Posted: Monday, November 7, 2005 12:00 am
Those who wondered where the EPA under the Bush administration draws the line on tolerance for polluters have their answer: At the door of Chicago's Blommer Brothers Co. chocolate factory.
Since 1939, when Henry Blommer Sr. and his brothers, Al and Bernard, started the business, Blommer Brothers has been turning raw cocoa beans into delectable cocoa powder and into dark, milk and white chocolate pieces for wholesale to confectioners.
Apparently not everyone likes being next to a chocolate factory. Someone complained that the smell of burnt chocolate occasionally emanated from the old-fashioned-looking squat brick factory in the heart of Chicago. Also, clouds of chocolatey powder linger in the air when cocoa beans are being ground to make 10-pound chocolate bars.
In response to the complaint, the EPA promptly sent out an inspector in September who, over the course of two mornings, observed that the factor's grinder did indeed produce above-regulation levels of "opacity" from the cocoa dust that lingered too long to meet clean-air standards.
Small-particle pollution is nothing to sneeze at. Whether from smoke or powder from any source, small particles are a menace to the lungs, particularly those of people with asthma or other pulmonary ailments. So, like a good neighbor, Blommer accepted the EPA citations, agreed to pay the fines and install new equipment.
The rub here is one of proportion and selective enforcement.
Why did this little family chocolate factory have to deal with the swift, full regulatory power of the same EPA when, since 1999, the agency has ignored Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, whose office has documented more than 7,600 emissions violations at six Chicago-are coal plants?
It's old news that the Bush administration has the worst record of pollution law enforcement. Officials justify this by saying while they remain committed to clean air standards as outlined under the Orwellian-named "Clean Skies" initiative, their approach is sort of an "Ahem … you're polluting. Please find a way to stop" rather than a citation-and-compliance approach.
That puts the president in sharp contrast to the all-time toughest upholder of environmental laws, George Herbert Walker Bush. Under his administration from 1989-93, the EPA averaged 195 pollution citations a month - a reflection of his expressed orders to stop polluters.
That number fell to 183 a month during the Clinton years and it has nose-dived under George W. Bush. As of 2003, the EPA averaged 51, with October of that year reaching a national low of 35.
Frustrated EPA officials contend that the agency is now a toothless tiger, a situation that prompted a string of resignations that began with the March 2002 departure of Eric Schaeffer, former head of the U.S. EPA's Office of Regulatory Enforcement. He named the rollback of air pollution laws and kid-glove treatment of big polluters as his reasons for departure in his resignation letter to Christie Whitman, Bush's appointee to head the EPA. She resigned from the agency in May the following year, saying that she had nothing - nothing at all - bad to say about the EPA. She just wanted more time with her family.
Her just-stay-calm demeanor typifies an administration whose response to clear and present environmental decay is rooted in denial. Ignore those melting polar ice caps, killer hurricanes and droughts. What, dying oceans and unprecedented global species die-offs? Don't worry.
The EPA has that whole chocolate factory crisis well in hand.