Barack Obama on Environment Democratic incumbent President; IL Senator (2004-2008)

Sub-sections under Environment:
• Legislative Record
• Other issues under Environment

First reform of food safety laws in more than 70 years

A: Since taking office, I have been working to safeguard our food supply, prevent foodborne illnesses and improve consumers' knowledge about the food they eat. When I started, our food safety system needed to be modernized. One in four people were getting sick every year due to food-borne illness, and children and the elderly were more at risk. I signed the most comprehensive reform of our nation's food safety laws in more than 70 years--giving the Food and Drug Administration the resources, authority and tools needed to make real improvements to our food safety system. We have strengthened standards, prevented food from being contaminated with dangerous bacteria, bolstered surveillance used to detect contamination problems earlier, and responded to illness outbreaks faster.

Bolster the use of organic farming methods

National clean water framework: protect America's waters

A: I am working to ensure the integrity of the water Americans rely on every day for drinking, swimming and fishing, and that support farming, recreation, tourism and economic growth. My Administration released a national clean water framework aimed at developing a comprehensive approach to protecting the health of America's waters. Through partnerships with communities around the country, we are working to improve water quality, and restore rivers and critical watersheds.

To help with water scarcity concerns in the West and elsewhere, I am supporting water conservation programs. My administration has awarded 92 grants to water conservation projects that will save enough water for an estimated 950,000 people. We are also working collaboratively with communities around the country on how to best manage freshwater resources in a changing climate.

Establish Great Lakes Restoration and National Ocean Policy

A: By establishing a National Ocean Policy, I made it a priority of the federal government to ensure a proactive approach to improving the conservation of the ocean, our coasts, and the Great Lakes. We kicked off the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, the largest investment in the Great Lakes in two decades, which is targeting ecological problems such as invasive species, toxic hot spots, and pollution runoff. We have created or enhanced more than 540 public coastal recreation areas, protected more than 54,000 acres of coastlines and restored over 5,200 acres of coastal habitat. We have also invested over $1.4 billion in Everglades' restoration, helping restore tens of thousands of acres which will serve as a sanctuary for native Florida plants and wildlife.

Monitor health of fisheries & establish "pollution diet"

A: We are cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay, establishing a "pollution diet" for the Bay that will help restore the natural habitat for fish and other wildlife. We are directing additional funding to Gulf Coast restoration to bring back the fisheries and coastal ecosystems which are still recovering in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon spill. We are also investing more in monitoring our fishing stock in coastal areas so we have the most accurate data possible on the health of our fisheries. These are significant steps that are helping us improve the health of our oceans and build more robust fisheries.

BP spill was biggest environmental disaster ever faced

Sent 17,500 troops and 1,400 ships to deal with BP spill

Would this disaster discredit him like Hurricane Katrina had done to Pres. Bush? Obama said, "This is what I wake up to in the morning, and this is what I go to bed thinking about--the spill. When we are fouling up the earth like this, it has concrete implications not just for this generation but for future generations."

Promised that anyone losing job in spill would get BP check

The president went on to assure me that anyone who lost their job would get a check from BP. When I explained that BP might not write them checks because it was the federal government that imposed the moratorium, the president said, "Well, if BP won't pay them, they can file for unemployment." I was amazed by the level of disconnect. The people of Louisiana want to work, not collect unemployment or BP checks.

Top USDA priority: make sure all kids are well-fed

Cash for Clunkers: $4,500 to trade in old car for new

Obama's big announcement the next day, March 30, that he would ask Chrysler and GM to "fundamentally restructure in a way that would justify an investment of additional taxpayer dollars."

Greenhouse gases declared dangerous to public health

The announcement deliberately coincided with the climate change conference, which aims to establish an international treaty to reduce greenhouse emissions. Of course, the president cannot implement a treaty by himself; he needs the approval of two-thirds of the U.S. Senate. So the EPA's announcement was actually a threat to circumvent the Senate's constitutional prerogatives. Obama was indicating he would commit the United States to carbon-cutting goals reached at Copenhagen, and if the Senate refused to approve a carbon-cutting treaty or to pass capo and trade, Obama would simply use the EPA to regulate carbon whether the Senate likes it or not.

Government should invest in clean energy & green jobs

OBAMA: It is critical that we understand this is not just a challenge, it’s an opportunity, because if we create a new energy economy, we can create five million new jobs, easily. It can be an engine that drives us into the future the same way the computer was the engine for economic growth over the last couple of decades. We can do it, but we’re going to have to make an investment. The same way the computer was originally invented by a bunch of government scientists who were trying to figure out, for defense purposes, how to communicate, we’ve got to understand that this is a national security issue, as well.

McCAIN: We can move forward, and clean up our climate, and develop green technologies, and alternative energies for battery-powered cars, so that we can clean up our environment and at the same time get our economy going by creating millions of jobs.

$150B over next 10 years for green energy sector

• "A National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank that will invest $60 billion over ten years and generate millions of new jobs. We can't keep standing by while our roads and bridges and airports crumble and decay. We can't keep running our economy on debt. For our economy, our safety, and our workers, we have to rebuild America.
• "And we need to invest in green technology. We can't keep sending billions of dollars to foreign nations because of our addictions to oil. We should be investing in American companies that invest in American-manufactured solar panels and windmills, and in clean technology. That's why I've proposed investing $150 billion over the next ten years in the green energy sector."

Support reforestation as carbon sequestration issue

Confront deforestation & promote carbon sequestration: Obama will develop domestic incentives that reward forest owners, farmers, & ranchers when they plant trees, restore grasslands, or undertake farming practices that capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Willing to suspend ethanol subsidy to keep food prices down

A: We’ve got rising food prices here in the US. In other countries we’re seeing riots because of the lack of food supplies. So this is something that we’re going to have to deal with. There are a number of factors that go into this. Changes in climate are contributing. There’s no doubt that biofuels may be contributing to it. My top priority is making sure that people are able to get enough to eat. And if it turns out that we’ve got to make changes in our ethanol policy to help people get something to eat, then that’s got to be the step we take. But I also believe that ethanol has been a important transitional tool for us to start dealing with our long-term energy crisis ultimately. Over time we’re going to shift to cellulosic ethanol, where we’re not using food stocks but we’re using wood chips & prairie grass.

Genesis teaches stewardship of earth: sacrifice for future

A: One of the things I draw from the Genesis story is the importance of us being good stewards of the land, of this incredible gift. And I think there have been times where we haven’t been [good stewards], and this is one of those times where we’ve got to take the warning seriously [about climate change]. And part of what my religious faith teaches me is to take an intergenerational view, to recognize that we are borrowing this planet from our children and our grandchildren. And this is where religious faith and the science of global warming converge: We have to find resources in ourselves to make sacrifices so we don’t leave it to the next generation. We’ve got to be less wasteful, both as a society and in our own individual lives. I think religion can actually bolster our desire to make those sacrifices now. As president, I hope to rally the entire world around the importance of us being good stewards of the land.

1980s: Tested for asbestos at Chicago housing project

Over the long term, however, little happened to the asbestos. The CHA asked the department of Housing and Urban Development for over a billion dollars to repair housing projects across the city. The federal agency offered money to repair plumbing and roofing problems, or remove asbestos, but not both. The problem remained unresolved during Obama's time as an organizer.

The lesson was plain. Significant change was possible with government support, and impossible without it. Obama decided that law school would give him tools he needed to do more.

Regulate animal feeding operations for pollution

• Protecting the Rural Environment: Obama will work for tougher regulations on concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) to prevent air & water pollution.

• CAFOs Pollute the Environment: Manure spills kill millions of fish and jeopardize public health.

• Regulate CAFOs:Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency will strictly regulate pollution from large CAFOs, with fines for those that violate tough standards. Obama also supports meaningful local control.
• Partner with Landowners to Conserve Private Lands:Obama will increase incentives for farmers and private landowners to conduct sustainable agriculture and protect wetlands, grasslands, and forests.
• Encourage Organic and Local Agriculture:Obama will help organic farmers afford to certify their crops and reform crop insurance to not penalize organic farmers. He also will promote regional food systems.

Will end the notion of Yucca Mountain nuclear storage

Promote green technologies and fuel efficiency standards

Organized inner-city recycling; fought environmental racism

Obama introduced a bill requiring more pollution controls at coal plants to block Bush from rolling back the Clean Air Act in Illinois. He cosponsored a bill to require that 10% of electricity in the state come from renewable sources by 2012, and supported measures to increase energy efficiency codes. Obama sought tougher standards for diesel engines and proposed protecting wetland and stopping toxic dumping.

Reduce mercury and lead to protect community health

Protect the Great Lakes & our National Parks and Forests

Protect National Parks and Forests:

Obama supports a true preservation policy for our nation’s parks and forests. Obama fought efforts to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and voted to prohibit the use of funds to construct new roads in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest.

1985: Organized asbestos removal in Chicago housing project

Obama was known for his detailed and calculated planning, a trait he would carry into politics. The first major project for Obama was assisting the 2,000 residents of a housing project amid a huge garbage dump, a noxious-smelling sewage plant, and the heavily polluted Calumet River.

Of Obama’s pursuits, a campaign to remove asbestos drew the most public attention. That confrontation prompted the housing authority to hire workers to seal off the asbestos.

Give Katrina contracts to locals, not to Halliburton

KUCINICH: Absolutely. The aftermath underscores everything that’s wrong in this country about race.

GRAVEL: Yes.

DODD: I would as well. New Orleans and Katrina have become a symbol of everything that went wrong with this administration’s failure to respond to a people in need.

CLINTON: I have proposed a 10-point Gulf Coast Recovery Agenda, because even if we were to give people a right, there is nothing to return to.

BIDEN: It’s an American problem. We should guarantee the reconstruction.

RICHARDSON: Yes, I would support that. I would also support the Katrina Recovery Act.

EDWARDS: This is an issue I care about personally and deeply.

OBAMA: Halliburton or Bechtel getting the contracts to rebuild instead of giving the people in New Orleans the opportunity to rebuild and get jobs and training is a further compounding of the outrage.

Health Care for Hybrids proposal for fuel efficiency

Three months working on minority students recycling

2005: Worked with Sen. Coburn (R, OK) on Katrina oversight

Fellow freshman Barack Obama (D-IL) called to discuss the possibility of our offices jointly introducing a bill to put my idea into action. I had connected with Obama during orientation.

Our bipartisan work with Obama on Katrina-related oversight produced some helpful legislation reigning in no-bid contracts and set the stage for our later work on transparency.

The aftermath of Katrina triggered a healthy debate in Washington about a subject politicians like to avoid: priorities. The cleanup and recovery effort would obviously cost billions, and Congress owed it to taxpayers and victims to make hard choices between competing priorities.

Stimulus bill earmark for LA-Vegas mag-lev railway

Passed lead abatement & 24 other laws in IL Senate

In his third year, 1999, Obama was even more successful. He cosponsored almost 60 bills and 11 became law. They included measures that established a state-funded screening program for prostate cancer (a disease that disproportionately afflicts blacks), strengthened hospital testing and reporting of sexual assaults, increased funds for after-school programming, increased investigation of nursing home abuses and hiked funding for lead abatement programs (another large issue in the black community).

Scored 60% on Humane Society Scorecard on animal protection

The Humane Society 109th Congress Scorecard on animal protection issues scored Obama 60 out of 100, based on:
• Obama did not co-sponsor the Horse Slaughter Prevention Act (S.1915): To bar slaughtering horses for human consumption. Bill had 34 co-sponsors.
• Obama voted for the Horse Slaughter Amendment (9/20/2005): to stop export of horses for slaughter.
• Obama co-sponsored the Animal Fighting Prohibition Act (S.382): To criminalize dogfighting & cockfighting. The bill had 51 cosponsors & passed unanimously on 4/28/2005.
• Obama did not co-sponsor the Downed Animal Protection Act (S.1779): to ban “downed” (unable to walk to slaughter) cattle, pigs & sheep in human food. Bill had 26 cosponsors.
• Obama signed the Funding Letter to the Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee: seeking funds for the Animal Welfare Act, Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, & federal animal fighting law. The letter was cosigned by 44 senators & sent on 5/25/2006.

Voted YES on including oil & gas smokestacks in mercury regulations.

• Limits smokestack emissions in a two-phase program founded on a market based capping system
• Calls for the first cap to limit mercury emissions to 38 tons in 2010
• Requires the second and final cap to begin in 2018 and stay fix at 15 tons

Tax credit to remove lead-based housepaint.

OFFICIAL CONGRESSIONAL SUMMARY: Allows a tax credit for 50% of the costs of reducing lead hazards in U.S. homes built before 1960 in which certain low-income children less than six years of age and women of child-bearing age reside. Allows a maximum credit of $3,000 for lead abatement costs and $1,000 for the cost of interim lead control measures.

EXCERPTS OF BILL:

Congress finds that:
1. Of the 98 million housing units in the United States, 38 million have lead-based paint.
2. Of the 38 million housing units with lead-based paint, 25 million pose a hazard due to conditions such as peeling paint and settled dust on floors and windowsills that contain lead at levels above Federal safety standards.
3. Lead poisoning remains a serious, entirely preventable threat to a child's intelligence, behavior, and learning.
4. The Administration has established a national goal of ending childhood lead poisoning by 2010.
5. Current Federal lead abatement programs only have resources sufficient to make approximately 7,000 homes lead-safe each year.
6. The replacement of old windows that contain lead based paint significantly reduces lead poisoning hazards in addition to producing significant energy savings.
7. Childhood lead poisoning can be dramatically reduced by the abatement or complete removal of all lead-based paint.

LEGISLATIVE OUTCOME:Referred to Senate Committee on Finance; never came to a vote.

Establish commission to examine Katrina response.

OFFICIAL CONGRESSIONAL SUMMARY: To establish a congressional commission to examine the Federal, State, and local response to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Region, especially in the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and other areas impacted in the aftermath, and make immediate corrective measures to improve such responses in the future.

EXCERPTS OF AMENDMENT:

There is established in the legislative branch the Katrina Commission:
• The Commission shall be composed of 10 members, with not more than 5 members from any one political party.
• Individuals appointed should enjoy significant depth of experience in such professions as natural disaster and emergency response experience.
• The duties of the Commission are to ascertain, evaluate, and report on the information developed by all relevant governmental agencies regarding the facts and circumstances related to Hurricane Katrina prior to striking the United States and in the days and weeks following;
• build upon concurrent and prior investigations;
• planning for future cataclysmic events requiring a significant marshaling of Federal resources, mitigation, response, and recovery to avoid significant loss of life;
• an analysis as to whether any decisions differed with respect to response and recovery for different communities, neighborhoods, parishes, and locations and what problems occurred as a result of a lack of a common plan, communication structure, and centralized command structure; and
• make recommendations for immediate corrective measures so that future cataclysmic events are responded to adequately.

LEGISLATIVE OUTCOME:Rollcall vote #229; lost 44-54.

Sponsored health impact bill for environmental health.

OnTheIssues.org Explanation: A classic 1980s study demonstrated that poor neighborhoods are burdened with more environmental hazards than rich neighborhoods. The 1980s study established the field of "environmental justice"; this bill addresses environmental justice and health justice.

OFFICIAL CONGRESSIONAL SUMMARY: A bill to require health impact assessments and take other actions to improve health and the environmental quality of communities, and for other purposes.

SPONSOR'S INTRODUCTORY REMARKS: Sen. OBAMA: The Healthy Places Act of 2006 focuses on the built environment, which includes our homes, parks, and transportation systems. Like many other States, Illinois has already begun to take steps to improve the environment. City leaders in Chicago have recognized that many low-income families have no access to fresh foods and medicine because there are no grocery stores and pharmacies in their neighborhoods. Retail Chicago, an initiative of the city's Department of Planning and Development, is now using redevelopment funds to entice local developers to bring grocery stores and pharmacies into these neighborhoods.

The Healthy Places Act of 2006 would expand these and other efforts to improve the planning and design of communities that can promote healthier living. It establishes and supports health impact assessment programs; better addressing environmental health issues; and creating a grant program to address environmental health hazards, particularly those that contribute to health disparities. Finally, the Healthy Places Act provides additional support for research on the relationship between the built environment and the health status of residents.

LEGISLATIVE OUTCOME:Referred to Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions; never came to a vote.

Inter-state compact for Great Lakes water resources.

A joint resolution expressing the approval of Congress to an inter-state compact regarding water resources. In the Great Lakes--St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact the Congress finds that:

• The Waters of the Basin are precious public natural resources shared and held in trust by the States;
• The Waters of the Basin are interconnected and part of a single hydrologic system;
• The Waters of the Basin can concurrently serve multiple uses. Such multiple uses include industrial, agriculture, mining, navigation, energy development and production, recreation, and the maintenance of fish and wildlife habitat.
• Future Diversions and Consumptive Uses of Basin Water resources have the potential to significantly impact the environment and economy.
• Purposes of the inter-state compact: To act together to protect, conserve, restore, improve and effectively manage the Waters and Water Dependent Natural Resources of the Basin under appropriate arrangements for intergovernmental cooperation and consultation;
• To remove causes of present and future controversies;
• To promote interstate and State-Provincial comity; and,
• To promote an Adaptive Management approach to the conservation and management of Basin Water resources, which provides adjustments for the uncertainties in scientific knowledge concerning the Basin's Waters and Water Dependent Natural Resources.
• Legislative Outcome: Passed Senate by Unanimous Consent.

Strengthen prohibitions against animal fighting.

Sen. CANTWELL. I reintroduce today the Animal Fighting Prohibition Enforcement Act of 2007. This legislation has won the unanimous approval of the Senate several times, but unfortunately has not yet reached the finish line.

There is no doubt, animal fighting is terribly cruel. Dogs and roosters are drugged to make them hyper-aggressive and forced to keep fighting even after suffering severe injuries such as punctured eyes and pierced lungs. It's all done for "entertainment" and illegal gambling. Some dogfighters steal pets to use as bait for training their dogs, while others allow trained fighting dogs to roam neighborhoods and endanger the public.

The Animal Fighting Prohibition Enforcement Act will strengthen current law by making the interstate transport of animals for the purpose of fighting a felony and increase the punishment to three years of jail time. This is necessary because the current misdemeanor penalty has proven ineffective--considered a "cost of doing business" by those in the animal fighting industry which continues unabated nationwide.

These enterprises depend on interstate commerce, as evidenced by the animal fighting magazines that advertise and promote them. Our bill also makes it a felony to move cockfighting implements in interstate or foreign commerce. These are razor-sharp knives known as "slashers" and ice pick-like gaffs designed exclusively for cockfights and attached to the birds' legs for fighting.

This is long overdue legislation. It's time to get this felony animal fighting language enacted. It's time for Congress to strengthen the federal law so that it can provide as a meaningful deterrent against animal fighting. Our legislation does not expand the federal government's reach into a new area, but simply aims to make current law more effective. It is explicitly limited to interstate and foreign commerce, so it protects states' rights in the two states where cockfighting is still allowed.