League of Conservation Voters grades federal lawmakers on environmental issues

Casey earns perfect score; Specter's and Holden's are mediocre

The League of Conservation Voters has released its annual scorecard for 2007, evaluating federal lawmakers' voting records on environmental issues.

On the Senate side, the environmental advocacy group looked at votes on 15 matters ranging from oil subsidies to energy efficiency standards to liquid fuel derived from coal. The latter issue is of special interest to residents of Schuylkill County, where Waste Management and Processors -- a subsidiary of the Rich Family Companies -- is pushing for millions in taxpayer subsidies to build a waste coal-to-oil plant near Gilberton. Producing oil from coal or waste coal emits large amounts of toxic pollution as well as greenhouse gases.

Sen. Robert Casey (D) got a grade of 100 percent, voting the more environmentally sustainable position on every issue. His colleague, Sen. Arlen Specter (R), didn't do as well, earning only a 60 percent -- though that represents an improvement from previous scorecards where he earned grades ranging from a low of 28 percent in the 2003-2004 session to a previous high of 52 percent in 2001-2002. The issues where Specter differed with environmentalists in the latest evaluation were oil subsidies, clean energy standards, offshore drilling, oil refinery security, and the establishment of a commission to prioritize water resources projects.

On the House side, Rep. Tim Holden (D-17) did slightly better than Specter at 70 percent. Of the 20 issues considered, the ones where he parted ways with environmentalists were grasslands protection, farm subsidy reform, clean air, offshore drilling and family planning. The average score for Congress overall was 53 percent.

Holden and Specter also voted against the environment on the issue of liquid coal. It's not altogether surprising that they would do the bidding of liquid coal interests when you consider how much the Rich family alone has invested in their political campaigns. John W. Rich Jr. -- the man behind the local waste coal-to-oil plant -- and others connected with the Rich Family Companies have donated at least $20,800 to Specter, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics' OpenSecrets.org database. At the same time, they've donated a whopping $45,681 to Holden -- but nothing at all to Casey.

Rendell does bidding of polluting paymasters in Schuylkill County

During a press conference earlier this month, Gov. Ed Rendell expressed his enthusiasm for a waste coal-to-oil facility planned for Schuylkill County. The project near Gilberton would dramatically increase toxic emissions in an area already experiencing unusually high cancer rates that researchers believe are linked to environmental factors.

And Rendell doesn't just support the idea of private investors undertaking the project: He wants the very people who would be hurt by the plant's pollution to subsidize its construction, the estimated cost of which has more than tripled since the proposal was first unveiled. The Pottsville Republican Herald reports:

... Rendell was asked about the proposed $1 billion coal-to-liquid fuels project in Mahanoy Township, proposed by John W. Rich Jr., president of Waste Management and Processors Inc.

Rendell said he would be open to providing more funds to help put the waste coal-to-oil plant "over the top."

"Yes, that's a project that we would be very interested in," Rendell said.

Rich and other members of his family who do business together as part of the Rich Family Companies -- which include a local sewage sludge dumping operation, two waste-coal burning power plants, and a mining company -- are major political benefactors for Rendell, having contributed at least $68,000 to his political campaigns since 2001, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics' database. Those include contributions of:

* $8,000 on Nov. 14, 2001;
* $10,000 on Feb. 21, 2002;
* $10,000 on Aug. 6, 2002;
* $7,500 on Sept. 25, 2002;
* $10,000 on Oct. 30, 2002;
* $500 on Dec. 31, 2002;
* $1,000 on April 15, 2004;
* $1,000 on March 3, 2005;
* and a whopping $20,000 on Sept. 21, 2006.

If Schuylkill County residents suffering from cancer and other environmental illnesses want the governor to take action in their behalf, perhaps they'll have to come up with some campaign cash, too.

(Photo of John W. Rich Jr. by The News-Item via UltraCleanFuels.com)

New evidence of corruption at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Last year the people of the Hometown area bore witness as representatives of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, a division of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, lied to us in an effort to hide inconvenient truths about pollution's impact on our health.

During an October meeting in Hazleton, we heard representatives of the ATSDR tell us that a study into the area's unusually high rate of polycythemia vera conducted by the agency and independent researchers found no environmental factors contributing to the rare blood malignancy's prevalence. Soon after that, however, we discovered an abstract of that very study posted online that said the researchers found an unusual cluster of the disease centered around the McAdoo Associates Superfund site just north of Hometown. Even after ATSDR officials disavowed that finding, saying the study contained "erroneous information" and needed to be revised, the researchers continued to insist that their data points to an environmental factor behind the elevated incidence rates. One of the researchers confided to me that they were feeling pressure from higher-ups at the CDC to back off from those claims.

Now more evidence has emerged of the CDC's eagerness to cover up inconvenient scientific truths -- and to punish the researchers who unearth them.

The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit investigative journalism organization, last week published a story that describes how the CDC blocked publication of an ATSDR study into environmental hazards in the eight Great Lakes states reportedly because of its alarming findings about health effects. The study -- which was conducted at the request of the International Joint Commission, an independent organization that advises the U.S. and Canadian governments on the quality of boundary waters between the two countries -- found that more than nine million people who live in some two dozen communities including Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit and Milwaukee may face elevated health risks from toxic exposures. It also found low birth weights, elevated rates of infant mortality and premature births, and elevated death rates from various cancers with environmental links.

The CDC's response? Bury the study.

Reports CPI:

Last July, several days before the study was to be released, ATSDR suddenly withdrew it, saying that it needed further review. In a letter to Christopher De Rosa, then the director of the agency's division of toxicology and environmental medicine, Dr. Howard Frumkin, ATSDR's chief, wrote that the quality of the study was "well below expectations." When the Center contacted Frumkin's office, a spokesman said that he was not available for comment and that the study was "still under review."

And guess what happened to De Rosa? After complaining to his bosses that the withholding of the study smacked of scientific censorship, he was demoted. He's currently trying to get his old job back, claiming that the demotion represented illegal retaliation by Frumkin.

Why would the CDC squelch such an important study and punish the renowned researcher behind it? CPI asked Canadian biologist and IJC member Michael Gilbertson, who was also one of the study's peer reviewers, for his thoughts:

"It's not good because it's inconvenient," Gilbertson said. "The whole problem with all this kind of work is wrapped up in that word 'injury.' If you have injury, that implies liability. Liability, of course, implies damages, legal processes, and costs of remedial action. The governments, frankly, in both countries are so heavily aligned with, particularly, the chemical industry, that the word amongst the bureaucracies is that they really do not want any evidence of effect or injury to be allowed out there."

More national press coverage of local polycythemia vera cluster

The Washington Independent, a nonpartisan news and commentary Web site launched last month by the nonprofit Center for Independent Media, has an in-depth article on the local polycythemia vera cluster that explores a possible connection between the rare blood malignancy and the dumping of coal-combustion waste. Titled "Don't Drink the Water: Clean Coal's Downside," the story is by freelance reporter Suemedha Sood.

The sources quoted include Tamaqua resident and polycythemia vera patient Merle Wertman, attorney and local environmental health advocate Dante Picciano, local oncologist Dr. Paul Roda, Northeastern Power Co. Plant Manager Edward Missal, Jeff Stant of the Clean Air Task Force, local geologist Robert Gadinski, Earthjustice attorney Lisa Evans, and Dr. Zev Wainberg, an oncologist/hematologist at the Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center and Orthopaedic Hospital who calls the high rates of such a rare disease "surprising."