Consumer Watchdog today called upon leaders of the House and Senate Commerce committees to hold hearings into the revelation by the EPA that for the first time in American history large numbers of vehicles carried window stickers with false MPG claims.

The nonprofit consumer group wrote the EPA one year ago calling for retesting of the Hyundai Elantra after Hyundai’s self-tested MPG estimates were far different than many consumers’ experiences.  Earlier this month, just prior to the presidential election, the EPA announced it had revised MPG claims and window stickers on many Hyundai and Kia vehicles. Consumer Watchdog today asked Congressional leaders to delve into whether the misstated mileage estimates were a direct result of a marketing strategy by Hyundai to advertise four of its vehicles, including the Elantra, as “40 Miles Per Gallon” cars.

“Americans deserve to know the whole truth when the fuel economy claims of a large number of vehicles have been misstated by one of the world’s largest automakers for the first time in American history,” wrote Consumer Watchdog president Jamie Court to Senators Jay Rockefeller and Kay Bailey Hutchison of the Senate Commerce Committee and Representatives Fred Upton and Henry Waxman of the House Commerce Committee.

The letter requests that the companies’ chief executive officers be called to testify under oath and that relevant documents be subpoenaed.

The letter, which can be downloaded here, continues:

“One year ago, in response to consumer complaints, Consumer Watchdog sent a letter to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) expressing concerns about the fuel economy MPG (miles per gallon) estimates advertised on the EPA window sticker of the Hyundai Elantra and requesting that the EPA re-test the Elantra.  In January 2012, after it appeared that the EPA would not perform the testing, Consumer Watchdog then called upon the White House to direct the EPA to conduct such an audit.  Earlier this month, on the Friday before the presidential election, the EPA issued a brief press release announcing that it had required Hyundai and Kia to lower MPG estimates and change the window stickers for the Elantra and ‘for the majority of their model year 2012 and 2013 models after EPA testing found discrepancies between agency results and data submitted by the company.’

“According to the EPA announcement, ‘EPA’s audit testing occasionally uncovers individual vehicles whose label values are incorrect and requires that the manufacturer re-label the vehicle. This has happened twice since 2000. This is the first time where a large number of vehicles from the same manufacturer have deviated so significantly.’

“As we wrote to President Obama in January, Hyundai’s deceptive MPG estimates has greatly disadvantaged American automakers, as well as the American taxpayer, whose full faith and credit have financially sustained those companies.

“We call upon you to hold hearings to give the American people more information about the Hyundai-MPG scandal.

“Unbeknownst to most Americans, automakers self-test their vehicles to determine the EPA MPG claim that appears on the EPA-mandated window sticker.  Elantra drivers alerted us to the fact that their MPG experience was very different than the promised ‘EPA’ numbers.”

The “40 Mile Per Gallon Elantra” was the centerpiece of a massive television, print and radio advertising campaign aimed at convincing drivers that they would save money with $4 per gallon gasoline, when in fact drivers were routinely getting ten miles per gallon less than advertised.  Hyundai widely advertised and promoted its four vehicles that received 40 miles per gallon — the Elantra, Sonata Hybrid, Accent and Veloster – but all were reported by the EPA as having falsified MPG estimates on their window stickers.

“We urge you to hold hearings in order to ascertain how Hyundai arrived at its ’40 Mile Per Gallon’ claims and whether the South Korean company’s business strategy led to falsified mileage estimates submitted to the EPA and incorrect window stickers.  The consequence of the incorrect window stickers has been a loss in sales by American car manufacturers whose MPG window stickers have not been found to be false and who played by the rules,” continued the letter.

“We believe the companies’ chief executive officers should be put under oath and documents related to the testing should be subpoenaed in an effort to understand the cause of the false mileage estimates and window stickers.  The false testing that led to the conveniently round “40 mile per gallon” numbers on the window stickers of four vehicles is very likely to have its roots in a marketing decision at the highest levels of the company. Hyundai/Kia drivers and the American people deserve to know the truth and have those involved answer questions on the matter.”

With the recent legislation proposed by the GOP that requests for the removal of the Environmental Protection Agency’s power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, one has to wonder if such a move is in the best interest of the average American family. Carbon emissions, cigarette smoke, lead-based paint, asbestos, and house hold chemicals are environmental toxins are scientifically proven to be harmful, especially to children. Removing the authority of the EPA to regulate emissions will put many urban, inner city communities with high concentrations of industry at significant risk.  

The only way to minimalize the risks of environmental hazards is to limit exposure to them. Unlike certain health problems that we have no control over, environmental health hazards are issues we can prevent from happening. One thing to consider is that we are usually unable to see the effects of environmental toxins until children have grown into adults. For instance, mesothelioma symptoms, a lung disease caused by exposure to asbestos, have a latency period of as long as twenty years. It is important to educate families of the threat environmental toxins pose so they can prevent them as early as possible.

Children are especially vulnerable to environmental toxins. When children are growing, their behavior puts them closer to the ground ultimately promoting closer proximity to potential toxins. Additionally, their organs are developing, their bodies are smaller, and they breathe faster and take in more substances than adults. An increased breathing rate raises an individual’s susceptibility to the fibrous asbestos material that can cause mesothelioma and other lung cancers. Furthermore, the risk is compounded for families that can’t afford to live in places that are environmentally safe.

The Greater Birmingham children’s Environmental Health Initiative (GBCEHI) did a study targeting 12 zip codes in the Birmingham area. Their focus of study involved mostly populations that were primarily African-American and low-income. They found that these communities had high population densities with even higher concentrations of heavy industry. They have since discovered that one of the most prominent environmental hazards is poor indoor air quality, citing it as a massive contributor to asthma. More frighteningly, asthma shares the basic symptoms of most lung diseases: coughing, shortness of breath, and chest heaviness. Because of the similarities, most lung disease is not diagnosed until it is far too late.  With the mesothelioma life expectancy being as short as fourteen months, the impact of environmental toxins can be devastating to a community.

Organizations such as the EPA and the GBCEHI are attacking the problem of environmental hazards on several fronts. To slash the EPA’s budget and remove their power over the regulation of carbon emissions seems to be counterproductive to the health and wellbeing of American citizens. We can only hope that our representative examine this issue thoroughly and come to a conclusion that finds a favorable balance for both environmental safety and American industry.

“Adequate control of human exposure would be difficult, if not impossible.”

-CA Scientific Review Committee

This is the time of year many talk about United Farm Workers’ founder Cesar Chavez. Cesar was many things, among them he was a strong voice on pesticides.  

Cesar Chavez said, “In the old days, miners would carry birds with them to warn against poison gas. Hopefully, the birds would die before the miners. Farm workers are society’s canaries. Farm workers-and their children-demonstrate the effects of pesticide poisoning before anyone else…There is no acceptable level of exposure to any chemical that causes cancer. There can be no toleration of any toxic that causes miscarriages, still births, and deformed babies.”

As you celebrate his legacy, add your voice to continue Cesar’s fight.

Cesar’s UFW is currently working on a campaign that is critical for farm workers health and safety. We are working together with a coalition of environmental and farm worker groups to try to get the EPA to re-review the toxic pesticide methyl Iodide.  

Science has proven that methyl iodide is a water contaminant, nervous system poison, thyroid toxicant and carcinogen. In other words, it’s a toxic poison that should not be used near where people live.

Despite this, the Bush Administration’s EPA registered methyl iodide nationally in 2007–automatically permitting this toxin for use in a number of states. Other states like California have their own state regulations and are still deciding whether to allow it to be used.

However, there is finally hope to pull this toxic poison off the market. On September 25, 2009, U.S. EPA publicly agreed to reopen its decision on methyl iodide, pending results of the California Department of Pesticide’s Scientific Review Committee, comprised of scientists from across the country.

The Panel’s data is in.

Their report: this pesticide is toxic and harmful. “Adequate control of human exposure would be difficult, if not impossible.”

In addition their report raised serious questions about the scientific accuracy of the federal review that was done under the Bush Administration.

Difficult if not impossible to control–yet this carcinogenic chemical is being used in North Carolina, Florida and fields across the country right now.

This has to stop. Help us hold EPA to their promise to follow the science on methyl iodide. Sign the petition today!

Luis Medellin and his three little sisters, aged 5, 9 and 12, live in the middle of an orange grove in Lindsay, CA–a small farming town in the Central Valley. During the growing season, Luis and his sisters are awakened several times a week by the sickly smell of nighttime pesticide spraying. What follows is worse: searing headaches, nausea, vomiting.

The Medellin family’s story is not unique. From apple orchards in Washington to potato fields in Florida, drifting poisonous pesticides plague the people who live nearby–posing a particular risk to the young children of the nation’s farm workers, many of whom live in industry housing at the field’s edge.

This situation also often exists in schools in agricultural areas where it’s not uncommon to have a school next to a field.

Nov. 7, 2009 – Salinas Californian:

Salinas Valley schools perched near pesticide-sprayed farmland,

“When schools use pesticides on campus, they post a warning a day before. But when acres of farmland next to classrooms are sprayed with industrial-grade chemicals, often no sign goes up.”

Gonzales resident Aurora Valdez said she’s fearful pesticides sprayed near Gonzales High School, where her kids attend classes, will harm her teenage sons. She said she often prays to the Virgin of Guadalupe to keep her sons from experiencing what she said her husband, Francisco, went through 12 years ago after being exposed to pesticides. “I worry constantly about pesticides,” Valdez said.

That’s why the UFW, Earth Justice, Farm Worker Justice and a coalition of environmental groups petitioned the government to set safety standards protecting children who grow up near farms from the harmful effects of pesticide drift–the toxic spray or vapor that travels from treated fields. We’re also asking officials to immediately adopt no-spray buffer zones around homes, schools, parks and daycare centers for the most dangerous and drift-prone pesticides.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has taken the first step in addressing this problem–opening up the petition for public comment. It’s a promising sign.

Environmental News Service:

EPA Proposes Labeling to Control Pesticide Drift, Evaluates Petition

November 4, 2009 (ENS) – Pesticide labeling to reduce off-target spray and dust drift was proposed today by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The new instructions are aimed at improving the clarity and consistency of pesticide labels and help prevent harm from spray drift, the toxic spray or vapor that travels from treated agricultural fields and into neighboring communities.

The agency is also requesting comment on a citizens’ petition to evaluate children’s exposure to pesticide drift. …

The agency’s leadership needs to hear that you think they’re on the right track. Because they’ll surely be getting an earful from the pesticide industry telling them to keep the status quo. In fact, industry interests like Monsanto and CropLife have already started weighing in.

If we want EPA to do the right thing and put immediate pesticide buffers in place around homes, schools, daycare centers and playgrounds, we need to push back. Please help.

In the past, the EPA has not made this issue a priority–ignoring a law Congress passed that requires the agency to protect children from all exposures to pesticide, including pesticide drift. The agency is already three years overdue in setting safety standards that protect children from drift. But there is new hope with the Obama administration. Will you please send your e-mail today and add your voice to those calling for a change?

Thank you!    

The Associated Press reports that abandoned mercury mines in the western hills of the Central Valley are still polluting California’s streams, lakes, the delta and the bay. Sources are widespread, located from Clear Lake in the north to the San Joaquin River in the south. Even the hills near San Jose have mines that drain to south San Francisco Bay.

Read the Story at http://tinyurl.com/mq96a6

Crap. As if we didn’t have enough to worry about. I thought this only happened in Appalachia.  

California once produced 90% of the nation’s mercury. Much of it went to the Sierras during the gold rush, where it was spilled into local waterways. Mining ceased decades ago. but there are at least 550 known mines. Some estimates put the total as high 2,000.

Everybody who eats Pacific fish is affected by this, but the impact is hardest on Native American tribes, who live on or near the old mine sites, and the Central Valley’s poor, who engage more in subsistence fishing in streams nearer to the sources.

Mercury gets into our environment from many sources: Coal burning power plants, cement kilns, discarded thermometers, rainfall tainted by air pollution from Asia. Mercury taken up and stored by plants gets released during forest fires too. California isn’t the only place where this happens. A USGS study completed in 2005 found measurable levels of mercury in fish taken from 290 streams across the U.S. One quarter of those had unsafe levels.

The headline of the current AP story is, “Government Stands by as Mercury Taints Water”. Good work fellas – wait until the Democrats are in charge before you spring this.

The cleanup of old mines depends largely on the Federal Government pressing the mine owners with legal action. Such actions dropped by 70% during the BushCo years. Here in California, so many mines have been abandoned for so long, that the only property owner left to go after is a beleaguered cattle rancher.

California Democrats put mercury on the warning labels created by Prop-65. We banned the sale of new mercury thermostats in 2006, and legislation creating a statewide recycling program (AB 2347, Ira Ruskin) was signed by the Governor last April.

The largest Superfund site in the U.S. is the Sulphur Bank mercury mine at Clear Lake. I’d like to see many more sites designated. Cleanup work might even contribute some  economic stimulus to rural California. We have got to protect our water.

http://bit.ly/jfrEt

The highly toxic, mutagenic, new pesticide methyl iodide is currently being given a comprehensive review by the Department of Pesticide Regulations and the agency’s registration decision is pending advice from a panel of scientists convened specifically to review this chemical.

However, according to inside sources, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is being pressured by corporate interests to fast-track registration of this toxic pesticide–despite serious concerns from the state’s own scientists at the Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR).



Take action: http://bit.ly/jfrEt

“Methyl iodide is so toxic that scientists working with it in the laboratory take extreme precautions when handling it, using a ventilation hood, gloves, and special equipment for transferring it so it does not escape to the air,” notes Dr. Susan Kegley. “This degree of protection is not possible in an agricultural setting where the pesticide would be applied at rates of 175 pounds per acre in the open air. Buffer zones of 400 feet for a 40-acre fumigation would still result in a dose of methyl iodide to neighbors that is 375 times higher than DPR believes is acceptable. For workers, the numbers are much worse, with exposures estimated at 3,000 times higher than DPR’s acceptable dose for some tasks.”

Methyl iodide’s manufacturer, Arysta, withdrew its New York application for registration after state officials raised concerns about groundwater contamination and potential exposure for workers, bystanders and nearby residents–especially children, pregnant women and the elderly.

Now the industry is asking California’s governor to order DPR to fast track the registration of this deadly fumigant. This is not acceptable. Please take action and tell the Governor to keep methyl iodide of California’s fields.



Take action: http://bit.ly/jfrEt