All Things Whistleblower: A GAP Blog

Finality from the EPA on Greenhouse Gases

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sent a document to the White House that concluded greenhouse gases are a threat to human health. The document forms the EPAs final scientific findings on the subject and could activate regulations of the gases under the Clean Air Act.

Environmentalists believe the findings indicate that the White House is moving ahead on climate change policy, a month before the United Nations climate talks are set to begin in Copenhagen. However, representatives from the manufacturing industry worry about the effect of any policy on their industry.

The Office of Management and Budget now has 90 days to sign off on the findings.

Mustard Agent Burning to Continue in Oregon

A judge rejected a lawsuit from an alliance of environmental and public interest groups, including GAP, which brought the suit, challenging the state of Oregon’s approval of the Army’s plan to incinerate mercury-laden mustard agent. Incineration is not the safest way to dispose of the toxic materials, and causes dangerous emissions to be released into the air. From the Oregonian:

Richard Condit, an attorney for the Government Accountability Project, which brought the suit, said the military destroyed its mustard agent stockpiles in Maryland without the emissions problems his group is concerned about at the Umatilla facility.

"It is a mystery why [the state] would allow a less protective technology to be used in Oregon," he said in an e-mail today. Condit said his group would likely appeal the ruling.

GAP has worked on the Umatilla case for several years, and there are many problems with the current burning, as outlined by Condit in this op-ed from last year. It’s important to note that the emissions, according to the state’s own report, push the cancer risk to surrounding communities above what state standards allow for.

In The News

Rick Piltz, director of Climate Science Watch, a GAP program, explains in this article how the combination of politics and the effects of Bush−era climate change denial are keeping the US from developing a concrete climate policy, and how the American climate policy debate treats global climate change as solely a domestic issue.

Fourteen states and the District of Columbia sued a biotechnology firm and other drug suppliers over a scheme that paid doctors to sell their anemia drug. The suits were brought after a whistleblower claim was made in 2006 against the firm for illegal marketing practices. The suit alleges the firm provided kickbacks to doctors — such as sham consultancy agreements and posh weekend retreats — to induce them to purchase and prescribe the drug.

The climate-change bill that has been moving through the Senate is facing heavy criticism and daunting hurdles from Republicans and Democrats alike. With Democrats deeply divided on the issue, the bill is unlikely to pass unless some Republican lawmakers break with their party and support the legislation.

Climate Change Document Suppressed by Bush Administration Finally Released

A 2007 EPA document long suppressed by the Bush administration was finally released yesterday. And in less-than-shocking news, the document appealed for regulation of greenhouse gases, citing global warming as a significant threat to the United States. Oh, and it was purely based on scientific findings. The Bush administration did not release the document because it ran contrary to their political position on greenhouse emissions

Currently, the Obama administration has embraced the earlier, suppressed findings.  

This case has eerie similarities to that of Climate Science Watch Director Rick Piltz. From 1995 until resigning in March 2005 he served in senior positions in the office of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, a program that coordinates support for climate and global change research by 13 federal agencies. In March 2005, Piltz resigned over after discovering that the head of the White House counsel on Environmental Quality (a former lobbyist with the American Petroleum Institute), who had no scientific background, was editing documents on climate change to increase their level of scientific uncertainty, effectively lowering the perceived human impact on global warming. After a New York Times expose, the lobbyist resigned and days later took a job at Exxon Mobil.

Both of these cases demonstrate the absurd effect that politics can have on climate science policy, and hammer the point that politicians should keep their hands off of science.

Coal Plants Significantly Contaminate Drinking Water

While American coal-fired power plants have moved to reduce their air emissions, a New York Times investigative piece has discovered that many of them are creating another serious problem: water pollution.

Basically, due to community activism and new air pollution restrictions, many major plants are able to grab a significant percentage of their airborne waste product. The problem is that the waste needs somewhere to go. Much of it gets absorbed with water during a cleaning process, and as a result, tremendous amounts of “wastewater” are dumped in rivers that are the primary source of drinking water for numerous population areas (in the case of this particular article, Pittsburgh).

No federal regulations currently exist to limit the amount of power plant seepage into waterways or landfills. Even when the plants are regulated by the Clean Water Act, ninety percent of the more than 300 coal-fired power plants that have violated the Act since 2004 were not fined or punished in any way.

The article focuses on Hatfields Ferry, a power plant in Pennsylvania, which has violated the Clean Water Act 33 times since 2006. For those violations, the company paid less than $26,000. During that same period, the plants parent company earned $1.1 billion.

The EPA has attempted to create more stringent limits on power plant waste, mounting an effort in 2000. However, a campaign by coal and power industries successfully impeded the attempt.

Also affecting the effort to increase limits is the fact that in 2008 alone, power companies donated $20 million to federal political campaigns.

Power plants are the nation’s biggest producer of toxic waste and must be regulated. Wastewater from these plants often contains high concentrations of dissolved arsenic, barium, boron, iron, manganese, cadmium, magnesium and other heavy metals that have been shown to contribute to cancer, organ failures and other diseases.

Nuclear Whistleblower Successful

In a rare victory for whistleblower rights, a painter won his whistleblower lawsuit five years after being fired by his contractor bosses for reporting a possible safety concern at a nuclear power plant in Alabama. The Department of Labor Administrative Review Board ordered that the case be returned to the administrative law judge, who will determine how much compensation the whistleblower should receive. GAP Senior Counsel Richard Condit put the decision in perspective:  

“An attorney with the Washington-based Government Accountability Project, which promotes whistleblowing to reveal government and corporate wrongdoing, said it was "somewhat unusual" for the Labor Department board to order compensation after ruling for a whistleblower.

‘With respect to this particular board, we have noticed over the last seven to eight years it has not been kind to employees," said Richard Condit, senior counsel with the organization.’”

The company could appeal the decision to the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., or try to settle with Speegle, Condit said.

Obama and Climate Change

After the United Nations (U.N.) summit on climate change yesterday, nations appear to be considering individual climate goals, rather than an overarching climate agreement. The summit comes before U.N. climate talks that will be held in Copenhagen this December. Several of the larger industrialized nations spoke about their individual efforts thus far to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including the United States. President Obama highlighted his administration’s investments in clean energy, new vehicle fuel standards, and spoke of a possible House bill to cap and trade emissions.

Climate Science Watch, a program of GAP, authored a blog post on Daily Kos addressing the climate summit. CSW is calling for President Obama to speak on the need for greenhouse gas emission reductions, and the consequences of inaction. CSW discusses the steps the administration plans to take to prepare for climate change, including probable aid to vulnerable developing nations.