Photo courtesy of USDA

With the potential government shutdown looming closer and closer, many people far outside of DC are wondering what the government shutdown will mean for their daily lives.  While farmers may be miles from DC, many rely on the government for technical and financial assistance, particularly those who are trying to implement wildlife-friendly farming practices. So, what does a shutdown mean for your local farm?

With Department of Agriculture (USDA) staff sent home while the government is closed for business, a number of programs vital to the protection of natural resources on farms and ranches across the country will be delayed this year, and quite possibly severely reduced.  Farmers turn to USDA for programs that help them pay for and implement practices that conserve natural resources, such as soil and water, and protect these resources from pollution that can occur from conventional farming practices.

In the event of a government shutdown, farmers and landowners will face the following impacts:

• Sign-up for the Conservation Reserve Program, a vital program that protects highly erodible land and lands still in native ecosystems, would not occur during a shutdown. With the April 15th sign-up deadline only a week away, the timing could not be worse.
• Contract processing through the Conservation Stewardship Program and the Organic Initiative of the Environmental Quality Improvement Program will be delayed until government reopens.  Both programs help farmers with cost-share assistance and technical guidance to implement conservation practices on operating farms and farmland.

For either sign-up or contract processing, a delay caused by government shutdown would render many farmers unable to participate in these programs, even though these programs are funded through the Farm Bill.  The longer shutdown lasts, the less likely farmers will be to sign up for these programs when the opportunity occurs, since many will have to make planting and land management decisions in time for spring.

For farmers who care about conservation, this is the worst possible time for a government shutdown.

What does this mean for wildlife?

If Congress cannot agree on a budget:

• Fragile native ecosystems such as grasslands may be converted to cropland
• Many farmers will not be able to implement practices to protect water quality or wildlife habitat
• Organic farmers relying on government programs to help them transition to organic production will be left in the lurch.

While a government shutdown may last only a few days or weeks, the vital services NOT provided by federal agencies to farmers and landowners during that time will result in significant and lasting consequences for farm profitability, wildlife habitat, and water quality.

Tell Congress to stop the stealth attack on America’s air, water and wildlife.

A landscape visibly ravaged as our lawmakers look the other way. (Photo credit: Vivian Stockman)

Specifically, members of Congress want to block funding for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to tighten water quality protections for mountaintop coal mining. Others want to prevent EPA from issuing clean water permits for mountaintop removal projects. And still others want to prohibit the Interior Department from using government money to write new rules that would protect streams from mountaintop coal mining waste.

I wonder, those who are advocating for the coal companies, are they able to drink water from their faucets at their in-district home? Can they take quiet strolls through valleys where streams still flow, where houses still stand? Can they visit their family cemeteries that are built on the hillside (as is customary in Central Appalachia) without getting formal permission from the coal companies? Can they take their children and grandchildren fishing on the weekend to a stream that’s not filled with toxic pollutants?

Polluters have sliced off the tops of mountains to obtain dirty fuel without regard for the health or safety of the communities or landscapes that surround them. (Photo credit: Vivian Stockman)

Government has an important role to play to protect those who are at the front lines of dirty industries. Federal agencies like the EPA are required to ensure that all Americans can drink the water that comes out of their faucets, and can breathe the air without getting sick. They are required to hold companies accountable and to demand that they operate as good neighbors and put profits second to protecting public health and our environment.
Coal companies have found enough friends in Congress who are willing to shut down the entire federal government so they can avoid even the most basic, essential restrictions on how they conduct themselves.

I ask Congress, take a trip to Central Appalachia, talk to residents. If you go with eyes wide open, you will see that it’s time for government to step in and protect local communities and their surrounding mountains and streams.

Take action!  Follow this link to contact your Representative and let him or her know you don’t want to see anti-environmental riders in the budget.

Coal-fired power plant on Potomac River in Alexandria, VA (by NWF's Miles Grant)

The polluter agenda of using the current budget battle to hide a full-on rollback our nation’s basic public health and environmental laws is coming into full view with the government shutdown. First, there is the attempt to scuttle a budget deal unless there is the inclusion of policy riders that gut laws like the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act.  (See here and here). Second and even more nefarious, there is a willingness to go to the brink on trying to get those riders because a government shutdown amounts to a temporary polluter holiday.

Who’s Minding the Store?

As the budget battle continues, little attention is being paid to what a federal government shutdown might mean for safety of our air, water and land if government employees are forced home.  As Politico reported recently (requires subscription), a shutdown means that most of the Environmental Protection Agency’s  (EPA) 17,000 employees will be sent home. (Read EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson’s memo to staff here.)  Among these employees are the men and women who staff the varying EPA compliance offices across the country that make sure polluters are held accountable in meeting our environmental laws, including the safeguards for clean air and clean water.

While a shutdown may be forced by political ideology, the impacts on communities across the country would be very real. In Alexandria, VA, a coal-fired power plant sits on the banks of the Potomac River, not far from the U.S. Capitol and just a few miles from my home. I visited the plant today and wondered: If the EPA shuts down, who’ll be monitoring the air my children breathe?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Polluter Parade

While EPA often works in tandem with the states, there is little doubt that a government shutdown will, at least temporarily, short circuit the ability of the federal government to prevent a polluter parade.  The shutdown will put a hold on the inspections and monitoring activities of the EPA in places like local power plants and refineries. In FY 2010, the agency undertook 21,000 inspections and evaluations as part of its efforts to check on whether our laws were being upheld. This means, on average,  for every week the government shuts down over 400 federal polluter inspections and evaluations won’t take place. This could impact the air, water and environment in communities across the country.

Take for example Sections 113 and 114 of the Clean Air Act. These provisions authorize EPA to enforce penalties for violating the Act and allow representatives of the agency to enter power plants, refineries, and factories to inspect air pollution monitoring equipment and sample emissions to determine if the plant if complying with the law.  Through this authority EPA helps to ensure that existing laws and limits on such things as smog-causing air pollutants, hazardous air pollutants, ozone depleting chemicals, and asbestos are met.

Water Worries

And the Clean Air Act is just one law. Section 308 of the Clean Water Act allows EPA to inspect facilities subject to the Act.  Similar to the Clean Air Act, inspectors can look at records relating to whether water discharges meet the existing pollution limits, inspect any monitoring equipment or methods used to sample the effluent and monitor the operation of the facility. Another law, section 3007 of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) lets the EPA conduct inspections of any company that generates, stores, treats, transports, disposes of, or otherwise handles hazardous waste. The inspector can monitor or obtain samples of any hazardous waste or any waste containers.

You get the idea - when no one is home to ensure the laws are upheld, pollution happens.  As these maps depict, when the employees are working EPA already has a lot environmental violations to police.

How convenient for the polluters. Force our kids to breathe toxic air and drink contaminated water by either gutting the law or forcing the government to close so it can happen anyway.

Tell Congress to stop the stealth attack on America’s air, water and wildlife.