In an article in the most recent issue of The Abell Report, the newsletter of The Abell Foundation, CPR President Rena Steinzor and CPR Policy Analysts Aimee Simpson and Yee Huang take a look at what ails the Chesapeake Bay (Spoiler Alert: it involves years of inaction on pollution), and offer up a number of practical steps the state of Maryland could take to make good on its commitments to clean up this most precious of natural resources.
The article draws on a day-long forum CPR co-sponsored this past October with the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, an event that gathered federal and state officials, as well as leading environmental activists from around the region.
Steinzor, Simpson and Huang make the case that the reason efforts to clean up the Bay have largely failed to date is that the Bay states are fundamentally unaccountable. They write:
For more than two decades, the primary Bay states (the District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia) have engaged in a series of round-robin consultations held under the auspices of the Chesapeake Bay Program. Progress was made in diagnosing the causes and implications of dead zones; diminishing crab and fish populations; algal blooms; and pollution that made rivers, lakes, creeks, and streams unusable for drinking, swimming, and boating. Individual states implemented innovative and effective pollution-control programs; glossy reports were produced; and every year, governors and the administrator of the EPA gathered for a photo op on the banks of picturesque Bay waterbodies. Despite the analyzing, meeting, planning, and talking, the Bay’s health remains tenuous, and the Bay states have repeatedly failed to meet the pollution-reduction goals set during these appearances.
To its great credit, the Obama Administration has taken a considerably more active role than its predecessors, and has begun pushing the states to make real and measurable progress in cleaning up the Bay.
Unfortunately, years of broken promises are not easily forgotten, and huge challenges are ahead. The authors’ focus is on Maryland, the state that enjoys what is probably the best reputation among the Bay states for its clean-up work. But as the authors point out, Maryland is falling short in a number of areas. They highlight the need for improved transparency, more resources for the Maryland Department of the Environment’s enforcement work, a penalty structure for violators that recovers any economic windfall they gained from breaking the law, higher permitting fees for polluters, and more.
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Matthew Freeman | February 6, 2012
In an article in the most recent issue of The Abell Report, the newsletter of The Abell Foundation, CPR President Rena Steinzor and CPR Policy Analysts Aimee Simpson and Yee Huang take a look at what ails the Chesapeake Bay (Spoiler Alert: it involves years of inaction on pollution), and offer up a number of […]
Rena Steinzor | February 3, 2012
The White House announced Tuesday a legislative agenda it is sending Congress as part of its Startup America initiative to foster the growth of new businesses. The White House was under some pressure to do wrong here: the President’s “Jobs Council” – a group mostly of CEOs – issued a report last month that included […]
James Goodwin | February 2, 2012
In its public meeting records, the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) frequently misspells the names or affiliations of the attendees. Senator Jon Kyl was once listed as “Sen. Rul.” And John Ikerd, affiliated with the University of Missouri (MO) and the Sierra Club, was listed as “John Ikend, University of MD/Siemen […]
Aimee Simpson | January 26, 2012
Today CPR releases Protecting the Public from BPA: An Action Plan for Federal Agencies (press release), outlining steps the FDA, EPA, and OSHA can take to use existing authorities to warn the public about the dangers of the chemical, and prepare longer-term regulatory controls. The paper was written by CPR Member Scholars Tom McGarity, Noah […]
Rena Steinzor | January 25, 2012
Last week, a reporter asked me, “How’s science doing these days?,” “Science” is an impossibly big category, of course, but the answer was easy: “Badly,” I said. Exhibit number one is climate change. The frightening truth is that no fewer than 84 percent of scientists in this country surveyed by Pew say that the earth […]
Catherine O'Neill | January 24, 2012
A new study underscores the wisdom of reducing the risks of mercury and other pollutants rather than relying on risk avoidance measures such as fish consumption advisories. Mercury’s adverse effects are not limited to human health; its harms are felt throughout our ecosystems. According to this most recent study, released today by the Biodiversity Research […]
| January 20, 2012
For more than a century, the United States took the lead in organizing responses to international environmental problems. The long list of environmental agreements spearheaded by the United States extends from early treaties with Canada and Mexico on boundary waters and migratory birds to global agreements restricting trade in endangered species and protecting against ozone […]
Alice Kaswan | January 19, 2012
The Clean Air Act’s potential to address the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions is slowly being unveiled. EPA’s expected announcement of highly-anticipated new source performance standards for power plants by the end of January will reveal whether the agency has the political will to use its existing authority to re-shape the United States’ dependence upon high-carbon […]
Rena Steinzor | January 17, 2012
A panel of business leaders comprising President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness today published a “Road Map to Renewal,” including proposals for expanded oil and gas drilling, and, of particular interest, five pages of policy recommendations related to regulation. Among them were procedural proposals aimed at further hamstringing regulatory agencies in their effort to […]