The Albany Times Union had a nifty, if depressing, scoop over the weekend in "Paterson bottling up mercury ban at plant":
Efforts by the state Department of Environmental Conservation to ban mercury-tainted coal fly ash used by a Ravena cement plant have been bottled up for more than 19 months in a special regulations review office of Gov. David Paterson.
The DEC request to yank permission from Lafarge North America for ash use at its Route 9W plant has been sitting in the Governor's Office of Regulatory Reform since October 2008, according to records obtained under the state Freedom of Information Act by the Times Union.
This isn't the first time we've heard about questionable regulatory review maneuvers in the Paterson administration; last August, the governor issued an executive order seeking to "eliminate unnecessary regulatory requirements" by "removing needless and excessive rules." Here in this space, Rebecca Bratspies laid out how that move was a big win for industry, and Sidney Shapiro compared the announcement to Ronald Reagan's Task Force for Regulatory Relief.
The situation in New York sounds like something of a parallel to that with federal regulation of coal ash itself, where the EPA had a strong regulatory proposal ready in October, only to have the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs block it. In both cases, the experts, EPA and the New York Department of Environmental Conservation, have had their efforts to follow the law stymied.
So who loses when the plant in Ravena is allowed to continue releasing excessive mercury? Among others, fishers and fish-eaters downwind and downstream. Yes, there are many sources of the mercury that ends up in the Hudson River and its watershed, and then in fish, and later in humans. But this is one source of that mercury that could easily be cut down.
Why has a single initiative been stuck for more than a year and a half in the Governor's office? And where is the transparency in the process?
Governor Paterson ought to be willing to go to the piers in New York City, talk to the fisherman and their families who rely on fish, and tell them why his regulatory review office has acted in a way that leads to more toxins in their food.
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Ben Somberg | May 28, 2010
The Albany Times Union had a nifty, if depressing, scoop over the weekend in “Paterson bottling up mercury ban at plant“: Efforts by the state Department of Environmental Conservation to ban mercury-tainted coal fly ash used by a Ravena cement plant have been bottled up for more than 19 months in a special regulations review […]
Matt Shudtz | May 27, 2010
EPA today announced (pdf) that it will begin a general practice of reviewing – and likely rejecting – confidentiality claims regarding chemical identities and supporting data in health and safety studies submitted to the agency under TSCA. The news is long overdue, but very welcome. One of Congress’s primary goals in drafting TSCA was to create […]
Alejandro Camacho | May 27, 2010
Even if a climate change bill like Kerry-Lieberman were to become law, the effects of climate change will still be dramatic, making adaptation a crucial complement to mitigation activities for addressing climate change. As specialists on local conditions with the capacity to innovate at a smaller scale, state and local authorities need to retain the authority […]
Frank Ackerman | May 26, 2010
Cross-posted from Triple Crisis. Despite talk of a moratorium, the Interior Department’s Minerals and Management Service is still granting waivers from environmental review for oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, including wells in very deep water. Until last month, most of us never thought about the risk that one of those huge offshore rigs […]
Joel A. Mintz | May 25, 2010
The recent horrific events in the Gulf of Mexico have presented immense challenges to the Obama administration and many of the federal career officials who are responsible for regulating the safety of offshore oil extraction and responding to spills like the one that continues to gush from the remains of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig […]
James Goodwin | May 24, 2010
“Although the 1976 RCRA Resource Conservation and Recovery Act statute does not require benefit-cost justification of RCRA regulations, this RIA regulatory impact analysis presents a qualitative benefit analysis for compliance with OMB’s 2003 ‘Circular A-4: Regulatory Analysis’ best practices guidance.” This statement comes from the executive summary to the cost-benefit analysis (CBA) that EPA sent to […]
Victor Flatt | May 21, 2010
BP CEO Tony Hayward has been careful to say his company will pay for the "clean-up" from the oil spill — meaning, not the damages. But if past disasters are any guide, the clean-up will be just a small fraction of the damages from the spill (the deaths, the damage of the oil to natural […]
Rena Steinzor | May 20, 2010
Today, the Senate appropriations subcommittee chaired by Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) will discuss “Investing in Mine Safety: Preventing Another Disaster” and hear testimony from the notorious Don Blankenship, chief executive officer of Massey Energy, owner of the Upper Big Branch disaster where 29 miners lost their lives on April 5. Workers safety and health advocates […]
Ben Somberg | May 20, 2010
CPR Member Scholar Holly Doremus and fellow UC Berkeley School of Law Professor Eric Biber have penned an op-ed in today’s LA Times arguing that the Administration’s plan to split the Minerals Management Service in two in response to the BP oil spill disaster falls short of what’s needed. Write Doremus and Biber: The political […]