A few hours ago, a news item about our old pals at the Heartland Institute was flying around the internet at light speed.

It seems that in preparation for their annual climate denial conference, which this year ends the day before NWF and concerned citizens will be gathering in Chicago for public hearings on proposed limits on carbon pollution from coal fired power plants, the partly Koch and ExxonMobil-funded right-wing think tank decided to suggest that ‘believing’ in climate change puts you in league with serial killers and terrorists. You know, MAYBE. Just throwing it out there.

Via The Guardian (and now many, many others):

The Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based rightwing thinktank notorious for promoting climate scepticism, has launched quite possibly one of the most ill-judged poster campaigns in the history of ill-judged poster campaigns.

I’ll let its own press release for its upcoming conference explain, as there’s simply no need to finesse it further:

Billboards in Chicago paid for by The Heartland Institute point out that some of the world’s most notorious criminals say they “still believe in global warming” – and ask viewers if they do, too…The billboard series features Ted Kaczynski, the infamous Unabomber; Charles Manson, a mass murderer; and Fidel Castro, a tyrant. Other global warming alarmists who may appear on future billboards include Osama bin Laden and James J. Lee (who took hostages inside the headquarters of the Discovery Channel in 2010).

Aside from being an example of the most ridiculous sort of ad hominem attack imaginable, this campaign is rife with logical and organizational inconsistencies. Kate Sheppard from Mother Jones points out that it hasn’t even been three months since Heartland issued a release carping about the need for “common decency” in discussing climate change. Classy move.

Heartland’s statement accompanying the project launch stated that “people who still believe in man-made global warming are mostly on the radical fringe of society.” And yet, “the United Nations, the so-called mainstream media, and leading political figures” are also talking about climate change. So, which is it? Fringe phenomenon, or incredibly widespread (and presumably conspiratorial) trend? As proof of its own bona fides, Heartland claims that “many of the world’s leading scientists, economists, and political leaders” have appeared at its climate denial conferences. WHOA—‘leading scientists?’ Aren’t those guys just fringe radicals? (actually, yes, the ones who attend Heartland conferences probably are.)

(Also of note: it’s highly questionable whether some of the featured madmen even had any special affinity for climate change as a cause. As E&E News reports (sub. req.), the words “climate change” don’t appear in the Unabomber’s manifesto, nor are there references to “global warming” or “carbon.”)

Less than an hour before people on the East Coast left work for the weekend, Heartland Institute President and CEO Joe Bast issued the following statement in response to a massive outcry:

We will stop running [the billboard] at 4:00 p.m. CST today. (It’s a digital billboard, so a simple phone call is all it takes.)

The Heartland Institute knew this was a risk when deciding to test it, but decided it was a necessary price to make an emotional appeal to people who otherwise aren’t following the climate change debate.

So, make a note: from now on, lying and acting like a disgruntled online commenter who invokes Hitler to end an argument = ‘an emotional appeal.’

General Motors pulled its funding of Heartland in March over the last round of climate denial messaging. One wonders how Heartland’s other funders will feel about this ‘test.’

Inside, there was a cease-and-desist letter from the Heartland Institute focusing on a recent post I did for Wildlife Promise.

The letter “respectfully demand(ed)” that I remove links and references to documents obtained by ThinkProgress and DeSmogBlog that circulated widely last week and appeared to lay bare the inner workings of a think tank that has long sought to undermine climate science (just how does one respond to a ‘respectful demand,’ anyway? Magnanimous acquiescence?).

Among the documents I referenced: a memo indicating that Heartland was paying to develop a curriculum for K-12 schools intended to paint global warming as “a major scientific controversy” rather than the systematically-reached conclusion of decades of peer review and careful research.  This and other details were reported on by the New York Times, the Washington Post, many other major outlets and countless blogs, but NWF has reached out to several print journalists who say they have not received letters. What made us so special? (Wait; was this a Valentine of sorts?)

In any case, we didn’t want mainstream press to feel left out, so we sent it to them, too, and we posted it on our Media Center.

Since the original leak, Heartland has issued a statement claiming the strategy memo is a fake, but the budget documents—including the 2012 fundraising plan I quoted—have not been disputed, and therefore neither has the fact that part of their strategy is to push marginal ideas including a nonexistent “major controversy” about climate science.

In fact, the Associated Press reported that David Wojick, the proposed curriculum designer named in the documents, confirmed “the document was accurate about his project to put curriculum materials in schools that promote climate skepticism.”

The Heartland Institute and its funders are not waging the war on environmental literacy by themselves. We never said they were. But if, as they claim, the strategy memo “does not express Heartland’s goals, plans, or tactics,” why don’t they tell us what they are all about, and give us their word that secret climate agitprop directed at kids is not part of their M.O.? (you know, we’d even accept it in the form of a FedEx package).

Dear Heartland: we love your earth-friendly logo, but we have a difference of opinion. NWF won’t stop relaying information in the public domain, and we won’t back down in the broader fight on behalf of environmental education and true ‘sound science.’ Regardless of the veracity of any one document, we need to examine the tactics consistently used by the extreme right to keep solid science out of America’s K-12 classrooms. And right now, you’re the face of that problem.

Kids Learning About Pika Habitat

The recent revelation that the Heartland Institute was pledged $100,000 in anonymous funds to develop a K-12 school curriculum to inject how controversial climate change science is is just one of these tactics.

It has been alleged, per a set of leaked internal documents, that the Institute, a free-market policy and advocacy organization, is again working to undermine K-12 climate change education. The leaked documents, which Heartland claims were illegally leaked and faked, are not needed to examine consistent tactics used by the extreme right to keep sound and needed climate change education out of America’s K-12 classrooms.

5 Tactics for Mis-Educating Kids About Climate Change

Here are five common tactics that extreme right organizations, such as Heartland, use to keep children from being equipped with the knowledge they will need to cope with the future problems we “adults” are imposing on them.

1. Create Controversy Where There is None

No matter how well-established a complex scientific subject is (human-caused climate change for example) it is still complex!  There will always be fringe theories, factual inconsistencies, and even whacky ideas that run counter the mainstream scientific view.  But, much as an attorney will strive to get a criminal off by planting “reasonable doubt” in a jury’s mind, the extreme right will seek to elevate these fringe theories and minor inconsistencies to the level of full credibility and parity.  These same groups have used this technique, for example, to say that the doctrine of creationism should be given equal time in American science classrooms with the science of evolution.

Though climate change science is settled within the scientific community,  the simple, loud assertion that it remains “uncertain” has a chilling effect on it being used in the classroom and there are thousands of teachers who become nervous about even teaching subjects perceived as controversial.  Moreover, state and school district curricula designers are likewise deterred from promoting climate change education due to the persistent and undeserved cloud of scietific controversy.  Planting seeds of doubt and treating a subject as controversial was a tried and true method used by the tobacco industry during prime smoking and health debates.

2.     Exploit the “Radical Media’s” Inherent Reasonableness

The American media loves to report stories that compare opposing viewpoints.  This is mostly thought of as balanced journalism.  It is taught in journalism schools, is considered professional rigor and is a door to exploitation by the extreme right.  Even when a subject is largely without serious scientific controversy, journalists will often find a contrarian and give his or her viewpoint equal time. We saw this practice in operation for many years with respect to smoking.  Each time a public health agency or university would issue a new study on how smoking contributed to cancer, the tobacco industry invariably appeared in the same article asserting that it was not yet proven that smoking caused cancer.  Climate change science suffers from a bad case of this problem.  Studies done that compare scientific literature to media reports show there is zero disagreement over climate change’s causes in peer reviewed scientific  literature but more than half of all news articles treat this same science as “in doubt.”  It is highly ironic that, for all of the extreme right’s whining about liberal radicalism in the media, it is so completely skilled at capitalizing on the tendency of journalists to want to present both sides of an issue even when there is no real issue.

3. Demonize the Nation’s Hardworking Educators

Principals and teachers are the extreme right’s favorite punching bags.  Instead of seeing America’s 3.5 million educators and school administrators as hard working Americans to whom we have safely entrusted the future of our children for the past two centuries, the right describes them as agenda-driven radicals bent on filling students’ minds with politically loaded dogma.  The alleged Heartland Institute documents say that “Principals and teachers are heavily biased toward the alarmist perspective.”  In reality, America’s principals and teachers are not alarmists.  They are reflective of American society and are made up of all kinds of people with all kinds of religious and political views.  What they share, however, is a desire to provide the most professionally delivered and helpful education possible to our children.  They are also highly responsive to community norms and parent comments and, as such, are not inclined to even teach subjects deemed controversial in that community.  It is true that schools do offer sex education and science teachers will indeed avoid treating creationism as a bonafide scientific subject, but this does not make them crazy radicals.  America’s educators are real people, working in real places and doing the very best they can for our kids.

4. Play the Worried Parent Card

If you want to get American parents riled up, just tell them their kids are getting faulty information and flawed education at school.   This favorite tactic by the extreme right is used to keep climate change or environmental education of any sort out of the classroom.  It portays it as “junk science,” inaccurate, one-side or any of a dozen labels that translate to “bad education.”   Truth is the environmental education community and science educators are rigorous and careful about the integrity of their teaching and the materials they provide.  It has been a decades-long mission by environmental educators to have programs that are fair and accurate, scientifically sound and balanced.  This has been proven, even in Congressional inquiries.  What makes environmental education different from many classroom subjects, however, is a focus on skill development and that includes going beyond education on scientific principles and problems to having students actually learn about solutions.  Most people think of education on problem solving as an educational breakthrough but the extreme right wants parents to think of this as brainwashing radicalism.   The real question: is it kinder to hide information about environmental challenges from our children and keep them in the dark about climate change or to give them the tools to handle it as they takes the reins of society?

5. Paint with the Government Conspiracy Brush

When the extreme right gets really frustrated with a lack of traction for its campaigns to keep climate change and environmental education out of K-12 schools, it resorts to the old “loss of freedom” ploy and describes such educational efforts as signaling a government takeover.  It is always interesting how the concept of providing our youngsters with the tools they need to fend for themselves in an uncertain environmental future is somehow cast as a government conspiracy.  To most, developing self-help environmental skills is a very American idea steeped in the notion of free choice and individualism.

The Heartland Institute is not a lone participant in the extreme right’s war on climate change education and giving our kids a real understanding of what is happening and what can be done about it.  It is unfortunate, but noteworthy, that the Institute and other combatants in the war on k-12 and climate change and environmental education have such deep roots in funding from the fossil fuel industry.

School wouldn't be worth a whole lot if we taught every fringe 'controversy.' (flickr | sidewalk flying)

Case in point: ThinkProgress Green says it has acquired documents that show the partly Koch and ExxonMobil-funded Heartland Institute, a right-wing think tank, is working on developing a curriculum for K-12 schools intended to paint global warming as “a major scientific controversy” rather than the systematically-reached  conclusion of decades of peer review and careful research. (Update: the Heartland Institute has since issued an advisory claiming that the documents are ‘fake and stolen.’ Stay tuned.)

The curriculum will be developed by Dr. David E. Wojick, who has worked as a consultant for multiple coal interests and is an old hand at ‘making the case for uncertainty’ in climate science:

Dr. Wojick proposes to begin work on “modules” for grades 10-12 on climate change (“whether humans are changing the climate is a major scientific controversy“), climate models (“models are used to explore various hypotheses about how climate works. Their reliability is controversial”), and air pollution (“whether CO2 is a pollutant is controversial. It is the global food supply and natural emissions are 20 times higher than human emissions”).

This project would apparently cost about $100,000—chump change compared to the $8 million Koch Industries spent lobbying Congress in 2011. I guess even veterans of the science obfuscation game learn new tricks sometimes (though not all of ‘em work out).

Sadly, this isn’t a new wrinkle. Last year, a libertarian school board member pressured California’s Los Alamitos Unified School District to make sure a new environmental science class includes “multiple perspectives” on climate—namely, those that accuse scientists of being dogmatic worrywarts—and education experts (ahem) like Rush Limbaugh and Jim Hoft have made a habit of excoriating the so-called ‘junk science’ that informs environmental education in between reports on President Obama’s birth certificate.

These measures try to paint educators as, at best, irresponsible—at worst, bent on keeping kids from the truth. The implication that some contrarian curriculum is all it takes to set things right only adds insult to injury, and at a time when many students are struggling.

Any scientist would tell you that there’s a high bar for what is conclusive. But when the preponderance of legitimate climate scientists confirm that global warming is manmade and a threat to life on earth, can the remainder even be considered capable of controversy? Aren’t they more like the random guy on the metro with a theory about the moon landing being a hoax? Should we teach that one too?

(As an aside: I definitely do plan on picking up a ‘Teach the Controversy’ t-shirt soon.)

If you’d like to help America’s kids learn accurate, balanced environmental science, ask Congress to pass the No Child Left Inside Act, a bill to help states develop stronger K-12 environmental literacy programs.

For more information on environmental education, check out Eco-Schools USA’s Climate Change pathway on incorporating global warming education into the curriculum in a practical and instructive way. You can also see the Guidelines for Excellence developed by the North American Association for Environmental Education or the reworked  Framework for K-12 Science Education, from the National Academies’ Board on Science Education.

courtesy universetoday.com

Today, attempts to rollback parts of the Clean Air Act that direct the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to address carbon pollution failed in the Senate.

In a game of political hide-and-seek, varying polluter interests attempted to highjack a bill (S. 493) that reauthorizes two small business innovation and technology research programs.

It was a stealthy attempt to amend the bill to prevent the EPA from limiting the vast amount of carbon pollution spewing everyday from our power plants, oil refineries, and factories.

Instead of a polluter payday, however, the attempted highjacking exposed confusion among the varying interests targeting the Clean Air Act and showed that navigating how to limit air pollution is a job best left to the experts at the EPA.

The four failed votes put a spotlight on the separate special interests seeking their own particular version of a rollback.

1. An amendment offered by Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) (Amendment 183) was supported by the oil industry because it would allow their refineries to continue to spew unlimited carbon pollution. It failed to get the needed 60 votes (a vote of  50 to 50) despite the oil industry’s campaign contributions, led by Koch Industries and Exxon-Mobil, totaling nearly $28M in 2010.  At $560,000 a vote, this was one expensive failure for Big Oil. See how your Senators voted here.
2. A separate amendment offered by Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) (Amendment 215) was a two-year “stop work” order on the EPA’s carbon control efforts and supported by his home-state coal companies.  It failed 12 to 88.    In the 2010, campaign contributions from the coal industry topped $7.3M with Senator Rockefeller’s co-sponsor and West Virginian colleague Senator Manchin (D-WV) by far topping the list. In coughing up over $608,000 a vote, Dirty Coal fared even worse than Big Oil. See how your Senators voted here.
3. Another amendment offered by Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) (Amendment 277) that sought a more nuanced form of a 2-year delay on EPA’s enforcement of carbon limits designed to help manufacturers also failed 7 to 93.  The substance of this rollback amendment was not even enough to placate the National Association of Manufactures and their $8.5M in 2010 lobbying expenditures. See how your Senators voted here.
4. Finally, an amendment offered by Senator Baucus (D-MT) (Amendment 236) trying to navigate the EPA’s use of the Clean Air Act on agricultural facilities failed 7 to 93.  This loophole amendment still couldn’t garner the support of the American Farm Bureau Federation, political contributor of nearly $700K in the 2010 election cycle.  The Farm Bureau joined with the Koch Brother’s Americans for Prosperity to seek an even broader attack on the EPA’s ability to limit carbon pollution. See how your Senators voted here.

Simultaneously, the Senate’s polluter compatriots in the House continued their own assault on the Clean Air Act.  Picking up where they left off in using the budget battle to gut EPA (see my previous blog here),  the House is poised to pass Congressman Upton’s H.R. 910 later tonight - a bill that even overturns the scientific finding that carbon pollution causes climate change.

As these special interest measures collided on the Senate floor and the House legislated away a scientific consensus, the public continued to look on with disgust.  A recent poll confirms that 77 percent of Americans, including 61 percent of Republicans, believe that “Congress should let the EPA do its job.” Only 18 percent believe that “Congress should block the EPA from updating pollution standards.

Luckily, 34 senators have actually chosen to stand up for the majority of Americans.  They have introduced a resolution (S. Res 119) supporting the economic, environmental, and public health benefits of the Clean Air Act.  And more than 150 House members took a similar stand in a letter released this week.

These numbers ensure that if the polluter dollars somehow are successful in an attempt to roll the Clean Air Act on either another bill or during the upcoming budget battles a Presidential veto of their dirty work would be upheld.

US Capitol with its power plant in foreground (via Flickr's Matthew Hurst)

White House Remains Silent on Clean Air, Clean Water Attacks

The new GOP majority in Congress promised to reduce the deficit, but failed to mention they would give polluters free reign to replace Pork Barrel spending with Oil Barrel favors.  In a week-long marathon of votes, the House spending bill to keep the government running in 2011 became a polluter piñata.  Oil companies and other corporate polluters looked on gleefully as their allies in Congress took beating sticks to the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act.  Polluters rejoiced further when the House defeated the one oil amendment that actually would have made a dent in the deficit by removing billions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies for oil companies.  In this budget charade, the target became polluter regulators, not polluter subsidies.  This extreme and reckless bill amounts to the largest assault on America’s bi-partisan legacy of environmental and wildlife safeguards in history. The bill was passed by the House on a vote of 235-189, largely along party lines.  No Democrats supported the bill and only 3 Republicans voted against it.  Click here to see how members voted.

Earmarks Give Way to Oilmarks

An oilmark is a congressional prohibition added to a spending bill that prevents government regulators and watchdogs from ensuring that corporate polluters comply with specific environmental laws. Oilmarks are measures to handcuff regulators, forcing them to look the other way as polluters endanger the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the lands and waters that nurture fish and wildlife. As with earmarks, oilmarks are usually attached to spending bills to avoid a full debate on the environmental consequences and instead protect an unpopular measure as part of a bigger bill that must be signed into law.

The House voted to add oilmark after oilmark to the spending bill, all without adding a single penny in savings to the bottom line budget.  In all, 14 of the 51 amendments voted onto the bill were oilmarks seeking to impose politics over science and common sense public health protections.

One of the oilmarks (amendment #533) was offered by Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), who is on the threshold of joining Big Oil’s Million Dollar Club with $993,000 in reported contributions from the oil industry over his career, according to Opensecrets.org.  His amendment would push aside federal regulators to allow Shell Oil to rush forward with ”exploratory drilling” in the Chuckchi and Beaufort Seas off of Alaska’s coast.  These seas are one of the last undamaged ocean frontiers, home to polar bears and other Arctic wildlife and marine life.

Does this sound familiar?  You may recall that “exploratory” drilling was the reassuring term used by BP for the Deepwater Horizon before it dumped millions of gallons of toxic crude into the Gulf, with devastating impacts on wildlife.  Did we learn nothing from the disaster?  According to the Commission that investigated the disaster, the spill was caused in large part “by failures of government to provide effective regulatory oversight of offshore drilling.” Having failed to implement the Commission’s recommendations, the House is rushing instead to move in the other direction and open an Alaska-sized loophole in the Clean Air Act and send a clear and intimidating signal to oil regulators that they will be punished by Congress for doing their job. His amendment passed with support of 230 Republicans and 13 Democrats (218 votes are needed to pass).  Click here to see how members voted.

Other oilmarks added to the bill with only a few minutes of debate are detailed at the end of this posting.  Koch Industries, a large oil refining company that gave more campaign cash to House members than any other oil company this past election, will be one of the largest beneficiaries of weakened pollution standards.  Not surprisingly, Americans for Prosperity, a Koch-founded advocacy group,  lobbied Congress to support many of these amendments.

Oilmarks added to the bill would:

• Allow 5,000 additional tons of hazardous air pollution and mercury emissions.
• Block new health standards to reduce soot pollution that is particularly harmful to the lungs of our children.
• Block funding for climate change science and sensible regulations to start reducing carbon dioxide pollution from oil refineries and power plants.
• Block science-based restoration of the Chesapeake Bay, Klamath Basin, San Francisco Bay Delta, and Florida waters.
• Block new rules and guidance to prevent hazardous coal ash from entering water supplies as happened in the 2008 Tennessee disaster.
• Block new guidance and rules to protect stream valleys and wetlands from dumping of waste from mountain top removal and other sources.
• Block implementation of the Equal Access to Justice Act, enacted by President Reagan.

The total budget savings for these 14 oilmarks was ZERO dollars.  Not one dime was shaved from the deficit that was ostensibly the purpose of this bill.  To the contrary, they will drive up health care costs and put people out of work.  The Clean Air Act is one of the most successful and most thoroughly studied pieces of legislation in history, preventing lung diseases such as asthma and delivering $2 trillion in health benefits while making American industry a leader in environmental technology industries that employ 1.7 million Americans.

Preserving Oil Company Subsidies

While adding all kinds of oilmarks to the spending bill, the House rejected the one amendment, offered by Rep. Markey (D-Mass.), that would have eliminated billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies to oil companies.  Closing a royalty payment loophole for oil companies operating in the Gulf of Mexico could save taxpayers $53 billion in the coming years, but the amendment (#27) was defeated 251-174. 226 Republicans and 25 Democrats voted to protect these subsidies.  Click here to see how members voted.

The Crushing Weight of Polluter Money in Washington

Not long ago, our government reflected Americans’ strong environmental values. When Congress updated the Clean Air Act in 1990 to protect thousands of lives and curb acid rain, the House passed the legislation with an overwhelming vote of 401-25.  Today, we instead face bold and unprecedented assaults from Congress seeking to roll back America’s legacy of environmental safeguards. As soon as the dust settled on the 2010 elections, GOP House leaders sent a letter to oil companies and 150 other businesses and trade associations asking what regulations they wanted scaled back.  What has changed? In 1990, major polluters made $20 million in campaign contributions. Since that time, polluters have used their profits to pour more and more money into buying access and influence in Washington.  Corporate polluters have spent more than a billion dollars on campaign contributions and lobbying in the past two years alone.

White House Silent

Fortunately, the voting public still strongly supports America’s environmental laws. A  recent poll confirms that 77% of Americans, including 61% of Republicans, believe that “Congress should let the EPA do its job.”  This attack can be turned back if the public finds out what is happening.  It’s up to all of us to spread the word and make sure everyone knows what’s at stake.  But it is troubling that President Obama hasn’t  yet said anything about this assault on America’s bedrock environmental laws. Importantly, President Obama has threatened to veto the spending bill.   But the president is missing an important opportunity to educate the public about the benefits of the Clean Water Act , the Clean Air Act, and the wildlife programs that create jobs and protect our Great Outdoors throughout America. We will continue to see more of these hidden polluters attacks on other pieces of legislation until they are brought from the backrooms of Congress into the light, and nobody has a brighter flashlight than the president.

Oilmarks in the GOP House Spending Bill

[Note: The exact text of amendments can be found in one of two Congressional Record files here and here by searching on the name of the sponsor; similarly, a GOP summary of all 500+ amendments that were filed can be found here; only a portion of the amendments were debated and only 51 were approved by recorded vote.]

Putting Polluter Soot Ahead of Our Children’s Lungs

An oilmark added by the House would force EPA to ignore recent scientific studiesconfirming that specific air pollutants — coarse particles, or soot – penetrate deeply into our lungs and trigger asthma attacks in young children.  The oilmark, sponsored by Rep. Noem (R-SD), would put a halt to the scientific process established by the Clean Air Act to update the health standards for soot based on the latest science and studies.   The standards are the basis of pollution control requirements that oil refiners and other major emitters must adhere to.  Here is the text of Rep. Noem’s oilmark (Amendment #563), which passed by a vote of 255-168. Click here to see how members voted.

No funds made available by this Act may be used to modify the national primary ambient air quality standard or the national secondary ambient air quality standard applicable to coarse particulate matter under section 109 of the Clean Air Act.

Thousands of Pounds of Mercury and 5,000 Tons of Hazardous Air Pollutants – Seriously?

Another oilmark amendment added to the budget bill would prevent EPA from enforcing a rule that reduces emissions of toxins including mercury, which is an acute threat to fish, wildlife and our health.  According to the amendment (#165), sponsored by Rep. Carter (R-TX), ”None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to implement, administer, or enforce the rule entitled ‘National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants [the cement production industry],’” which is the third-largest industrial source of toxic mercury emissions.  The amendment  passed 250-177.  Click here to see how members voted. The American Lung Association, the American Public Health Association and other public health groups wrote a letter to Congress opposing the amendment.  Here’s an excerpt:

As the American Academy of Pediatrics notes, “mercury in all of its forms is toxic to the fetus and children, and efforts should be made to reduce exposure to the extent possible to pregnant women and children as well as the general population.” Cement plants are the third-largest source of human-caused mercury emissions; rolling back mercury standards for such plants would be a step in exactly the wrong direction. Under the standards, which the Environmental Protection Agency issued in final form in September 2010, cement plants emissions of mercury and other pollutants would fall dramatically, reducing mercury pollution by 16,400 pounds, other hazardous air pollutants by 5,200 tons, and acid gases by 5,900 tons. In addition, EPA calculates that the standards would greatly reduce fine particulate pollution from cement plants, preventing up to 2,500 premature deaths annually and saving up to $18 billion in human health costs.

Clean Water Act Under Attack

One of the most far-reaching oilmarks in the bill was included in the underlying bill unveiled by GOP leaders last week.  A letter from 45 of National Wildlife Federation’s state affiliates opposing the spending bill explains:

One rider in the bill explicitly extends loopholes in the Clean Water Act that jeopardize drinking water for 117 million Americans and handed over 20 million acres of wetlands and prime wildlife habitat to polluters and developers. The CR bans the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from working to close these loopholes, which threaten wetlands such as those in the Prairie Pothole Region—the breeding grounds for the majority of North America’s ducks.

Additional oilmarks that have been added to the spending bill and undermine the Clean Water Act include the following:

• Endangering the Chesapeake Bay:Amendment #467, sponsored by Rep. Goodlatte (R-VA), would block efforts to clean the Chesapeake Bay just as progress is finally being made around the region.  The amendment bars funds for the promulgation, development and implementation of measures that govern the amount of allowable pollution in waters that feed the bay (TMDLs).  It passed 230-195.  Click here to see how members voted.
• Dumping Waste from Mountain Top Removal in Stream Valleys: Amendment #109, sponsored by Rep. Griffith (R-VA), would block EPA from using its funding to implement or enforce new guidance for the review of water pollution from proposed coal-mining projects, including mountain-top removal mining. It passed 235-185.  Click here to see how members voted.
• Endangering Florida Waters: Amendment #13, sponsored by Rep. Tom Rooney (R-Florida), would stop EPA from implementing and enforcing new water quality standards for Florida’s lakes and flowing waters, which were issued in November. This amendment would stop public education to help protect Florida’s waters from excess pollution from sewage, manure and fertilizer.  It passed 237-189.  Click here to see how members voted.
• Blocking Klamath Salmon Restoration:Amendment #296, sponsored by Rep. McClintock (R-CA), would prohibit use of funds to complete the Klamath Dam Removal and Sedimentation Study that is needed to, as the Sacramento Bee writes in an editorial, “reopen hundreds of miles of spawning habitat for endangered coho salmon, the largest salmon restoration project on the West Coast; assure water and reduced-rate electricity for farmers on a federal irrigation project; remove four PacifiCorp dams; and allow Indians tribes to buy back some land.” It passed narrowly by a 215-210 vote.  Click here to see how members voted.
• Endangering the San Francisco Bay Delta: A measure included in the underlying bill would overrule the biological opinions of scientists on California’s incredible San Francisco Bay Delta.  The measure would instead further subsidizes corporate special interests and jeopardizes the existence of salmon and Delta smelt and the health of the entire Bay ecosystem, which is reliant on its life-giving water supply.
• Blocking Hazardous Coal Ash Rules:Amendment #217, sponsored by Rep. McKinley (R-WV) ,would restrict EPA’s authority to implement strong, national safeguards on coal ash. Coal ash is a dangerous hazardous waste that has been insufficiently regulated, as evidenced by the 2008 disaster in Tennessee that blocked a tributary of the Tennessee river with more than a billion gallons.  Coal ash is generated by burning coal for energy, and it contains many hazardous metals and chemicals like arsenic and lead. EPA has the authority and responsibility to put in place common-sense rules that protect human health and the environment by controlling the disposal of coal ash to protect communities from dangerous pollution. The amendment passed 239 – 183, and you can click here to see how members voted.
• EPA Blocked from Protecting Wetlands and Streams from Harmful Dumping: Amendment #216 ,sponsored by Rep. McKinley (R-WV), would block EPA from protecting wetlands, streams and rivers from being destroyed by dumping fill and dredge material.  It would stop EPA from administering or enforcing section 404 (c) of the Clean Water Act, which requires EPA to deny the dumping of dredged or fill material in waters of the United States (including wetlands) whenever it determines, after notice and opportunity for public hearing, that the dumping would have an unacceptable adverse impact on fisheries, wildlife, municipal water supplies, or recreational areas. It passed 240-182.  Click here to see how members voted.

Climate Change:  “Stop Work” and Science Blindfolds

A series of oilmark amendments have been included in the bill that pull the plug on scientific exploration of climate change and prudent efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

• Blindfold on International Climate Science:  Amendment #149, sponsored by Rep. Luetkemeyer (R-Missouri), prohibits funding for the Nobel-Prize-Winning international science panel (the IPCC) that was launched by President George H.W. Bush to encourage the world’s best scientists to advance our understanding of how pollution is contributing to the planet’s increasingly chaotic climate.  It passed 244-179. Click here to see how members voted.
• “Stop Work” Order on Reducing Carbon Dioxide and other Greenhouse Gases:Amendment #466, sponsored by Rep. Poe (R-Texas), would bar EPA from beginning to regulate carbon dioxide pollution and other greenhouse gas emissions from refineries and other major sources, as currently required by the Clean Air Act and a Supreme Court order.  It would ensure that more dangerous pollution is dumped into the air and that U.S. companies fall behind in the global competition for clean energy markets. The amendment states that:  “None of the funds made available by this Act may be used by the Environmental Protection Agency to implement, administer, or enforce any statutory or regulatory requirement pertaining to emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, hydrofluorocarbons, or perfluorocarbons from stationary sources that is issued or becomes applicable or effective after January 1, 2011.”  It passed 249-177.  Click here to see how members voted.
• Blindfold on NOAA Climate Science:  Amendment #495, sponsored by Rep. Hall (R-Texas), eliminates the NOAA National Climate Service, a climate science program designed to provide scientific assistance to farmers, fishery managers, water managers and transportation managers. It passed 233-187.  Click here to see how members voted.
• Gag Order for America’s Negotiating Team: Amendment #204, sponsored by Rep. Scalise (R-Louisiana), eliminates funding for the State Department’s Special Envoy on Climate Change, the main negotiator responsible for the United States at international treaty negotiations, and a positive force for getting other nations to reduce their pollution that affects the security of the United States.  It passed 249-179. Click here to see how members voted.

Federal Agency Environmental Compliance

Amendment #195, sponsored by Rep. Lummis (R-WY), would block implementation of the Equal Access to Justice Act, which was signed into law by President Reagan.  The law, which gives people the right to recoup attorney fees if they prevail in court, has helped to ensure that federal agencies are held accountable for violations of environmental, health and safety laws.  It passed 232-197.  Click here to see how members voted.

Oversized Budget Hatchet Jeopardizes Successful Wildlife Programs

While ignoring opportunities to cut billions in oil company subsidies, the House spending bill also makes dramatic and oversized funding cuts in programs that have been incredibly successful in protecting wildlife and America’s Great Outdoors.  Read more about these cuts here.  Unlike the oilmarks listed above, the spending cuts  affect the government’s bottom line and are part of the budget debate.  However, keep in mind that over the past 30 years, America’ investment in parks, wildlife, clean water, and clean air has fallen from 1.7% of federal spending to 0.6% of federal spending. Yet a disproportionately large share of the proposed cuts come from the Department of Interior and EPA.  Although programs implemented by Department of Interior and EPA are a small sliver of federal spending, they currently deliver a big payoff in the form of 3 million jobs in communities throughout America.

The spending bill would:

• Eliminate funding for the State and Tribal Wildlife Grant Program, which is the nation’s premier program for keeping species off the endangered species list by supporting non-regulatory, state-based conservation efforts to keep common species common. This program leverages more than $100 million per year in state and private dollars, and directly supports jobs in virtually all states.
• Eliminate funding for the North American Wetlands Conservation Fund, a key program for conserving waterfowl and other migratory bird habitat through providing a catalyst for leveraging non-Federal funding and fostering public and private sector partnerships. Through the work of more than 4,000 partners, this program has leveraged over $2 billion in matching funds affecting 25 million acres, and fostered public and private sector cooperation for migratory bird conservation, flood control, erosion control, and water quality. Hunters depend on this program to ensure healthy populations of waterfowl, which in turn is essential for sustaining strong local economies especially in rural communities.
• Cut funding to the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) by 90%. LWCF, which is funded by oil royalties and helps expand national parks, protects hunting and fishing areas, and funds local projects like city parks and playing fields.  LWCF has provided crucial funding for some of America’s most amazing places throughout the nation, from Yellowstone National Park to the Appalachian National Scenic Trail to Gettysburg National Military Park.

Now the polluter-funded think tank-media complex has a new target – whitewashing the Gulf oil disaster. Robert Nelson has an opinion piece made up to look like a news article in the Weekly Standard claiming the Gulf oil disaster caused little damage and calling anyone who would claim otherwise “secular equivalents to the devil.”

Why would a public policy professor at the University of Maryland write something not just so wrong, but with such an angry, combative tone? A look at Nelson’s extracurricular activities reveals a web of connections to big polluters like Koch Industries & Exxon Mobil:

• Nelson is a senior scholar with George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, a pro-polluter think tank founded & funded by the infamous Koch brothers. Legendary for its ability to produce credible-sounding research to back industry positions, the Wall Street Journal once called Mercatus “the most important think tank you’ve never heard of.” The Mercatus Center has received a mind-boggling $9,074,500 from the Kochs, as well as $240,000 from Exxon Mobil.
• Nelson is a senior fellow at the Independent Institute, which works to deny the scientific consensus that manmade carbon pollution is causing global warming. Not coincidentally, many of its staff used to work on denying the link between cancer & cigarette smoking. The Independent Institute has received $160,000 from the Kochs, as well as $85,000 from Exxon Mobil.

Given those polluter ties, it becomes less shocking that Nelson would go to such incredible lengths to bend some facts & ignore many others to suit his purposes:

• Those incredibly high rates of dolphin & endangered sea turtle deaths in the Gulf this summer? Unrelated to the BP oil, says Nelson. That’s right – according to Nelson, unless the creature was found literally covered in oil, it should not even be considered in the conversation of oil disaster impacts.
• If a creature dies in the oil slick & sinks to the bottom, Nelson believes that doesn’t count as part of the disaster toll either.
• That many of the worst impacts of the Exxon Valdez disaster took years to reveal themselves? Nelson doesn’t want to talk about that.

I could spend all day debunking all the distortions & deliberate omissions in Nelson’s piece, but that would miss the big picture. The same groups who denied the link between cancer & smoking and deny the link between carbon pollution & global warming are now being enlisted to deny the impacts of the Gulf oil disaster, and by extension the risks of our oil addiction.

It’s been encouraging to see that, so far, the impacts on the Gulf don’t seem to be following a worst-case scenario. But as the Valdez taught us, it takes years to assess the full impact of a spill.

What we’ve learned this week is that voices from the polluter-funded think tank-media complex are ready to exploit that void to say … maybe all those jobs lost weren’t so bad. And who knows, maybe those endangered sea turtles won’t go extinct. So why not drill baby drill?

When they do, the National Wildlife Federation will be ready to call them out.

Until recently, Charles Koch & his brother David Koch had been able to fly largely under the radar. The Koch brothers have pumped millions into climate science denial front groups and even sponsored an outrageously biased exhibit at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, all without attracting much public notice.

But that’s changed with the flood of out-of-state Koch money into the polluter-funded Proposition 23 campaign to overturn California’s climate law. The Koch brothers’ meddling has been decried by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA), scrutinized by the national media, and mocked by Dirty the Global Warming Denying Sock Puppet.

Now Cal State-Los Angeles senior Joel Francis is challenging Charles Koch to debate California’s economic future & Prop 23. Joel is part of Power Vote CA, a project of the California Student Sustainability Coalition. And if Koch won’t come to him? Joel says he’ll take his challenge to Koch Industries headquarters in Kansas:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Now Koch has drawn the ire of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Watch this week’s NWF Climate Capsule:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here’s a quick flashback at what Jim Everett would do to Dirty’s bucket if he ever called him Chris.

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