EPA – R&R – Reachout and Rebuild

Don’t Make Me Laugh

David Posnett — Thu, 13 Sep 2018 14:41:01 +0000

By Perry Gershon:

Lee Zeldin wants you to think he’s an environmentalist. He’s spending big bucks blasting that absurd idea across Long Island television.

Don’t make me laugh.

In his four years in Congress, Lee has voted against the environment over and over again. He’s taken tens of thousands of dollars from the oil and gas industry to prop up his campaign.

It’s no wonder Lee opposed protecting the environment on 21 out of 22 votes.

Lee opposed seven bills on air quality protections.

He opposed protections for clean water 19 different times.

He opposed protecting wildlife eight times.

And he continues to stand by a president who insists climate change is a Chinese hoax.

Get the idea? Lee Zeldin is no friend of the environment, of clear air and water, or protecting our planet for future generations.

Long Island voters have a clear choice in November.

I promise to work tirelessly to protect the environment – whether that be our clear air, clean water, clean energy production, or protecting wildlife.

Lee’s record is clear, and that’s just another reason why he has to go.

Donate $5 right now. Let’s show Zeldin we won’t stand for his hypocrisy on the environment.

Posts on R&R (since July 2018) related to Zeldin’s environmental record:

Zeldin’s Environmental Voting Record Goes from Bad to Worse

Posted on August 28, 2018 by D. Posnett MD

Lee Zeldin wants to Drill in the Ironwood Forest National Monument By Marc Rauch: Latest update: Zeldin’s Environmental Voting Record Goes from Bad to Worse in 2018 In the first 3 years of Lee Zeldin’s congressional term (2015-2017), he earned … Continue reading →

Posted in climate change, Environment, EPA, Executive Order, GOP, National Parks & Monuments, Trump, Uncategorized, water quality, Zeldin | Tagged Environment, lee zeldin, voting record | 2 Comments | Edit

Zeldin’s War on the Environment

Posted on August 20, 2018 by D. Posnett MD

By Perry Gershon: (Source: https://www.facebook.com/pg/perry4congress/posts/?ref=page_internal) Lee Zeldin continues to support the Trump Administration’s destruction of our environmental protections. The new “plan” for coal represents one more example of the total disregard for the serious health effects of air pollution. The … Continue reading →

Posted in Air Pollution, Environment, Trump, Uncategorized, water quality, Zeldin | Tagged car emission, clean air, clean water, pollution | 2 Comments | Edit

Is Lee Zeldin Really “Good On The Environment”?

Posted on January 19, 2018 by francescarh

A slickly produced mailer from Lee Zeldin appeared in my mailbox this week. It touted our Congressman’s supposed record in “safeguarding our environment.” Mr. Zeldin has been very adept in pulling the wool over voters’ eyes about his actual environmental … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment | Edit

Zeldin Boasting about Environment Record?

Posted on January 2, 2018 by maidstonejewelry

Recently Congressman Lee Zeldin (R, NY-1), co-chair of the Long Island Sound Caucus and founding member of the “Congressional Estuary Caucus”, was joined by EPA Regional Administrator Pete Lopez, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Regional Director Carrie Meek … Continue reading →

Posted in climate change, Environment, EPA, Paris Climate Accord, Uncategorized, Zeldin | 4 Comments | Edit

More Bad Zeldin Environmental Votes

Posted on October 12, 2017 by D. Posnett MD

By Marc Rauch and Chelsea Estevez Since our last update in late August, fourteen bills impacting the environment have come before the House of Representatives. Lee Zeldin took the anti-environment position on 12 out of 14 of these recent bills. … Continue reading →

Posted in climate change, Environment, EPA, Paris Climate Accord, Trump, Uncategorized, Zeldin | Tagged environmental justice, EPA, fracking, methane, ocean, public land | Leave a comment | Edit

Complete Lee Zeldin Environmental Voting Record

Posted on July 2, 2017 by D. Posnett MD

A great resource! D Posnett Marc Rauch·Friday, June 23, 2017 Complete Lee Zeldin Environmental Voting Record (Last Updated 6/29/17) Introduction Linked here https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19e5j3Z3xupufWNReLsO-P69eL316sJDLBbf8EZDFklg/edit?usp=sharing is an easy-to-use Excel spreadsheet summarizing Lee Zeldin’s complete environmental voting record in Congress. Purpose This spreadsheet … Continue reading →

Posted in Air Pollution, climate change, Environment, EPA, National Parks & Monuments, Offshore Drilling, Uncategorized, Zeldin | Tagged energy, Environment, record, wind, Zeldin | 2 Comments | Edit

Lee Zeldin’s Duplicity on Environmental Issues

Posted on March 7, 2017 by D. Posnett MD

Marc Rauch, from Bellport, New York. had the following letter in the March 2, 2017 edition of the Long Island Advance: I was taken aback by Rep. Lee Zeldin’s “official positions” on protection of the environment, as reported last week … Continue reading →

Posted in Environment, Uncategorized, Zeldin | Tagged duplicity, Environment, pollution, Zeldin | 1 Comment | Edit

Zeldin & Environment?

Posted on February 19, 2017 by D. Posnett MD

My letter to editor of LI Advance was published this week- 2/16/2017 Voting to loosen standards on oil and gas industries Where is Congressman Zeldin on the environment? Two weeks ago I visited Congressman Zeldin’s office to talk with a … Continue reading →

Posted in Environment, Uncategorized | Tagged Environment, Zeldin | 5 Comments | Edit

Flip the House — Defeat Zeldin!

Posted on August 4, 2018 by amyturner2000

By Jacquelyn Gavron & Amy Turner, July 19, 2018 New York’s First Congressional District (NY-1), historically a swing district, is represented by Lee Zeldin (R). He was initially elected with Tea Party support and is an unwavering Trump loyalist with … Continue reading →

Posted in ACA, AHCA, economy, Environment, Guns, Health Care, Politics, Tax Reform, Uncategorized, Women, Zeldin | 3 Comments | Edit

Moral Obligation to send Zeldin packing

Posted on July 19, 2018 by D. Posnett MD

Published in the East Hampton Star – the July 10, 2018 To the Editor: Offered less than 10 days into our district’s 133-day congressional race, The Star’s advice to local Democrats (“First District Dilemma”) is not only premature, but also … Continue reading →

Posted in perry gershon, Uncategorized, Zeldin | Tagged David Rattray, democratic, gershon, Star, turnout | Leave a comment | Edit

Money Cannot be Eaten

David Posnett — Mon, 30 Jul 2018 22:53:25 +0000

Pronounced extinct in 1979, a small colony of black-footed ferrets was found in the wild near Meeteesee, WY, in 1981. Animals from this colony were used to start a captive breeding program, which has since released hundreds of animals back into the wild across the western states and Mexico. Hopefully these colonies will help to re-establish the species in the wild.

By James Ewing:

Trump’s Republican administration has been carrying out an unprecedented attack on our bedrock environmental laws, from the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act, to the National Environmental Policy Act, to the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

“Save EPA”, a volunteer organization made up of retired and former employees of the Environmental Protection Agency says, the Trump administration is changing their mission from protecting human health and the environment to protecting industry.

On July 19th, the administration proposed the most sweeping set of changes in decades to the Endangered Species Act.

Although 90% of voters support the ESA the Interior Department has proposed new provisions rendering it ineffective.These include a provision that, for the first time, “allows” economic consequences of protecting plants or animals to be considered when deciding whether or not they face extinction.

As originally written an endangered species is listed “solely on the basis of the best scientific and commercial data available without reference to possible economic or other impacts of such determination.” The new proposal eliminates the latter phrase, thereby exposing a listing decision to cost-benefit analysis.

Another change requires considering economic factors when deciding whether or not a species should be protected at all.

Environmentalists are concerned the changes will remove protections for the country’s most threatened species. (Including Polar bear, Texas ocelot, Florida panther, Woodland caribou, Leatherback turtle, Southern Blue Fin Tuna, Red wolf.)

The changes are part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to dismantle ecosystem protections and disregard science when making decisions about the environment.

In its 40-year existence, the ESA “has successfully protected 99% of all listed species” said Christy Goldfuss, at the liberal Center for American Progress, “this administration is working to further imperil the more than 1,600 threatened and endangered species.”

“This is the first time that we’ve seen an orchestrated effort by the president and Republican congress, the industry and the Interior Department all working together in a concentrated effort to eviscerate the act,” said Bruce Babbitt former Secretary of the Interior (1993-2001).

Our voice endorsing this myopic, appalling gutting of environmental protections is our current house representative Lee Zeldin (R-CD1) and this voice cannot stand.

“Only after the last tree has been cut down,

Only after the last river has been poisoned,

Only after the last fish has been caught,

Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten.”

– Native American prophecy

More Bad Zeldin Environmental Votes

David Posnett — Thu, 12 Oct 2017 14:58:00 +0000

By Marc Rauch and Chelsea Estevez

Since our last update in late August, fourteen bills impacting the environment have come before the House of Representatives. Lee Zeldin took the anti-environment position on 12 out of 14 of these recent bills.

Among the bills that Zeldin voted for are bills that would, if enacted into law:

1. Slash the EPA’s budget by 23%, and eliminate the EPA’s Environmental Justice Program;

2. Undermine the Clean Water Rule and the National Ocean Policy;

3. Scuttle Methane Waste Prevention Rules affecting public lands and the oil and gas industry;

4. Loosen requirements for transferring public lands into private hands; and

5. Allow hydraulic fracking in the Pacific.

On the plus side, Zeldin voted against bills that would have cut funding for Amtrak and the Northeast Rail Corridor.

Overall, since the new session of Congress began in January 2017, Zeldin has voted AGAINST THE ENVIRONMENT on 30 out of 33 bills, or 90% of the time.

Full details on these recent votes can be found in the Files tab under “Complete Lee Zeldin Environmental Voting Record” (updated this evening).

Link to the updated spreadsheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19e5j3Z3xupufWNReLsO-P69eL316sJDLBbf8EZDFklg/edit?usp=sharing

Poison Papers: EPA in bed with Industry

David Posnett — Mon, 31 Jul 2017 20:42:26 +0000

Transcript From Secret Meeting Illustrates EPA Collusion With the Chemical Industry

Friday, July 28, 2017 By Rebekah Wilce, The Center for Media and Democracy

(Photo: fotografixx / iStock / Getty Images Plus)

The world of independent chemical testing has a shiny veneer. The public is reassured that chemicals they’re exposed to on a daily basis are certified by technicians in spotless white lab coats who carefully conduct scientific studies, including on animals in neat rows of cages.

But a federal grand jury investigation that ended with convictions in the early 1980s discovered that Industrial Bio-Test Laboratories (IBT), the largest such lab in the United States, conducted trials with mice that regularly drowned in their feeding troughs. The dead animals would decompose so quickly that “their bodies oozed through wire cage bottoms and lay in purple puddles on the dropping trays.” IBT even invented an acronym “TBD/TDA” for its raw safety data, later discovered to mean “too badly decomposed.”

That was just one of a host of problems uncovered at IBT which conducted an estimated 35 to 40 percent of all the toxicology tests performed in the United States including for FDA regulated products and EPA regulated pesticides and chemicals. Scientists at the FDA were the first to spot the fraud and misconduct and blew the whistle on IBT in Senate hearings in the late 1970s. Soon after, the EPA was forced to deal with the issue and estimated behind the scenes that some 80 percent of the data provided to them for chemical registration from IBT was nonexistent, fraudulent, or invalid.

The IBT scandal presented the EPA with a potentially immense crisis. Knowing that almost every IBT test it had looked at was seriously flawed and presumptively fraudulent, it could order retests and withdraw its approval from every IBT-tested chemical. This course of action would have been fully warranted, scientifically. But it would have had drastic effects on the chemical industry, on public confidence, and on the newly-formed EPA itself.

What the EPA did instead is revealed in a transcript of a meeting that took place at the Howard Johnson Inn in Arlington, Virginia on October 3rd, 1978. This secret meeting was between senior figures at EPA, Canada’s Health Protection Branch, and executives of the chemical industry, and was intended to solve the IBT “problem.”

This transcript is part of more than 20,000 documents, weighing over three tons, just released by the Bioscience Resource Project and the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), on the “Poison Papers.” website. Most of the Poison Papers were collected by author and activist Carol Van Strum, who used documents obtained through public interest lawsuits and open records requests to investigate chemical pollution, and digitized by journalist Peter von Stackelberg. Van Strum’s remarkable story was detailed this week in the Intercept.

A Conversation About Collusion

The Poison Papers represent a vast trove of rediscovered chemical industry and regulatory agency documents and correspondence stretching back to the 1920s. Collectively they shed light on what was known about chemical toxicity, when, and by whom, in the often-incriminating words of the participants themselves.

The Howard Johnson’s transcript is a prime example of the materials in the trove. It allows us to “listen in” on a conversation that took place decades ago, but still has implication for us today.

The transcript “exemplifies as well as any other single document among the Papers the history of everyday regulatory failures and agency complicity that is the unknown story of the EPA and its enduring collusion with the chemical industry, and whose result is a systemic failure to protect the American public from chemical hazards,” says Dr. Jonathan Latham, Director of the Bioscience Resource Project.

“Not One” IBT Study Free of Errors

The Howard Johnson’s meeting was called to discuss the IBT scandal and plan a way forward. No consumer groups, environmental groups or members of the public were present that day in Arlington under HoJo’s cheerful orange roof when the topic of how to deal with the dead animals, the fraudulent, and the corrupt data was discussed.

Near the outset of the meeting, the EPA’s Fred Arnold, Acting Branch Chief of Regulatory Analysis & Lab Audits, assured the chemical company representatives present that no chemicals would be removed from the market, even though the studies supposedly showing their safety had been proven fraudulent:

“We determined that [i]t was neither in EPA’s interest or the public interest or the registrants’ interest [to replace all IBT data] because a large number of studies, which were performed at IBT, were performed satisfactorily,” Arnold said (p. 6).

Yet Arnold’s contention that some of the studies were “satisfactory” was contradicted multiple times in the same meeting. It was later stated, for example, that not one IBT study was free of errors (p. 16). Dr. Arthur Pallotta, Consultant to the Special Pesticide Review Division in the EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs, stated that “there were few [IBT] studies that did not have discrepancies, errors and omissions” (p. 27). Elsewhere in the transcript, EPA accepted that over 80 percent of the test results from IBT were invalid (p. 123).

But Arnold’s assertion that it wasn’t in anyone’s interest to demand new studies had striking ramifications. It was the grounds for not removing any chemicals from the market, for reassuring the public, and for kicking the IBT mess down the road. By 1983, EPA had determined that over 90 percent of IBT’s studies submitted to them had serious, invalidating problems.

A “Salvage Operation”: Ignoring Scientific Controls

Early in the meeting, EPA made a list of IBT errors that it planned to ignore to make the task of “validating” IBT’s studies manageable.

It planned to ignore whenever animals were missing from (or added to) studies. No statistic existed then – nor does it now – to compensate for such measurement irregularities, but this difficulty was glossed over by the EPA.

Just as bad, many IBT studies appeared to be shorter in time than protocols called for. As David Clegg of Canada’s Health Protection Branch explained to the meeting:

“Now, we have come across the 90-day study where the study started on, let’s say, the 1st of June. The invoice for shipment of the test material from the firm was the 9th of June, and the diet preparation sheets are for the 12th of June.

“In other words, by the time the diet was prepared, according to the raw data, the study has been underway for 12 days for a 90-day study.

“This does not necessarily invalidate the study, of course. You can still get some information from it, but the whole base line, which you are working from, has to be altered to deal with an 88-day [sic] study or whatever length it is and conclusions have to be drawn on this sort of basis” (pp. 34-35).

EPA also noted that IBT had major problems with its controls. It had run a system known as “common controls.” These controls were often in different rooms or carried out at different times, presumably with rats from different batches. EPA proposed cobbling such experiments together and thus making use of these controls. Clegg’s tone was apologetic:

“I can’t say that I am very happy about this on scientific grounds, but we are trying to run this as a salvage operation and, if we can come up with something which gives us a reasonable base line for controls which may be applicable to a number of studies, then, when controls are not available, we’ll compare them against those controls,” he said (p. 41).

EPA Adopts Unsigned Studies

EPA’s Arnold also admitted at the meeting what appeared to be EPA’s own historical fraud. In revisiting original data sent to them by IBT, manufacturers might find that, in the past, EPA had itself examined the tissue samples and determined there to be “no significant finding” when in fact “the truth of the matter is the organ was never examined” (Arnold, p. 102).

By the time the FDA and EPA had taken a strong interest in the testing lab, IBT had begun a “policy not to sign” its own reports, according to the transcript, indicating that staff were unwilling to stand behind the findings.

As Fred Arnold told the attendees, “A number of scientists, who may have been involved in the early states of a test, are no longer there and nobody can state, categorically, that everything reflected in the report, in fact, is borne out by the raw data” (pp. 63-64).

Arnold admitted that EPA had in the past sometimes accepted unsigned studies. So he stated that its remedy to the new signature problem would be to adopt such unsigned studies in order not “to create a double standard now” (p. 64), effectively adopting IBT’s unprecedented practices as its own.

It was later uncovered in court proceedings that IBT also forged signatures.

The Howard Johnson Take-Home

Three IBT officials went to prison, closing a chapter on a massive scientific fraud, but the book was never closed.

“As the Howard Johnson transcript reveals, a majority of the IBT studies were never intended to be redone, and still underlie the U.S. chemical regulatory system,” said Latham.

Author Carol Van Strum commented on the significance of the transcript for CMD:

“The 1978 Howard Johnson transcript records a crucial meeting of EPA, Canadian, and pesticide industry officials to discuss EPA’s response to massive fraud in the safety tests for pesticide registrations. At the meeting, Fred T. Arnold, chief of EPA Regulatory Analysis and Lab Audits, assured industry that EPA’s discovery of fraudulent, invalid, or nonexistent safety tests would ‘not interfere with the ability to control pests and market pesticides.’ This document was the linchpin of my book, A Bitter Fog: Herbicides and Human Rights, documenting the government’s acceptance of phony industry studies while dismissing reports of human illness, death, involuntary abortions, birth defects, and other effects of pesticide exposure.”

Mary Bottari contributed to this article. The Poison Papers website and document trove is a project of the Bioscience Resource Project of Ithaca, New York, and the Center for Media and Democracy of Madison, Wisconsin. You can explore the Poison Papers documents at PoisonPapers.org. You can read the illuminating Howard Johnson’s manuscript here.

This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source. Permission for R&R to reproduce was obtained from PoisonPapers.org

Rebekah Wilce is a beginning farmer with a degree in writing from the University of Arizona. She researches and reports for the Center for Media and Democracy, publisher of PRWatch.org, ALECexposed.org, and SourceWatch.org, in between milking cows at a local farm and reporting at Madison’s community radio station, WORT 89.9FM.

Trump Orders EPA to Put American Lives at Risk

David Posnett — Tue, 28 Mar 2017 20:13:57 +0000

Quotes from:

New Executive Order to Weaken Public Health Standards “Will Cost American Lives” Statement of Environmental Defense Fund President Fred Krupp – March 28, 2017

“Today President Trump signed an executive order commanding the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to weaken a range of important public heath protections…”

“Let’s face facts: Rolling back public health protections will cost American lives. By allowing pollution levels to go up, President Trump is also allowing premature deaths to go up, heart attacks and asthma attacks to go up, and sick days from work and school to go up. According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s own scientific analysis, revoking the Clean Power Plan – which reduces a range of dangerous air pollutants in addition to carbon – would cause each year up to

3,600 more premature deaths,

1,700 more heart attacks,

90,000 more asthma attacks, and

300,000 more missed work days and school days”

“This executive order doesn’t just turn its back on our kids, our seniors, and the most vulnerable among us. It turns its back on the next generation.”

“The Clean Power Plan gives all states tremendous flexibility in designing solutions to achieve pollution reductions based on their own policy priorities and prerogatives – including cost-effective energy-saving solutions that would save an average American family an estimated $85 a year in electricity bills.””Today’s executive order ignores settled law that greenhouse gases are pollutants under the Clean Air Act, as found in three Supreme Court opinions in the last decade…”

“Today’s order also disregards America’s clean energy economy, which is already a powerful economic engine across the country. The bi-partisan Governors’ Wind and Solar Coalition, led by Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo and Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, recently sent a compelling letter to President Trump highlighting the shared economic benefits of clean energy, including for low income rural communities…”

“The nation’s wind and solar energy resources are transforming low-income rural areas in ways not seen since the passage of the Homestead Act over 150 years ago.”

“…impressive contributions of wind and solar to the American economy —particularly to low-income rural communities — such as the $222 million in revenue paid by U.S. wind facilities to rural landowners every year, and the 200,000 people employed in the solar industry in 2016, with 31,000 new jobs added last year alone.”

“Americans in all regions of our nation do not want dirtier water and air. They overwhelmingly support a strong, effective Environmental Protection Agency.”