Thanks for sharing this. I used to work for our state's DNR and worked closely with regional EPA folks on a lot of projects. I saw first-hand with my EPA colleagues what happens when partisan politics becomes involved in something that should be considered a bi-partisan interest of general welfare. Since my team was also working with Canadians and other state and provincial agencies on a binational task force involving the Great Lakes, I really saw the politics in action and it wasn't a pretty sight.
Nothing worse can happen for the environment than for its protection to be a part of the political wing. When my state office was independent from the executive branch, overseen by a secretary who was hired by a board appointed to staggered terms, we were a young, vibrant group of people who were on the cutting edge of environmental protection/restoration and enforcement. Some of the rules we promulgated became models for the rest of the country. We had cleanup and restoration efforts that were novel in their successes, joint agreements and model pollutant reduction efforts. Then the republican Legislature, responding to citizen complaints (big dischargers) began complaining that the department had become bloated and rogue and that it was driving business from the state (not true, but repeated often enough and with great enough disdain it becomes accepted dogma). The Legislature pressured the department to reorganize and then decided to make the head of the department a governor appointee, not someone selected by the board. The republican governor at the time (Tommy Thompson, now a former Bush cabinet appointee and presidential aspirant himself) didn't like all the pesky air and water quality rules and now also held the key to the secretary's golden handcuffs. There were no more impromptu meetings in the aisles to talk about new science and to brainstorm solutions. That wasn't the goal of the agency. Efficiency was: granting permits quickly, not collecting a backlog because we needed to send field staff out to test, measure and record actual pollutant levels. The young people left for the private sector or grad school, or became old and jaded. The power to use science was hamstrung by the need for concensus with stakeholders (not bad on its face, but diabolical in its implementation). "New ideas" were those brought in from dischargers and they started having more say in the rules reviews, with more weight than other citizens. Instead of public meetings in town halls in the affected communities in the evenings when locals could attend, they were held in state offices on weekday mornings when only lawyers could attend. Their "science" became the standard by which new rules were written, legal haranguing over language and the watering down of quantitative measures. I left that agency almost 10 year ago and not long ago was asked to contract edit the same document I was doing way back then. It becomes a stagnant pool no one can crawl out of and last I heard the regulation I edited had gone back to committee because now that it was readable and understandable, there were objections from "stakeholders" that it would be too hard on polluters.
The louder and more frequently the lies are put forward, the more power they have. Our agency wasn't bad and in need of reorganization and a new leadership structure. It was because we were effective that we had to be curbed by convincing the citizens that we were working against their interests.
EPA has been on this road a very long time and as long as its leaders serve at the mercy of whomsoever is in office, rather than by principles of science and public welfare, it will simply be another prop for the dark side. When the public and the media can no longer be troubled to become educated, or even interested, in the science of environmental protection, there is no counter balance to hold such government agencies accountable to anyone but the dischargers writing their own permits.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2008-06-16 04:06 pm (UTC)Nothing worse can happen for the environment than for its protection to be a part of the political wing. When my state office was independent from the executive branch, overseen by a secretary who was hired by a board appointed to staggered terms, we were a young, vibrant group of people who were on the cutting edge of environmental protection/restoration and enforcement. Some of the rules we promulgated became models for the rest of the country. We had cleanup and restoration efforts that were novel in their successes, joint agreements and model pollutant reduction efforts. Then the republican Legislature, responding to citizen complaints (big dischargers) began complaining that the department had become bloated and rogue and that it was driving business from the state (not true, but repeated often enough and with great enough disdain it becomes accepted dogma). The Legislature pressured the department to reorganize and then decided to make the head of the department a governor appointee, not someone selected by the board. The republican governor at the time (Tommy Thompson, now a former Bush cabinet appointee and presidential aspirant himself) didn't like all the pesky air and water quality rules and now also held the key to the secretary's golden handcuffs. There were no more impromptu meetings in the aisles to talk about new science and to brainstorm solutions. That wasn't the goal of the agency. Efficiency was: granting permits quickly, not collecting a backlog because we needed to send field staff out to test, measure and record actual pollutant levels. The young people left for the private sector or grad school, or became old and jaded. The power to use science was hamstrung by the need for concensus with stakeholders (not bad on its face, but diabolical in its implementation). "New ideas" were those brought in from dischargers and they started having more say in the rules reviews, with more weight than other citizens. Instead of public meetings in town halls in the affected communities in the evenings when locals could attend, they were held in state offices on weekday mornings when only lawyers could attend. Their "science" became the standard by which new rules were written, legal haranguing over language and the watering down of quantitative measures. I left that agency almost 10 year ago and not long ago was asked to contract edit the same document I was doing way back then. It becomes a stagnant pool no one can crawl out of and last I heard the regulation I edited had gone back to committee because now that it was readable and understandable, there were objections from "stakeholders" that it would be too hard on polluters.
The louder and more frequently the lies are put forward, the more power they have. Our agency wasn't bad and in need of reorganization and a new leadership structure. It was because we were effective that we had to be curbed by convincing the citizens that we were working against their interests.
EPA has been on this road a very long time and as long as its leaders serve at the mercy of whomsoever is in office, rather than by principles of science and public welfare, it will simply be another prop for the dark side. When the public and the media can no longer be troubled to become educated, or even interested, in the science of environmental protection, there is no counter balance to hold such government agencies accountable to anyone but the dischargers writing their own permits.