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Obama admin. sides with utilities in Supreme Court case about climate change
Aug. 26- The Obama administration sided with major utility companies in a Supreme Court case about climate change on Thursday, angering environmentalists who say that the administration's broad argument could hurt their ability to force reductions in greenhouse gas emissions or even to bring other lawsuits.
Administration officials said the Environmental Protection Agency's regulatory moves to restrain carbon dioxide emissions made the lawsuit unnecessary, and the acting solicitor general asked the Supreme Court to return the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit.
But environmentalists said that the administration had talked about - but not imposed - limits on emissions from existing power plants.
Moreover, environmental groups said, the government's brief went beyond that, employing arguments that threatened to undercut a basis for legal action that have been used for a century, since Georgia sued over damage a Tennessee copper smelter was inflicting on Georgia's forests.
"We're very angry and very disappointed that they would take this tack," said David Doniger, policy director of the climate center at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
An administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, replied that the EPA has been taking "a series of regulatory actions indicating that it's moving forward on greenhouse gases and really making it inappropriate for the courts to step in and take on this issue."
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Source: Washington Post |
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Study of coal ash sites finds extensive water contamination
Aug. 26- A study released on Thursday finds that 39 sites in 21 states where coal-fired power plants dump their coal ash are contaminating water with toxic metals such as arsenic and other pollutants, and that the problem is more extensive than previously estimated.
The analysis of state pollution data by the Environmental Integrity Project, the Sierra Club and Earthjustice comes as the Environmental Protection Agency is considering whether to impose federally enforceable regulations for the first time. An alternative option would leave regulation of coal ash disposal up to the states, as it is now.
The EPA will hold the first of seven nationwide hearings about the proposed regulation Monday in Arlington, Va. A public comment period ends Nov. 19.
The electric power industry is lobbying to keep regulation up to individual states. Environmental groups say the states have failed to protect the public and that the EPA should set a national standard and enforce it.
"This is a huge and very real public health issue for Americans," said the director of the study, Jeff Stant of the Environmental Integrity Project. "Coal ash is putting drinking water around these sites at risk."
EIP is a nonpartisan organization that advocates for enforcement of environmental laws.
"If people ask, is there a problem EPA should address, this report answers, 'Yes' with an exclamation mark," said Lisa Evans, an attorney for the environmental law firm Earthjustice.
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Source: McClatchy Newspapers |
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With neighbors unaware, toxic spill at a BP plant
Aug. 29- While the world was focused on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a BP refinery here released huge amounts of toxic chemicals into the air that went unnoticed by residents until many saw their children come down with respiratory problems.
For 40 days after a piece of equipment critical to the refinery's operation broke down, a total of 538,000 pounds of toxic chemicals, including the carcinogen benzene, poured out of the refinery.
Rather than taking the costly step of shutting down the refinery to make repairs, the engineers at the plant diverted gases to a smokestack and tried to burn them off, but hundreds of thousands of pounds still escaped into the air, according to state environmental officials.
Neither the state nor the oil company informed neighbors or local officials about the pollutants until two weeks after the release ended, and angry residents of Texas City have signed up in droves to join a $10 billion class-action lawsuit against BP. The state attorney general, Greg Abbott, has also sued the company, seeking fines of about $600,000.
BP maintains three air monitors along the fence around the plant and two in the surrounding community, and they did not show a rise in pollution during April and May, the company said. "BP does not believe there is any basis to pay claims in connection with this event," said Michael Marr, a spokesman for the company.
But scores of Texas City residents said they experienced respiratory problems this spring, and environmentalists said the release of toxic gases ranked as one of the largest in the state's history.
Neil Carman of the Lone Star Sierra Club said the release was probably even larger than BP had acknowledged, because the company estimated that more than 98 percent of the pollution was burned off by a flare, an overly optimistic figure in the eyes of many environmental scientists.
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Source: New York Times |
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Brazil government gives go-ahead for huge Amazon dam
Aug. 26- Brazil's government has given the formal go-ahead for the building on a tributary of the Amazon of the world's third biggest hydroelectric dam.
After several failed legal challenges, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva signed the contract for the Belo Monte dam with the Norte Energia consortium.
Critics say the project will damage the local ecosystem and make homeless 50,000 mainly indigenous people.
But the government says it is crucial for development and will create jobs.
Bidding for the project had to be halted three times before a final court appeal by the government allowed Norte Energia, led by the state-owned Companhia Hidro Eletrica do Sao Francisco, to be awarded the contract.
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Source: BBC |
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Bjørn Lomborg: $100 billion a year needed to fight climate change
Aug. 30- The world's most high-profile climate change skeptic is to declare that global warming is "undoubtedly one of the chief concerns facing the world today" and "a challenge humanity must confront", in an apparent U-turn that will give a huge boost to the embattled environmental lobby.
Bjørn Lomborg, the self-styled "skeptical environmentalist" once compared to Adolf Hitler by the UN's climate chief, is famous for attacking climate scientists, campaigners, the media and others for exaggerating the rate of global warming and its effects on humans, and the costly waste of policies to stop the problem.
But in a new book to be published next month, Lomborg will call for tens of billions of dollars a year to be invested in tackling climate change. "Investing $100bn annually would mean that we could essentially resolve the climate change problem by the end of this century," the book concludes.
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Source: Guardian (UK) |
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Judge orders pricey selenium cleanup at 2 coal mines
Sep. 1- A federal judge has ordered Patriot Coal Corp. to spend millions of dollars to clean up selenium pollution at two surface coal mines in West Virginia.
Environmental groups said it was the first time a court had demanded restrictions on selenium, a trace mineral commonly discharged from Appalachian surface mines, where the tops of mountains are blown away to expose coal.
Too much selenium in streams kills or deforms fish and other aquatic life, and in high doses it can damage human health. Selenium is one of a number of contaminants — including arsenic, cadmium and lead — that are discharged from mining operations and also are found in coal ash and other wastes from coal-fired power plants.
The ruling, filed Wednesday, applied to only two mines. Environmental groups that are fighting the spread of mountaintop mining said that if it became a precedent, however, it might make some mines too expensive to operate.
Judge Robert Chambers of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia gave Patriot about two years to get its selenium discharges down to the limits specified in its mining permits. He also ordered the company to post a $45 million letter of credit to ensure that it installs the equipment at the two mines.
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Source: McClatchy Newspapers |
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Cost of the War in Iraq
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| Quote of the Week |
| " Total US deaths in Afghanistan have doubled under President Obama, and when the next US soldier is reported dead, the majority of US deaths in Afghanistan will have occurred under President Obama. " |
-- Robert Naiman, truthout, 8/16/2010.
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