SERC's Wildlines #70
December 17, 2001

A weekly publication of Defenders of Wildlife bringing
you the most current and relevant news and resources
on state environmental issues across the country. 
Email:  jud@serconline.org
Phone: 608-252-9800

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IN THIS EDITION:

WATCH DOG: Beware of NEPI's new group
ISSUE SPOTLIGHT: Power Plant's Dirty Air Loophole
NEWS FROM THE STATES:

 VT: Clean Power Struggle over Electric Cars 
 SC: New Rules Reign in Hog CAFOs
 FL: New Definitions Further Endanger Species
 WV: Added Safety Rules May Derail ORV Law
 MI: Governor Signs Smart Growth Laws
 LA: New Ballast Water Invasive Species
 CA: 'Environmental Justice' Clean Air Plan Approved

WATCH DOG: BEWARE OF NEPI'S NEW GROUP

A new group called the "Environmental Foundation of
the States" was recently launched and is expected to
aggressively promote the advocacy agenda of its parent
organization, the conservative National Environmental
Policy Institute (NEPI). NEPI is financed primarily by
corporate special interests that, among other
objectives, want to weaken the Nation's environmental
protection laws and regulations.   NEPI makes a
pretext of being objective and bipartisan, but its
policy and political preferences are clear from its
solidly business-oriented agenda and those in its
leadership positions. 
 

ISSUE SPOTLIGHT:  POWER PLANT'S DIRTY AIR LOOPHOLE

Most Americans think of electricity as "clean" and are
shocked to learn that power plants are the single
worst industrial contributor of air pollution in the
U.S. Power plants contribute to 76% of the sulfur
dioxide emissions (SO2), 59% of nitrogen oxide
emissions (NOx), 37% of mercury emissions and 40% of
man-made carbon dioxide emissions. When the federal
Clean Air Act was enacted over 30 years ago during the
Nixon Administration, big utility companies
successfully lobbied against stringent controls by
saying the oldest, dirtiest power plants would soon be
replaced by new state-of-the-art facilities. Many of
those out-dated facilities -- which were already old
in 1970 -- are still in use. In some cases, power
plants from 1922 are still in operation and do not
meet the environmental requirements that every new
facility must follow. Because of this 1970 loophole in
the law, dirty plants have been "grandfathered" from
following the air pollution controls required by the
Clean Air Act for new power plants.  These old plants
"legally" pollute the air at rates of 2 to 13 times
higher than new plants with modern emissions controls.
It is now up to the states to plug this loophole. The
State Environmental Resource Center is comprehensively
dealing with this issue at www.serconline.org/clean.
This website offers the tools necessary to introduce
and pass legislation to reduce four pollutants from
energy companies in your state, including a sample
bill, talking points, a fact pack, research, and other
background information. 
 

NEWS FROM THE STATES:

VERMONT: CLEAN POWER STRUGGLE OVER ELECTRIC CARS

The 12/13 Rutland Herald reported that in Vermont
there is a power struggle between the legislature,
Governor Howard Dean and the Agency of Natural
Resources over implementing stricter rules for the
sale of electric cars. At issue is a rule that
requires that auto manufacturers sell a minimum number
of electric cars in Vermont, which has adopted an air
quality regime based on California's that is stricter
than federal standards. Recently California announced
that they would be relaxing their requirements. The
Agency of Natural Resources followed California's lead
and reduced from 300 to 67 the electric cars
manufacturers would need to sell in Vermont. But the
Governor overruled his regulators, insisting that
keeping pressure on the auto industry was necessary to
spur it to make cleaner cars. While acknowledging that
there is little public demand for current electric
cars, he said innovations in such areas as hybrid cars
have won consumers over and wouldn't have happened
without pressure. The Legislative Committee on
Administrative Rules then voted 5-3 to reject the
Governor's plan on the grounds that it is contrary to
legislative intent, because lawmakers have never voted
on the issue.
 

FLORIDA: NEW DEFINITIONS FURTHER ENDANGER SPECIES

The 12/9 St. Petersburg Times reported that in the
past three months, the Fish and Wildlife Conservation 
Commission has agreed to consider lowering the
protected status of both the manatee and the
red-cockaded woodpecker, two controversial species,
using a new set of criteria. Experts on the
red-cockaded woodpecker and advocates for the manatee
both contend that the state's new criteria are so
restrictive that a species would have to be as dead as
the dodo for officials to list it as needing
protection. A report from the scientists at the
Florida Ornithological Society contends the
red-cockaded woodpecker "will be effectively extinct
by the time the species satisfies the new definition
of endangered." If the state were to use its new
criteria to reconsider all of its other endangered
animals -- even the rare Florida panther -- "I'll bet
most of them would no longer fit the definition," said
Rich Paul of Audubon of Florida. 
 

SOUTH CAROLINA: NEW RULES REIGN IN HOG CAFOS

The 12/14 The State reported that the state's
environmental protection board has agreed to more
tightly regulate mega-hog farms with rules that could
limit the industrial swine industry's expansion in
South Carolina. The board voted to ban open waste
lagoons and manure sprayfields for new farms larger
than 3,500 pigs. The board's action also requires that
all new farms of that size or greater be at least 25
miles apart. And the rules require farm corporations
wanting to expand in South Carolina to detail the
cumulative environmental impact their operations will
have.
 

WEST VIRGINIA: ADDED SAFETY RULES MAY DERAIL ORV LAW

The 12/12 Charleston Gazette reported that a plan to
clamp down on off-road  vehicles (ORVs) is headed back
to the Legislature, this time requiring helmet use and
giving counties the power to ban the machines altogether. 
The plan now heads to the full Legislature, where similar 
ideas have stalled in a controversy pitting safety concerns 
against citizens' rights. 
 

MICHIGAN: GOVERNOR SIGNS SMART GROWTH LAWS

Governor Engler signed into law three measures that
help local governments and the development community
cooperate to conserve land, protect natural resources
and retain the character of rural communities.  House
Bills 4995 and 5028 allow developers to increase
density on a parcel of land in exchange for
permanently protecting at least half of it under
conservation easements.  House Bill 5029  allows a
similar benefit in urban areas, where developers will
preserve at least 20 percent of the land. The
proposals won the support of both the environmental
community and the Michigan Home Builders Association. 
 

LOUISIANA: NEW BALLAST WATER INVASIVE SPECIES

The 12/12 Advocate reported that an invasive plant
that could fully cover lakes and ponds and clog rice
field irrigation canals has been found in Cameron
Parish swamps in southwest Louisiana. The Giant
Salvinia, a native plant of South America, could
create an economic and environmental disaster if left
unchecked. Officials are worried that duck hunters and
fishermen could transport the plant to other lakes and
waterways on their boats or trailers.  The plant is an
extremely harmful invasive specie because it
completely covers the surface of the water, blocks out
all sunlight and depletes the supply of oxygen in the
water. 
 

CALIFORNIA: 'ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE' CLEAN AIR PLAN
APPROVED

The 12/14 Sacramento Bee reported that a policy that
will address pollution problems in poor and minority
neighborhoods was unanimously approved by California
air regulators last week.  The rules are aimed at
creating "environmental justice" by making the Air
Resources Board, which has long concentrated on
regional pollution issues such as smog, more focused
on neighborhoods whose residents are more likely to be
sickened by a combination of toxic threats including
diesel exhaust.
 

AGENCY ACTIONS

* Following more than 20 months of public debate so
intense that even Congress intervened, the state
Department of Natural Resources has agreed to a
controversial land swap on remote South Fox Island
with Developer David Johnson. Critics say the plan is
a raw deal for the public, which will lose more than a
mile of shoreline. They contend it wouldn't improve
what they label the DNR's lax management of the island
for citizen enjoyment and resource protection. And
they accuse the DNR of favoritism toward Johnson
because he is a leading contributor to Gov. John
Engler and other Republicans. 

* After nearly seven years of debate and delay, a
state oversight panel has toughened Virginia's
shoreline development rules, a move intended to keep
new homes, roads and shops farther away from sensitive
edges of the Chesapeake Bay. 

* In the first wide-scale change in fish limits in 70
years, Minnesota DNR announced that it will lower its
bag limits for crappies, sunfish, lake trout and catfish, 
but would keep existing limits for walleyes, bass and 
northerns. The hope is that the reductions will help 
increase the average size of fish caught, better 
distribute fish among anglers and prevent over-fishing.
 

COURT ACTIONS

* As covered in Wildlines 69, Farm Bureau is in U.S.
District Court trying to get a South Dakota law aimed
at reigning in factory farms, thrown out on
constitutional grounds.  Last week South Dakota
Secretary of Agriculture Larry Gabriel testified on
Farm Bureau's behalf and said that the state might
have gotten a cutting-edge dairy operation had it not
been for the factory farm law. Gabriel's testimony is
part of the public relations component of the trial,
which is trying to depict the law as hurting South
Dakota's economy.  Farm Bureau fears that if the law
isn't killed in South Dakota it will likely be
duplicated in other states.
 

SPECIES ACTIONS

* Allen Farris, who heads Iowa's fish and wildlife
division, said he wants the state to move to protect
the mountain lions and black bears. Black bears have
been spotted near in North East Iowa in recent years
and wild cougars have been reported in western Iowa.
Under current laws, there would be no penalty if
either of these animals were killed in Iowa. 

* Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne has put a plan for
managing grizzly bears in eastern Idaho back on track
after the Idaho Fish and Game Commission had tabled it
for a year. Kempthorne and his new Office of Species
Conservation decided to take public comment so the
plan could be presented to the Legislature in the
upcoming session. The proposal is aimed at removing
grizzly bears in and around Yellowstone National Park
from the federal Endangered Species list.  Once bears
are removed from the list, state officials could kill
any grizzlies "that eat livestock or threaten people."

* Activists are urging the University of Minnesota to
walk away from a $6 million  contract for a telescope
project that threatens critically  endangered red
squirrels on Arizona's Mt. Graham.  Over 25 North
American institutions have already  pulled out of the
telescope project due to environmental and cultural
concerns.
 

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Do you have news about legislation, agency actions or
court decisions in your state that affect wildlife or
their habitat? 
Please submit items to jud@serconline.org

Defenders of Wildlife 
Headquarters Office: 
1101 14th St., NW, Suite 1400 
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 682-9400
Fax: (202) 682-1331

Visit our web site at: http://www.defenders.org/states