OPINION/COMMENTARY

Greens Blocked Plan That May Have Saved New Orleans

A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project designed to prevent a Category 5-hurricane-storm surge from filling Lake Pontchartrain and flooding New Orleans was blocked by environmentalists intent on preserving “natural water flow” in 1977. Save Our Wetlands (SOWL) used a lawsuit against the Corps based on the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) to halt the Lake Pontchartrain Hurricane Protection Project. SOWL’s argument against the Corps’ Lake Ponchartrain project claimed the Corps’ environmental impact statement was inadequate. U.S. District Judge Charles Schwartz, Jr., agreed, issuing an injunction prohibiting the project. “Testimony reveals serious questions as to the adequacy of cost-benefit analysis of the plan,” he wrote in his opinion. “It is the opinion of the court that plaintiffs herein have demonstrated that they and in fact all persons in this area, will be irreparably harmed if the barrier project based on the August 1974 FEIS [Federal Environmental Impact Study] is allowed to continue.” Schwartz also ruled that associated flood prevention plans in Chalmette and New Orleans East must be stopped. U.S. Attorney Gerald Gallinghouse, who represented the Corps, argued the project should be exempt from environmental standards because it was “necessary to protect the citizens of New Orleans from a hurricane.” The project would have built flood gates to block storm surges from moving into Lake Pontchartrain from the Gulf of Mexico, and also would have built additional levees in flood-prone areas. It had been drafted in the aftermath of Hurricane Betsy in 1964, and authorized as part of the Flood Control Act, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965, five years before NEPA came into effect. Johannes Westerink, a civil engineering professor at Notre Dame who specializes in hurricane storm surge prediction for the Corps, the Navy and a number of states, including Louisiana, believes the 1977 project would have stopped the mean water level in Lake Pontchartrain from rising. “If you had the gates there [from the canceled project], you would stop that water from being pushed into Lake Pontchartrain,” he said....

Tony Blair Pulls the Plug on Kyoto at Clinton Summit

Kyoto Treaty RIP. That's not the headline in any newspaper this morning emerging from the first day of the Clinton Global Initiative, but it could have been -- and should have been. Onstage with former president Bill Clinton at a midtown Manhattan hotel ballroom, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said he was going to speak with "brutal honesty" about Kyoto and global warming, and he did. And Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had some blunt talk, too. Blair, a longtime supporter of the Kyoto treaty, further prefaced his remarks by noting, "My thinking has changed in the past three or four years." So what does he think now? "No country," he declared, "is going to cut its growth." That is, no country is going to allow the Kyoto treaty, or any other such global-warming treaty, to crimp -- some say cripple -- its economy. Looking ahead to future climate-change negotiations, Blair said of such fast-growing countries as India and China, "They're not going to start negotiating another treaty like Kyoto." India and China, of course, weren't covered by Kyoto in the first place, which was one of the fatal flaws in the treaty. But now Blair is acknowledging the obvious: that after the current Kyoto treaty -- which the US never acceded to -- expires in 2012, there's not going to be another worldwide deal like it. So what will happen instead? Blair answered: "What countries will do is work together to develop the science and technology….There is no way that we are going to tackle this problem unless we develop the science and technology to do it." Bingo! That's what eco-realists have been saying all along, of course -- that the only feasible way to deal with the issue of greenhouse gases and global warming is through technological breakthroughs, not draconian cutbacks....

Fish and Wildlife Service Agrees to Perform Status Reviews for 194 Species in California

The United States Fish and Wildlife Service has agreed to perform status reviews for all 194 California species that Pacific Legal Foundation filed suit earlier this year to compel. Although the Endangered Species Act requires that the government review the status of listed species every five years, the Fish and Wildlife Service has failed to perform the reviews for about two-thirds of California’s listed species. A federal court approved a settlement between the Fish and Wildlife Service and PLF this morning. Under the terms of the agreement, the Fish and Wildlife Service agreed to perform all of the reviews over the next eight years, with the first wave of reviews beginning by the end of this month. The agency agreed to prioritize the species reviews according to how much is known about the species in question and how onerous their listing has been for California property owners and businesses. "The government has recognized that there is no justification for failing to comply with the law. This settlement allows the Fish and Wildlife Service the time to do a thorough analysis of each species, and make sure that taxpayer dollars are only being spent on species that truly need protecting," said Pacific Legal Foundation Principal Attorney Rob Rivett. "When federal regulation is restricting land use, raising home prices, and killing jobs, the government owes it to Californians to do the work necessary to determine if those regulations are actually necessary," said Rivett. "We expect this effort will allow Californians to get back to work building the schools and homes they need that have been mired in gridlock because of outdated listings." Under Section 4(c)(2) of the Endangered Species Act, 16 U.S.C. Section 1533(c)(2), the Fish and Wildlife Service must perform status reviews of listed species every five years to determine whether, based on current best available science, each listed species should have its status changed (i.e., either lowered from endangered to threatened or raised from threatened to endangered), or have its status as a listed species removed because protection is no longer justified....


Global Warming Dilemma – Coal or Nuclear?

In the next few years, New Jersey and Vermont will do the entire country a favor by resolving the dilemma as to whether we can stop global warming without nuclear power. The two states have joined Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, and Delaware in a remarkably innovative pact to cut carbon dioxide emissions—the prime suspect in what now appears to be serious evidence of climate change. The Northeastern Pact will set a cap of 150 million tons of carbon dioxide per year until 2015 and then allow states to start trading emissions permits to lower the figure. Since first introduced in the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, this “cap-and-trade” model has already proved stunningly successful in lowering sulfur dioxide emissions. In only fifteen years, sulfur dioxide emissions have been reduced 50 percent at a cost of about 1/10th of what the Environmental Protection Agency originally predicted. Now the Northeastern states are taking the lead by applying the same strategy to carbon dioxide. But New Jersey and Vermont have a problem: Environmentalists are jockeying to close down the two nuclear plants that serve as prime sources of energy for the two states. The 635-megawatt Oyster Creek Nuclear Station in Monmouth County provides 9 percent of New Jersey’s electricity. It comes up for re-licensing in 2009. Vermont Yankee, near Brattleboro, generates 535 MW, one-third the state’s energy and 70 percent of what the state doesn’t have to import. Without these two nuclear stations, coal or natural gas will have to be substituted and carbon emissions will rise considerably. As usual, environmentalists are assuring everyone it can be done with “renewables” – wind, solar, and other “alternative” energies. But there is no myth more damaging in diverting the nation’s attention from its energy problems....

Hostility Toward Key Provision of Pombo Endangered Species Reform Bill Shows Environmentalists Aren't Committed to Public's "Right to Know"

The environmental movement's strong opposition to a key provision of Rep. Richard Pombo's Endangered Species Act reform bill suggests they aren't serious about protecting the public's "right to know," says The National Center for Public Policy Research. It also suggests environmentalists aren't serious about saving endangered species, the group says. "For perhaps the first time, Congress is considering a proposal to stop penalizing private stewardship and thus create an ESA that offers the potential of being good for both people and good for species," said R.J. Smith, senior fellow at The National Center. The Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act (TESRA), which was introduced by House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo and others September 19, includes a provision that would require the federal government to inform property owners within 90 days whether their proposed activities would harm species listed under the Endangered Species Act. But environmental groups such as Defenders of Wildlife and the Center for Biological Diversity oppose the provision, arguing it would harm species. "Environmental groups say they support the public's 'right to know,'" said David Ridenour, Vice President of The National Center for Public Policy Research. "But they apparently don't think this right should extend to American landowners-they would rather keep them in the dark." The 90-day review period could be a means of not only protecting the rights of property owners, but of saving species, according to The National Center....

Earth Sense in the Balance

This week, Bush-administration officials are meeting in Vienna to discuss a United Nations plan to globalize environmental regulation. Dubbed the "Strategic Approach to Global Management of Chemicals" or SAICM, the program is anything but strategic. SAICM would attempt to regulate basically all substances in commerce — manmade and natural — and would attempt to manage all the world's solid and hazardous waste. And in time, it could easily spill into other areas — air and water. If you read the documents published by SAICM negotiators, you might think you are reading Al Gore's 1992 book, Earth in the Balance, in which he proposed making the environment the "central organizing principle for civilization." In the chapter titled "A Global Marshall Plan," Gore outlines a utopian vision for a "Strategic Environment Initiative" through which world regulators could effectively "discourage and phase out" supposedly "inappropriate technologies and the same time develop and disseminate a new generation of environmentally benign substitutes." This sounds an awful lot like SAICM's "Global Action Plan." Among 288 "concrete measures" proposed in SAICM's plan are intentions to "restrict availability" of "highly toxic pesticides;" substitute "highly toxic pesticides;" "promote substitution of hazardous chemicals;" "regulate the availability, distribution and use of pesticides;" "halt the sale of and recall products" that pose "unacceptable risks;" "eliminate the use" of certain "hazardous chemicals;" and so on. Such policies would be pushed by an international chemicals bureaucracy and implemented by "stakeholders" — government, industry, and nongovernmental organizations. Somehow we are supposed to believe that these parties know better than the rest of us — the actors in the world marketplace who must live with the consequences of such decisions....

Big Wins for Energy in Courts, Congress; Legal Merits Wins Out Over Environmental Absolutism

Sound science, judicial restraint and democracy have scored big wins lately both in the courts and in Congress over the combined forces of parochial politics and environmental absolutism, according to National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) Senior Fellow Dr. H. Sterling Burnett. In one instance, a case brought by several states and environmental lobby groups against energy companies to force them to cap emissions of greenhouse gases, was tossed out of U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Judge Loretta A. Preska noted in her decision, “Were judges to resolve political questions, there would be no check on their resolutions, because the judiciary is not accountable to any other branch or to the people.” She also pointed out that Congress has addressed emission limits many times and opted not to impose restrictions. “These lawsuits have no legal merit,” Dr. Burnett agreed. “The court showed appropriate deference to findings by the legislative and executive branches of government.” In addition, the U.S. Senate last week rejected an attempt to overturn the Bush Administration’s new mercury emission rules for power plants, which should be a victory for public health, according to Dr. Burnett....

Consumer Group Asks Virginia State Veterinarian To Protect New Orleans Pets “Rescued” By PETA

The nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom sent a letter today to the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services asking Dr. Richard Wilkes, State Veterinarian, to audit the condition of 32 dogs taken in by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Volunteers descended on Louisiana after the hurricane, capturing homeless dogs to bring back to PETA’s Norfolk headquarters. PETA’s record of animal care suggests that after suffering through the devastation of Katrina, these pets could well be euthanized at PETA’s hands. Documents obtained by the Center for Consumer Freedom from the State of Virginia show that PETA has a long-standing practice of killing thousands of adoptable dogs and cats. Between 1998 and 2004, PETA put to death more than 12,400 domestic animals. In 2004 alone, PETA killed over 85 percent of the animals it took in. That same year, other shelters in the region did much better comparatively. The Norfolk SPCA euthanized less than five percent of the animals in its care, while the Virginia Beach SPCA put down 27 percent of its animals. Additionally, in October two PETA employees are scheduled to face 62 counts of felony animal-cruelty in a North Carolina courtroom. The pair were arrested at a shopping center on June 15, where police found 18 dead dogs—including seven very adoptable puppies—in a nearby dumpster, and 13 more dead animals in a PETA-owned van....

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