All Things Whistleblower: A GAP Blog

Dangerous Decision

Last week, the Oregon Environmental Quality Commission (EQC) made a decision to continue the incineration of a Cold War-era stockpile of poisonous chemical agent at the Umatilla Chemical Depot. The decision to accept a plan of action from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) was reached despite the plan’s admitted evidence that the incineration process elevates the cancer risk to surrounding communities above acceptable state standards.

GAP has been involved in this case for some time, suing the DEQ and EQC to halt the incineration of mustard agent back in November. We also helped spread the word about a less-than-transparent meeting between government officials about this problem in January.

The EQC missed a real opportunity to protect the community and to destroy chemical agents in a responsible way, considering alternative methods are available that greatly reduce environmental risk.

We’ll see what happens next, there are still public meetings to be held in the next month regarding the burning before it starts up again.

-- Dylan Blaylock

Running Out the Clock

A report released yesterday by the White House summarizes evidence of global climate disruption, the harmful impacts it is already having on society and the environment, and future projections of potential damages. The report, years overdue under a requirement of law, was produced only in response to an August 2007 federal court order that an assessment be produced by May 31, 2008.

The report is an about-face by the Bush administration on their official statements on climate change, for pretty much the entire time he’s been in office. And they didn’t want this getting out now - they were legally forced to release the information.

Said Rick Piltz, Director of the Government Accountability Project’s Climate Science Watch program: “After seven years of denial, disinformation, cover-up, and delay, in its waning months, the Bush administration is finally beginning to allow the publication of reports that acknowledge this scientific reality.” From the Associated Press:

Environmental groups got a court order last summer to force the Bush administration to produce the document by the end of this month. Hays said the White House has preferred issuing studies on individual global warming issues, such as an agricultural effects report that was released on Tuesday.

"It's totally begrudging," said Rick Piltz, director of Climate Science Watch at the nonprofit Government Accountability Project, a whistleblowers' organization. "It's important the government go on record honestly acknowledging this stuff."

ABCNews.com also has a good piece on the story, and an even better video segment. To view that, click on the link and search for “Climate,” and it should be in the first few videos today.

-- Dylan Blaylock

Bad News, Good News

According to a new federal report on climate change, global warming has already had serious negative environmental ramifications for the United States, including an increase in forest fires and drought.

The report comes from the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, the lead agency on such matters.

Obviously, the report is disheartening, but there is a silver lining. The CCSP is the same group that GAP client Rick Piltz previously worked for before leaving it to blow the whistle on the White House’s censoring and editing of climate data. This was a political decision taken by the White House in order to lower the perception of the human impact on climate change. Rick Piltz now is the director of the GAP program Climate Science Watch. The White House official who edited the documents, Phil Cooney, left the White House two days after Piltz’s story broke to work for ExxonMobil, where he remains today.

The bright side is that, three years later, a hard-hitting report by the CCSP such as this is able to be presented to the American public, without any political censoring (that we know of).

-- Dylan Blaylock

Successful Game-plan for Suing Energy Companies Over Global Warming?

An interesting piece that just came out in the Atlantic details how two prominent attorneys believe they have a proper game-plan for bringing lawsuits against large energy corporations for global warming damage. The lawyers argue, besides showing evidence of damage caused by climate change (from greenhouse gas emissions), that large energy companies have been actively conspiring to cover-up the threat of global warming.

The game-plan is the same methodology used against big tobacco companies in the 1980’s and 90’s. Basically, each industry engaged in the use of shill groups to raise and foster public doubt about the effects of their respective products (or emissions) on public health. From the article:

The energy industry’s ties to government, like the tobacco industry’s, have been unusually tight, and its lobbying efforts demonstrably effective. Philip Cooney, a liaison between the Bush administration and federal environmental agencies, edited uncertainty into reports on global warming by top government scientists from 2001 until 2005, when he resigned after examples of his changes were published by The New York Times. Before joining the White House, Cooney had worked for the American Petroleum Institute; a week after his departure, Exxon­Mobil announced he was joining the company. “In a sense, ExxonMobil walked right into the room of the science program,” says Rick Piltz, the federal official who blew the whistle on Cooney. A government memo obtained by Greenpeace outlines a State Department official’s talking points for a meeting with energy-company lobbyists: the president, the memo says, “rejected Kyoto, in part, based on input from you.”

The piece also centers around the sad story of the town of Kivalina, Alaska, whose residents will have to be relocated within 10 years due to massive beach erosion.

-- Dylan Blaylock

First Salmon, Now Right Whales

For over one year, the White House has been blocking a speed-limit rule for ships in some waters where the endangered right whale is found. The rule is meant to protect the species, but the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has been battling with the Vice President’s office over the rule’s institution for the last 14 months.

Cheney’s office continually asserts the rule is not needed, completely opposing scientific consensus on the matter. It is believed that the loss of one pregnant female right whale, whose total species population is less than 400, “could doom the species,” according to the Washington Post article.

Since the blocking of the rule began, at least three whales have died and two have been seriously wounded by ships.

The story is based on documents released by the Union of Concerned Scientists, an environmental group GAP often teams up with. A NOAA scientist sent that group evidence of the back-and-forth struggle between the agency and Vice President’s office.

-- Dylan Blaylock

Same Old Story

This clip from the CBS Evening News details how a new report by the Government Accountability Office (Congress’s Investigatory Arm) has found that significant political influence has been exerted by Bush administration officials on EPA scientific reports, staff, and processes. Specifically, the administration has slowed and convoluted the EPA’s chemical risk-assessment program, “to the point that the health of millions of Americans could be endangered.”

Much like a GAP-Union of Concerned Scientists report that came out last year detailing wide-scale political interference by the administration with the work of climate scientists (which boils down to increasing the human risk posed by climate change), this report shows the administration is politicizing other scientific departments (in this case, increasing American risk from toxic chemical exposure).

-- Dylan Blaylock

Same Old Story

President Bush’s plan to combat global warming, which he laid out yesterday at a press conference, falls well-short of what is truly needed to address the crisis. But then again, the Bush administration has almost always taken a stance against the notion of global warming itself, or doing anything of substance about it. Just ask Rick Piltz, who now runs GAP’s Climate Science Watch program.

Bush also has called for an increase in nuclear power. A few weeks ago, GAP and other groups released a report detailing the numerous shortcomings of Bush’s nuclear strategy known as GNEP.

-- Dylan Blaylock

We Won't Let You Address the Problem Because It Is Too Widespread

In justifying its reasoning for disallowing California to adopt stronger clean air laws, the head of the EPA admitted that greenhouse gases present a threat to public health and that global warming is caused by human activity. This was the first time a member of the Bush administration presented these points. From a New York Times masthead editorial:

The essence of the administration’s reasoning was that California had failed to demonstrate “extraordinary and compelling” circumstances justifying stricter rules. To make that case, Stephen Johnson, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, was forced to argue that climate change gravely endangered not only California but the entire country.

-- Dylan Blaylock

Dangerous Dust

Researchers have found that dust clouds, which can travel thousands of miles from continent to continent, have living organisms that can infect humans with disease, according to an article from the Washington Post. While these diseases could include SARS and Influenza, some scientists are more confident that a rise in child asthma in parts of America is due to these clouds. It is also thought that serious animal diseases, such as foot-and-mouth, are also communicable in this way.

-- Dylan Blaylock

Drama Along the Columbia

On Monday, GAP sent out a press release alerting the media that an Oregon Department in charge of overseeing the Umatilla Chemical Depot had decided to hold a meeting that was closed off from the public. Oh, and journalists were welcome, but on background information only. Meaning they couldn't write anything about it.

What about Umatilla were they discussing? Partially, a lawsuit filed by GAP in November for the depot’s decision to allow the incineration of secondary wastes, along with seeking a court order for the State to make a determination of the ‘best available technology’ for the disposal of mustard agent (HD). Incineration of the HD, the current plan, would probably result in the release of significant amounts of harmful mercury into the surrounding environment. 

However, according to the Associated Press, the Oregon department voted "to reopen public comment on the disposal of secondary waste from the destruction of aging chemical weapons stored at the Umatilla Chemical Depot…,” along with committing to the state “completing best available technology determinations for the pollution filtration system and the mustard blister agent by August 2008.”

So this appears to be good news. We’ll keep you updated on developments.

-- Dylan Blaylock