|
Year
|
Presidency
|
Act
|
|
|
1970
|
Nixon
|
National
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)
|
Sets requirements
for public involvement and environmental review
|
|
1970
|
|
Clean Air Act (CAA)
|
Regulates Air
Emission
|
|
1972
|
|
Clean Water Act (CWA)
|
Regulates Pollutant
Discharges
|
|
1974
|
Ford
|
Safe Drinking Water
Act (SDWA)
|
Protects Drinking
Water
|
|
1976
|
|
Resource
Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA)
|
Regulates Solid
Waste Disposal
|
|
1980
|
Carter
|
RCRA Amended
|
Exempts Oil Field
Wastes
|
|
1987
|
Reagan
|
CWA Amended
|
Oil and Gas exempt
from runoff limits
|
|
1991
|
Bush Sr.
|
CAA Amended
|
Exempts Hydrogen
Sulfide (found in natural gas)
|
|
2005
|
G.W. Bush
|
SDWA Amended
|
Exempts Hydraulic
Fracturing
|
|
2005
|
|
CWA Amended
|
Redefines sediment
as non-pollutant, exempts oil and gas sediment runoff
|
|
2005
|
|
NEPA Amended
|
25% of all oil and
gas wells exempt
|
Table
compiled using information from: http://www.shalegas.energy.gov/resources/060211_earthworks_fs_oilgasexemptions.pdf
When we spoke about Environmental
Regulation in class this Monday, I remembered something that my high school chemistry
teacher told me shortly after the release of the film Gasland. He said that one of the most frustrating things about
fracking’s success is that it hasn’t been playing by the same rules, like the
Clean Air Act, as other fossil fuels. In the same conversation, he also told me
that- if he could do it all again-Environmental Justice was way more important
than chemistry.
Now, as we discuss the same issues,
I decided to look back and see just how natural gas fits in to our legislation.
The table above is the result of this research and, unfortunately, exhibits quite
explicit trends. What were relatively strict and restrictive policies towards
the protection of human and environmental health have been silently eroded
since their inception.
It is important to mention that there have
been many improvements in Environmental Protection and EPA overreach since the ‘70s
and they have not been included above. The amendments shown are exceptions that
have been extended to oil and gas that also contained many more regulations and
modernizations. Draw what conclusions you may about party lines and lobby sway
but, it is my opinion that these exemptions run in direct conflict with the
trend towards more regulation informed by greater understanding, data and
outreach.
Part of the reasoning for so much
Oil and Gas Regulation scale back under Bush II was an assertion that State
Regulatory Bodies could maintain pollution levels much more efficiently than a
national organization. After reading about how pollution in the Midwest deposits
acid rain in the Adirondacks, I find it impossible to see pollution as an
individual states right or responsibility. Globally, carbon emissions could
lead some to argue that even nations lack the right to damage an entire planet.
But that is another blogpost entirely.
Heeding my professors’ advice, I
drew pictures on my Senior AP Chem test. I have also used every opportunity
since to learn more about the American and International Environmental Justice system.
What I have learned now is shameful, but hopefully new amendments will come
that might restore some integrity to the fundamental tenants of American Environmental
Protection.
I think you make a good point here. Legislation regarding the environment is not influential or substantive, and after being amended, a lot of regulations end up being watered down and ineffective in their original purpose. Environmental politics in general seem to follow this trend. The United States was not one of the 192 countries to ratify the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement to lower greenhouse gas emissions, and the 1990 amendment to the Clean Air Act failed to place stricter limitations on nitrous oxide, which is being increasingly emitted into the atmosphere and contributing largely to acid rain. Recent Congressional acknowledgements of climate change are even indecisive and imprecise. All of this makes the United States government seem very reluctant to take a firm stance for environmental protection and consideration. This reluctance is very evident in legislation regulating carbon emissions and fracking and in the country's varying opinions of the environment and how it should be managed.
ReplyDeleteI think that this idea raises a lot of important questions about what happens to these pieces of legislation if they are passed or ratified. We consider it a feat if we are able to pass something through Congress that benefits the environment, but what we often forget about is how that act is then implemented. Last year I wrote a term paper on the relationship between NEPA and the Supreme Court. When I was first researching NEPA, many wrote that it was considered the “Magna Carta” of environmental legislation. That’s a pretty powerful statement to make and what I found so concerning was that all Supreme Court cases that fell under NEPA have ruled against the legislation. The Supreme Court has never addressed the substantive claims of the act, which would require agencies to seriously assess the environmental effects of a project. Now the substantive claims are ineffective and the act is purely procedural. Congress had hoped at the time that this would be the most important piece of environmental legislation in history. What was powerful on paper has now been stripped down to procedural requirements that are ineffective. I believe that this is one of the major problems facing environmental politics.
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