Hill Heat

From E&E News:

The success of legislation aimed at cleaning up contaminated sediment in the Great Lakes Basin will receive close scrutiny at a House Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee hearing Wednesday as lawmakers consider its reauthorization.

The Great Lakes Legacy Act of 2002 was designed to eliminate contaminant hot spots where PCBs, heavy metals and other pollutants poured from industrial sources into the Great Lakes and surrounding rivers and tributaries. Thus far, it has contributed to the removal of nearly 800,000 cubic yards of contaminated sediment and has received high praise from U.S. EPA officials and lawmakers.

“In Michigan, it has been phenomenally successful,” Rep. Vernon Ehlers (R-Mich.), who authored the legislation, told E&E Daily. “We’ve cleaned up a number of spots.”

Ehlers said he has heard the program was effective in other areas of the Great Lakes as well.

“One person who works in the whole field, including Superfund, said this is the best, most workable pollution cleanup he’s ever worked with,” Ehlers said. “That’s what we want to find out in the hearing. Is that the opinion of one person or is everyone finding it to be a very workable program?”

Ehlers said after the hearing he would work with Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman James Oberstar (D-Minn.) to put a reauthorization bill together.

“We’ll do whatever we can do to improve the program, and we’ll certainly try to get more funding for it because it’s clear it’s working very well and people like it,” he said. “It does what it’s intended to do. If we had more funding we could do a lot more and do it a lot faster.”

Many lawmakers are critical of the Bush administration’s failure to fully fund the legislation. Although the program would receive a $55,000 boost in the administration’s fiscal 2009 budget, the funding still falls $15 million short of the $50 million authorized by Congress.

However, presidential hopefuls Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) all have signed a pledge to fund and support the restoration of the Great Lakes. The price tag for the entire project is expected to exceed $20 billion.

05/21/2008 at 10:00AM

Witnesses

Panel 1

• Robin Nazarro, Director, Natural Resources and Environment Program, U.S. Government Accountability Office
• R. Lyle Laverty, Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, U.S. Department of the Interior
• Accompanied by: Ren Lohoefener, Fish and Wildlife Service and Ed Shepard, Bureau of Land Management
• Jane Luxton, General Counsel, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
• Dr. Francesca T. Grifo, Ph.D., Senior Scientist and Director, Scientific Integrity Program, Union of Concerned Scientists

Panel 2

• Scott D. Kraus, Ph.D., Vice President of Research, New England Aquarium
• Dr. Jerry F. Franklin, Ph.D., College of Forest Resources, University of Washington
• Scott Hoffman Black, Executive Director, The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation
• David Parsons, Science Fellow, The Rewilding Institute
• Larry Irwin, National Council for Air & Stream Improvement

05/21/2008 at 10:00AM

The Committee on Environment and Public Works will hold a Business Meeting to consider the following items:

• General Services Administration Resolutions.
• Army Corps of Engineers Resolutions.
• S. 2766, the Clean Boating Act of 2008.
• S. 1499, the Marine Vessel Emissions Reduction Act of 2007.
• S. 2555, the Reducing Global Warming Pollution from Vehicles Act of 2008.
• S. 2844, the Beach Protection Act of 2008.
• S. 2707, the Chesapeake Bay Gateways and Watertrails Network Continuing Authorization Act.
• H.R. 3891, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation Establishment Act Amendment of 2008.
• S. 1566, a bill to amend the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 to improve that Act.
• S. 2700, a bill to amend the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 to double the liability limits for single-hull tankers and tank barges for 2009.
• S. 2728, a bill to establish the Twenty-First Century Water Commission to study and develop recommendations for a comprehensive water strategy to address future water needs.
• H.R. 3248, SAFETEA-LU Technical Corrections Act of 2007 (Boxer Substitute Amendment is Attached).
• H.R. 3986, John F. Kennedy Center Reauthorization Act of 2007 (Boxer Substitute Amendment is Attached).
• S. 2403, a bill to designate the new Federal Courthouse, located in the 700 block of East Broad Street, Richmond, Virginia, as the “Spottswood W. Robinson, III and Robert R. Merhige, Jr. Federal Courthouse.”
• S. 2837, a bill to designate the United States courthouse located at 225 Cadman Plaza East, Brooklyn, NY as the “Theodore Roosevelt United States Courthouse.”
• S. 3009, a bill to designate the Federal Bureau of Investigation building under construction in Omaha, NE as the “J. James Exon Federal Bureau of Investigation Building.”
• H.R. 1019, a bill to designate the United States customhouse building located at 31 Gonzalez Clemente Ave., in Mayaguez, PR as the “Rafael Martinez Nadal United States Customhouse Building.”
• H.R. 4140, a bill to designate the Port Angeles Federal Building in Port Angeles, Washington as the “Richard B. Anderson Federal Building.”
• H.R. 781, a bill to redesignate Lock and Dam No. 5 of the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System near Redfield, Arkansas, as the “Colonel Charles D. Maynard Lock and Dam.”

• Pending nomination:

David R. Hill, of Virginia, to be Assistant Administrator and General Counsel of the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

05/21/2008 at 10:00AM

The hearing, originally scheduled for May 8, will examine the new ozone national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) and the process the Environmental Protection Agency used in setting them.

On March 12, 2008, EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson finalized updated NAAQS for ozone, a primary component of smog. The new ozone NAAQS are comprised of a revised primary standard to protect health and a revised secondary standard to protect the environment. In setting both standards, EPA Administrator Johnson did not accept the recommendations provided to him by EPA’s independent scientific review committee, the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC). With regard to the secondary standard, Administrator Johnson’s efforts to set a new standard were overruled by the White House.

In light of new information obtained by the Committee, questions are also expected regarding the White House’s role in EPA’s action to block California’s program to regulate greenhouse gases from automobiles.

Witnesses

Panel I

• Stephen L. Johnson, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency
• Susan E. Dudley, Administrator of OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs
• Dr. Rogene Henderson, Chair, Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee

Panel II

• Dr. Francesca Grifo, Senior Scientist, Union Of Concerned Scientists
• Michael Goo, Climate Legislative Director, Natural Resources Defense Council
• Dr. Roger O. McClellan, Advisor, Toxicology and Human Heath Risk Analysis
• Alan Charles Raul, Partner, Sidley Austin, LLP

05/20/2008 at 01:00PM

Witnesses

• Jeffrey H. Harris, Chief Economist, Commodity Futures Trading Commission
• Michael W. Masters, Managing Member and Portfolio Manager, Masters Capital Management, LLC
• Michael D. Walter, President, Commodity Markets Council
• Benn Steil, Ph.D., Senior Fellow and Director of International Economics, Council on Foreign Relations
• Tom Buis, President, National Farmers Union

05/20/2008 at 10:30AM

Witnesses

• Nikolao Pula, Director of the Office of Insular Affairs, U.S. Department of the Interior
• Anthony Neil, Executive Director, Pacific Power Association
• Herbert Wade, Consultant, Pacific Renewable Energy
• Utu Abe Malae, President, Development Bank of American Samoa
• Howard Snow, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Installations and Facilities, U.S. Navy

05/20/2008 at 10:00AM

Representatives from CRS, EIA, EPA, and CBO discuss their economic analyses of Lieberman-Warner (S. 2191) and other emissions-controlling climate legislative proposals.

Witnesses

• Brent Yacobucci, Congressional Research Service
• Dr. Larry Parker, Congressional Research Service
• Dr. Howard Gruenspecht, Deputy Administrator, Energy Information Administration
• Dr. Brian McLean, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
• Dr. Peter Orszag, Congressional Budget Office

05/20/2008 at 10:00AM

Witnesses

Panel I

• Scot Marciel, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, U.S. Department of State
• Greg Gottlieb, Deputy Assistant Administrator, Bureau for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance, U.S. Agency for International Development

Panel II

• Sein Win, Ph.D., Prime Minister, National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma
• The Honorable Thomas H. Andrews, President, New Economy Communications

05/20/2008 at 10:00AM

SEC. 201. GOAL.

The goal for NASA’s Earth Science program shall be to pursue a program of Earth observations, research, and applications activities to better understand the Earth, how it supports life, and how human activities affect its ability to do so in the future. In pursuit of this goal, NASA’s Earth Science program shall ensure that securing practical benefits for society will be an important measure of its success in addition to securing new knowledge about the Earth system and climate change. In further pursuit of this goal, NASA shall assume a leadership role in developing and carrying out a cooperative international Earth observations-based research and applications program.

SEC. 305. INTERAGENCY RESEARCH INITIATIVE ON THE IMPACT OF AVIATION ON THE CLIMATE. (a) In General- The Administrator, in coordination with the United States Climate Change Science Program and other appropriate agencies, shall establish a research initiative to assess the impact of aviation on the climate and, if warranted, to evaluate approaches to mitigate that impact. (b) Research Plan- Not later than 1 year after the date of enactment of this Act, the participating Federal entities shall jointly develop a plan for the research initiative that contains objectives, proposed tasks, milestones, and a 5-year budgetary profile. (c) Review- The Administrator shall enter into an arrangement with the National Research Council for conducting an independent review of the interagency research program plan, and shall provide the results of that review to the Committee on Science and Technology of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation of the Senate not later than 2 years after the date of enactment of this Act.

05/20/2008 at 10:00AM

05/15/2008 at 02:30PM