News

No fracking way: Keeping hydraulic fracturing out of California

Ross Hammond, Senior Campaigner, Climate & Energy Program — Tue, 21 May 2013 10:16:35 -0400

Thanks to new high-tech advances, California is on the verge of another oil boom: a fracking boom. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking as it is commonly known, involves drilling horizontal wells and pumping toxic fluids into them at high pressure, which cracks the rocks to allow the trapped shale oil to escape.

The problems with fracking are enormous and well documented in places like Pennsylvania and North Dakota, where an oil and natural gas boom has meant a dramatic increase in the practice. Pollution, spills, accidents, earthquakes and property damage have all been tied to this dirty and destructive practice.

Right now, California doesn’t require companies to report when or where they’re fracking, or what chemicals they’re pumping into the ground. So Friends of the Earth has joined Californians Against Fracking, a coalition working to stop this misguided attempt to pry more filthy oil out of the bedrock of our state.

Here’s why we’re saying “No Fracking Way” to Big Oil in California:

Fracking creates serious water concerns. The process involves injecting massive amounts of water, chemicals and sand deep underground. Here in California, we don’t have water to spare for fracking. The industry claims they use between 80,000 and 300,000 gallons of water per well, though that figure is likely low. In a state where drought is common and water a scarce and prized resource, giving away our water for oil extraction seems short-sighted at best.

And scarcity isn’t the only water concern. Those chemicals I mentioned earlier -- many of them known carcinogens -- are another huge problem with fracking. Some of these toxins return to the surface in wastewater and are disposed of in evaporation pits, which can cause serious problems when they leak. And they do leak. One investigation conducted by ProPublica found more than 1,000 cases of water contamination near drilling sites.

But most of them are injected along with the rest of the wastewater deep underground, where they can contaminate groundwater and aquifers, poisoning what fresh water reserves the state has.

Some of California’s shale oil is as filthy as Canadian Tar Sands oil. California’s shale oil is incredibly dirty, carbon-intensive stuff. In fact, shale oil is so dirty that legally, we won’t even be able to refine it in California, much less use it. Thanks to the state’s new “low-carbon fuel standard,” fuel producers must lower the carbon intensity of all fuels sold in California … which means we’ll pollute our land, air and water all for some other states’ benefit.

But even if we don’t burn this filthy fuel here, just extracting it is bad enough. Drilling and fracking contribute to serious air pollution problems as well as climate change. Some of the fluid in the fracking process turns into gas at high pressures, which then vents to the surface. And, like the wastewater, that gas is filled with cancer-causing fracking chemicals. According to a report from Food and Water Watch, one recent study “found that people living within half a mile of fracking operations face significantly higher cancer risk, and higher risk of developing other health problems because of air pollution, compared to people who live farther away.”

Fracking can increase seismic activity. The journal of the American Geophysical Union published a paper documenting the link between the fracking process and increased seismic activity in areas with known faults. California is one of the most earthquake prone states in the country. The companies assure us that it’s fine -- they won’t drill into any known faults. But the Northridge earthquake, which killed 50 people in 1994, happened on an unknown fault. And no one knows what will happen when companies start injecting massive amounts of fracking fluids into unknown faults.

Claims that fracking will provide a big boost to California’s economy may not actually be true. A recent study released by the University of Southern California claims that fracking California’s Monterey Shale could increase the state’s economy by 14%, creating half a million jobs in the next two years. However, those rosy projections may not be entirely accurate. In fact, the main study cited was financed and run by -- you guessed it -- the oil companies. DeSmogBlog did some investigating and found that the report was funded at least in part by the Western States Petroleum Association. One of the co-authors is currently employed by Big Oil. Perhaps more damning is the fact that the study wasn’t peer-reviewed -- the outside reviewers who did look at the report also had ties to Big Oil -- and was published “in association with” a PR firm.

Three bills working their way through the California legislature right now would put a moratorium on fracking in the state. We’re calling on our supporters to urge their legislators to support A.B. 1301, the strongest of the three. We’re also pushing them to reject AB7, a bill that would allow fracking to continue in California and would keep fracking chemicals secret from the public.

California has a chance to be out in front of the fight against fracking by declaring a moratorium on this dangerous extraction method. Only a few states -- New York, New Jersey and Vermont -- have already enacted bans or moratoriums on fracking.

Now it’s our turn. Friends of the Earth and our new coalition will be fighting hard in the California legislature to get a moratorium passed, and we’ll be helping rally Californians statewide to call for this important ban.

California REDD: A False Solution

Jeff Conant — Mon, 20 May 2013 15:08:40 -0400

Friends of the Earth is deeply devoted to curbing both deforestation and averting catastrophic climate change. Yet FoE’s international forests campaign has been actively engaged in opposing California’s pending adoption of a program known as REDD – Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation. Indeed, we’ve taken the lead, along with Greenpeace, California Environmental Justice Alliance, and two dozen other groups in asking the governor of California and the California Air Resources Board to reject REDD, and have just published an Op-Ed in the Sacramento Bee asking Californians to oppose the agreement.

So, if we care so much about forests and the climate, what gives?

Among environmental advocates, and especially forest defenders, REDD can be a complicated and divisive issue; among those a little beyond the inner circles of environmental advocacy, it’s downright baffling. FoE’s position is explained in our issue briefs here and here, and in past news releases (here and here), as well as in this cheeky breakdown of Ten Ways to Game the Carbon Market. Our position is also supported by a number of letters sent to California policymakers recently from Chiapas, Mexico, (“REDD will legally allow the continuation of the predatory and consumerist model”), from Acre, Brazil (“REDD represents the ‘theft’ of yet another ‘raw material’ from the territories of the peoples of the South: the ‘carbon reserves’ in their forests”), from the Corner House in the UK (“the toxic legacy of REDD would engrave the name Jerry Brown permanently in the ‘enemies of the environment roster’”), and from our sister groups in Friends of the Earth Latin America and the Caribbean (“REDD shifts responsibility for the climate crisis to the countries of the South, which do not have historical responsibility for the crisis”).

These letters are strongly worded, indicating the fierce stance that many opposing groups take to the issue. Given that proponents of REDD strongly believe that California's proposal is a win-win, I’d like to shine a little more light on our position.

REDD, which stands for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation, proposes to put a price on standing forests in order to incentivize conserving them. This leads many enviros to think it’s a conservation effort. But it’s not. It’s a carbon offset scheme, and a dubious one at that. Reducing emissions from deforestation is crucial, both for climate change mitigation and simply because we need to preserve our remaining forests – but expecting carbon markets to do the job can, and does, lead to very problematic outcomes.

For years economists have promoted carbon trading as the cheapest way to cut carbon pollution – though this notion took a major body blow recently when The Economist (among many others) declared the EU emissions trading scheme both ineffective, and, to put it plainly, dead. Swiss banking giant UBS reported that the EU scheme had cost the continent's consumers $287 billion for "almost zero impact" on cutting carbon emissions. These massive failings led Carbon Trade Watch and 120 other groups to note that “The use of offset projects has resulted in an increase of emissions worldwide… and has brought severe social and environmental consequences to communities where the offset projects are implemented, together with communities living next to the industrial facilities that buy the credits” and to call on Europe to scrap the European Emissions Trading System.

And this is the morass that California is wading into. While even some of our favorite media sources buy the state’s line that California can succeed where others have failed, we believe such wishful thinking is pure hubris. With even Time Magazine seeing the carbon bubble about to burst, it seems necessary to repeat what social movements and groups like Climate Justice Now! have known for years: that drastic reductions in emissions from fossil fuel use are the only way to avert the climate crisis. Indeed, Oilwatch International sent California policymakers a statement with a pretty clear message to that effect: “Don’t let Shell roast the planet.”

What these concerns point to is that emissions trading simply subsidizes the fossil fuel industry. Interestingly, many groups deeply invested in REDD are also deeply invested in fossil fuels -- a point that should give serious pause.

But enough about fossil fuels—have I mentioned forests yet? If not, it’s because forests are secondary to REDD (it’s a carbon offset scheme), and secondary to California’s plan.

Proponents of REDD as a mechanism for saving forests assert that by putting a price on the carbon stored in trees, existing economic incentives to deforest could be reversed. However, numerous studies show that failure to address the true drivers of deforestation – high demand for wood products, expansion of industrial agriculture, illegal and unplanned forest conversion, conflicts over land and resources, and extractive activities – will generally undermine any effort to ‘protect’ forests through “payment for ecosystem services” schemes such as REDD. In other words, expecting carbon markets to do the job of protecting forests can, and does, lead to very problematic outcomes.

Some of these outcomes are described by Tracey Osbourne of the School of Geography and Development at the University of Arizona, and other academics at the Public Political Ecology Lab. Osbourne, who has put in years studying carbon forestry in a Mayan community in the Lacandon Jungle of Chiapas, finds that “when the carbon market enters forest ecosystems, it targets land uses of low market value, which in many developing countries is derived from subsistence needs.” “In an early program that intended to lay the groundwork for REDD+ in Chiapas,” she writes, “subsistence activities were constrained while production of African oil palm and jatropha for biofuels received subsides from the state.”

In other words, Osbourne’s findings show that carbon forestry requires that farmers give up producing food for themselves in exchange for ‘capturing carbon’. Proponents of a market-based logic tend to see this as “providing economic opportunity.” But proponents of indigenous rights and cultural integrity tend to see it as causing cultural erosion, with the attendant negative impacts to the ecologies that have been cared for by local cultures forever, precisely through their subsistence activities.

Kathy MacAfee, Associate Professor of International Relations at SF State, argues that“Ecosystem services have become the latest in a long history of tropical-commodity miracle crops” that “are no more likely to boost prosperity for the majority in the exporting regions than did coffee, sugar, rubber, or any such commodities in the past.”

In other words, just as in coffee, sugar, rubber, and other commodity markets, the middle-men involved in REDD and carbon trading will likely capture the greatest part of the profit, while the producers go hungry.

MacAfee’s conclusions match those of the Munden Project, a comprehensive assessment of REDD+ conducted by experts in derivatives trading, which points out, “Experience with numerous commodities markets shows a generalized pattern whereby commodity producers receive an extremely limited percentage of the final commodity cost.”

It is not only concern for misplaced project benefits that worries community-based organizations in Chiapas – it is concern that REDD will continue to exacerbate land conflicts and lead to ongoing evictions in the densely forested and hotly contested Lacandon jungle. (I’ve documented these concerns extensively here, here, and here and we’ve posted current documentation about the evictions in Chiapas here.)

And this is where the rubber tree hits the tarmac. Many REDD and PES schemes, including early efforts in Chiapas and Acre, the states where California hopes to draw its REDD offset credits from, have either caused or exacerbated social conflicts. This is what we meant when, in our open letter to the Governor and California Air Resources Board, we stated that “Based on the experiences of existing REDD mechanisms and processes, we strongly believe that subnational REDD initiatives financed primarily or wholly through offsets will be inefficient, ineffective, and will lead to perverse outcomes.”

One such perverse outcome, from the early effort to promote a REDD-type project in Chiapas was noted in a press release put out by FoE last October, where Rosario Aguilar, a health promoter from Chiapas, said, “Even before California has established its market, the REDD project being implemented in our communities is causing conflict and displacement. As part of their plan to move indigenous people off the land, the government cut off medical services to the village of Amador Hernández in the Lacandon Jungle. This is why we say that REDD is promoting death, not life.”

The hope for California REDD is that it will set a high bar for social and environmental safeguards, and by submitting subnational efforts to the light of international scrutiny, will prevent any further abuses of this sort. According to the recommendations of the REDD Offsets Working Group, no state could trade emissions offsets with California unless they have strict statewide deforestation baselines and targets, ensure local communities' lives are improved, respect indigenous peoples' rights, and meet or exceed the environmental standards of California. That certainly sounds good, but the question is how it can be carried out in practice, especially in states with long histories of conflict and depredation.

Intelligent people can have different positions on REDD, as the saying goes, and support for a program such as the one proposed by California is certainly understandable among those who, justifiably, want to see money for forest protection and low-carbon development. But even in Acre, Brazil—the state touted as having the most advanced ecosystem services law in the world—a number of groups have expressed concerns about the very nature of the proposal. An open letter from groups in Acre to the state of California calls REDD “a proposal based on a limited view of the forest, aimed at benefiting business interests and a small group linked to the government, while deepening already existing environmental and social injustice.”

A central concern expressed by the critical groups in Brazil is that REDD “is not an idea that emerged from an indigenous village or forest community in Acre." They go on to point out that:

"It emerged at the international level, through the combination of, among others: (1) the conservationist interests of big environmental NGOs in the North, (2) the interests of national and sub-national governments in the North seeking low-cost alternatives to supposedly ‘offset’ their continued and excessive emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases, (3) the interests of national and sub-national governments in the South seeking to obtain financial resources for the ‘protection’ of forests in their countries, (4) the interests of corporations that could profit from market-tradable ‘offset’ credits, including through speculation on secondary (derivatives) markets, which would allow them to continue destroying the forests for the extraction of timber, minerals or oil, the establishment of monoculture plantations, etc., thus expanding their business opportunities, and (5) the interests of consultants and other actors involved in financial capital markets who want to turn ‘unexploited’ forests into a new market for this type of capital, through the commercialization of ‘environmental services’ such as carbon sequestration, among others.”

A few years ago when cap-and-trade was in Congress, a lot of environmentalists wondered why FoE opposed it. In short, it was because, unless it's fundamentally rebuilt to maximize the cap and minimize the trade, cap-and-trade is a false solution to the climate crisis, and a bad deal for the planet. (Climate scientist James Hansen called it “the path focused on corporate greed.”) Now, in California, where cap-and-trade is already on the books, another false solution is on the table. In case anyone’s wondering why we oppose REDD in California – it’s the same story: unless it can be fundamentally reformed to favor the forests by first and foremost protecting those who live in them, it’s a false solution, and a bad deal for the planet.

BP greenwashes as climate dangers grow

Adam Russell — Fri, 17 May 2013 13:25:16 -0400

BP's careful control of image hides a record that should be alarming

With spring fully sprung and another Earth Day past, it is critical the public stay alert to corporations that wrap themselves in a green patina while acting to the contrary. King among the “green-washers” is British Petroleum, BP -- going as far as to assert to having gone “Beyond Petroleum.”

In future years -- on future Earth Days -- BP should forever be associated with this nation’s largest oil spill, caused by the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. While the Deepwater Horizon blew up on April 20 three years ago, it was not until two days -- Earth Day -- later that a five-mile slick was reported. That was attributed only to the 700,000 gallons of fuel carried on the rig at the time. It wasn’t until April 25 that a gusher over a mile subsurface was revealed.

Spill rate estimates grew from 40,000 gallons per hour to 200,000 gallons as data became available to conduct independent estimates. It took three months to “kill” the well, but not before more than 210 million gallons were “spilled” and numerous fish and wildlife were killed, along with the 11 crew members that died. BP added an additional 2 million gallons of dispersants at depth and on surface in an unprecedented ecological experiment to minimize surface manifestations.

Unlike the numerous iconic images of the Exxon Valdez spill that has remained in the public eye and consciousness for the past 24 years, BP masterfully controlled broadcast and Internet coverage of the Deepwater disaster, downplaying the impacts while restricting the ability of reporters to provide independent documentation. As a result of this and domination of the electronic and print media, the legal hearings to determine the degree of BP’s culpability in the Gulf of Mexico debacle concluded last month in Louisiana with little notice.

BP has spent millions attempting to counterfeit green credentials, while we sweat it out during this perilous time in the earth’s history. Whether it intentionally withheld flow rate information in the early days of the explosion -- just one of the many issues BP is being tried for in an apparent attempt to reduce its liability -- or not, its actions serve as a teachable moment for a world where carbon dioxide levels have just reached a critical point. BP should come to epitomize the term “green washing” in order to prevent its singular moment in our nation’s fossil fuel dependency from succumbing to a corporate barrage of bluster and slipping silently beneath the waves of public awareness.

While the world worries about carbon levels, BP recently announced a halt to its solar program, the very program behind the change to its current sun-inspired corporate logo. BP is now heavily invested in the highest carbon content tar sand-derived oil, for which it pays nothing into state or federal response accounts because the federal government does not consider it to be “oil.” Washington State does not tax oil entering the state by pipeline or rail, despite the risks posed.

By overlaying a self-righteous, green façade on the British company's aggressive corporate acquisitions in the United States, BP’s “Astroturf” campaign effectively deflected attention and regulatory scrutiny at a critical time in its expansion. Not to mention the short-term profit-taking the mergers afforded.

During this time, BP was on probation not only for serious accidents it had in Texas and Alaska, but for manipulation of the propane market. This manipulation was documented by Jeanne Pascal, the former EPA Region X officer assigned to BP in Seattle in ProPublica reporter Abraham Lustgarten’s excellent book, Run to Failure. Pascal's views need to be heard during this critical time. At least, we must find out what happened to the file she was about to present regarding EPA’s debarment of BP from federal contracts before her abrupt retirement. Since retiring, she has been quoted expressing dismay as to how the Department of Defense had interfered with her investigations.

The public needs to distinguish between corporations walking the walk vs. talking the talk. This is especially true now as we hear promises from the proponents of an unprecedented cavalcade of coal, tar sand and shale oil export proposals through Northwest rails and waterways. Not since the late 1970s, when Washington refineries switched from crude supplied by pipeline from Alberta to tankers from Alaska, has there been a bigger risk increase of a major oil spill besmirching our region.

While we have heard many government officials and industry representatives praise BP’s willingness to spend enormous sums of money in response to the Gulf gusher, BP has a long reputation of being pound-foolish when it comes to preventative maintenance. This tendency is documented in "Run to Failure." What may be lost on those willing to praise BP's cleanup efforts is the fact that the company has so much to lose as the nation’s largest offshore oil leaseholder and provider of defense fuels. (There still is some question as to how much its insurance will cover what it will be able to deduct from its taxes).

“Despite BP’s slick ad campaigns, the Gulf is still hurting and can’t wait any longer for restoration,” Cynthia Sarthou, executive director of the Gulf Restoration Network, recently told Grist. She reminded us that two years ago BP promised to spend $1 billion on early restoration, to be used in two years. To date, BP has spent a mere 7 percent of the promised total. "It’s time BP be held fully accountable under the law,” she said.

It is equally important that the United States stop giving the company taxpayer dollars as long as BP continues to use them irresponsibly. Since much of the evidence of the spill’s impacts are tied up in litigation and the impacts on the lower food chain will not be immediately apparent, an adequate fund should be created to monitor the toxological impacts and habitat restoration efforts for at least a decade. At the same time, it is critical that the Obama Administration phase BP off the government dole and diversify with less recidivist energy providers, to operate reliably on our public lands and through our waters and could be depended on for defense fuels.

Regardless of who provides our nation with these filthy fuels, they will spill havoc on our waters and wreck our climate if we continue to subsidize their combustion. Time to tax carbon and sing, “Here Comes the Sun” in the manner of Richie Havens, who ironically died on Earth Day: Like we mean it. And unlike BP's supposed commitment to solar and other forms of clean energy.

This post was originally posted on Crosscut.com on May 12, 2013.

Photo credit: U.S. Coast Guard, Wikimedia Commons via Creative Commons

Worst bee die-off in 40 years

Lisa Archer — Tue, 14 May 2013 14:05:00 -0400

Updated May 2013: Take action here to tell Home Depot, Lowe's and other stores not to carry products containing bee-killing neonicotinoids.

Spring is in the air, and as we plant our vegetable gardens and enjoy the blossoming flowers, it’s easy to forget the small creatures that keep many of our spring favorites alive and are essential to our food supply: bees.

One out of every three bites of food you and I eat is pollinated by honeybees. In fact, bees and other pollinators are necessary for about 75 percent of our global food crops. From nuts and soybeans, to squash and cucumbers, from apples, oranges, cherries and blueberries, to avocados, peaches and melons, bees play a critical role in producing the food we eat. Honey bees also contribute over $15 billion to the U.S. economy. Bees are a keystone species and with roughly 80 percent of all flowering plants on the earth reliant on pollinators to reproduce, if we lose bees we will likely lose a host of other important species.

As you may have read in the news, these critical pollinators are in trouble, victims of Colony Collapse Disorder -- or CCD, a phenomenon in which bee colonies have been mysteriously collapsing when adult bees seemingly abandon their hives. This last winter, beekeepers reported bee die-offs of more than 50 percent -- the worst loss in more than 40 years. CCD has pushed the beekeeping industry in the U.S. to the verge of collapse, and this could spell trouble for a variety of our favorite foods from almonds to blueberries.

For years, the cause of CCD was a scientific mystery, but a growing body of scientific evidence is pointing to a key factor, a class of neurotoxic pesticides called neonicotinoids, or neonics. In fact, a January 2013 European Food Safety Authority report labeled neonicotinoids as an 'unacceptable' danger to bees. And a new report from the American Bird Conservancy provides compelling evidence that neonics are also harming birds.

Neonics are the fastest-growing class of synthetic pesticides in history, and the neonicotinoid imidacloprid (Bayer Crop Science's top-selling product), is currently the most widely used insecticide in the world. Neonics are used as seed treatments on more than 140 crop varieties, as well as on termites, cat and dog flea treatments, lawns, landscapes and gardens. Neonics are persistent and last for years in the soil. They permeate the entire plant and are expressed in pollen, nectar and guttation droplets (dew). And, they can’t be washed off food, meaning that we are all eating them.

What’s worse, neonics aren’t just in use in commercial agriculture. Many of the plants and seeds we buy in nurseries across the U.S. have been pre-treated with the pesticides and at much higher doses than is used on farms -- so when we plant our gardens we may unwittingly be harming bees!

The EPA approved Bayer's products based on the companies own studies and despite mounting evidence – including a memo by the EPA’s own scientists discrediting Bayer’s original study – and 1.25 million public comments, the EPA has delayed action on neonics until 2018. Other governments haven’t been so slow to act. Governments in Italy, Germany, France and elsewhere have already taken action to limit neonics, and beekeepers there are reporting recovery.

The 2013 EFSA study has prompted the EU Parliament to consider a two-year ban on three popular neonics. And, due to a successful campaign by our sister organization Friends of the Earth England, Wales, Northern Ireland, many of the major home and garden retailers in the UK have pledged to stop selling neonics.

Bees really are the “canary in the coal mine” when it comes to our food, telling us that the way we produce our food is unhealthy and unsustainable and needs a rapid transition to sustainable, just, ecological agriculture. A new USDA study shows that we could move away from chemically intensive industrial agriculture toward a system of ecologically friendly agriculture and continue to produce enough food for us all.

Friends of the Earth has some exciting actions coming up to save the bees and other pollinators. You’ll have an important role to play, so check back soon.

And in the meantime, choose to buy organic food as much as possible, and, as you plant your spring gardens, be sure to say no to the neonics and choose certified organic seeds and plants to help protect bees and other pollinators!

Photo credit: Maciej Czyżewsk, Wikimedia Commons via Creative Commons

New dangers for the Hudson River

Adam Russell — Wed, 08 May 2013 15:31:46 -0400

The decades-long fight to protect the lower Hudson River in New York City from habitat destruction and overdevelopment has heated up with several recent developments: (1) recent attempts to weaken the state law governing the area have emerged; (2) a proposal to tax nearby property owners for a Neighborhood Improvement District could provide a stream of revenue for complex borrowing schemes to pay for damaging in-water development; (3) the appalling evidence of Sandy's storm havoc and likely future storms along the coast escalated the human, environmental, and economic stakes of ruinous overdevelopment in the lower Hudson area. It's a deadly triple play that is converging in the old Westway area of Manhattan's Hudson River.

Westway was a four-mile, $4 billion proposed interstate highway and development project to be tunneled through landfill in the Hudson River from Battery Park City to 59th Street. It was defeated in 1985 in courts and Congress, and the area’s value as an extremely valuable fishery habitat was established. The money ultimately went towards subway improvements.

After Westway's defeat, a public/private authority, the Hudson River Park Trust, was given jurisdiction over the 490 acres of river and 60 acres of adjacent land. HRPT is not a regular government body: it is an authority, an entity with no democratic face. A former NY governor defined an authority as "something above democracy; that's why it was invented by the politicians, to keep people away from the operation."

HRPT has spent $300-400 million so far to rebuild derelict piers where development might be sited. Green public space and bike paths occupy the 60 on-land acres. HRPT claims that present lack of funding demands that the legislation be weakened and that the NID money be approved. New York environmentalists are opposing the legislation changes and the NID, hoping to protect the irreplaceable natural resources and to keep the water and waterfront from view blocking building that will be more vulnerable to climate change-fueled storms.

Timing is tight. Friends of the Earth is asking your help to oppose the changes in HRP legislation and to work against the NID proposal. New Yorkers, please tell your state public officials to retain the development restrictions in the HRP legislation. Email Robert Walsh, Commissioner of NYC Department of Small Business Services (rwalsh@sbs.nyc.gov) and ask him to reject the proposed NID. Ask City Council members to do the same.

By Bunny Gabel

For more information: Bunny Gabel, mgabel@aol.com, New York Friends of the Earth representative.
Photo credit.Wusel007, Creative Commons via Wikimedia Commons

Financing Reef Destruction?

Rey Edward — Mon, 06 May 2013 21:28:43 -0400

A new study from an Australia NGO tells how Chinese financing will potentially devastate the Great Barrier Reef.

Yes, you read that correctly. The Great Barrier Reef – home to endangered sea turtles, blue whales, sea snakes, and fragile coral reefs – is being destroyed in exchange for coal ports and LNG plants.

China, Australia, and the US Export Import Bank have placed financial bets on transforming the Great Barrier Reef into a noxious highway for coal exports to Asia. China Development Bank, China ExIm Bank, and Bank of China, along with the “Big 4” Australian banks, are financing the construction of a string of LNG plants and coal export terminals that are smack in the middle of the world famous reef. Industrialization along the coast, in addition to vessel pollution and potential spills, would critically degrade the world’s largest reef system, jeopardize the local economy, and worsen climate change.

In the study, the Australian NGO Market Forces details the role banks play in profiting off the reef’s destruction while the creatures and people of the Great Barrier Reef pay for it. The report comes at an interesting time when the BRICS countries – including Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa – have just announced their plans for a joint development bank. The BRICS countries are keen to position themselves as green minded leaders who pioneer sustainable development. However, the latest news of China’s role in financing the fossil fuel projects, as well as allegations of corruption among the Indian companies building them, reflect a double standard.

As I wrote in the South China Morning Post over the weekend:

"Despite the obvious cultural and environmental concerns of building dirty facilities in the reef, however, major Chinese banks, such as China Development Bank, the Export-Import Bank of China, and Bank of China have all approved financing for the projects.

In financing these projects, they are violating China's own policies: first, they are running foul of the banking authorities' green credit directive by failing to require its clients to adhere to international best practices in environmental safeguards. Second, they are violating the recently released guidelines on environmental protection in overseas investments by failing to protect the local environment."

As the economic powerhouse behind BRICS, China is in a perfect position to lead by example and demonstrate its commitment to sustainable practices. Unfortunately, it has failed to step up to the challenge so far.

Click here to take action!

Photo Courtesy of Australia Conservation Foundation

New Chinese guidelines are a step in the right direction, but don’t go the distance

Rey Edward — Thu, 02 May 2013 15:20:40 -0400

Earlier this year, China’s ministries of Commerce and Environmental Protection jointly issued new guidelines for the environmental practices of Chinese companies doing business abroad. The new guidelines are an important step toward improving China’s global green reputation – but ultimately fail to go far enough in compelling Chinese firms to abide by environmental or social safeguards.

China’s ministries issued this new policy to standardize environmental protection practices of Chinese companies operating abroad, and it is the latest in a string of policies aimed at regulating Chinese enterprises investing overseas. The guidelines are broad, including calls for companies to respect the historical and cultural heritages of their host countries, to monitor pollution and make the results public, as well as protecting the rights and job opportunities of non-Chinese workers.

But they do not provide enough concrete guidance, nor are they backed up by real governmental muscle. For example, the guidelines say enterprises should set up a system of communicating with local governments, environmental regulators and the general public. They require companies to develop emergency plans, carry liability insurance, and carry out restoration should their operations degrade the environment. These are necessary and important steps indeed, but the guidelines fail to specify how companies should meet those requirements.

Neither are the new guidelines backed up by mechanisms to ensure and enforce compliance. There is no mention of an office in charge of monitoring and ensuring implementation of the guidelines, nor assessing penalties in cases of noncompliance. The lack of clear, concrete compliance mechanisms or instructions leaves a gap between rhetoric and implementation -- a gap the Chinese government does not seem keen to fill.

So if the guidelines are vague and unlikely to be enforced, why issue them? Perhaps the guidelines are meant to primarily reassure host countries that China is standing by its pledge to reject the legacy of Western exploitation masked as development. Yet the record of overseas Chinese investment speaks much more loudly than Beijing’s policy pronouncements.

In Gabon, Peru, Zambia, and other places, Chinese-financed projects have been tainted by a colonialist tendency. Even today, there are signs that Chinese companies are adopting imperialistic and uncomfortably paternalistic attitudes towards local communities. In Burma, Chen DeFang , the president of the Chinese mining company Wanbao that is at the center of a dispute over a controversial copper mine, acknowledged the company’s mistake: failing to consult with local communities. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Chen DeFang said the Burmese people did not yet understand the benefits of the project: “Sooner or later they will say: ‘Thank you, Mr. Chen.’”

If China truly wishes to show itself as a superior alternative to Western development, creating formal mechanisms to enforce this new overseas investment policy would be a perfect place to start. On the other hand, by failing to manage the actual performance of overseas investments, including ensuring that locally impacted communities have appropriate channels for resolving their grievances, China runs the risk of not only tarnishing its global reputation, but also damaging its diplomatic relationships with foreign countries. This is already happening in African countries that have grown wary of Chinese investment.

The guidelines are an encouraging example of how China is pioneering innovative policies at the frontier of sustainable development. Certainly, in comparison to other countries, China has taken the lead in the race to curb the negative impacts of its overseas companies. But to get the finish line, reality must replace rhetoric.

Photo Courtesy of The Economist.

Fossil fuel export proposals explode around the world

Marcie Keever — Thu, 02 May 2013 14:07:04 -0400

With the reliance on coal declining in places like the U.S. and Australia, Big Coal has found another way to offload its dirty goods — by shipping it overseas. The global coal trade expanded by over 13 percent in 2010 and last year the U.S. hit a record in the amount of coal it shipped offshore. ClimateProgress reported that last year, US coal exports resulted in 292 million metric tons of carbon pollution “equivalent to the average annual greenhouse gas emissions from 55 million passenger vehicles, or to 75 coal-fired power plants — and in excess of the 2009 greenhouse gas emissions of the state of New York.” And the trend is expected to continue.

Not only are there four coal export terminals proposed in the Pacific Northwest (along with numerous efforts to increase exports of tar sands oil, LNG and oil shale out of the region) that we are fighting in coalition with Power Past Coal, there are massive fossil fuel export expansion plans in Australia where the proposals are to roughly double the volume of coal exports from the region.

Sadly, the Great Barrier Reef literally sits in the way of the fossil fuel industry and its massive expansion plans and has already suffered terrible damage from a Chinese coal ship grounding and subsequent oil spill in 2010. There are so many new coal terminals planned that just one port, Abbot Point, near Mackay, Queensland could increase almost nine-fold in capacity to become by far the biggest coal export port in the world.

Today, Market Forces and 350.org revealed the role of banks in financing this destruction of the Reef in a report, aptly titled Financing Reef Destruction. It brings together five years of data to identify the banks that have lent the most money to coal ports and liquefied natural gas plants inside the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area from 2008 to 2012.

You can download the report here.

The report draws attention to the critical role that the ‘big four’ Australian banks play in enabling new coal and gas projects to come online. Together, the biggest Australian banks – ANZ, Commonwealth Bank, NAB and Westpac – lent $3.8 billion to coal ports and liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals between 2008 and 2012.

It isn’t just Australian banks financing Big Coal. The U.S. Export-Import Bank was behind the single-biggest loan to a fossil fuel export project in the Great Barrier Reef, the $2.8 billion credit to the Australia Pacific LNG project. This loan has become the subject of legal action over alleged violations of the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

In 2012 Ex-Im Bank provided a $90 million loan guarantee to Xcoal Energy & Resources, the U.S.’s leading coal export company. This deal puts U.S. taxpayers on the hook for Xcoal’s bank loans and perpetuates our global addiction to coal. In addition to coal export loans in the U.S. and Australia, Ex-Im Bank helped U.S. coal interests fund the giant Sasan coal power plant in South Africa in 2010 and in 2011 it financed the Kusile coal plant in South Africa -- two of the world’s biggest coal plants.

In addition to Ex-Im Bank, China's largest banks, including China Development Bank, China Ex-Im Bank, and Bank of China, have thrown their weight into financing coal ports and LNG plants. However, financing such dirty projects in an area considered to be one of the world's natural wonders is certainly in violation of China's own policies, which specifically mandate Chinese companies and banks operating abroad to protect the local environment and adhere to international safeguards. The notorious grounding of the Chinese coal ship in 2010, which was carrying 65,000 tons of coal to China, already signaled China's indifference to safeguarding the extremely fragile ecosystem, and transforming the Great Barrier Reef into a super highway for coal shipped to China and Asia could mean disaster for the world's largest reef system.

In the U.S. we have started to realize that coal, with its dirty impacts from mine mouth to smokestack, is a problem and not a solution -- and it is certainly not a problem we should be exporting to the world.

Photo Courtesy of The Los Angeles Times

Free trade in frankenfish? Trans Atlantic free trade agreement could be a monster

Bill Waren — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 22:22:12 -0400

“Frankenfish is a 2004 monster movie dealing with genetically engineered fish in the bayou.”

-Wikipedia

“European Union… measures governing the importation and use of GE (genetically engineered) products have resulted in substantial barriers to trade.”

U.S. Trade Representative, 2013 report on sanitary measures

In his 2013 State of the Union message, President Obama announced that the U.S. would move forward on negotiations with the European Union for the Trans Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, a trade deal that raises a raft of serious environmental concerns.

Based on the model of past U.S. trade agreements, statements by officials, and published documents including a U.S.-E.U. “High Level Working Group” report outlining the objectives for negotiations, it appears that the goal is to grant transnational corporations and governments expanded “rights” under the Trans Atlantic agreement to challenge government regulations before international tribunals. In its short report, the working group proposes a deal that would focus on environmental and other regulations alleged to interfere with free market efficiency, rather than traditional trade issues such as lowering tariffs. The HLWG report explicitly recommends going beyond even World Trade Organization standards in the areas of intellectual property rights, sanitary measures, and so-called “technical barriers to trade” that already vitiate environmental protections.

The U.S. Trade Representative is widely expected to use U.S.-E.U. negotiations to subvert regulations on genetically engineered products, food safety, and synthetic biology, among many others. At the same time, USTR is expected to push for provisions in the agreement that encourage patents on human, plant and animal genes and use of cost-benefit analysis rather than the precautionary principle when setting environmental regulatory standards.

GE products: intellectual property and sanitary measures provisions

If based on the HLWG report, this Trans Atlantic free trade agreement (TAFTA) could open the door wide for gene patents, as well as trade in genetically engineered food and even products based on synthetic biology. This could threaten ecosystems, public health, and the livelihoods of small farmers, among other unintended and even frightening consequences.

The history of successful U.S. suits in the WTO challenging European policies on genetically engineered organisms and food safety under the sanitary measures agreement should be a warning. The working group’s report suggests establishing an even more rigorous review of sanitary measures in TAFTA than that currently employed under WTO rules. This could put GE and food safety regulations at even greater risk in TAFTA litigation.

Friends of the Earth believes that governments on both sides of the Atlantic should have more, not less freedom to regulate in this area. Genetic engineering of commercial products presents many known and more suspected risks to people and nature. GE products should be subject to government regulation based on the precautionary principle: in other words, the burden of proof for demonstrating a new product or technology’s safety should fall on those who would introduce it into the marketplace.

Food safety: sanitary measures provisions

Similarly, Friends of the Earth is concerned about how other food safety disputes would be treated under a WTO-plus regime for sanitary measures. Among the many areas of concern are EU food safety measures targeted as trade barriers in a 2013 USTR report, including restrictions on imports of beef treated with growth hormones, chicken washed in chlorine, and meat produced with growth stimulants (rectopamine). Another 2013 report also targets France in particular for its 2012 ban on use of materials produced using BPA in contact surfaces for food for infants and pregnant women. .

Cost-benefit analysis & the precautionary principle: regulatory coherence provisions

The HLWG report calls for the U.S.-E.U. deal to include a cross-cutting discipline on regulatory coherence “for the development and implementation of efficient, cost-effective, and more compatible regulations for goods and services.” In all probability, this recommendation by the HLWG contemplates something similar to the draft regulatory coherence chapter of the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement, a proposal that greatly concerns Friends of the Earth.

The leaked draft of the regulatory coherence chapter of the Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement encourages countries joining the pact to conduct regulatory impact assessments or RIAs when developing regulations, including environmental measures, which have more than a minimal cost burden on business and the economy. Cost-benefit analysis to determine the net benefit of environmental regulations, specifically, is encouraged.

In the view of Friends of the Earth the cost of environmental and other government regulations should not be ignored, but it ought to be looked at with a wider perspective. Calculations of seemingly definitive “ratios of benefit to costs” should be considered with balanced skepticism. Identifying and quantifying the costs of environmental regulation can be inflated by assumptions, bias of the analyst, and flaws in data gathering. Quantifying the benefits of environmental regulation can be difficult, for example because public health data is not as comprehensively collected as economic data. Or, it can be impossible: an attempt to attribute a price to the intrinsic value of human life, living things and nature itself. In our view, cost-benefit analysis, in many circumstances, can be at odds with a fundamental principle of environmental regulation: application of the precautionary principle in the face of an immeasurable environmental risk and inescapably uncertain outcomes.

An excellent example of an environmental issue involving uncertain outcomes that requires application of the precautionary principle, not cost-benefit analysis, is regulation of synthetic biology. While genetic engineering involves the exchange of genes between species, synthetic biology involves artificially creating new genetic code and inserting it into organisms. Synthetic organisms self-replicate. No one knows how they will interact with naturally occurring organisms or the consequences for the ecosystem as a whole. Standard forms of risk assessment and cost-benefit analyses used by current biotechnology regulatory approaches are inadequate to guarantee protection of the public and the environment.

Friends of the Earth concerns about TAFTA, more generally

The issues discussed in this first blog post regarding GE products, gene patents, food safety and synthetic biology are only a few of the environmental concerns raised by TAFTA negotiations. Follow-up blog posts will detail many other threats. Friends of the Earth is in the process of producing a comprehensive analysis of issues raised by the launch of TAFTA negotiations, and we will report to you, our readers, in blog posts as we finalize our research findings. To give you a preview of the breadth of environmental issues raised by these negotiations, here are several thematic concerns that Friends of the Earth has about upcoming TAFTA negotiations. In our view:

Environment and labor obligations in TAFTA should be treated in a similar manner to commercial obligations: they should be enforceable through dispute resolution.
In response to climate change, TAFTA should provide governments with policy space, free from the threat of trade litigation, to adopt climate change measures, such as a carbon tax, other tax measures and subsidies to encourage renewable energy, carbon and pollution regulations, and energy efficiency standards, among others.
TAFTA should not facilitate the “commoditization of the commons” -- our natural resources, water, and animal, plant and human genes.
TAFTA should not drive a harmonization down to the lowest common regulatory denominator, especially with respect to regulation of toxic chemicals, food safety, and GE organisms.
Investment disputes, such those related to mining, oil production, water, and energy services, should be adjudicated not before arbitral tribunals biased in favor of multinational corporations, but before domestic courts and administrative bodies.
TAFTA should not be negotiated in secret. A public debate will either make it a better agreement or sink a bad deal.

Keystone XL pipeline: Can John Kerry’s State Department finally get it right?

Ross Hammond — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 14:51:16 -0400

In February John Kerry took over at the State Department, providing a glimmer of hope to those demanding that the agency finally serve as an honest broker on the review of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. Kerry, a fierce advocate for bold action on climate change, certainly has his work cut out for him.

Since the Canadian pipeline company TransCanada first submitted its application in 2008, the State Department’s handling of the Keystone review has been plagued by conflicts of interest, insider influence and a heavy pro-pipeline bias. It began almost immediately after the State Department allowed TransCanada to solicit and screen bids to conduct the initial environmental review of the pipeline. On TransCanada’s recommendation, the State Department hired the consulting firm CardnoEntrix, even though the firm listed TransCanada as a major client (a fact which should have disqualified it under the National Environmental Policy Act).

Not surprisingly, CardnoEntrix’s review – which the EPA politely called “insufficient” -- downplayed the climate impacts of the pipeline and the risks of potentially catastrophic spills. A Freedom of Information Act request by Friends of the Earth uncovered documents showing that State Department officials had been working closely with TransCanada on its permit application. Multiple e-mails showed State Department employees coaching TransCanada lobbyist (and former Hillary Clinton campaign official) Paul Elliott in his efforts to build support for the pipeline.

Following an outcry by environmental groups and members of Congress, the State Department’s Inspector General investigated the agency’s handling of the review process. In February 2012, it recommended changes in the contractor selection process. Yet given how the State Department has handled the most recent environmental review of the pipeline, it’s clear that those recommendations have been ignored and that TransCanada is still calling the shots.

The new environmental review, released late on a Friday afternoon in March, was conducted by Environmental Resources Management which, incredibly, also counts TransCanada as a client. State Department employees made a clumsy attempt to cover up the firm’s ties to TransCanada by redacting the company’s conflict of interest filing. To make matters worse, ERM subcontracted critical parts of its report to consulting firms with deep ties to oil and pipeline companies that stand to benefit if Keystone is built. This “new” review, which is now an official government document, also downplays the climate impacts of the pipeline. State has refused to turn over the supporting documents that provide the analytical basis for the report’s controversial finding that the tar sands would be fully exploited whether or not the pipeline is built.

To reject this flawed review, Secretary Kerry will have to tune out an army of Washington lobbyists and public relations firms that TransCanada and the Province of Alberta have hired to make sure that the Obama administration rubber stamps the permit application. These include three former U.S. ambassadors to Canada as well as former Kerry, Obama and Hillary Clinton staffers such as Kerry presidential campaign staff members David Castagnetti and Broderick Johnson. They also include former White House Communications Director Anita Dunn (who once worked under Kerry at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee). Dunn’s firm SKDKnickerbocker, which is stocked with many former Kerry and Obama staffers, is being paid an undisclosed amount by TransCanada to help with its efforts to secure approval for the pipeline. According to The New York Times, Dunn has met with top White House officials more than 100 times since leaving the administration in 2009.

Speaking on the floor of the Senate last year, then-Senator Kerry spoke sharply against “coalitions of politicians and special interests that peddle science fiction over science fact. A paid-for, multi-million dollar effort that twists and turns the evidence until it’s gnarled beyond recognition. And tidal waves of cash that back a status quo of recklessness and inaction over responsibility and change.” Although Kerry was speaking about the Senate’s failure to pass comprehensive climate legislation, he could just have easily been talking about the expensive disinformation campaign that TransCanada and the Province of Alberta have mounted to guarantee that pipeline construction proceeds without any further delay.

It is now clear that Secretary Kerry has inherited a fatally flawed review process in which TransCanada and Alberta continue to call the shots. How he responds to the State Department’s scandalous handling of the environmental review will signal whether he is willing, as he said in his speech last year, to “confront the conspiracy of silence head-on and allow complacence to yield to common sense, and narrow interests to bend to the common good. Future generations are counting on us.