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WHITE
PAPER
Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing:
Bush’s EPA Is Decimating Waste Rules, Too
GrassRoots Recycling Network
October 14, 2002
Bush administration
assaults on federal protections for air, water and public lands have received
much media attention. Less widely recognized is the administration’s
systematic attack on federal solid and hazardous waste rules. Altogether,
it is the most sweeping federal deregulation agenda since the days of
James Watt and the Reagan administration.
U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency ideologues know that they cannot simply repeal federal
waste laws enacted and reauthorized by Congress over three decades. So
they are using the rule-making process to achieve the same result. Consider
these changes proposed by the EPA´s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency
Response (OSWER) in the past year:
- deregulate municipal
landfills under the guise of ‘experimentation’
- allow gasification
of hazardous and possibly solid waste without accountability
- permit toxic computer
monitors to be dumped or recycled under hazardous conditions
This white paper profiles
seven proposed solid and hazardous waste rule changes that will, if implemented,
profoundly undermine decades of protections of public health and the environment.
At the same time that
Bush´s EPA appointees are rolling back protections, they have launched
a public relations smoke screen called the Resource Conservation Challenge.
Announced Sept. 9 by EPA assistant administrator and OSWER head Marianne
Lamont Horinko, the ‘challenge’ recycles goals set in 1996
and offers a grab-bag of voluntary business and public education initiatives
-- old ideas that have not worked in the past to reduce toxics or waste.
Repackaging Clinton-era
goals as something new is disingenuous at best. More importantly, the
‘challenge’ is a smoke screen designed to hide the Bush agenda.
While professing concern for recycling and resource conservation, Bush´s
EPA is profoundly undermining those activities. While challenging America’s
youth to take responsibility for conserving our natural resources, they
are selling our children’s right to an unpolluted air, water and
land for short-term corporate profit.
What is needed is
a fundamental shift in how we deal with waste. Instead of eliminating
rules that hold polluters responsible for past negligence, the EPA should
extend the polluter-pays principle to prevent producers of toxic and throwaway
products from imposing costs on the public. Our government should hold
all producers responsible for their products and byproducts from ‘cradle
to cradle.’
Government has a critical
role to play in promoting resource conservation by leveling the playing
field so that resource conserving businesses out-compete resource wasting
businesses every time. The public can best be protected by government
assigning producer responsibility for waste and setting and enforcing
performance standards for resource recovery. There is a big middle ground
between command-and-control regulation and throwing regulation out the
window.
Waste managers who
support recycling, business people engaged in resource conserving enterprises,
and thinking people who care about our children’s future should
pay attention and take action. Comments on two of the issues can be easily
sent to EPA from GrassRoots Recycling Network’s website using links
below.
Recent Waste Deregulation Proposals
- Deregulation
of Municipal Landfills (‘State Research, Development
and Demonstration Permits’) [1]
EPA proposed a rule that would permit states to waive compliance with
most federal design, operation and cover standards for municipal solid
waste landfills. The proposed rule would effectively deregulate municipal
landfills and devolve oversight to state agencies under the guise of
encouraging innovation. EPA already has existing rules to handle applications
for variances to test bona fide innovations. The landfill industry wants
to liquefy waste to get more waste in the same airspace without increasing
design standards or construction costs.
- Exempt
Gasification of Garbage and Other Hazardous Waste from Federal Regulation
[2]
EPA is proposing to exempt hazardous petroleum refining wastes from
regulation under RCRA if they are processed into synthesis gas in a
gasification facility. EPA is also seeking comment on extending the
exclusion to a broad range of toxic substances generated by industries
other than the petroleum refining industry, including municipal solid
waste and sewage sludge. Yet expansion of the exclusion to all hazardous
secondary materials renders gasification more akin to waste treatment
than to manufacturing. EPA even proposes to exempt off-site wastes at
point of generation. Once exempt, there would be no way of ensuring
that such hazardous material reached its destination.
- ‘Recycling’
Used Computer Monitors [3]
An EPA proposal streamlines some regulations with the intent of fostering
re-use and recycling of computer cathode ray tubes (CRTs). However,
the proposed rule ignores some of the most egregious problems and loopholes
that allow very environmentally damaging CRT disposal. These include
the dumping of CRTs made possible by regulatory exclusion for small
quantity generators such as individuals, resulting in a massive amount
of hazardous e-waste that can legally be dumped into our nation's soil.
The administration has ignored a loophole that allows easy export of
about 80% of e-waste that is collected for recycling, without control,
to Asia where it is known to be dumped and recycled in very hazardous
conditions. Further, the proposal ignores the hazards inherent in circuit
boards which are far more dangerous than CRTs as well as right-to-know
provisions for communities.
- Exemption
of Toxic Waste ‘Recycling’ from Federal Regulation
Ms. Horinko has stated repeatedly that she intends to change the definition
of ‘solid waste’ in RCRA so that numerous forms of ‘recycled’
hazardous waste are exempt from regulation under RCRA. Given their record,
one might be concerned that EPA will bow to industries that want to
take out of RCRA any hazardous waste that they say is being, or might
be, ‘recycled’ into a product. America’s favorite
environmental activity, recycling, could become synonymous with poison.
- Slash RCRA
Reporting (‘RCRA Burden Reduction’) [4]
EPA proposed to eliminate or modify a third of the 334 reporting requirements
applying to hazardous waste generators and treatment, storage and disposal
facilities under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).
While some of the proposals for reducing record keeping and reporting
requirements are sensible, others go too far. For example, eliminating
requirements that polluting facilities submit critical documentation
to EPA, but rather merely keep records on site, will seriously compromise
public accessibility and increase inspection time. The proposed reduction
in record retention requirements for all documents to be kept for only
three years will further compromise public and regulatory oversight.
- Weaken
Cleanup, Closure and Reporting (‘Standardized Permit
Rule’) [5]
This rule would allow states to apply their own cleanup criteria independently
of the federal RCRA corrective action process, resulting in a loss of
federal enforcement power and undermining on-going cleanup programs.
The rule would also undermine current financial assurance mechanisms
for post-closure maintenance at polluting facilities and sites by allowing
unreliable closure insurance. Insurance is not appropriate for an event
whose occurrence is certain. Finally, this rule would inhibit public
participation by allowing polluters to maintain certain records (including
waste analysis plan, contingency plan and closure plan) at facilities
instead of submitting them to the regulatory agency.
- ‘One
Cleanup’ Standard: The Lowest Common Denominator [6]
EPA has announced the "One Cleanup Program" policy initiative
whose stated goal is “to manage all waste programs so that resources,
activities, and results are more effectively coordinated and easily
communicated to the public.” In fact, this initiative could easily
push all toxic cleanups towards the lowest common denominator –
the cheapest alternative for polluters and the least protective of health
and environment. Cleanup methods and standards for theoretically biodegradable
environmental contaminants, like petroleum, could be applied to persistent,
highly toxic poisons like mercury and PCBs. Unlike rule changes, this
change in administrative procedure can be achieved without public comment.
ENDNOTES
- See http://www.grrn.org/landfill/epa_background.html.
EPA Docket Number F-2002-RDMP-FFFFF, published June 10, 2002 - State
Research, Development and Demonstration Permits for MSW Landfills, Proposed
Rule-Making – 40 CFR §258.4. Rule text at http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/muncpl/mswlficr/.[off-site]
- EPA Docket Number
F-2002-RPRP-FFFFF, published March 25, 2002 - Regulation of Hazardous
Oil-Bearing Secondary Materials From the Petroleum Refining Industry
and Other Hazardous Secondary Materials Processed in a Gasification
System To Produce Synthesis Gas. Rule text at http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/hazwaste/gas.htm.[off-site]
- See EPA Docket
Number F-2002-CRTP-FFFFF, published June 12, 2002 - Hazardous Waste
Management System; Modification of the Hazardous Waste Program; Cathode
Ray Tubes and Mercury-Containing Equipment. Rule text at http://www.epa.gov/fedrgstr/EPA-WASTE/2002/June/Day-12/f13116.htm.[off-site]
- EPA Docket Number
F-1999-IBRA-FFFFF, published January 17, 2002 - Resource Conservation
and Recovery Act Burden Reduction Initiative. Rule text at http://www.epa.gov/fedrgstr/EPA-WASTE/2002/January/Day-17/f191.htm.
[off-site]
- EPA Docket Number
F-2001-SPRF-FFFFF, published October 21, 2001 - Hazardous Waste Management
System; Standardized Permit; Corrective Action; and Financial Responsibility
for RCRA Hazardous Waste Management Facilities. Rule text http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/hazwaste/permit/std-perm.htm.[off-site]
- See http://www.epa.gov/swerrims/onecleanup.htm.[off-site]
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