Oversight on EPA FOIA Screening,  Covering Pipeline Protests, Feedlot Air Emissions, Data on Illegal Fishing

Might it soon be a felony for reporters to cover pipeline protests? WatchDog reports on newly emerging legislative proposals in a dozen states that could jail reporters for following protestors onto private right-of-ways or entry into critical infrastructure. Above, a pipeline-related protest in Ohio last July. Photo: Becker1999, Flickr Creative Commons. Click to enlarge.

WatchDog: Oversight on EPA FOIA Screening,  Covering Pipeline Protests, Feedlot Air Emissions, Data on Illegal Fishing

 

1. Will Political Screening of EPA FOIA Requests Come to Light?
2. New Laws May Make Reporting Pipeline Protests a Felony
3. EPA Proposes Exempting Animal Feeding Operations from Air Emissions Reporting
4. New Data Tool Supports Coverage of Illegal Fishing

 

1. Will Political Screening of EPA FOIA Requests Come to Light?

Now that Democrats have taken over the House, there is a good chance that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s document disclosure policies will get more scrutiny.

Under Trump appointees, recently departed Administrator Scott Pruitt and current Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler, EPA has choked off many responses to record requests under the Freedom of Information Act, especially the more politically sensitive ones.

Public interest groups charge EPA has been slow-walking FOIA requests for political reasons after scandals mounted over Pruitt.

One champion of FOIA transparency for EPA has been Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee. Cummings asked Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) to subpoena records on EPA’s FOIA policy. Nothing happened.

Now that Cummings is slated to be chairman of the committee, chances of subpoenas for EPA’s FOIA response policies look better starting in 2019.

Even during the Congress now coming to a close, Cummings highlighted EPA’s FOIA delays (may require subscription) and the reasons for them. By concentrating limited staff on clearing Obama-era requests, he showed, EPA could delay more current FOIAs on the scandal-plagued Pruitt administration.

Those delays didn’t work, as the Sierra Club sued EPA under FOIA and ultimately got some 60,000 pages of Pruitt documents in 2018. Those FOIAed documents fed the flames of the Pruitt scandals, fueling a long, steady drumbeat of exposé stories about EPA in major outlets like The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Back To Top

 

2. New Laws May Make Reporting Pipeline Protests a Felony

Ever since the Standing Rock protests of the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016, pipeline protests have been a steady source of news on the environment beat. So you might want to know that under newly emerging state laws, you could go to jail for covering them.

That seems to be the case for some coverage of the protests against the Bayou Bridge pipeline in Louisiana. Reporter Karen Savage has been arrested twice for doing her job and faces potential felony charges.

 

Louisiana’s new law is actually

just an example of similar legislative proposals

sprouting up in other states.

 

The Bayou Bridge pipeline, being built by Energy Transfer Partners in the swamps of Louisiana, has received permits but is being resisted by camps of protesters. Much of it is parallel to existing right-of-way and some of it is on private land. Protesters demonstrate on this right-of-way and reporters must be on those sites to cover them.

But a new Louisiana law forbids “unauthorized of entry of a critical infrastructure project.” That’s what Savage was arrested for, although she and the protesters actually had the private landowner’s permission to be on the land.

Louisiana’s new law is actually just an example of similar legislative proposals sprouting up in other states — Iowa, Virginia, New York, Colorado, Ohio, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Minnesota, Washington and Pennsylvania. Most are fashioned after a model bill from the American Legislative Exchange Council, an industry-sponsored group.

Back To Top

 

3. EPA Proposes Exempting Animal Feeding Operations from Air Emissions Reporting

If you want to know what air emissions are coming from a feedlot, all you’ve got left to work with is your nose.

After a long and complicated legal battle, the EPA this fall proposed a rule saying that animal feeding operations did not need to report air pollution emissions (and that’s not even including noxious odors). So animal feeding operations can continue emit ammonia and hydrogen sulfide, which can be toxic in high concentrations, as well as methane, which is a greenhouse gas.

But while the ag industry currently has the upper hand, the legal struggle is not over. That’s because the toxic emissions until recently were reportable (if not prohibited) under several key pollution laws — including the Superfund law, known as CERCLA, and the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, or EPCRA.

The GOP-controlled Congress exempted animal feeding operations from CERCLA reporting in March 2018, via the FARM Act title of the omnibus appropriations bill. But reporting under EPCRA remained a point of contention. EPA Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler moved to end the EPCRA debate with a proposed rule published Nov. 14. The public comment period ended Dec. 14. Environmental groups may challenge it in court once finalized.

Back To Top

 

4. New Data Tool Supports Coverage of Illegal Fishing

Illegal fishing is a worldwide problem, a threat to fish stocks and a legitimate subject for environmental journalism. Now a super-high-tech tool may help journalists find and tell that story.

Global Fishing Watch allows tracking of large fishing vessels, making use of the “automatic identification system” large ships must carry to avoid collision. AIS is a GPS-like technology that can be collected by satellites. The founding partners of Global Fishing Watch were Oceana, SkyTruth and Google.

Using several technologies to collect ship movement information, Global Fishing Watch uses algorithms to detect fishing activity, and presents the information via free online maps.

Back To Top

---

* From the weekly news magazine SEJournal Online, Vol. 4, No. 1. Content from each new issue of SEJournal Online is available to the public via the SEJournal Online main page. Subscribe to the e-newsletter here. And see past issues of the SEJournal archived here.