The Environmental Law Center of the American Tradition Institute
PRESS RELEASE
Washington, D.C. Contact: Chris Horner
January 28, 2013 info@atinstitute.org
Today, the Environmental Law Center filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on behalf of the American Tradition Institute (ATI) in federal district court in Washington, DC. ATI seeks to compel EPA to end its eight-month stonewall of two requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) regarding EPA’s close working relationship with two pressure groups with which EPA has uncomfortably close ties, at great taxpayer expense.
The complaint cited to journal papers and media reports in supporting its description that: “These two groups are the subject of heightened public interest for their close relationships with Defendant. [American Lung Association, or ALA] presents a ‘prototypical transition…to an organization actively engaged in lobbying and seeking funding from both government agencies and private firms in return for promoting their agenda’, lobbies and litigates for greater authority for EPA, runs billboard campaigns against politicians who challenge EPA, and has received $20,405,655 from EPA in the last 10 years for its programs. The Sierra Club employs a similar model and has close working relationships with senior Agency officials.”
The latter of course particularly refers to Sierra having promptly hired disgraced EPA Region 6 Administrator Al Armendariz, expressly to continue his work against a particular domestic industry (coal). Armendariz left EPA after a videotape revealed him acknowledging he expressed his “philosophy of enforcement” to EPA enforcement staff as akin to random crucifixions, used to keep subjects suitably respectful and “really easy to manage for the next few years.”
In an affidavit filed with yesterday’s complaint, ATI informed the court that one of the two FOIA specialists assigned these distinct requests admitted that a supervisor instructed her and a colleague to perform no work on them. Following this, EPA constructed a cul de sac of refusing to perform a search for responsive records until ATI agreed to pay estimated fees — which by law non-profits typically do not pay under FOIA — but which estimates EPA then refused to provide.
“This is just the latest shoe to drop in a disturbing history by this administration to keep the taxpayers from learning ‘what their government is up to’, as the Supreme Court once noted about why we have the FOIA”, said ATI counsel Christopher Horner. Horner recently also exposed EPA administrator Lisa Jackson’s use of a false-identity email account apparently to hide certain sensitive correspondence.
Horner continued, “Administration tactics we have found include senior government officials using false-identities, GMail, AOL and other private email accounts, private computers and servers, industry groups as go-betweens to avoid a paper trail, and even elaborate systems to destroy the government’s copies of records that, apparently, would be problematic if the public learned of them.” Horner detailed these examples in a recently released book, The Liberal War on Transparency.
Director of ATI’s Environmental Law Center, David Schnare, PhD, a former EPA enforcement attorney who is now also lead counsel in ATI’s “gas chamber” case challenging EPA’s illegal human experimentation, noted “This is not the EPA I once knew. The Agency has a long history of public service, but is repeatedly failing to obey its own regulations – to the detriment of a public overwhelmed by a regulatory onslaught increasingly depriving the nation of jobs without meaningful protections in return.”
EPA owes requesting parties a substantive response within twenty working days, at minimum indicating an intention to process the request, followed by a statement of how many responsive records were found and an expected production timetable. Four months ago EPA agreed with ATI on appeal that the Agency had not responded, promised to do so, and proceeded to ignore the requests and each of ATI’s efforts to obtain cooperation. In short, EPA is stonewalling, with the added element of one of its employees having admitted to how the stonewall was orchestrated.
EPA now must come to court to defend the indefensible.
If you wish an interview with Mr. Horner or Dr. Schnare , please contact ATI at info@atinstitute.org.
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There is a long and very solid history of dust levels in underground mines, because if the miners breathe in too many fine particules they are likely to get silicosis or other nasty diseases (black lung in coal mines). There is a respirable fraction in the range roughly 2 to 0.2microns in size which can reach the deep lung to cause these problems. The majority of larger sized particles are caught by the body’s protective mechanisms before they reach the deep areas of the lung. The particles less than 0.2 microns behave like a gas and don’t precipitate significantly. To make certain they get most of the damaging stuff, health agencies use PM2.5 as the measure of the potential hazard.
I am not up on this subject but I would like to bring up a point made by my old high school Bio teacher. Human lungs have Cilia that move particulate matter out of the lungs.
We know that humans climbed down from the trees and started to live by hunting on the plains. The plains are dusty especially when you are following large herds of animals. We also know that primitive humans used fire to drive animals and to change the landscape to provide grass for their chosen prey. Later fire was used in slash & burn style agriculture. Heck fire is still used in ag to clear and sterilize fields. My neighbors just did so to a weed infested field they want to make productive again.
Humans did not evolve in a completely sterile landscape wrapped in cotton batting to protect us from the natural environment and that type of environment is proving to be bad for us.
It also means you are exposed to more soil and dust and microbes…
Crispin in Waterloo,
In the US the EPA is moving to lower the standard for PM2.5 to 12ug/m3 on the basis that it is so lethal that it can kill within hours at the current standard 35ug/m3. If it’s that dangerous where are the bodies in Beijing? If it’s not that dangerous why lower the current standard?
“There is no doubt that asthma is provoked by exposure to PM2.5.”
Asthma can be provoked by a million other things as well including things that are a natural part of the environment such s mold spores and pollen. Sorry but this isn’t a basis for insanely low standards that are arguably lower than what the ambient levels would be if people didn’t exist.
Bureaucracy exists to perpetuate bureaus.
Mass dismantling of these agencies is the only cure, for even when curtailed they morph into black holes of public wealth and govt personel.
NASA and moslem outreach being the most recent example of this cancer.
There is no US space capability but the agency spends on.
In the wheat-producing areas, there was a recognized thing called “elevator-man disease”. It was a fatal emphysema caused by breathing in fine partlicles of grain dust (rye is worse than wheat). The elevator man was the fellow who took in everyone’s grain at the “elevator”, i.e. the storage bin next to the railway line. Although it was a great job in many ways, the constant exposure to grain dust shortened the fellows lives.
A similar disease affected the farmers prior to closed cabins (air-conditioned) on tractors, combines, swathers and the like. In these cases regular dirt dust was also the problem.
Hazards exist. Occupational or residential, you can’t get away from them. All you can do is manage them. Minimize them to reasonable, not “possible” levels: possible is always zero, simply by ceasing the activity. But that is not reasonable.
Linear, no-threshold considerations of risk, the Precautionary Principle, the eco-green, anti-money (pro-life, it is claimed) view that no risk is the only acceptable risk, drives us into this current Granny State. Risk exists when lives are lived. What we need is to understand the risks we face, accept the situation, and then get on with it, despite knowing that for some things will turn our badly.
Commentors are wasting a lot of time referring to situations where some gross exposure over a lifetime causes a disease or fatality. The first principal of toxicology is that the dose makes the poison. A simple example is aspirin, taking a couple may save your life, but a bottle full will kill you. So, the EPA must be held to direct empirical evidence of harm and not multiple orders of magnitude extrapolations from gross exposures. I know has is a pie in the sky chance of ever being implemented but would be a productive use of our legislatures time.
JDN: Most of the experimental results for the effects of small particulate matter on vascular and mental health in animals are alarmist and not sound. This is due to the animals being subjected to large doses of particulates for short periods of time. However, humans live far longer than rats and have greater complexity in their microvasculature. It appears that micro-particles are a real health threat. The jury is still out, but, the EPA may be vindicated for improper decision making on this issue.
You might be right, but if EPA were confident that they were truly on the up-and-up they’d probably release all of the documents in a hurry. Secrecy comes naturally to bureaucracies and may not imply anything in particular instances, but they need to get everything out in the open for the citizens to judge. I hope that the suit is successful.
Petrossa says:
January 28, 2013 at 12:01 am
I agree with your points however my goal wouldn’t be for the EU courts to rule on the matter. I know they will carry the party line which is “government/eco terrorist” “good”.
The thing is you can stir up the US haters and get the media to put a huge spot light on this matter. Cover ups work because not enough people are watching the pea under the cup. The US haters will gladly run huge about of propaganda using this issue and then the EPA won’t be able to simply cover it up like they are currently successfully doing.
EPA now must come to court to defend the indefensible.
Obama whole term has been about defending the indefensible, by every dirty trick in the book!
Doug Proctor says:
January 28, 2013 at 9:05 am
In the wheat-producing areas, there was a recognized thing called “elevator-man disease”. It was a fatal emphysema caused by breathing in fine partlicles of grain dust (rye is worse than wheat)….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
From The 1994 Cave Song Fake Book
(I was hoping for a utube of a performance. Oh, well)
Histo is a well known problem for cavers and farmers. The chances are the grain elevator problem is a similar fungus. They are tough to diagnose and tougher to treat. Rye is known for a fungus called Ergot too.
“There is no US space capability but the agency spends on”
No HSF capability (other than perhaps providing crew for the ISS), but increasing our knowledge of space isn’t just about putting humans into it.
@MattS
>In the US the EPA is moving to lower the standard for PM2.5 to 12ug/m3 on the basis that it is so lethal that it can kill within hours at the current standard 35ug/m3.
Obviously that is ridiculous. The average air quality indoors in the EPA office is certainly much more than 12 or 35. Offices had quite high PM levels because of hte carpets and air con.
>If it’s that dangerous where are the bodies in Beijing? If it’s not that dangerous why lower the current standard?
There is no explanation for the current proposed standard. It can only be met by not burning anything and I saw how that worked out in Colorado last summer (I was there).
Dave N says:
January 28, 2013 at 2:29 pm
“There is no US space capability but the agency spends on”
No HSF capability (other than perhaps providing crew for the ISS), but increasing our knowledge of space isn’t just about putting humans into it.
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Sometimes you have to be there to understand the humour!
Crispin in Waterloo,
“Obviously that is ridiculous.”
I don’t disagree that it’s ridiculous. However the EPA has made that claim, so take it up with them.
Abiogenesis,
“No HSF capability (other than perhaps providing crew for the ISS), but increasing our knowledge of space isn’t just about putting humans into it.”
A side from studying objects in our own solar system that do or might at some point have an effect on the earth how much is there to learn that will be of any practical use if we don’t eventually intend to “put humans into it”?