The Chickahominy Report

One of the 112th Congress’s ear­li­est envi­ron­men­tal accom­plish­ments — bring­ing plas­tics back to the cafe­te­ria. (Bren­dan Buck)

MECHANICSVILLE, Va. — Envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion pro­grams took a dis­pro­por­tion­ate hit in the recent con­gres­sional debate over H.R. 1, a con­tin­u­ing res­o­lu­tion to fund the fed­eral gov­ern­ment the rest of the cur­rent fis­cal year.

The core res­o­lu­tion pro­posed to slash fund­ing for the Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency by 30 percent—the largest cut, percentage-wise, of any fed­eral gov­ern­ment agency. Amend­ments to H.R. 1 were even more dras­tic: among other things, they would pro­hibit the EPA from reg­u­lat­ing green­house gases and from imple­ment­ing water-pollution con­trols in the Chesa­peake Bay water­shed and in Florida. In a smaller, yet sym­bol­i­cally sig­nif­i­cant move, the House lead­er­ship, reversed for­mer poli­cies that pro­moted recy­cling and reduced plas­tic waste inside the halls of Congress.

When the lat­ter pol­icy was imple­mented, Bren­dan Buck, press sec­re­tary for Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) tweeted, “The new major­ity – plas­ticware is back.”

The actions of this two-month-old Con­gress prompt the League of Con­ser­va­tion Vot­ers to do some­thing it rarely does: pro­duce a spe­cial edi­tion of its envi­ron­men­tal vot­ing score­card just for this one spend­ing bill rather than an entire ses­sion of Congress.

“The Con­tin­u­ing Resolution’s sweep­ing assaults on the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the wildlife and wild places Amer­i­cans hold dear make it the most anti-environmental piece of leg­is­la­tion in recent mem­ory,” said League of Con­ser­va­tion Vot­ers Senior Vice Pres­i­dent of Gov­ern­ment Affairs Tier­nan Sit­ten­feld in a state­ment released on the League’s Web site. “The depth and breadth of the anti-environmental amend­ments to this leg­is­la­tion is truly astound­ing, which is why LCV has taken the extra­or­di­nary step of cre­at­ing a Con­tin­u­ing Res­o­lu­tion Spe­cial Edi­tion National Envi­ron­men­tal Scorecard.”

TCR to won­der: Has the GOP has launched a war on the environment?

In order to answer the ques­tion, one must first estab­lish whether these poli­cies orig­i­nate pri­mar­ily from the Repub­li­can side of the aisle, or whether they rep­re­sent a more bipar­ti­san effort. To that end, a doc­u­ment cir­cu­lated by the Chesa­peake Bay Foun­da­tion pro­vided a great amount of raw data.

The doc­u­ment is a group let­ter by dozens of envi­ron­men­tal and sci­en­tific orga­ni­za­tions orga­ni­za­tions (listed at the bot­tom of this post) that iden­ti­fied more than two dozen anti-environmental amend­ments the groups col­lec­tively opposed. An exam­i­na­tion of the League of Con­ser­va­tion Vot­ers score­card dis­cov­ered an addi­tional amend­ment that could be con­sid­ered anti-environment.

An exam­i­na­tion of the data reveals that all of the pro­vi­sions of con­cern orig­i­nated from GOP rep­re­sen­ta­tives. Below is a list­ing of the rep­re­sen­ta­tives and the pro­vi­sions they introduced.

Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) intro­duced an amend­ment that would elim­i­nate fund­ing for the Global Envi­ron­ment Facil­ity, which sup­ports inter­na­tional envi­ron­ment and develop projects.

Rep. Judy Big­gert (R-Ill.) intro­duced an amend­ment that would elim­i­nate fund­ing for the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), which sup­ports clean energy research.

Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) intro­duced an amend­ment that would elim­i­nate fund­ing for the National Land­scape Con­ser­va­tion System.

Rep. John Carter (R-Texas) intro­duced amend­ments that would block or weaken EPA enforce­ment of restric­tions on toxic air pol­lu­tion and elim­i­nate fund­ing for the salary and expenses of the Assis­tant to the Pres­i­dent for Energy and Cli­mate Change.

Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) intro­duced amend­ments that would reduce or elim­i­nate sup­port for inter­na­tional cli­mate pro­grams for adap­ta­tion and mitigation.

Rep. Cory Gard­ner (R-Colo.) intro­duced an amend­ment that would pro­hibit EPA from reg­u­lat­ing any use of chem­i­cals present in hunt­ing or fish­ing equipment.

Rep. Bob Good­latte (R-Va.) intro­duced amend­ments that would pre­vent EPA from using fed­eral funds to imple­ment the Chesa­peake Bay restora­tion plan.

Rep. Mor­gan Grif­fith (R-Va.) and Bill John­son (R-Ohio) intro­duced amend­ments that would pro­hibit fed­eral agen­cies from reg­u­lat­ing mountain-top removal mining.

Rep. Ralph Hall (R-Texas) intro­duced one amend­ment that called for a National Acad­e­mies of Sci­ence study of haz­ardous air pol­lu­tion reg­u­la­tions and dis­cour­aged such reg­u­la­tions from being pro­mul­gated for cement plants, indus­trial facil­i­ties and util­i­ties and intro­duced amend­ments that would block sci­en­tific research into the effects of cli­mate change.

Rep. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) intro­duced amend­ments that would halt fund­ing of the Antiq­ui­ties Act.

Rep. Wally Herger (R-Calif.) intro­duced an amend­ment that would pre­vent the USDA For­est Ser­vice from reg­u­lat­ing off-road-vehicle use.

Rep. Wal­ter Jones (R-N.C.) intro­duced amend­ments that would pro­hibit for­eign travel for NOAA law enforce­ment offi­cers (which would impede their abil­ity to reg­u­late ille­gal fish­ing activ­ity) and which would pro­hibit new fish­ery reg­u­la­tions that are intended to help rebuild declin­ing or col­lapsed fisheries.

Rep. Raúl Labrador (R-Idaho) intro­duced amend­ments that would block or weaken EPA enforce­ment of restric­tions on toxic air pol­lu­tion from cement plants and indus­trial facil­i­ties, defund the Coun­cil on Envi­ron­men­tal Qual­ity and elim­i­nate any fund­ing for the imple­men­ta­tion of the Antiq­ui­ties Act.

Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio) intro­duced amend­ments that would cut $70 mil­lion from the Depart­ment of Energy’s Energy Effi­ciency and Renew­able Energy pro­gram, cut $10 mil­lion from the National Insti­tute of Stan­dards and Technology’s Con­struc­tion of Research Facil­i­ties pro­gram and zero out fund­ing for inter­na­tional fam­ily plan­ning programs.

Rep. Blaine Luetke­meyer (R-Mo.) intro­duced amend­ments that would pro­hibit fund­ing for the study of the Mis­souri River ecosys­tem restora­tion projects autho­rized by Water Resources Devel­op­ment Act of 2009 and block sci­en­tific research into the effects of cli­mate change.

Rep. Cyn­thia Lum­mis (R-Wyo.) intro­duced amend­ments that would zero out fund­ing for the Land and Water Con­ser­va­tion Fund and under­mine abil­ity to enforce the Endan­gered Species Act and pro­tec­tions for wolves.

Rep. Tom McClin­tock (R-Calif.) intro­duced amend­ments elim­i­nate fund­ing for the Mil­len­nium Chal­lenge Cor­po­ra­tion, defund the Bureau of Reclamation’s WaterS­mart Grant pro­gram, zero out fund­ing for Neotrop­i­cal Migra­tory Bird Con­ser­va­tion Act grants, pre­vent the Depart­ment of the Inte­rior from com­plet­ing science-based plan­ning for the coho salmon recov­ery (which includes dam removal) in the Kla­math River basin,  elim­i­nate pub­lic access to infor­ma­tion about whether or not dam removal is in the pub­lic inter­est and cut fund­ing for the Trop­i­cal For­est Con­ser­va­tion Act.

Rep. David McKin­ley (R-W.Va.) intro­duced amend­ments that would pro­hibit EPA from enforc­ing Sec­tion 404© of the Clean Water Act, pre­vent gov­ern­ment reg­u­la­tion of mountain-top removal min­ing, and weaken pro­posed fed­eral reg­u­la­tions regard­ing the treat­ment of haz­ardous waste.

Rep.  Kristi Noem (R-S.D.) intro­duced an amend­ment that would end fed­eral enforce­ment of clean air regulations.

Rep. Steve Pearce (R-N.M.) was espe­cially busy, intro­duc­ing more than one dozen amend­ments that would stop fund­ing of White House task forces, such as the Gulf Coast Recov­ery Fund; impede coor­di­na­tion and inte­gra­tion of inter­gov­ern­men­tal ini­tia­tives, such as the Gulf Ecosys­tem Restora­tion Task Force and National Ocean Coun­cil; under­mine abil­ity to enforce the Endan­gered Species Act; halt efforts to mit­i­gate or adapt to cli­mate change; elim­i­nate fund­ing for all pro­grams under fun­da­men­tal envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion laws such as the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Safe Drink­ing Water Act and Endan­gered Species Act; elim­i­nate the land acqui­si­tion bud­get for the Bureau of Land Man­age­ment, the Fish and Wildlife Ser­vice, the National Park Ser­vice and the For­est Ser­vice; elim­i­nate all fund­ing for con­struc­tion projects  in the BLM, Fish and Wildlife Ser­vice and National Park Ser­vice bud­gets; block sci­en­tific research into the effects of cli­mate change; impede the right of cit­i­zens to seek legal enforce­ment of pro­vi­sions of the National Envi­ron­men­tal Pol­icy Act and Endan­gered Species Act; and zero out fund­ing for the Land and Water Con­ser­va­tion Fund.

Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) intro­duced an amend­ment to stop efforts to mit­i­gate or adapt to cli­mate change.

Rep. Mike Pom­peo (R-Kans.) intro­duced an amend­ment to pre­vent the EPA from col­lect­ing data on green­house gas emis­sions from indus­trial sources.

Rep. Tom Rooney (R-Fla.) intro­duced an amend­ment to pre­vent EPA from imple­ment­ing or enforc­ing water qual­ity stan­dards for Florida’s lakes, rivers and streams.

Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) intro­duced an amend­ment to weaken man­age­ment of oil and gas drilling off the outer con­ti­nen­tal shelf.

Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.) intro­duced an amend­ment to pre­vent EPA from inves­ti­gat­ing the health effects of the her­bi­cide atrazine.

Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) intro­duced an amend­ment to weaken pro­posed rules regard­ing the treat­ment of haz­ardous waste.

Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) intro­duced amend­ments to take away EPA’s author­ity to reg­u­late air emis­sions in the Arc­tic and remove the Envi­ron­men­tal Appeals Board’s author­ity to review air per­mits related to drilling in the Arc­tic Ocean.

The League of Con­ser­va­tion vot­ers noted there were some envi­ron­men­tally friendly amendments—all by Democrats.

Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) intro­duced an amend­ment to elim­i­nate sub­si­dies for off­shore oil and gas drilling.

Rep. Earl Blu­me­nauer (D-Ore.) intro­duced an amend­ment to cap agri­cul­tural sub­si­dies, espe­cially those to fac­tory farms.

Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) intro­duced an amend­ment to pre­vent diver­sion of fed­eral fund­ing for a pro­gram that helps low-income fam­i­lies make their homes more energy efficient.

Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) intro­duced an amend­ment to increase fund­ing for the Depart­ment of Energy’s ARPA-E program.

Of the amend­ments cov­ered under the League of Con­ser­va­tion Vot­ers’ score­card, all of the GOP-sponsored amend­ments passed, save one that sought to elim­i­nate the president’s power to des­ig­nate national mon­u­ments under the Antiq­ui­ties Act. All of the Democrat-sponsored amend­ments failed.

TCR decided to look deeper into the data to find out if the anti-environment/pro-environment pat­tern evi­dent so far extended beyond the mere intro­duc­tion and spon­sor­ship of amend­ments that weaken or enhanced envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion. For this, the vot­ing data recorded in the League of Con­ser­va­tion Vot­ers’ score­card was extracted and ana­lyzed. The League assigns scores rang­ing from 0 to 100 to leg­is­la­tors based on their vot­ing records—as with most sports, a higher score is better.

While Con­gress should have 435 vot­ing mem­bers, in fact only the data for 431 votes were exam­ined. Speaker Boehner votes at his prerogative—he chose to not vote on any of these amend­ments. Rep. Gabrielle Gif­fords (R-Ariz.) did not vote on any of the amend­ments because she is recov­er­ing from an attempted assas­si­na­tion. Two rep­re­sen­ta­tives resigned: Jane Har­man (R-Calif.) resigned in Feb­ru­ary to accept a posi­tion as head of the Woodrow Wil­son Inter­na­tional Cen­ter for Schol­ars, and Rep. Chris Lee (R-N.Y.) resigned for rea­sons bet­ter left unsaid.

Har­man cast some votes, and has a score, but as the votes that took place after her res­ig­na­tion count against her score, TCR felt it was unfair to include it in the result­ing analysis.

Of the 431 rep­re­sen­ta­tives whose votes are included, 240 are Repub­li­cans and 191 are Democ­rats.  The aver­age League of Con­ser­va­tion Vot­ers’ score for the GOP rep­re­sen­ta­tives was 7.583 (±11.875), with a min­i­mum score of 0 and a max­i­mum of 76. The aver­age score for Demo­c­ra­tic rep­re­sen­ta­tives was 90.764 (±17.204), with a min­i­mum of 20 and a max­i­mum of 100. The dif­fer­ence is sta­tis­ti­cally sig­nif­i­cant with a less than 1 in 1 bil­lion (yes, bil­lion with a “b”) chance of the result occur­ring by chance alone.

TCR also exam­ined scores by con­gres­sional del­e­ga­tion. Those of Maine (two rep­re­sen­ta­tives), Rhode Island (two rep­re­sen­ta­tives), and Ver­mont (one rep­re­sen­ta­tive) had per­fect scores: 100. Del­e­ga­tions from Mass­a­chu­setts, Hawaii, Con­necti­cut and Delaware aver­aged above 90. Ore­gon, Mary­land and New York aver­aged above 70, and New Jer­sey, New Mex­ico, Wash­ing­ton and Cal­i­for­nia aver­aged above 60.

Wyoming, with one rep­re­sen­ta­tive, had the low­est score: 0. Kansas, with four rep­re­sen­ta­tives, had an aver­age score of 1. Other states with deleg ations that with aver­age scores of 10 or less were Mon­tana, Alaska, Okla­homa, Idaho, North Dakota and Arkansas. The del­e­ga­tions of South Dakota, Nebraska, South Car­olina, Louisiana, Utah and Alabama scored between 10 and 20. The aver­age scores of the del­e­ga­tions of West Vir­ginia, Texas, Indi­ana, Ten­nessee, Mis­sis­sippi and Florida fell between 20 and 30. The Ari­zona, Ohio, Mis­souri, Geor­gia, Min­nesota, Nevada, Ken­tucky, Vir­ginia, Michi­gan, Penn­syl­va­nia and Wis­con­sin del­e­ga­tions scored between 30 and 40.

Not all Repub­li­cans are happy with the actions of the House GOP.

“The con­tin­u­ing res­o­lu­tion (CR) that the House passed ful­fills many items on the wish list of anti-environmental rad­i­cals,” David Jenk­ins, vice pres­i­dent for gov­ern­ment and polit­i­cal affairs of the Repub­li­cans for Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion, said in a state­ment on the organization’s Web site. “Repub­li­cans were not elected to gut envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tions, and this legislation’s attempt to do so is at odds with the stew­ard­ship val­ues espoused by Amer­i­cans of all polit­i­cal stripes. They were elected to prac­tice fis­cal respon­si­bil­ity. Unfor­tu­nately, they are doing the for­mer and weasel­ing on the lat­ter. This duplic­ity brings with it the risk of seri­ous polit­i­cal con­se­quences for our party in 2012 and beyond.”

TCR imag­ines Repub­li­can pio­neers such as Ulysses Grant, Theodore Roo­sevelt and even Richard Nixon would agree.

–30–

EDITOR’S NOTE: The sig­na­to­ries to the group let­ter were Alaska Wilder­ness League, Amer­i­can Bird Con­ser­vancy, Amer­i­can Rivers, Cen­ter for Bio­log­i­cal Diver­sity, Cen­ter for Native Ecosys­tems, Cen­ter for Plant Con­ser­va­tion, Chesa­peake Bay Foun­da­tion, Clean Water Action, Con­ser­va­tion Lands Foun­da­tion, Con­ser­va­tion North­west, Defend­ers of Wildlife, Earth­jus­tice, Earth­works, Endan­gered Species Coali­tion, Envi­ron­ment Amer­ica, Envi­ron­men­tal Defense Fund, Envi­ron­men­tal Work­ing Group, Geos Insti­tute, Green­peace, Marine Con­ser­va­tion Biol­ogy Insti­tute, Marine Fish Con­ser­va­tion Net­work, National Audubon Soci­ety • National Marine Sanc­tu­ary Foun­da­tion, National Wildlife Refuge Asso­ci­a­tion, Nat­ural Resources Defense Coun­cil, Ocean Con­ser­vancy, Oceana, Ore­gon Wild, Pop­u­la­tion Action Inter­na­tional, Sierra Club, South­ern Envi­ron­men­tal Law Cen­ter, South­west Pub­lic Employ­ees for Envi­ron­men­tal Respon­si­bil­ity, The Wilder­ness Soci­ety, Trust for Pub­lic Land, Union of Con­cerned Sci­en­tists, World Wildlife Fund and Xerces Soci­ety for Inver­te­brate Conservation.