No sooner had Hurricane Katrina made landfall than a deluge of legislation inundated Congress, seeking to wreak havoc on the nation’s environmental protections and salvage previously sunken items from the oil industry’s wish list.
Senator James Inhofe (R, OK) immediately peddled legislation to allow EPA to waive environmental laws. Others rushed to use Katrina as an excuse to push for expanded offshore oil drilling, weaken New Source Review air quality standards, cut natural resource spending and even allow construction of oil refineries in national wildlife refuges.
Rep. Joe Barton (R, TX), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, described the possibility that the hurricane might increase public support for expanded oil and gas drilling as a “silver lining.”
SenatorPete Domenici (R, NM), chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, announced his intent to open protected offshore areas, saying, “I’m going to go after OCS [Outer Continental Shelf.]”
This opportunism is particularly ironic since much of Katrina’s devastation can be tied to environmentally destructive policies that altered waterways, destroyed wetlands and encouraged development in flood-prone areas. Katrina also vividly demonstrated the risks of overdependence on oil. There are many lessons to be learned from this tragedy.
Unfortunately, our leaders don’t seem to have learned them.
The Blame Game
In an effort to deflect attention from shortsighted environmental polices and the possibility that climate change may be contributing to storm intensity,
Senator Inhofe—with help from the Bush administration and the Army Corps of Engineers—began blaming the New Orleans flood on environmental groups.
Inhofe trotted out two National Environmental Policy Act lawsuits against the Corps and directly blamed them for causing the flood. The lawsuits in question, one in 1977 and one in 1996, reflected concerns about Corps proposals from conservationists, fishermen and local communities. The suits sought fuller impact assessments of ACOE proposals, did not kill any projects, and did not involve the levees that failed during the storm.
A Justice Department (DOJ) fishing expedition for environmental scapegoats was uncovered when a Mississippi newspaper revealed that DOJ sent an e-mail to U.S. attorneys’ offices inquiring whether they had “defended any cases on behalf of the Army Corps of Engineers against claims brought by environmental groups seeking to block or otherwise impede the Corps work on the levees protecting New Orleans?”
Energy Bill Redux
As if one bad energy bill this year were not enough (see Proud to Praise ‘Em! for the names of senators and representatives who opposed it), the House narrowly passed Rep. Barton’s oil refinery legislation, which seeks to increase refinery capacity by waiving environmental standards and giving taxpayer dollars to the oil industry during a time of record-high fuel prices.
The GAS (Gas for America’s Security) Act, as the bill is called, would weaken Clean Air Act standards for reducing ozone, a respiratory hazard that millions of Americans face every summer. It would allow states to
violate their own pollution clean-up plans, cut the number of smog-preventing fuel blends, and let oil refineries be built in national wildlife refuges. The bill also would throw a monkey wrench into diesel fuel cleanup plans that have been approved by EPA and are moving toward implementation.
Barton’s bill, hastily drafted and voted on without a hearing, was clearly headed for defeat as the five minutes allotted for the vote expired. House leaders refused to gavel the vote closed and held it open for an additional 40 minutes while former Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R, TX) twisted arms.
DeLay finally pressured Reps. Bill Young (R, FL) and Jim Gerlach (R, PA) to change their votes from no to yes, only to see Rep. Jeb Bradley (R, NH) cause a 211-211 tie by changing his yes vote to no. DeLay then persuaded Rep. Wayne Gilchrest (R, MD) to switch his vote from no to yes, at which point Rep. Mike Simpson (R, ID), presiding over the House, quickly gaveled the vote closed to secure a 212 to 210 victory
Here are the 13 Republicans who withstood leadership harassment and voted against Barton’s “GAS” bill:
Sherwood Boehlert (NY) Jeb Bradley (NH) Mike Castle (DE) Michael Fitzpatrick (PA) Tim Johnson (IL) Walter Jones (NC) Ray LaHood (IL) Jim Leach (IA) Frank LoBiondo (NJ) Jim Saxton (NJ) Christopher Shays (CT) Christopher Smith (NJ) Curt Weldon (PA)
If one of these is “yours,” please let him know you appreciate political courage and common sense.
Anti-ESA Juggernaut
Under cover of Katrina, and with only a quick pro forma mark-up hearing, Rep. Richard Pombo (R, CA), chairman of the Resources Committee, pushed his sweeping overhaul of the Endangered Species Act through the House with a 226-193 vote.
The bill, H.R. 3824—which might well be called the Species Extinction Act—makes radical changes to the ESA, which was signed into law by President Nixon in 1973. This miserable piece of legislation:
throws out the Act’s “critical habitat” requirements in favor of loosely defined recovery plans,
eliminates protections for threatened species,
gives the Interior Department more leeway to play politics with science,
creates an entitlement program to pay landowners for presumed “lost value” of land used for habitat, and
exempts all pesticide decisions from ESA compliance.
This radical legislation passed over the objection of 34 Republicans who voted against the measure. (You’ll find their names in the Proud to Praise ‘Em! page.)
The Republican opposition was offset by 36 Democrats, mostly from southern and western states, who supported the legislation. The strong Republican opposition makes it less likely that a similar bill will find traction in the Senate.
Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R, NY), who led opposition to the bill and offered a substitute bill that narrowly failed, predicted: “The bill will not become law in its present form. I can’t conceive that the Senate would keep it when a vote is that close.” He added, “We did this next to almost insurmountable odds.”
Rep. Wayne Gilchrest (R, MD), who was much criticized for his flip-flop vote on the GAS Act vote, proved truly heroic in his opposition to H.R. 3824. As Chairman of the Fisheries and Oceans Subcommittee of the Resources Committee, Gilchrest firmly opposed Pombo’s pet project.
Crude Feud
In the fine tradition of throwing stones in glass houses, the National Republican Senatorial Committee has launched an attack ad against a fellow Republican for (of all things) his ties to big oil and profiting from oil drilling.
As humorist Dave Barry would say, we are not making this up.
With more than a year to go before the midterm congressional election in November 2006, the NRSC has come to the aid of Rhode Island Senator (and REP Honorary Board Member) Lincoln Chafee to help fend off his primary challenger, Cranston Mayor Stephen Laffey. Chafee’s primary battle is expected to be one of the most competitive in the nation.
In NRSC ads targeting Laffey, a former investment banker, an announcer says: “In his TV ads, he complains about oil companies, but he’s the same Steve Laffey who ran a company selling oil industry stocks on Wall Street, profiting from offshore drilling.”
The spot then shows a cartoon of oil oozing over Laffey as the announcer continues: “Slick. Steve Laffey, laughing all the way to the bank.”
The fact that even NRSC is playing the “big oil” card indicates how upset people are about the apparent link between record oil industry profits and record gasoline prices. As for Laffey, he is fighting back by accusing Chafee of voting in favor of the “billions in tax breaks for the oil companies” that were in the energy bill—which, as we reported on the previous page, Chafee voted against.
If NRSC has to defend Chafee, arguably the “greenest” Republican in the Senate, against attacks on bad Republican energy and environmental policies, what does that say about the vulnerability of other Republican candidates?
The Democrats must be salivating.
A Bridge Too Far Rep. Don Young (R, AK), a leading proponent of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and cutting down the Tongass National Forest, has also gained a well-deserved reputation for piping huge amounts of pork (a.k.a. your tax dollars) into Alaska. This year, he may have gone too far.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Young has emerged as the poster child for wasteful spending because of the $223 million he earmarked in this year’s transportation bill to fund his infamous “bridge to nowhere,” which would connect Ketchikan, Alaska with Gravina Island, population 50.
Young now finds himself under fire from fiscal conservatives who have previously turned a blind eye to the tax dollar pipeline he and Senator Ted Stevens (R, AK) have erected between Capitol Hill and Alaska. The huge Katrina recovery costs have prompted conservative icons The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal to argue that he should to give up his expensive boondoggle.
Even radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh entered the fray, colorfully proclaiming that: “Congressman Blowhard from Alaska ought to give up his bridges to nowhere.”
Last-minute Report: Five Heroes in the Senate
Just as this Green Elephant goes to press, Congress is deciding whether or not to include drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in its 2006 budget reconciliation bill. The House will vote on it next week, while this is being printed. We will all know the results by the time you receive this issue, but we’ll have a full report on who voted “right”—and who didn’t—in the next issue.
However, we can tell you right now that, on the very day this report is being written, five GOP senators voted against the Senate’s version of the bill, which passed by a close vote of 52 to 47.
REP America extends its thanks to those Republicans who voted no to this backdoor maneuver:
Lincoln Chafee (RI) Norman Coleman (MN) Susan Collins (ME) Mike DeWine (OH) Olympia Snowe (ME)
Whether or not you live in one of their states, please go to the REP Action Center and send each of them a thank-you note as a REP member.
