Switchboard, from NRDC › Frances Beinecke's Blog

In Delhi, Leaders Call for Sustainable Action Today, Not Promises for Tomorrow

2012-02-07T18:55:40Z

Frances Beinecke, President of NRDC, New York City

As I traveled through Mumbai and Delhi over the past few days, I’ve been awed by the rapid growth taking place in Indian cities. Statistics about urbanization abound, but experiencing the dynamic, jammed-packed streets firsthand is much more revealing.

Walking through Old Delhi, I felt the press of crowded sidewalks and watched masses of cars, and auto rickshaws, trying to move through clogged streets. Delhi has an impressive new metro line, but the throng of riders filling the stations shows it has barely made a dent in the demand for more transit. Our team ended up in the crowded women-only car after wending our way through a security line as long as the ones in American airports.

India’s leaders are committed to helping cities keep pace with this growth, but many do not stop there. They are also working to ensure that cities grow as sustainably as possible.

I had the chance to hear many inspiring leaders share their views at the annual Delhi Sustainable Development Summit, hosted by The Energy and Resources Institute, which is run by the Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Dr. R. K. Pachauri.

Every year the summit draws international leaders and experts for fruitful discussions. Last week India’s Prime Minister Dr. Manhohan Singh gave the inaugural address. He said poverty eradication remains the overarching goal of India’s approach to sustainable development, and he highlighted the progress being made on the National Action Plan on Climate Change.

I had the honor of being asked by Dr. Pachauri to speak on a panel about sustainability issues raised by an Asian Development Bank report on Asia in 2050.

By 2050, Asia’s urban population will nearly double to 3 billion people, and cities will account for more than 80 percent of economic output. At the same time, the number of cars on the road around the world is expected to triple—to 2.5 billion—and India will have the largest amount.

If this growth proceeds along the standard path, cities will become even more congested, have even dirtier air, and acquire an even larger appetite for energy. But if we follow a different— as suggested by speakers throughout the conference—we can create a cleaner, more sustainable future.

Viewed in this light, the growth about to occur presents an opportunity, albeit one fraught with tremendous challenges.

The millions of cars coming to city streets haven’t been built yet. We can make them more efficient and run on cleaner fuels. Two-thirds of the buildings that will exist in India in 2030 haven’t been built yet. We can make them as efficient as possible from the start. And indeed, national ministries and cities, including Hyderabad which I had visited earlier, are already seizing opportunities to make cleaner cars and construct more efficient buildings.

What was crystal clear at the conference was the critical need to act now. We thought climate change was a problem for the future, and as a result, we have been too slow to start to confront it. Today we need actions—not promises—on improved transit, improved fuel efficiency, cleaner fuels and engines, and smarter growth. All of these pay enormous dividends for solving climate change and improving the livability of Asia’s growing cities.

Former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger addressed the summit, urging the audience not to wait for national or international agreements but to initiate action on the local level. He described how California has passed its own low-carbon law and built a vibrant clean energy economy, even while there is no national action plan for climate.

Local action can give women a broader role in creating change as well. At the summit, Finland’s President Tarja Halonen and Former Prime Minister of Norway Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland talked about the release of a report on the U.N.’s Secretary General’s high-level panel on sustainability, and they emphasized the important role of women in achieving sustainability in the developing world. They cited persistent discrimination against women and said the global community must change the growth narrative to make more room for women.

Women represent 70 percent of the world’s poor, yet as leaders in their families and communities, women can be critical leaders in eradicating poverty and protecting the Earth. I have always known this to be true, but it took on added resonance during my time in India. We met with leaders from the Self Employed Women’s Association, a trade union established in 1972 and dedicated to empowering women and generating jobs that offer work, food, and income security. I hope NRDC can work with them in the future to create jobs that benefit women and the environment at the same time.

During my trip to India, I sensed that opportunities abound for sustainable pathways, and there is much enthusiasm and local support to carry such transformation forward. Business as usual is hard to change, but I am hopeful that NRDC's India Initiative, working with local partners, will be successful in advancing solutions for clean energy that will establish the case studies and strategies to reduce pollution, costs and improve quality of life across India.

Notes from Hyderabad: Making India's High-Tech Capital More Energy Efficient

2012-02-06T15:55:57Z

Frances Beinecke, President of NRDC, New York City

Hyderabad has turned out to be the perfect place to begin my first trip to India. This four-hundred-year-old city is rich in cultural history, but its sleek, gleaming IT sector points the way to India’s future.

Hyderabad was one of the first cities in the world to develop a special economic zone, and the scale of growth is extraordinary. High-tech corporate campuses and office parks dot the horizon, especially in the area known as Hi-Tech City. Yet many modern office buildings were constructed without energy efficiency in mind, and millions of dollars and thousands of kilowatts of electricity are wasted each year as a result.

Luckily, city and business leaders want to change that, and for the past two years, NRDC’s India Initiative and our partners at the Administrative Staff College of India have been helping to make Hyderabad’s growth as green and efficient as possible.

On my first morning here, we went to the Godrej Green Business Centre built by the Confederation of Indian Industries. Opening in 2004, it was the first LEED-certified platinum green building outside the United States. I had the honor of planting a tree in the building’s garden, and I got the chance to hear from some of the leaders in Hyderabad’s efficiency efforts.

Like much of India, Hyderabad presents an exciting opportunity. Two-thirds of the commercial and high-rise residential structures that will exist in 2030 have not been built yet. Experts agree it is cheaper and easier to build efficiency into new construction than it to pay for retrofits later.

Indeed, NRDC’s David Goldstein says that you can design buildings that reduce energy use by 50 percent at no additional cost if you incorporate efficient features from the beginning.

Hyderabad is trying to encourage this kind of green building by weaving efficiency standards into building codes. NRDC and our partners are working with city officials, technical experts, real estate groups, and banks to fully implement those codes.

Later in the day, I had the opportunity to talk with the Ajit Ranjankar, the dean of the Indian School of Business. The ISB is ranked among the top 20 business schools in the world, and it was fascinating to hear Dean Rangnekar’s refreshing take on the economic and social value of environmental protection. He believes strongly that Indian businesses have to embrace sustainability and clean technology and demonstrate how these models can be profitable as well as beneficial.

At a dinner that evening hosted by the Administrative Staff College of India, I met several leaders who are already providing those models. ASCI is a policy think tank, research institute, and training facility for professional managers from the public and private sectors in India. Under the leadership of Director Chary, ASCI’s Centre for Energy, Environment, Urban Governance, and Infrastructure Development is working with NRDC to help Hyderabad grow smart from the smart.

Obama Administration Must Keep the Arctic's Wild Seas out of Drilling Plan

2012-02-01T17:37:36Z

Frances Beinecke, President of NRDC, New York City

President Obama traveled the country last week calling for clean energy projects that would make our nation more prosperous and secure. Unfortunately, he also recommended energy proposals that will put America at risk.

The president directed his administration to open 75 percent of America’s potential oil and gas resources to drilling. That is a highly aggressive leasing plan. Yet where is the equally aggressive plan for safeguarding America’s workers, coastal communities, and marine riches?

I served on the president’s National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling. After an exhaustive review, we concluded the oil industry lacked the kind of safety culture that could prevent another disaster. Meanwhile, the government lacked the authority and resources necessary to police the industry.

Little has changed since we delivered our report to the president a year ago. The industry has resisted change at every turn and Congress has failed to pass a single law related to the largest environmental disaster in American history.

Yet still President Obama supports expanded offshore drilling—including in the fragile Arctic Ocean. The proposed leasing plan the president mentioned in the State of the Union Address opens 15 new lease sale areas, including two in the Arctic.

The Arctic is the last wild ocean on the planet. Scientists have been able to do only limited research in the region, since it is dominated by intense cold, long periods of darkness, hurricane-force storms, dense fog, and ice that persist for much of the year. Neither the oil industry nor scientists have identified a proven way to contain or clean up a spill in these extreme conditions.

Even if they could, the remoteness of the region adds another layer of obstacles. The Coast Guard oversees spill response, yet the base closest to the leasing sites is 1,000 miles away. Ice makes travel even harder, as evidenced by the Russian tanker that got stuck in ice sheets up to 25-feet thick when it was trying to deliver heating oil to Nome, Alaska. It had to be escorted by a Coast Guard medium-scale icebreaker. The trip may have been faster, officials said, if they could have used a heavy-duty icebreaker, but the Coast Guard possesses only three heavy ice breakers. One is retired, one has been converted to a research vessel, and the third is undergoing renovations until at least 2014.

An offshore oil spill in these remote and extreme conditions would devastate our nation’s last remaining pristine ocean areas and harm its many unique species, including polar bears, whales, and seals, and the communities that depend upon them.

Right now, the proposed five-year lease plan is still in draft form. There is still time for NRDC experts and concerned citizens to make their voices heard on how our shared marine resources should be managed.

We are calling on the administration to exclude any lease sales in the Arctic’s Beaufort and Chukchi Seas from the proposed program. These wild seas and the abundant life they support are simply too sensitive to be drilled. In no event should there should be a plan to lease these areas until key scientific studies have been done and until the oil and gas industry can demonstrate its ability to contain and clean up a spill.

We also want the administration to postpone new lease sales in other areas until the environmental and safety recommendations of the National Commission have been fully implemented. That means the administration should delay new sales in the Gulf of Mexico until sufficient resources and oversight is in place.

And remember that the ocean waters in question belong to all Americans—not to the oil and gas industry. We have a right to demand that decision makers apply the lessons learned from the BP oil disaster before any development proceeds in these wild waters. Click here to send your message to the administration.

Keep the Tax Bill Clean: Republicans Should Not Permit the Keystone XL Pipeline

2012-01-31T19:13:03Z

Frances Beinecke, President of NRDC, New York City

House Republicans are once again talking about weighing down the tax relief bill with riders designed to force the approval of the Keystone XL pipeline and block clean air standards. But, even these lawmakers seem to recognize the public won’t like their political maneuverings.

Despite the trouble they got into in December over holding up the tax cut, GOP leaders want to use an effort to bring tax relief to millions of Americans—something even they say is an urgent matter—to attach a policy rider that would override President Obama’s decision to reject the Keystone XL pipeline.

The Keystone XL pipeline has nothing to do with the tax code, and neither this nor any other policy rider belongs on a bill to provide a tax cut that so many Americans are waiting for. Getting a tax-cut bill through Congress is already difficult enough because of debates about how to pay for it. No one serious about supporting tax relief would make the bill even more controversial by adding an unrelated rider. A rider is simply a political maneuver to pick a fight with the president.

Congress should keep it clean. It shouldn’t consider the Keystone rider or any other unrelated measures like the effort to block clean air standards that would limit industrial pollution.

President Obama made the point well and clearly in his State of the Union when he said, “Let’s agree right here, right now: No side issues. No drama. Pass the payroll tax cut without delay.”

The language Republicans are touting to approve the pipeline was proposed by Representative Lee Terry (R-NE). Republicans describe the Terry language as giving the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission the power to decide whether the Keystone XL should proceed or not.

Let’s be clear. The Terry measure does no such thing.

Instead, the bill mandates approval of the project. It states: “The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission shall, not later than 30 days after receipt of an application thereof, issue a permit for the construction, operation, and maintenance of the oil pipeline.”

The Terry bill is the equivalent of Congress passing a bill that gives you the right to vote, but requires you by law to vote for Obama. No one would describe that as giving you the power to make a decision. Yet Republicans describe the Terry language as giving FERC power, and many in the press have unthinkingly echoed that assertion.

In reality, Terry’s reference to FERC is just a ruse to hide the real effect of the bill: turning Congress into a permitting body. Representative Terry has gone so far as to say, “It seems to me that it makes more sense that we let the experts on pipelines make decision on whether this is a safe and sound pipeline as opposed to a political entity worried about November elections.”

The pipeline decision should indeed be in the hands of experts, but Terry himself would prevent exactly that. If Terry has his way, Congress will be approving the pipeline. His language gives FERC no authority to make a decision; it either has to sign off on the pipeline in 30 days or the pipeline gets approved without them.

But the fact that Republicans lawmakers feel the need to make it look like they are giving authority to a government agency instead of to themselves signals something important: Even they know Americans don’t want Congress to be in the business of issuing permits. Hence the FERC fig leaf.

Speaker Boehner has said that if language approved Keystone XL doesn’t go on the tax bill, it will be added to the transportation bill—another measure Americans needs that’s already far behind schedule. A Keystone XL rider on the transportation bill would be just as irresponsible as one on the tax bill.

Republicans in Congress already forced the current decision on Keystone XL by mandating a decision before as assessment was completed and before the full route was even determined. The President has no choice at the point but to deny the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline permit. Congress should respect that determination—and preserve the health and safety of American farmland and our climate—instead of trying to undermine it through legislative maneuvers.

Obama Calls for More Clean Energy and Smart Safeguards on Domestic Drilling

2012-01-25T16:00:02Z

Frances Beinecke, President of NRDC, New York City

President Obama confirmed his commitment to clean energy and to environmental and public health protections in his State of the Union Address last night. He celebrated the extraordinary growth of the clean energy economy, and he laid out a plan to create more clean energy jobs and more responsible energy development.

“We don’t have to choose between our environment and our economy,” the president said.

We know the president is correct because clean, low-pollution energy is already putting hundreds of thousands of Americans to work. More than 100,000 people currently work in the solar industry, according to the National Solar Jobs Census. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says the wind industry employs 85,000 Americans. And more than 150,000 Americans currently have jobs making parts for and assembling clean cars—hybrids, electric cars, and other advanced vehicles that hardly existed 10 years ago.

American innovators could achieve far more with the right incentives and market signals in place. Last night, the president said the time has come to create those.

We have subsidized oil companies for a century. That’s long enough. It’s time to end the taxpayer giveaways to an industry that’s rarely been more profitable, and double-down on a clean energy industry that’s never been more promising. Pass clean energy tax credits and create these jobs.

NRDC has been fighting to extend these clean energy tax credits, and we welcome the president’s support. We’ve also been calling on Congress to pass a clean energy standard with a laser focus on wind, solar, and other renewable power sources and create incentives for energy efficiency. We were pleased that last night the president once again backed measures to promote the use of clean energy and efficiency.

And fortunately the Obama Administration is not waiting on Congress to take action. In last night’s speech, the president singled out the Department of Defense’s commitment to sustainable energy sources. NRDC has been in active partner in helping the DOD make this shift to cleaner fuels, and we applaud its ambitious goals. The Navy and the Marine Corps, for instance, plan to reduce fossil energy use by 50 percent by 2020 and cut the petroleum used in their non-tactical fleet by 50 percent by 2015. The Air Force plans to use alternative fuels for 50 percent of its domestic aviation needs by 2016.

The president already recognized the need for safe and clean sources of energy when he rejected the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. In last night’s speech, President Obama wisely took aim at Republican efforts to try to weigh down the bill extending the payroll tax break with language mandating approval of the pipeline.

Yet even as the president promoted clean energy development, he also called for an increase in domestic drilling. We all want American energy independence, but we have to do it right. President Obama recognized the need for stronger safety standards in last night’s speech: “I’m requiring all companies that drill for gas on public lands to disclose the chemicals they use. America will develop this resource without putting the health and safety of our citizens at risk.”

That’s a good start, but much more needs to be done to protect our communities and our environment. We need to hold the industry to safety standards, set sensitive places off limits, and keep contaminants out of our air and water. Only government safeguards can achieve those protections. Industry has already proven that it will not police itself.

The president underscored the value of smart safeguards: “I will not back down from making sure an oil company can contain the kind of oil spill we saw in the Gulf two years ago. I will not back down from protecting our kids from mercury pollution, or making sure that our food is safe and our water is clean.”

Like clean energy solutions, public health and environmental standards create jobs at the same time they protect our families from polluters. According to a study done by the Institute of Clean Air Companies, implementing just one set of standards—CAIR Phase I—since 2003 has created an estimated 200,000 jobs in the air pollution control industry. The number of Americans working as boilermakers grew by 35 percent between 1999 and 2001 because of updates in Clean Air Act standards. Taken together, the environmental technology sector has generated more than 1.7 million American jobs as of 2008.

And those are just some of the economic rewards of cleaning up pollution. Clean air safeguards generated approximately $1.3 trillion in public health and environmental benefits in 2010 alone for a cost of $50 billion. The ratio of benefits to costs is more than 26 to 1.

These enormous gains prove that economic growth and smart safeguards go hand-in-hand. Working together, President Obama and Congress can help move America toward a cleaner, healthier, and more prosperous future

The Environmental State of the Union

2012-01-24T15:07:34Z

Frances Beinecke, President of NRDC, New York City

The annual State of the Union Address is a time for taking stock. Tonight President Obama will assess our nation's progress on a range of urgent issues, but today I want to look closely at one critical indicator of America's well being: the health of our environment.

Is America's air getting safer to breathe than it was a year ago? Are we building the wind farms and solar plants that put Americans to work and curb pollution at the same time? Do we have a plan to encourage fuel efficient technologies that allow cars to go farther on a tank of gas?

Looking ahead, the question becomes: will our leaders seize opportunities to protect our families from polluters and build a cleaner energy system for America?

The choices they make in the coming months will have major implications for the health of our air, water, and lands. If some Tea-Party driven GOP lawmakers had had their way, 2011 would have been one of record rollbacks of environmental protections. America’s leaders must decide if they want to return our nation to darker, dirtier days or move us into a cleaner, healthier future.

The Worst Attack on the Environment in Decades

Since President Obama delivered his last State of the Union Address, the Republican-led House has unleashed a relentless attack on the standards that keep our air safe, our water clean, and our landscapes vital. GOP lawmakers forced votes on as many as 190 anti-environment initiatives since last January.

They have taken aim at everything from pollution standards that protect Americans from asthma attacks to programs that help communities treat sewage before releasing it into our waterways. They have voted against protections for endangered species and restoration for Florida waterways and the Chesapeake Bay. And they have stuffed must-pass budget and tax bills with policy riders that have absolutely nothing to do with saving taxpayer money but everything to do with their war on government safeguards.

They have even blocked enforcement of a light bulb efficiency standard that will save consumers $10 million a year and that Congress and President Bush supported just four years ago. This country has never seen such a single-minded assault on environmental protections. The Senate blocked the most destructive GOP House measures, but the constant need to defend bedrock laws-in addition to the gridlock in Congress-made it impossible to pass forward-looking legislation that would make America a safer, healthier, and more prosperous nation.

President Obama Makes Progress and Allows a Few Setbacks

In a number of instances, the Obama Administration made dramatic progress by using its authority to help move our country into the future. In July, President Obama proposed raising the average fuel efficiency standard for new cars to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. That alone will save drivers more than $80 billion a year at the pump and cut our annual oil use by more than the amount we imported from Saudi Arabia and Iraq in 2010. Last week, the president rejected the Keystone XL pipeline because dirty tar sands oil has no place in a cleaner, more innovative energy system—especially when Americans would get AT MOST just a few hundred permanent jobs and Asia would receive the bulk of the oil from the pipeline.

The administration stood up for the health American families when it established the first-ever national standards to limit mercury and other air toxins from power plants—an historic achievement that will help protect children from developmental delays and asthma. These standards built on the administration’s move to reduce smog and soot from cross-state power plants and factories.

The administration also has proposed a visionary national oceans policy, acted to protect the Grand Canyon from uranium mining and supported clean energy investments as record levels.

Yet it also ceded ground to polluters. Its decisions to expand offshore drilling and postpone smog standards, for instance, will benefit dirty industries and make it harder for Americans to protect our health and resources. So our work goes on.

Opportunity to Promote Prosperity: Expand the Clean Energy Economy

The coming year will be filled with campaign-fueled debates about jobs and the recession. Clean energy can deliver what both parties are looking for: greater prosperity and market growth.

Let's abandon once and for all the false choice of pitting economic progress and environmental protection. The two actually go hand-in-hand.

Smart standards protect our health and put Americans to work at the same time. Reducing tailpipe emissions from cars and trucks, for instance, employs about 65,000 Americans and the industry generates annual domestic sales of $26 billion. Building and generating pollution-free power from wind and solar employs nearly 200,000 Americans right now, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

America already has a robust clean energy economy, but the rate of growth will be greater if our leaders encourage clean energy policies-things like a clean energy standard to expand how much power we generate from wind and solar and more energy efficiency standards that save consumers money and reduce pollution.

Opportunity to Protect Americans' Health and Resources: Preserve Safeguards

The economy is rightly a top priority for Americans. So is the health of our families, and we will continue to defend the vital public health standards that stand between us and dangerous pollution. As President Obama said in a speech earlier this month at the Environmental Protection Agency:

'We don't have to choose between dirty air and dirty water, or a growing economy. We can make sure that we are doing right by our environment and, in fact, putting people back to work all across America. That's part of our mission. When we put in place new common sense rules to reduce air pollution, we create new jobs building and installing all sorts of pollution-control technology."

That's precisely why the administration must move forward with efforts to strengthen key standards. That includes issuing limits on carbon pollution from new and existing power plants and developing measures to ensure that the largely unregulated practice of fracking does not contaminate drinking water or do other damage to nearby communities.

The administration needs to complete its initiative to ensure that the headwater streams and wetlands that feed the drinking water supplies of over 117 million Americans are better protected from pollution and that people who use our waterways and swim at our beaches are protected from raw sewage overflows and dirty stormwater runoff.

America's water, air, and landscapes are shared resources and we have a shared responsibility to preserve them for future generations. Tonight we will look to how the president plans to help achieve that

Pearls Before Swine: The FDA Dodges Effort to Stop the Use of Antibiotics in Healthy Farm Animals

2012-01-20T17:53:30Z

Frances Beinecke, President of NRDC, New York City

Over the past several weeks, the Food and Drug Administration has been in the news for its stance on antibiotic use in farm animals. Yet instead of making good on its 1977 promise to limit these drugs in livestock, the agency is moving in the opposite direction. The latest developments reveal the FDA is actively trying to avoid protecting Americans from a known health hazard itself acknowledges.

In court papers filed last week, the FDA:

Acknowledged that scientists have long warned about antibiotic use: “In April 1970, the Commissioner established a scientific task force to review the use of antibiotic drugs in animal feeds. In 1972, that task force published a report acknowledging that the use of antimicrobials in food-producing animals was associated with the development of antimicrobial-resistant bacteria.”
Repeatedly confirmed the threat from antibiotics: “A series of additional studies were conducted by other government agencies and nongovernmental organizations during the 1990s, all of which generally supported FDA’s concerns regarding the public health threat posed by antimicrobial resistance.” And “a series of additional studies were conducted by other government agencies and non- governmental organizations during the 1990s, all of which generally supported FDA’s concerns regarding the public health threat posed by antimicrobial resistance.”
Said use of antibiotics in farm animals should be limited: “The use of medically important antimicrobial drugs in food-producing animals should be limited to those uses that are considered necessary for assuring animal health.”

Anyone who has ever watched a child recover from strep throat or a parent rebound from pneumonia knows the healing power of antibiotics. Yet over the last few decades, we have been squandering the power of these medicines.

Roughly 70 percent of all antibiotics used in the United States are given to healthy farm animals to foster rapid growth and make up for unhygienic living conditions. Many bacteria that live on animals adapt and transfer to humans, spreading superbugs that are often resistant to treatment.

For more than 35 years, the Food and Drug Administration has recognized that giving antibiotics to farm animals poses a risk to human health, yet the agency has done almost nothing to stop it. Indeed, it has mastered the art of making inaction look like action. Last May, NRDC and our partners sued the FDA to prompt it to take action. Instead, the agency retrenched.

It started by claiming the livestock industry could police itself. In our lawsuit, we asked the FDA to finally rule on two citizen petitions—one filed 12 years ago, the other 6 years ago—urging the agency to stop the use of antibiotics in healthy animals. In November, the FDA announced that although it shares concerns that the use of antibiotics to make animals grow faster is dangerous for humans, it denied the petition because it was pursuing an alternative strategy.

This so-called alternative strategy is just another name for the status quo. Instead of banning the use of antibiotics in healthy animals, the FDA is allowing the livestock industry to follow a voluntary approach. But we already know voluntary doesn’t work. The FDA has been operating under that model since 1977, yet the practice has expanded exponentially over the years. Talk about the fox guarding the hen house.

In December, the FDA tried to further justify its inaction by erasing the historic record. Back in 1977, the agency proposed to withdraw approval for the use of several antibiotics in animal feed based on findings published in two notices posted in the Federal Register. The notices containing the findings have been listed in the Federal Register for more than three decades. But just before Christmas a few weeks ago, the FDA pulled the notices. Instead of fixing the problem, the agency wants to act as though it never recognized the problem in the first place.

Soon after it buried its 35-year-old proposal, the agency tried to have it both ways. On January 5, it proposed banning off-label uses of a class of antibiotics known as cephalosporins on healthy livestock. That sounds like a step in the right direction, and the agency got some favorable press, but keep in mind that cephalosporins account for less than .25 percent of all antibiotics used in agriculture.

This tiny gesture reveals a fundamental problem within the FDA’s position: the agency has never disputed the science proving that antibiotic use in healthy animals is a health risk, and yet it still refuses to take bold action and action that we believe it is legally obligated to take.

And in its official response to NRDC’s lawsuit last week, the FDA repeatedly confirmed the threat, as noted in those gems above. Like the Center for Disease Control, the World Health Organization, and other medical experts, the FDA knows that giving healthy pigs, cows, and chickens some of the humankind’s most effective drugs is a dangerous risk.

It is well past time for the agency to do something with that knowledge.

Many countries—including all 27 members of the EU—have successfully stopped using antibiotics for growth promotion, while protecting food prices and increasing food production. Now the United States must do the same, and NRDC will continue pushing the FDA to lead the way.

Obama Rejects the Keystone XL Pipeline and Protects America's National Interest

2012-01-18T20:25:47Z

Frances Beinecke, President of NRDC, New York City

The Obama Administration has rejected the Keystone XL pipeline for tar sands oil. This decision puts the health and safety of the American people above the interests of Big Oil. And it confirms President Obama’s commitment to combating the threats of climate change, air pollution, and oil addiction.

President Obama’s decision represents a victory of truth over misinformation. Here in the United States, oil companies trumpet false job claims and promise a secure supply of oil. But in the Canadian press, oil companies talk freely about using the pipeline to export oil to Asian markets and charge more money for the oil they do sell in the U.S.

The facts reveal this pipeline was never in America’s national interest. It would have endangered our people, our air, our water, and our lands for the benefit of oil companies. The Obama administration rejected the Keystone XL pipeline for all the right reasons.

This project would have endangered American communities. It would have cut through six states, across hundreds of miles of crop and rangeland, and over the Ogallala Aquifer—the source of fresh water for millions of Americans. Pipeline safety regulators have admitted they cannot guarantee current standards are strong enough to ensure tar sands pipelines can be built and operated safely.

Tar sands oil is highly corrosive, and pipelines that carry it have proven more prone to spills than those for conventional crude. One tar sands pipeline operated by the same company behind the Keystone XL project experienced 35 leaks in the U.S. and Canada its first year of operation and had to be temporarily shut down by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Building and operating this risky project would have created few Americans jobs. Supporters like to say the pipeline could generate “tens of thousands” of jobs. But representatives of TransCanada, the company behind the pipeline, said in sworn testimony the project will only generate “hundreds” of permanent jobs. The State Department thinks the number of permanent jobs is closer to 20.

The State Department also estimated the pipeline would create between 5,000 and 6,000 temporary construction jobs. That’s a typical amount for a major construction project, but it is not a national jobs plan.

Claims that the pipeline would have delivered a secure supply of oil to America were also wildly overblown. The Keystone XL pipeline would have been an export pipeline. By rerouting tar sands oil out of the Midwest and into the “Foreign Trade Zone” in Port Arthur, Texas, companies could ship it anywhere in the world. Indeed, companies get incentives to export from there.

In Congressional testimony, TransCanada refused to support a condition that the oil in Keystone XL would be used in the United States. Meanwhile, by diverting Canadian oil that would otherwise go to the Midwest, TransCanada has admitted the pipeline would increase the price Americans pay for Canadian oil by $3.9 billion.

This project wouldn’t have delivered lower gas prices or good jobs, but it would have helped accelerate climate change. Extracting tar sands oil produces three times as much global warming pollution as conventional crude.

Last year, America experienced 14 disastrous weather events that created over a billion dollars in damages each—and all-time record. Scientists have already linked extreme weather to climate change and say more devastating events are headed our way. We can no longer ignore the enormous cost of burning dirty fuels like tar sands oil.

By rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline, President Obama is helping move America down a cleaner, safer path.

He is also listening to the public outcry over this project. From farmers and ranchers in Nebraska to more than 10,000 people who gathered at the White House this fall, Americans have registered their opposition to Keystone XL. Today’s decision shows President Obama heard our voices over the din of industry’s PR campaign.

The oil industry’s allies in Congress will no doubt continue to lobby for this project. But NRDC will continue to fight back, because we know the White House has made the right decision for America today and we know that no version of the Keystone XL pipeline will serve our national interest.

Obama's Call to Move NOAA Could Undermine Ocean Scientists' Independence

2012-01-15T17:51:36Z

Frances Beinecke, President of NRDC, New York City

President Obama has announced a plan to move the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration out of the Commerce Department and into the Department of the Interior. While streamlining government to better serve the American people is a worthy undertaking, this decision could significantly undermine efforts to safeguard our oceans and marine life.

NOAA is the most important voice America has on the state of our oceans. It is also one of our best resources for understanding the changing atmosphere and the increase in severe storm events. Its scientific expertise and data-driven decisions are world renowned.

More than ever before, our oceans need thoughtful, science-based management. Depleted fisheries, growing acidification of ocean waters from carbon pollution, and expanded drilling in ever-more extreme environments are just some of the issues nation has to tackle. Now is the time for our oceans experts to apply their skills, not lose their independence.

Housing NOAA within a department whose focus on the oceans is almost entirely extractive (permitting offshore oil drilling and exploration, for example) could erode the capability and mute the voices of the government’s chief oceans experts.

I served on the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, and one year ago we delivered our findings about what caused the deadly spill and how America could avoid another oil disaster.

In our report, we underscored the critical importance of having strong and independent scientific and environmental input into offshore drilling decisions and, to that end, recommended a strengthened role for NOAA in the decision-making process.

Moving NOAA into the Department of the Interior is not a recipe for strengthening NOAA or ensuring its independence.

The way the Interior Department has been dealing with oil drilling in the Arctic Ocean is a case in point. Our commission concluded that the government cannot make thoughtful decisions about the future of drilling in the Arctic Ocean until we close two critical gaps: the gap in our scientific understanding of the Arctic ecosystem and the gap in our ability to respond to spills in that forbidding landscape.

NOAA has expressed concerns about Arctic drilling in the past, it should be helping to fill the research gap. But what will its role be if it gets folded into a department that didn’t place value on conducting that scientific review before it allowed drilling?

We understand the president’s interest in creating a more nimble, coherent entity for economic policy; but that can be done without sacrificing the scientific and environmental strengths of NOAA, and the independent perspectives it brings to America’s ocean riches.

Obama Administration Maps the Way toward Better Oceans Management

2012-01-12T18:03:04Z

Frances Beinecke, President of NRDC, New York City

Many Americans are familiar with the pleasures of swimming, fishing, and beachcombing along our ocean waters. But few people know how much the oceans contribute to our national economy. In 2009, ocean-related tourism and recreation alone generated more than 1.8 million jobs. In fact, oceans contribute more to our nation’s economic output than the entire U.S. farm sector.

I had the privilege of serving on the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling. My experience talking with fishermen, tourist business operators, and coastal residents brought home for me just how much Americans depend upon healthy ocean waters.

Yet for decades, America lacked a comprehensive system for managing our ocean riches and protecting the jobs that healthy oceans create. People who depend upon the sea had to navigate over 100 different laws and policies, managers had a hard time balancing competing interests, and state and local leaders had few opportunities to create long-term plans for marine ecosystems

The Obama Administration is helping change that. On Thursday it released a draft implementation plan for America’s first-ever National Ocean Policy. The draft plan is a blueprint of what we need to do in order to help address some of the biggest challenges facing ocean life – from ocean acidification to threatened water quality to habitat degradation. This plan will help us achieve the National Ocean Policy’s goal to protect and restore our ocean resources.

Photo credit: Andrew Malone

The push to create a National Ocean Policy has long-standing bipartisan support. Two national commissions—the first established by Congress and appointed by President George W. Bush and the Pew Oceans Commission chaired by the Honorable Leon Panetta—both identified the need for a national plan several years ago.

Still, some GOP lawmakers are trying to fold the National Ocean Policy into their anti-government rhetoric. They claim the policy will create new layers of bureaucracy and regulation, when in fact it will do neither.

By streamlining the way existing agencies work, it will reduce government waste, inefficiency, and delay. Under the National Ocean Policy, all the government agencies that play a role in ocean-related work—from fishing to shipping to offshore energy and coastal development—will coordinate their efforts, saving time and taxpayer money.

One of the most forward-looking elements of the National Ocean Policy is its call for comprehensive ocean planning. Every day, decisions are made about the industrial use of our oceans, and most of them are made on a “first-come, first-served” ad hoc basis. The American public has few opportunities to weigh in, and managers rarely have time to consider how allowing shipping in one area will affect fishermen’s catches or how allowing drilling offshore will impact tourism on the coast.

Comprehensive ocean planning involves a thoughtful assessment of what ocean uses are compatible, what are not and what’s needed to maintain the overall health of ocean resources and ecosystems. It gives everyone interested in the oceans—from state and federal agencies to tribes, businesses, fishermen, and ordinary citizens—the ability to be involved in the discussion about our oceans’ future. It’s an important way to ensure a healthy ocean future for our country.

Our marine riches do not belong to just one region or one industrial sector, they belong to every American and they should be managed in the most inclusive and comprehensive manner. The Obama Administration’s National Ocean Policy and implementation plan will get us moving in the right direction.

Obama Says He Stands By the EPA's Efforts to Create a Cleaner, Healthier Nation

2012-01-11T15:03:00Z

Frances Beinecke, President of NRDC, New York City

President Obama sent a strong message to the Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday when he told agency staffers he will “stand with you every inch of the way as you carry out your mission to make sure that we've got a cleaner world.”

During his speech at the agency, the president highlighted what most Americans expect: clean air, clean water and their health protected. His unwavering support for the dedicated men and women at the EPA is a welcome vote of confidence after the year-long battering the agency has taken from Big Polluters and their Tea Party allies in Congress.

In their anti-government fervor, these forces have claimed the EPA thwarts job growth. But an agency that can create 31,000 short-term construction jobs and 9,000 long-term jobs and prevent tens of thousands of premature deaths with just one clean air standard has proven that public health protection and economic growth go hand-in-hand.

President Obama agrees. On Tuesday he said:

We don't have to choose between dirty air and dirty water, or a growing economy. We can make sure that we are doing right by our environment and, in fact, putting people back to work all across America. That's part of our mission. When we put in place new commonsense rules to reduce air pollution, we create new jobs building and installing all sorts of pollution-control technology. When we put in place new emission standards for our vehicles, we make sure that the cars of tomorrow are going to be built right here in the United States of America, that we're going to win that race.

Like the president, the American people value the work of the EPA as well. A survey conducted in October by Public Policy Polling commissioned by NRDC found that 78 percent of Americans want the EPA to hold polluters accountable for what they release into the community.

They know that in the absence of government safeguards, their families would be exposed to more mercury, particulate matter, raw sewage, and chemicals in drinking water. That’s how things used to be before the EPA existed—my colleague Peter Lehner’s blog has some powerful photos from that era—and I don’t know one American who wants to return to dirtier days.

The EPA staffers—along with the Republican and Democratic presidents and Congressmen who supported the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and other bedrock laws—deserve our thanks for their service.

As the president said, “The EPA touches on the lives of every, single American every, single day. You help make sure that the air we breathe, the water we drink, the foods we eat are safe. You protect the environment not just for our children, but their children.”

Obama Administration Announces Standards to Keep Our Families Safe from Mercury and Other Pollutants

2011-12-21T18:28:29Z

Frances Beinecke, President of NRDC, New York City

Whenever I talk with parents of young children about my work, they often ask me about mercury pollution. They know it can harm children and pregnant women and they know it is pervasive, but they are unsure how to keep their families safe.

Today that job just got easier. President Obama announced new standards to reduce mercury, lead, and other dangerous pollution from power plants. Now dirty coal-fired plants that fought standards for decades will finally have to clean up their act.

This is a major breakthrough for American families. Mercury is a potent neurotoxin that damages developing brains in children and fetuses. A congressionally mandated study by the National Academy of Sciences found that for women who eat large amounts of seafood during pregnancy, the mercury exposure was likely to increase the number of children “who struggle to keep up in school and might require remedial classes or special education.”

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, coal-fired power plants are the single largest source of industrial mercury pollution. Much of that mercury gets deposited in waterways, where fish absorb it, and when we eat the fish, we absorb it too.

This pollution is so ubiquitous that all 50 states advise people—especially women in childbearing years and young children—to avoid eating fish from certain contaminated waters. As of 2008, 38 states had statewide advisories.

Yet despite the widespread nature of this hazard, power plants have been dodging mercury and other air toxics rules for years. Every other major industrial sector in America is already reducing mercury and other air toxins. Oil refineries, chemical plants, plastics companies, the iron and steel industries, heavy manufacturers—they’ve all been subject to air toxic standards for more than 10 years.

Now it’s time for power plants to finally do their fair share.

About 50 percent of the coal-fired units in this country are more than 40 years old, and 44 percent of them have not bothered to install the technology that could easily reduce mercury and other toxins. Thanks to the new standards, these dirty dinosaurs will finally be brought into the 21st century and America will get a cleaner power fleet.

And American workers will have new job opportunities. Previous EPA estimates said the mercury standards could create 31,000 short-term construction jobs and 9,000 long-term jobs in the utility sector.

Meanwhile, Americans will reap the health benefits. In addition to limiting toxic mercury emissions, the new safeguards will reduce other pollutants that contribute to asthma, heart attacks, and cancer. As a result, the standards will save tens of thousands of American lives, prevent hundreds of thousands of cases of childhood asthma symptoms, and avoid tens of thousands of heart attacks, according to the EPA. These health benefits are expected to generate up to billions of dollars of savings.

The magnitude of these health benefits could make this rule one of the biggest environmental accomplishments of the Obama administration. I applaud the administration’s continued leadership in making our air cleaner and safer to breathe. You can click here to send your thanks to the White House as well.

NRDC's Green Gift Guide: Holiday Presents that Help Restore the Earth

2011-12-20T14:00:43Z

Frances Beinecke, President of NRDC, New York City

As the holidays draw closer, the pace of the season tends to accelerate. Between traveling, cooking, shopping, and party planning, most of us get caught up in a hectic swirl of festivity.

I welcome the holiday cheer, but while we gather with our friends and family, I hope we can all remember the larger world we are a part: the air, water, land that connect all living things. Even in our hectic modern lives, we rely on these natural systems to sustain us. We need the changing seasons, the coming rains, the fresh air, and the vibrant plants and animals in order to thrive.

We can honor these natural systems by giving thoughtful gifts this time of year.

We’ve all been on the receiving end of well intentioned but utterly useless presents that consume natural resources to produce but are destined for little more than a long life in a landfill. NRDC supporters Kyra Sedgwick, Laurie David, Tony Shalhoub, and others created a very funny series of PSAs about the gifts we never wanted.

Through NRDC’s Green Gifts, we can give gifts of substance and meaning, gifts that replenish the Earth rather than drain it. And NRDC’s Green Gift Guide can help you get started.

We suggest a wide range of sustainable presents that make a positive difference in the world. You could give your friends and family members the gift of having a tree planted in Costa Rica, a wolf pup adopted, or an urban park improved in their name. They can know that they are helping sue a dirty polluter or keep our beaches clean.

Our guide touches on a broad array of topics—from advancing clean energy to protecting wild places—making it easy to choose a gift that reflects your recipient’s individual passions. And with ideas starting at $15, there are presents that can fit anyone’s pocketbook.

When you give these gifts, you and your loved ones you become part of a larger web, a whole community working to restore and respect our natural systems. Here is what we can accomplish together:

Republican Leadership Holds Tax Relief for American Families Hostage to Keystone Pipeline

2011-12-18T15:33:19Z

Frances Beinecke, President of NRDC, New York City

At the insistence of Republican lawmakers, the tax bill moving through Congress includes a provision requiring President Obama to make a fast-track decision on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline in 60 days.

This is political opportunism at its most cynical. The Keystone rider has nothing to do with tax relief. But Republican leaders used what everyone agrees is the urgent need to extend the payroll tax and provide unemployment benefits to millions of Americans in order to score points with the oil industry.

They held American pocketbooks hostage in the midst of an economic crisis. They traded tax relief worth about $1,000 a year for the typical working family for a destructive boondoggle for an industry that raked in $101 billion in earnings in just the first nine months of the year.

Then they tried to claim they did it to create jobs. But even TransCanada, the company behind the pipeline, says the project will only generate “hundreds” of permanent jobs.

The good news is these lawmakers have overplayed their hand.

The administration has said it cannot make an adequate decision on a nearly 1,700-mile pipeline in two months, especially when TransCanada hasn’t determined its new route since the people of Nebraska demanded an alternate path. TransCanada said it could take up to twelve months to create a new route, but thanks to Congress, the clock is already ticking.

If forced under the gun to make a choice, President Obama will likely reject the project entirely.

The president said of the pipeline earlier this month, “This is a big project with big consequences. We’ve seen Democrats and Republicans express concerns about it. And it is my job as president of the United States to make sure that a process is followed that examines all the options, looks at all the consequences before a decision is made.”

The president recognizes this pipeline project must not be rushed. He also wants to give Americans tax relief right now. He will sign the bill to deliver those tax benefits. But the bill leaves him no choice but to reject the Keystone XL pipeline.

That is what Americans from across the nation have been demanding for months. Ranchers, farmers, religious leaders, business executives, union members, major campaign donors, and the more than 10,000 people who encircled the White House on November 6 have all been saying the same thing: a tar sands oil pipeline is bad for America.

It doesn’t provide relief for America’s oil addiction. The real purpose of this pipeline is to give tar sands producers access to international markets. In its Congressional testimony, TransCanada http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VucRPHJtvGU support a condition that the oil on Keystone XL would be used in the United States. Meanwhile, TransCanada has admitted to Canadian regulators that Keystone XL will increase the price that the U.S. pays for Canadian oil by up to $4 billion.

Even as Americans watch most of the fuel go abroad, our communities would absorb the risk of transporting this highly corrosive oil. Pipeline safety regulators have admitted they cannot guarantee current standards are strong enough to ensure tar sands pipelines can be built and operated safely. TransCanada’s first tar sands pipeline spilled fourteen times in its first year of operation.

And there is no escaping the fact that tar sands oil accelerates climate change and the extreme weather and costly damage it creates in its wake. Extracting and processing tar sands crude generates three to four times as much greenhouse gas pollution as conventional oil. Replacing conventional fuel with tar sands from the Keystone XL pipeline would be like adding over 5 million more cars to the road in terms of carbon pollution.

We don’t need to take these risks. We can fuel our economy without putting our nation at risk. The new clean car standard proposed by President Obama will save drivers more than $80 billion a year at the pump while cutting our oil use by more than we imported from Saudi Arabia and Iraq in 2010. The new Low Carbon Fuel Standard measure in California—endorsed by auto manufacturers, veterans, health groups, and union workers at oil refineries—will prompt oil companies to stop stalling and start investing in cleaner alternatives to petroleum.

The Keystone XL pipeline for dirty tar sands oil has no place in a nation building a cleaner, more secure energy future. Republican lawmakers have forced President Obama into signing a tax bill with this 60-day Keystone provision. But now we need the president to demonstrate firm leadership and reject the Keystone XL pipeline.

Victory for Americans' Health and Environment: Most Dirty Riders Kept Out of Spending Bill

2011-12-16T20:44:00Z

Frances Beinecke, President of NRDC, New York City

Over the past few weeks, Republican lawmakers have been trying to stuff the must-pass government spending bill with policy riders designed to weaken environmental safeguards. But thanks to President Obama and Democratic leaders, dozens of the worst anti-environmental have been kept out of the spending bill that Democratic and Republican lawmakers agreed on Thursday night.

This is a victory for America’s environment and public health. The riders would have caused real harm to children living with asthma, to elders struggling with cardiac disease, to the waters we depend upon, and to the wild animals and landscapes we cherish.

But it is a victory in a battle that we should never have had to fight.

Spending bills should not be used to rewrite bedrock environmental laws or block progress in cleaning up our air and water. Riders just slow Congress’ work on spending bills and shield major changes in law from public scrutiny. Yet all year long, Republican lawmakers have tried to use riders to benefit polluting industries and score ideological points.

Their attacks have been relentless, and as a result, some of their dirty riders remain in the spending bill, including a rider that blocks the Department of Energy from enforcing a new energy efficiency standard for light bulbs until next fiscal year.

The standard—which can be met with already available incandescent or compact florescent bulbs—will save Americans about $12 billion on energy bills. It has strong support not only from manufacturers and consumer groups, but from Republican and Democratic lawmakers as well.

Representative Fred Upton (R-MI) was a lead author of the provision that created the standard. But that was before the Tea Party emerged on the scene and turned a money-saving standard agreed upon by all stakeholders into a political punching bag. Upton’s support of what he knew to be a smart standard faded away.

The good news is the rider does not change the underlying law. States can still enforce the standard and leading manufacturers intend to start honoring it now. But the rider will still slow progress toward a cleaner economy.

Another rider related to the Arctic will have even more long-range impacts. This one takes clean air permitting for oil companies away from the Environmental Protection Agency and gives it to the Department of Interior. This may sound like a bureaucratic matter, but it’s important to remember the EPA was originally granted authority because lawmakers knew it was more likely than Interior to put firm limits on oil companies’ pollution.

Now only will this rider make Alaska’s air dirtier, but it also demonstrates why riders are an illegitimate way of legislating. Few people besides the sponsor, Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), were aware this rider was tucked into a massive spending bill. What amounts to a major change in the way air pollution is controlled in the Arctic received no scrutiny and zero debate.

Other destructive riders related to forestry and protections for big horn sheep benefited from a similar lack of transparency. But in the end, the majority of anti-environmental riders got removed from the bill.

It’s hard not to view this process as an enormous distraction. Congress could have passed a bill three months ago when the fiscal year began, but instead it created a manufactured crisis and renewed worries of government shutdowns all because of these unrelated policy riders.

Poll after poll shows that Americans value strong government protections against pollution. They don’t want Congress to weaken safeguards in backroom deals or ideological battles—especially not when those deals would expose our families to more mercury, lead, and other dangerous toxins.

There is still a chance GOP lawmakers will succeed in tacking on dangerous riders to the upcoming tax bill. But as far as the spending bill goes, American families have triumphed over polluters in the dirty rider fight.