Calling the fight against cancer “one of the most notorious public health failures of the 20th century” four leading cancer and environmental experts called on Congress and the Obama Administration this week to acknowledge the role environmental carcinogens play in triggering cancer and dedicate more money to cancer prevention.

In a letter to Congressional leaders, the national medical and scientific experts said they were concerned that prevention has received little attention in the Obama Cancer Plan. They noted that health care costs could not be brought under control without a better plan to fight the disease that claims 1,500 American lives daily and costs $89 billion a year to diagnose and treat. (Costs rise to $219 billion annually, when lost productivity and premature death costs are factored in).

“The connection between our losing the cancer war and the need to control costs through prevention is clear. Cancer is not only one of the most costly and sometimes deadly diseases in America, it is also one of the most preventable,” they wrote.

As Congress ramps up this week to craft what could be a massive health care reform package, the advocates asked that elected leaders make revisions to the National Cancer Act (of 1971) that would reduce Americans’ exposure to carcinogens by half over the next decade.

They also want a complete public registry of carcinogens.

For too long, they say, the National Cancer Institute has blamed the vast majority of cancer on human behaviors, such as lack of exercise, poor diet and sun exposure – ignoring the role of environmental carcinogens.

But environmental and occupational exposures to carcinogens are the primary cause of non-smoking related cancers, say the petitioning experts, led by Dr. Samuel S. Epstein, MD Chairman, Cancer Prevention Coalition in Chicago. They cited “preventable exposures to carcinogens in the workplace and environment” such as nitrites in processed meats, formaldehyde, chlorinated organic pesticides, organic solvents and other substances.

The letter listed many more examples of how environmental factors, beyond tobacco use, that are believed to cause cancer.

“To be sure, smoking remains the best-known and single largest cause of cancer, particularly lung cancer. While incidence rates of lung cancer in men have declined by 20% over the past three decades, rates in women increased by 111%. But more importantly, non-smoking cancers — due to known chemical and physical carcinogens — have increased substantially since 1975. Some of the more startling realities in the failure to prevent cancer are illustrated by their soaring rates of increase. These include:

For years, California has been a leader of environmental policy — writing it’s own stricter rules for pesticide controls, air pollution and waste disposal as it sees fit, regardless of whether the nation is following along.

In the 1990s, the state pushed the leading edge of a technology that many of us wish had been pursued more aggressively when it hosted a test of modern electric cars, a fairly successful experiment that was regrettably  shoved into neutral by U.S. automakers.

Lately, California state legislators have attacked air pollution by attempting to set greenhouse gas emissions limits, aiming to push automakers to meet higher mileage standards. Several other states followed with their own laws, though the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has blocked action, saying that states cannot regulate GHGs.

The day is coming though that California’s leadership may enjoy fewer roadblocks. The new Congress, led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who clearly wants a green agenda front and center,  will have Henry A. Waxman , at the helm of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. (Elected in 1974, Waxman’s institutional memory includes the 70s energy crisis and being from the LA area, he’s got intimate knowledge of clean air issues.)

In the Senate, longtime advocate for the environment, children and the elderly, Barbara Boxer, (D-Calif.), will chair the Environment and Public Works Committee. A former U.S. Representative elected to the senate in 1992, Boxer has gone to bat against EPA chief Stephen Johnson, arguing that the EPA has no right to exempt carbon emissions from the Clean Air Act.

And there’s more: Steven Chu, the Bay Area scientist, and Nancy Sutley, the deputy mayor of Los Angeles, have been nominated to be energy secretary and the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality, respectively, in the Obama Administration.

The list goes on. For additional details on the Golden state’s band of green-leaning leaders, see the Washington Post story Californians Shape Up as Force on Environmental Policy.

Copyright © 2008 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

What happens when regulation takes a holiday? Financial institutions run amok, industry encroaches on national parks, endangered wildlife is left in the lurch, and apparently, too, the nation’s water is put at risk.

This week, two Congressional leaders, Henry Waxman, (D-Calif.) and James Oberstar (D-Minn.) unveiled the results of their joint investigation into the Clean Water Act, which shows that there has been a recent, dangerous lack of enforcement of the Clean Water Act.

In a letter to President Elect Barack Obama, the two lawmakers explained that since a 2006 Supreme Court decision narrowed the scope of the Clean Water Act, making it more difficult to assemble a case against clean water violators, hundreds of enforcement actions have been stalled or sidelined.
All told, the report discovered that some 500 potential clean water cases have been dropped or put on hold since the court’s ruling in Rapanos v. United States, a case that asked whether certain wetlands that empty into a river in Michigan were subject to federal clean water protections. That decline in enforcement represents roughly a halving of enforcement actions.

Not everyone would agree that the curtailment was a problem.

Bush Administration guidance following the case may have constrained federal agencies even beyond the intent of the Supreme Court, according to some critics. That made making cases against alleged polluters more difficult, they say.

Waxman and Oberstar concluded that the new rules were so cumbersome they brought enforcement of the 36-year-old Clean Water Act to a near standstill.

“Our investigation reveals that the clean water program has been decimated as hundreds of enforcement cases have been dropped, downgraded, delayed, or never brought in the first place. We need to work with the new Administration to restore the effectiveness and integrity to this vital program,” Waxman told reporters.

“It is absolutely shocking that more than 35 years after passage of the Clean Water Act the EPA finds itself unable to take action to protect our waters against oil spills, illegal waste discharges and other harmful pollution,” said Ed Hopkins, director of the Sierra Club’s Environmental Quality Program in a statement following the investigative report’s release.

“Supreme Court decisions and Bush administration policies have truly muddied the waters,” he said.

Across the country, EPA regional offices complained to the Congressional investigators that they could not pursue potential clean water violators because of the new rules and  general lack of federal support for their efforts.

Waxman’s and Oberstar’s letter to Obama noted several of these complaints:

• The Dallas regional office warned that their “oil pollution enforcement program has been significantly impacted,” dozens of oil spill cases are “on hold,” and “no follow-up for penalties or corrective action has been sought.”

• The Denver regional office warned that it has “literally hundreds of OPA [Oil Pollution Act] cases in our ‘no further action’ file.”  That office forward to the committees a lengthy list of “violations which we failed to take cases on.”

• The Atlanta regional office warned of a “resource drain” that “may be preventing us from doing as many enforcement actions” as in the past and informed EPA headquarters of a “downward trend” that was having “significant impacts on enforcement”; concluding that, “we will not be able to pursue the bulk of our water cases.”

• The Seattle regional office warned that budgets allowed for “little to no site investigation.”

Hundreds of documents released by the EPA to investigators contained redactions, or excised portions, that  kept secret which of the nation’s streams, marshes and creeks have suffered from oil spills and other pollution without penalty.

The Rapanos case made clean water regulation more difficult by decreeing that federal agencies could claim jurisdiction over certain waterways only after going through a “time-consuming and resource-intensive” process, according to the letter from Waxman and Oberstar.

Waxman is chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Oberstar heads the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.

The Clean Water Act of 1972 gave Congress the power to regulate pollutants being discharged into U.S. “waters”.

Court cases have arisen at other times over whether the Clean Water Act’s authority is too broad.

Copyright © 2008 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media