2014 ndi – Pre Camp Natural Gas Negative

---Delay inevitable---production takes a decade

Environmental impact assessment is a universally recognized strategy for sustainable development. 13 Broadly stated, EIA is an attempt to improve the quality of human life in a lasting way by examining and documenting the potential environmental impacts of a proposed activity and also considers alternatives that may prevent or mitigate any perceived negative effects, thereby enabling fully informed, environmentally conscious decision-making. 14 By design EIA is anticipatory, or precautionary, and so it is important that it be undertaken as early as possible prior to, or during the proposal stage of development. 15 Additionally, the prediction and prevention of potential environmental harm is often a least-cost alternative. 16 Therefore, in addition to being a sustainable development tool, EIA can also be a cost-saving measure.16. JACOB I. BREGMAN & ROBERT D. EDELL, ENVIRONMENTAL COMPLIANCE HANDBOOK 275–76 (2d ed. 2002). This least-cost notion can be viewed as a corollary of the sustainable development concept. No doubt the costs of preparing environmental assessments, as well as the expense of delay, can be burdensome. Yet balking at EIA in the face of such burdens adopts a narrow perspective that overlooks the fact that the costs of prevention would pale in comparison to the environmental, social, and economic costs associated with unbridled development. Indeed, an ounce of prevention may be worth a pound of cure.

Conventional wisdom tells us that the U.S. oil-and-gas boom is a welcomed turn of events — especially in the Midwest’s heavily industrialized and economically struggling Rust Belt states, tight shale oil and gas appear to be new varieties of precious black gold. In Ohio and its neighboring states, residents have suffered through decades of downturn. The region’s specialization in processing raw materials for manufacturing had faded away. Prosperity is now returning, though slowly, to the Midwest economy in the form of resources buried deeply in the disconnected fissures of the Utica, Marcellus and Devonian shale. Conventional thinking is unlikely to question the wisdom of this energy windfall. Unconventional thinking, however, raises red flags in the conventional wisdom. Will the U.S. oil-and-gas boom bolster energy and economic security? Maybe. But there are risks. Emerging petroleum sources have an imposing relationship on their surroundings. Producing and processing new oils and gases requires technological forcing — through horizontal drilling, hydraulic fracturing and chemical injection — with uncertain long-term impacts. Managing water quality, waste and seismic, climate and other impacts are difficult in the face of rapid, under-regulated resource development. This situation breeds an information and power imbalance. Industry has more knowledge than citizens and can hold financial sway over policymakers. Proceeding more cautiously, while prudent, too often pits profits and jobs against health and safety. The speed at which tight reserves are being extracted merits reconsideration beyond these important issues of unintended societal consequences. There are also economic and energy trade-offs associated with this energy boom. First, with natural gas selling at low prices, accelerated production of tight gas could be unwise. Today it might be worth more in the ground than in the pipeline. A slower development path would buy time to figure out how to safeguard residents and the environment, offering full disclosure and better mitigation before problems arise.

Regardless of whether an agency must perform an EIS, there is often a delay between the proposal for a project and the commencement of the project. Often the EIS could be completed without extending this interim period. Therefore, the courts should be influenced by potential delay only when the additional delay caused by the EIS could undermine the United States's economic or military security. Executive Order 12,114 anticipates the need for special rules in the event of armed conflict, ⁴⁶² and courts should construe this provision narrowly.

At the outset, it is important to note that when it comes to the technical environmental analysis, overall, EIA favors process over substance. This is because the purpose of EIA is to ensure that actions are not undertaken without first fully comprehending and contemplating their environmental consequences. Thus, while the identification of potentially significant impacts through environmental assessment may impede the progress of a proposal by requiring additional procedure, it will not necessarily thwart the proposed action. The underlying assumption is that decision-makers will act accordingly and take the environment into consideration once they learn the results of an EIA. In other words, EIA simply seeks to inject environmental considerations into the decision. It matters most that the process is undertaken so that the environmental impacts of a proposed action are exposed prior to the ultimate decision of whether or not to proceed with the proposed action.

AT: NEPA Fails

---Exemptions are worse-Rubberstamping production makes environmental catastrophe more likely. That’s Daily Kos.

---Doesn’t assume the Counterplan-NEPA as contract approach increases assessment effectiveness by switching the burden to the industry-none of their NEPA arguments apply. That’s Barsa

---NEPA as contract significantly reduces the risk of future BP disasters-Creates strong incentives for effective assessment and mitigation

---CP creates effective incentives for assessment and mitigation where it matters most-Addresses structural weakness that led to BP spill

---CP changes industry culture---Builds in environmental protection norms

BARSA-prof law NU-11 38 B.C. Envtl. Aff. L. Rev. 219, * LEARNING FROM DISASTER: LESSONS FOR THE FUTURE FROM THE GULF OF MEXICO: SYMPOSIUM ARTICLE: RECONCEPTUALIZING NEPA TO AVOID THE NEXT PREVENTABLE DISASTER

In this way, the NEPA-as-contract model would counteract the pro-drilling leadership bias that likely contributed to the groupthink dynamic. 141 Company leaders would now have a strong incentive to change the culture in which the engineers always dominate the biologists and cautions about drilling are routinely dismissed. 142 Much like construction companies have used a safety first culture to reduce jobsite accidents, oil companies would have a powerful incentive to implement a culture that takes a hard look at potential environmental harms. 143 Indeed, if this cultural shift were strong enough, group polarization effects might shift to emphasize safety and harm-mitigation much more strongly than simple regulation would predict. Similarly, group confirmation bias may shift from emphasizing that "everyone knows drilling is safe" to "everyone knows you've got to fully assess the risks." As the literature on so-called "norm cascades" has made clear, once a given norm becomes adopted by a sufficient number of actors, it may reach a tipping point, after which it becomes rapidly diffused. 144 Government agencies, with their strong symbiotic relationship with industry, would likely not be immune from these new norms, but even if they somehow managed to be, industry caution alone would likely be sufficient to improve the level of environmental review.

---NEPA empirically improves energy decisions---reforms constantly improving analysis

Dreher 5, (Robert G. Dreher, Executive Director of the Georgetown Environmental Law and Policy Institute. Served on the General Counsel of the U.S. Envronmental Protection Agency, “NEPA Under Siege”, http://www.law.georgetown.edu/gelpi/research_archive/nepa/NEPAUnderSiegeFinal.pdf)

One criticism is that the NEPA review process, though well-intentioned, is largely a waste of time. In debating whether NEPA reviews pro- duce reliable environmental predictions, the reality is that we are woefully under-informed.¶ Despite this uncertainty, it is clear that the analy- sis in NEPA documents assists agencies in making better, and more environmentally-sensitive, decisions. As one academic study concluded, EISs may not consistently produce precisely accurate environmental predictions, but they at least provide “sensible assessments” of likely environmental consequences to guide decision makers.39 The numerous NEPA success stories cited above demonstrate that federal agencies are better informed about the environmental consequences of their proposed actions than they would be in the absence of a forward-looking environmental analysis.¶ NEPA has transformed agency cultures, broadening agencies’ narrow mission-orientation to include sensitivity to environmental values. Moreover, as discussed above, the NEPA review process is not simply a techni- cal analysis of environmental impacts; it is also a politi- cal process for engaging the public in federal decision- making. NEPA has succeeded in creating a structured¶ framework for making public choices, based on the best available information, about what courses to pursue in an inherently uncertain world. As the Department of Energy’s highest environmental official recently affirmed, “NEPA is an essential platform for providing useful information to decisionmakers and the public, supporting good decisionmaking, and thus advancing DOE’s mission.”40¶ In any event, the appropriate response to uncertainties regarding the accuracy of the NEPA process is not to jettison environmental analysis, but to attempt to resolve the uncertainties and study how the NEPA process can be improved. Additional studies are needed on the accuracy of EISs, focusing on what methods of environmental analysis produce reliable results and what types of environmental consequences lend themselves to accurate prediction. As discussed below, Congress and the agencies should require agen- cies to engage in additional post-decision monitoring to improve the reliability of environmental reviews.¶ At the same time, advances in the science of environmental impact analysis already appear to be significantly improving the environmental analysis in NEPA documents. Scientists are making steady progress in improving mapping using geographic information systems (“GIS”) techniques, in expanding computer modeling capabilities, and in developing our under- standing of ecological systems and biological func- tions. These new advances are being integrated into environmental analysis under NEPA on a continuous basis. Additional post-decision monitoring is needed to verify the benefits of these new techniques and to help refine them over time.

---Empirical examples prove

Dreher 5, (Robert G. Dreher, Executive Director of the Georgetown Environmental Law and Policy Institute. Served on the General Counsel of the U.S. Envronmental Protection Agency, “NEPA Under Siege”, http://www.law.georgetown.edu/gelpi/research_archive/nepa/NEPAUnderSiegeFinal.pdf)

The National Environ- mental Policy Act (NEPA) has been extraordinarily successful in accomplishing its goals.¶ First, NEPA has unquestionably improved the quality of federal agency decision-making in terms of its sensitivity to environmental concerns. Examples are legion in which proposed federal actions that would have had serious environmental consequences were dramatically improved, or even in some instances abandoned, as a result of the NEPA process. To cite just a few instances:¶ ■ In the early 1990s, mounting problems with obsolete nuclear reactors at its Savannah River site put the Department of Energy under pressure to build enormously expensive new reactors to produce tri- tium, a key constituent of nuclear warheads. A pro- grammatic EIS allowed DOE to evaluate alternative technologies, including using a particle accelerator or existing commercial reactors, leading ultimately to cancellation of the tritium production reactors. Admiral James Watkins, then Secretary of Energy, testified before the House Armed Services Commit- tee: “Looking back on it, thank God for NEPA because there were so many pressures to make a selection for a technology that it might have been forced upon us and that would have been wrong for the country.”16¶ ■ The NEPA process led to improvements in a land management plan for the Los Alamos National Lab- oratory that averted a potentially serious release of radiation when the sensitive nuclear laboratory was swept by wildfire in May 2000. The laboratory’s ini- tial management plan did not address the risk of wildfire, but other federal agencies alerted the Los Alamos staff to that risk in comments on the draft¶ NEPA reflects the belief that citizens have a right to know, and to be heard, when their government proposes actions that may affect them.¶ 4¶ EIS accompanying the plan. The laboratory pre- pared a fire contingency plan, cut back trees and underbrush around its buildings, and replaced wooden pallets holding drums of radioactive waste with aluminum. Those preparations turned out to be invaluable when a major wildfire swept Los Alamos the following year, damaging many buildings but not triggering a significant release of radiation.17¶ ■ In 1997, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commis- sion was considering issuance of a license for con- struction of a major new hydropower dam on the Penobscot River in Maine. The EIS disclosed that the proposed Basin Mills Dam would undermine long-standing federal, state and tribal efforts to restore wild Atlantic salmon populations to the Penobscot River. FERC received strong comments in opposition to the project from federal and state fishery managers and the Penobscot Indian Nation, among others, and concluded that the public interest was best served by denial of the license.¶ ■ The Ivory-billed woodpecker, recently rediscovered, to great public celebration, in the swamplands of Arkansas, owes its survival in large part to NEPA. In 1971, shortly after NEPA’s enactment, the Army Corps of Engineers advanced a proposal to dredge and channelize the Cache River for flood control, threatening the vast tracts of bottomland hardwood wetlands in the river basin on which the woodpecker and many other species of wildlife depended. Envi- ronmentalists challenged the adequacy of the Corps’ NEPA analysis in court, pointing out that the Corps had failed to evaluate alternatives to its massive¶ dredging program that would cause less damage to wetland habitat. The court enjoined the Corps from proceeding until it fully considered alternatives,18 and public outcry subsequently led to the abandon- ment of the dredging project and the creation of the national wildlife refuge where the Ivory-billed woodpecker was recently sighted.¶ ■ A massive timber sale proposed for the Gifford Pin- chot National Forest in Oregon, stalled by contro versy over impacts on sensitive forest habitat, was entirely rethought as a result of the NEPA process. A coalition of environmentalists, the timber industry, labor representatives and local citizens worked together to develop a plan to use timber harvesting to restore the forest’s natural ecosystem. Instead of clearcuts, the new proposal focuses on thinning dense stands of Douglas fir (the result of previous clearcutting) to recreate a more natural, diverse for- est structure, while still yielding 5.2 million board feet of commercial timber. The citizen alternative was adopted by the Forest Service and implemented without appeals or litigation. A local resident involved in the process says: “It’s a win, win, win.” 19¶ ■ In Michigan, communities concerned about the impacts of a proposed new four-lane freeway suc- cessfully used the NEPA process to force the state highway agency to consider alternatives for expand-¶ The Ivory-billed woodpecker, recently rediscovered, to great public celebration, in the swamplands of Arkansas, owes its survival in large part to NEPA.¶ 5¶ ing and improving an existing highway, avoiding the largest wetland loss in Michigan’s history and sav- ing taxpayers $1.5 billion. Similarly, a proposed freeway in Kentucky’s scenic bluegrass region was redesigned to protect historic, aesthetic and natural values thanks to public input and legal action during the NEPA planning process. The National Trust for Historic Preservation acclaimed the Paris Pike as a project that “celebrates the spirit of place instead of obliterating it.” 20¶ These and other similar examples only begin to tell the story of NEPA’s success, however. NEPA’s most significant effect has been to deter federal agencies from bringing forward proposed projects that could not withstand public examination and debate. Prior to NEPA, federal agencies could embark on massive dam- or road-building projects, for example, without public consultation and with virtually no advance notice. As a result, family farms, valuable habitat, and sometimes whole communities were destroyed without the opportunity for full and fair debate. Today, many similar projects that could not survive such a debate simply never get off the drawing boards.¶ More broadly, NEPA has had pervasive effects on the conduct and thinking of federal administrative agencies. Congress’s directive that federal agencies use an “interdisciplinary approach” in decision-making affecting the environment,21 together with the Act’s requirement that agencies conduct detailed environ- mental analyses of major actions, has required federal agencies to add biologists, geologists, landscape archi- tects, archeologists, and environmental planners to¶ their staffs. These new employees brought new per- spectives and sensitivities to agencies that formerly had relatively narrow, mission-oriented cultures.

XT-NEPA as Contract Solves

---Solves groupthink-gives power to dissenting views in favor of strong assessment

BARSA-prof law NU-11 38 B.C. Envtl. Aff. L. Rev. 219, *

LEARNING FROM DISASTER: LESSONS FOR THE FUTURE FROM THE GULF OF MEXICO: SYMPOSIUM ARTICLE: RECONCEPTUALIZING NEPA TO AVOID THE NEXT PREVENTABLE DISASTER

[*244] Even if groupthink continued to dominate the company, and such groupthink dismissed a spill or other disaster as essentially unthinkable, the NEPA-as-contract reform would give permission, or if you will, cover, to potentially dissenting voices within companies. Indeed, such dissenting voices could acknowledge that the groupthink was the "right think" and still argue that protection had to be taken because of other companies' possible "human" errors. Specifically, dissenting voices could point to the legal and financial risk from another company's error, and from the relevant agency overreaching by punishing not just that company but all the companies with rescission based on a claim that past environmental reviews were grossly inadequate or dishonest. In this way, even if NEPA-as-con tract did not overcome groupthink directly, it would sharply mitigate its impact on decision-making.

***Environmental Leadership***

CP K2 Environmental Leadership

CP k2 environmental leadership (and BioD, and solvency)

Schenck 09 (Rita, Institute for Environmental Research and Education American Center for Life Cycle Assessment 2/22/09, “The Business Case for Life Cycle Assessment in US Policy and Legislation” http://lcacenter.org/Data/Sites/1/SharedFiles/whitepapers/thebusinesscaseforlca.pdf)

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) The US has been a leader in markets for environmental impacts through its cap-and-trade programs for oxides of sulfur and nitrogen. There is a clear trend towards cap-and-trade solutions for climate change: these programs will be highly dependent on LCA analyses as the way to assure that all carbon emissions are addressed, not merely moved from one location to another. Existing carbon footprinting standards such as PAS 2050 6 can assist in this matter by providing a basis for measuring carbon credits. But carbon credits are only the beginning of the kinds of externality markets that can be developed using LCA as the calculation engine. LCA typically calculates the full suite of pollution effects, including smog production (with its huge human health impacts and associated medical costs) and eutrophication (which causes fish kills and other problems in water bodies, thus affecting fisheries). It also can calculate biodiversity loss and water consumption over the life cycle. It is in the public interest that all environmental impacts be minimized through market mechanisms, and LCA is the only technique that is specifically designed as a comprehensive science-based method for measuring environmental performance of systems. It does so in such a way that the environmental impacts are standardized and fungible. This facilitates the creation of markets similar to those that currently exist. An externality market infrastructure backed by LCA measures holds out the potential to support sustainability quickly and comprehensively. It would help identify the unintended consequences of projects early on, identifying project scenarios that had lower negative externalities. This would provide more social benefits at lower environmental and economic costs.

The counterplan establishes an explicit referent in statutory law that mandates that the alternatives are considered and agencies act to maximize environmental protection. Establishing a binding requirement is key to reinvigorate the environmental assessment process.

Weiland 97 (Paul S. Weiland, Land Use and Natural Resources Practice Group Leader at Nossaman LLP, worked in the Law and Policy Section, Environmental and Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice helping agencies formulate policies to comply with the NEPA, JD at Harvard, Ph.D. at Indiana, Spring 97, "AMENDING THE NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY ACT: FEDERAL ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY," Journal of Land Use & Environmental Law, 12 J. Land Use & Envtl. Law 275)

[*292] Third, in light of judicial interpretation of NEPA, it is critical to link substance to procedure explicitly. In its present form, section 102(2)(C) of NEPA requires federal agencies to consider the environmental impacts of a variety of alternative projects. 127 Caldwell has suggested that the law as written has contributed to better decisionmaking, but change is necessary to realize the substantive goals set forth in section 101. 128 "The EIS alone cannot compel adherence to the principles of NEPA. The EIS is necessary but insufficient as an action-forcing procedure . . . ." 129 To further NEPA's substantive goals, the EIS requirement could be supplemented with a mandate that agencies adopt the project from among alternatives that "maximizes environmental protection and enhances environmental values" while maintaining the economic viability of the project. 130 Fourth, section 102(2)(C) mandates that "every recommendation or report on proposals for legislation" include an EIS. 131 Generally, this mandate has been ignored by Congress. 132 Grad notes that "there is little evidence that NEPA has had any significant effect on the legislative process . . . . Few impact statements have been filed in the context of legislation that may have substantially adverse effects on the environment . . . ." 133 Subjecting legislation to the procedural requirements that have been enforced by the judiciary up to this point would result in more fully informed, and perhaps better, decisionmaking. If substantive and procedural requirements are jointly implemented, notoriously inefficient and environmentally unsound laws, such as those governing grazing and mining on federal lands, would possibly be reformed. 134 In addition, appropriation bills, in which many decisions [*293] that lead to the destruction of the environment are successfully hidden, would be subject to review. 135 Fifth, to the fullest extent possible, legislation should include provisions that force the President to fulfill his responsibility to appoint a council on environmental quality and to make that council a high priority. Up to this point, numerous presidents have failed to appoint a council, thus violating the Constitution which states in part that the President "shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed." 136 Though this duty has been repeatedly ignored in the past, it need not be the case in the future. 137 Additionally, a clarification of congressional commitment to the CEQ may increase the likelihood that the President will fulfill the responsibility of chief executive. VI. CONCLUSION The amendment of NEPA is not likely to be an easy task. However, a reinvigorated NEPA may establish environmental protection among the nation's priorities when entering the twenty-first century. The need for an explicit referent in statutory or constitutional law is essential to ensure strong and efficacious environmental law within the United States.

Environmental Leadership Low Now

Environmental leadership low

Ivanova and Esty 8 (Daniel C., Professor of Environmental Law and Policy – Yale University and Maria, Assistant Professor of Government and Environmental Policy – College of William and Mary, “Reclaiming U.S. Leadership in Global Environmental Governance”, SAIS Review, 28(2), Summer-Fall)
However, the United States has since retreated from its global environmental leadership role. The George W. Bush Administration has obstructed progress on a number of international environmental initiatives: protecting [End Page 57] biodiversity, regulating the trade in genetically modified products, and instituting a legally binding treaty banning mercury. The high watermark—or perhaps the low tide—of U.S. obstructionism, however, came with the U.S. “unsigning” of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change in 2001 and once more at the 2007 international climate negotiations in Bali, Indonesia. The only developed nation not having ratified the Kyoto Protocol, the United States was the main opponent in Bali to a proposal for greenhouse gas reductions by 25 to 40 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels. As the United States balked at the emerging Bali consensus, an extraordinary diplomatic breech occurred: the U.S. delegation was booed. Lest there be any doubt, Nobel Laureate Al Gore weighed in, observing that the United States was “obstructing progress.” The list of international environmental initiatives that the United States has failed to join has become longer. The United States has yet to ratify the 1982 Law of the Sea Treaty, the 1992 Basel Convention on Export of Hazardous Waste, the 1993 Convention on Biological Diversity, and, of course, the Kyoto Protocol (see Table 1 for a chronological overview of main international environmental conventions and the status of U.S. participation). The Bush Administration’s “go-it-alone” strategy in security issues has mirrored a similar unilateralism in the international environmental domain. Once a leader in international environmental policy, the United States has lost much of its political influence today. What is more, U.S. withdrawal from multilateralism has left the United Nations—the imperfect but important instrument for international cooperation—“in limbo, neither strengthened nor abandoned,”¹ threatening the ability of the world community to resolve fundamental global problems.

Err Neg – consensus view

Ivanova and Esty 8 (Daniel C., Professor of Environmental Law and Policy – Yale University and Maria, Assistant Professor of Government and Environmental Policy – College of William and Mary, “Reclaiming U.S. Leadership in Global Environmental Governance”, SAIS Review, 28(2), Summer-Fall)

The United States entered the 21^st century actively pursuing a “go-it-alone” approach to international relations. This is especially the case in global environmental affairs, where the United States is now widely perceived as a laggard and even an obstacle to collective action. Yet, the United States was the prime proponent and creator of international environmental organizations in the 1970s. In this article, we analyze the U.S. role in global environmental governance from a historical perspective and present a platform for U.S. re-engagement. We contend that the new U.S. Administration should re-examine its strategy towards global environmental concerns and reinstate a commitment to multilateralism as well as to playing a leadership role.

CCP Leadership Scenario

Environmental leadership is key to change Chinese environmental practices.

Economy 07 (Elizabeth – Senior Fellow and Director for Asian Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations,9/7/07 The Great Leap backward, Foreign Affairs, p. http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/great-leap-backward)

Given this reality, the United States – and the rest of the world – will have to get much smarter about how to cooperate with China in order to assist its environmental protection efforts. Above all, the United States must devise a limited and coherent set of priorities. China's needs are vast, but its capacity is poor; therefore, launching one or two significant initiatives over the next five to ten years would do more good than a vast array of uncoordinated projects. These endeavors could focus on discrete issues, such as climate change or the illegal timber trade; institutional changes, such as strengthening the legal system in regard to China's environmental protection efforts; or broad reforms, such as promoting energy efficiency throughout the Chinese economy. Another key to an effective U.S.-Chinese partnership is U.S. leadership. Although U.S. NGOs and U.S.-based MNCs are often at the forefront of environmental policy and technological innovation, the U.S. government itself is not a world leader on key environmental concerns. Unless the United States improves its own policies and practices on, for example, climate change, the illegal timber trade, and energy efficiency, it will have little credibility or leverage to push China.

Failure to manage the environment collapses the CCP.

Economy 07 (Elizabeth – Senior Fellow and Director for Asian Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations,9/7/07 The Great Leap backward, Foreign Affairs, p. http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/great-leap-backward)

In the view of China's leaders, however, damage to the environment itself is a secondary problem. Of greater concern to them are its indirect effects: the threat it poses to the continuation of the Chinese economic miracle and to public health, social stability, and the country's international reputation. Taken together, these challenges could undermine the authority of the Communist Party. China's leaders are worried about the environment's impact on the economy. Several studies conducted both inside and outside China estimate that environmental degradation and pollution cost the Chinese economy between 8 percent and 12 percent of GDP annually. The Chinese media frequently publish the results of studies on the impact of pollution on agriculture, industrial output, or public health: water pollution costs of $35.8 billion one year, air pollution costs of $27.5 billion another, and on and on with weather disasters ($26.5 billion), acid rain ($13.3 billion), desertification ($6 billion), or crop damage from soil pollution ($2.5 billion). The city of Chongqing, which sits on the banks of the Yangtze River, estimates that dealing with the effects of water pollution on its agriculture and public health costs as much as 4.3 percent of the city's annual gross product. Shanxi Province has watched its coal resources fuel the rest of the country while it pays the price in withered trees, contaminated air and water, and land subsidence. Local authorities there estimate the costs of environmental degradation and pollution at 10.9 percent of the province's annual gross product and have called on Beijing to compensate the province for its "contribution and sacrifice." China's Ministry of Public Health is also sounding the alarm with increasing urgency. In a survey of 30 cities and 78 counties released in the spring, the ministry blamed worsening air and water pollution for dramatic increases in the incidence of cancer throughout the country: a 19 percent rise in urban areas and a 23 percent rise in rural areas since 2005. One research institute affiliated with SEPA has put the total number of premature deaths in China caused by respiratory diseases related to air pollution at 400,000 a year. But this may be a conservative estimate: according to a joint research project by the World Bank and the Chinese government released this year, the total number of such deaths is 750,000 a year. (Beijing is said not to have wanted to release the latter figure for fear of inciting social unrest.) Less well documented but potentially even more devastating is the health impact of China's polluted water. Today, fully 190 million Chinese are sick from drinking contaminated water. All along China's major rivers, villages report skyrocketing rates of diarrheal diseases, cancer, tumors, leukemia, and stunted growth. Social unrest over these issues is rising. In the spring of 2006, China's top environmental official, Zhou Shengxian, announced that there had been 51,000 pollution-related protests in 2005, which amounts to almost 1,000 protests each week. Citizen complaints about the environment, expressed on official hotlines and in letters to local officials, are increasing at a rate of 30 percent a year; they will likely top 450,000 in 2007. But few of them are resolved satisfactorily, and so people throughout the country are increasingly taking to the streets. For several months in 2006, for example, the residents of six neighboring villages in Gansu Province held repeated protests against zinc and iron smelters that they believed were poisoning them. Fully half of the 4,000-5,000 villagers exhibited lead-related illnesses, ranging from vitamin D deficiency to neurological problems. Many pollution-related marches are relatively small and peaceful. But when such demonstrations fail, the protesters sometimes resort to violence. After trying for two years to get redress by petitioning local, provincial, and even central government officials for spoiled crops and poisoned air, in the spring of 2005, 30,000-40,000 villagers from Zhejiang Province swarmed 13 chemical plants, broke windows and overturned buses, attacked government officials, and torched police cars. The government sent in 10,000 members of the People's Armed Police in response. The plants were ordered to close down, and several environmental activists who attempted to monitor the plants' compliance with these orders were later arrested. China's leaders have generally managed to prevent – if sometimes violently – discontent over environmental issues from spreading across provincial boundaries or morphing into calls for broader political reform.

CCP collapse results in lash out --- escalates to WMD use and extinction.

Rexing 05 (San, The CCP's Last-Ditch Gamble, Epoch Times, 8/5/05, http://en.epochtimes.com/news/5-8-5/30975.html)

“In any event, we, the CCP, will never step down from the stage of history! We’d rather have the whole world, or even the entire globe, share life and death with us than step down from the stage of history!!! Isn’t there a ‘nuclear bondage’ theory? It means that since the nuclear weapons have bound the security of the entire world, all will die together if death is inevitable. In my view, there is another kind of bondage, and that is, the fate our Party is tied up with that of the whole world. If we, the CCP, are finished, China will be finished, and the world will be finished.” 3) “It is indeed brutal to kill one or two hundred million Americans. But that is the only path that will secure a Chinese century, a century in which the CCP leads the world. We, as revolutionary humanitarians, do not want deaths. But if history confronts us with a choice between deaths of Chinese and those of Americans, we’d have to pick the latter, as, for us, it is more important to safeguard the lives of the Chinese people and the life of our Party. That is because, after all, we are Chinese and members of the CCP. Since the day we joined the CCP, the Party’s life has always been above all else!” Since the Party’s life is “above all else,” it would not be surprising if the CCP resorts to the use of biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons in its attempt to extend its life. The CCP, which disregards human life, would not hesitate to kill two hundred million Americans, along with seven or eight hundred million Chinese, to achieve its ends. These speeches let the public see the CCP for what it really is. With evil filling its every cell the CCP intends to wage a war against humankind in its desperate attempt to cling to life. That is the main theme of the speeches.

***Politics Net Benefit***

Environmental Lobby Shields

Specifically environmental lobby spin means doesn’t cost capital

Simon 07 (University of Nevada Associate Professor of political science Christopher A., Alternative Energy: Political, Economic and Social Feasibility, Pg. 204)

Interest groups have shown themselves to be a highly effective at influencing public policy in all stages of the policy process. Elected officials, usually members of the two major political parties, often face significant time and resource constraints (and limited incentives) in shaping public policies following the creation of statutes. The budget and committee oversight are tools Congress uses to shape policy postulate, but time limitations and disincentives often mean that Congress eschews large-scale regular oversight. The president, too has significant time constraints and relies heavily on appointed officials to represent his views, which has varying impacts on policy postulate. Interest groups, however, have significant time to follow individual policy arenas and to advance their goals throughout the policy process Environmental groups have and will likely remain very influential in energy policy. A centuries-old movement, interest group influence grew tremendously in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s in the United States. Environmental groups generally do not seek personal economic benefit from their efforts to protect the environment but tend to be driven by a notion of societal benefit. Many groups have significant resources needed to keep group to promote legislative action. Through lobbying efforts and information campaigns, interest groups shape policy outcome. Economic groups have played a significant role in shaping the energy policy debate and in a variety of different ways. Rural agrarian counties in the midwestern United States for instance, have faced economic and social decline for several decades. In the 1970s and 1980s in part due to rising energy costs—family farmers in the heartland were faced with serious economic depravation. Many of these family farmers were forced to sell their farms, often to large corporate farming interests. Social changes led many mid-western youth to migrate to the cities for greater opportunity, which meant that the next generation of farmers and ranchers disappeared from the rural landscape. Government groups at the state and local levels, such as associations or counties, began to pressure state and national policymakers to promote the use of corn in the alternative energy paradigm—federal ethanol subsidies have played a major role it making this aspect of farming much more profitable and, as a consequence, making farming a more lucrative enterprise. Urban government interest groups, such as the League of Cities, have also played a major role in shaping regulations and distributive policy incentives to promote sustainable communities. The supply of abundant and cheap energy is the cornerstone of the U.S. city of twentieth century; curtailing demand but maintaining quality of life will be the challenge of the twenty-first-century U.S. city. In order to accomplish this significant goal, however, government interest groups seek the economic aid of governments at all levels. Given Tiebout’s (1956) overarching thesis, it is natural that government interests will jockey for financial opportunities to promote the policy innovations unique to their locale and the needs of their communities in relation to other urban areas.

Environmental lobbies are comparatively more powerful

Mayer 07 – Money-in-politics reporter for Center for Responsive Politics(Lindsay Renick, PBS, “Big Oil Big Influence” 11-23-2007 http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/347/oil-politics.html )

Environmentalists, who had very little influence in Congress when Republicans were in control, are now seeing the lawmakers seriously consider their positions. This includes environmentalists' support of fuel efficiency standards, a mandate for electric utility companies to produce 15 percent of electricity from renewable sources and their opposition to coal-to-liquid fuel development. Nowhere is this change in tides more evident than in the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, which is heavily involved in energy legislation. California Sen. Barbara Boxer, considered one of the environment's biggest champions, has chaired the committee since her party assumed control of the Senate in the 2006 election. Boxer replaced Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, a Republican who has received $572,000 from the oil and gas industry since President Bush took office—more than all but three other members of Congress. Since 2001, Boxer has received less than $13,000 from the industry and nearly 69 times more from environmental policy groups than Inhofe. "The oil and gas industry, like almost every other industry, will shift some donations from Republicans to Democrats," says Eric Smith, a political scientist who researches environmental policy at the University of California-Santa Barbara. "It's clear that the industry strongly prefers to have Republicans in power, but industries generally focus on short-term advantages. In the short term—now and presumably after the 2008 elections—Democrats hold congressional majorities. So to win the short-term battles, the industry must try to persuade Democrats in Congress to go easy on them." Big Oil, which has always contributed heavily to Republicans, isn't likely to defensively switch its contributions to favor Democrats. But so far this year, 27 percent of the industry's contributions have gone to Democrats, up from 18 percent in the 2006 election cycle, when Republicans were still in power. In the presidential race, the Democrats' share is even higher—Democratic hopefuls for president have so far received 30 percent of the industry's contributions. Among Republicans, presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani has so far collected the most from the industry, while presidential candidate Hillary Clinton raised the most from the industry among Democrats.

Strong Public Support

Genuine EIS is vital to it

Borgstrom 9 (Carol, Director – Office of NEPA Policy and Compliance, “Integrating NEPA into Long-Term Planning at DOE”, 3-23, http://www.eli.org/pdf/seminars/NEPA/Borgstrom.NEPA.pdf)

In conclusion, for DOE-- in general and in the long run-- PEISs appear to be worthwhile. If the timing and scope of a PEIS are consistent with the overall timing and scope of planning and decision making, maximum benefits are possible. Moreover, a PEIS process that includes good public involvement may serve to garner public support and forge consensus, resulting in sustainable decisions.

*Note – PEIS = Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement

Public support key

Eshbaugh 5 (Ph.D., Professor of Political Science – Texas A&M University, “The Politics of Presidential Agenda”, Political Science Quarterly, 58)

Public Approval. Presidential approval may also influence the content of the president's agenda. Despite evidence to the contrary (Bond and Fleisher 1990; Collier and Sullivan 1995), presidents, Washington insiders, and some researchers perceive public approval to be an important means of achieving legislative success (Edwards 1997; Neustadt 1990; Rivers and Rose 1985). Given the pervasiveness of public opinion polling in the White House (Edwards 1983) and high public expectations (Waterman, Jenkins-Smith, and Silva 1999), presidents are bound to be aware of their public standing. More popular presidents should be inclined to offer more long-term and important policies than less popular presidents, if only because they think that a stronger public standing gives them greater leeway to pursue such policies. In other words, H3: Higher approval ratings will lead to a larger legislative agenda, including more major and incremental policies. Approval is the yearly average of the presidents Gallup approval ratings.

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