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President Bush's visit to Department of Energy
a vain attempt to shore up his energy conservation
credentials
June 28, 2001: As President
Bush seeks to sell his energy plan, he has sought to deflect
attention from his true agenda with high-profile photo
opportunities in national and state parks and announcements of
conservation initiatives. Today, he announced that he would
earmark $85.7 million in research grants for energy efficiency
-- but the numbers, even if added to the budget he's submitted
for Fiscal Year 2002, simply do not add up. The total for
efficiency research would still be lower than the amount
approved so far by either the House or the Senate this year,
and by the Congress last year.
President Bush is trying
to sell an energy plan that has already been bought and paid
for by lobbyists in the oil, coal and nuclear industries.
While offering new subsidies to these polluters, the budget
plan the president sent to Congress cuts federal research into
energy efficiency by nearly 30 percent, or $180 million. To
convince the American people that he is on the right track,
President Bush should invest in research and development, tax
incentives, and consumer protections at levels far higher than
his plan contains. Efficient and renewable technologies are
cheaper, faster, cleaner solutions to America's energy
needs.
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The Bush-Cheney Energy Plan: Players, Profits
and Paybacks
June 20, 2001: The Bush-Cheney
energy plan, which the administration released in May, is the
culmination of a process that hinged on cozy business
connections, secret deals and industry campaign contributions.
There were many points of convergence. Both President Bush and
Vice President Cheney worked in the energy industry. They
appointed pro-industry people to their transition teams and to
key administration posts overseeing federal energy and
environmental policies. They received generous campaign
contributions from energy companies, which enjoyed easy access
to the Cheney energy task force. The result? An energy plan
that promotes industry-favored measures, including opening
protected lands to oil and gas drilling, building more than
1,300 electric power plants, and weakening environmental
standards.
Many of the connections between the Bush
administration and the energy industry have been reported by
the news media. NRDC has now issued an analysis that connects
all the dots to show just how tightly the administration is
tied to the energy industry. At best, the energy industry has
undue influence on major governmental decisions that will
affect all Americans. At worst, the energy industry, which is
enjoying record profits, has hijacked our government and now
has the power to seriously weaken environmental safeguards,
threaten public health, and gouge consumers.
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U.S. Department of Energy sued over final rule
on air conditioners
June 19, 2001: The
state attorneys general of New York, Connecticut, and
California today joined NRDC, the Consumer Federation of
America, and the Public Utility Law Project in filing suit
against Spencer Abraham, Secretary of the U.S. Department of
Energy (DOE) in a legal challenge to the energy department's
delays and its attempt to block and weaken an energy
efficiency rule for air conditioners made final during the
Clinton Administration.
The rule set the federally
allowed minimum energy efficiency standard for residential air
conditioners and heat pumps at a Seasonal Energy Efficiency
Ratio (SEER) of 13, which is a 30 percent increase in energy
efficiency from the previous federal standard of 10. The Bush
administration is seeking to weaken the air conditioner
standard from 13 SEER to 12 SEER. NRDC calculates that by
rolling back the air conditioner efficiency standards from 13
SEER to 12 SEER, peak electric demand in the United States
would increase by 18,000 MW by 2030. That is an increase that
would require the construction of 60 average-sized (300 MW)
power plants. Over the period 2006 to 2030, the rollback would
cost American consumers $18.4 billion more to run air
conditioners, and would also mean that the nation would emit
another 45 million metric tons of carbon pollution, the
leading cause of global warming.
"The Bush
Administration's attempt to roll back the SEER 13 air
conditioner standard will hurt air quality, public health and
consumers' pocketbooks," said Ashok Gupta, Director of NRDC's
Air and Energy Program. "Bush's proposal to weaken these
important standards would increase peak electric demand on hot
summer days when electricity is scarcest and air pollution the
worst. It makes no sense."
FOR MORE
INFORMATION
Press Release: 6/19/01
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Bush will not change fuel efficiency
standards
June 19, 2001: The Bush
administration has no plans to pursue higher fuel efficiency
standards, Vice President Dick Cheney told General Motors
executives in Michigan. Cheney's assurances to the auto
industry are at odds with reports that the administration's
energy plan may tie increased oil drilling to stricter fuel
efficiency standards. "I'm one of those who believes very
strongly in the market, and I think we have to be very careful
not to pass artificial, unfair standards that sound nice,"
Cheney said. Meanwhile, the administration has asked Secretary
of Transportation Norman Mineta to study a forthcoming
National Academy of Sciences report on the safety,
effectiveness and impact of current fuel efficiency standards,
which were put into place in 1975. "If the vice president's
views constitute the administration's final word on the issue,
then the ongoing study is an exercise in futility," said
Roland Hwang, NRDC senior policy analyst. "So much for
President Bush's pledge to base policy decisions on 'sound
science.' " According to Hwang, Americans would be paying
billions less on gas annually if they had more efficient
vehicles.
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NRDC Calls on Bush Administration to Abolish
Current U.S. Nuclear War Plan
June 18, 2001:
NRDC has released a major report, "The U.S. Nuclear War
Plan: A Time for Change," which calls on the Bush
administration to abolish the U.S. nuclear war plan because it
is an impediment to reducing nuclear stockpiles. The report is
extremely timely given the Bush administration is reviewing
basic questions about U.S. nuclear weapons, including how many
should be in the stockpile, what kinds and types they should
be, and what roles they should play in the nation's security
policy.
"The Bush administration has a golden
opportunity to bring about fundamental change and break with
the Cold War thinking that endures more than a decade after
the collapse of the Soviet Union," said report co-author
Thomas Cochran, director of NRDC's nuclear program.
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BLM upholds "non-controversial" portion of
hard rock mining rules
June 15, 2001: The
Bureau of Land Management retained the "bonding" portion of
the Section 3809 hard rock mining regulations that were
finalized at the end of the Clinton administration. The rules
set "outcome-based performance standards" for mining
operations and allow the agency to turn down a mining project
if it would cause "substantial irreparable harm." They also
require mining companies to post enough money to clean up
sites if they abandon them.
Despite the fact that the
new rules were the product of a four-year effort in which
thousands of citizens participated, the Bush administration
proposed in March to replace them with the outdated and
inadequate rules adopted in 1980. Now that the BLM has acted
on some of the rules, the administration still could try to
weaken the rest of the new rules, including provisions that
specifically protect environmental and cultural
resources.
"One section of the rules saved; the fate of
others still uncertain," said Johanna Wald, director of NRDC's
public lands program. "We won't celebrate unless the
administration upholds all the new mining
protections."
In early June, 14 moderate Republicans in
Congress asked President Bush to retain the more stringent
rules. The BLM expects to make a final decision on the
remaining rules by late summer.
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NRDC to President Bush: Get serious about
global warming
June 11, 2001: NRDC today
called on President Bush to demonstrate that he takes global
warming seriously with actions rather than words. "President
Bush says he takes global warming seriously, but he is
stalling instead of acting to cut global warming pollution,"
said David Hawkins, director of NRDC's Climate Center. "The
Bush energy plan, which calls for burning more fossil fuels,
would actually accelerate global warming. A serious plan, on
the other hand, would cut global warming pollution from coal
and gasoline and increase our reliance on energy efficiency
and renewable energy sources."
NRDC outlined five ways
to measure whether the president is really serious about
addressing global warming: (1) actions to reduce global
warming pollution from power plants, including carbon dioxide;
(2) actions to increase fuel efficiency standards for new
automobiles; (3) actions to increase the amount of electricity
produced from renewable sources; (4) actions to promote energy
efficiency in American homes, offices and factories; and (5)
actions to lead the international community by significantly
reducing domestic greenhouse emissions, instead of blocking
international action by abandoning the Kyoto Protocol.
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EPA announces final radiation standards for
Yucca Mountain waste repository
June 06, 2001:
The EPA unveiled final health and safety standards for the
proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada,
that are similar to regulations proposed by the Clinton
administration and include separate protections for
groundwater at the site. Site approval at Yucca Mountain, the
only location being considered for storage of the nation's
nuclear waste, is essential for President Bush's efforts to
revive the nuclear power industry. The EPA standard is 15
millirems of radiation exposure through the air and 4
millirems of exposure through groundwater. The Nuclear
Regulatory Commission had proposed a less stringent standard
of 25 millirems for all pathways of exposure, and it opposed a
separate standard for groundwater. (An average chest X-ray is
10 millirems.)
NRDC supports the important precedent
set by EPA in retaining a groundwater radiation standard for
the proposed site, but believes the rule preserves the
groundwater standard at the expense of diminishing its
protectiveness. The proposal's reliance on dilution -- instead
of containment -- of nuclear waste, along with other
deficiencies that undermine the Safe Drinking Water Act, pose
a significant threat to public health and the environment.
"The administration could have fulfilled its pledge to base
this decision on sound science by establishing a rule that
requires radioactive waste to be isolated from people and the
environment," said David Adelman, NRDC senior attorney. "The
process for devising standards for Yucca Mountain has been
driven by the intent to fit the standards to the site, rather
than to ensure that the public and the environment are
adequately protected."
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Boundaries of some protected public lands may
be "redrawn" to allow drilling and
mining
June 05, 2001: Interior Secretary
Gale Norton pledged at a congressional hearing that she would
not allow new oil drilling or coal mining in national parks
and wilderness areas. "Parks and wilderness areas will not be
accessed no matter what those results are," Norton said. Even
so, the Interior Department is currently reviewing all lands
it administers for what oil, natural gas, coal or other energy
resources they may hold and whether they can be developed for
energy sources.
The catch? Norton acknowledged that the
administration might seek to redraw the boundaries of some of
the 22 national monuments created by President Clinton,
including Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante, to allow energy
development activities. According to Norton, such decisions
will be made on a case-by-case basis after obtaining input
from "local government officials" in the areas where the
monuments are located.
Ironically, at the same hearing,
Norton confirmed the administration's plans to move ahead with
drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf off the coasts of
Florida and California despite opposition from the governors
of both states.
"It's certainly good news that some
special places will remain off-limits to extraction, but
others still could be endangered by Bush's energy plan,"
warned Johanna Wald, director of NRDC's land program.
"Sacrificing key pieces of our natural heritage to accommodate
the fossil fuel industry is unnecessary and would cheat future
generations."
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California's ocean waters off-limits to
fishing
June 04, 2001: The Bush
administration announced it would not repeal a Clinton-era
initiative to protect ocean waters and wildlife. Marine
refuges, such as this ones being considered in California's
Channel Islands, help species recover from overfishing, making
them the underwater equivalent of wilderness areas on land to
protect wildlife. "America must strive to harmonize commercial
and recreational [fishing] activity with conservation," said
Commerce Secretary Donald Evans. "We can do both." Evans also
intends to review the makeup of the Marine Protected Area
Advisory Committee, which the fishing industry says focuses
too much on conservation. The move to support marine protected
areas is expected to have an immediate impact on the pending
National Park Service decision in the Dry Tortugas Marine
Protected Area in the Florida Keys. Currently, fishing is
prohibited in state waters located within three miles of
Florida; a proposal to protect surrounding federal waters is
awaiting the signature of Interior Secretary Gale Norton.
"America's great marine heritage is a national treasure that
must be protected and dutifully maintained," said NRDC's Karen
Garrison.
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