This is the Environment Show. It's about our stewardship of the Earth and the beauty
and mystery of life in all its forms. I'm Peter Burley.
Coming up. EPA will post the hazardous chemicals in your neighborhood and the internet, but
not the impact of a disaster. Does this make sense? Shad fishermen in the Hudson River
are catching a fraction of what they used to. A possible reason is the comeback of a striped
bass which had almost disappeared. Nature adapts to hard times of the desert to create
life with zest. Authorans' winger and a black capped nat catcher nap within a wing's
reach of each other's dreams. And on the Earth calendar, Venus, the planet which bears
the name of the goddess of love, is reaching its highest point of the sky. These stories
and more coming up on the Environment Show.
You're listening to the Environment Show and I'm Peter Burley. Do you know what hazardous
chemicals are housed in chemical plants or government facilities in your neighborhood?
Do you know how your neighborhood would be affected if there was a major accident at
a nearby facility? Until recently, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency did not have
detailed information on the dangerous chemicals that companies and other facilities have on
site. But now, the federal agency is collecting the data and providing it to state and local
officials, as well as anyone else interested in knowing what hazards exist in the communities
across the United States. Stephen Westcott reports.
The 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act called for chemical companies, government facilities,
gas and electric utilities, and others to supply the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
with risk management plans. The deadline for facilities to submit this information was June
21st.
The risk management program is designed to allow us to provide to the American people
knowledge about chemical facilities in their communities. It also requires that those
facilities, various 6,000 facilities covered by those regulations, require repair, risk management
plans that describe accident histories, how they would respond to emergencies.
Tim Fields, acting assistant administrator for Solid Waste and Emergency Response with
the EPA, says the risk management plans also give assessments of what hazards the chemicals
pose. The agency specifically wanted information on facilities, handling 140 chemicals
and hazardous substances, including benzene and toluene. It's the first time the EPA has
had detailed information on some of the most harmful substances known to humankind. The
purpose of collecting the information is twofold. One is the right to know provision, which
allows citizens to know what hazardous substances are in their communities, and secondly, to reduce
hazards. Again, Tim Fields.
We will be providing this information to the state and local implementing agencies. The
law requires the risk management requirements in the Clean Air Act. Require that EPA provide
this information to state and local government implementing agencies. We intend to do so.
The risk management planning information that we receive will be provided by EPA to effective
states and localities. We intend to give them their portion of the risk management planning
data. That is, for all the facilities in particular state, they will be given the risk management
planning, including the off-site consequence analysis data for all the facilities in that
state.
Field says chemical companies, utilities and others cooperated with the EPA and its
efforts to collect the information.
We are relying on the information that is being submitted by those facilities in terms
of accuracy. We believe that the information will be very accurate. Chemical companies and
facilities have been working in some cases for several years now to prepare these risk
management plans. We have talked to many industries about the value. They place on these plans
and how it will help them prepare and make sure that fire departments, police departments,
hospitals are prepared in the event of a major accident in that area where their plan is
located.
With so many facilities, it will take some weeks for the EPA to gather the information. The
public will have access to the risk management plans or RMPs via the internet. What will
likely not be accessible over the internet is part of the RMPs called Worst Case scenario,
which literally describes what could happen within a 50 kilometer range if a major accident
occurred at a facility. The 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act did not say how the EPA
was to make the RMP information available. Officials decided to post much of the information
on the internet. However, at the time this story was produced, the Clinton administration
is supporting a proposal before Congress that would ban posting Worst Case scenario data
on the internet.
Jeff Vann, spokesman for the Chemical Manufacturers Association, says, federal agencies like the
federal Bureau of Investigations, believe placing such information on the internet could
pose a threat to public safety.
Essentially, their point was that putting the Worst Case scenario data onto the internet
was not a good idea, that it would indeed increase the risk of terrorist attacks. But
even the FBI did not say don't make the stuff available. You just had to find another way.
And that's what the administration, again, an interagency group led by the Justice Department
and but involving the FBI and the EPA.
National Security Council, and I think one or two other agencies has been trying to do
for the last month or so, is literally to develop a system that balances on the one hand
the need to make the state of public and on the other to make sure that nobody can use
it to hurt anybody.
State and local officials will be provided Worst Case scenario data and residents will
be able to request that information on paper from EPA. But not everyone believes posting
Worst Case scenario data on the internet poses risks to facilities and public safety.
Paul Orham, coordinator of the working group on the community right to know, an activist
group based in Washington, D.C. believes terrorists would be able to access the data through
other sources if they wanted it. Orham also says the proposal to ban material from the internet
restricts the public's right to know and misses the intended goal of protecting citizens
and ensuring the right to clean air.
There would be severe restrictions on public information. There would be fines on public
officials who warn the public about dangerous practices of chemical plants. State and local
rights to know laws would be preempted. At the same time, these proposals do absolutely
nothing concrete to prevent accidents or terrorism. For example, there's no requirements
for industry to improve site security, to harden facilities, to establish buffer zones
or to even consider ways to reduce hazards. The bill does absolutely nothing practical
to reduce those hazards.
One thing all sides do agree on is that by disseminating the information to local and state
officials, EPA is helping emergency response teams such as fire, police, rescue squads
and hospitals to be better prepared should a disaster occur in your community. For the
Environment Show, I'm Stephen Westcott.
Every spring, from northern Florida to the Bay of Fundy, American Shad returned to the
various rivers along the Atlantic Coast to spawn. Although one familiar to many, Shad,
a member of the Herring family, were once the most important food fish in North America.
Shad and its roar are delicious, and many riverfront towns have shad festivals in honor of their
return. However, fewer and fewer Shad are returning each year to spawn. From the Hudson
River, Linda Anderson reports on what's happening to the species.
It's a brilliant morning and tides out on the Hudson River near Pekipsi, New York. For
John Mylotte, a Shad fisherman for over 27 years, it's time to set out his drift nets. Except
for the fact that his net is nylon and he uses an outboard motor, Mylotte says the method
of fishing Shad has remained the same for hundreds of years. What has changed, he says, is
the Shad.
The main catches of the 70s and early 80s have been dwindling and it's not because there's
over fishing in the Hudson because also dwindling in the Hudson have been fishermen.
During the turn of the century, over 3,000 fishermen fished for Shad between Troy and New York
Harbor. Today, only a dozen or so commercial Shad fishermen remain. Mylotte says a lot has
changed since he first began fishing in the 1970s.
He would be seeing, as I say, 80 to 120 sometimes, maybe as much as 300, 400 fish. A lot
of just probably we ever, ever call around 400 to 450 Shad at one time.
This morning, Mylotte's total catch was a scant one doesn't shed. Mylotte isn't the only
one on the river noticing the decrease in Shad stock and, decangely, a scientist with
the Bureau of Marine Resources for New York State has been noticing too.
The Hudson stock is currently at the lowest historic level. We've never seen it as low
as it is right now in abundance.
Kayley manages the ennagermist fish in the Hudson River. Fish like Shad that live in the
ocean and return to fresh water to spawn. He says the reason there are so few Shad in
the Hudson and all along the Atlantic coast is unknown. He says possible factors include
damning, water quality, predator fish, the etiag and young, and over fishing. However,
Kayley says these factors can vary greatly from river to river.
Back on the day, Iacompanied John Mylotte on the Hudson, he pulled up 80 or so striped
bass to his one doesn't shed. He was clearly frustrated because all striped bass must
be thrown back. Because they're in decline, far from it, rather harvesting striped bass
is close to commercial fishing due to federal health safety limits, though that is currently
under debate. Shad are safe to eat because unlike the striped bass, they do not feed while
spawning in the river. From what he's seen in the river over the years, Mylotte speculates
that Shad populations on the Hudson are being affected by striped bass eating young,
Shad and Shad eggs as well as over fishing. But not in the Hudson off the coast. American
Shad returned to spawn in the river of their birth when their three to four years old.
And Kayley explains how over fishing in the ocean might affect Hudson River Shad stock.
When fish are harvested from the ocean, where stocks from all major river systems mix, there's
no way of knowing what stock you're harvesting. And so you may be over harvesting some stocks
that are currently in jeopardy while not harming stocks that are currently in abundance.
Kayley emphasizes there is no consensus among scientists that over fishing is the cause of
Shad decline. However, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, a quasi-federal agency that
facilitates and enforces management plans of an adjurment's fish, has plans to eliminate
ocean harvest of American Shad within five years. The American Shad is a complex fish, but
Kayley is hopeful that good management will restore the Shad population. His faith comes from
what he calls the fisheries management success story of the century. Strike bass, he says, declined
dramatically in the 1970s, bought states took drastic measures and some states like Maryland closed
all fishing of strike bass for ten years. The result has been a tremendous rebound as testified
by fishermen John Milaud's yield. In the meantime, individual states are required to adopt
management guidelines approved by the ASMFC and followed by fishermen like John Milaud.
And even though this was Milaud's worst year of Shad fishing ever, he remains more concerned
than discouraged. It's like farming, it's like fishing generally or any other
business where you're subject to natural trends and more problems in weather and nature.
You know, you can only deal with what's there. And when I say concern because we have to manage
this resource in a manner that will allow the Shad to come back. And if the strike bass are
eating tremendous numbers of young Shad, we need to know that. We need to be looking more carefully
at what's happening on the river. For the environment show, I'm Linda Anderson.
The Environment Show is a national production. It's made possible by the W.
Alton Jones Foundation, the William Bingham Foundation, the Turner Foundation, the Jam Kaplan Fund,
and Heming's Motor News, the monthly Bible of a collector car hobby, www.hemmngs.com.
You can reach us here on the Environment Show via email. The address is green at wamc.org.
That's green at wamc.org. Our telephone number is 1-888-49-green. That's 1-888-49-green.
The W. Alton Jones Foundation, the W. Alton Jones Foundation, the W. Alton Jones Foundation,
the W. Alton Jones Foundation, the W. Alton Jones Foundation, the W. Alton Jones Foundation,
the W. Alton Jones Foundation, the W. Alton Jones Foundation, the W. Alton Jones Foundation,
the W. Alton Jones Foundation, the W. Alton Jones Foundation, the W. Alton Jones Foundation,
the W. Alton Jones Foundation, the W. Alton Jones Foundation, the W. Alton Jones Foundation,
we all have places that are special to us, for some it's a city street, for others it's deep in the wilderness.
For author Anne Zwinger, it's the desert where hard times brought technological advances among native cultures.
In this portrait of place, Zwinger reads from her book The Mysterious Lands, a naturalist explores the four great deserts of the Southwest.
I sit cross-legged at the entrance of a large cave, 50 feet above the flat edges of the desert.
I look past the present and, with H. and I's, collate the knowledge I have of this century with that of five centuries past.
Anthropologist Robert Elston grouped the time sequence of the long gone people into good times and hard times to explain the appearance of various artifacts and changes in diet and harvesting.
In wet times, with more fish and game, more grass, food was easier to come by and the closer to the top of the food chain it was possible to live.
When populations were small during these good times, pre-archaic life was very good, but warmer and drier climate intervals, when there was less fresh water, fewer grasses, less game, when all resources were sparser and more widely distributed, making them more difficult to gather and process, life was not so good.
When bad times combined, with high population, life became poor to desperate, but these were the times of innovation, invention, and change.
Prehistoric people then increased the variety of plants and animals they utilized, as well as made more intense use of what was available. They developed newer and better means of processing and preparing food.
Out of these periods of stress came innovation and advances in technology such as new techniques and basket making and harvesting methods.
I, 20th century woman, beset by the cares and concerns of a complex world, sit here nestled in the silt of centuries and find this thought incredibly reassuring.
Insights into this beautifully attuned desert world, to which I am not adapted, makes the adjustments of those that hop and stalk, scurry and slither in the desert, objects of admiration and respect.
A kangaroo rat and a black crown sparrow that can live well without free water, specialised toads that dream away the bad times underground.
Cactus rinses that adjust their clutch size to the available food, I think of all the phosphorial animals that escape the desert heat underground, a physiological adjustments of blood and urine, hearing and seen,
of adaptations and behaviour that make life in the desert not only possible, but possible with zest.
I think of plants that can withstand salt and those that cannot, and their different modes of photosynthesis.
The number of the ingenious seeds that germinate under precise regimes and their measured sequences, time to remain dormant, time to sprout, time to flower and set seed, and time to dazzle the desert.
These deserts are full of good health and good spirits and a heat that locks in my marrow against the cold and lightless winters.
Looking out over this desert, which has exited its own tributes of this slow-boned human, remembrances come crowding to my mind of the gifts these desert years have laid on my doorstep.
Experiences made up of sprigs of creasel bush and sagebrush, an owl feather and a grasshopper wing, and a chip of obsidian, all tied up with a song of a spade foot tongue.
My own medicine bundle for my own ceremonies of passage.
If there were but one memory I could take away with me, I squint against the sky thinking,
knowing I really don't have to think because it was the answer that instigated the question.
It is the talisman I shall always have, and afternoon in the desert with a small black cat-knack catcher who so trusted this outlandish earth-bound creature that we napped on a torred desert afternoon within a wings reach of each other's dreams.
That was author Anne's Winger, reading from her book The Mysterious Lands, a naturalist explores the four-grade deserts of the southwest,
it's published by the University of Arizona Press.
And now it's time for the earth calendar.
During the month of July, the planet Venus is reaching its highest point in our sky. Richard Talcott is associate editor with Astronomy magazine.
It's almost due west after sunset, so if you head outside, say, 9-9-30, something like that, just take a look up in the western sky and there'll be an extraordinarily bright object up there that's far brighter than anything else that you can see.
Talcott describes what that bright object looks like.
The first impression people will have is that it's almost purely white. There's a little bit of a yellowish tinge to it, but it's so bright and nearly white that that's what the impression is going to be.
I might also point out that if you happen to own a small telescope and you turn it on Venus, it's going to look different than what you might expect in that it goes through phases.
And it appears very much like the moon does, although it's a vastly smaller appearing object than the moon does.
Talcott says Venus's orbit brings the planet closest to the earth on August 20. At that time, it will be about 25 million miles away.
But even though Venus will be at its closest point, it will no longer be visible because its illuminated half faces the sun.
Venus will again be visible in September. Next to the moon, Venus is the closest body to Earth.
It's about the same size. Venus's diameter is about 7,500 miles, with Earth's diameter just a little larger at about 7,900 miles.
But Talcott says Venus differs in several ways from our planet.
The main difference that it has is it has an extremely thick atmosphere. It's about 90 times as dense as Earth's atmosphere at the surface.
And it's perpetually covered in clouds. And the clouds are made out of nasty things like sulfuric acid particles. So it would not be a very pleasant place to set up a home or anything like that.
And another thing that the atmosphere does is it traps solar radiation inside the atmosphere. And the temperature therefore has grown to a very high level, about 850 degrees, which is the hottest spot in the solar system, not counting the sun's surface.
Richard Talcott says humankind has been fascinated with Venus for centuries and says the planet has helped us to understand the order of the solar system.
How were the most important historical piece of information that Venus gave us though, is that it helped to prove that the sun was the center of our solar system and not Earth?
And the reason that happened is because shortly after Galileo invented the telescope or first turned it on to the sky, he noticed the phases of Venus.
And that was something that you can't see with the naked eye at all. And so it was the first time it was seen. And if the object was passing going around Earth, you would not see the phases that you do on Venus.
And so Galileo was able to show that the only way Venus could show the types of phases it was, is if it was circling the sun and not Earth.
Another interesting feature of Venus is that it's day is longer than its year. It takes the planet 225 days to orbit the sun and 243 days to rotate on its axis.
Venus, the goddess of love, must have been nuts when she picked this particular planet. How can you possibly be loving when you're enthralled into mist of sulfuric acid and can only go to sleep once a year?
On the other hand, if Venus could teach us to love one another under those conditions, think of how easy it would be here.
You're listening to the Environment Show and I'm Peter Burley.
I'm Peter Burley.
You're listening to the Environment Show and I'm Peter Burley. Still ahead. We talk green about the right that you and I have to sue polluters if the government does not.
Environmentalists say that empowering every citizen to be an attorney general is the only way to clean the air and water. Some justices on the Supreme Court say we've gone too far.
We go to the zoo in Zurich, Switzerland. A trip to the modern zoo is more than a casual look at some unfamiliar animals.
Zoo directors say they use captive animals to teach us what it will take to save their wild cousins. Stay with us.
We are talking green and I'm Peter Burley. Today we're going to be talking about the enforcement of environmental law.
Traditionally when a law is broken, we expect the district attorney or the US attorney in a federal case to charge the alleged offender.
The matter has then heard before a court and if a judgment is rendered against the accused, he or she might pay a fine or go to jail or be ordered to stop doing the thing that led to the infraction of the first place.
Some environmental laws and some legal doctrines allow not only the attorney general or the government to sue a polluter but the individual or a group instead.
And in this case, when that happens, there's not a government prosecutor. The citizen or the group becomes the attorney general.
And we're going to be talking about whether this is a good idea and changes in the law and in supreme court decisions that may limit the way citizens and organizations can go to court today to enforce environmental laws.
My guests are John Achevaryo. He is director of the Environmental Policy Project of the Georgetown University Law Center. He's in Washington, DC.
And his center has just produced a study which is called barely standing the erosion of citizen standing to sue an enforced environmental law.
Also with us is Reed Hopper and he is principal attorney with a Pacific Legal Foundation. And that's a public interest law firm funded by foundations and others and it supports the view that there should be limits on governmental activity and how much of those should be we'll be talking about.
So let's start with you John Achevaryo. For those who haven't thought about this before, give us an example of how a citizen or an organization would bring suit given the breach of an environmental law.
I mean, just tell us what that looks like. What has to happen and what do they do?
Well, under the Clean Water Act for example, a group of citizens or a community organization files a 60-day notice letter with a polluter and says we've examined the public records and it appears that you're violating your permit.
And you are not meeting the standards established under the Clean Water Act. And after that 60-day period, the group is entitled under the Clean Water Act.
And the Water Act or has been entitled to date to go into court to get civil penalties for the violations, to get an injunction to prevent future violations of the law.
And in addition to get reimbursement of their attorney's fees for having brought an action to vindicate the public interest in a clean environment.
Now just briefly, why shouldn't the government be doing this? Why should you left citizens or run around suit polluters when you've got the EPA and all those fellows that are supposed to be doing it?
When Congress passed the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act in the 1970s, they recognized very clearly the problem that if they left the enforcement of the environmental laws to the administrative agencies, special interests, regulated industries,
would exercise a great deal of influence over that process. And the law, in fact, would not be vigorously enforced.
And so Congress thought it was critical that it be an opportunity for citizens to act as independent watchdogs to bring suit to make sure that the law that Congress wrote would be enforced as was written.
Reed Hopper from the Pacific Legal Foundation, what's wrong with that?
I see nothing wrong with that. The citizens suit provisions of these environmental laws provide a very necessary public function to allow citizens to suit the government when they are acting illegally or failing to act in enforcing a law.
The citizens suit provisions are available not only to the environmentalist plaintiff who may be trying to get the agency to act but also by those who are actually regulated by the law and who are concerned that the agency may be over zealous or acting illegally in enforcement of the law.
So it does serve an important function. There are limits, however, on the application of the systems suit provision.
Okay, well let's talk about those. You're concerned, I guess, that this may give rise to litigation, which is either of a rassing nature or a spurious.
And do you think that that's the direction that the law is now going and these rights should then be limited?
Well, I don't think that there has been much in the way of limitations on bringing these suits. As a consequence, there are occasions when the citizens suit provision may be used in an abusive manner.
For example, we do see a trend among some environmental organizations to bring citizens suits for technical violations that cause no real harm to the environment, asking for exorbitant penalties and in many cases really seeking not to protect the environment.
So in those cases, do you think the changes should be made so they simply can't be brought or do you leave that to the court?
Well, we leave that to the court and the court has made some emotions in that direction, but let me finish my thought that part of this abusive process is to get defendants to settle a lucrative settlement with the outfit that's bringing the suit.
We think that was never intended by Congress. The purpose as John has mentioned is to be the eyes and ears of the government to help with the limited resources of the government in enforcing the law and it's not for the purpose of lining the pockets of activists, individuals.
Let's hear the response of that. John, the question is these suits used to get illicit gains if you like or line the pockets.
What do you think? Well, that's an important accusation, but it, frankly, it's completely false. The Clean Water Act makes it very clear that the civil penalties that are paid under a citizen suit go to the US Treasury and don't go to a private individual.
Now if there's a settlement of the law suit and civil penalties are paid or the companies required to take some action, that can't be for the private benefit of the plaintiff organization or group of citizens either.
Because of the very concerns that Reed mentioned in the mid 1980s, Congress amended the law and required that the Department of Justice review and approve every single consent decree entered into under the environmental laws to make sure that the plaintiffs would not benefit, make sure that they would not be able to exercise undue influence to ensure that the settlements serve the broad public interest to ensure that penalties go to the US Treasury as they're intended.
So I think it's, frankly, given the laws that stands now, it's completely inaccurate to say that environmental groups or citizen groups are benefiting themselves by bringing these actions.
Reed, how do you respond to that? Yeah, to the contrary. The courts do not oversee private settlements that fall outside this consent decree requirement.
Beyond that, let me just give you an example in a recent US Supreme Court case called Citizens for a Veteran Environment versus Steel Company that involved the Steel Company, 55 employees owned by minority interests, had failed to submit annual inventory forms to the Environmental Protection Agency over a period of about seven or eight years.
And citizens filed suit, assistance suit, asking for almost a half a billion dollars in civil penalties, which John correctly states does go to the Treasury in no order.
No, that size has ever been, never been a word on what they were asking for. 573 million dollars was the stated claim in the complaint.
But the point is that in their brief, citizens for a better environment, boasted about the fact that these types of suits often bring settlements and when they don't bring a settlement, then the perpetrator or the violator
will be sued in court as a punishment. I'm failing to follow the relevance of what some group may charge depending on what's happened.
But let me ask you both. Let me clarify that for you. When a company is facing an exorbitant penalty in the court of law, the company is likely to settle privately with the plaintiff.
So as to avoid the potential liability in the court. If a company wants to get an approved settlement by the court, which they're entitled to do, it goes to the review procedures established by Congress.
Let me respond to one other point, the read made, and that is the direction of traditional thinking in this arena. 25 years ago now, Congress established these citizen suit provisions.
And they've been a cornerstone of our environmental enforcement system. Hundreds of suits have been brought under these provisions. And more importantly, the potential footprint of these lawsuits has served as an important deterrent.
Over the last 10 years or so, a series of court decisions have come down several from the US Supreme Court and several even more extreme decisions from the lower courts that have drastically limited the ability of citizens to get into court to use these provisions that Congress established.
And in the process, undermine the environmental laws. The irony is that these decisions on the one hand have said, we think if a polluter comes into court, the polluter should have preferred access to the courts. In other words, the kind of interest that the Civic Legal Foundation represents should have preferred access to the courts.
And citizens who represent the broad public interest who may be concerned about pollution of the waterways and their communities should have inferior access relative to polluters. So it's sort of a two-sided evolution of the law.
And this is a trend that you see as being fostered. I take it from your article by Judge Scalia on the Supreme Court. Is that correct?
Judge Scalia, who is one of the leading members of the court, an extremely intelligent, thoughtful man, has authored each of the court's standing decisions over the last decade, each of which has incrementally moved forward the agenda of limiting citizen access to the courts.
And this is not something that he dreamed up when he got on the court, but rather something he thought through, rather carefully, while he was sitting on the lower federal courts.
And he published a law of your article some 15 years ago in which he explained his theory of why the courts ought to limit citizen standing to get into court and why the courts ought to recognize that polluters have superior access to.
Okay, let's follow up on that. Do you see it that way? Do you think that polluters as the trend goes are going to be getting a preferred treatment of the courts?
Well, just the opposite. The current state of affairs is that those who are the subject of the regulation have a much higher bar to jump over in order to get standing to bring you suit.
No, just so we understand what we're talking about when you're talking about the subject of the regulation, you're talking about the steel company, the auto company that guy is running a plant that's just putting in industry. Okay, continue.
So it's just the opposite of what's a John indicated. There is a doctrine known as prudential standing, which says that the plaintiff who tries to advance an interest that is not the theme of the law that he's trying to enforce does not get in cannot bring a case.
Does not get is the in court because he falls outside this is on of interest. Now these environmental laws are interpreted to protect the environment and not to protect economic interest.
So the courts have determined that in most cases of those industry plaintiffs who are desiring to protect economic interest do not get in, whereas environmental plaintiffs do get in.
John, your response to that? Well, it's true that the courts have been looked to scant the efforts by industry groups to use environmental laws for non environmental purposes.
But the basic point stands that the court doctrine is changing so that it's easier for regulated businesses to get into court to use the environmental laws.
The Justice Scalia issued a decision on the very point that we just discussing expanding in the last several years, expanding the ability of businesses to sue one of the environmental laws.
So the trend is clearly against the citizens and favor of regulated businesses to protect the environment.
Let's jump to a big point. That's an interesting point that John raises because the case he refers to was not about giving industry a preferred access to the court.
That was about giving the industry equal access to the court because under the endangered species act up until two years ago, only environmental plaintiffs could sue the government for failing to enforce or illegally applying the endangered species act.
So the environmental species act that has changed now, at least under the endangered species act, there is some parity but under the other environmental law.
Okay, but let me interrupt you both. I want to interrupt you both and go slightly off track to a different subject because I think our listeners have very good interest here.
What does that have to do with lawyers fees? Right now, and in the past, a citizen group, the Sierra Club or whatever, could get legal fees.
Their lawyers could get paid when they bring one of these suits by the person who loses. And that's a doctrine which I gather is changing.
Again, John, you wrote about that in your article. What is where are we going there? And I'm going to ask you where you come out on this one. John, what's happening?
Well, there's a case now pending before the Supreme Court that we expect will be heard next fall in which several environmental organizations brought suit.
And after years of litigation, finally brought the company into compliance and it took an enormous amount of work in the federal and as well as the state courts to achieve that result.
But the lower court said because the company by the time the lawsuit finally came to an end was actually in compliance. The case was over at the suit was moot in the lawyer's language and therefore the plan was worked and titled any attorney's fees.
Okay, read. Let's get your if that kind of decision stands, then there'll be no possibility for environmental groups to bring these kinds of actions.
Read. Let's get your take on attorney's fees. Should they be part of this whole game or not?
Well, they have to be because there's part part of the statutory requirement. That is the environmental laws indicate that citizens suits their broad and successfully litigated that it results in attorney's fees. And I don't see that changing.
So the both of you guys agree that attorney's fees ought to be part of this process that we don't need to limit the amount of fees that can be given even though the court seems to be doing that?
Well, I don't think the court is. Well, the lower court did that in this case, but I would suspect that when the Supreme Court looks at this case, it will grant the attorney's fees and will not limit those.
There should be, of course, limits on attorney's fees and they must be reasonable and one has to prevail in the action.
And has there been any case that you see read in which this has been abused? No, none come to mind.
And John, is it a case so far from your perspective reasonable?
Well, I think there needs to be reasonable limits on the size of attorney's fees. But I don't... My perception that has not been a problem. The problem is that attorneys now...
attorneys and their clients now run the risk of not getting any compensation at all for all their time.
That's only true now under very, very narrow circumstances.
Delay, don't give you think the Supreme Court will reverse this bad decision by the court of appeals. And if they do, it will be the first victory for citizens standing from this Supreme Court in the last decade.
Okay, I'm afraid our time is up and it's always good to have lawyers agree on the fact that lawyers ought to be paid, a few that I feel as well since I too am a lawyer.
I want to thank our guests, John E. Cheburea, who is from the Environmental Law Center at Georgetown University and Reed Hopper, who is with the Pacific Legal Foundation.
We've been discussing citizens' access to the courts, the right to sue, to enforce environmental laws.
It's something that I'm sure you or perhaps your employer have strong views about and we'd like to hear them.
Give us a call. Our number is 1-888-49-Green. We've been talking green and I'm Peter Burleigh.
The environment show would like to know about your environment. Write us at 318 Central Avenue, Albany, New York 1-22-06.
That's 318 Central Avenue, Albany, New York 1-22-06. Email is green at wamc.org.
In previous shows, we visited the Hall of Biodiversity in the New York Museum of Natural History and the New Gorilla Habitat at the Bronx Zoo, also in New York.
In that exhibit, a Central African rainforest has been reproduced to houses of variety of animals that live in the jungle.
Now we go to Switzerland and visit the zoo in Zurich. In all three cases, the role of a museum or zoo has been redefined. Instead of displaying a collection of stuffed critters at glass boxes or animals behind bars and concrete cages, creatures live in their native habitat which has been recreated in the zoo.
Modern zoo directors emphasize that they have two objectives. The first is to give the visitor a broader understanding of the relationship between wildlife and habitat.
The second is to stimulate awareness that ecosystems need to be protected if wildlife is to survive.
While the future of wild animals becomes more uncertain in a world where humans are consuming ever more open-spaced resources, their future may well depend on what we and particularly our children learn at the zoo.
The following report on the zoo in Zurich, Switzerland was prepared by Roy Probeur from Swiss Radio International.
Wondering around the zoo, you become aware that there are two very different kinds of enclosure. Firstly, the cages, enclosure would be too grand a word like the one this monkey finds itself in.
Built at a time when animals were merely exotic curiosities, its days are numbered.
The future however is enclosures like the new area for spectacle bears created as a kind of shop window for the bigger projects to follow.
It's the size of a football pitch, has a waterfall, caves and dozens of trees. Not surprisingly the bears look more than happy with their lot.
The area which will eventually be home to the tigers, snow leopards and other creatures from the mountains of Asia may just be bare earth littered with felt trees now,
but in two years it will be like a home from home for these animals filled with the kind of vegetation their wild relatives would be used to, and with five times as much space to roam in as they have now.
I asked the zoo's curator Robert Zink about the new Himalayan area.
The tree largest enclosures will be much bigger than the enclosure we now have.
And especially we want to change special attitude of the enclosures.
Now you look through a fence when you are looking to the tigers and for a lot of people's fences are something negative.
And in the new enclosure we will have a view to the animals through a window.
And the enclosure should also give attitude of the habitat the animals are living in.
We have the possibility to make a habitat with plants, with trees and so on, with enough water, with shallow places and so on.
The Himalayan enclosures are the first in a series of bioclimatic zones in which animals from the same parts of the world are grouped together and kept in conditions as close as possible to those they would experience in the wild.
It is part of a fundamental shift in the way the zoo perceives itself.
Rather than merely displaying exotic beasts from far off lands, Zurikzu now sees itself as a conservation and education centre as Zoo Director Alex Rubel explains.
We think that if we provide the animal environment as close as possible to nature with objects in there which they find in nature, then they can show their natural habits, what they do.
And that's the best way for the animals and it's also the best way to educate our public.
Even before they get the chance to sample their new surroundings, animals like the tigers are having to get used to other changes.
If they're going to behave more like wild animals, they have to break some of their old habits.
For example, they're no longer fed at the same time every day. Zukurator Robert Zink.
Now we give them boxes where the food is in and they don't know when they can open the boxes.
So they are every time they have to chase to look and the possibility is only for 50 minutes to open it.
And since then they change their behaviour.
These visitors no doubt feel very privileged that they have the chance to see such an endangered animal in the flesh.
By the time these children have grown up, there may be none of these amore tigers left in the wild.
The zoo and its director Alex Rubel hope that seeing them in a more natural setting will raise awareness about their plight and persuade the public to do something about it.
If we keep animals, they and we have to serve the animals in the wild.
We want to keep our animals as well as possible but as a method to reach the goal of ecological awareness.
So that's why we think if we keep our animals well and people come in and think, oh, how nice animals are they kept well.
And then they are ready to take something back home on the education side.
But on the other side if people don't think like this and they think all these poor animals behind the bars, then they never get to the point where they are happy to learn more about animals and about nature.
That was Roy Probeur of Swiss Radio International reporting from Zurich.
The zoo and its director Alex Rubel are the ones who are the most popular animals in the world.
They are the ones who are the most popular animals in the world.
They are the ones who are the most popular animals in the world.
They are the ones who are the most popular animals in the world.
They are the ones who are the most popular animals in the world.
They are the ones who are the most popular animals in the world.
Thanks for being with us on this week's Environment Show. I'm Peter Burley.
We marvel at Venus, Fish for Shad, Adapt to the Desert and go to the zoo.
You don't have to worry if your neighborhood chemical plant blows up.
The EPA knows what will happen but won't publish the results on the internet.
Here it all again on tape, call 1-800-323-9262 and order show number 497.
The Environment Show is a national production which is solely responsible for its content.
Alan Shartock is executive producer, Steven Westcott is producer.
The show is made possible by the W. Walton Jones Foundation, the William Bingham Foundation,
the Turner Foundation, the J.M. Kaplan Fund and Heming's Motor News,
the monthly Bible of the collector, Car Hobby, www.hemmigs.com.
Be good to the earth and join us next week for the Environment Show.
The Environment Show.
