The budget agreement hammered out in Washington, D.C. on April 8 not only averted a government shutdown, but also spared serious challenges to Planned Parenthood and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Congressional Republicans inserted policy riders into budget legislation that would have defunded Planned Parenthood and limited the scope of the regulation agency’s enforcement powers. They argued that the riders were not politically motivated while Democrats and their allies contend that these riders, including one to defund National Public Radio, are thinly disguised “culture war” attacks to programs often affiliated with more liberal constituencies.
Riders are provisions attached to legislation that often have little or no connection to the subject matter of a bill, and is a tactic that both major political parties regularly employ.
Rep. Karen Bass (D-Culver City) is pleased that provisions to take away funding from Planned Parenthood were removed prior to the passage of the budget proposal, which slashed $38 billion in government spending. “I’m happy that we were able to beat back the majority party’s blatant attempt to reduce healthcare options for low-income women,” Bass told the News.
The first-term congresswoman rejected assertions from conservatives that they were trying to stymie the use of government funds for abortions.
“The Republicans claimed that they were trying to prevent Planned Parenthood from using federal monies to fund abortions, even though by law Planned Parenthood cannot and does not use federal funds for abortion procedures. In fact, only 3% of Planned Parenthood’s total services involve abortions,” Bass, who is pro- choice, noted. “The other 97% of services are basic family planning and healthcare.”
Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards said removing the funding to her organization would mean millions of women being denied access to for critical health services.
“We have three million come to us every year and two million come through some kind of federal program, either for an annual pap or for birth control or for a breast exam or even prenatal care,” Richards said.
There are two Planned Parenthood centers near Culver City: one in Baldwin Hills and another in Santa Monica.
Jeffers Dodge, the executive director of the Culver City-based Los Angeles Conservative Alliance, says that there is no reason that the organization should receive federal funding.
“Planned Parenthood can survive without government funding,” said Dodge, who is an executive committee member of the California Republican Party. “I believe that inner-city females should have a place for breast cancer screenings and other health care needs, but I don’t believe in using government funds for abortions.”
It is against federal law to use government funds for abortions.
Bass, who worked at Brotman Medical Center in Culver City as a nurse and as a physician’s assistant prior to heading her nonprofit called the Community Coalition, countered that losing federal funding for Planned Parenthood could jeopardize the health of pregnant low-income women and their babies.
“Planned Parenthood is the only place where they can receive neonatal care,” she said. “Given the already large disparities in access to healthcare in low-income communities, these cuts, had they gone through, would have been devastating.
“But, once again, we are seeing the majority party base their budgeting on ideology rather than sound fiscal policy.”
The partisan wrangling also extended to environmental protection, with conservative attempts to block EPA enforcement of greenhouse gases.
“The idea that the EPA is too expensive for government is disheartening, to say the least,” said Culver City resident Hillary Gross-Moglen, who is a member of the Los Angeles League of Conservation Voters.
Gross-Moglen believes that often left out of any discussion of the EPA is the process in which the agency operates through its enforcement powers pertaining to critical matters such as air and water quality, drinking water, oil pollution and environmental initiatives.
“Legislation like the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act are often unfairly portrayed as part of a bloated bureaucracy, and the enforcement of these laws is often left out of the equation,” she said.
Culver City Environmental Coordinator Catherine Vargas said the EPA sets the framework for local governments that explore environmental initiatives and ordinances. “We’re all looking for someone to give us direction,” Vargas told theNews. “In the big picture, the EPA can offer resources for local governments to for initiatives like better water quality, climate change and other sustainability issues.”
Dodge believes that the policy riders that were intended to strip the EPA of some of its enforcement powers were not bad ideas. “The EPA over-regulates small business,” Dodge asserted. “The fact that the riders were not in the final bill does not mean that [placing them within the budget legislation] was not the right idea.”
Sandra Kallander, a Libertarian who recently relocated to Northern California after living in Culver City for nearly two decades, has a slightly different take.
“The folly of expecting politicians and bureaucrats be in charge of my family planning or protecting my environment should be apparent,” she said.
Kallander, a former resident of Carlson Park, feels that women’s health needs and environmental protection should be under the jurisdiction of local officials.
“These issues, to the extent that government should be involved at all, should be handled locally,” she said. “For example, if my neighbor pollutes my water, I should be able to sue them. Instead, the government licenses some people to pollute.”
Plains, Exploration and Petroleum is located just outside Culver City in the Baldwin Hills, and some residents are anxious about having an oil and gas company in such close proximity.
PXP, like all oil companies, is required to follow environmental edicts and is subject to EPA enforcement, and Gross- Moglen cited toxic spills and accidents by some oil conglomerates that have created air pollution and water contamination as obvious reasons why the EPA should not be restrained.
Oil companies, she asserted, “are an example of companies that does only what they are [legally] forced to do.”
Kallander, who led the opposition to a 2004 local ballot initiative to lower the user utility tax, said Congress is not serious about cutting spending, and she doesn’t give her former local elected representatives high marks either.
“Culver City officials are no better, arguing about minutiae and spending our money for us, instead of encouraging businesses and a self-reliant population to spend their own money,” she said. “They will be getting a windfall of utility tax money as utility rates climb and use it to block drilling of natural gas, and for photo opportunities. The sidewalks will still be broken.”
Gross-Moglen fears that this will not be the last time that agencies like the EPA and organizations like Planned Parenthood come under assault from Republicans. Congress will soon be called upon to pass a budget for 2012.
“It will still be the environment and choice that will hamper conversations about how to reduce our national budget,” she predicted.