Significant new angles on Jackson’s record coming out
“Her commitment to developing cleanup standards based on science and not politics turned out to be empty… She’s exceeded even the irresponsibility of some of her predecessors” ~~~ Joe Morris, Interfaith Community Organization, Jersey City, the group that successfully sued Honeywell
In a money story that missed the money quote, today’s Dow Jones reports on the Lisa Jackson EPA confirmation story:
Faulted By Environmentalists, EPA Nominee Has Fans In US Senate
Dow Jones
January 13, 2009: 08:15 AM ET
WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)-
[…]
New Jersey environmentalists are divided over Lisa Jackson, a chemical engineer and former EPA employee who went on to lead the state’s Department of Environmental Protection. New Jersey has more long-festering hazardous-waste sites than any other state. To some people, Jackson failed to rise to that challenge, by delaying and through steps that favored companies.
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200901130815DOWJONESDJONLINE000273_FORTUNE5.htm
There are at least three significant new angles in the Dow Jones story, but surprisingly, Dow missed the real money behind the chromium controversy they reported on:
First, one of Jackson’s “friends” in the Senate is Republican Senator Inhofe, who is known as one of the worst globbal warming deniers. Here’s just one of many Inhofe attacks:
“Yesterday, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) attacked Al Gore and global warming science, claiming that Gore was “full of crap” on global warming.”
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/07/21/inhofe-gore/
Second, Senate Democrats now defend Jackson as merely an improvement on the Bush EPA hack, Stephen Johnson, who has presided over some of the worst times in EPA’s history. This is a pathetically low performance benchmark and a far cry from all the hyper spun praise Jackson has won from some NJ environmental lobbyists.
“Democrats say that she will surely be an improvement on the Bush administration’s top environmental regulator, Stephen Johnson.”
Third, to their credit, Dow is the first national media outlet to cover Jackson’s record on toxic chromium, but the they missed the huge money and scientific fraud story that Jackson has swept under the rug. Dow correctly reported:
“One controversy involves Jackson’s handling of chromium, a carcinogen that built up in the state as factories began to give away the waste to use as construction fill. By the time Jackson became the top environmental regulator in 2006, a community group had successfully sued Honeywell International Inc. (HON) over one such contaminated site. The company was forced to do a thorough cleanup of the soil rather than simply capping it.“
Toughening, then Loosening a Standard
Jackson in early 2007 responded in two ways. She reinstated a practice of giving final approval to cleanups, the type of certainty that polluters seek. But she also issued a tough new standard for removing chromium from sites to be developed for homes or schools. Under the new standard, hexavalent chromium could make up no more than 20 parts per million of soil. That cheered environmentalists — temporarily.
In September 2008, as she was leaving the agency, Jackson reversed course and reaffirmed the old standard of 240 parts per million of hexavalent chromium. She acted even after a long-awaited National Toxicology Program report found that the waste was more damaging than previously thought.
“Her commitment to developing cleanup standards based on science and not politics turned out to be empty,” said Joe Morris, an organizer with the Interfaith Community Organization, the group that sued Honeywell. “She’s exceeded even the irresponsibility of some of her predecessors here.“
What the Dow left out of the chromium story was how the chromium standard was relaxed and who benefitted economically from that.
The Wall Street Journal broke the story of scientific fraud in the science of chromium. The WSJ article appeared on page 1 and was titled:
- “Study tied pollutant to cancer; then consultant got a hold of it” (December 23, 2005, page 1) by P. Waldman. (sorry, no link, subscription service)
Scientific fraud on chromium had been covered in NJ by the Star Ledger:
- “Weakened rules a boon to 3 polluters: Work of scientists paid by the firms viewed skeptically by other experts” (March 7, 2004) by Alex Lane. (sorry link is stale).
The chromium fraud story is discussed in the recent outstanding book:
- “Doubt is their Product – How Industry’s Assault on Science Threatens Your Health” by David Michaels, a scientists, current professor at George Washington University and a former Assistant Administrator in the Clinton Department of Energy.
The perpetrator of the scientific fraud, a Dr. Paustenbach and his colleagues at a firm called ChemRisk, openly bragged in the WSJ article about saving polluters hundreds of millions of dollars in cleanup costs in NJ.
All this was craftily swept under the rug – worse, Jackson has proposed to privatize the DEP cleanup program, allowing such fraud and corporate consultants to drive the NJ toxic site cleanup program.
Now that is a record that should be probed in a Senate confirmation hearing.
Let’s hope that some bold Senator steps up to the plate. But don’t count on it.
BW have you asked to testify at LJ’s confirmation hearings? Have you submitted any public comments for the record in those hearings? Would hope that your commentary is relevant to her confirmation hearings and that some Senators would be informed by them. Good luck in your efforts to build a full record of her tenure at DEP.
ferdeck – no, I haven’t been asked to testify. Do you think Lautenberg or Meneddez who both support a fellow democrat are going to piuck up the phone adn give me a call?
I was asked to testify at the Whitman 2001 confirmation, but that offer was withdrawn when Senate majority party and Committee leadership changed. However, I did submit extensive written comments on the Whitman record which were incorporated into the hearing transcript and Whitman was asked by the Chairman and did respond to my written testimony.
I have not submitted anything in writing this time around, although lots of my work was submitted in a letter to Obama by Washington Office of PEER.
That work was also used to dvelop the list of 10 questions by PEER which has been conveyed to SEPW Committee members and staff.
The hearing record is typically left open for a perriod of time after the hearings – based on what I hear tomorow, I will submit written testimony for the record.
I hope someone uses all the information in my posts to hold Jackson accountable at EPA –
think the national environmental groups are in for a HUGE disappointment – unfortunately, it probably will take at least 2 years or more for the honeymoon to wear off though.
Just read this – one of the best explanations of what goes on, by Paul Krugman writing about rational choice theory, democracy, and how to fix the fact that very few pay attention to what amounts to special interests purchasing policy:
“Another answer is to promote civic virtue. There are those who believe that if only the media would treat the public with proper respect, people would respond by acting responsibly–that they would turn away from salacious stories about celebrities and read earnest articles about the flat-panel-display initiative instead. Well, never mind. But it is probably true that the quality of politics in America has suffered from the erosion of public trust in institutions that used to act, to at least some degree, as watchdogs. Once upon a time a politician had to worry about the reactions of unions, churches, newspaper editors, even local political bosses, all of whom had the time and inclination to pay attention to politics beyond the sound bites. Now we have become an atomized society of individuals who get their news–if they get it at all–from TV. If anyone has a good idea about how to bring back the opinion leaders of yore, I am all for it.”
It’s amazing what can be overlooked – Lisa Jackson’s record – when the fix is in.
yes JerseyOpine it is truly amazing what is being overlooked.
I expect that crap from the politicians –
But I don’t it expect it from the so called “environmentalists” who have known all about this crap for more than 3 years.
I”ll post again on perchlorate – that failure was just picked up by the independent journalsim group known as “Propublica” – writer is Joaquin Sapien, I’d provide a link by the NJ Voices site does not allow that.
Google Jackson and perchlorate
Interesting Krugman quote, but there is an answer.
Unions, newspaper editors, political bosses and even taxpayers have been bought off either with money or with promises that can’t be kept to all of them.
I’m working on an example involving the UCIA (Union County Improvement Authority) which bonds to build public facilities (whether they’re needed or not). One law firm (DeCotiis & Fitzgerald) got paid over $4.4 million in the last 3-1/2 years for law work. Political bosses let this happen for the campaign money. Unions let this happen for the jobs from which they take 1.5% in dues. Taxpayers let this happen because the costs are bonded and they get new buildings without paying the full bill. And newspaper editors: among the bills paid out during that period were over $10,000 for legal advertising to the Star-Ledger and the Courier News (two papers not within Union County).
jbken – you are absolutely correct.
One of these days I will write about my DEP experience with financing hundreds of millions of dollars of garbage incinerators.
The Essex County/Port Authority incinerator deal was the dirtiest – they received an illegal $48 million DEP grant, disguised as a loan.
Bond Counsel looked the other way on that and pulled down big fees.
The Deputy Attorney General on the deal strenuously tried to block it and was personally over-ridden by the AG – based only on a handshake agreement between NY Governor Mario Cuomo and Tom Kean.
THis is agreat story adsn ongoing abuse, as you note.
Where are all those investigative journalists?
1) While Sen. Inhoffe says Al Gore is ” full of crap” it’s probably more like only 99 44/100% crap, the rest is bad gas. His “Convenient Lie” has been debunked not only in “The Great Global Warming Swindle”- documentary film, where even Patrick Moore, a former founding member of Greenpeace makes clear it’s all about money, including Gore’s carbon cap hedge fund, but by other independent scientists, the film is a great source.2) What is the federal E.P.A. standard for hexavalent chromium as compared to N.J.? 3) Is it the case that more moderate environmental groups see those more radical groups as being nothing more than obstructionists?
nohesitation,
Actually it’s DeCotiis & Fitzpatrick and we have all these OPRA rules to get public records but nobody seems to want to bother.
Another example. Union county and some employees of Union County and Charlotte DeFillippo, Dem county chair and director of UCIA, are being sued by an ex county employee, Robert Travisano. Don’t know the details of the case but the check registry for the UCIA shows over $48,000 being paid out to DeCotiis & Fitzpatrick from UCIA funds. Another $150,000 was paid out to other law firms involved in this case from county funds. UCIA is supposed to be building facilities in the county. What are they spending funds for defending a lawsuit unrelated to that building? Would the Star-Ledger look into this when they’re getting advertising fees from the county and UCIA?
I hope you blog about your case and I’ll blog about UCIA when I find out more. That’s real investigative journalism and I wish I had more time to do it. When the Star-Ledger was getting $72 million a year from classified ads maybe they might have been interested but government money might be the steadiest income stream for them now. You can see it from what gets in the paper, even from this blog. Nothing ever makes it that would cause the least consternation to Charlotte DeFillippo or any other political power broker.
The DeCotiis firm had a role in the Encap fiasco, I believe. Go to The Record and read all the back articles.