consistent with observation, tagging, and corpse analysis, whales become disoriented when subjected to sonar, leading to decompression sickness ⁵.

Recent research by teams in the Ian Boyd lab at St Andrews University and in the Peter Tyack lab at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute suggest that the whales try to escape the sound, causing them to dive frantically, breaking their usual feeding and breeding. The diving behavior causes the bends, hemorrhaging and injuries. Tyack told Times Online in a story published September 28, 2008:

"[The Navy] uses pulses of similar frequency and duration to the pulses emitted by killer whales and is very loud. It seems to have a particularly strong effect on species, such as small beaked whales, of which killer whales are the primary predator."

Beaked whales are most susceptible to harm because of their behavioral response of abnormal diving in the presence of sonar. Scientists are closing in on the mechanisms for injury and possible ways to avoid them. In the meantime, the Navy publicly denies this research.

Oh, This Won't Hurt at All, Says the Navy

The justices of the Supreme Court acknowledged they can't evaluate science. When presented with rationale by the Navy about needing to train at night because of thermal layers, Justice Breyer considered the Navy's stance: "Fine, they went on some exercises and they didn't run into these layered things. So obviously they couldn't have training." (Thermal layers and sonar are not too complicated for a lay person to basically understand, as in here in the book, "How To Make War", by James Kunnigan, Chap. 10: Navy: Run Silent Run Deep.)

The court only anemically challenged the Navy's General Garre, who repeated asserted that the Navy's sonar causes no harm. Garre also claimed that the respondents hadn't shown "irreparable harm". For instance General Garre referred the court to a Navy document listing "all the species of beaked whales and explained that the harms that are predicted in the environmental assessment are non-injurious, temporary harms". Alioto asked Garre to explain this in "lay terms". Garre led Alioto to conclude there wasn't "physical injury", rather the whales might, as Alioto put it, just: "swim in a different direction"? (As if your child was whining in the living room so you wandered into the kitchen to get yourself a snack, rather than, that you were suddenly subjected to unending earth-shatteringly loud, nerve-rattling noise that caused you to flee up to the attic window then cover your exploding ears and plunge from the roof.) Garre assured Alioto: "that's right".

Despite the Navy's assertions, the NRDC presented significant evidence of harm in its briefs. Kendall disputed General Garre that sonar caused "no harm." He described the embolisms, gas filled pockets, and hemorrhaging, and presented this analogy to the court:

"In sound intensity, in this courtroom if we had a jet engine and you multiplied that noise by 2,000 times, correcting for water, that's the sound's intensity that would be going on in the water if you were a marine mammal near that source."

That's loud.

What the Navy Doesn't Want Us Know?

People have long suspected the Navy knows more then they're letting on about how sonar effects marine life. According to the NRDC brief (PDF) the Navy predicted in their EA that the SOCAL sonar training would result in 170,000 incidents to marine mammals -- harassment, injuries, or deaths -- and 548 permanent injuries for beaked whales.

The Navy denied and backpedaled about the possible harm to marine animals during Supreme Court questioning, but there is plenty of evidence that militaries of the world understand sonar's effects. The science journal Nature obtained an unpublished 2007 report from the UK Military under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 documenting that sonar negatively effects whale behavior and can lead to death. ⁶ The UK military ran Operation Anglo-Saxon 06 in 2006 and reported on whale activity during the "submarine war-games". Using hydrophones, researchers found the number of whale recordings dropped by 75% over during sonar exercises. The whales stopped vocalizing and foraging for food, and the UK military predicted this would lead to '"second and third order effects on the animal and population as a whole"', including starvation and death, according to the report.

To the extent the research is sparse perhaps it's because the US Navy has tried to suppress its findings. Nature reported in "Panel quits in row over sonar damage" in 2006 that the US Navy pressured scientists to suppress evidence of harm from sonar. ⁷ The US Marine Mammal Commission (MMC) was convened by Congress in 2003 to advise Congress on a plan to research whales and sonar, however the commission broke apart, plan-less, after 2 years of meetings.

The journal spoke to members of the failed MNC who said that the science had been "highly politicized". According to one participant, "the Navy, as well as other groups that use sonar, including geophysical researchers and the oil and gas industry, blocked a consensus." Lindy Weilgart of Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada, told the journal: '"This process has been a travesty of fiscal responsibility, scientific integrity, and environmental stewardship."'

Environmental Law, by the Navy: "What He Said."

In the beginning of the hearing Supreme Court pursued the facts pertaining to the Navy's decision to ignore the law requiring the EIS, and simply construct its own environmental assessment (EA) according to it's own criteria, unvetted by anyone but the Navy, and not subject to public comment.

Different justices questioned General Garre about the CEQ's authority as an office in the White House to override environmental law set out in NEPA. They suggested that perhaps the only "emergency" was that the Navy had ignored the legal requirement for the EIS before starting training. Then Justice Scalia proposed a tactic of argumentation for General Garre:

Scalia: "Look, the problem you face and maybe you're being whipsawed, is that you are effectively estopped from the argument that no EIS is necessary by the fact that you have agreed to these alternative arrangements. But you should not be estopped from arguing that at the time the EA was issued that was not a good faith completion of all the Navy's responsibilities....It assumes that the EA wasn't enough. And I'm not sure that we -- that that assumption is valid."

General Garre: "Well, that's right....the Navy believes that its EA was not only prepared in good faith, but was appropriate and reached the right conclusions...." Garre had repeatedly stated that the sonar training would cause little "likelihood of irreparable injury..." But Justice David Souter wondered whether: "without the EIS, the Navy is acting in -- in a state of -- of some degree of ignorance greater than would be the case if -- if it had done -- done the EIS."

Scalia addressed Garre again:

"The EA demonstrates in your view that the EIS would -- would very likely say that this -- this action by the Navy is okay. And since that is the case, there is -- there is no probability of irreparable harm; to the contrary, there is the probability of no irreparable harm because of the EA."

Said General Garre: "Well, we agree with that." (The Navy does agree with that, even though the EA predicted over 500 serious injuries and 170,000 incidents, it concludes no harm, no harm, again and again.)

Scalia later suggested:

"In all -- in all of these cases it is controverted, or in most of them, whether an EIS is either necessary -- is even necessary. So if the mere allegation that it was necessary gives rise to an allegation of irreparable harm, you are going to get a preliminary injunction in all cases?"

General Garre replied: "I think that's right."

However, earlier in the questioning, General Garre had assured the court that he recognized the Navy's original "duty to prepare the EIS". He had told the justices about the Navy's steadfast commitment to completing the tardy EIS document per previous legal agreements. Now, suddenly, Garre asserted he was "contesting" what he had before agreed to -- that the Navy needed to complete an EIS. This confused Justice Ginsburg, who remembered that 30 minutes earlier Garre had stated his commitment to "meet the goal" of producing the EIS by January, 2009 (although, disconcertingly, the training ends in 2008). Ginsburg said: "I thought you conceded that point". General Garre the quickly apologized for his earlier concession: "if I misspoke".

Who needs Scalia's book "Making Your Case Persuading Judges"? Just show up for the tutorial, let him argue your points, and nod -- "what Scalia said".

Good Stewards of The Environment

In the end, the Supreme Court justices puzzled over why the Navy was dragging its heels if the agency had completed the EA, was committed to completing the EIS, and if there was "no irreparable harm" to mammals.

Garre, perhaps emboldened, after Scalia's pat on the back, suggested in closing that the NRDC did not even have standing if beaked whales were harmed.

One justice queried the two parties about why they hadn't worked it out, as opposed to leaving it to the courts. Judges aren't experts on Naval exercises or marine biology, the justices pointed out. NRDC's Kendall answered that "the Navy is focused on having it its way or no way". Chief Justice John G. Roberts retorted, "that's not fair"; the Navy had continually compromised, he said, but "no good deed goes unpunished".

Scientists warn that the beach strandings may indicate an even larger problem -- not all animals may be washed ashore, many more may be dying and lost at the sea. In a review of research on whale injuries, causes, and mitigation by Marine Pollution Bulletin. ⁸, the authors write: "...the greatest user of military sonars in the world, the US Navy, appears to be in denial about the situation." While the US has taken significant action to weaken cetacean protection in national and international waters, especially with regard to sonar, the Navy continues to boast about its commitment to being "good stewards of the environment".

The Supreme Court will issue its decision later this session.

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It's Not a Fish Story

Once at social event I was introduced to a couple sitting nearby, and after a brief exchange of greetings, one began to pepper me with questions. His first question was about fish, simply: "Why do scientists study fish?" Followed without pause by: "What could you possibly learn?" Nothing I've ever done has anything to do with fish, and everything I've done is only even remotely related to his subject, so it all seemed a bit out of the blue at the time -- even weirder now -- "Hello, nice to meet you why do they study fish?" Who's "they"? What fish? Where and how do you start with that? Gently.

Was it a specific fish study? As you the reader know, there's a lot of "fish" research; for aquaculture for instance- a growing industry that produces farmed fish for consumer products and agriculture. Scientists also study reproduction and development in wild salmon or sharks or trout or striped bass, they do migration studies, studies of predators, studies on the impact of non-native fish, the impacts of fishing, recreation, pollution, and global warming on inventories. Scientists study nutritional values of fish and fish oil for human and animal consumption. Researchers study mercury levels in fish. They study shellfish and crustaceans. Did my acquaintance mean fish in oceans, or in rivers, estuaries, or lakes? Perhaps he meant zebrafish used as a model to study neurobiology, physiology, the cellular and molecular basis of disease?

But it turns out his question wasn't about fish, per se, more just research in general, which he'd recently taken special interest in...something to do with investigating wasteful research spending for the government. After a cocktail or so, he thought I might be the source of a little information to help him with his new project.

Although he was clearly predisposed to a certain answer -- research having to do with fish is wasteful -- he wasn't hostile, just baffled. He had no way of connecting "fish research" to anything meaningful in his life and was bent on doing his patriotic best to route out fraud.

With further conversation it became clear that he was repeating a line that was told to him as an example of government excess. He had clearly absorbed someone's mission and its easy target, wasteful spending in science. If you blank out of your mind everything you know about science and research, you too could be convinced to think this way. ¹

It's Not About the Fish

The food we eat is supported by research, as is the water we drink, the air we breath, our medicine, the materials we build are houses with, the lawns we grow, and the toys we buy our children. Our lives are supported by science research. But while research is applauded when the result is a new iPod, people for some reason get skittish about other science research and its results, from genetically modified anything to global warming science.

In the past decade there's been great attention paid to science as a political target, especially during the last Bush administration. Analyzing the reason why this is so, some people even blamed the scientists themselves for their communication styles, their personalities, or the size of the words they use. While these things may contribute to lack of understanding, as I've written here before, I think there are more essential problems, for instance the paltry attention paid to science education.

The lack of understanding and interest isn't unique to science, it permeates our culture and influences conversations about economics, math, finance, history, and medicine. The ignorance is reflected in the priorities of our politics. So perhaps more fundamental to even-handed science policy than communication and education, is reconsideration of legislator's motivators and campaign finance.

But even small changes would improve things. Congress certainly doesn't need a greater percentage of scientists to balance science interests, as some have suggested, nor do more voters need to be scientists to think analytically. Not everyone needs to know the nitty-gritty details of polar ice research. But you'd hope they'd recognize the importance of the research in order to recognize talking points from balancing the pros and cons of an issue.

If they did, some could shut down politicians who talked science nonsense, Or at least tell them their jokes aren't so funny. Because as it turns out science is sometimes a target not because of lack of education or understanding, or communication, or scientists have a penchant for four syllable words. It just because it makes a good joke.

Furthermore, Don't Call Me Four Eyes..."Friend"

Take John McCain's repetitive joke about "pork spending", where he uses the example of the study on endangered grizzly bears in Montana. Since at least 2003 McCain has been using this one study to make a point about of excessive spending. He guffaws that he doesn't know whether it's a "paternal" issue or a "criminal" one. "Gotta get their DNA", he chuckles, riling up the crowd. Ad he gets a good response -- part indignant, part laughter, all approval. "Corrupt, my friends", he yells. "Corruption, my friends!" he yells louder.

In the past, so many people have pointed out the flaws of his joke that it immediately shows up on all those post-debate "fact-check" blogs. The "Religionblog" at the Dallas News, for instance, griped "the loser was the truth." Introducing their own assumptions and bias along with "the facts", they wrote:

"In fact, that study is part of a push by Montana ranchers and farmers (most of them Republicans) to have the grizzly bear removed from the endangered species list. If successful, that effort could lead to increased logging and oil and gas drilling in Montana, which would cover the government's costs for the DNA study many hundreds of times over."

So the good news is, that as grating it may be to hear McCain distorting science information one more time, wide swaths of the population do get the facts right. So then why is McCain still grinding away with the same joke? Despite how many times reporters tell him, over and over that it's both flawed and not funny, I guess McCain still gets a ha-ha from the audience -- so he continues.

It's akin to offering up your wife at the Buffalo Chip "beauty contest" during the biker convention. If it gets a laugh and is a crowd-pleaser, who cares? If women take offense or call you sexist, just scoff that they just don't know how to have a little fun...Vroom, Vroom!

Deoxyribonucleic Acid Tactics

There are several components to the bear DNA joke that apparently make it funny and effective for McCain. There's his insertion of a paternity or crime part, which confuses (on purpose?) the research with forensic science as seen on TV. If you think about it, his distortion of the this particular research also connects the research on bear populations with images of crime scenes and children of unknown fathers that are favorite Republican campaign devices.

There's also his utter denial of the value of the research, no mention of the Endangered Species act, and the sort of down home, "don't know much about bi-ol-o-gy" slap-on-the-back camaraderie in his joke. The actual Northern Divide Grizzly Bear Project succeeded. The goal was to obtain an accurate count of the bears in one of the Endangered Species grizzly areas, which the scientists achieved. The results were widely publicized, and will be published more formally as a research study in the January 2009 issue of the Journal of Wildlife Management.

Oceans of Pork? Maybe it is About Fish

Congress waxes on about earmarks because people like to hear about "cutting out the pork". The real issue says McCain, is that these appropriations use resources from the central bill and shouldn't be tacked on. Despite his angry fist thumping however, McCain voted in favor of the bill that included the bear population study appropriation. The bill's sponsor, former Sen. Conrad Burn, chairs McCain's campaign in Montana.

The White House Bulletin wrote August 11, 1997, "Mr. McCain has waged a lonely, battle against pork before. And in almost every case, he loses". But actually in every case he wins. He doesn't need to vote against anything, he just needs to sound tough. Basic research scientists generally don't make large campaign contributions, so its not surprising that individual research projects might be picked out by our representatives for public pillory. Basic science is not the farm lobby, the auto industry, the oil industry. It doesn't cost much political capital to score some points with voters on the back of a scientist or two. ³

And so the politicians continue to use science projects as examples of pork.² Tom Coburn M.D. (R-OK) recently complained about a Homeland Security bill. Citing the Citizens Against Government, he said there were "11,620 earmarks worth $17.2 billion for all 12 appropriations bills in 2008." But out of thousands of earmarks Coburn spoke of, he pointed out just a few for special focus, and those were disproportionately science studies.

He cited (in his words) a "Hibernation Genomics" study, and a "space technology" education center. He plucked quotes from the grants to amuse the readers and added short explanations. With no elaboration whatsoever, I guess because its so funny without explanation, he wrote these words in his list of studies "Pseudofoliculitis Barbae (PFB) Topical Treatment". Frankly, I don't know whether these are good projects or not, but they apparently have great political value for Senator Coburn.

The media piles on too. In countering McCain's grizzly bear DNA routine a few months ago, Politico wrote that "Palin requested millions of federal dollars" for the State of Alaska everything from improving recreational halibut fishing to studying the mating habits of crabs and the DNA of harbor seals." Politico chose a few egregious Palin examples from the Alaska's 30 item summary of appropriation requests, and the three they listed as absurd expenditures were all (coincidentally?) marine biology projects.

After perusing the state of Alaska's appropriations, Andrew Sullivan of the Daily Dish was also offended by GOP contender's hypocrisy -- indicating that all McCain's ranting about pork and bragging about Palin's record was a sham. Sullivan called John McCain's bear DNA joke an "endlessly repeated, grandpa-at-Thanksgiving, punchline provided, anecdote". But while he could apparently see the purpose of bear DNA, he commented derisively on one of Alaska's appropriations: "The DNA of seals?"

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¹ I never found out exactly what he was doing for whom or what the overall intent was, though I asked.

² Similarly his talk about "ethics and transparency" despite what many have pointed out to be dubious dealing and practices through the Reform Institute that he founded.

³ I'm know some research is pork.

It's the Economy and the Election...

When US citizens wake up each morning wondering what they might have lost from their retirement accounts overnight, and what they inadvertently gained: i.e., one morning you learn you're part owner of a gargantuan mortgage business, the next you find yourself lassoed into a giant insurance collective -- no one knows what's next. Will there be a knock on your door tomorrow AM and someone waiting to press a hoe into your hand?

When congress says they're reeling, they're "stunned" from the news delivered by the Fed at their big powwow last night, and when the press is overwhelmed with the ups and downs of an off-the-charts financial crisis and the back and forth poll numbers for McCain and Obama, we completely understand that you can't give science your usual riveted attention. With the Fed sucking up all these great liabilities and throwing the whole the "government needs to get out of the way of business" idea out the window -- or did we just all misunderstand what that really meant -- we agree that reading up on monetary policy and investigating your own sense of what "full-scale panic" means might be your highest concern.

Sure the future of permafrost is interesting, cell culture research and science curriculum really important, and yes, these things should definitely claim our attention and that of all four candidates. But I'm distracted wondering why GOP VP nominee Sarah Palin canceled more appearances in the last few days than the number of heavyweights the Republicans have pulled in to play defense in Troopergate. Palin's appearances have been canceled in Seattle & the Eastside, Virginia Beach, Dayton, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Tampa and Central Florida, Virginia Beach, Cincinatti, Jackson Hole, and all of California, as well as other places. Did McCain shoo her off-stage with Fiorina to be seldom seen and not heard? Is she cramming for a American Politics 101 final? Dental work? Did she she see a Russian tanker trawling the water out her dining room window? Nervous breakdown? Sure the also "hot" Cindy McCain will replace Palin at some events, but there's got to be some disappointed Palin admirers.

Anyway, we tear ourselves away from those massive shim-sham distractions (for the moment), in order to glance at some recent science-ish news.

Some Science Headlines

• Thousands Tens of thousands of babies are sick and several have died from Chinese baby formula contaminated with melamine that compromises kidney function. This is the same chemical that was found in pet food imported from China to the U.S. last year. Officials in Singapore, Hong Kong and Bangladesh Yemen, Gabon, Burundi and Myanmar express concern that the tainted products might be available to consumers their countries also.

  Melamine has also be found in milk, yogurt and ice cream in China and Hong Kong. In 2007 the FDA found that US manufacturers of animal feed had also adulterated their product with melamine.

  Earlier this year, contamination of US supplies of heparin led the FDA to investigate and find myriad problems in the oversight process of the imported product. The agency discovered quality control issues, ranging from agency confusion about the real name of a Chinese plant that went un-inspected; to the crude processing methods of the pigs intestine in family-style workshops". Experts admonished drug makers (after the fact) that the shortage of pigs in China due to blue-ear disease should have served as a red flag to the possibility of spiked heparin.

  Heads will certainly roll (figuratively if not literally) in China over the milk scandal, but an overall plan about how to prevent the next batch of fatalities has yet to emerge. In this instance, neither US and Canadian health agencies have found melamine contamination in their milk products.

• In other news, the FDA has banned 31 drugs manufactured for export to the US by the Indian company Ranbaxy, based on an inspection of the company's Dewas plant that revealed cracked equipment, unsterilized and unclean preparation areas, inadequate procedure specification, and sporadic documentation of testing and cleaning.

  Yesterday, in response, Ranbaxy announced that it had hired Rudy Giuliani, last seen speaking on behalf of McCain at the GOP convention, to help lobby the US agency.

• Also: Environmentalists cheered last year when Florida penned an agreement to buy land in the Everglades from the sugar industry. Interestingly, some of those who pressed hardest for the move were free-market conservatives and groups such as the Cato Institute. Sugar subsidies were instituted back in the 1930's, but the industry has since shrunk, and been monopolized by a few firms whose prices were kept artificially high with the subsidies, crowding out foreign competitors. The Fanjuls, an entrepreneuring family originally from Cuba, own one of two Florida companies that control most of the sugar consumed in the US. Last Sunday the New York Times ran a great article about the buyout, digging deeper into some of the issues complicating the deal, and questioning whether the company actually arranged for their land to be lucratively bought out by the state when its business began to suffer in the downturn.

• In infectious disease news: The CDC estimates that 90,000 people die in the US each year from institution acquired infections from antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Science reports this week that the "perfect storm" of antibiotic resistance and diminished reserves of medicines portends trouble The situation not only demands new drugs, according to Science, it requires new drug targets.

  The journal summarizes two recent studies that work in this direction. In the first, a group of scientists created a class of synthetic antibacterials effective against staphylococci including methicillin and multi-drug resistant Staphylococcus aureus.(D. J. Haydon et al., Science 321, 1673 (2008)) The chemicals target specific proteins responsible for cell division. The August 22nd issue of Sciencecontained a report from another group who found a molecule that inhibits the gene which causes virulence and is turned on when certain conditions occur as the host responds to the infection. (D. A. Rasko et al., Science 321, 1078 (2008))

  On the prevention side of things, researchers at the University of Illinois found that tetracycline resistance genes can most likely be transferred from animal to animal in large hog containment areas into groundwater that feeds the public water supply. This could be one way that antibiotics used in feed to prevent infection and promote growth are adding to the overall problem of antibiotic resistance.

  And to get a sense of how far our understanding about microbes and mechanisms of infection, read up on Stanley Falkow from Stanford University, who was one of five scientists honored with a Lasker prize for his work on microbes and aspects of antibiotic resistance.

• Iran has detained AIDS doctors Dr Kamiar Alaei and his brother Dr Arash Alaei since late June. (via Nature News) The two were known world-wide for working to prevent and treat the disease, and for tackling issues around HIV/AIDS in model ways, for a country which long denied that HIV/AIDS was anything but a "Western Disease". Their disappearance in late June has drawn global concern and calls from various physician groups for the Iranian President to answer questions about the whereabouts of the AIDS doctors. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is scheduled appearance at a UN meeting next week.

• In other news: Both McCain and Obama have now submitted answers to questions about their science policy gathered by ScienceDebate2008. Some of their statements have been published here at the LA Times also. Several other science groups have submitted a document for both campaigns that lays out strategy for the incoming president on science and technology policy. Obama has named five science advisers who would serve his administration.

• Now for some old news: Last May the Anchorage Daily News (ADN), Sarah Palin tried to obfuscate the contents of report written by state scientists that supported the federal scientists' decision of list polar bear as an endangered species. Palin wrote in an editorial in the New York Times January 5, 2008: "I strongly believe that adding them to the list is the wrong move at this time. My decision is based on a comprehensive review by state wildlife officials of scientific information from a broad range of climate, ice and polar bear experts." But the state's biologists agreed with the federal assessment. Palin is has also been criticized for her positions on global warming, oil and gas drilling, Exxon Valdez oil spill damages, and the Endangered Species Act. Why does this sound so familiar to me?

Oops, we've inadvertently gone full circle, escaping politics with science then allowing ourselves to get whooshed back into the politics. But why not wonder about Palin? There's no outro to this post. We wonder what science policy would really be like in a McCain government, or in an Obama government? More like China? More like India? More of the same? Same, same but "different"? Science and technology depends on politics and government. We may think we know what science and technology looks like in an "extreme" market economy, we've seen its penultimate apex during the Bush administration. ¹ But lets not forget that we didn't anticipate Bush's actions. Now's the time to think beyond the rhetoric. I'm not sure I buy what many people insist -- that the candidates will be very alike on science issues. Now's the time wonder why McCain chose Palin if their philosophy is so different. Now's the time to learn more about Obama's science advisers.²

Perhaps we can have some government involved before the next giant catastrophe...? Before the energy investment bubble, the imminent infectious disease outbreak, the next bunch products consumed by citizens because manufacturers successfully slipped drugs cut with toxic proteins past the FTC or the FDA, the next species goes endangered, the growing storm of global warming, or the EPA....does whatever they do? There aren't too many science problems that won't be directly influenced by the new administration's policies.

¹ The book Supercapitalism by Robert Reich was interesting.

²Though it's certainly nice to see he has any now.

Canada, Painting the Country Green

When a group of US senators including Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), John F. Kerry (D-MA) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ), joined Charles Schumer (D-NY) last spring to sponsor a bill that would disallow the sale of products containing bisphenol A (BPA) for children under 7, a Canada newspaper commented that the US must have been "emboldened" by Canada's recent action on Bisphenol A (BPA). Two weeks before, on April 19th, Health Canada and Environment Canada had jointly proposed a ban on products like polycarbonate baby bottles made with bisphenol A. Canadians proudly declared themselves "the first country in the world to take such action to limit exposures to bisphenol A".

Canadian retailers quickly hopped on a growing bandwagon to stop selling BPA containing products. Walmart and three other major retail groups announced they would stop selling polycarbonate baby bottles, thus joining ranks with Canadian retailers who had already volunteered to stop their sales. Individual towns also caught the BPA ban spirit; Canadian municipalities from Vancouver to the "model town" of Kapuskasing, Ontario began pulling bisphenol A containing plastic containers off the shelves.

Canada's First Mover Status. Oh, Sacrifice

There's plenty of room for congratulating Canada on its first regulator status, but there's also some background. We've followed the science and politics of bisphenol A for a few years and with BPA (and everything else, as you very well know), politicians seem violently allergic to being "the first" to suggest regulating any product or chemical. For obvious reasons, no politician is a maverick. The economy, business, personal reputation, and lack of comfort with science, combined with lack of attention from the public, give politicians a handy (and sometimes reasonable) excuse to lag several paces behind the leading edge of science. Real mavericks don't get second terms.

When the public brings an issue like bisphenol A to the attention of cities like San Francisco, states like California, and US regulatory agencies like the FDA, these entities promise to limit the sale of bisphenol A. They quickly back down when faced with industry threats or lawsuits. At state, city and federal levels, when curious reporters ask politicians later why they backed down BPA, they tend to mumble incoherently into their hands, if they answer at all.

Last year for instance, San Francisco, California proudly proclaimed itself the "first city to ban bisphenol A". The chemical and toy lobbies promptly sued, whereupon San Francisco's political bravado melted away like gelato on the 110 degree day that its legislators will never encounter in their town. San Francisco immediately dropped the legislation, but maintained their elevated reputations as protectors of children's health because the press headlines heralding their fleeting bravery stuck in black and white. (Except at Acronym Required where we amended the titles and introductions of all our blog posts to accommodate the city's mercurial fortitude).

I don't doubt that Canadian politicians are just as calculating as American politicians. For the past 15-20 years, Bisphenol A research showing convincing deleterious health effects has accumulated. Although Canada's "first" is commendable, it could taken with a grain of salt.

And is being "first" even relevant? The US and Canada have entirely different economic considerations that influence and shape political will. Consider Canada's overall economic investment in bisphenol A, compared to that of the US. According to the Canadian April 19, 2008 report, in 2003, worldwide production of BPA was about 3 billion kilograms per year. As recently as 1986 Canada manufactured or imported 12 million kilograms of bisphenol-A per year. However, today, Canada only uses .5-1.5 million imported kilograms(kg) a year and the country has stopped manufacturing bisphenol A altogether. By contrast, in the US production increased from 7.3 million kg in 1991, to 1 billion kg in 2004. It's not surprising that Canada would be less reluctant to ban BPA, they have less of a commercial stake in the chemical.

On BPA, The US and Human Health vs. Canada's Health and Environment Concerns

One notable difference between Canada's approach to BPA and that of the United States is the separation of agencies that decide US policy. The Canadian ministers from two agencies, Health Canada and Environment Canada, issued a joint statement of concern in April, based on the research on health and the environment, stating that bisphenol A was a "toxic chemical".

The weight of the environmental evidence against BPA is strong. Researchers can measure BPA that collects in brackish low-oxygen waters and see the direct effects on species that live in those waters. By contrast, human health data is sparse. There are few studies in humans because of the obvious barrier to "testing" humans by asking them to ingest a obviously toxic chemical. In rats, there are lots of studies and the conclusions are more solid. At very low doses scientists find BPA causes deleterious developmental effects.

Canada'a decision rests heavily on environmental data in addition to the health concerns. This is different from the US, where the government's primary focus, at the National Toxicology Program (NTP), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), is how BPA effects human health. While the expert panel of 38 scientists who evaluated bisphenol A research published in 700 of studies was sponsored in part by the EPA and was significantly alarming, the results focused on humans and were quickly confused when other agencies published simultaneous conflicting results.

Critics quickly linked the different results to the institutions affiliations of the researchers -- industry or academic or government. These differing results have become a hot-button issue for many people. Industry research in bisphenol A frequently arrives at the opposite conclusion of government research and is sometimes not peer-reviewed or has control problems.Indeed, some commenters skip over real scientific uncertainties involved with BPA research, the diversity of various experiments and the difficulties in determining effects, and unilaterally cast blame on "industry research". However damning this pattern seems, all "industry research" should not be tainted.

It's more important to keep focus on the evidence and for the public to grapple with the real uncertainties yet be able to recognize the relentless BPA industry fronted marketing for what they are. Subtle and confusing perhaps, but key to understanding the real dangers of BPA and other toxins.

BPA research is fraught with experimental difficulty which effects the interpretation of results. Bisphenol A shows biphasic effects depending on the dose, so high doses show dramatic negative effects, and low doses show subtle but important effects, while medium doses often show fewer effects, presumably because the receptors are overwhelmed or the effects masked. Additionally there is uncertainty based on arcane experimental criteria -- the delivery method for bisphenol A dietary or injected, the type of experiment -- cell culture or rat, if rat, the breed, the brand of rat chow its fed, the type of labware used to do the experiment, the source of BPA tested -- blood, breast milk, urine, tissues, air, water, dust. That's only the beginning.

But there's a consistent pattern of BPA research showing widespread effects on health. In the past couple of years ordinary citizens who care about their own exposure have aggressively asked questions of industry, legislators and science, and are concluding that the growing body of bisphenol A research shows consistent and disturbing implications for on systems such as behavior, neurobiology, development, and other systems.

No matter how fast the evidence piled up, plastic lobbyists have leveraged the different results from disparate agencies adeptly. Animal data shows toxicity of BPA which persists in the environment. But industry lobbyists actually use the prolific animal results to bolster their claims by saying that deleterious BPA studies have only been shown in animals, but not humans. In the US there's not a lot of public talk about the effects of BPA on species other than humans.

Canada's Minister Baird said in his statement about the BPA decision:: "When it comes to Canada's environment, you can't put a price on safety". However this too can be evaluated differently depending on your perspective. Canada has heartily embarked on other projects such as the Alberta oil sands, that aren't so congenial to the environment. Baird's statement presents a conflicting image for the country's true commitment to the environment, given the economics of BPA.

At least for a moment last spring, though Canada was proudly "first" on BPA. Hopefully the rigors of comment periods, legislation drafting, and enforcement follow-through will cement its place. In the meantime, Europe and the US follow haltingly along.

US Agencies Dither

Despite the necessary constraints to doing toxicity research on human subjects, studies in mice and cell cultures show myriad changes to genital tract development, breast and prostate tissues, sexual differentiation, endocrine and immune systems, behavior, and neural development, all at doses below what the FDA deems safe. Yet an NIH interagency group assures us doesn't cause human health effects.

At the same time Canada issued it's dual agency warning, the US National Toxicity Program released their April, 2008 (NTP) report, stating the agency's reconsideration of BPA safety. The US National Toxicology Program's (NTP) Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction (CERHR) announced a slightly revised conclusion about BPA from their November, 2007 report, criticized by experts in the field. The April report reconsidered their 2007 report (just finalized this September) and concluded there was "negligible" concern for many exposures, and "some concern" for neural and behavioral effects in fetuses, infants, and children.

However the April, 2008 report added: "the possibility the bisphenol A could alter human development cannot be dismissed". The authors repeated the statement 3 times, which is pertinent, given the otherwise understated tone. The report included papers that the previous group had left out because of methodology, with the explanation that scientists could get meaning from the research even if the questions addressed in studies were not necessarily aimed at discerning overall BPA safety to humans. It was also much more accessible to non-science readers then the previous report.

Despite the overall reassuring stance of the April NTP report however, it's clear that ample concern (or action), and further research is justified. Take for instance the conclusion of "negligible concern" that exposure to bisphenol A would cause birth defects. The evidence is based on, as the NTP scientists put it: "results from several animal studies provide evidence that bisphenol A does not cause birth defects such as cleft palette, skeletal malformations, or grossly abnormal organs." If you get past the reassuring "negligible" stamp, the actual data is not reassuring. These particular birth defects are the most conspicuous ones that could effect fetal mice, aside from quick death. However the results don't prove that less conspicuous but serious and debilitating birth defects would not occur.

While the chemical industry likes to point out that the results in mice wouldn't occur in humans, you could just as easily argue that not observing a "gross organ malformation" in a fetal mouse would not rule out the possibility of other very serious birth defects could occur in both mice and humans and not appear as gross malformations. The dearth of more conclusive safety evidence in humans, therefore, more than warrants the NTP's April warning, however understated, that "the possibility that bisphenol A may alter human development cannot be dismissed". Nevertheless, their authoritative opinion assures people that the chemical is safe. This opinion serves as a nice soundbite and marketing fodder for the Chemical and Plastics industries.

JAMA Steps In

We should point out that the hesitation to take precautions about BPA in light of extensive (animal) research extends beyond politicians. Several recent books detail the dangers of many environmental toxins but exclude any mention of bisphenol A. Scientists' warnings about bisphenol A have been countered vehemently by seemingly trustworthy organizations like the American Dental Association. To confuse matters more, the press takes a less than informative approach in covering bisphenol A, regularly calling on the ultra-self-interested American Chemical Council lobby group for plastics to answer safety questions. All of this befuddles citizens, who don't know whether to invest in glass baby bottles or just keep microwaving the trusty plastic ones they've depended on all these years.

Because of all the questions surrounding BPA and pressures from citizens, quite a few representatives in congress are tripping all over themselves to investigate the chemical and the agencies which should be overseeing its use. At some point the momentum of an issue catches up with those who stall and demands unified response. Congress is starting to question the FDA about its procedures for evaluating BPA.

While Canadians make small jabs about the newly "emboldened" Americans, who, it's true, only now, are beginning to introduce new legislation, most of which has been resoundingly defeated. However US politicians are quickly catching up.

Adding medical weight to the issue this week, the Journal of the American Medical Association, (JAMA), yesterday published what was billed by some as the "first human data on BPA". The study looked at urinary levels of BPA and found increased incidence of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and liver-enzyme abnormalities in adults with elevated BPA levels. The study was by no means the robust proof needed to show long term effects from BPA exposure indicated in the low-dose research, however the researchers and accompanying editorial by BPA expert Frederick S. vom Saal emphasize that these results are consistent with animal and cell culture data and will hold up with more conclusive longitudinal studies.

In the meantime, this study gives one of the most prominent group of physicians something to wrap a stance around, in light of increasing attention that Congress and the public is paying to the issue. It also gives Congress some medical evidence to base their demands on. We expect growing attention to and action on bisphenol A. The ACC won't be able claim so dismissively that there are no human studies.

Newt Gingrich joined his party to promote drilling yesterday, warning Democrats who won't hold a vote on drilling that Republicans could shut down government. Gingrich is practiced at this, having led his party to two government shutdowns in 1995 and 1996 that were criticized by voters.

Drilling in protected areas will not bring immediate relief from oil shortages, nor is it the best environmental strategy. But wasn't Newt the environmental guy? So confusing. Not more than a year ago, when the Republicans decided that Democrats were gaining too much support with their environmental positions, Newt was one of the first ones to try to reshape the Republicans as green. Faced with growing movement to stem carbon emissions, Gingrich wrote for the AEI in "We Can Have Green Conservatism - And We Should":

"...if the debate becomes, "Al Gore cares about the earth, and we're against Al Gore, we end up in a defensive position where the average American could end up perceiving conservatives as always being negative about the environment."

He asserted that liberal environmentalism was bad policy, bested by green conservatism, that is, "Green Conservatism", capitalized of course. Republicans (and him) went way back being green he wrote:

"In my commitment to the environment, I was echoing the conviction of two well known Republican leaders. The first was President Theodore Roosevelt, who said that "the nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets, which it must turn over to the next generation increased, and not impaired, in value." The other was then Gov. Ronald Reagan, who upon the occasion of the first Earth Day said that "[there is an] absolute necessity of waging all-out war against the debauching of the environment."

First he slyly claimed Teddy Roosevelt as his own, then he defined the "Green Conservative":

"For green prosperity and green development, we have to have a strategy that makes the transition from the unimproved fossil fuels...to a new generation of clean energy that will: enable us, in national security terms, to be liberated from dependence on dangerous dictatorships; enable us, in economic terms, to be effective in worldwide competition; and enable us, in environmental terms, to provide for a much cleaner and healthier future."

He said "green" a lot, 23 times in a couple of pages. But that was then, April, 2007, and this is now.

So will all Republicans who denounced drilling changed their minds? The Republicans for Environmental Protection (REP) don't support drilling as of August 7th, posting articles such as "Quickest Way to Cheaper Gas Prices Is Not More Drilling." Will they change their minds? Will the Daily Green, another "green" Republican blog?

Flyboy Gall: Who Said "I believe God wants me to run for President"?

Issues and non-issues fly by fast as the campaign season winds up. The finale brings us bold lies, fantasy, and frankly, nausea. McCain aired an ad with Charlton Heston as Moses parting the Red Sea, inferring that Obama thought he was "the chosen one". The irony is that the current president, in whose shoes McCain proposes to step, is the one that said: "I've heard the call. I believe God wants me to run for President".

Is "Flyboy" spiraling downwards in a "festival of juvenilia" as Maureen Dowd called it"? Or is this just a swirl from the giant whirlwind of hot air sweeping us all up in its flotsam and jetsam. Just think, there we were a few months back, clamoring over science debates. McCain was probably chuckling to himself: "Stem cells? Henh? I'll be at the biker fair, Cindy in her denim shirt"

When Hilton Trumps McCain This Can't Be Good

In response to McCain's ad comparing Obama to celebrities, which many people took at face value, Bob Herbert set the record straight in Running While Black". He wrote: "Spare me any more drivel about the high-mindedness of John McCain." As an aside, I do I think people are long past thinking McCain is "high minded". Referring to the "slimey Britney and Paris Hilton ad", Herbert wrote: "The racial fantasy factor in this presidential campaign is out of control." He added that it's a well honed tactic used on previous candidates by Republicans, and "[i]t was at work in that New Yorker cover that caused such a stir."

"It's frustrating", he said, "to watch John McCain calling out Barack Obama on race. Senator Obama has spoken more honestly and thoughtfully about race than any other politician in many years. Senator McCain is the head of a party that has viciously exploited race for political gain for decades." Here's the full column.

Of course unlike Herbert, Paris Hilton actually did think it was about her celebrity and promptly eeked yet another 15 minutes of fame out of it. She suggested a compromise between the Democrat and Republican energy plans, a "hybrid", where

"offshore drilling carries us until the new technologies kick in." Since it would be years until offshore drilling comes to fruition however, and new technologies are readily available, her video wasn't the IQ turnaround some people cheered -- but hey she's got her brand to protect.

The Pitch: Drilling Won't Work but the "Psychological Effect" Would be "Beneficial?"

Arguments about energy this week, shallow though they may be, far surpass last weeks campaign chatter -- McCain dissing Obamas "fame", McCain offering his wife up for country fair "beauty" contests. In response to Obama's offhand comment that we'd save more gas by keeping our tires inflated optimally than McCain would by drilling under his feet, last week McCain sent gag gifts of tire gauges. He turned around this week and said this might be a good idea.

In what has been said was a "forceful pitch for his U.S. energy strategy", Barack Obama called for $4 billion in aid to auto companies to help them produce more fuel efficient cars, particularly electric ones. His Lansing, Michigan speech came after a Detroit News poll in July found that McCain and Obama had equal support from voters in Michigan and that people were concerned first about the economy and second about gas prices.¹ Acknowledging the necessity of politics, if the computer industry had been coddled as much as the auto industry over the past couple of decades, there might be no such thing as a desktop computer or an internet.

Obama also decided to soften his formerly strong opposition to offshore drilling, saying off-shore drilling might be OK as part of a more comprehensive energy plan. Democrats including Obama urge leaders to open up current reserves.

Drilling wouldn't result in petroleum until 2030 according to the Bush's Energy Information Administration, and so Nancy Pelosi has stood ground in the House of Representatives against Republicans who present drilling as a solution. Like Obama Democrats in the House of Representatives also seek compromise, although they continue to flatly oppose drilling in protected areas.

Democrats heartily refute the Bush administration's presentation of offshore drilling as a solution to the pressing energy problem. Rather they say, drilling as a solution is an oil industry con that further shackles the population to oil dependency. Democrats argue, as does Obama, that the oil companies already have access to 68 million acres of permitted federal lands in the lower 48 and Alaska that they under-utilize. People view the oil industry's current push for drilling as a campaign by the oil industry to obtain more leases on potential drilling sites. This would give them even more control over the market energy market in the face of increasing demand, and would prolong oil dependency.

McCain was also opposed to drilling, but switched his stance. McCain's reason for drilling off the coast would have a . The psychological effect on voters would be to muffle their clamor for cleaner energies, which would extend legislators vacation on the issue, and allow petroleum companies to extend their energy monopoly. Apparently McCain's campaign was promptly gifted with an influx of donations from oil companies.

The Republicans, just off their successful rally to defeat the Democrats' "use-it-or-lose-it" legislation (H.R. 6615), are making a big production of calling the Democrats back from their "recess". H.R. 6615 would have prevented oil and gas companies from obtaining new federal drilling leases if they did not meet new government standards for development on leases they already hold, prevent them for collecting leases and using them as market leverage. The oil companies, as the multi-billion dollar beneficiaries of the "oil crisis" apparently yield some clout in this election, and citizens, who protest wildly about the price of gas on one hand, are willing to give them more power with the other.

What special treats will next week bring? This season's whirlwind campaign is tough to endure but I look forward to seeing lots of Harley's outside my poling station. Yeah.

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¹ Acronym Required wrote about the movie "Who Killed the Electric Car", and about the auto industry's failure to innovate in "The EPA: Mulish Days, Staring out to Pasture".

Mitigation, then Warrior Safety

In Whales In a Time of War, we reported that Judge Andrew Kleinfeld of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals noted in a 2-1 ruling allowing the Navy to continue sonar training in whale breeding grounds: "the safety of the whales must be weighed, and so must the safety of our warriors. And of our country."

The judge looked to the president for direction on the fate of the whales and framed his decision as one of national security, saying: "we customarily give considerable deference to the executive branch's judgment regarding foreign policy and national defense."

Mid-frequency sonar testing causes whale strandings and deaths that have been frequently documented; in North Carolina (2005); at Haro Strait off the coast of Washington State (2003); in the Canary Islands (2004, 2002, 1989, 1986, 1985); Madeira (2000); the U.S. Virgin Islands (1999, 1998); Greece (1996), and the Bahamas (2000). At one time the Navy took precautions to prevent unnecessary damage to the whales. The Navy did this without neglecting the excellent testing and training of sonar that the US national defense demands. However; the Navy's previous caution has lapsed according to environmental agencies.

The Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC) and several other groups sued the Navy back in 2005, requesting the mitigatory action to spare marine mammals that get disoriented, stranded, or killed following sonar exposure. The August 2007 decision turned into a long back and forth negotiation between the courts, environmental groups, and the Navy. Here's some (not all) of the outcomes:

• August, 2007: U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper orders a temporary injunction based on submitted evidence that bans all training exercises off Southern California waters saying that there was "'near certainty"' that "8,000 whales or dolphins potentially experiencing temporary hearing loss and an estimated 466 cases of permanent injury to whales."
• August 31, 2007, U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals invokes national security and says the Navy can go ahead with testing.
• November 13, 2007: A different 9th Circuit Court Appeals panel says that the Navy can continue exercises scheduled until November 22, but then must resume mitigation efforts such as staying a certain distance from shore and posting scouts on deck during exercises to try to prevent harm to marine life.

Suicide Pact?

By January, 2008, Judge Cooper had thoroughly reviewed the Navy's records and science documents, found that the Navy's mitigation efforts were "grossly inadequate to protect marine mammals from debilitating levels of sonar exposure". The Navy's sonar testing would leave 30 species of marine mammals at risk including 5 species of endangered whales. The Navy's research indicated that the testing could harm over thousands of animals, however they didn't do conduct the environmental impact statement demanded by current law.

• January, 2008. The judge issues a more detailed order that allows the Navy to continue the sonar testing while taking precautions to protect endangered marine animals.
• January 14, 2008: The district court denies a Navy stay application.
• January 15, 2008: George Bush grants the Navy two waivers to conduct it's sonar testing under Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA), and and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in an effort to sidestep the court's findings, claiming national security.
• January 17, 2008: Judge Cooper issues a partial stay of her orders that keeps some of the previous mitigation measures intact, but allows the Navy to use sonar when marine animals even if animals were detected within 2,000 meters of the sonar source.
• February 29, 2008: The court follows up on the order, allowing the Navy to continue testing but with mitigation measures to protect whales.
• April, 2008: The Navy petitions the Supreme court to review the lower court's decision citing emergency national security.

Despite accommodation by the lower court for the Navy's readiness mandate, the Navy disagrees that its previous mitigation efforts need to be continued. Environmental regulations should not be a "suicide pact", said the Bush administration. In a decision last month, the Supreme Court decided to hear Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council in the next session.

Court Declares Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR) Not Patchwork Enough

Back in December, 2007, the EPA denied California the waiver the state requested under the Clean Air Act (CAA). The state wanted to set its own tougher emissions standards, which at least 18 other states would have adopted. However the auto and energy industries lobbied successfully against the waiver to an administration as dedicated as they were to denying global warming. EPA administrator Stephen Johnson defended the denial, saying the waiver would have created a "patchwork quilt" of regulation.

At the time, Bush had just signed the new Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) mileage standards passed by Congress under the National Highway Transportation Safety Act, and he defended the EPA's denial, saying: "Director Johnson made a decision based upon the fact that we passed a piece of legislation that enables us to have a national strategy, which is the -- increasing CAFE standards..."

Last week, the administration might have had another opportunity to point to the success of its own brand of environment legislation, while once again shooting down the Clean Air Act. The EPA announced its decision to ignore the Supreme Court order in Massachusetts v. EPA to regulate greenhouse gases and instead decided to issue an Advance Notice of Public Rulemaking (ANPR)¹. But unlike the CAFE standards which Congress passed and Bush signed into law, the Bush administration's Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR) aimed at regulating sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides from stationary polluters was challenged by the state of North Carolina and rejected by a three judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit.

CAIR was a cap and trade system for large stationary polluters in the framework of Bush's "Clear Skies". It required 28 eastern states to reduce sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxide (NO_x) emissions (not carbon) that contribute to air pollution. The D.C. court disputed the EPA's regional plan: "The EPA's approach, region-wide caps with no state-specific quantitative contribution determinations or emissions requirements, is fundamentally flawed....the trading program is unlawful, because it does not connect states' emissions reductions to any measure of their own significant contributions."

Environmental groups thought it ironic that the conservative court overturned what some considered the best-of conservative Bush legislation on greenhouse gases.Although attempts to project the exact effects of CAIR fell short of providing a thorough understanding of outcomes and overall there was very little reaction from either science and environmental groups, almost everyone, including utility companies, agreed that effort was worthy. The projected benefits to health and air quality under CAIR would have improved acid rain and air quality on the eastern seaboard. According to the EPA CAIR would reduce SO₂ emissions by over 70% and NO_x emissions by over 60% from 2003 levels.

While people were taken aback that the court struck down CAIR in its entirety, no one was surprised that the EPA's Stephen Johnson announced the Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) instead of working to create new Clean Air Act regulation. He had responded to Representative Waxman (D-CA) several months ago with his intention, as we wrote in "The EPA: Mulish Days, Staring out to Pasture".

At that time, many saw the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), especially the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) headed by Susan Dudley, as in the "catbird seat" over federal regulation as Public Citizen put it, and therefore overlord of the EPA's actions. People weren't sure that "Director Johnson" really had too much choice in the issue. Susan Dudley had a long history in conservative think tanks of advocating the types of cost benefit analyses that the Bush administration sought to impose, as we described in "EPA, OMB and OIRA: The Biggest Kid on the Block is Back". The OIRA footprint was evident under the Bush administration, especially in the EPA's lack of action on the environment.

When the EPA released its several hundred page document last week, it of course included a statement from the OIRA head Susan Dudley, who rejected the EPA's staff's recommendations, writing: "the [EPA] draft cannot be considered Administration policy or representative of the views of the Administration", but then magnanimously added that given the Supreme Court ruling the EPA could go ahead and seek public comment.

Considering the previous repudiation of the OMB/OIRA from critics who called the agency on its interference with the EPA's mandate to protect clean air,², it's not surprising that the OMB recruited additional support from the secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, Transportation, and Energy. They too denounced the EPA draft in 75 pages of testimony, saying:

1. The Clean Air Act (CAA) is "fundamentally ill-suited to the effective regulation of GHG emissions" because the US cannot control emissions from other countries, so state or regional reductions could be "replaced with emissions increases elsewhere"
2. CAA would hurt international competitiveness
3. The EPA draft "suggests that regulating GHGs under the Clean Air Act would be workable. We disagree. The draft offers a number of legal constructs to support its position but there is no certainty of how those theories will work out in actuality, or whether they would be unheld by the courts."

The Secretaries cited the "burdens, difficulties, and costs, and likely limited benefits" of CAA. Of course this is familiar Bush rhetoric, delivered with orchestral cohesion. However if the Clean Air Act is ill-suited for the task, shouldn't the reasons be grounded in fact rather than fear laden claptrap?

The Wall Street Journal described Johnson as being stuck in between his staff and the White House, and as if to illustrate the dysfunction, Johnson disagreed with the conclusions of his staff, calling CAA "ill-suited for the task of regulating global greenhouse gases."

The Administration's Gut

The document was a product of "career EPA's" critics said, with the hint of a sneer they might use for "teacher's unions". Piling on the hyperbole, William Kovacs, vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington told the Wall Street Journal "This is a classic example of EPA staff saying we can manage the economy of the United States better than the president." (WSJ July 11, 2008) (To which some economists gasped -- Aha, the president's running the economy?)

The Bush administration has led a sustained attack on the Clean Air Act and the EPA. Last fall Bush publicly conflated the Clean Air Act emissions standards with CAFE standards, acting as though they were the same thing. But they're not. The NHTSA in the Department of Transportation (DOT) sets gas mileage standards through (CAFE). The energy bill that Congress passed and Bush signed (H.R. 6) last December improves long term mileage standards (barely).

The EPA regulates carbon emissions that contribute to global warming, through the Clean Air Act. Several industries argue that the EPA should not regulate emissions because of "regulatory overlap" between the NHTSA and EPA, but the Supreme Court rejected that argument in Massachusetts v. EPA. Said the court, the EPA "has been charged with protecting the publics 'health' and 'welfare'", whereas "DOT sets mileage standards".

The legislative goal of CAA was to protect considerations about healthy air and water from being corrupted by private interests and business. Its this goal that industries resent. As we described in previous posts, the petroleum and auto industries petitioned the EPA and the Bush administration to deny the California waiver. Industries argued that the EPA should adopt the notion of "maximum feasibility", and "set standards that take account of the limits on the investment capabilities and product cycles of the industry, just as NHTSA does...", as Chrysler put it in a memo last year.

One-Two Punch

There are legitimate criticisms of Clean Air Act, however the auto industry simply wants to continue its 30 year run of little to no regulation, despite the evidence that this damages health, the environment and the auto industry. The Bush administration now seems more brazen about criticizing the EPA document directly. Bush chose the familiar war theme when he called the EPA outline a "'command-and-control' regime that would regulate virtually every aspect of American life from cars to factories, hotels and lawnmowers". "Command and control" is a conservative slur you run across scanning the conservative op-eds, as in "command and control communism", "command and control socialism", and "enemy of the free-market".

The push by the OIRA, the administration, industry, and much of congress for measures that considers projected costs to industry when determining whether or not to regulate of course has valid points, but is subject to abuse. If the cost to industry is used to determine whether industry should clean up the mess it makes of air and water, then why shouldn't industry make a really BIG mess and what incentive is there to accurately estimate either costs or benefits?

An example of how costs and benefits can be manipulated is n the latest report from the EPA on CAA. The Los Angeles Times reported that the benefits section of the current draft was "sharply revised" from a May draft that calculated savings to consumers of up to $2 trillion dollars.

"$2 trillion in savings to consumers at the gas pump and elsewhere could be achieved if greenhouse gas regulations were implemented.. [In the current draft], that number was slashed to $830 billion, and the price of gas was calculated at $2 a gallon for the next 30 years.

According to the LA Times EPA press secretary Jonathan Schradar said "he did not know why the numbers had been changed". Or perhaps he knew why but didn't know how or who or when? An inherent danger of such analyses?

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¹ (ANPR) Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking: Regulating Greenhouse Gas Emissions under the Clean Air Act.

² Congressman Waxman's Committee of Oversight and Government Reform has a long running investigation of the OMB and EPA's actions on the environment/. He held the two agencies in contempt of court for refusing to release documents related to decisions about the ozone and the California waiver, to which President Bush claimed executive privilege.

The MPG Illusion -- Needing Math?

Now that gas is almost $5.00 per gallon many people seem to be more than a little worried, if not about global warming than simply about the price of gas. Of course some lobbyists and commentators continue their efforts to preserve status quo, whole hog energy use that exacerbates global warming. These efforts ultimately undermine independence from foreign oil and adaptation of measures that would stem to pace of global warming. In "Communicating Climate Change", last year I wrote:

"If we've moved beyond the climate change "debate", however, as I argue we have, we've only entered another stage. I'm not sure what to call it, but it if we appropriated something like the familiar five stages of dealing with catastrophe- denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, then maybe people have moved on to some sort of denial/bargaining phase. People get ideas about how we can buy our way out, with some carbon credits, some alternative energy, or some prizes. Again, this is procrastination. If buying our way out doesn't work, at least we've bought some time."

Science published an article the other day in their Policy Forum section from a couple of Duke business professors. "The MPG Illusion" (June 20th) argued that people misunderstand the miles per gallon (mpg) standard. The authors ask the question, if you had a choice of upgrading one of two cars with a car with a better MPG rating which would you replace? Unlike Europe, where the mileage standard is expressed in liters per 100 kilometer, in the US, miles per gallon (mpg) refers to the distance a gallon of gas will achieve in a vehicle: 1000 gallons per 10,000 miles equals 10mpg. Not very many people understand that, according to their poll.

Increases in mileage are calculated so that 30% better gas mileage means 23% less gas used. 30% greater "mpg" means greater distance per gallon of gas, instead of traveling 100 miles you would now be able to travel 130 miles, so 100%/1.3 = 76.9, 23% less fuel. Most people assume the relationship between miles driven and gas consumed is linear, but its actually curvilinear. From there, the authors argue that small upgrades, say from a "10 mpg" rated car to a "20 mpg" car, may save the consumer more on gas than upgrading from 25mpg to 50mpg.

Their goal was to see whether people ranked choices in mathematically correct ways and so they structured their question carefully. But if their point is to illustrate that the standard is deceiving, as they say in the video, why do they need to publish an article in Science, and perambulate through all the math and graphs?

Promoting a clearer standard isn't their only goal. They open their Science piece criticizing a NYT columnist who questioned the sense of giving an IRS hybrid car tax break to people who buy "a hybrid Dodge Durango that gets 14 miles per gallon instead of 12 thanks to its second, electric power source."

But doesn't the NYT author have a point? Why would the government offer a credit? The authors acknowledge this: "The basic argument is correct: The environment would benefit most if all consumers purchased highly efficient cars that get 40 MPG, not 14, and incentives should be tied to achieving such efficiency." This hat tip to clear thinking is only 27 words of their Science article, versus 1708 words explaining calculations that in effect justify why upgrading from a 1978 Cadillac or your grandpa's farm tractor to an SUV is a choice that consumers should feel good about. While the question is carefully constructed around consumer choices about two cars driven equally and yields a conclusion showing that consumers don't understand mpg math, why this question?

In effect, the authors' piece would be brilliant in a Dodge Durango or Ford ad to boost those double digit sales drops. But back to the New York Times article. Why wouldn't a person upgrade from a 10mpg car to a 50mpg car? A 10 mpg car would use 1000 gallons per 10,000 miles, and a 50mpg would use 200 gallons per 10,000 miles. 800 fewer gallons of gas. That much less pollution. $5,000 of gas, versus $1,000. Why can't we shoot for that?

Consumers are making exactly these choices. Ford sold 55% fewer SUV's last month, and 40% fewer pick-ups then in the previous year. In our last post we quoted from the NYT article, America, Asleep at the Spigot", in which Congressman Dingell (D-MI) [correction, 11/07/08], told the NYT" "He likes it sitting in his driveway, he likes it big, he likes it safe". It seems that "He" is changing "His" mind about "Big" and "Safe", when faced with $150 per fill-up. "He" is choosing a Prius instead of a pick-up.

Global Warming: Too Much Evidence

There's a direct correlation between energy cost and use, just as there's a direct correlation between increased cigarette taxes, and decreased smoking. Lobbyists routinely argue the opposite in order to justify low taxes and minimal regulation. But the fact that car owners are switching to more efficient cars is a market coup for global warming as well as free-market advocates. This should please all of us who support liberal economic policies, as well as "let the market" commentators. But paradoxically, some of columnists are still stuck with in their delusional refrains from 2005.

A Wall Street Journal blogger now claims there's too much evidence on global warming, so much that it's not believable (WSJ July 1, 2008, "Global Warming as Mass Neurosis"). "What isn't evidence of global warming?" he asks. My favorite! For years it was, "there is not enough evidence". And now, simply invert the sentence to arrive at your next phase of denial. Last year when you pulled his string he said "Not Enough Evidence!!!" and alarms rang -- Whooop! Whooop! Whooop! This year they retooled, so yank the cord to hear, "Too Much Evidence!!! Whooop! Whooop! Whooop! American Girl could immortalize his likeness as the Denier Doll from the historical series "When Carbon was King" or "When the Air was Breathable". Of course next he instructs: "[s]o let's stop fussing about the interpretation of ice core samples from the South Pole". He will no doubt shuffle around in these arguments until the water's licking up around his ankles.

He insists that global warming is either a socialist, religious, or psychological affront to our way of life by those who believe that prosperity is corrupt. Last year we wrote in "Climate Change: Fueling the "Debate", "if you're crazy-dizzy snapping your head around to follow first the one side, than the other, simply follow the money for the truth." Perhaps our columnist hasn't invested in any emerging energy markets.

Sanity and Samsø

As last year and the year before, available at our fingertips, along with the woulda-coulda-shoulda crowd and the bloviators, is the full range of serious and interesting discussions. Consumers are making changes around global warming not only by buying Priuses, but by using alternative energy sources or cutting back their energy use.

In the New Yorker this month, Elizabeth Kobert wrote a great article called "The Island in The Wind". The first part of the article was about the residents of Samsø an island in Denmark that progressed from consuming enough oil and electricity to provide energy for 4,300 people, to generating enough renewable energy through wind turbines and other sources to produce energy for the whole island and sell some back to the grid. The island accomplished this with a combination of initiative, work, leadership and community investment, but with no initial motivating monetary reward.

While generating their own energy however, the islanders didn't reduce their consumption. For that part of the story Kolbert goes to Switzerland, where the 2,000-Watt Society aims to motivate people to reduce energy consumption to 2,000 Watts per person with only 500 Watts consumed from non-renewable sources. Scandinavians consume 6,000 Watts per year per person, and US citizens consume ~15,000 Watts per year per person, so the 2,000 Watt goal gives some populations room to grow while others should strive to cut back on energy use.

When we wrote "Sea Change or Littoral Disaster" in 2006 it seemed like we'd never turn a corner. We wrote "We need no more evidence. We have decades of studies indicating that our lives will change, but its easier to wait for another headline and hope a miracle intervenes, if nothing else than in the guise of government action." Times are decidedly more optimistic. Of course there the same gradient of action, inaction, denial, and procrastination, but when I reflect on the general attitudes of the past couple of years I'm amazed at all the change happening in 2008.

Nature Loves Our Cars, Really

In April of 2007, Acronym Required wrote satirically in "Cars: Buying Cognitive Dissonance" about US drivers in denial. While headlines blared warnings on climate change and the reality of driving was smog filled lanes of traffic jams, automobile ads featured cars climbing to the tops of unpolluted mountains, amidst pristine forests and zooming past glaciers. We commented on the delusional love affair with cars, and the spectacle of all those slick, shiny, plastic-y, carbon emitting SUVs posed ironically in not yet ruined landscapes:

Today, more so than last decade or the decade before that, we have fires in California, hot and erratic weather predictions, floods in the midwest, suffocating summer heat, and brutal winters. As they did twenty years ago, scientists make hand-wringing pleas to an only slightly less impassive Congress. Regardless of reality, given Americans gluttonous devotion to Automobile, you'd still expect to see people throttling their SUV's with calvalier glee. Except now gas is $5.00 per gallon ( its $4.75, but it will be there as soon as I publish this) and consumers are trading their SUVs in for Priuses. Times are changing.

Leaders "Furious with Detroit"

While consumers respond to the change, there are questions about why recognition of the impending climate change and an effort to curb carbon emissions took so long. Last Sunday, the New York Times offered up quotes from senators who say we should have acted earlier in paper's interesting article America, Asleep at the Spigot". Pete V. Domenici (R-NM) the ranking Republican member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, who had in recent years rather unsuccessfully encouraged Congress to increase CAFE standards said: "It was a bipartisan failure to act." A long term failure to act. Former Sierra Club lobbyist Dan Becker recalled being shocked to see "Mr. Levin and Mr. Helms, diametrically opposed on most issues, walk amiably together onto the Senate floor to cast their votes, on a CAFE standards bill in 1990. 'This wasn't East-West, right-left, or North-South,' he says. 'But had we passed that bill, we'd be using three million barrels less oil a day now.'"

For every member of Congress who tried to pass legislation on emissions in the 1990's, or who like Domenici started in 2005 to put effort into gathering support for CAFE standards, many others have not even now come to their senses. Congress is less remorseful about missed opportunities to avert the current energy situation as righteously indignant, "furious with Detroit for fighting so hard".

This is exactly what I would hope for from the leaders I elect. When the repercussions of their failures to act on behalf of their constituents come to light, the least they can do is cast around quickly for someone else to blame. However it's not Detroit's fault for aggressively seeking profit, that's their job That's the obligation of the automakers to their shareholders. It's is the legislature's job to balance the competing ambitions of their constituents, corporations and individuals.

Blaming Detroit, Blaming Consumers

If blaming the corporations gets too close for comfort, as a senator or congressman of course you can always blame the consumer. After the credit crisis, pundits and financial leaders blamed consumers for the country's economic woes. They scolded consumers for spending too much on their credit cards and called for better consumer training, but said nothing about the Fed's out of control spending, nothing about regulation cuts, nothing about Bush's plea to keep shopping right after 9/11. Similarly, Representative John D. Dingell, who has long defended the auto industry for his state and who now burnishes his environmental credentials by taking on bisphenol-A, blames the American consumer: "He likes it sitting in his driveway, he likes it big, he likes it safe", he told NYT. Which, coincidentally, is also what the lobbyists insist.

This is one great thing about representative government. Representatives can ultimately blame the people or, more accurately, people's wanton wims. But given the number of Priuses and Minis that now inhabit our streets, you would never believe "he likes it big". Ford sold 55% fewer SUV's last month, and 40% fewer pick-ups then in the previous year.

As last year and the year before, available at our fingertips, along with the woulda-coulda-shoulda crowd, is the full range of serious and interesting discussions from dedicated representatives. Bill Moyers talked to Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) last week about her efforts on the cap and trade initiative.

Boxer took over as Chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee at mid-term election, led the charge on the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) had chaired the committee, and on his watch he never had any intention of leading the country away from oil consumption. Inhofe famously said: "Could it be that man-made global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people? I believe it is." He brought his preposterous attitudes to the committee and tried to prevent Al Gore from testifying. Boxer needed to basically wrest control of the gavel from him: "you're not making the rules" she told him. As she explained to Moyers "times have changed...the environment is back front and center"

Boxer's efforts were not enough this time, because Republicans mounted a filibuster and defeated the Climate Initiative Act. Again, a bi-partisan failure to act. The effort was viewed in optimistic terms by Boxer and others despite the bill's ultimate defeat. She called it a milestone towards charging for carbon emissions and weaning off foreign oil. "Change is coming. We're going to fix this problem because we have to."

Last year we wrote in "Green Spirit", about the wave of environmental sentiment sweeping the US. The New Yorker had captured the mood in a cartoon depicting one plant executive asking another whether they could dye the smoke from the stacks green.

The most unlikely corporations were hopping all over themselves to play green. BP had just launched two sites, The Green Curve, and A Little Better Gas Station, complete with games like "Gas Mania" and kid friendly distractions. The BP sites are no longer standalone so not quite so much fun, but have been incorporated into bp.com in all their original kelly green and neon yellow glory.

These sites come and go, and of course now other companies have launched a new crop of green spirit. First up is Chevron's www.willyoujoinus.com. "Will you join us" is a collaboration between The Economist, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on PBS, and the oil company. The site tells us that "the demand for energy becomes greater, and every day it becomes harder to find". Driving home the point, a global oil consumption ticker spins through millions of barrels consumed during your site visit. The homepage asks viewers to "join the discussion". I suppose it would be impertinent to ask them to put a profits ticker underneath the consumption ticker -- "finding energy" is research and capital intensive.

The current discussion topic is "Global Food Prices & Energy Supplies, Finding a Balance". Fortunately, it's not all gloom and doom, you can "Play Energyville" too.

Erstwhile Panda Diplomacy?

In an article on China's panda diplomacy last week, the Financial Times included a photo of Japan's famed Ling Ling surrounded by flowers and bamboo shoots. Japan's beloved panda, a 16 year resident of Tokyo's Ueno Zoo, had died of kidney and heart failure and the debate in Japan surrounded how Ling Ling would be replaced. Various Japanese officials expressed reservations about Chinese President Yu's offer to replace the panda with two new ones, especially when the $1 million rental fee was revealed. ("Panda diplomacy loses charm amid Sino-Japanese mistrust", May 12th, Financial Times).

Critics advised the Japanese government not to trust the panda overtures in light of China's environmental problems, food-safety, natural resource claims, and anti-Japanese sentiment. Panda proponents on the other hand, like the head of the Ueno Zoo, pointed out the benefits and reasonableness of Yu's offer - as he put it to the Financial Times - "'It is not like renting videos"'.

Pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) are an endangered species in the Ursidae family. So called panda diplomacy has been around since Chinese emperors were giving pandas to governments but China revived the practice by presenting President Nixon with two pandas. When China started charging rent for pandas a successful suit from the World Wildlife Fund demanded that US government payments be channeled to increasing panda populations in the wild.

The pandas' appeal to zoo visitors is unambiguous, profitable, and beneficial to the panda. But although the Chinese has long been supplying pandas to Japan, the current Japan/China dilemma lead some international press to wonder whether Ling Ling's death marked the end of a more optimistic era between the two countries.

Thumbs Up...Panda's Alive and Well

When the earthquake struck Sichuan province people were relieved to hear the news that the giant pandas were safe at China's Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. At another panda reserve even closer to the earthquake epicenter, the Wolong Nature Reserve, the plight of the pandas and nearby villagers was unknown for days. Those in the global panda community who had visited the center and spent time with the Wolong pandas and their caretakers became increasingly worried.

Finally bad and good news came. Some of the villages around the reserve did not fare well, homes were destroyed and people perished when the 7.9 temblor struck the mountainous region.

The pandas at the Wolong reserve were OK, despite the massive earthquake and ongoing "aftershocks" that surpassed the average Chicago "earthquake". A Chinese news article (china.org) reported that a group of American and British tourists stranded at the Wolong panda reserve when the earthquake hit were also safe after being helped by a resourceful local army, kind villagers, humor, television and traditional Tibetan dancing (the latter, actually seems like a standard for Chinese Panda tours advertised on the web).

Panda diplomacy seems alive and well.

On to Polar Bear Diplomacy?

The endangered pandas seem to have it lucky compared to polar bears (Ursus maritimus). Also in the Ursidae family, polar bears were recently designated by the US Fish and Wildlife service as "threatened". The agency lists a species as threatened if they're likely to become "endangered" and the melting Arctic makes this so. The new label was welcomed by some and criticized by others who thought the polar bear should be listed as "endangered". The LA Times reported this week that small towns like Churchill, Manitoba will see an influx of tourists because of the government's new polar bear status. Although Canada hasn't turned official attention to the polar bears, the U.S. designation will increase awareness.

Tiny Species Diplomacy?

Most threatened or endangered species (Urrr..so ignored) emerge not fuzzy, cute, or mammal -- to their peril. Many are not even large enough to see and these more discreet species will just disappear.

A report released by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL)called the Living Planet Index, produced by the ZSL, the World Wildlife Fund, and the Global Footprint Network, tracked 4,000 populations of 1,500 species over 35 years. The census found that by 2005 the populations had decreased by a third, a decline "unprecedented since the extinction of the dinosaurs".

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China's Transparency

China's 7.8 earthquake continues to bring bad news with heart-breaking collapses of schools and too many people trapped under fallen cement. However by all counts, China has improved its handling of the earthquake compared to previous disasters. Communication is critical in a disaster but difficult. During Hurricane Katrina, even in the middle of the worst of the storm, a few intrepid residents and journalists hunkered down in New Orleans and provided on-line updates. The US government responded, but governments' ineffective communications held up disaster efforts. Even with the most modern technology, medical and logistics support, in accessible terrain and with an outpouring of support, Katrina proved challenging. In countries with less infrastructure and less effective government the communication situation is measurably or immeasurably worse. In lieu of information, rumors run rampant.

The dearth of information is a breeding ground for rumors. Not too ago death tolls were considered a state secret in China. China has been notoriously non-transparent dealing with critical problems like infectious diseases, such as SARS, Avian Flu, Streptoccocus Suis, and even the "blue-ear disease" that killed millions of pigs and contributed to the pig shortage considered to be one part of the world-wide heparin contamination fall-out.

While China was at first guarded in dealing with this earthquake, it has since invited foreign aid from Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and Australia, some of whom have sent specially trained groups to China. China's new acceptance of outside help defies a tradition of doing it all themselves. Their initial nationalist reaction seemed to be on display in the beginning, when China announced: "Faced with the disaster, we have become still more united, still more cohesive, still more composed and still more sure of ourselves, and such spirit and strength constitute the invincible, priceless assets of the Chinese nation" Then they seemed to move from their defensive starting position.

China spent considerable effort informing citizens about the progress of the recovery. But when the disaster struck, rumors about the cause of the disaster clogged the internet and they continue today, rumors that the Chinese government failed to warn about the earthquake, that a chemical plant blew up, a damn broke, that tap water was turned off by the government -- a rumor a minute. Yesterday, China punished 17 "rumormongers" with anything from reprimands to jail terms. The country urges people to stop spreading rumors, saying that "[r]umours will stop at those who are brave and upstanding". China tells people to listen to the government: "We have the most accurate and authoritative information. Believe only what we say." So much government information has previously been faulty though these new message seem a touch unrealistic.

Many observers think the upcoming Olympics provides incentive for an effective leadership front. China is aiming to improve its record for dealing with disasters, and so tries to be transparent, or look transparent, even as disturbing news continues -- 2 dams are in danger of bursting and 391 dams are in "dangerous condition".

The Washington Post writes today that China's control of communications tightened on Thursday, with the government all be blocks access to the worst hit regions. Especially unwanted were foreign reporters.

In Poor Taste

Unlike China, Myanmar is trying not to be transparent, so although rumors abound, the country is so closed that we never even hear most of them. All access is now blocked to the Irrawaddy delta and military checkpoints are increasingly difficult to circumvent. The International Herald Tribune reports that the World Food Program delivered thousands of high-energy biscuits to the south, but that many had "been stolen, or replaced with cheap crackers". The story is somewhat confirmed, but there are conflicting reports. Myanmar does have a 400,000 strong army to feed and no one wants a hungry army, especially if your feeling like an endangered junta.

The biscuit rumor had it that Myanmar was passing out "low-quality" biscuits and stashing the World Food Program's donated High Energy Bisquits (HEB). This is unfortunate, especially since HEB's don't have a culinary standard you'd want to descend too far from. The biscuits are packaged in "strong cardboard cartons in which packages of 100 individual packages "100 of these are to be stuffed in one carton box". Here's the ingredients of one HEB:

Composition: Energy: 450 kcal, Moisture: 4.5% minimum, Protein: 10-15 g, Fat: 15 g Sugar: 10-15 g maximum. "10 to 20 g each, shelf life of 18 to 24 months, manufactured in conformity with US or EU food legislation....fit for human consumption."

These are valuable for their emergency purpose, containing calcium and magnesium, as well as vitamins. But why would Myanmar switch out these biscuits when they have their own (celebrated) biscuit factories? When the Myanmar Biscuit Factory of the Circus Foodstuff Cooperative Ltd had it's grand opening, according to a government website news item, the Auditor-General, deputy ministers, departmental heads, officials of the Ministry of Cooperatives and Secretary-3 of the State Peace and Development Council Lt-Gen Win Myint attended. Wouldn't their own biscuits store nicely? In the context of western governments' relative transparency, technology, convoys of aid, and trucks that run all by themselves without being pushed by a team of monks, we can only imagine how dire Burma has become. How can a country that's trying to deploy aid to a couple of million people with six helicopters be so defiant?

According to reports the death toll may be greater than 200,000 at this point, and the international community has become increasingly apoplectic. A group of Nobel Laureates recently requested that western governments provide humanitarian aid. France has warned that Burma is committing a Burma then called France's big ship carrying aid sitting of its coast a warship, in what the Bangkok Post called a "clear sign of paranoia". A UN emissary, John Holmes will travel again to Burma with a third letter from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to the Myanmar senior general, who refuses to talk to Ban. Thailand has sent a small team of doctors to Burma and an international team of disaster assessors is also on its way. As the crisis becomes worse, not a few people hope for assertive action on behalf of the Burmese citizens. Lack of transparency leads to rumors, paranoia, secrecy, lack of accountability, lack of humanity.

The Myanmar Effect

"'A Catastrophe Within A Catastrophe'". That's how French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner described the "junta's uncooperativeness", after Cyclone Nargis devastated the Burmese city of Rangoon and the Irrawaddy Delta last week. The political struggles between the obstinate Myanmar military junta and international aid groups and governments trying to help Burma dominate the news. The German paper Spiegel shows a map of areas submerged in the storm earlier this week. The Guardian spoke to Mark Canning, ambassador to Britain, who warned that "authoritative estimates of the numbers of dead and missing ranged between 63,000 and 100,000, and up to 1.9 million were now vulnerable to water-borne disease, hunger and lack of drinkable water. 'So you can do the maths and you will see how quickly this thing can get larger'".

The International Red Cross and other agencies report that there aid is getting through to people who need it --a statement that will encourage donors -- but if that is remotely true, the aid is stretched very thin. The junta has confiscated food and equipment from the UN World Food Programme, refused to grant visas to aid workers, and said that it will only accept cash and material aid, not labor. The Guardian quoted the US ambassador to Thailand, Eric John, who noted in a somewhat awkward analogy that food without distribution capabilities would be like "dropping a lot of orchestral instruments on the ground and expecting a symphony to come out of it."

Let Them Eat Rotting Rice

In Burma, equipment and tools are forever scarce, as are all other resources. The military junta takes food from villagers even on "good" days, that is, when the government is merely tyrannical, incompetent and brutal but not faced with the aftermath of a massive cyclone that has ripped through a mangrove-stripped delta of rice paddies, leaving in its path face-down floating bodies and individuals desperately searching the rubble for their kin. Given the everyday actions of the junta, it should be no surprise that the government confiscates international food sent for Nargis victims -- that's just what they do. Nor should it surprise us that the government isn't ashamed to dole out supplies with the names of generals written on boxes -- before news cameras -- in some twisted "propaganda exercise", as the International Herald Tribune called it.

The military junta's political shenanigans are to be expected.The rulers are by all accounts paranoid as well as brutal, tenaciously controlling the population via the only methods they know, violence and manipulation. The Free Burma Rangers ¹, a group profiled here by The Economist, lists the junta's habitual human violations, offenses that often target minority groups like the Karen. The group accuses the military of everything from stealing supplies to burning villagers out of their villages, to forcing unpaid villagers to clear land, build roads, and walk in front of bulldozers clearing land-mined areas.

Always wrangling to increase its power, the Myanmar military relentlessly pursues its goals, even as citizens are left struggling in the wake of the cyclone without water, food or medicine. The government insisted on holding a referendum to increase its power yesterday, and the military spent considerable effort coercing, forcing and bribing people to vote "yes". With mind blowing cynicism, the leaders had their pictures snapped with their fancy-dressed wives, casting their votes for what all outsiders call a "sham" election, while hundreds of thousands of "people with almost no clothes battl[e] it out to survive" -- as one Indian pilot reported on the situation after he flew an aid sortie and traveled through the Irrawaddy Delta.

China, Thailand and India have the most potential for nudging the junta towards accepting responsibility but it's unclear how much sway these governments hold. China has the closest economic ties to Burma apparently, but what incentive it has to mediate? It's own abuse of Tibetans and minorities and its interest in Burma's resources, not to mention its habit of not "interfering", leaves us skeptical. India reports sporadically about its stance on the situation, while Burma's neighbor Thailand, for its part, will send a diplomatic team to Myanmar. Thailand was obviously disturbed to see media films showing Thailand's aid boxes plastered over with labels indicating they were gifts from the junta's generals.

What the junta is actually giving in aid, the Associated Press reports is "minuscule rations of rice and oil", in some places one cup of rice per day per family. AP says many people are simply "clustered on roadsides hoping for handouts," and that desperate pleas -- "[t]he words "'Help us!'" [written] in chalk on the side of one home", are evidence of the level of despair.

Aid First?

Disasters such as Cyclone Nargis exaggerate and bring into stark relief dysfunctional politics. They also present a quandary for international communities. A few years ago, Acronym Required wrote about the Global Fund withdrawing its AIDS program in Burma due to difficulties working with the junta. At the time we commented on the conflicted ideas about providing aid to the repressed citizens of brutal regimes. The AIDS crisis in Burma is serious and any country's bad governance will make a public health or natural disaster recovery infinitely more dire. As we've often documented, politics can worsen the death toll of AIDS or avian flu pandemic, an earthquake, cyclone or tsunami.

The world has experienced enough natural disasters in the past couple of years to know the difficulty of getting help to stricken populations. In the U.S., the government was challenged to evacuate survivors swiftly enough and to deliver aid and essentials in a timely way after Hurricane Katrina. Rescue and supply delivery is increasingly daunting in remote locations of the world, like SE Asia where the tsunami victims were hard to reach, and during the Kashmir earthquake. And in these situations the affected countries welcomed aid. ²

The international community is forever torn because there is no good answer. Try to support the citizens in spite of the government? Or condemn and punish the government, which further increases the suffering of the people? The current situation in Burma intensifies the unforgiving choices of this dilemma.

Given the Myanmar junta's treatment of the country's people, its hard not to advocate political change. But that's problematic, since governments around the world acknowledge that the Burmese in the stricken areas are in dire need of the most basic necessities now, not "democracy".

Barbara Bush, who back in 2007 advised that the US would impose sanctions on the Myanmar military government if it did not moving toward democracy "within the next couple of days", used the publicity of last weeks' cyclone to reiterate her displeasure with the military junta. The move was widely criticized by 'those in the aid community who know better', since it could only increase the paranoia of the highly paranoid holed-up-in-the-middle-of-the-jungle junta. Yet is restraining from beating people over the head when they say "no" such a challenging notion that it's only available to those in the aid community? You'd think the emerging White House diplomat would carry some insight about this from her second grade teacher experience, or her experience listening to why the US denied aid from Cuba during Hurricane Katrina, or even because her diplomatic threats to Myanmar never motivated the junta to budge before. You'd think she'd deliver a more nuanced diplomatic entreaty. Now apparently, Mrs. Bush seems to have backed off and Secretary Rice is left to insist that Burma Aid Is About Saving Lives, Not About Politics.

Of course, the White House always sends mixed messages. While Mrs. Bush lectured Myanmar from the podium in the past few years and the Bush administration imposed sanctions, for instance by cutting off the bank accounts of the junta, companies like Chevron provide a lifeline to the regime . Chevron runs a gas line through the country that is reportedly aggressively guarded by the junta.

"Tear Down the Bamboo Curtain"

So wrote the Financial Times last fall, and The Australian today. As if the western nations could just summon some erstwhile off-duty troops to parachute into Myanmar, China's neighbor and ally, to take care of this troublesome situation. The press loves to chant a rallying cry for "freedom", and "democracy", and no doubt could not restrain itself from referencing what is now relived in popular dream-talk as Reagan's great coup: the tearing down of the wall. It's the business of news to engage fantasies and so these headlines are relentlessly fantastic.

Reporters ask questions like: "Could there be a silver lining to the cyclone's clouds?" Time magazine wrote hopefully, "for decades, outsiders have searched for a way to pry open Burma's secretive regime". As if this is some natural evolution of government, when actually China, Russia and a host of other countries prove that power may be more instinctively and securely amassed via non-democratic and brutish governance. And so, spooked but with aid pouring in, after 40 years, Myanmar hunkers down to give its citizens and the world, more of the same. Tons of high-energy biscuits energy bars can go a long way in a junta that was days ago 'reduced' to stealing rice from villagers.

The Myanmar junta is of course defiant in the face of the international democracy criers, defending its own deadly actions by saying that the US government's response to Katrina was also slow. Seeing the same shaky (optimistic?) parallel, a dean from the University of Vermont, in an editorial for the Daily Times of Pakistan, offered: "This may also be a time for alerting the world to the grave inequalities in the country, just as Katrina was a wake-up call for the world to see the plight of impoverished African-Americans in Louisiana." Ah, silver linings.

It's hard to imagine that there would be "sides" in the midst of such a disaster, or that politicians would take the opportunity to push political points of view, but of course they do, even in the enlightened western democracies. In the Financial Times yesterday, Christopher Caldwell from the Weekly Standard took the opportunity to reconstruct the events of the Katrina aftermath altogether, with the truth defying statement: "that the US failed in part because it was too constitutional, too deferential to the prerogatives of the state of Louisiana, is not something anyone remembers or cares about any more." ("Disasters and Dictatorships"). "Too constitutional" -- that's Orwellian.

While countries like the US and France now try to muffle their instinctive calls for democracy, other countries will take a different lesson from the cyclone and in the US commentators will frame the disaster for their own ends. If nothing else, attempts to shape and rewrite history are universal.

Hopefully, the Myanmar military junta, weakened to the point that is convinced that it will lose control by letting aid workers in, will come to its senses and realize that in it's own best interests to save some of its people.

In the meantime, to help with aid efforts, various groups are accepting donations for Burma. Google gave a million dollars in matching aid (updated 05-17) and Doctors Without Borders, Unicef , and many others.

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¹This group lists itself as a "multi-ethnic humanitarian service movement".

²With the exception of India which initially rejected international help after the tsunami.

Acronym Required has published several articles on Hurricane Katrina and FEMA and AIDS and Burma.

For many years, the defense ministries in allied states like the US, Canada and the UK have denied that exposure to depleted uranium (DU) could produce negative health effects. Depleted uranium is a byproduct of uranium 238 (U238) enrichment, and contains a higher percentage of U235, a more fissile isotope that makes DU useful in the production of nuclear weapons and energy. This depleted byproduct is 1.7 times the density of lead, and because of its durability, has been used extensively by militaries for things like armor piercing projectiles and anti-tank weapons. During the Iraq and Balkans wars, when vehicles and weapons clashed together, dust from depleted uranium was released. Bullets made with the depleted uranium were scattered in battle, and shrapnel was strewn about and embedded in wounds. Depleted uranium ordnance now lays scattered throughout previous war zones where children play and civilians attempt to carry on their lives.

Civilians and other species are exposed to depleted uranium not only during war, but via dust in the air around weapons factories and in groundwater near firing test ranges like in Solway, Scotland, where scientists find worms that carry uranium isotopes. All of this exposure could prove toxic to animals and humans.

Depleted uranium is not as radioactive as U235 but it is suspected of causing various illnesses, from cancer, immune disorders like Gulf War Syndrome and even birth defects in offspring born of soldiers who inhale or ingest it. Research shows that in lab animals, depleted uranium is an immunotoxin, neurotoxin, and teratogen and carcinogen. Although the deteriorations in the health of some soldiers seems to show the the dangers of DU, there's limited government recognition of these dangers, from military, medical, and science establishments. Even in the face of accumulating evidence and significant public outcry about depleted uranium, militaries give mixed messages about DU safety. The US Department of Defense says:

• "The health effects of uranium have been studied extensively for over 50 years."
• "The Department of Defense has comprehensively studied the environmental fate of depleted uranium both before and after the Gulf War."
• "Fortunately, DU is only mildly radioactive emitting alpha and beta particles, and gamma rays.....The risk of chemical toxicity is also minimal because there is little likelihood that sufficient quantities of DU could be inhaled or ingested to cause a heavy metal concern."
• "Since the Gulf War, the DoD has dramatically stepped up its emphasis on increasing soldier and leader awareness of the hazards associated with the battlefield use of depleted uranium..." through training, handbooks and "support materials".
• "...there is no reason to believe that other exposed Service members have any elevated risk to their health due to their DU exposures."

Similarly, the Ministry of Defense (MOD) for the UK has repeatedly asserted minimal health effects from exposure to depleted uranium, but the MOD also gave warning cards to all UK servicemen deployed to Iraq stating possible health effects of DU. The Ministry of Defense suggests that it's reducing use of DU, noting cryptically of all the accounting of the depleted uranium used by the military: "In 2003, during the recent Iraq conflict, UK tanks expended 1.9 tonnes of DU ammunition and none has been fired since the official ending of the conflict." The MOD urged soldiers to get monitored for depleted uranium, but after testing the urine of returning servicemen the Ministry of Defense told papers in 2006 that "no evidence of DU was found in their urine". Critics question the sensitivity of their tests.

Clearly, the effects of depleted uranium are still disputed and perhaps not a problem, but new research suggests a potential solution. Scientists have discovered a fungus that will break down depleted uranium to a less toxic mineral, research sponsored in part by the Ministry of Defense, produced by scientists at the University of Dundee in Scotland and published in the recent issue of Current Biology. They describe how a plant symbiotic fungus can be grown on the surface of depleted uranium, where it will transform the depleted uranium into uranyl phosphate minerals, a more stable form of the metal that is less likely to be absorbed into plants, animals and water. The mycorrhizal fungi usually lives in the roots of plants, where it transforms carbon into nutrients that plants use. When colonizing uranium, moisture in the air helps the fungi cover the surface of the metal, where the fungi helps accelerate the corrosion process of the uranium into products that can be take up by the fungi or broken down to less toxic uranium holding minerals. The fungi could be used for various bioremediation projects in uranium polluted soils.

ConocoPhillips and BP have submitted a plan to build a gas pipeline through Alaska. Tony Hayward, BP's chief executive told the Financial Times Wednesday: "This project is vital for North American energy consumers and for the future of the Alaska oil and gas industry". Robin West, chairman of PFC Energy, told FT: "This is a critical project linking vast gas reserves with markets that are going to need that gas". But will the gas ever make it to the lower 48 states?

The Financial Times reported that most of the 4bn cubic feet of natural gas per day will go to the Alberta tar sands, where it will be used to fuel the extraction of bitumen from which synthetic oil will be produced. Natural gas is needed for the energy intensive process of getting oil from the gummy viscous asphalt substance contained in the sands.

Extraction from the vast Alberta sands is energy intensive and expensive, but since oil is scarce and the price per barrel has gone up, more companies find the investment worthwhile. Saudi Arabia's oil reserves are considered the largest in the world, the Alberta tar sands are the second largest. They cover a large area 50,000 square miles, about the size of Florida -- or Nepal, North Korea, Malawi, Greece or Tibet. 40 companies involved with 143 projects currently work to extract the bitumen. The main sites are at Athabasca, Cold Lake, and Peace River. Scientists expect the sands to yield over a trillion barrels of oil.

Elizabeth Kolbert wrote about the Alberta tar sands endeavor last November in a New Yorker article, "Unconventional Crude: Canada's synthetic -fuels boom", and described the difficult process of extracting the viscous bitumen. Bitumen close to the surface can be mined then extracted from the sand. First the surface vegetation and soil is removed to access the sands. Then tons of sand are removed via open pit mining and transported to an extraction plant. The the sand is the soaked and agitated with hot water so the bitumen can be siphoned off. Since bitumen is only about 10% of the sand by volume, the multi-step process is necessary.

This extraction is simple compared to those used to extract oil from greater depths. Most of the bitumen containing sands are deep beneath the surface 100-250 feet down, in which case the extraction becomes even more complicated. Since the mid-1800's engineers have been trying to find efficient methods for extracting the oil. At one point engineers hatched a plan with government to detonate atom bombs beneath the surface to release the oil. The scheme was part of Project Plowshare, which sought to utilize atomic bombs for peaceful purposes. Scientists proposed "earthmoving" for all kinds of activities, including oil and gas extraction, canal building, etc.. One test came in the form of Project Gasbuggy, which used nuclear energy in the form of an atomic bomb to release natural gas in New Mexico. A Time magazine article from 1967 described the experiment as experienced by invitees of the government and gas company which sponsored project:

"..the earth jolted underfoot and a dull, distant boom was heard, followed by a second, more gentle, rolling shock. Someone shouted: "We did it! We did it!" Hand shakes were exchanged all around. The U.S. had successfully set off the first nuclear explosion sponsored jointly by the Government and industry."

A marker designates the Gasbuggy Project site, where no digging is currently allowed -- Atomictourist.com has more details.The USSR also did work in the peacetime use of atomic bombs for oil and gas excavation and apparently worked to extract bitumen from sands like Alberta's. Project Plowshare eventually got dropped when enthusiasm for nuclear "earthmoving" waned.

The methods used today aren't quite as extreme, for instance the two main in-situ processes employed are Cyclic Steam Stimulation (CSS), and Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD). These both heat the sand mixture which makes the bitumen less viscous, more like molasses, which will flow. Kolbert describes SAGD:

"Typically, two horizontal wells are drilled into the sands, one above the other. High-pressure steam is injected into the top well; eventually, the tar sands grow hot enough-- nearly four hundred degrees-- that bitumen begins to flow into the bottom well."

All of the current methods of bitumen extraction are energy intensive. SAGD uses the equivalent of 1 barrel out of 3 extracted from the sand pits. The process is laborious and energy intensive, and currently fueled by natural gas. Kolbert notes that by 2012 the tar sand extractions will require "2 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day, or enough to heat all the homes in Canada". Therefore the pipeline, as the Financial Times reports .

The extraction process uses significantly more energy than what is consumed in drilling for oil, in fact carbon emissions produced are 50% higher per barrel of oil consumed. People question how such an energy intensive project can go forward when the overall goal is to lower global emissions. As well, other problems, such as environmental destruction from the mining, ground water pollution and air pollution also dog the project. Despite the environmental concern and pockets of resistance however, oil prices are so high that politicians support the investment and its outcomes, both positive (more oil) and controversial.

For the current project, Conoco bid with BP, reports the paper, because BP's reputation is fairly damaged in Alaska after several large spills. Previous to this new bid, Conoco had submitted a bid in response to the state's Alaska Gasline Inducement Act (AGIA), however the state approved only one company's bid: TransCanada's. As a next step, BP/Conoco will fund an "open season", seeking companies to commit to transporting the gas, before asking Congress for regulatory approval for the project.

Plastic is Forever

Those plastics people are forever clever. In headlines touting "DVDs and CD-ROMs that Thwart Global Warming", chemists describe "innovative ways of making polycarbonate plastics from CO2", which would yield "less expensive, safer and greener products". No mention of bisphenol A by these green inventors -- polycarbonate is a polyester of bisphenol A and carbonic acid.

Thomas E. Muller's research at CAT Catalytic Center, a collaboration of RWTH Aachen University, Bayer Material Science, and Bayer Technology led to the breakthrough. The Center was set up to leverage the expertise at the university, with that at Bayer, a prominent bisphenol-A manufacturer, in order to develop the new chemical processes and products. Muller presented his research at the American Chemical Society meeting this week and called the new process an "economic driving force". Dr Sakakura of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Tsukuba, Japan, also presented research on carbon dioxide fixation to synthesize polycarbonates, and said his process is cheaper then a previous one invented in Japan,and has the added benefit of circumventing the use of phosgene, a toxic gas, in the synthesis.

The two investigators did not divulge their processes because of pending patents. However several different methods for producing polycarbonate from CO2 have been described by others and can be found on freepatentsonline.com and patentstorm.com -- if you're curious about other processes. At MoleculeoftheDay.com, the author describes how to make polycarbonate using phosgene and a commenter offers that triphosgene can be substituted for phosgene.¹

C02 Reduction: Little Building Blocks

One report notes that rock stars will be pleased to be contributing to carbon emissions reductions. Muller said that consumers may be "drinking from a carbon dioxide product and watching movies on waste-CO2 DVDs sooner than they think." "Millions of tons of polycarbonates already are sold each year with the volume rising", Mueller said, and "using CO2 to create polycarbonates might not solve the total carbon dioxide problem, but it could be a significant contribution."

Polycarbonate makes a nice drinking bottle, but so do other materials. DVD's are pretty cheap with today's technology -- 100 blank DVDs for $30 is not too exorbitant. But who needs streaming video and audio if you can continue to purchase (and discard) cheap (bisphenol-A containing) plastic. However the DVD entire production process produces carbon emissions, much of which is not from the actual manufacture of the DVDs. For instance, News Corp published a carbon emissions analysis for the DVD release of the children's product, "Futurama, Bender's Big Score", which totals 447.5 tons of carbon for the DVD release. The site advertises their plan to make this a carbon neutral DVD, but you can get an idea of the carbon emissions breakdown.

Most of the carbon emissions used in producing such products don't come from manufacturing the DVD, and apparently manufacturing DVD's with this new method only sequesters nominal amounts of CO2. CBC News reported that despite Muller's enthusiasm, the scientist also acknowledged "that the sequestration would be "'in the per cent range'"(no number given), and only "a little building block"'.

Cement CO2 Sequestration

In other CO2 sequestration news, Nature reported that a UK researcher stumbled upon a process that occurs when cement breaks down at old building sites then becomes overgrown with weeds and plants. ("Waste concrete could help to lock up carbon":doi:10.1038/news.2008.732). Carbon dioxide is used by plants during photosynthesis then the plants release carbon containing root exudates. These exudates mix with calcium minerals from the cement to form calcium carbonate, thereby permanently removing CO2 from the atmosphere. The process could theoretically "lock up 4 million tonnes of carbon a year in the UK", reports Nature. The UK produces 150 tonnes of annual emissions. Another interesting little building block.

One commenter to that article noted that sequestration isn't as good as not emitting CO2 in the first place.

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¹ Polycarbonate synthesis is not our field.

Before scientists went snorkeling in Borneo and plucked a frog, the charming looking Barboroula kalimantanensis, out from under a large rock in a fast moving body of water, the elusive species had been found only twice before. In 1978 Djoko Iskandar described the new species of frog in the journal Copeia (Dec. 28, 564-566), cataloging its webbed toes, rugose skin, flattened head, and the myriad anatomical features that distinguished it as a unique species. The second find was sighting was almost 20 years later, 1995, by the same scientist, Iskandar, who also collaborated on the current research.

As an endangered species, the frog is perhaps lucky that it's so difficult to locate, although it's still subjected to environmental pollutants and habitat encroachment from logging and mining. Not so fortuitous for these primitive frogs, the scientists decided to dissect the specimens for the first time and found that the species has no lungs. David Bickford, an evolutionary biologist at the National University of Singapore, explained that "because these specimens were so rare, they had never been dissected. If you have just one...in your museum, you don't want to rip it open!" (a different approach then some scientists take with their newly found marine species, Acronym Required has found). If unlucky for these frogs, the discovery was lucky for the researchers, as they got their name splashed across headlines around the world. ¹

The biologists hypothesize that the frog adapted to the highly oxygenated fast moving water by losing lung capacity. Since the frog lost its lungs, its body became more flattened and less buoyant, which researchers deduce helps it stay under rocks. As well, with its increased surface area respiratory capacity through its increased skin surface area.

Tetrapods without lungs are rare. There are lung-less salamanders and one species of caecilian, an earthworm-like amphibian, that don't have lungs, and some frogs with very diminished lungs, but this is the first species to have only cartilage in the place of lungs.

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¹ This news was in an advance press release supposedly ahead of a April 8th Current Biology article which we could not locate. Acronym Required usually doesn't publish research without reading the original source, but will update this post if needed. Update 05/06 - The article was published May 06, 2008 in Current Biology: Bickford, D.; Iskandar D.; Barlian, A; "Lungless frog discovered on Borneo": Current Biology, Vol 18, R374-R375, 06 May 2008.

EPA: The Dog Ate Our Homework

Last week 18 states sued the EPA after the agency refused to act on last year's Supreme Court ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA. The court had ordered the EPA to determine whether greenhouse gases presented a danger to public health and welfare, and if so to plan how to regulate them. The states' action was the latest move in the long tussle between the EPA and the states, the EPA and multiple Congressional committees, the EPA and various non-profits speaking on behalf of citizens, even the EPA and businesses who have a keen interest in slowing climate change.

On March 27th (PDF!), EPA administrator Steven L. Johnson sent a letter to Congressman Henry Waxman's (D-CA) Oversight Committee, outlining his plan to seek public comment on greenhouse gases and potential regulation. It was a short, simple letter but an elaborate Victorian lacework of excuses. The decision, he wrote, involved sifting through "options", "potential effects", "pending petitions","possible regulations", "careful considerations", "comment periods", "relevant data","drafts", "solicit[ations]" and "extensive briefings".

The Supreme Court ordered a ruling on the implications of CO2 from mobile sources, but administrator Johnson chose to expand his review to include as many stakeholders as he could think of -- "experts", "schools", "hospitals," "factories", "power plants", "aircraft and ships", "on-road vehicles", "off-road vehicles", "petroleum refineries", "Portland cement", "authorities", "power plants" and "industrial boilers". Procrastinators and students of the dog-ate-my-paper temperament should study his document for inspiration.

The 300 Page EPA Reports Had Already Found C02 Endangers Public Health

The science on CO2 is conclusive and the EPA knows it. The agency has already followed up on the 2007 Supreme Court ruling with a thorough investigation of their own. They recruited 60-70 experts to look at the greenhouse gas effect on public welfare (summary, PDF). The large EPA team found that, yes, global warming did endanger public welfare and detailed their result in a 300 page report. To note, this wasn't news to them, the EPA worked through the issues at stake in Massachusetts v. EPA back in 1999 and in other investigations which documented the same health findings.

Following their 300 page report, Johnson signed a proposal that would have reduced carbon dioxide from motor vehicles and brought fleet fuel economy to 35 mpg by 2018, a proposal which bested by two years the time-line in the energy bill recently signed by President Bush. Unfortunately Johnson's proposal for emissions regulation, the endangerment finding, and the 300 page document got lost somewhere between the EPA and the White House and NHTSA, leaving Congressman Waxman and his committee investigating what became of these EPA decisions and plans.

Now in 2008, nearly ten years after the initial request was given to the EPA, Johnson decides that rather than "rushing to judgment", as he put it in his latest memo, the EPA must continue to look at "complex issue[s]", "interconnections" , "lawsuits", "deadlines", possible "changes" and "ramifications", "permits", "thresholds", "requirements", "relevant information", "complexity", and "implications". The world is anxious for action on global warming. Why now, with the pressing urgency of climate change bearing down, is the EPA is overtaken by omphaloskepsis? Or is it mendacity?

Stalling: EPA Extends Public Comment and Oil Companies Weigh In

Congress wrote the Clean Air Act in 1970 to safeguard public health and welfare. Air quality regulation deserves public comment. But Johnson is proposing a comment period in the Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR), despite having already received 50,000 public comments in 5 months, when the EPA previously solicited comment. This new "public comment period", seems like nothing but an unnecessary stalling mechanism, one that will only solicit "public" comment from organizations who have already weighed in loudly.

Before Bush signed the energy bill and the EPA denied the California waiver, the EPA, OMB and the White House met regularly with many stakeholders including those from the petroleum and auto industries. The Detroit News reported last year that Cheney and/or Bush met with "Detroit's three automakers" multiple times in 2006 and 2007. Public Citizen wrote a 54 page report last August (PDF) documenting how from 2001 to 2003, senior administration officials met with Department of Transportation's (DOT) National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) 45 times in order to produce an attributes model for determining fuel economy. Their considerations were incorporated into the CAFE standards.

As well, according to meeting records, the OMB held five "20-in-10" meetings last year and more in 2006, when the (OMB), the EPA and DOE and the DOT/NHTSA gnashed over the President's proposal to raise fuel economy by 20% in 10 years. Stakeholders who attended these meetings included Shell, the American Petroleum Institute, Frontier Oil, Occidental Petroleum, BP, ExxonMobil, Chrysler, Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Hyundai, and Porsche.

The LA Times wrote in a March 28th article that Johnson's suggestion for more comment followed a memo circulated by the Heritage Foundation, an industry lobby group or "think tank", to "everyone that we could think of" in the White House and Congress. The memo urged decision makers to pressure the EPA for the ANPR because this would make legislators look like they were doing something. As the lobby group put it, the public comment session:

"would allow all interested parties to send the EPA relevant information and start a record on important topics such as the cost and burden of carbon caps and Clean Air Act expansion without triggering the costly new regulations."

When the EPA found on endangerment (that GHG were a public health hazard) last year, it conducted "extensive analysis....about costs and benefits", according to Waxman's letter, before producing the plan that Johnson signed off on.

Now, the industry and its agent, the EPA, propose to expand the pool of stakeholders in order snag the regulatory process in a morass of bureaucracy. What's fascinating to us here at Acronym Required, is how quickly interested parties drop their typical ideological attachment to "efficiency" and "small government" when advocating an obstructive process that suit their ends.

Industry Meet and Bleat: EPA, NHTSA and the OMB

If we want to know what more "public comment" might look like with respect to "costs and benefits", we could get insight from glancing at a memo presented to the OMB and its Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) in a meeting November 15, 2007 with Chrysler executives. (The document we will be discussing doesn't have an author noted, but there's various fingerprints from oil companies, lobby groups and car manufacturers. Since the only company attendees at the meeting were Chrysler executives I will call it the document the "Chrysler document", the "meeting document", or the "document")

There are hundreds of other memos to the EPA, of course, but this one, the anonymous authored "Regulation of Motor Vehicle Greenhouse Gas Emissions under the Clean Air Act and the Energy Policy Conservation Act", (Whitehouse.gov/omb..) reads like an industry directive to the EPA role for how they should regulate greenhouse gases emitted from moving vehicles. After reading this it doesn't take a vivid imagination to see the industry's prints on the EPA's current actions. The "simplest" solution, the authors of this document say, "...is for the EPA to abstain from attempting to set carbon dioxide standards" from vehicles "already subject to the NHTSA regime." [emphasis ours]

To quickly explain: The two government agencies that regulate motor vehicles are the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in the Department of Transportation (DOT). NHTSA sets gas mileage targets through CAFE standards, and the EPA is charged with regulating motor vehicle emissions.The energy bill that Congress passed and Bush signed (H.R. 6) last December pertains to mileage standards. Carbon dioxide emissions are primarily responsible for global warming. Industry argues that the EPA should not regulate emissions because of "regulatory overlap" between the NHTSA and EPA, but this was already defeated by the Supreme Court, who rejected this overlap argument.

The meeting document defines the EPA's "primary mission" under the Clean Air Act as determining the "requisite technology", that will "address the potential problem of climate change" -- as if technology were the only solution (and the entire thrust of the Act). A quick aside: Politicians use the word "technology" because of its magical properties. It's modern, smart, and forward leaning. "Technology" solves unsolvable problems and no one argues with it, it offends no one. "Technology" inevitably translates to more *business*, and business is always good, therefore "technology" is probably the only noun in the world that remains nonpartisan. But in actuality it often means absolutely nothing. The "technology" argument has been quite successful in staving off progress on global warming, as we mentioned in a previous post.

The document advises that if the EPA find endangerment, which they did, then the agency should coordinate with NHTSA "a series of clearly defined steps, each of which involv[es] public participation", and successive "public comment" periods. The document precisely describes the very political maneuvering we see today, so no one today should be surprised at the EPA's announcement.

But long after this document was made public, the press and politicians expressed shock over EPA actions like the agency's denial of the California waiver. Sometimes the press should pay more attention to the evidence. There was no room for surprise given the very public history of the climate change tussles.

Cues: "Technological Feasibility, Economic Practicability, Maximum Feasible"

The meeting document repeatedly cites the NHTSA's Energy Policy & Conservation Act of 1975 ("EPCA" or "the 1975 Act"), and its "balanced goals". The reason for the auto industry's adoration of the 33 year old NHTSA standard over the Clean Air Act and the EPA's updates to the Clean Air Act, is because the 1975 Act considered things like "technological feasibility" and "economic practicability", which allow for more input from the industry.

A favorite concept from the "1975 Act" is "maximum feasibility". "The document" insists that the EPA carbon dioxide standards should be "no more stringent" that the "maximum feasible" standards for fuel economy set under the NHTSA. Although the phrase "maximum feasible" seems straightforward, it's anything but. To be clear about what they mean, the authors spell out their own definition. It's not, they write, "the highest level of fuel economy that can be achieved by a single vehicle, or even by a fleet of vehicles, through the application of available technologies". "Maximum feasible" they say, gives the auto industry leeway to consider sector employment, consumer choice, and the overall health of the industry. In other words, "maximum feasible" is entirely subjective and by their interpretation, the fantastic 1975 Act, "ensured wide consumer choice by leaving maximum flexibility to the manufacturer". To be clear, the industry theorem therefore takes "maximum feasibility", and neatly redefines it as "maximum flexibility to the manufacturer".

The authors emphasize the part of the Clean Air Act 202(a)(2), that says the EPA should give "appropriate consideration to the cost of compliance". The document predicts that costs like "investment in tooling engineering research, and development" are a "primary constraining factors on the industry's ability to achieve higher average fuel economy levels on a fleet-wide basis", and that "NHTSA's own standard setting process under EPCA would...be the upper limit of what EPA could properly determine to be the most stringent standards". In other words, gut the intention of the Clean Air Act, and instead follow NHTSA's 1975 standard.

The document says the Clean Air Act should allow the EPA to: "set standards that take account of the limits on the investment capabilities and product cycles of the industry, just as NHTSA does...". The document advises the EPA to consider the financial resources of the industry, and weigh the "potential trade-offs between more stringent requirements in the near-term, and investments in longer-term strategies that seek to commercialize vehicles that do not require" carbon fuels. Of course, the industry has for 30 years spent all its effort undermining "longer-term strategies", so this is a bit of a canard.

Citing a petroleum industry case, the document recommends that whatever the EPA does, standards shouldn't require costs and if "additional technology" is needed, than the EPA can "properly decide to not adopt standards under the Clean Air Act". So first the EPA should define "requisite technology", then once it's defined, then the auto industry waive action. The Chrysler document outlines all the ways the EPA can not regulate greenhouse gases, including "abstain from attempting..." regulation, a request that the EPA under Stephen Johnson seems quite agreeable to.

Automotive "Modernization" -- Back to the 70's?

Of course if we look back 30 years ago we get an idea of how antiquated and stuck the American auto manufacturing industry really is. In the 1970's the fuel efficient cars looked like the Plymouth Duster or the Chevy Chevette, and the impetus to innovate for customer choice was real because those rattletrap choices were truly dire. Today, "customer choice" is an encrusted artifact of advertising cynically used by auto manufacturers, especially when faced with regulation. Despite seductive rhetoric about "new technology", the auto industry is clinging to the good 'ole days and the loose regulatory framework of the NHTSA's 33 year old standard.

The document presented to the EPA in November, 2008 directs "what the Congress sought to achieve in the [1970's] EPCA and how those objectives should shape EPA's action under the Clean Air Act." The authors on last year's document quote Phil Sharp, former D-IN (now the president of Resources for the Future, an energy policy think-tank) who sponsored the 1975 Act. Apparently, three decades ago, during a congressional debate, Sharpe noted: "Serious unemployment in the auto industry" called for considerations to "preserve this important segment of the economy". Sharp urged the EPA to maintain "the health of the industry."

Back to the 1970's. We know that "mid-century" is all the rage in fashion and home decorating, but while we tolerate (for the sake of argument) scaly old orange plastic chairs and brown shag rugs as retro fashion statements, we're not so keen on mid-century policy for 21st century problems. We need an evolved policy to "preserve the auto industry". Plus, if you think back, the Chevy Chevette got 40mpg highway, 28mpg city, better than many cars today. Surely we can do better with mileage and emissions in 2008, then in 1970 -- given our technology-centric society?

Today in 2008, the auto industry is swamped with losses. In the 1980's, when one auto company president suggested controlling the regulators, Reagan replied "Get control of them? We need to get rid of them."

Per Ronald Reagan and successive White House leadership, for the last 35 years deregulation spared the auto industry manufacturers, who chose to use the government's leniency and improvements in fuel efficiency to innovate gas consuming features rather than mileage standards that surpassed the "1975 Act" mandate. When sales sink up to 18%, as they now have, unemployment follows. Would today's crisis have been averted if a less permissive policy had been pursued?¹

The auto industry would love to live forever in the 1970's. But if "the health of the industry" is truly still a goal, maybe the government's kindest move would be to shoot the industry, or drown it in the bathtub, or whatever libertarian types do these days with ponderous, surly sectors.

The Prognostications of New York Times

In a post last week we questioned the New York Times assumption that Congress would never alter the Clean Air Act to include cost benefit analysis.² But perhaps they don't have to, if the Heritage Foundation is successful at urging members of legislator to bog down EPA action on global warming.

When legislation leaves it to industry to decide whether a particular environmental regulation to mitigate pollution or toxins, the process towards resolution is well-rehearsed and elicits a predictable response -- YES, yes; way, way too costly! This is the problem. Costs and benefits must be considered, even though some people unilaterally criticize cost benefit analysis for public health and welfare. But on the emissions arguments and the Clean Air Act provisions, analysts correctly point out that costs are often overestimated. This is because the industry doesn't approach this exercise fairly, rather they seek to torpedo all regulatory initiative to preserve and enhance today's profits.

The document prepared for the Chrysler/OMB meeting underlines one of the points of our previous post: that costs and benefit analysis done by industry will prioritize industry profits; and forsake clean air, water, health and welfare.³

To run out the clock, the EPA broadened the emissions issue addressed by the Supreme Court to all greenhouse gas emitters. Expanding the Supreme Court's mandate so promiscuously will allow corporations and their lobby groups, maybe even some newly minted ones with deceptive names like 'Citizens For Fresh Air', (I made this up) to make wide, swinging estimates of costs in an attempt to freak the public out about lost jobs, economic gloom and doom and the exorbitant cost of regulation. This is a 30 year old trick though, and where did it lead the auto industry?

Consumer Choice, Sea to Shining Sea

In the US, school children sing national songs about the country's natural resources. Indeed, the country is famous for its natural beauty, the mountains, forests, canyons, fields and azure oceans. Children learn "America The Beautiful" early on. But once they grow to adults, the children naively adapt their thinking. They accept rhetoric from industry that rejects the idea that resources are really the citizens', rather they belong to industry, which uses and pollutes air, water, land, trees. Somehow citizens think that yes, what's good for industry trickles down to them. Then when pollution burdens public health, as with smog in California, industry reacts as if fouling the public's air and water is its right -- how dare citizens overstep their rights by demanding we control our pollution?

Trotting out the "costs" of regulation, industry rebuffs citizens as if they were encroaching, trying to steal its property. Regulation is hurting business, they cry! Once citizens and politicians subscribe to this rhetoric, regulation is easily overturned in the name of freedom. And subscribe they do, paying daily, yearly, for industry to pollute the nation's resources. If that doesn't work for businesses and their lobbies, they drag "jobs" onto the set.

When industry puts "jobs" onto the national bargaining table they present a coercive choice. Regulation or jobs? Clean air or jobs? Water or jobs? Glaciers or jobs? Species or jobs? Your health or jobs? Your kids health or jobs? Would most citizens walk up to a slouch on the street and ask to play 3-card Monte with them? No. But in just as obvious a con, citizens instinctively recoil from the "jobs threat" and snatch desperately at the "jobs" hand -- just as if it were really a "choice"! Addressing global warming is good for the economy, not bad.

Global warming is not a simple problem, but the Supreme Court has many times laid the groundwork for how the EPA needs to act. But the Environmental Protection Agency, in the name of its citizens but in the service of "free-markets" flouts the court, congress, states and constituents.

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¹Deregulation that impacted environmental resources didn't start in the 1980's, but Reagan amassed huge gains in this direction, including cost benefit considerations. Many politicians are attentive to these analyses and some ascribe to more radical sentiments. Senator Tom Delay and Senator James Inhofe would dismantle agencies like NOAA, NEH, DOE, OSHA and the EPA, which they liken to the "Gestapo". (See for instance Delay, T., "No Retreat, No Surrender: One American's Fight" (p13)). Inhofe puts out regular press releases as ranking minority member of the Committee for the Environment and Public Works (EPW) which is led by Barbara Boxer stating that any global warming measure will cost jobs and wreak economic havoc.

²We previously wrote about Johnson's request to Congress that the Clean Air Act be "refurbished" to include "benefits, costs, risk tradeoffs, and feasibility in making decisions about how to clean the air".

³A 2007 draft report for Congress on costs and benefits of government legislation used Heritage Foundation information and the example of failed communist states to show how regulation can wreak havoc on an economy. Of course the Soviet Union was famous for disasters like Chernobyl and for leaving a devastating, costly pollution legacy, so the example is flawed on many levels. Not to mention how ludicrous it is to write a 2007 report to Congress which stoops to waste even one sentence linking clean air and water security with communism.

A couple of weeks ago, the journal Nature wrote that Stephen Johnson should step down from his post at the EPA (Nature 452, 2; 6 March 2008). Commenting on the unlikelihood of that, Nature suggested that since the White House "doesn't want the [EPA] to do anything" for the environment, "we can only offer [EPA] employees a fantasy...shut it down until next January. Take some fully paid sabbatical time to relax, and prepare for a return to the old-fashioned protecting of the environment that so many of you joined the agency for."

It seems the EPA thought that a grand idea. Stephen Johnson heads to Australia on a two week trip with about eleven staff. Of course Johnson's travel plans infuriate Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, who wrote a letter to Stephen Johnson, demanding to know where the travel budget was coming from:

"I am deeply concerned that you will be spending a large amount of scarce agency funds and staff resources on such an expensive trip while the President has proposed a series of devastating cuts in EPA's budget for environmental programs....hundreds of millions of dollars from EPA's budget for such important activities as reducing pollution of streams and lakes by sewage treatment plants, cleaning up hazardous waste sites, conducting global warming research and programs, ensuring environmental justice, and carrying out many other crucial programs."

The letter advised: "If your goal is to learn about actions to address global warming, I suggest that you visit California, which has moved ahead aggressively with greenhouse gas controls". She noted that Johnson's trip coincided with a number of hearings the EPW scheduled for him during the month of April. Let's see -- on one hand, Byron Bay and scuba-diving in the Great Barrier Reef; on the other, being interrogated by Senator Barbara Boxer. Why would Johnson choose Australia?

Flipping a Nation

The press, scientists, and commentators were instinctively indignant yet unsurprised by the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) new ozone rules, which of course came out below science and public health recommendations. The agency changed the ozone levels from 84 parts per billion (ppb) to 75 ppb, although scientists said that 60-70 ppb would decrease deaths and smog levels dangerous to children, the elderly, and those with asthma and respiratory disease.

Of course industry and the Bush administration weighed in on the matter, killing a secondary standard that EPA staff had recommended. The EPA's standard would have allowed agency discretion in setting standards in the event of certain conditions like weather in order to protect vegetation and wildlife from ozone exposure during growing seasons. Despite the agency's flaccid ruling, the EPA held a press conference to give agency heads the opportunity to beat their brave, intrepid, heroic chests. There, administrator Stephen Johnson spoke of standard as, "the most health-protective eight-hour ozone decision in the nation's history".

A New York Times editorial focused on another thing Johnson said during the conference:

"The big surprise was Mr. Johnson's proposal to rewrite the Clean Air Act to allow regulators to take costs into account when setting air quality standards. Since this would permanently devalue the role of science while strengthening the hand of industry, the proposal has no chance of success in a Democratic Congress."

What? The Bush administration whittles away government regulation? It marches "forward", privatizing various common assets like air, natural resources, forests and health that the administration acts like it inherited for the America public? Shocking. So all the spin we hear about the redistribution of this resource bonanza as the principled, constitutionally sound, economically ideal (market driven) thing to do is -- well, spin? Surprise.

We can count the ways that our government ignores science in its decisions -- astute observers attend to this problem. The EPA itself attempts to gut the Clean Air Act at every opportunity, for instance after Hurricane Katrina (pdf). But to the editor's point, is Johnson's cost/benefit proposal outlandish? Not a chance of passing?

The EPA Saves "Living" Things: Documents

In his March 12th comments Johnson called the Clean Air Act a "living document" that needed to be "refurbished", "overhaul[ed] and enhance[ed]", "modernize[d] and upgrade[d]". There's really nothing to complain about on the face to this statement. Johnson announced his four "principles" for a Clean Air Act, including, to"allow decision-makers to consider benefits, costs, risk tradeoffs, and feasibility in making decisions about how to clean the air." The Clean Air Act was not "a relic to be displayed in the Smithsonian", he said.

The Times editor pointed out that Johnson's proposal would "cut to the very heart of the Clean Air Act", which was written to protect science from special interests by mandating rule-making based on health, not economic costs.

As we have witnessed, when the first hint of pollution regulation arises, any energy company worth its salt begins wailing about "technology not being available", about the exorbitant cost of the proposal, and about all the risks of complying when there is such scientific "uncertainty". Companies did just this when they held the nation in a decades long trance while they chanted about global warming uncertainty. Recognizing hints of recent history in his statement, and knowing how Johnson's incredulous suggestion could easily put estimates about cost and feasibility squarely in industry's park to the detriment of clean anything, we should become alarmed, perhaps leap to action, maybe phone our legislator.

However the NYT editor's tone soothed, calling Johnson's pronouncement a "revelatory moment", one that signaled the administration's "cry of frustration at being largely unsuccessful in undoing three decades of environmental law". Like the wolf frustrated in mid-hunt? One last guttural, spine chilling howl before giving up its prey -- and the fawn darts into a thicket of brambles just in the nick of time, a small defiant flick of its white tail?

Can we argue so optimistically, as the NYT editor did, that the Bush administration attempts have been "largely unsuccessful"? Knowing that standards should be set according to science can we be assured that, "the proposal has no chance of success in a Democratic Congress"? We love this view, can we share the optimism?

Ozone Decisions, Sunset Regulations and the Doyenne of Death

In Johnson's ozone ruling he said he followed the letter of the law and ignored "costs, net benefits and implementation challenges of more stringent standards" as required by the Act. Despite his words, scientists say that his new 75ppb standard was in deference to industry. Rogene Henderson, who chairs the Clean Air Science Advisory Committee, told Platts Energy: "I think [Johnson] is responding to the pressure of the industrial groups about the cost". The record also shows influence from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and its Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA).

A series of memos between Susan Dudley, the OIRA administrator and the EPA, detail the Administration's influence in crafting the rule (available online www.regulations.gov). Over a couple of exchanges, the EPA refused to back down on the secondary standard. Then administrator Dudley issued a 'President-says-so' order March 12th: "The President has concluded that, consistent with Administration policy, added protection [Orwellian doublespeak?] should be afforded...by strengthening [more OD?] the secondary ozone standard and setting the secondary standard identical to the new primary standard..." Thus, the EPA was over-ruled.

Before Susan Dudley was chosen by Bush to head the OIRA, she distinguished herself by attacking what she saw as over-regulation, and she decried the diminished role of the OIRA and OMB in overseeing the regulations that agencies enacted. In the 1990's she roundly criticized the effect of a Clinton executive order, which shifted regulation out from under executive control to science agencies like the EPA. Dudley said the OIRA and OMB under Clinton had been made impotent and she urgently advocated for cost benefit analysis, especially for ozone and particulate matter rules. She chafed at how OIRA had lost its standing as the "watchdog for social welfare". (Regulation, Fall, 1997) As Reagan and H.W. Bush did before him, the current Bush administration has now spent the last 8 years pulling authority back into the executive branch. Dudley's interests are clearly aligned the administration's.

When Bush considered Susan Dudley to run OIRA, according the the Washington Post in 2006, "'Frank O'Donnell of Clean Air Watch called Dudley 'a true anti-regulatory zealot' who 'makes John Graham (previous OIRA head and Mercatus executive) look like Ralph Nader.'" In 2006 Public Citizen and OMB Watch published a report about Susan Dudley on the eve of her appointment to the OIRA, titled "The Cost Is Too High: How Susan Dudley Threatens Public Protections". The two groups argued against Dudley's appointment to the OIRA -- because her approach to regulation, they argue, was laden with "extreme-antiregulatory ideology". Public Citizen and OMB Watch went on to detail her background at the neoliberal Mercatus Center and her dedication to "embedding cost considerations in all laws that authorize agencies to protect the public, including...'safety first' laws" (like Clean Air Act).¹

Of course cost/benefit calculations involve valuing health, the environment, and quality of life. When considering the cost/benefits of smog then, here's a question: what's an acceptable threshold for the number kids who are forced to stay inside on high ozone days to prevent asthma attacks? Thousands? Millions? Particular cost-of-death calculations are often seemingly arbitrary, and long-term injury or morbidity that may or may not truncate a life are even more speculative. What does this say about how the US values its citizens, its children?

At the other end of the age spectrum, according to the OMBWatch/Public Citizen report "Dudley has supported a senior death discount that counts the lives of seniors for less than the lives of the young". While this may be standard actuarial practice, pollution is more dangerous to the elderly, which make her calculations seem savage. For the prospects of regulations protecting our welfare the report pulls no punches in painting Dudley as the doyenne of death.

What Happens in "The Catbird Seat"

The report's authors also point out that not all "costs" have the same moral and ethical value. With government doing "regulatory budgeting" they say "industry can knowingly expose the public to grave harms, enjoy the financial benefits of failing to take the steps necessary to protect the public, and then use compliance costs -- the costs of finally doing the right thing -- as a shield against being forced to comply with new protective standards."

Another impediment to forming guidelines for clean air or water, as well as workplace safety is sunset regulation. Dudley favors sunset regulation, which 'imposes automatic extinction to regulatory policies then puts agencies in the position of having to justify regulations'. As we can see from global warming, environmental damage accrues with indecision. By the time a piece of the Antarctic the size of seven Manhattan's drops off, well, too little has been done too late.

Finally, as Public Citizen notes: "Dudley would impose "regulatory budgets": fictional budgets of industry compliance costs, with a cap. Once an agency like the EPA hits its cap, it would be forced to stop promulgating any new protective standards, no matter how great the need."

As part of its regulatory oversight OIRA invites industry to suggest changes to federal rules. The Washington Post reported that shortly into President Bush's first term, when the OMB asked for public input on which regulations should be revised or killed, Mercatus submitted 44 of the 71 proposals the OMB received and the OMB approved 15 of them according to the National Journal. In 2002, 267 regulations were targeted, 80 from business associated organizations and a couple dozen from Mercatus. As a result, in 2001 and 2002 the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act were changed by proposals that benefited industry sponsors like BP Amoco, ExxonMobil and Koch Industries and other Mercatus donors.² The Public Citizen/OMB Watch analysis predicted that when Dudley headed the OMB she "will sit in the catbird seat, overseeing the entire executive regulatory process...able to slow, stall, weaken regulatory proposals" to the detriment of public health and the environment.

Ozone Rulings and Regulatory Agencies

Bush worked around the nervousness surrounding Dudley's nomination by appointing her during Congress's recess, and she immediately began to reclaim more ground for the OIRA. Specific to the smog ruling, Dudley had long advocated against smog regulations on behalf of industry. In 1997 testimony before the Senate Committee on Environmental and Public Works on the Subcommittee on Clean Air, Wetlands, Private Property and Nuclear Safety she argued incorrectly as the Vice President of Economists Incorporated that smog was beneficial because it protected individuals from ultraviolet radiation. In the same presentation she asserted preposterously that since research showed that asthma rates were associated with poverty a smog ruling would have the "perverse effect" of costing communities money which would in turn increase poverty and asthma. While she now works for government and on behalf of citizens instead of industry, she employs this line of thinking.

The OMB for its part has the EPA in its sights for what it deems as engaging in misguided rule-making based on unreasonable scientific uncertainty and high costs. In the 2007 annual report to Congress The Costs and Benefits of Federal Regulations, OMB criticized the EPA for its determinations of the health effects of particulate matter: "the degree of uncertainty in benefit estimates for clean air rules is large. In addition, the wide range of benefits estimates for particle control does not capture the full extent of scientific uncertainty."

The authors single out six EPA rules on drinking water which they say cost state, local, and tribal governments or the private sector "over the threshold" of one hundred million dollars annually. The Clinton/Bush II Executive Order 12866, especially Bush's two recent amendments, strengthened the OMB/OIRA's authority over the agencies, including putting executive appointed regulatory policy positions into each independent agency.

Of course this OMB analysis doesn't expound on the enumerable benefits of clean drinking water free of cleaning agents, disinfectants or arsenic. And why one hundred million dollars? How much administrative consideration is justified for solvent free water? Some Senator's houses cost nearly that much. Needless to say this is a drop in the bucket compared to the Iraq war, the costs accruing at $341.4 million per day with some mighty uncertain benefits.

The 2007 OMB costs and benefits report grounds its analysis in the philosophy that economically well-off countries have strong property rights and minimal regulation. The draft document veers to ideology at times, citing the Heritage Foundation for information and stooping to past arguments by citing Communism as an example of regulation gone wrong.

No More Neighborhood Wimp

In an issue of Regulation in 1997 Dudley wrote before she was administrator about a previous OIRA administrator who had bragged that OIRA was the "biggest kid on the block", so other agencies had to respond to its agenda. She complained that the OIRA under Clinton was the neighborhood wimp. So although Dudley's perch at OIRA may be short-term, she had been preparing her tenure for decades and when nominated by Bush strode in to the post with a clear agenda.

To aid Dudley's smooth tenure, executive orders and congressional laws paved the way, for instance in the 1990's, rules such as the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (1995), the Government Performance and Results Act (1993), and the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act (SBREFA) (1996), all addressed regulatory and reporting costs without expanding definitions of benefits. SBREFA, for example, spares businesses from what could be burdensome regulatory costs.

But the idea that agencies need to consider the costs of clean water and air rulings on "small business" can be interpreted in such a way that hobbles the goals of clean air and water. This also leaves small businesses susceptible to lobby manipulation by groups like the National Coalition of Petroleum Retailers, who may officially represent "small business", but whose aims may appeal most strongly to huge business. Look for example, at San Francisco's attempt to limit bisphenol A, and the immediate lawsuit which of course included BPA manufacturers, but also listed as parties to the suit local toy stores.

Johnson's proposal to rewrite the Clean Air Act is not out of left field, rather something urged for decades by industry, various government agencies, congressman and lobby groups. Furthermore, it's no more surprising then his smog ruling, if more appalling, since the changes he speaks of have been in the works for years and in fact progress towards the goals he articulated is well underway.

Health and the Environment: The Public's Standing

You'd think Johnson wouldn't even mention to Congress rewriting the Clean Air Act, given the spotlight on the EPA's recent record on the environment and the vocal admonition of members like Senator Boxer (D-CA). But Congress, though recently vocal against the EPA's refusal to move on environmental laws, has at times acquiesced eagerly to business deregulation and cost benefit guided rulemaking. Thus the current ease and confidence of Dudley in thwarting the goals of the EPA. Congress of course touts progress on all fronts, business, environment, and health, but business generally comes out the biggest winner.

Our intent is not to focus entirely on Susan Dudley, anymore than it is to focus on Stephen Johnson, or George W. Bush. They're all accomplices to a larger agenda which seems outmoded and outdated, that needs to be "overhauled" and "modernized". We are not in competition with Soviet ideology, capitalism is not merely ascendant, it's dominant -- so arguments in last year's OMB report to Congress about regulations on Clean Air and Water being nigh to Communism are absurd.

We live in a time when kids can't play outdoors because of smog, when business pollutes with abandon then screams about a rule that mildly asks, please don't pour oil into streams. We live in a time when the UN warns monthly about climate change and rising seas. This is the state of our nation today. This administration's decades old way of thinking deserves only to be encased in Plexiglas in a museum.

We live in a time when business calls the shots in Congress, in the White House and in the Judiciary, and we should all wake up to that truth. Yet voters still respond to "red phone" imagery with a knowing nod of utter naivete. There is no threat bigger than ourselves -- we are the traitorous monsters in our midst.

When the phone rings -- red, blue, yellow or green -- in the White House, in your Congressperson's office, or at the court house, it's not some nameless international threat, but an American industry whose TV advertisements you hum to and whose brand you endorse, and the person on the other end is calling to murmur in the lawmaker's ear about less regulation. One hand of the caller is slipping dollars into the decision-maker's pockets while the other waves fanatically to citizens about the economic doom of Clean Air and Clean Water, about the unemployment that will follow, and balance sheets that will run red. That's what happens when the red phone rings in the White House in 2008. Let's get real.

So what will elected representatives do for Clean Air? What they always do? Should the world have faith that Congress will protect Clean Air and Water? Sure, as long as somehow business benefits. But citizens have a choice, and always a voice, so we'll veer positive here. The NYT editor's right. The US evolves. Congress will see Johnson's clumsy marionette arms and legs being yanked by OIRA, his mouth voicing the agreed upon words from the decades old script. And your Congressman will answer the phone when citizens call, skip the form letter reply, and renounce Johnson's quest to rewrite Clean Air considering such things as costs, feasibility, and trade-offs.

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¹The report details how during seven years in the 1990's, Koch Industries (a petrochemical company) was found by the EPA to have spilled 3 million gallons of oil (300 unstopped leaks) into waterways in 6 states, and was fined $30 million dollars as a civil penalty (Koch founded Mercatus and is its largest contributor).

² Incidentally, Mercatus donors included Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan Chase, NYSE, Fanny Mae, and Freddie Mac. A quarter of the proposals the Mercatus submitted to OIRA in 2001 and 2002 were for financial services deregulation.

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Acronym Required has previously written about the EPA, the environment, and public policy.

If a Tree Falls in a Forest, 364 Days a Year, Does Anyone Hear It?

One day a year we celebrate Arbor Day by planting trees, then we have the other 364 days that aren't Arbor Day. (We'll disregard Christmas, the sort of a pro-logging holiday.) Of course the general mood of the world is plant trees. Plant trees to keep the cities shady, plant trees to keep the forests thriving, to provide shelter and food for birds and bugs and animals, and to capture CO2, which in turn helps reduce global warming. Saving trees is the choice of the day, the prudent much ballyhooed choice. But day in and day out, people are compelled to cut trees down.

Brazil's rate of deforestation increased last year despite efforts to stop illegal logging. The rate of deforestation in the 1990's was 7,000 square miles per year. Starting in 2000, the rate was ~9,500 square miles per year. Then the rate seemed to decrease in the last couple of years until the last 5 months of 2007, when loggers cut 7000 square miles. What happened?

The environmental minister told the Financial Times in last week's article, "Brazil takes battle to the Amazon", that the rate of deforestation had temporarily decreased because of government crackdowns and the arrests of corrupt officials. Brazil is in the midst of renewing its forest protection efforts.

But some say that Brazil's deforestation due to illegal logging results from a more complicated mix, including public policies and populist local politicians which encourage logging. Others tie the rate of deforestation directly to commodity prices. According to this account the recent rise of illegal logging occurred when farmers, especially cattle ranchers, cleared land to meet the demand and to profit as food prices rose. So we can see that arguably, rising food prices might be a reason to cut down trees.

There are many other reasons why people fell trees besides for food. In each case there's a logical, rational reason. Here are some recent examples:

• To Protect Your Truck: A mailman in Vancouver, Washington hacked at more that 30 fruit trees along his route because the city wouldn't trim them and he wanted to protect his truck.
• For Your Solar Panels: For six years two neighbors in Sunnyvale, California engaged in a legal battle to resolve whether a resident who wanted solar panels could force his neighbor to cut down some redwoods. The 30 year old Solar Shade Control Act outlines the rules governing neighbors trees and solar panels.
• For Aesthetics: Every so often a corner estate gets sold and the new owners begin refashioning it as their home. First the old toilets get discarded curbside. Last, despite the opposite trend in places like Miami and LA to replace non-native palm trees with shade trees, in some neighborhoods in California quixotic homeowners owners replace shade trees with exotic palm trees. Tequila sunrise in hand perhaps. I've seen this happen.
• To Confront the Rebels: The president of Chad cut down "centuries-old trees" so that the leader could "be adequately protected". Said one bicyclist watching the trees fall: "When I was a child, soldiers used to stop us touching the trees...[n]ow they are being destroyed."

While Chad acted in the name of terrorism, the US for some reason didn't deploy that reasoning when it moved forward to develop its national forest areas. Last week the state of California sued the U.S. Forest Service, which wants to open more than 500,000 acres of California national forest for roads and oil drilling. The state wants to keep these forests free of roads.

State Attorney General Jerry Brown told the Los Angeles Times "I find it kind of ironic that the federal government won't let us clean up our cars and they now want cars going through these forests." California accuses the Forest Service of violating the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Forest Management Act by moving ahead with development plans and disregarding the state's laws. California enacted a moratorium on road construction in "pristine areas of its national forests" in 2006, according to the LA Times. But sometimes federal governments make the National Forests earn their keep, come hell or high water.

And so each new day gives a fine reason to chop a tree.

Staffers Warn About Credibility of the Agency

Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) called the EPA "an agency in crisis" today, and released memos written by EPA staff to Stephen Johnson last year. Agency staff warned EPA head Johnson not to deny California's request for an EPA waiver allowing the state to set its own mileage standards¹. One memo warned that Johnson and the agency would lose credibility: "this is a choice only you can make, but I ask you to think about the history and the future of the agency in making it", the memo from a deputy director said. Johnson denied the waiver.

Johnson stated last December that California's standard wouldn't be as effective as the federal US Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. He said that under the California rule greenhouse gases (GHGs) would drop by 33.8%, while the federally set standards would reduce GHGs by 35%.

However California pointed out in their prompt lawsuit against the agency that the EPA's calculations were wrong. The state's program will reduce green house gases (GHGs) 113% more than the new Federal CAFE standards.

State standards would reduce green house gas emissions by 30 million tons in 2020 (PDF accessed 2/26/08). If calculations included twelve states that recently adopted California's standards emissions would drop a total of "74 million metric tons per year in 2020" (PDF)-- 75% more than the Federal law.

It makes sense that the EPA's calculations were incorrect, after all, why would the auto industry be so vehemently opposed to California's proposal and so exuberant about the federal standard if the California proposal was more lenient?

At the time of the denial, the press noted that EPA lawyers had warned Johnson about his decision. Now the details of the internal memos reveal the extent to which EPA staff advised against denying the waiver.

Christopher Grundler, the deputy director of the EPA's Transportation and Air Quality division and chief executive of the agency's National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory in Ann Arbor, Michigan, wrote that there was "no legal or technical justification for denying [the waiver]." He said, "If you are asked to deny this waiver [by the White House], I fear the credibility of the agency that we both love will be irreparably damaged."

Another staffer recounted presenting evidence to Johnson on California's "historically demonstrated compelling and extraordinary conditions" that would allow the waiver -- including climate change, limited water resources, wildfires, expansive coastal exposure, large population, and an important agriculture sector.

"Special Interest Governing At It's Worst"

In the past, the EPA routinely granted California waivers, 50 waivers and 40 waiver amendments in the last 40 years. Given the EPA's previous actions, many people saw the denial as unprecedented, unfounded -- worthy of many adjectives. State Attorney General Jerry₁ Brown called the EPA's action "shocking in its incoherence". California's governor Arnold Schwarzenegger called it "unconscionable". New York state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo called the EPA's stance "shameful", and New Jersey's speedster-governor Mark Corzine called the decision "horrendous", and based on "crazy reasoning". Vermont and fourteen other states joined the lawsuit.

Boxer said today that the EPA's denial "is about special interest governing at its worst... It is just a nightmare."²

California requested the waiver back in 2005. For two years it tried to get EPA's approval while the administration stalled, until California finally sued to get the decision. After Johnson's denial, California sued the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in January for its refusal to grant California permission to set its emissions for new cars and trucks.

Sixteen states have joined California's efforts to require automakers to make vehicles that get 44 miles per gallon by 2020.

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¹Under the Clean Air Act, California can set its legislation as long as the EPA provides a waiver. California is the only state allowed to set stricter standards, under the Federal Clean Air Act, and once California has set standards other states can adopt them.

²We won't quibble about when its at its best.

When Media Swooned In the Arms of Tobacco

Cigarette peddlers lethally succeed in convincing people to suck smoke into their lungs non-stop, decade after decade. There's mountains of evidence for this, millions of publicly available documents on the subject, court proceedings, leaked internal industry documents, as well as movies, articles and books. One in five deaths in the US is smoking related, according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) -- preventable deaths, tragically wasteful. Most of us, in and out of public health arenas understand the deceptive business strategies that the cigarette industry uses to reap profits from its killer product. Tobacco is the standard by which deception around other science issues is measured. Despite the evidence the tobacco is the culprit of a major health problem, however, we're forever embattled trying to dissuade people from smoking.

Tobacco industry history informs current discussion on other health concerns such as global warming, diabetes, asbestos and cell phones. Like tobacco, all seem to have a single corporate culprit. Comparisons between the issues are frequent, sometimes pertinent, but too often facile. In order to successfully continue profiting from cigarettes, many parties collaborate, including stockholders, legislators, presidents, and the media. Tobacco captured the media for decades, from movies that romanticized smoking to prolific cigarette advertising, to dubious reporting on the safety hazards that insured the sale and marketing of cigarettes.

One of many interesting stories in the history of tobacco is how the industry influenced investigative news reports back in the 1990's when reporters started uncovering the "dirty