Summary: Lobbying the climate bill. Lester
talks with the Center for Public
Integrity. Their group found
a dramatic jump in the number
of climate bill lobbyists.
And... Dow... dioxin... and delays.
The fourth part of a week-long series
from The Environment Report on dioxin
contamination and Dow Chemical. Shawn
Allee talks with local hunters about
contaminated game. Not all of them think
the toxins pose much of a danger. More…
Washington… more than ever the place is crawling with lobbyists.
This is The Environment Report. I’m Lester Graham.
According to investigative reports… there are at least five climate lobbyists for every member of Congress.
Maryanne Lavelle heads up a project investigating lobbyists’ influence on the climate debate worldwide. She works for the Center for Public Integrity. Lavelle says they’ve found Washington is awash in influence-peddlers.
“It’s just astounding. If you just compare to six years ago when Congress first considered a really comprehensive climate bill, there has been a 400-percent increase in lobbyists.”
Some are there to ensure greenhouse gases are reduced… some are there to shape the legislation to benefit their business interests… others are there to block it.
But the investigative journalists found big industry lobbyists and all the others out-gun lobbyists for environmental and alternative energy groups by an eight-to-one margin.
(((STING)))
This is The Environment Report.
We're looking at how decades of dioxin pollution in central Michigan has changed life for people there.
Fishing and hunting are huge past-times but having fun or catching a meal can be complicated.
There're advisories to stay away from some fish.
And Shawn Allee found hunters get warned about eating deer, turkey and other critters caught in the flood plains.
Shawn, why get warned about eating wild game there?
I wasn't sure, so I got help from a toxicologist.
He's Daniel O'Brien with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.
He says the problem starts with dioxin in the river.
O'Brien: It's in the sedimets in the contaminated parts of the Tittabawassee River and after flood events in the spring when mud in the river gets deposited onto bushes or whatever and deer browse those, they pick up soil that way.
Ok, so what are the warnings about eating wild game in the contaminated areas?
For this, I talked with Dr. Linda Dykema. She helped develop the advisories for the state of Michigan.
The advisories go into what animals you can eat.
What parts.
How much.
How often.
And then, they've got tighter limits for some people.
Dykema: Those are the health hazards we believe are the most sensitive endpoints for dioxin exposure, so that's why we target our advisories for women of child-bearing age and children under the age of 15.
Are hunters listening?
It's hard to tell.
The State of Michigan was trying to round up money to survey hunters about that, but the money never made it into the budget.
But the hunters I talked to weren't so worried.
Really?
For example, take Tom Heritier.
He's president of the Saginaw Field and Stream Club.
Heritier wants dioxin cleaned up but for the environment's sake - not necessarily his.
HERITER: Nobody is sick from it. I don't know of anybody who's died of exposure. ... that's never been proven. It's nothing to take lightly, but then again, it might be on the overblown side, too.
What do health officials have to say about that attitude?
Not much - they say they're guidelines - they're voluntary.
Right, well, we have one more report on dioxin contamination in central Michigan - what's next?
Across the country there're dozens of toxic waste sites where dioxin's in the soil.
And in Michigan, there's a scientific debate about whether dioxin in soil ... gets into our bodies or not.
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