A key federal Appeals Court refuses to block the implementation of the Clean Power Plan, plus more news, this week in CIB.
Washington Watch: Court Declines to Block Clean Power Plan
The Obama Administration’s carbon-limiting Clean Power Plan (CPP) won an important procedural victory last weekwhen a federal appeals court refused to block its implementation process while legal challenges are ongoing. (As previously reported, 27 states and multiple industry groups had sued the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to block the rule. Other states and environmental organizations have weighed in on the side of the EPA.)
The case is being heard in the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, the court most frequently responsible for hearing challenges to major federal administrative agency rules. Following the ruling, Administration and environmental spokespersons expressed confidence that the CPP will ultimately be upheld when the court issues its final ruling as well. EPA’s Melissa Harrison said, “The Plan rests on strong scientific and legal foundations, provides states with broad flexibilities to design and implement plans, is clearly within EPA’s authority under the Clean Air Act and shows the United States’ leadership on climate action.” Natural Resources Defense Council’s (NRDC) David Doniger called the ruling “a huge win for protecting our health and climate from dangerous carbon pollution.”
The federal court’s refusal to stay the Clean Power Plan during the appeals process underscores the foolishness of the McCrory Administration’s proposed state plan designed to fail to meet the EPA requirements. NCLCV and other concerned citizen groups have called on the state to drop the designed-to-fail proposal and create a real compliance plan which takes advantage of North Carolina’s booming clean energy development gains.
Executive Watch: New EMC Chair Opposes Greenhouse Gas Regulation
Gov. Pat McCrory has appointed to chair the NC Environmental Management Commission (EMC) a vocal opponent of the regulation of greenhouse gases. The new EMC chair is Steve Rowlan, the General Manager of Environmental Affairs for Nucor, a Charlotte-based major steel production corporation, with a steel recycling facility in Hertford County.
Rowlan has testified before Congress on behalf of Nucor, in opposition to federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions. In 2011, he told the House Energy and Power Subcommittee that “We support the effort by Congress to stop the regulation of greenhouse gases through the Clean Air Act.” He asserted that “reducing greenhouse gas emissions requires much cleaner forms of energy that do not exist today.”
The Nucor Corporation itself has a track record as a major funder of climate-denial efforts nationally. In 2010 and 2011, Nucor was “the top named funder of the Heartland Institute’s climate denial efforts.” The substantially industry-funded Heartland Institute publishes and circulates the Environment and Climate News, which “promotes conspiracy theories about climate scientists, distorts climate science, and attacks regulation of air and water pollution.”
Campaign Watch: SC’s Early State Primary Raises Offshore Issue
Most of the attention of the presidential candidates thus far has naturally focused on the best-known contests in the first two states to vote, Iowa and New Hampshire. However, as the contest moves on to the next two states (South Carolina and Nevada), a key environmental issue may pop into extra prominence: offshore drilling.
That’s because such broad bipartisan opposition to offshore drilling has developed along the entirety of South Carolina’s coast. The tourism-fueled South Carolina coastal economy means that both Democrats and Republicans are speaking up against drilling there. All 24 of the local governments along the SC coast, including Charleston and Myrtle Beach, have passed resolutions opposing seismic testing and offshore drilling there.
All three Democratic candidates already oppose drilling off the Mid-Atlantic coast, but the South Carolina stance could force some of the drilling-supportive Republican candidates to hedge their issue bets in that state. Read an interesting discussion of the dynamics of this issue in the presidential contest phase coming up here.
Around the States: No Justice for Flint’s Children
What lesson do we learn from the disaster of the Flint, Michigan, polluted water supply?
That poor, black children shouldn’t be made the poisoned victims of environmental injustice?
That neglecting our critical public infrastructure by making major, long-term decisions like selection of water supply sources on the basis of what’s cheapest today will cost us more in the end?
That ignoring pollution problems under the guise of economic efficiency is foolhardy and immoral?
How about all of the above? Herein we have the emergency of Flint’s polluted public water supply hammering the evening news as a flagrant case of elected and appointed officials making critical decisions more on the basis of short-term costs than on the risks to society’s most vulnerable members.
Faced by financial woes, and operating under the control of a state-appointed emergency manager, the City of Flint in April 2014 switched water sources from Lake Huron (water purchased from Detroit) to the dirtier Flint River. Problems immediately started showing up—bad taste and odor, skin rashes, corrosion. General Motors complained about corrosive effects and was allowed to switch back to the cleaner Detroit water, but for the families of Flint no such relief came. Not only was the source water of lower quality, but the aged piping through which the more corrosive water coursed leached lead.
Even when US Environmental Protection Agency experts, public health professionals, and citizen watchdog groups warned of the risks, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) under Gov. Rick Snyder belittled the sentinels and covered over their reports. When the elected local leaders of Flint voted overwhelmingly last March to switch back to clean water, the emergency manager (appointed by the governor under Michigan law to control the fiscally challenged city’s financial decisions) vetoed the move.
Now the buzzards have come home to roost. Elevated blood levels of lead in Flint children warn of possible nerve and other damage to come. The Flint water supply has been declared a federal disaster. The state’s DEQ director and key officials in the governor’s office have quit, and Governor Snyder himself faces calls to resign.
The decision to go to a lower-quality water source to save money was foolish in the first place. But the state’s actions attempting to deny and cover up the crisis and block action to solve it were beyond unconscionable.
The New York Times puts it well, calling state officials’ responses “depraved indifference”: “The 274 pages of emails released under pressure on Wednesday by Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan show a cynical and callous indifference to the plight of the mostly black, poverty-stricken residents of Flint, who have gone for more than a year with poisoned tap water that is unsafe to drink or bathe in. There is little doubt that an affluent, predominantly white community — say Grosse Pointe or Bloomfield Hills — would never face such a public health catastrophe, and if it had, the state government would have rushed in to help.”
The state is well past due on its obligation to its citizens to take the immediate actions needed to clean up the problem and aid all those at risk. And cost-cutting, “customer [polluter] friendly” leaders around our nation must take heed of the lessons of Flint.
Conservationists: Save the Date for 2016 Green Tie Awards
Mark your calendars: NCLCV’s annual Green Tie Awards will be held from 5:30 – 8:00pm on Wednesday, May 11, 2016 at the Marbles Kids Museum in downtown Raleigh. Longtime environmental champion Governor Jim Hunt will be the evening’s keynote speaker. Information on how to sponsor this year’s awards and to purchase tickets can be found here.
Stay tuned for additional invitations and the release of this year’s Green Tie recipients.
That’s our report for this week.
