FOIA Suit, Silence on Hog Farms & Sea-Level Rise, Plus Shield Laws

WatchDog: FOIA Suit, Silence on Hog Farms & Sea-Level Rise, Plus Shield Laws

By Joseph A. Davis, WatchDog TipSheet Editor

1. Bay Journal Files FOIA Suit Over Grant Revocation Docs
2. How Much Hog Manure Can EPA Keep Secret?
3. Do Coastal Realtors Seek To Deep-Six Information on Sea-Level Rise?
4. House Members Try, Again, for Reporters’ Shield Law

 

1. Bay Journal Files FOIA Suit Over Grant Revocation Docs

A Pennsylvania newspaper covering the troubled Chesapeake Bay has filed a lawsuit over documents it seeks from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The Bay Journal is a nonprofit print and online publication that is distributed free and is supported by grants from a variety of private foundations and government agencies. One of those grants came (until recently) from EPA, which (until recently) had a program aimed at reversing Chesapeake Bay pollution. The Trump administration has proposed defunding the program.

Ongoing grants from EPA have been a significant part of the Bay Journal’s budget over the 27 years it has existed. But EPA abruptly told the Journal in August it was pulling the grant. That decision was reportedly made by a political appointee named John Konkus. A terse EPA notice cited a “shift in priorities.”

The Journal sought more information about the decision, eventually filing a Freedom of Information Act request, which was unfruitful. So they finally took their FOIA request to court, filing the suit Nov. 13.  Stay tuned. [DISCLOSURE: Tim Wheeler, chair of SEJ’s Freedom of Information Act Task Force, works for the Bay Journal.]

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2. How Much Hog Manure Can EPA Keep Secret?

Photo: USDA, Flickr Creative Commons

 

The air emissions from manure lagoons and other waste on industrial hog farms are hard to hide, in no small part because the human nose can sometimes smell them from as far away as a mile. Yet the EPA for years has tried to do just that, at the urging of factory farms. Today, it is still trying.

It’s not just the bad smell. Waste lagoons emit air emissions which are actually hazardous to human health — notably ammonia and hydrogen sulfide. Environmentalists (and downwind neighbors) want EPA to regulate the air emissions from so-called Confined Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs, and to make CAFO operators and regulators inform the public about emissions.

Those groups went to court again this month in the latest chapter of a decades-long saga of trying to get that done. EPA in 2009 had issued a rule exempting CAFOs from reporting and disclosing hazardous air emissions, and a federal court invalidated it this year. But the environmentalists are still in court — now for a third time — trying to get EPA to require CAFOs to disclose their emissions.

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3. Do Coastal Realtors Seek To Deep-Six Information on Sea-Level Rise?

The catastrophic hurricanes of this summer and fall — Harvey, Irma and Maria — remind us that beach houses and other coastal real estate face serious risks. Those risks will grow with sea-level rise and other consequences of climate change.

This information does not help sell beach houses. McClatchy’s Stuart Leavenworth wrote a disturbing piece Sept. 13 describing how the coastal real estate industry works to block the bad news and profit from sales.

“Real estate lobbyists aren’t going down without a fight,” Leavenworth writes. “Some are teaming up with climate change skeptics and small government advocates to block public release of sea-level rise predictions and ensure that coastal planning is not based on them.”

The legislature of North Carolina (home to the Outer Banks) passed a law a few years ago at the behest of the real estate lobby that bans state planners from taking sea-level rise into account.

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4. House Members Try, Again, for Reporters’ Shield Law

Two House members are mounting a bipartisan effort to enact a federal law to protect journalists from being compelled to reveal confidential sources.

Most states have such laws, but no federal “shield law” yet exists. Past efforts by Congress came close without succeeding. Now Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) has introduced a new bill (HR 4382) to establish a federal shield law, with Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) as co-sponsor.

It may be uphill sledding. The Trump administration has threatened to take a position on the “reporter’s privilege” to protect sources that would be even harsher than that of the Obama administration.

Raskin and Jordan introduced the bill after Attorney General Jeff Sessions refused to commit to not jailing journalists for doing their jobs. That refusal came in Nov. 14 testimony by Sessions before the House Judiciary Committee. Both Raskin and Jordan are members of that panel, which would have primary jurisdiction over the bill.

Congress came close to passing a similar bill in the 2009-10 session. A bill that had passed the House by a voice vote got stuck before it reached the Senate floor. In 2013-14 a bill cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee but did not go beyond that. Former President Barack Obama came into office saying he supported a shield law, but the administration ended up by obstructing such legislation at the behest of the national security agencies.

After much conflict over leaks, the Obama Justice Department worked out guidelines with journalism groups that limited the circumstances when prosecutors would seek to compel reporters to disclose sources. But in August, Attorney General Sessions held a news conference to announce the Trump administration was reviewing those guidelines. Now journalism groups are trying to clarify the guidelines in meetings with the Trump administration.

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* From the weekly news magazine SEJournal Online, Vol. 2, No. 44. 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.