EPA Surveys News Editors To Assess Its Image

[Guest guest]

EPA Surveys News Editors To Assess Its Image

By: PEER

Published: Jan 5, 2006 at 08:22

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has surveyed what it considers to

be " influential " news editors to assess their " awareness of and opinions

about EPA's scientific research program, " according to a copy of the

questionnaire released today by Public Employees for Environmental

Responsibility (PEER). EPA is trying to determine whether editors think the

agency's scientific pronouncements have been compromised by politics.

The survey, distributed this past November by JDG Communications, Inc., a

public relations firm based in Falls Church, Virginia under contract to EPA,

consisted of 15 questions, including:

• " Do you feel that U.S. environmental policy is influenced more by

political interest or research findings? "

• " When you receive information from EPA, do you think there is research

behind this information? " and

• Asking editors to compare the scientific credibility of EPA against other

entities, such as the National Science Foundation, the Centers for Disease

Control and National Institutes of Health.

" To measure its scientific credibility shouldn't EPA be surveying scientists

rather than journalists? " asked PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, pointing

to EPA's internal surveys of its scientists raising troubling questions

about the competence and integrity of scientific decision-making. PEER had

to sue the agency this past spring to force the release of the survey

results. " If EPA was not in fact altering its science to suit Bush

administration politics, this survey would be utterly unnecessary. "

This public relations effort is part of an aggressive multi-year " branding "

campaign (called " Science for You " ) designed to enhance EPA's public image.

This public relations campaign also coincides with several major revisions

in the agency's scientific policies and practices. This week, for example,

the Bush administration ordered a " top-to-bottom review " of the scientific

process for establishing safe levels of air pollutants. Later this month,

the Bush administration will unveil a new policy to authorize widespread use

of experiments on human subjects to replace extensive animal testing of

chemicals.

JDG Communications, touting its ironic slogan " Strategic Marketing by

Design, " is preparing a report for EPA summarizing what the firm calls

" benchmarking research. "

" To the Bush administration, everything is about spin over substance; this

particular effort is to figure how much spin will compensate for lack of

substance, " added Ruch. " EPA's scarce research dollars should be shielded

from raids by public relations firms. "

----------------------------------------------------------

Shrewd strategy smoothes way for Bush policies, NAU professor says

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (Dec. 13, 2005)—The Bush administration is using a savvy

strategy to sidestep opposition to its environmental policies while

remaining within the law, according to a new book co-written by a Northern

Arizona University political science professor.

“This is a study in political strategy,” says NAU professor

Vaughn. “It explains how the Bush administration uses the appeals process,

the media and other methods to its advantage over environmental groups.”

Vaughn, an NAU professor since 1997, has written W. Bush’s Healthy

Forests with Hanna J. Cortner, president of Cortner and Associates and

former professor at NAU and the University of Arizona.

In their book, subtitled Reframing the Environmental Debate, Vaughn explains

that the administration begins by introducing its environmental policies

through a “parallel process”—traditional legislation and the “virtually

invisible” regulatory process.

“The advantage of this method is that it doubles their chances of being

successful in getting what they what,” Vaughn says. “Additionally, and

perhaps most important, it reduces the amount of public participation is the

policy-making process. For those opposing the new regulations, they can’t

keep up with all the processes.”

And it’s perfectly legitimate, she says.

Another technique she records in the book is known as “Freaky Fridays.” The

technique allows the administration to introduce new regulations at 5 p.m.

Fridays when reporters are less likely to notice until Monday, if at all.

There’s a holiday version, too, with regulations being introduced at 5 p.m.

News Year’s Eve or 5 p.m. before any three-day weekend.

“They really have this down to a science,” Vaughn says. “They introduce

these regulations when no one’s around or no one’s paying attention.”

The Republican Party, Vaughn says, is a well-organized group that uses

specific phrases handed down by the administration and its political

strategists.

For example, when Republicans are addressing environmental issues, they call

for “common-sense solutions,” Vaughn says, “because who’d be against common

sense.” It’s also a way of avoiding an anti-environmental label, she adds.

In their book, Vaughn and Cortner also show how the administration uses news

events such as wildfires to propel legislation through Congress. Focusing

blame for wildfires on legal obstacles and environmentalists’ use of appeals

to challenge fuel-reduction projects, the administration restricted

opportunities for environmental analysis, administrative appeals and

litigation, the authors say.

Vaughn is a political scientist who is fascinated with workings and

complexities of policy making. Her book makes for a readable examination of

President Bush’s environmental policies and his administration’s mastery of

U.S. political workings.

“I can look at this in a value-neutral way,” Vaughn says. “What’s

interesting is how someone can use the system, and it’s perfectly

legitimate.”

-NAU-

CONTACT:

Tom Bauer

Assistant Director

NAU Office of Public Affairs

(928) 523-6126 or thomas.bauer@...

------------------------------------------------------------

Protecting air, land and water

Last update: January 01, 2006

Distracted by war and economic losses, Americans have barely blinked at the

unprecedented assault on environmental protections at every level of

government in recent years, nowhere more evident than in Florida.

Disguising the assaults with promising policy titles like " Clear Skies, "

" Healthy Forests " and, closer to home, " Everglades Restoration, " the Bush

brothers, supported by anti-regulatory legislators in the Legislature and

Congress, have made it easier for businesses to profit by polluting the air

and water, easier for oil, mining and timber companies to plunder public

lands, easier to shift water from Everglades restoration to supply South

Florida farmers and developers -- but harder for the public to sue for

environmental destruction. Their administrations have reduced enforcement

and oversight of remaining environmental protections even as they tout

feel-good slogans like " no net loss " of wetlands.

In fact, the nation continues to lose wetlands at an alarming rate. An

analysis by the St. sburg Times last year determined Florida had lost

84,000 acres of wetlands since 1990. Developers are mounting a new press for

the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to turn over its permitting authority on

wetlands of 10 acres or less to the state. The idea is that the state would

approve permits faster than the Corps, although the Corps seldom rejects a

permit request. As the Times pointed out, Florida's own permitting rules

fail to protect against water pollution, and the areas suffering from

pollution have lost the most wetlands to urban development.

Additionally, efforts continue at the state and national levels to delist

endangered species, and worse, to gut the federal Endangered Species Act.

Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, has already reintroduced the provisions of the

hateful Pombo bill, defeated in Congress last month. In the win column,

Volusia County's attempt to pass off a manatee protection scheme that would

have sacrificed endangered sea cows for boat slips didn't pass muster with

the state last year.

The coming year also brings additional environmental concerns. For instance:

· A French energy company is proposing to build a natural-gas terminal 10

miles off the Florida coast at Fort Lauderdale. Tankers would deliver fuel

to power plants in South Florida, but at what potential expense to already

endangered coral reefs?

· As development and population growth continue apace in Volusia and Flagler

counties, the public debate has focused on condo redevelopment, suburban

sprawl and traffic congestion, as if environmental loss is a foregone

conclusion. We've bought into the developers' game of simply arguing over

how much " green " we lose.

As the Legislature shifts more comprehensive land-use planning oversight to

local governments, the pressure increases to build on watershed headwaters,

to allow urban sprawl in conservation corridors, to approve rural

development through so-called " clustering " and " development rights "

compromises that save some open land but assure the continued loss of

wetlands and wildlife habitat.

The current ideological push for less government and more private property

rights threatens to erode even more of the hard-fought gains in

environmental protections of the past 35 years. It will take a determined

and vocal public to prevent that in 2006, a public who will once again

consider the legacy of America's open spaces, wild creatures, clean air and

water a priority.