Public Health
Air Pollution[click here to read question thirteen]
"Yes. As I mentioned, the Clean Air Act standards should definitely be tightened to be protective of health. The communities most affected by facilities such as those covered by the Clean Air Act are disproportionately low income and communities of color. The Clean Air Act, intended to protect our air quality, is another example of failed environmental policy. The law allows pollution at levels that are known to be unhealthy, despite what public has been led to believe. Worse, the law is used to justify the existence of a polluter, knowing that many people make that assumption. No power plants or major pollution sources should be constructed without the express consent of those in the adjacent community. Too often, public hearings that allow communities to voice opposition to a new polluter, allow the company to say they have consulted with the community. At the same time, a disproportionately high number of these pollution sources are located in poor communities or communities of color. The only way to prevent such environmental injustices is to ensure the community has a legally binding voice on par with the regulators and the polluter. When polluters have to treat the public as equals instead of obstacles, there will be less pollution."
Superfund “Polluter Pays”[click here to read question fourteen]
"Yes. In Congress, I have worked to ensure that polluters, not taxpayers, pay the bill for pollution and that pollution is cleaned quickly and thoroughly. I have consistently supported legislation to reinstate the Superfund taxes. As President, I will continue working to uphold the 'polluter pays' principle, which is vital to protecting public and environmental health."
Chemical Security[click here to read question fifteen]
"Yes, but I would not stop there. Again, as stated above, communities that host such facilities should be given a binding voice in their siting and operation. They would be able to provide incentives for the facility to operate with safer chemicals, which would complement the federal law."
Clean Water Act[click here to read question sixteen]
"Yes. The courts have eroded the reach of the Clean Water Act and I would work to reverse the rollbacks. When the Clean Water Act was written in 1972, the goal was to make all waters safe for fishing and swimming. Yet data from the Environmental Protection Agency shows that the nation's water bodies are getting dirtier -- nearly half are unsafe. The Clean Water Act has helped to reduce pollution from sewage treatment plants and other direct dischargers, but it has been generally ineffective in controlling polluted runoff from farm fields, confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs), roads and parking lots, construction sites, oil and gas operations, mining sites, etc. Overdevelopment of wetlands, which would accelerate under proposed Bush Administration rule changes, destroys nature's natural pollution filters and increases flooding. Subsidies for auto-dependent sprawl and transportation further contribute to runoff pollution. Coal-burning utilities add to mercury contamination of lakes from acid rain, a particular health hazard to children and pregnant women.
A quarter of our industrial plants and water treatment plants are in serious violation of pollution standards. Half of the most serious offenders exceed pollution limits on toxic substances by more than 100%, yet due to inadequate funding, only a fraction of them face consequences. Those found in violation are often given little more than a slap on the wrist.
While many family farmers are good stewards of the environment, too many communities are being harmed by industrial-style agriculture and its disregard for the environment. Millions of fish have been killed by countless manure spills from overflowing waste lagoons. Runoff of fertilizers and other contaminants has created a "dead zone" at the mouth of the Mississippi River hundreds of miles wide that has devastated critical fisheries. Many rural areas have themselves become "dead zones" due to the rapid decline of family-farm agriculture. Residents of rural communities throughout America are suffering the consequences -- contaminated well and surface water, health problems and decreases in land values.
Privatization of drinking water and sewer systems, with its accompanying goal of profit above all and its leverage of control over an essential commodity have produced disastrous outcomes. Privatization contributed to a cholera outbreak in South Africa and led to filthy, overpriced, undersupplied water in Atlanta. In India, some poor households must pay 25% of their income for water. The list of problems goes on and on.
Under-funded and often antiquated water treatment plants are a thin line of defense between the pollution entering our water bodies and what comes out of our taps. Pollutants are occurring in alarming amounts in some water systems. Of the 2,000 chemicals commonly found in public drinking water supplies, the Environmental Protection Agency tests for only 83. Recent studies show that, on average, people have more than 30 toxic chemicals in their bodies. Many states charge nothing for polluters to obtain permits to legally discharge into their rivers, lakes, and streams.
According to the United Nations, 2 billion people worldwide are dying or at risk of dying from unsafe drinking water and/or lack of access to adequate sanitation. Water-related diseases are responsible for 80% of illnesses and death in the developing world. More than 2 million people, mostly children, die each year from waterborne diseases. The current Administration has unleashed an unprecedented assault on water quality protection. It permits coal companies to dump fill from blown-up mountains into streams. It has rejected the first President Bush's policy of ensuring no net loss of wetlands, withdrawn proposed rules that would have reduced raw sewage discharges, and dropped proposals to cut storm water pollution from new development. Instead, this Administration seeks to limit the scope of the law, leaving entire classes of waterways unprotected.
Water is the sustainer of all life. Water is a basic human need and right. We need an administration that will make clean, healthy water a right for all, strengthening air and water protections. As President, I will push for stronger regulation and enforcement against polluters, while rewarding environmentally responsible farmers and businesses. I will work to stop privatization of drinking water and sewer systems and make a major investment in water system infrastructure, while making a significant financial commitment to providing healthy drinking water to all the world's people."
Environmental Justice[click here to read question seventeen]
"The EPA defines Environmental Justice as “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies.” Since communities of color and low income are disproportionately affected by environmental degradation, we need to make sure they have a voice. In other words, we must get those affected involved in the process of creating the laws and policies. As previously mentioned, one of the best ways to do that is give the affected communities a binding voice in the placement and operation of the facility. I also support Congress passing a law codifying Executive Order 12898, which seeks to require the integration of environmental justice principles into federal agencies."
Pesticides and Rural Communities [click here to read question eighteen]
"More and more scientific evidence points to the fact that low-level exposures to many toxic organophosphates, including common pesticides like lindane and atrazine, can have devastating results, and our children are especially vulnerable. We are also learning that these effects are cumulative, and in combination with other chemicals, may have even greater negative health impacts. Atrazine has been associated with increased incidences of prostate cancer and after it leaches into our waters, has resulted in reproductive abnormalities in wildlife. It is banned in Europe but not in the United States. This chemical, and others like dioxins, DDT, PCBs that are known as “endocrine disruptors”, can have very serious and long-lasting consequences for our reproductive health. It is over-applied and mis-used in agricultural areas in the US, where it runs off and into our water systems. Other persistent organic pollutants like lindane (known to cause asthma in farm workers and is still found in head lice shampoo that is used for children) can bioaccumulate in our bodies with potentially disastrous results. Lindane leaches into our water system, and has now been found, along with lots of other chemicals that form a toxic soup, in farmed salmon. We are exposed to so many of these chemicals on a daily basis that our waterways are turning into a toxic soup. Through our industries, agriculture and manufacture of products, we are exposed daily to hundreds of thousands of inadequately tested chemicals and compounds including dioxins, PFCs, organochlorides, phthalates, nanoscale materials, and mercury and other pollutants that may persist in our bodies and the environment for years and years. We need to make the public more aware that these toxins may not only be harmful individually, but in combination may have even greater negative impacts on our health and environment. We must invoke the “Precautionary Principle” for all new chemicals and their use and strive to be toxic-free. We must attribute the true costs of our industry and manufacture of our products. I will ensure that the most stringent standards and the most up-to-date science are utilized by EPA, USDA, FDA and other Federal regulatory agencies to ensure that our air, water and soil resources are not polluted. I will also promote legislation to make the polluter pay and utilize those funds to clean up existing polluted areas.
We must also ensure that our children are shielded from the harmful effects of environmental toxins in their schools and other public areas. More than one-third of our schools use cleaners with known carcinogens, asthmagens, and neurotoxins. Many schools still use pesticides with neurological and reproductive toxins. These toxic materials are a real and present danger to both children and adults alike. I will enact new initiatives to direct the Department of Education and USDA to use integrated pest management instead of pesticides, and replace cleaning chemicals and building materials with toxin-free alternatives.
It is imperative that our government regulatory agencies use the best, most current science to protect our citizens from these hazards, and clearly label products that may be potentially hazardous. The EPA is using outdated science, funded and developed with the same chemical and agribusiness industries that produce these chemicals—a clear conflict of interest—to develop the regulations that are meant to protect the public health. It is time to restore the integrity of our Federal Regulatory agencies to that of “watchdog of the public” from that of “lap dog of the corporations”. We must demand that EPA uses current science, appoints the best scientists in the field with no ties or vested interest to industry EPA advisory panels, and increases the transparency of its interactions with industry. Coordination among EPA, FDA and USDA should also be increased to ensure that we are eliminating as many dangerous pesticides as possible and replacing them with known and effective integrated pest management practices. As President, I will advocate for these things in addition to enforcement of the Food Quality Protection Act promulgated by President Clinton in 1996. The Bush Administration has completely ignored the FQPA, so much so that up to 90% of the pesticides currently on the market for agricultural use have not yet been subjected to analysis or scrutiny. Industry and agribusiness interests cannot override protection of public health and the environment.
In the end, these measures will decrease costs to our health system by taking preventative measures, as well as spur innovation for green chemistry and green technologies that will be good for our economy and the health and welfare of all of our citizens."
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