Gulf Oil Spill Presents Stark Options for Alabama Environmental Leadership
August 4th, 2010The Gulf Oil Spill of 2010, otherwise known as the British Petroleum-Transocean-Halliburton Gusher of Death to the Gulf, presents a stark reality to those who have been willing to outsource natural resources in this land to foreign profiteers.
The upcoming Alabama Governor’s race and the race for Attorney General also present stark contrasts to investigate on who possess the leadership necessary to bring this state back from one of the worst economic and environmental calamities in our short but storied history. We will have more to say about that in the months ahead.
Politics aside, a group of non-profit organizations in this state are united in new proactive agenda and evaluation plan for the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM) and its new director Lance LeFleur, who only recently came aboard after several tumultuous administrations.
We, as a new media news organization with an authoritative voice, are not sure this plan covers everything that needs to be done. We will have also have more to say about that in the months ahead.
But we run this statement in its entirety here today, for it represents a lot of hard work from some of the best minds thinking about the future of this state, and some of the best hearts in people who truly love this place.
Organizations Present Environmental Priorities to ADEM’s New Director
A partnership of environmental organizations and coalitions has proposed a proactive agenda and evaluation plan for the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM) and its new director Lance LeFleur.
At an introductory meeting with Director LeFleur in late June, multiple environmental organizations introduced four topline priorities in what is being dubbed as the ADEM Scorecard.
“It is important to first set a vision for our priorities with the new director, and then regularly evaluate the progress of the director, the agency, and the Environmental Management Commission,” said Adam Snyder, co-chair of the ADEM Reform Coalition and director of the Conservation Alabama Foundation, two of the groups involved in the development of the ADEM Scorecard. “We hope this clearly sets forth expectations and creates a mechanism for a shared vision about environmental progress in Alabama.”
Amidst the unparalleled magnitude of the oil disaster and its aftermath, many other major environmental problems continue to burden Alabama’s citizens and ecosystems. The environmental partnership would particularly like to see significant progress on four priorities during Director LeFleur’s tenure:
1. Fully addressing issues raised in the NPDES petition to EPA (with the Alabama Rivers Alliance being the lead evaluator). Fourteen citizens groups filed a petition with the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency on January 14, 2010, asking the EPA to commence proceedings to withdraw Alabama’s authorization to administer the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES). The petitioners cited consistent failures of ADEM’s water program over the past few decades and are seeking relief from EPA.
2. Improving permitting, inspection and monitoring, and enforcement related to stormwater (with the Alabama Stormwater Partnership being the lead evaluator). Sediment and other pollutants carried by stormwater runoff from construction sites and urban development have caused water quality and habitat degradation in the state’s waterways, on which citizens depend for drinking water, recreation, wildlife habitat, fishing and economic vitality.
3. Improving enforcement and compliance across all program areas (with the ADEM Reform Coalition’s Enforcement Committee being the lead evaluator).
ADEM has not been especially tough on polluters when it comes to enforcement and assessment of penalties, nor has ADEM been very transparent in how it decides what enforcement action to take and how it establishes penalty amounts. In the recent past, enforcement actions and penalties dropped to a very low level.
4. Adopting a protective risk level and regulatory program for air toxics (with the Conservation Alabama Foundation being the lead evaluator). Alabama needs leadership from the director and ADEM, and ultimately adoption by Alabama’s Environmental Management Commission (AEMC) to have a protective risk level and regulatory program for air toxics.
Currently, some state communities are exposed to excessive levels of carcinogens and other toxics due to multiple sources in a concentrated area. By adopting a more protective risk level for air toxics, the EMC, director, and ADEM can decrease exposure and improve public health in Alabama.
During the late June meeting with LeFleur, environmental groups were pleased with the director’s desire to hold regular meetings with environmental organizations and coalitions.
“We hope to build a working relationship with the new director that produces positive results for the environment,” said Michael Mullen of the Choctawhatchee Riverkeeper. “The first steps are conversations that build a better understanding, but ultimately, we want those conversations and understanding to lead to real changes at the agency.”
While environmental organizations plan to formally evaluate the progress made on the ADEM Scorecard priorities within the next 12 to 18 months, each organization has committed to working directly with the director and ADEM staff to find solutions to these priority issues, as well as other environmental problems in the state.
Co-signers of the ADEM Scorecard include:
ADEM Reform Coalition
Alabama Environmental Council
Alabama Rivers Alliance
Alabama Stormwater Partnership
Black Warrior Riverkeeper
Cahaba Riverkeeper
Cahaba River Society
Choctawhatchee Riverkeeper
Conservation Alabama Foundation
Friends of Chewacla Creek and the Uphapee Watershed
Lookout Mountain Heritage Alliance
Lake Watch of Lake Martin
Save Our Saugahatchee
Today we add our editorial name to this list.
The Locust Fork News-Journal
LocustFork.Net
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Tags: ADEM Reform Coalition, Alabama Governor's Race, Conservation Alabama Foundation, Gulf Oil Spill Presents Stark Options for Alabama Environmental Leadership, Organizations Present Environmental Priorities to ADEM’s New Director
August 4th, 2010 at 2:57 pm
This document advises steps that are, on their face, better than nothing, but the underlying problem remains, as I see it.
That underlying problem is the entire concept of administrative law in which stated societal goals — in this case environmental protection — are entrusted to government agencies, which are staffed by essentially-tenured civil servants.
That structure invites both corruption and failure. Corruption is invited because, inevitably, the agency staff and the industries they are suppsosed to police cosy up to each other. Happens all the time, at the state and federal level. Failure happens because, as the cosy level increases, the less strict enforcement becomes.
Alternative? Strict enforcement, through the civil justice system, of common law restrictions through juries. That removes the problems mentioned and, to some extent since juries can render absolute verdicts, gets past the “certain amount of evil allowed by permit” factor.
Go back 20 years or even 30 years, and news reports would have been full of the same kind of story: public groups protesting government agencies’ failures to do what they were set up to do.
As Carlin noted, it ain’t changed, folks and it won’t change until we realize that Einstein’s famous maxim is true: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is a good definition of insanity.
August 4th, 2010 at 3:23 pm
Good stuff, especially on juries, but as you know, we differ on this.
If left up to me, I would nationalize all the energy. Natural resources, like the Gulf, are owned by “the people.”
Why lease it out to private contractors like BP who take all the money at the top, don’t pay taxes because of offshore loopholes, and don’t pay workers enough to make the economy work?
They do it in other countries, such as Venezuela. Guess what? Everybody has free education and health care, and the gas is cheaper!
The run amok corporate model, what some like to call the “free market,” is a myth which just makes the rich richer, etc.
See that Carlin video again…
http://blog.locustfork.net/2010/08/george-carlins-last-words-on-the-death-of-the-american-dream/
August 4th, 2010 at 5:06 pm
Having the federal government running the energy industries would be no better than having a few rich good old boys in Texas and Louisiana running them.
Handing over energy resources to government in the current government environment would not change anything except the names on the deeds. And it might make matters worse, for instance, if the Deepwater Horizon well had been owned by a nationalized oil company, Congress would still be debating reimbursement for claims, in my opinion. And figuring out how to escape lawsuits. And we’d probably be drilling for oil, at great taxpayer expense, in West Virginia courtesy the late Robert Byrd. That kind of thing.
My intention here is not to defend the current system — my preference would be that big energy companies be owned and operated by producer-consumer cooperatives, a “third way” between pure private corporate ownership and political ownership. Either of the latter two is, I believe, equally bad although for differing reasons. The producer-consumer cooperative model of business, which is free both of political and profit-motive control, has been shown to work numerous times throughout history. That is the model we should strive to develop for businesses which truly affect everyone.
Socialized industry run by national state governments does not work – the 20th century is a textbook showing that to be true. For-profit-only-motive corporate business works only for the elite who know how to manipulate the system.
Carlin’s point that there are “owners” who are part of “The Club” must be analyzed carefully. Whether or not he was referring only to wealthy owners of big corporations, analytically the ownership class, in my opinion, includes other powerful individuals and groups as well.
Senior policy-making positions in the federal government, and the allied think tanks that abound in DC, as well as some other important non-corporation lobbies, must be included, as well as longterm politicians who amass power and influence in DC. Why? Because their power and access to resources is similar to, if not the same as, billionaires.
For instance, almost anyone in DC will tell you the most powerful lobbying organization there is AARP, which its founder Bill Novelli built into something resembling a corporation while maintaining nonprofit status. It has its own unique agenda, which includes some lip service for senior citizens as talking points, but which mainly has to do with enhancing the power of AARP’s own bureaucracy. AARP fits Carlin’s definition of “owners,” to my way of thinking, although most people likely think of cigar-smoking oil and bank tycoons exclusively. It is not alone in that regard. There are dozens of “nonprofit” organizations, etc., that fit into the category also.
The illusion that only rich corporate folk fit into Carlin’s definition helps the real ownership class, which is much larger. By focusing public anger at a subset of their class, it allows the other “owners” to proceed unhindered carrying out their agenda. None of the “owners,” of any definition, have what Rousseau called the “general interest” in mind. The system has long been structured against the “general interest” while favoring the myriad special interests that now run things. That situation has remained unchanged for at least a century if not longer.
The answer is not socialism, nor untramelled big corporation capitalism, but democratic cooperativism for a variety of activities now controlled by fat cats and politicians.
August 4th, 2010 at 9:28 pm
“The Gulf Oil Spill of 2010, otherwise known as the British
Petroleum-Transocean-Halliburton Gusher of Death to the Gulf, presents a stark
reality to those who have been willing to outsource natural resources in this
land to foreign profiteers.”
As important a sentence as Glynn has ever written.
August 5th, 2010 at 2:45 pm
Thanks Rowland.
Yana, for that to work, you would have to discover a new island on planet earth and start from scratch.
We are too far down this capitalist path to switch gears now.
I didn’t say anyone would ever go along with me in nationalizing energy production and delivery. Certainly Obama is not suggesting such a thing, unlike the claims of the Tea Party’s rhetoric.
I just said that’s what I would do, if it was up to me, which it’s not : )
And yes, I think nationalizing it would be better than the corporate model in every respect. It does work in other places, just as nationalized health care works pretty damn well in most countries that call themselves democracies.