The federal government has a portal site for agencies to post
regulations and proposed rules for publication and comment.  It's
a fabulous idea — but only if it's kept current and it is
extraordinarily clear that all proposed rules and regulations are
posted or, if not, how to find out what's not and why not.  If
these hurdles are overcome — and it appears they have not been as yet
– this site will become a fabulous resource for all Americans. 
Please take a look and let us know what you think.  You can find the site at:
http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main.

Without any public notice, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has rewritten its proposed rule on human experiments to authorize chemical testing on fetal tissue, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).  The change will allow pesticide and chemical companies to conduct experiments on aborted fetuses to buttress lobbying efforts for relaxation of federal regulation and increases in allowable dosage levels for its products.

EPA’s wording change came after the public comment period ended on its controversial plan to accept and conduct chemical experiments on humans. EPA’s proposed rule would have forbidden intentional exposure of a “pregnant woman, fetus, or newborn” but in its Final Rule announced on January 26, 2006, EPA altered the language to forbid intentional exposure of human subjects who are “pregnant women (and therefore their fetuses) or children.” [Emphasis added]

This wording change would appear to allow the use of a fetus or its tissue no longer within a pregnant woman for experiments.  This rewrite came without any explanation by EPA.  Moreover, at a February 13, 2006 “Stakeholders Meeting” to explain its new rule, EPA’s representatives were unable to answer questions about the origin or meaning of the new language.

Fetal tissue research has great potential for shedding light on the developmental effects of chemicals.  Corporate access to fetal tissue experiments may better enable them to argue against extra strict regulations on chemical exposure of pregnant women and young children. But fetal research has been fraught with controversy.  Since 1995, Congress has banned National Institutes of Health funding for human embryo research.  In the current debate on stem cell research, the Bush administration has banned use of fetal tissue to harvest new stem cells.

 “Under EPA’s rule, chemical companies could conduct experiments to justify pesticide exposures that biochemical companies could not perform to develop new lifesaving medicines,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. “Unfortunately, under the current administration, EPA has earned a reputation for blindly adopting language supplied by corporate lawyer-lobbyists.”

It was EPA’s sponsorship (in partnership with the American Chemistry Council) of an experiment called “CHEERS” in which Florida parents would have been paid to spray pesticides in the rooms of their infant children that sparked a renewed debate on human experiments for commercial purposes, such as setting pesticide exposure limits.  Last summer, Congress banned human testing until EPA finally imposed strict ethics standards. After years of resisting any safeguards and propounding a “case-by-case” approach, EPA moved with alacrity to adopt rules so that it could resume consideration and funding of such research.

Environmental groups and congressional critics have served notice that they will challenge EPA’s new human testing rules, which become effective on April 7, 2006.

“Given the inherent controversy, EPA should have bent over backward to be aboveboard and transparent but, instead, the agency went behind closed doors to do something that flunks the smell test,” Ruch added.

The New Yorker's Jane Mayer hits a  home run with this exposure of early efforts to clean up the mess in Gitmo

THE MEMO
by JANE MAYER
How an internal effort to ban the abuse and torture of detainees was
thwarted.
Issue of 2006-02-27
Posted 2006-02-20

One night this January, in a ceremony at the Officers’ Club at Fort
Myer, in Arlington, Virginia, which sits on a hill with a commanding
view across the Potomac River to the Washington Monument, Alberto J.
Mora, the outgoing general counsel of the United States Navy, stood next
to a podium in the club’s ballroom. A handsome gray-haired man in his
mid-fifties, he listened with a mixture of embarrassment and pride as
his colleagues toasted his impending departure. Amid the usual tributes
were some more pointed comments.

“Never has there been a counsel with more intellectual courage or
personal integrity,” David Brant, the former head of the Naval Criminal
Investigative Service, said. Brant added somewhat cryptically, “He
surprised us into doing the right thing.” Conspicuous for his silence
that night was Mora’s boss, William J. Haynes II, the general counsel of
the Department of Defense.

Click here to read the rest of the story…..

I was delighted when I read about Condoleezza Rice’s plan to transfer diplomats from Europe to understaffed posts in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.  One longtime problem with the foreign service has been that it was too successful in concentrating jobs where the living was easy, and where the real need for American diplomats did not justify the assignments.

Unfortunately, when I read the list of countries that will lose foreign service jobs under the Rice plan, I saw that only two of the reassigned diplomats will come from Britain, and none from France, Switzerland, Italy, or Spain, which have traditionally been the cushiest, most sought-after, and consequently most over-staffed. 

Langley Suffers Similar Mindset

Since 9/11, it has been crystal clear that we have needed more spies in countries where plots against us may be being hatched.  Yet according to Bill Gertz of The Washington Times, even after all the talk about the need for better intelligence since 9/11, we have fewer than 1,000 intelligence officers “working in the field as spies and spy handlers.” US News & World Report puts the figure at 1,200.

Whichever is right, the figure represents a miserably low percentage of the 20,000 or so CIA employees.  Certainly, it reflects poor leadership from the Bush administration.  But as veteran students of bureaucracy know, it also reflects a truth about the CIA bureaucrats that is similar to why foreign service officers try to preserve the cushiest assignments in Europe.  At the CIA, the institutional preference seems to be for the safety and comfort of a headquarters assignment at Langley.

Back in 1980 when I wrote my book, How Washington Really Works, I called this tendency on the part of our overseas services “Never Leave the Cities Where The Good Bars Are.”  It was unfair then as it is now to many dedicated CIA and foreign service officers.  But it remains a trait of human nature that is hard for agency heads to overcome.  Most of us would prefer Paris, Rome, London or even Washington to most posts in the third world.  That’s why those in charge must not only take the kind of stand Rice has, but have the resolve to really follow through. 

On the same day, the Times also reports that the Supreme Court has acccepted for rehearing a case in which the
Bush administration wants the court to make it harder
for government whistleblowers to win lawsuits claiming retaliation.
Justices had seemed conflicted last October when they took up the
appeal involving Los Angeles County prosecutor Richard Ceballos, who
asserted he was demoted for trying to expose a lie by a sheriff's
deputy.
To read this story, click here.

The New York Times reports that bipartisan support for federal
whistleblowers is emerging in the wake of testimony alleging against
whistleblowers [or whistle-blowers if you use the NYTimes Stylebook]
who complained about treatment of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib and
federal wiretapping, among other issues. 
To read the 2/17 story, click here.

Today''s New York Times brings more bad news for NASA.  Call it
Cronyism or the Political Appointments Process at Work, but public
affairs officers at NASA complain that appointees pressured them to
sensor the types of news releases that went out.  
This
raises the question:  Doesn't this happen in every administration?
Maybe, but we're certainly hearing more complaints about the
encroachments of appointed officials into what career employees
obviously consider their turf.
You can find the complete article here.

A South Dakota farmer seeking to plant federally-subsidized stream buffers on his own land has triggered stiff local opposition and an unusual court battle, according to case files released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).  The fight signals deep hostility in some rural communities against the ongoing shift away from crop subsidies and towards support for sustainable agriculture.

Currently, the federal government offers financial incentives for farmers to plant trees and shrubs along streams to prevent soil erosion, create wildlife habitat and protect water quality by keeping cattle from wallowing along denuded, overgrazed banks.  In 2004, Gordon Heber, a Douglas County landowner, took the federal agency, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, up on its offer.  After securing approval from the NRCS and endorsements from the state soil conservationist and environmental organization, Heber advanced $87,000 out of his own pocket to plant trees and shrubs along two sections of the Choteau Creek on the expectation that he would be reimbursed once the project was finished.  The creek is classified as an impaired waterway by state and federal environmental authorities.

As he was ready to plant, local authorities stepped in and ordered a halt to the project.  Heber hired a lawyer and went to court. His case was argued last Thursday, February 9th before the state Circuit Court in Douglas County, located just above the Nebraska border.  A decision is expected in five weeks. Meanwhile, both the trees and Heber’s financial future teeter in the balance.

Some residents of Douglas County are against government investment in farm conservation, contending it causes higher land prices and attracts absentee owners who buy land for recreation rather than for farming or ranching.  In order to block landowners from planting federally-subsidized riparian buffers, Douglas County now requires a county zoning permit in order to plant trees.  

“They say only God can make a tree but in South Dakota the local zoning board apparently has to sign off, as well,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that the outcome of the Heber case will determine whether landowners can take part in federal agricultural conservation programs free from local obstructionism. “Our national drive to promote sustainable agriculture will wither on the vine if it is made subject to local veto.”  

Heber’s case also creates an odd bedfellows uniting environmental and property rights advocates on the same side in favor of allowing landowners to plant trees on their own land.

Later this month, Congress begins debating the annual farm budget bill and the debate about whether to end crop subsidies altogether will be rejoined.  The 2002 Farm Bill made a historic commitment to farmers and ranchers to help finance investments to improve the environmental health of their lands.  Full funding for that commitment, however, has been lagging.  In his proposed FY07 budget President Bush would again cut funding for an array of farming stewardship programs, including the one Gordon Heber hopes to use.  

Senior Florida environmental officials committed criminal violations of the state’s open records law by hiding documents about pollution problems at a landfill run by political associates of Governor Jeb Bush, according to a complaint filed today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).  At the same time they were withholding documents, top managers at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection issued false statements to the press indicating that the asbestos operation was in compliance with anti-pollution requirements.

Florida’s public records law, popularly known as the Sunshine Act, requires state agencies to produce public records when asked to by the public.  A state official who “willfully and knowingly violates” this mandate to produce requested documents is guilty of a first degree misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment for up to a year and a fine.

In April 2004, PEER requested the state enforcement files covering Big Wheel Recycling, Aztec Environmental, Inc., and their affiliates in Bay County.  Several months after the requested documents were supposedly produced; the U.S. Air Force barred the companies from receiving any federal contracts for an indefinite period of time, pointing to a joint FBI, Defense Criminal Investigative Service and Customs investigation documenting pollution, occupational safety and immigration offenses.

A records request by PEER to the Air Force under the federal Freedom of Information Act yielded papers showing that the firms were using crews of illegal aliens, holding “fictitious social security” numbers, to perform unsafe asbestos removals and dump the debris illegally into an open air disposal facility, thereby creating a public health hazard.  Some of the documents produced by the Air Force indicated DEP involvement during a time period covered by PEER’s April 2004 public records request. Yet, those records had not been supplied by the DEP.

After PEER made these new documents publicly available, it submitted another request to DEP for documents.  In response, DEP surrendered 300 pages of inspection reports and other enforcement records, many of which should have been released earlier.

“Criminal prosecution of the responsible officials is justified not only because relevant documents were covered up but because the cover-up endangered the health of both residents and workers,” stated Florida PEER Director Jerry Phillips, a former DEP enforcement attorney who filed the criminal complaint with the Office of State Attorney in Tallahassee.  “Unless these egregious cases are prosecuted, we can just turn out the lights on Florida’s Sunshine Act.”

Despite the Air Force action and the incriminating inspection reports showing groundwater contamination, illegal asbestos disposal and improper permitting, DEP has brought no enforcement action against the Big Wheel operation.  William Gerald Harrison, Jr., a prominent Panama City attorney who is a registered lobbyist for the St. Joe Company and a member of both Governor Jeb Bush’s and President George W. Bush’s transition teams, served on the Board of Directors for Big Wheel and fought the federal debarment.

In response to PEER document requests, DEP Northwest District Director Mary Jean Yon repeatedly insisted the Big Wheel syndicate was in environmental compliance even though her own inspectors kept reporting violations.  Yon has since been promoted to DEP headquarters and placed in charge of all state waste disposal regulation.

PEER has also called for a grand jury investigation into a myriad of problems within the Northwest District Office of DEP, including the role of campaign contributions in hiring practices and the lack of enforcement against Big Wheel.  That complaint was transferred to the State Attorney in Panama City in May 2005. His office has yet to dismiss or pursue the matter.

###

Read the PEER criminal complaint
http://www.peer.org/docs/fl/06_15_2_meggs_ltr.pdf

See the detailed report of the history of DEP cover-up on Big Wheel
http://www.peer.org/docs/fl/06_15_2_bw_revisted.pdf

Look at the federal debarment of Big Wheel for environmental and immigration violations

http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=610

An air-monitoring technician who revealed serious operational failures and other problems at the Bluegrass Army Depot may lose his clearance to work near chemical weapons, according to a memo released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).  The action for “Permanent Disqualification” of Donald Van Winkle cites unspecified “signs of behavior of a disgruntled employee and … lack of a positive attitude.”

In recent months, Van Winkle has notified authorities that monitoring devices to detect leaks of deadly VX agent from Kentucky’s Bluegrass Depot had been had been configured so as to be ineffective. The depot stores over 500 tons of chemical warfare agents in 45 storage units called igloos.  Van Winkle operates air-monitoring units designed to detect leaks of chemical warfare agents.  A release of the chemical agents in the igloos could sicken or kill facility staff and, under worst case scenarios, to the surrounding civilian populations.

Pending investigations reportedly have already confirmed some of Van Winkle’s reports.  Moreover, the official seeking to remove Van Winkle is implicated in these multi-agency probes.

“Donald Van Winkle is a patriot, not a security risk,” stated PEER General Counsel Richard Condit, whose organization is representing Van Winkle, noting that recently issued Army Ethical Standards define ethical behavior as “the will to do what is right and proper regardless of personal cost.”  “Our security is compromised, not by people like Donald Van Winkle, but by Army officials who cover up vulnerabilities in the chemical weapons stockpile.”

Unlike other personnel actions, the loss of the type of security clearance held by Van Winkle is not reviewable by outside authorities.  The final decision is made by the same command (the Army Chemical Materials Agency) which brought the “disgruntled” behavior charges.  If Van Winkle loses his clearance and is not given a non-chemical weapons assignment, he will likely be terminated from federal service.

“Franz Kafka would feel right at home in Army Chemical Materials Agency,” Condit added. “The very officials whom Van Winkle accurately accused of incompetence and negligence will decide his fate.”

Tomorrow, the House Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations will hold a hearing entitled “National Security Whistleblowers in the post-9/11 Era: Lost in a Labyrinth and Facing Subtle Retaliation.”  In the hearing announcement, Congressman Christopher Shays (R-CT), the subcommittee chair, stated:

“Suspension or revocation of a security clearance can have the same chilling effect as demotion or firing, but clearance actions are virtually unreviewable. Those with whom we trust the nation’s secrets should not be second class citizens when it comes to asserting their rights to speak truth to power.”

The Army Chemical Materials Agency will render its decision on whether to permanently disqualify Van Winkle by the end of the month.