Welcome everyone, thank you very much for being with us on this evening before Earth Day as it's very snowy and cold outside. We're really glad you could be here. This is part of the People's Law School, which is a collaboration of the Vermont Attorney General's Office, the Association of Africans Living in Vermont, the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance, the Vermont Institute for Community and International Involvement and the Caroline Fund. And we also have support from the ACLU of Vermont. So I think what we'll do first is we'll do introductions just really short from each of us. We'll tell you a little bit about who we are and then we'll walk through some logistics for the panel and then we'll get started. So my name is Laura Murphy and I'm an Assistant Attorney General at the Vermont Attorney General's Office in the Environmental Protection Division. I've been here for about four and a half years now and prior to that I was a supervising attorney and professor at the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic at Vermont Law School and I was there for about nine and a half years. So I'll turn it over next to Thea. Hi, my name is Thea Schwartz. I am also in the Environmental Division of the Attorney General's Office. I've been with the AG's office for over a decade with the state of Vermont for nearly 20 years. And I now serve as counsel for the Agency of Agriculture for the last six years or so. Prior to that, I worked with communities with large hard rock mining companies operating in their borders and setting up citizen monitoring groups. Also worked for the Bristol Bay Native Association, which front of all of Bureau of Indian Affairs money to the 31 villages of Bristol Bay. I did tribal government ordinances Indian Child Welfare Act, native land issues, a variety of things like that. And I worked for Alaska Legal Aid as well. I'm glad you all can be here. I'll go next. Good evening, everyone. I'm Justin Colbert. I'm also an Assistant Attorney General. I work with Laura and Thea in the Environmental Protection Division. I also work in the Consumer Protection Division at the Attorney General's Office. And I've been at the Attorney General's Office for 10 years. Prior to that, I got my start at Vermont Law School at the Environmental Natural Resource Law Clinic that Laura mentioned. And it's good to be here as well. Thanks. Hi, everyone. My name is Jen Duggan, and I'm the Director of Conservation Law Foundation Vermont. Our organization is dedicated to protection of our natural resources for the benefit of all Vermonters. Prior to joining Conservation Law Foundation, I was the General Counsel for the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources for three years. And prior to joining the agency, I worked for an environmental nonprofit organization called the Environmental Integrity Project based in Washington, D.C., representing communities impacted by coal plant pollution, refinery pollution, in citizen suits, and permit proceedings in an effort to protect public health and the environment. Great. Thank you, everyone. So we are hoping, we do have a presentation, and we have until 7.30. We may or may not go that long, and we're going to not go over. We welcome questions throughout, so we'll sort of each be presenting at different times. We definitely welcome your questions as we go. We should also have time for questions at the end. I think the best way to do that is you should see a Q&A function on your screen, and if you don't see it, maybe kind of hover near the bottom of the screen, it should show up. So if you click on that, you can just type your question and send it, and then we'll receive it, and we can kind of feel the questions as we go. If that doesn't work for someone, I guess, let us know if you can, maybe using that function, or there is a way to raise your hand, and we're going to try to keep an eye on that as well. So are there any questions before we get started? I am not seeing any, so let me get our presentation up. All right. Are we seeing the presentation panelists? Okay, I'm going to, actually, I will give you a short roadmap of what we're going to talk about before turning it over to Justin. So first, we're going to talk a little bit about Earth Day. That's why we're here. That's going to be tomorrow, April 22. We'll give an overview of what environmental law is, what it means, what it looks like. We'll talk a little bit about the different roles of the Agency of Natural Resources and other agencies and the Attorney General's Office. We'll do a little bit on the different areas of environmental law in Vermont, so land use, water pollution, air pollution, things like that. Then we'll talk some about environmental justice, and then we'll go over tips and ideas for protecting the environment, for being an advocate, and things like that. And as I mentioned, we do welcome questions throughout. So with that, I will turn it over to Justin. Great. Thank you. So a little history about Earth Day. What is Earth Day? And it falls every year on April 22. And before I get started, I'll ask if anyone knows why it's on April 22. Feel free to type it into the Q&A, and I'll answer that in just a few minutes. But while I'm talking, people want to try to guess why it's on April 22. That could be a fun trivia. So it's every year on April 22. The first Earth Day was in 1970. And Earth Day is simply a worldwide event. It's a formal designation that this is a day to recognize the Earth to promote clean living, sustainable living, and to protect our resources and to be conscious of how fragile our world is and how important it is to protect it. And these are some photos from the first Earth Day in 1970. The next slide. And the question is, why 1970? Why did Earth Day happen? Where did it come from? And the history is really before 1970. For many decades, it was a period of really unchecked environmental waste pollution. There was not strong comprehensive environmental laws. So this here is just a kind of status quo of what things looked like in this country. Prior to 1970, there was a lot of pollution, a lot of individual actions contributing to contamination. Next slide. And this was one of the biggest triggers for Earth Day of really serious pollution and contamination. You're looking at the Cuyahoga River in Ohio. Some people may have heard of it. It was known as the River of Fire. There was so much pollutants, petrochemicals, all kinds of contaminants that the river itself caught fire. So naturally, that's a problem. If water can burn, something's not going right. And this grabbed national headlines and really sparked the first Earth Day and the first set of environmental laws. So next slide. All right, Justin, I see we have, yes, that's the river, the beginning of green stormwater infrastructure. Got a couple of comments here in the Q&A box. Yeah, that's great. Exactly. That's the Cuyahoga and this was really the impetus that sparked the need for legislation, for green stormwater infrastructure. In fact, most of our major federal laws all came after the first Earth Day. So some more facts about Earth Day. And here's the answer about why it's on April 22. I learned this in the course of preparing for this presentation. I thought it was interesting. The reason why was to incorporate college students. So at the time of the first Earth Day in 1970, the thought was let's get the college students in between their spring break and their finals. And it has stayed as April 22 every year. And you can see the size of it and the growth, even from the start, it was a huge phenomenon of 20 million Americans participating. 1990 was a watershed year to make it a global initiative. And that was wildly successful as well, with over 200 million people supporting it. And now about a billion people recognize it as a formal event, something to do each year. Next slide. And here's a snapshot of what it looks like in Vermont. Earth Day, there's a variety of activities, events, programming. This happens in Vermont. It happens around the country. It happens around the world. And our office particularly got involved this year with an Earth Day essay challenge, where fifth and sixth graders wrote about the environment. And there's a link to our website. It's really endearing to see how the fifth and sixth graders view their world, view the environment, their connection to it. So I really encourage if anyone has the time to go check out some of those essays, they're really heartwarming. So that's some of the background of Earth Day. And again, one of the big things to come out of Earth Day was national legislation. We're going to go over some of those federal laws in a minute. But another theme I just want to highlight that also came from Earth Day was this idea that we need political action and strong collective societal action. So we'll talk about the ways that individuals can help protect the environment. And that's really important. But we also want to acknowledge the theme that it's the collective actions if left unchecked, that can really harm our environment. So there's a real strong need to make sure that our governments are regulating the environment and that our businesses and industries are following those regulations, which we'll talk about throughout tonight. Next slide, I think that's it. Yes, thank you. And I just want to reiterate that I encourage you to check out the Earth Day essays on our website. I think they're getting posted either today or tomorrow. Are they there? I bet they're there. So they're there. So that's very sweet. Yeah, they're really fantastic. The students are really fired up about the environment. Went the wrong way here. Okay, so we'll move on to what is environmental law? I'm Thea once again. I've been tasked to talk to you about what is environmental law, and it's not one single thing. You can't wave it around and say here it is. And you can't find it in one single book or on one single website. But don't let that scare you away. It's a collection of laws made by legislative bodies, regulations and policies made by executive bodies. And we will talk about legislative executive and judicial branches of government in a little bit, and treaties made by countries with each other, all of it having the purpose of minimizing people's effects on the environment. Together, these make up regulatory systems. And now we're going to look back at the roots of environmental law, which is common law and statutory law. Next slide, please. Thanks. Starting with common law, that goes back hundreds of years. It is a body of law created by courts brought over from England. You may have heard of the concept of precedent that is key to common law. Courts make decisions that conform to earlier decisions that were made by earlier courts, and so that provides consistency and predictability. There's two doctrines of common law that environmental law grew from, the public nuisance doctrine and the public trust doctrine. Next slide, please. So the public nuisance law originated from an infringement on the rights of the crown, England, and was extended to infringing on the rights of the general public. And it basically protects the public in safety and welfare against unreasonable interference with the right common to general public. So an early example of that would have been, say, smoke from a lime pit that affected the entire town, or someone's actions that affected the operation of a public market. The second doctrine is public trust law, and that's that natural resources are held by the state. So they are held by the state for the benefit of its people. That originated with some cases on land submerged under tidal waters that were owned by the king or the queen. So similarly, going back to the crown. In Vermont, public trust extends to natural resources such as fish, wildlife, air, state-held public lands, surface water, groundwater, wetlands, drinking water. In the next slide, please. We talked about common law, which is created by the courts, judicially created. So they're court decisions, one after the other after the other, creating a body of law. And the second is statutory law, which is created by legislatures. So here I have some examples of federal environmental statutes. Of course, there are some by at state levels as well, which I also believe Laura will talk about later. But these are laws actually made by your elected representatives. So very quickly, I'm just going to be conscious of time, but NEPA, that's the National Environmental Policy Act, requires federal agencies, so Executive Branch, to assess the environmental effects of their proposed actions prior to making decisions. So they have to take into account the environment. It was revolutionary at the time. The next is the Clean Air Act, and you can imagine that's about clean air, and that defines the Environmental Protection Agency, the federal agency responsible for protecting the environment. It defines the responsibilities for protecting and proving the nation's air quality and the stratospheric ozone layer. We have the Clean Water Act, and I really am doing these very generally. In 1972, it established the basic structure for regulating pollutants discharges into the waters of the US. And with it, EPA could set water quality standards for contaminants to water. We have the Endangered Species Act, which was to protect and recover imperiled species and ecosystems upon which they depend. And that involves other government entities besides EPA, that's the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Marine Fisheries Service. And we have the Safe Drinking Water Act, which protects the quality of drinking water. And we've got RICRA, which you'll see is the Resource Conservation Recovery Act, Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments, lots of words here, and lots of acronyms. Environmental law is filled with acronyms. When you first start looking at environmental law, you can just, RICRA, NEPA, it just keeps going. So RICRA creates the framework for proper management of hazardous and non-hazardous solid waste. And then we've got CERCLA, another acronym for you, and Superfund. That's in 1980, and that was created to clean up uncontrolled or abandoned hazardous waste sites, as well as accidents, spills, and emergency releases of pollutants and contaminants. So you can see there's a lot of environmental laws that are at the federal level, and that is not all of them. I just wanted to give you a sampling of the earlier ones, stemming from where Justin jumped off and all of this coming from the original Earth Day. Now on the next slide, please. I'm going to get into a little bit more complicated topic, which is cooperative federalism. It's fundamental to environmental law in a very, very general description. It recognizes the sovereignty of federal, tribal, and state governments as individual entities, and it looks at where they overlap. They consist of a nationwide environmental program of laws there. There's federal governments that standards and delegates to consenting states and tribes, if they wish, and those then can set more stringent standards, and I know we will talk about standards later on, but then they are responsible for monitoring and enforcement. So they're administering programs to protect the environment. So that's called cooperative federalism with these different independent entities working together. Next slide, please. That's pretty heavy, I know. So I just also wanted to touch briefly on tribal nations and that the federal-recognized tribes have sovereign authority and responsibility to manage and regulate the environment and natural resources on their lands. So that excludes states and local governments from exercising the authority on their lands. The federal government has a trust responsibility, which you may hear of. It's old terminology, but it's a legal obligation to protect tribal lands, natural resources, and treaty rights. This is for American Indian tribes, Alaska Native tribes, and villages. So like state environmental programs, tribes have environmental programs as well. Next slide, please. Here are some two terms used in environmental law, and I'll just pause for a moment and let you read through them just to give you an idea of what you might hear when you read articles or see things about environmental law. And while we're looking at that, we have a question here, Fiona, if you can see it for all of us here on the panel. So can the federal government or the military exempt itself from its own laws? That's a complicated question. The Dakota pipeline could be an example of that, where the federal government did change policy first under Obama and then under Trump. I think it's complicated, but we have seen the federal government change positions according to changes in presidential administrations. And there will be big changes to come in the next four years. Some involved think that there was four years of going backwards, and now they want to leap forward in terms of environmental progress on the environmental front. I think the question would be how they do those exemptions. If they do it through a law, like Congress passes a law, then law becomes valid. If it's through an executive order, that's another option. So I think it depends on how the federal government goes about changing the law. And I would just add, there's one thing the federal government can exempt itself from, which would be the Constitution, the U.S. Constitution. So to the extent that there's some constitutional issue or angle to whatever the environmental issue in play is, that might be something to think about. But generally, you're dealing with statutes, I think. We'll go to the next slide. Are there more questions?  So for example, if the goal might be clean water as a priority, the plan for how you can get to clean water, the legislature might create a statute, clean water is the goal, then it might set standards or the agency in the executive branch that is responsible that the legislature gives authority may set a standard. So perhaps the standard is only two drops of pollution allowed. That agency would then permit people to do the two drops of pollution. A very simple example here. It monitors to see if the permittee is only doing two drops of water. It might also, this might involve doing water tests or collecting information from the permittee. And then if someone had more than two drops of water, the agency may enforce. And that could be in an administrative or in a court setting. I think that sets the stage for Laura to take over. Yes. All right. Any questions before we go on? Right. So, right. Enforcing the laws. So the, you may recognize these photos here, but both the agency of natural resources and all Vermont agencies and the attorney general are part of the executive branch of government, right? We all learned about in grade school. So executive branch is charged with executing the laws. The agencies and the governor and the attorney general, of course, and Vermont are separately elected. The governor appoints the leaders of the agencies and then the attorney general is separate. And so basically the way this would break down, and I'm going to be very general here and very basic, but for the agency of natural resources, some of the things that the agency would do and Jen can certainly speak more to this having served as general counsel at the agency, but some of the primary things the agency would do. And just so you know, you're looking at the picture here on the left, that is the national life building, not today, believe it or not. That's the national life building in Montpelier. It's where the agency of natural resources primary offices are. And then on the right, that's the civilian building in Montpelier, also not today. The governor has his office there. And as our offices are there as well, the attorney general's offices, as well as some other government offices. So anyway, the agency of natural resources, one of the main things it would do is write rules, right? So we talked about, you know, talked about environmental statutes at the federal level. We also have statutes at the state level that we'll talk a little bit about. But those statutes often need more detail or more specifics or more information in order to be fully implemented. And so agencies are generally tasked with writing the rules or regulations to help implement those statutes. So for instance, what something you might find in a regulation is more information about how a particular permitting standard is going to be met. Then the agency of natural resources will also write the permits. So there are various different types of environmental permits that are needed in Vermont to do certain things, to use the example of the water pollution. If you want to discharge water pollution, you need a permit into waters of the state. The agency would write the permit and it would write the limits that would be needed to meet the applicable standard. The agency can also enforce the law, as Viya mentioned. And here in Vermont, we have an environmental court. It's part of our superior court or our trial court system. The agency can go to the environmental court to enforce the environmental laws, so permit violations, other types of environmental violations. The attorney general's office also enforces the law. And this is just sort of broad strokes about some of the things that our office does. We may enforce the environmental laws. We may often represent the agency of natural resources in doing so. And if you kind of where my mouse is hovering here, oh, I should mention there are quite a few embedded links in this presentation. So if you want more information, definitely encourage you to go look at some of these links later. And I'll see about making this available to folks. I'm not sure exactly how that's going to work, but we can look into that. Anyway, you can see outcomes, right, where we settle cases or we brought cases in court, and then what the resolution has been. We also do a lot of multi-state work. So this is where our office will work with attorneys general from other states to pursue common actions. Over the past four years, we have done a lot of doing federal agencies for the actions that they have taken. You can see again here on this web page, there's a compilation of the work that we've done since Attorney General Donovan took office in this regard. There's a box for other stuff, right? We both sometimes give counseling advice to agencies, interact with the public, and the people's law school, things like that, and then defend the state. So if someone sues the state or more often for our particular division here in the environmental division, if someone is challenging an agency decision, so let's say the agency of natural resources issues a permit or make some other type of decision, depending on which court that decision gets challenged in, we will help to defend it, including before the Vermont Supreme Court. So really broad strokes about what the attorney's general's office does. So we've got two questions now. I think one relates to Thea's earlier slides about what authority does the state and federal have over Indian territory? So Thea, do you want to give us a reminder about the authority between the difference between state and federal over Indian territory? So if it's a federally recognized tribe, then if we're just talking about environmental law, if it's a federal program that the tribe has consented to, to administer, then it would be administering and the state and the federal government would be not involved in that daily administration. So for environmental law purposes and others, I'm not going to go there, but the state does not have over a federally recognized tribe. Now that's not here in Vermont, obviously. Thank you, Thea. And then our second question, I think this ties off Laura's point about when you need to add more specifics to an environmental statute, rules and regulations, we have a question about there being a new TMDL phosphorus, or yeah, a new TMDL for phosphorus. I think there's a question about the date in 2004. My understanding is that the phosphorus TMDL for Lake Champlain in Vermont came out just recently in 2018. But that's an example of a more specific regulation to address a specific pollutant. So yeah, the TMDL for phosphorus. Yeah, and this is the the Lake Champlain, the TMDL for phosphorus for Lake Champlain is, I'm assuming that's what this is referring to, and it was 2016. I think 2016 was the interim procedure and then the final implementation plan was 2018. And it's now in effect now. Yeah. Yeah, and I will just add, you know, the state has made progress towards implementing that. So there was a the first phase was really putting in place the the rules and the new permits and doing planning. Some of the, you know, the work that Thea and Laura have mentioned as part of phase one. And now that those new rules and permits are in place, they're moving on to phase two in terms of implementation and looking at pollution and requirements, you know, basin by basin and these sub watersheds for the lake. Laura, should we continue? Yes. Thank you. I don't think there are any more questions. And if I'm going slowly, it's because I'm navigating the screen. So all right, so environmental law. This is basically right, we have a lot of different areas of environmental law in Vermont. And I'm talking here about the statutory law, not the common law, we also have common law actions in Vermont. You can find most of these if you really want to go look in the Vermont statutes online. So this is and the link is here and it's very easy to navigate. I wanted to include the link because it's I just think it's I use it more often than I use our Westlaw service, which is a different service for statutes essentially. But it's great and it has all the different titles, right. So title 10 is conservation and development, and that's where you're going to find most of Vermont's environmental laws. But there's also some in title six and in different sections of the law. So you can just, you really want to go look at the laws, you can go look at them there. But these are the sort of general broad areas that they fall into. Similar to the areas that we saw at the federal level. Agriculture land use. Many of you will be familiar with Vermont's Act 250. It's a statewide land use law. So we have often localities or municipalities will have local zoning, but we also have the state land use law where something that qualifies as development. And development is a defined term in the statute. So if your development under Act 250, you have to get a permit. And the permit needs to ensure that certain criteria are met. The Act 250 criteria related to the environment and aesthetics and planning, and various other factors. Waste management. Thea talked a little bit about this. So the federal level, we have waste management law here in Vermont. Many of these statutes here on the screen are implementing as well as being Vermont based. They're also implementing federal law. So they're going to be at least as stringent as they need to be to meet the federal requirements. But in most cases, the states can go further and do more. And so Vermont does that in some areas as well. Drinking water. Limits on contaminants in the water that we drink. Air pollution permits for, you know, pollution, limits on air pollution and different areas of the law that you can also go see more of this, more information on Anna's website too about all of these different areas. So I think what we're going to do is talk a little bit more specifically about a few of these areas. And we will start with the Global Warming Solutions Act. Thanks, Laura. So one of our newest state environmental laws is the Global Warming Solutions Act. And this was just passed in the fall over Governor Scott's veto. The legislature overrode that veto and it is now the law of the land. And in a nutshell, the law creates an accountability framework to help the state achieve both net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and also take the actions we need to take to build climate resilience for our communities. And the law takes our former greenhouse gas reduction goals and turns them into reduction requirements. And so by 2025, we have to achieve a 26% reduction from 2005 levels by 2030 40% from 1990 levels by 2050 80% reduction from 1990 levels and net zero. And so the law includes these requirements so that we are making progress along the way so that we can reach our goal in 2050. And the way that we are going to get to net zero and to this 80% reduction by 2050 is through a planning process. The Vermont Climate Council, which is made up of members of the executive branch, as well as a very diverse set of stakeholders have to work together to come up with a climate action plan. That includes the actions that we need to take as a state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and also build our climate resilience. And as part of that process, there is a requirement for the agency of natural resources to develop new rules to implement those those actions. There are deadlines built into the statute to make sure that we are on track to meet the 2050 goal. And then there's also provisions in this law that give the public the right to take the state to court if the state fails to reduce climate emissions. So that, you know, on on this slide, I have included links to the Climate Council website. I would just encourage folks to check that out because it does include links to all of the meetings, all of the information. There's a lot of really great work that's happening as part of this planning process. The first climate action plan is required by December of this year. And then there's a requirement to review that periodically to make sure that we stay on track. But I really encourage folks, you know, to check out this website because it does, you can watch everything online, read all the minutes of the meetings, and just get a participate in that process as it's happening. Questions? So here's a question. Oh, go ahead, Justin. No, you got it. Question is who implements and enforces the climate action plan? So the climate action plan is going to include a mix of strategies. Some of those may be appropriations or dollars legislative action. That's going to go back to the legislature. And they'll have to wrestle with that and come out with new laws. Some of those requirements in that climate action plan will be regulations and they could be agency of natural resources regulations, but also agency of transportation, other agencies that have a role to play in reducing climate emissions or building climate resilience as well. And so it really depends, you know, there are, there is a uniform environmental enforcement statute that gives, you know, the agency of natural resources authority, you know, for example, to enforce the environmental laws, rules and permits that they, that they oversee. And I would also just note that Laura, I think no, I think it was Laura noted earlier that the Attorney General's office sometimes enforces the environmental statutes or represents the agency. So if when we're thinking about enforcement and oversight, you know, think about our agencies and the Attorney General's office. And following on that more broadly now is a question about how does a citizen have input into the enforcement of environmental regulations? And that's a good question. There's a public process in the environmental division if you are a neighbor of a property that's affected, or if you're a person who has an interest that's affected, there's an actual form of process for you to become a party to any litigation that's an enforcement action. So that's one method that I'm aware of. Yep, I would just add that, you know, you can file public comments, the agency of natural resources is required to publish their, their orders related to enforcement of environmental laws or their settlement agreements with defendants online. There's a public comment period. So you can weigh in and file public comments. And we can talk about where to find, you know, the the notices for that a little later. And then, you know, if there's no, you know, if there's not a sufficient response to those comments, then there's an opportunity, like Justin mentioned, to intervene in court, to ask the court to address your concerns. And I'll also add to that our office at the Attorney General will post all proposed environmental settlements online for a period of 21 days to allow a similar process that Jen described for public review and public comment. So if our office is enforcing an environmental regulation and we've come up with a settlement around that, we're going to put it on our website and hold it for 21 days. And anyone can view that settlement and take any action if they want to, you know, follow court rules for intervention or things like that. But it's certainly a type of process. Yes. And I would just add on to that. There are ways to also, if you have a concern to let the agency know. And well, I think we're going to talk about that a little bit more later as well. All right. So water pollution control, this is just another example of a specific area of environmental law in Vermont. The basic prohibition in our water pollution control statute is very similar to the Federal One and the Clean Water Act, although it's broader here in Vermont. And it's, I'm going to make sure I get the language right. No person shall discharge any waste, substance or material into waters of the state dot dot dot without first obtaining a permit for that discharge from the Secretary. And in this case, that's the Secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources. So this is an example. The pictures you see here are an example from one of the cases that our office did on behalf of both the Agency of Natural Resources and the Agency of Agriculture related to agricultural water quality laws. This was a farm and in the bottom picture, that's a silage bunk. And you can see kind of wet material towards the front of the picture. So there was leachate coming from the silage bunk, which is really high in nutrients. And it was going through this channel on the top left. You can see it's going through this channel here. The vegetation is kind of burned from the excess nutrients. I don't, I can't remember if this picture is just the leachate or if it's leachate combined with some, some stormwater, but it flows eventually to the picture on the right into the stream there you can see in the background. So it flows into that rocky stream and from there, it flows into a pond. This was an enforcement action. There were other violations on this farm as well. We were able to settle the case and the farm performed corrective actions and has, has actually dealt with this problem. So that is good. And we'll move on to a little bit more about the agency of agriculture. I've listed just a few of the things that the agency of agriculture does that may pertain to the environment and I'll go through them. But there are many others that are not listed here. So the agency is a holder of agricultural conservation easements along with the Vermont Housing Conservation Board and sometimes the Vermont Land Trust and sometimes the Upper Valley Land Trust for land when I, to keep the farm, it into a farm use so it can't be developed. So it also, as of late, does more executory interest where is it property, right, where it kind of kicks in afterwards. So it's not ongoing easement holder. It works to make sure that those lands are used in that way and are not developed. That's been a program for some time now. A newer program is produce inspection, which is FISMA Federal Safety Modernization Act, if I get it right. And it is for larger produce farms in Vermont. And it's also about environmental health as well because it's looking at the harvesting and the processing of the produce and sanitary conditions as well. The agency also has a pesticide, fungicide and lapendicide program. So it does trainings for pesticide applicators. It could take enforcement actions to make sure that pesticides are used appropriately in accordance to their label. And larger one of late is the agriculture water quality program. And that's a bit about what Laura touched on in the prior slide. And that is about nonpoint source pollution. So not coming from a distinct channel. And that we have a permitting program where we have inspectors that look at large farms. They go every year medium farms. That's by the main number of animals there that I believe it's every three years. And then there's certified small farms. And they're going to look and make and look to make sure that the farms are using managing waste in a way that it's not affecting water quality. And I will leave it at that in the interest of time. So I will talk a little bit about environmental health which is a very broad category. Thea just touched on it in regards to pesticides and the food we eat. It's really it's all of those things. It's the food we eat. It's the air we breathe. It's the water we drink. The products we're using. It's all of the conditions in our environment that could negatively impact our health. And you can see here on the left. These are categories that the Vermont Department of Health keeps formal track of. It includes things like our drinking water, toxic chemicals and pollutants, particular products that can affect children, our climate, our health, our weather, weather patterns, tick season, all kinds of things like that. So we'll go to the next slide and we'll get more of an example here of what the Department of Health is doing to keep track of our environmental health. And I think this is a really fascinating useful tool. And if we have the time, I think we're going to try to do some nifty technology switching here to go to the Department of Health. And this PowerPoint will be posted online. But you can also just easily Google Vermont Department of Health data tracker. Once you get on the Department of Health website, there's a really easy tool to use. It's their data tracker here. And they keep track of dozens and dozens of categories of interested things that affect our environmental health. So over on this left is a dropdown menu. And we'll just choose, you know, if we're interested about air quality, we can just start with the first one. What is the air quality like in Vermont these days? You know, where are there contaminants? And where are the monitoring stations? And what are the most pollutants? And you can see once we scroll down to the right, there's a whole description here about how the Department of Health is keeping track of our air quality explains difference about ozone, different toxic pollutants, more resources. So this data tracker is available for like I said, dozens of categories you can learn. Have there ever been any cancer clusters in Vermont? What's the latest algae blooms in Lake Champlain? All of these are being tracked by the Department of Health that gets constantly updated and monitoring. I think in the last few months, in the last year, they've certainly been busy with COVID. But this tracker is still being constantly updated and monitoring. So it's a really useful tool to find out things on a personal level of what's happening all around the state. We can go back to our presentation. And I think we have a question here. Yes, the link. So this is this is the actual formal link to have it directly. It's not as this was a copy and paste from the website. But if you go to health.vermont.gov, that's the main site for Department of Health, health.vermont.gov. And then you should be able to navigate their menu and you're looking for the data tracker. Yeah, this PowerPoint will certainly be on our website after this presentation. And this link will be available to everyone. So within environmental health, the Attorney General's office takes a particular role monitoring and enforcing for lead paint. That's a particular area of concern for us because of the effects on children. There's no such thing as a safe level of lead in the human body. Any amount can have a negative effect that includes developmental issues, neurological impairments. The statistic you're looking at says one in 20 Vermont children have had a lead level tested that could cause developmental issues. That's actually improvement over 20 years ago. That number used to be one in five Vermont children. So there's been major progress in the last 15 years or so that's come from a real dedicated priority around lead paint. And it's mostly around rental properties. Vermont has some of the oldest housing in the country. And we have a lot of renters and a lot of the old housing just gets repainted decade after decade. And so all those paint ships just build up and the lead paint stays in the bones of the house. And you can see a picture on the left. That's what classic peeling paint looks like. I'm sure everyone can walk around of Vermont town and find an example of that. And my office works with the Department of Health to do our best to monitor those rental properties and take action when we need to. And we have taken significant actions over the past few years. We've done over 50 enforcement actions with landlords and making sure that those rental properties comply with our lead laws. But there are thousands of rental properties all over the state. And we work hard to make sure that they follow the lead paint laws. We might have a question here. I think that was monitored. Okay. All right. Next slide. Another example of our office getting involved in the environmental health issue was around PFOA and PFOS. They've been in the news recently. If people have heard about them, they're known as the forever chemicals because they just don't break down. It's things like Teflon and Gore-Tex and carpet and anything that's stain resistant and water resistant. Well, it's so resistant because it's made up of these really strong complex carbon based chains that never go away. They've been found in the blood of polar bears and in 99% of all humans on the planet. And we're sort of only recently realizing the extent of that contamination. So a few ways that our office through the Attorney General has gotten involved directly was in the town of Bennington, where just in the last few years, there was discovery of extensive contamination of groundwater and drinking water. We resolved that through a comprehensive settlement with the company that had produced the most of that chemical in Bennington. And we have a link to that settlement. And then our office has also sued various manufacturers of those chemicals for the contamination that's been caused. So suing Dupont, 3M and those cases are progressing as well. They're being monitored by the press. You can see all these different links there to learn more about those. Laura, do you want to add anything to that as well? No, I think that covers it unless folks have questions. And I will just mention on the settlement, I'm sure it's available. Well, actually, I don't know if it's available on A&R's webpage or not, but the agency has just been done a tremendous job of being involved in Bennington and working on that settlement. So it was very much a joint effort and the agency really just spearheaded things. So appreciate that for sure. Any questions? Okay. We wanted to touch on environmental justice and the EPA has a definition that's used often by different states as well. And I'll read it out loud here if I can move our little galley of faces. The fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people, regardless of race, color, national origin or income, with respect to the development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations and policies. You can go on the EPA site and you can find, they have kind of a roadmap of their program, I put the link there, as well as you can see what communities they are more active in on EJ for short issues. So one example in Vermont is Hinsdale, New Hampshire and Brattleville, Vermont. They're in the south of Vermont. They're neighboring small cities where EPA is working with a range of stakeholders to leverage grants to assess and clean up underutilized sites, so kind of a revitalization, support flood mitigation efforts and create a resilience plan for drinking water treatment and distribution system in Hinsdale and expand the capacity of involvement of citizen scientists to monitor local waterways, so really getting people involved and also touching on Justin's promoting lead safe housing. An organization in the state of Vermont that has been very active is the Rejoice Project, which its purpose is to deepen the dialogue between people and their government and promote community conversations about EJ with the quote which I liked is, no community shall be saddled with more environmental burdens and less environmental benefits than any other. So they're working on identifying underserved communities and working to draft policy reports for state government. They have an interesting site as well. You can learn more about them. I put the link on there. Next slide please. Here I just included two quotes just for some thought. I won't read them aloud, but one is from a sociologist who's considered by some the father of environmental justice and the second is by a professor and activist and an author who talks about indigenizing the concept of environmental justice and thinking about it in the history of colonialism and the way that Native Americans have operate or have been treated by the legal framework that exists now. So I thought they would be interesting to include. You're welcome to look on our PowerPoint later. I will take a moment to read them now. So we want to go ahead Justin. I was going to say there's another question following up on something. I think we touched it on before, but what authority would President Biden have to halt the Keystone Pipeline? If it had already been authorized before, how does the president go about revoking that authorization? So I think that probably speaks to what we touched on before about actions that the federal government are taking. If it's under their authority like an executive order or an agency, an agency can certainly reverse its own course or regulation. So I think that's where that would apply. But do others want to chime in? Not on that particular question, but just sort of along the similar lines of what Justin was mentioning. I mentioned earlier that we're involved in multi-state lawsuits. Many of those were filed before January 20th of this year against the prior administration's rules and regulations. So right now you may be aware President Biden issued an executive order to have many, if not all of those regulations reviewed. And so many of our multi-state cases are now in abeyance or they're being stayed depending the review of the agency's actions. And so then depending on, you know, the agency may decide, EPA may decide it's going to withdraw or revoke or replace its current rule defining what waters of the United States are. So just to give a flavor of how things can change. And right now the agency is for EPA and I'm sure many of the agencies are very busy reviewing regulations from the prior administration. Yeah and Laura, that makes me think too about, I guess, what we're trying to make sure is what the federal government has to follow are universal standards that never change like notice and comment and rulemaking. And so an agency can sort of change its own rules if it follows the Administrative Procedure Act and it goes through notice, comment and rulemaking. So for example under President Trump, an agency might change its role and say we're going to reverse course on something but here's 60 days notice of a new rule and if that goes into effect then that becomes the new legal rule. So those are the standards that the government has to follow but they can change positions in 180 degrees as Laura just said but those just those have to be through some kind of rule and some kind of notice, comment and administrative procedure. And it can't be arbitrary and they have to create a record so that's key with the last four years. Also just to put a note on what the AG's offices do across the country, they can get involved in federal litigation, they can support the Environmental Protection Agency, they can band together or work together in supporting regulation that the EPA makes or they can challenge it. So part of the Attorney General's office is constantly monitoring what's going on at a federal level and making decisions about when to get involved and how to get involved. And we call that multi-state litigation for the most part and a lot of that is around the Clean Air Act. So we're not able to really cover all you know everything tonight. So we have as Laura mentioned provided a lot of embedded links in the PowerPoint and I wanted to just talk through some additional sources of information with you all. The top left the Agency of Natural Resources does have a great website for finding permit specialists. So these are the folks that can tell you whether you need a permit, they write the permits, they help folks comply with the permits. You can go to this website and enter in your location, there's information about projects and you can find someone that can help answer questions about particular projects that may or may not require a permit. We've also included a link in addition to the earlier link Laura provided about the you know Title 10 and the Vermont State Statutes. DEC also has a great website that goes and that sort of organizes information, the Statutes rules around program areas. You can look at it you know just all of the laws or you can you can click on you know the drinking water program and see what are the what are the laws and rules that apply with respect to drinking water. You can learn more about environmental enforcement at the AGO website and I would also just know that A&R has additional information about about their enforcement processes and public participation as well. And then we've also included the links for reporting environmental violations and you can do that anonymously or you can do that by providing your name and the agencies give you lots of different options you know you can you can fill an online complaint form, you can call the enforcement officers, you can email, so there's lots of different ways to report violations and you can remain anonymous if that's your preference. So before we move into some of the actions that folks can take you know to address environmental and public health issues in their community, I wanted to just back up and note that you know even you know even though individual action is incredibly important we need to hold corporations accountable, we need to really have systemic and legal change in many instances. So you know just for example the Climate Accountability Institute did a study and they found that 70% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions can be traced back to just 100 companies. And so we're going to talk a little bit about some individual actions that you can take but really want to underscore the need for you know legal change corporate accountability as well. So I just put a few, I've just laid out a few things that folks can do to get involved and really be change makers in the community for issues that they care about. And the first one is to figure out who your legislators are and call them and tell them that you care about public health and environmental issues. You want them to vote for bills that protect public health and the environment. You can sign up for the Agency of Natural Resources Environmental Notice Bulletin. This is a really important tool that gives you notice of permits projects that are happening in your community or and our determinations about issues that may affect the environment that are happening in your community. And so you can sign up to get notice of when these things are happening and then weigh in with public comments, attend public hearings. You can organize your neighbors for community action. I think that we often don't think that just a few folks can make change, but I think it was Margaret Mead that said that's the only thing that's ever made change in this world is a few people getting together, committed folks. And so this can be really powerful action. And I've included an embedded link here that can link you to some resources about how do you start thinking about how to organize an action or a meeting. You can also start your own Town Energy Committee or join an existing one. And these are volunteers on the ground that are working to advocate for climate change and clean energy in their communities. And we talked a little bit about this before, but right now the Climate Council is debating and thinking about what are the actions that the state of Vermont is going to take to reduce climate pollution and invest in our communities to build climate resilience. You can weigh in right now and I've linked you back to that website on how to do that. Also writing op-eds and letter to the editors that can be incredibly important. And I've linked you suit some tips on how you might think about doing that. But these, this is a really important tool to educate your community and educate folks on issues. It shows legislators and decision makers that people care about this issue when it shows up in the newspaper or in an online newspaper. This is really important. Run for something. I think that there's so much power and value in people that are traditionally not running for city council positions or for legislative positions. There is a real opportunity to make change and to actually be in a seat for decision making. And so there's lots of amazing resources out there if you're interested in thinking about that. And then finally, support organizations that are working to protect the things that you care about. Any questions here before we move on to our final section. All right. So this is really our closing slide. It's some other tips that we thought you might be interested in that we were interested in on protecting the environment. There's certainly a lot more out there that then is here on this slide. We have Earth Day tips from the agency of natural resources. There's a page about our website about diet and climate change. And the stuff that is on this page is just very, very, very typical of the iceberg for all of the information that is out there about all of these issues and more. So this is just really a sampling. There's what we flush. So this is from the Department of Environmental Conservation. NOAA has some tips on not just protecting the ocean, but protecting the environment generally. Efficiency Vermont can help with providing services for efficiency in your home. There's also some assistance programs for weatherization and farm to family healthy foods and slashing your trash. And that looks like an interesting one as well. I think let me move my screen so I can see. Oh, going zero waste. Perfect. So I don't know. And then we would love to hear if you want to put in the chat box, you know, what are some of your favorite ideas? But panelists, are there any of these links we should click on to kind of walk through a little bit? Well, maybe we can also give her a little personal flair for them. So for example, Laura, I know Laura, she put up that picture of kale and she cares about diet and climate. So Laura, tell us why you care about diet and climate and how kale is relevant. Well, I suppose kale might not be necessarily relevant to vegetable, right? So let me see if I can pull up this page here. Bear with us. Can everyone see the webpage? Yes. Great. Yay.   And there's been various studies and reports over the years that have tried to quantify, you know, what's the amount that agriculture contributes to our global emissions. And I'm not actually sure of the most recent calculation or whether that included all agriculture or animal production agriculture. But certainly, animal production agriculture has the highest emission rate. And you can really cut your carbon footprint by eating less meat or eating no meat. And which is what I'm vegan. So I don't eat any meat or animal products. And so that's just kind of one small way to help contribute to climate greenhouse gas reductions. And this page just has a bunch of interesting articles.  And small, but actually major, I've heard that changing diet can be one of the single most bang for your buck ways to reduce climate emissions is the our industrial agricultural system as some of the most negative effects and simply switching to a green diet is probably one of the biggest ways we can make a change. And our consumption has grown. I read a statistic that 100 years ago, the average American ate 25 pounds of meat. And currently the average American eats 100 pounds of meat. So it's just continues to grow and have an impact on a more local level. I have a small garlic farm and we donate to a community harvest of Vermont. It's if you want to be active in your local community, there's also willing hands in the upper valley area. I don't know what the equivalent is in Burlington, but they you can volunteer and go to farms, I think they even were going during COVID and glean the crops that are left in the field and those food those foods then are processed, made sure they're safe and cleaned and distributed. Every year we get thank you notes from the Waterbury Senior Sander, you name it. And it's so nice to know that the food that we grow is going to be used for people. So that's the more hands on action if you want to get involved in your community as well. And also many of the schools have I don't know what it's called now it used to be called elf when my children our children were little I was involved in four wins. And of course COVID changes things, but we did a monthly training and then went into the classrooms and we might look at sticks for an hour with the second graders or we might look at snowflakes or rocks or but it's a definitely a more hands on approach to cultivating that appreciation of the space that we inhabit and that the resources are there for our use and yeah, great organizations. One of the things I just wanted to to highlight for folks is that you know this connection between single use plastic and climate and you know creating single use plastic creates climate pollution you know it's creates it's created with fossil fuels so it creates pollution all the way through the life cycle all the way through through disposal. And so if you care about climate you should care about single use plastic we are not going to be able to achieve our climate goals if we do not kick our plastic habit and so Jen that's things like what plastic bags and ziploc bags and that those things plastic water bottles plastic food packaging and so you know it's that is one way you know we've linked 10 tips for helping you think about how to eliminate single use plastic from your life and that's another really powerful way that you can make a difference you know in your life. Yeah and we're starting to get some some tips from the the participants which is great we have one here drive less carpool exclamation point absolutely driving is one of our major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions and I believe there are all kinds of new programs and rebates for electric cars so Efficiency Vermont we'll have some of that on the link that we've included I know that the Vermont Sierra Club is very active in participating in electric car program we have another comment about a volunteering time absolutely and hey we have some more questions coming in I think maybe for Jen what is currently being done in Vermont to eliminate single use plastics didn't Vermont ban plastic bags now? Yes Vermont did Vermont passed one of the strongest single use laws in the country and so we banned single use plastic bags straws we banned foam food packaging so it really is important and it's just the tip of the iceberg but Vermont is absolutely taking action to do that. Great and then we do have a question about the the agenda of our office so maybe that's a question for how does the attorney general determine particularly the environmental agenda or is it determined? So first there are definitely some basic statutes and regulations that we are bound to enforce for example the attorney general appears in all appellate actions on behalf of the agencies defending permits as Laura mentioned so some of those are set by the legislature and there are also opportunities for the attorney general to take direct action in in areas where it's become a public interest or a public priority I would say the lead paint enforcement was one of those areas there were statutes passed in the 90s that set out the lead paint rules and then there was certainly a public initiative that the attorney general should do direct enforcement of those statutes so there there's ways for the for a public initiative to reach the level of an agenda item Laura Thea do you want to add to how our office determines its environmental agenda? I think in terms of multi-state it's an individual case by case litigation they look and see what the impact is on in Vermont and nationwide so that's a constant when cases come in request to be involved in that goes they consult with the other state agencies that may be involved it might be A&R as well as the governor's office and make decisions in that way for for there also in terms of the agency of agriculture enforcement most of that done is is done on an administrative level within the agency itself for civil litigation so when it rises to a certain level the statutes provide that the attorney general's office would represent the agency in court yep and then sometimes again more more topical issues will rise to the level of setting an agenda Thea you can jump in if I'm remembering correctly but there was a formal MOU created between the governor the attorney general agency of agriculture and agency natural resources to address farm water quality and so the agencies work cooperatively to address water quality from farm runoff is that right? Well it kind of does not contain the governor but you can say the governor is represented by the agency of natural resources and the agency of agriculture but cases that are determined to be over a certain amount of money are then they're given to the the attorney general's office for review and review the materials see if they want to take the case and move forward with it. Laura I think that there's a question a raised hand from one of the attendees. Okay so Linda you should be able to you should be able to unmute yourself now if you'd like to ask your question. The mute may be in the bottom left of your screen or yeah it's sometimes it doesn't show up right away so you kind of hover hover your mouse towards the bottom or the top and it should show up and it's a microphone and if you click on it it should allow you to speak or if you can find the Q&A box you could also type your question in there. We can now see Linda on the screen so oh great we should be able to I see her now as a as a presenter so I'm hoping that you can find your unmute button you're showing up as muted to us well yeah it looks like it's not going to work unfortunately but maybe uh someone else who can't yes if we I think that we have to go in and actively click on a participant to unmute them and I we have tried to do that but it could be could be an issue with your computer maybe with a mic or something potentially but I'm sorry that we can't hear your question if you find out a way to put it in the Q&A that would be great for your comment apologies yeah other comments or questions or we have we have a few more minutes are there any of these other links we want to look at? Justin I'm maybe I'll just pull up this what we flush I think that's a good one that's okay yes I think that's a good one and I learned about this this year maybe other people in the early stages of the pandemic there was the the near toilet paper shortages maybe there were actual shortages there was at one point a limit on buying two rolls for household for like a week or two and yeah it spooked everybody but it also prompted another chance to think about what are we flushing there are a lot of products on the market labeled as flushable wipes some of them are better than others there's currently no uniform standard for what makes a flushable wipe and so currently Vermont the Agency of Natural Resources has created a very simple public notice that the only thing we should be flushing is toilet paper plain and simple no flushable wipes certainly no baby wipes no personal cosmetic wipes makeup removers all of those things and that's particularly important to protect not only our community wastewater systems but if you're on a home septic system which a lot of Vermonters are those are very sensitive to anything that goes down the toilet that's not toilet paper plain and simple and you know it's just another opportunity to think about these things so here here's some of those examples but there's there's a lot of clogs that happen all around Vermont all around the country and they've been increasing in the last year with with COVID and with you know some of those toilet paper shortages that prompted people to use other things I'm seeing one more question here what's next for big upcoming environmental laws so I think that might be a good one maybe for Jen to weigh in on if you have any thoughts about what might be coming down the road I'm sure I think that there are two important you know significant bills on the state you know on the state side of things that are you know that that have been discussed and passed by either the senate or the house this session one is a is senate bill 20 and that would ban PFAS the forever chemicals that Justin mentioned in firefighting foam food packaging carpets and rugs and it would also address them in children's products as well and so that has that was unanimously passed in the senate and the house is now considering it and the other bill relates to the the expansion of our existing bottle bill and so that's another strategy for reducing single-use plastic by creating a dedicated recycling program for you know from some of our beverage bottles that can get recycled separately so we have a clean stream of recycled materials so that we're not you we're not producing brand new plastic bottles brand new glass bottles every time we're just continually recycling those and that does keep those bottles out of our landfill it eliminates the raw materials that we use and helps cut down on climate pollution as well and so that was passed by the house so neither of these are are are laws but they are you know they are moving through through the legislature and at the federal level you know it's much more challenging to actually pass a new environmental law you know at at the federal level but I think one of the the you know the the laws that folks are talking about that actually does seem like it has momentum is you know an infrastructure bill and I I don't know if people always associate those two things with environment and public health but these are really critical you know would be a really critical infusion of funds that would deal with aging infrastructure that would help with clean water by making sure that our wastewater treatment plants are modern and removing pollution by removing lead you know from drinking water pipes by investing in you know our drinking water systems and also investments and climate resilience and climate actions and so you know the infrastructure bill doesn't sound you know like an environmental public health law but but it really is as it's born and that is something I think to to focus on in terms of the federal level yeah and we had a participant comment about EJ as being the next big environmental thing I I agree and I think that is happening in Vermont there's a big push right now with Project Rejoice to actually legislate a statewide Vermont environmental justice policy and I'm also aware of various state agencies developing their own policies and implementing their own EJ guidelines so that's certain yeah yeah there's some interesting podcasts from the Vermont Law School I forgot the name of what it is perhaps one of you know but there's one on farm labor there's quite a few there's a interview of two riverkeepers I really encourage you to you just if you do listen to podcasts you might find them quite interesting and then there's living downstream as well which is an older podcast and I would also just note that the climate council one of the working groups is the just transition subcommittee which is really tasked with making sure that the all of our climate you know action policy recommendations don't disproportionately impact marginalized communities and to address environmental justice issues in the in the climate context and so those committee meetings and materials um all of the minutes you know that is online at that website if folks are interested in learning more about how justice issues are being addressed in the context of the global warming solutions act yeah to follow up on that I think that the saying is that climate change is not just about science but it's also about justice and one of those podcasts is hot house earth we had another participant comment hot house earth strongly recommended thank you for reminding me of the name well this is great I want to personally thank all the participants for all the comments and questions that's really made it a wonderful night for us to interact with you and to hear what's on your mind so I just wanted to send that out and say thank you yes thank you very much for listening and sharing and joining I think we are right at time right now so as a reminder this this video will be available on the Attorney General's YouTube and Facebook pages I believe and then we'll also see about making sure the PowerPoint is available as well and you can also I'm sure contact any of us um to see about that and the idea to say something yeah for Linda's hand it feels very sad that she hasn't been able to ask her questions so I know that if you go to the AGO page you can find a email address to um unless someone has it off the top of head for her or you're welcome to call us that's that is a great point yes um I believe there if you go to the AGO webpage there's a contact us portion of it and it's a sort of general office email address but they do get it to the right people so thank you for that absolutely um all right thanks for joining everyone happy earth day and have a good evening take care happy earth day thank you thanks everybody happy earth day


Officials in the U.S. state of Texas investigate the deaths of 46 migrants found in and near a truck near San Antonio. 16 other migrants survived. Finland's president says there is more understanding between his country and Turkey in talks that could admit Finland and Sweden to the NATO military alliance. In Sri Lanka, the government bans fuel sales for all but necessary services as the country's debt crisis deepens. And in New Zealand, the U.S. space agency NASA launches a satellite designed to test a new orbit around the moon.


Welcome back. It's time for Off the Press and I have my analyst with me, Professor Sani Fagi. He's a political affairs analyst and is joining us from Karno state. Good morning to you, Professor. How are you doing? Good morning, I am fine. Thank you. Okay, so we're going to start with the punch newspaper. The punch is leading with Nigeria's debt jumps by 75% in three months. He's 87 trillion Naira. The writer is there. How CBN loans to FG, new debts, promise to raise public debt by 37 trillion Naira between April and June. Tunibu's reforms will improve debt sustainability. DMO assures Nigerians as last figure of a shoots agency. Let us figure of a shoots agency projection by 10 trillion Naira. Let's talk about this. This is huge. This is a huge one. Jumping by 75% our debt. Yeah, I think this is a very huge or we can say a quantum leap in terms of our debt. You know, we have two sets of debt. We have internal and external debt, but now what the figures show is that our debt has jumped by 75% in three months. Now you see, if care is not taken, we are likely going to see our debt more than quadruple in a very short time. And already the effect is such that for every Naira that Nigeria owns, we have to pay the same Naira and perhaps 60 cobalt or 6 cobalt in terms of debt services, which means the country is heading towards an economic meltdown by this amount of debt that we are having. Now this administration has said it's not going to go by way of debt. And here we hear that from this headline that this public debt rose by 37 trillion Naira between April and June. Do you think this administration collected some money as well? I don't think they are taking the right step. They quite okay they said they are not going with that and they show that it is a worrisome thing. But the way they are going, I don't think we are going to see anything new from what happened in the past. In fact, like I said, if care is not taken, we are going to see even worse than what happened. Because in these three months, okay, the amount of debt or the percentage of the increase in the debt shows that there is nothing new that they have in stock towards addressing this issue of debt problem. All right. No doubt this government, just as they repeated, said they inherited a very bad economy. But then it's APC versus APC. So is there dirt to clean out, isn't it? It is their own problem. You cannot play a blame game here because it is the same party that is in power 80 years ago, now it's continuing for another four years. So I think whatever it is, is their own making. So I think if it were another client, perhaps this level of debt could have seen another party coming. That is when you have a blame game. What APC did in the last 80 years, it was blaming PDP, PDP for all the worse in Nigeria. And now it has taken over. We are now in the ninth year. So I think this one, only the government changed, but the same party, the same administration is the same people who run the country for over a year. So I think when they say they inherited, they created it because at least in the ninth year that they are in, we have to see so many new things that have happened. So we cannot always put it on the blame of other governments or previous administrations. Now we can say, okay, this is what we have. Even if we have inherited something, this is what we created also as a party. Okay, let's look at the three headlines above the masthead. I'm going to read them out and then we'll take them one after the other. Electricity consumer slum ebg over power grid collapses. Manufactured goods imported imports gop $6.7 billion in six months. There's a special report on page 25 of the Punch newspaper. And Tenubu orders Nami's retirement appoints Adedeji, FIRS chair. Details of that is on page 18. Let's start with this appointment of Adedeji. Many who know him call him a first class accountant. And Nami has been sent on pre-retirement, you know, three months before he set his due to leave office. He's been asked to go and cool off and then from there exit permanently. What do you make of this new appointment of Adedeji? I think we can look at the new appointment in two ways. Number one is the fact that we need to inject new blood into the system. Okay. And injecting it, you need to get competent people who can handle the situation, create a kind of message. And, you know, you will not see platforms. That is one thing. But on the other hand, we have to be mindful of the fact that this is a democratic government. As far as the appointment is concerned, the president has to show that he's a national figure. Because once you keep on getting it from the people you know from his own part of the country, no doubt about it will create a kind of political resentment. People will see that like his bias is tilted in one thing. So even if the person, I'm not saying he's not competent, the one who has been appointed is an expert. Everybody knows he is, but at least I think it's part of the political thing for the president to show around and see that he get from other places. Because this issue of reflecting federal character and others will hunting him. If we think he will just wait in one direction and always get the people he knows. Because he's no longer the president of a section. He's the president of Nigeria. So his appointment should try to reflect that Nigeria is in the appointment. Professor Sani, would you prefer he got someone from the north? No, I'm not saying from the north. He's the president of Nigeria. At least his appointment should reflect that one. Because Nigeria is endowed with human and material. Professor, I mean it appears this is the style of the APC. We saw acute nepotism, if I were to describe it at that. When former president Buhari was in power, he got all the juicy appointments given to people from the north. He's his own part of the country. Nigerians watched the complaint but nothing changed. So it appears to be the style of the APC. You see, this is the momentum who does it, whether it was Buhari or Tinumbu. What is wrong politically. The only thing is that our leaders take Nigerians for granted. And it being the Nigerian electorate is up and doing a lead. Because you have to know that, like I said, whoever it is, he's the president of Nigeria. Not for his section, not for his ethnicity, not for his state, not for his religion, but for Nigeria. Every Nigerian is a stakeholder in water. And like I said, that is why I give it a rider. That it is a political regime, not a military regime. A military regime, you know, the president can elect even everybody from his family. Because Nigerians don't have claim that they have a hand in appointing him or in electing him. So I think that is what I'm saying. Yes, the person is competent. Yes, the president is doing the right step in terms of injecting nuclear.  And that the whole Nigeria is his own constituency. So let him go and show for expert anywhere and everywhere from any part of Nigeria. I get your point. I get your point. And this office is critical.  It's a critical position. And we cannot overemphasize they need to get the right person there. Perhaps that's why he chose who he can trust. And Ade Dayo, Wale, appears to be someone he can trust. And he's put him there. And before that, we had Mohamed Nami, who is from the north, who is now going on pre-retirement leave, three months pre-retirement leave. Let's move forward from that to electricity, consumer slum, energy over power grid collapses. Did you experience it in Kano yesterday? Blackout. We were still having it. And in fact, what we have been hearing is that it is a nationwide blackout. So, but whether it is nationwide or statewide, this also is something that is going to be a... It has been already, you know, a thorn in the side of Nigeria's development because due to lack of electricity and the expense of sources of energy, here in Kano, there are industrial areas which are ghost town now. You know, the electricity is more than household consumption. Household consumption is also for national development. And the irony of it is that this week, the president was in India trying to join 2020 nations. And one of the things that make them there is electricity. None of them is producing not more than one times, I mean 10,000 times to Nigeria's. So if you want to join, this is what you should address. If you want to develop, this is what you should address. If you want cut inflation and other things, the issue of electricity should be what the government should address. Especially given the fact that in his inaugural speech, the president talked about electricity that will be available and affordable to Nigerians. But since our going on now, I think we have a long way to go in terms of addressing this perennial issue of electricity that has been shut down in the country. So power has not been restored in Kano. What are the consequences? If you look at me, the background is a little bit dark. I have to use the sun and strategically put myself in a way that through the window, the sun will shine so that you can see my face. Otherwise, it will be a dark thing. You will just see my voice, you will not see my face. Even I rely on electricity. So indeed that headline that power has been restored is a bit misleading because not everyone has their power restored. Okay, let's move forward. Going down a bit, you have Alake has provided, okay, I'll skip that. I'll skip that to NURTW president, 21 others arrested for alleged killing. That's on page four.  Let's talk about the NURT president when one others are being arrested for alleged killing. What do we know about that? You see, the only thing is that the issue of stealing is becoming part of... I can't say, I'm using it rather geographically, that it's becoming part of our own culture now because we seem to tolerate corruption, embezzlement and theft. And because we tend to treat such crimes, let's use crimes with a kid club. So I think perhaps beside the headline news that we see it, maybe within the next three months also it will not even appear. So I think that is quite an unfortunate thing. If we have this kind of situation going on and decide the problem, it is also denting the image of Nigeria abroad because this headline and others, nobody knows where it will stop, it will be all over the world. And this will be like it is part of our stamp that we tolerate these issues.  You know, Wali Ade Dayo, he was the council, the chairman that opposed Lampoon's Abiodu. And then he was arrested or taken in for questioning and now he has been impeached. He was impeached yesterday matter of fact. You see, we are going back to the problems of authoritarianism and, you know, our leaders should know that opposition is something that is not just illegal in a democratic system, but something that keeps the system going. So if you are not, you don't condone opposition, you take every measure to cripple the opposition. I think we are heading towards the tutorial system and we knew what happened. The past previous democratic attempts that we had, the past republic, the second republic, the third republic was aborted. But these were the last two. I see one of the things that contributed to this is a kind of that the tutorial tendencies of the leaders. Then we have seen it in many African countries that is what happened and that what, you know, lead to the crisis in the system. And if there is any crisis or if there are crises in the system, you know, it doesn't work for the system to survive such crisis. Okay. All right. So let's move to the next newspaper. Now you have The Nation. And The Nation is leading with DHQ. Please turn heat on oil thieves, economic saboteurs. The writer there, one million liters of stolen crude seized in one week. IG orders clamped down on firearms production. So DHQ, please turn heat on oil thieves, economic saboteurs. Prof. You see, this oil theft and economic saboteurs is a major problem that is crippling Nigeria. And it is a major problem that has been going on for long. But we seem to, you know, give less attention to the issue, except for headline when it comes to our news. Other than this, it will go on as usual. In fact, it was those yesterday, all day before yesterday. I had somebody talking in BBC House of Society that he has, you know, he has come up with something that will be able to detect this oil theft. And he said that he is there in London. And he has been trying to get Nigeria government, even try it. But they just allow him finally to try it in one small place. And he demonstrated it and it shows that the moment you go any pipe to any pipe you touch it, the soon will indicate like that, look at what other oil producing countries are doing. Saudi Arabia. This is not a problem to them because they have a way of detecting oil theft. But we rely on the old-fashioned way of doing it. For obvious reasons, of course. For obvious reasons, of course. I say for obvious reasons, of course. Because there are people who benefit from the surplus called a spate. In Nigeria, Nigeria's problem is some people's business. So that is why they don't allow it to end. Now, at it being, we pitch out this thing. You see, a lot of hails head will roll if we take a serious measure on this issue of oil theft. But here we are, the system is being crippled. Instead of the government to take action, it took the easiest way. To pass on the problem onto Nigeria by saying that we are losing this money. We can't talk about that. So that is why they now push in the idea of a oil subsidy removal and other things. When we are living the real problem and we seem to allow them to perpetrate this kind of crime or that's it. Because this is not going to be, for sure, it's not going to be the end of this issue of the oil theft. After this news, maybe within no time you will hear more about it. We are going somewhere and nothing will be done to those who are guilty. Let alone taking action on them. Just going on a merry-go-round. I was saying to one of our analysts back then, I think it was a week ago, that some of the things, the way we handle things in this country, sometimes reminds one of when we were kids and we used to play this game. It was a game of Janglova. I just got emotions without movement. And that appears to be what we keep seeing from time to time. So much talk, no action, emotions without moving forward. Our only situation is there is even no motion. We are in one state stagnant and we just talk and talk and do nothing about it. So there is no any motion towards moving either forward or backward. We are still stuck in one place and we just make noise and become like a Tuesday's book called Dog that barks and cannot bite. Okay, let's look at the headlines on Above the Masked Head. You have that same story, Adedeji replaces Nami as FIRS Chair. We've talked about this. Zaccheos Adedeji replacing Mohamed Nami as the FIRS Chair. You've given us your thoughts on that. Besides that, you won't allow one party rule, says PDP. You won't touch on that. You see, like I said earlier on the opposition is one of the things that keeps democracy going. One party rule in any part of the country is people try to pollute them up. The excesses of those in power. Three, it gradually erodes democracy by leading, taking the country towards the tutorial and authoritarian administration. But you see, PDP also is blowing just hot air because since it lost the election in 2015, it has never sat down or sit down rather to look at itself critically and take its new position as an opposition party. And you take measures so that it will now sell its own program to the electorate. But other than that, you hear nothing about it. It's only when election comes that it will talk. And given the Nigerian politics, many people will gradually be leaving the party. So if the party hasn't put its own house in order, I assume by the time you have 2027 election, it will be terribly weakened by its opposition position because it hasn't taken any measure to strengthen itself. It is always fighting itself against itself. And, you know, so many things that is less self-implicated wound that the party is impolitan on itself. All right, let's move away from the nation newspaper now and go to nature news. And nature news is leading with Libya. How catastrophic flow to the face, Derna. Biders there claims over 6,000 lives. Tinibu declares humanitarian support for Libya. Deadliest floods in 2023. You have India, Philippines, Libya. All right, so the pictures coming from Libya is a horrible one to see. The videos, the pictures, the web buildings, a whole community I understand has completely been wiped off. The numbers are increasing by the day and it's just so painful to see people and their property being destroyed the way we are seeing it play out in Libya. Let's have your thoughts on this, Professor Sani. You see, this is a double tragedy in Libya. Already the state is almost, Libya is almost a pale state since the collapse of Gaddafi. And now we have a natural disaster that is taking place there. So I think it is a very serious thing. And it is something that is a humanitarian crisis, which I think is going to take Libya back to literally the dark ages because of what is happening now. So there is a good thing that countries are coming to assist Libya, which used to be one of the African countries that give assistance. But like I said, because of the collapse of the government or the state and now this additional thing. But the other thing that we have to check in is the issue of when Nigeria is going to give humanitarian assistance. We need humanitarian assistance with the policy of the regulations. So I think this one also will be something definitely that many Nigerians will complain about it. Even though I'm not saying it is wrong for the country to offer assistance to other sister African countries. But I think the timing and the issue given what we have is what the president has to balance out not to be seen as more of a statement outside than what Nigerians expect from me. It is good you mentioned the late Mama Gaddafi. Just like me, yesterday I was watching some of the pictures, was it two days ago? And I was just remembering what Libya used to be when they had Mama Gaddafi as their leader. It was an enviable country. And today look at what is left of that place. It's so sad to see, isn't it? That's a double strategy for the Libyans. The other one, the past one in terms of the demise of Gaddafi, I think that is a self-inflicted wound. Some people with Libya conned with foreign powers to topple the regime. Even though, you know, despite the fact that he had been doing so many things, they use it in the name of democracy. So I think that is a great lesson, a big lesson for not only Nigerians. But all the African and developing countries should be wary of. We should learn from Libya that the foreign powers are more interested in the national interest than the interests of any country. So counter people should not, you know, relate to them with caution. Because by the time you think you are pleasing them, then if they are, you know, saying that you are doing a good job, literally your people are suffering because you have to sacrifice your people for them to press you there for doing a good job for them. And then you have experts advocate for larger dams and flawed mitigation measures. Page 5 is where you have details of that on the nature news. Let's talk about this. There have been a lot, you know, about this, flawed. So experts are advocating for larger dams and flawed mitigation measures. Yes, it's true. You see, a flood has been a current issue in Nigeria. And we seem to do nothing about it. It is only when it comes that we have a kind of payable-to-get approach that we now say about weight and then try to, when it destroys so many things and lives are lost, then we come up with relief. I think we need to head up these proactive measures, what we need. And because one will save the disaster, two, by building larger dams and this in some of our problems, if we put the large dams into use, are going to be addressed. The issue of flood, for example, will have irrigation. And the issue of electricity also will address it and so many things. So I think there is need that we take proactive measures rather than always take proactive measures. And our active measures usually come rather too late. When we have a flood, it is after months or weeks or months that we will see the government responding by sending relief materials. And the relief materials are just no minute. People have, for example, being destroyed, their property being destroyed. You just give them too much and perhaps corrugated, as I mentioned, about 10 of it or a dozen. And these are not things that you address a disaster. You have to take, like I say, proactive measures to head it up. And when you have it, then you give serious response. Luckily in Nigeria, we are lucky that some of the natural disasters that affect many countries, we are immune to them. That is the providence of God, which shields us from others. But otherwise, if things like that happen, we are going to have a serious problem in our hearts. Indeed. Thank you so much, Professor Sanifage, for your time on Off the Press today. Thank you very much. Professor Sanifage has joined us from Cannes State. He is a political affairs analyst. We are still on the break first in plus TV Africa. We'll take a break and come back with our first hot topic. Stay with us.