More than 141 millions Americans lived in areas with unhealthy air pollution levels in 2015 to 2017 — an increase over the previous two years, as ozone pollution worsened across much of the country, according to a new report released Wednesday. Read more here.
Category: Homepage
Roberson and Joel Gilbert, a powerhouse lawyer with Balch & Bingham, had fought off environmental rules before. But for this campaign they needed a public face, someone with credibility both with the state government in Montgomery and the black communities in north Birmingham.
Someone who could persuade the people living on contaminated land to protest not the pollution, but the cleanup.
By early 2014, they had chosen Oliver L. Robinson Jr. (D), an African American state legislator and former University of Alabama at Birmingham basketball star. Read the entire story.
Every day, Ron Baptiste’s home in West Long Beach is invaded by dust and ash. If he cleans it in the morning, his shelves and furniture are coated again by the afternoon. Read more here.
Senators Cory Booker (D-New Jersey), Tammy Duckworth (D-Illinois), and Tom Carper (D-Delaware) announced the formation of an environmental justice caucus on Monday. Read more here.
Nevada ranked first nationally in the release of toxic chemicals per square mile in 2017, the most recent year for which data is available, and the state’s mining industry was the reason why. read more here.
The study suggests that as the Portland Harbor Superfund site is cleaned-up, salmon recovery efforts in the Willamette will get a major boost. Read more here
EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler’s history of lobbying for International Paper Co. and Xcel Energy Inc., among other companies, means he is recused from working on 45 Superfund sites, according to new agency data. Read more here.
Four million cases of childhood asthma could be caused by air pollution from traffic – around 13% of those diagnosed each year, a global study suggests. Read more here.
“The odor was unbearable, as were the flies and stink bugs,” said Brasfield, who sports a greying handlebar moustache and describes himself as a conservative Republican. “The flies were so bad that you couldn’t walk outside without being inundated by them. You’d be covered in all sorts of insects. People started getting headaches, they couldn’t breathe. You wouldn’t even go outside to put meat on the barbecue.”
“Oh my goodness, it’s just a nightmare here,” said Heather Hall, mayor of Parrish, where the unwanted cargo squatted for two months. “It smells like rotting corpses, or carcasses. It smells like death.” Read more.
Finally, the ITEP (the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy) just released a new report, Corporate Tax Avoidance Remains Rampant Under New Tax Law that shows that 60 profitable Fortune 500 companies paid nothing in federal corporate income taxes in 2018. The list of companies will be very familiar to you, including big PhRMA companies like Eli Lilly, that raked in billions in profits by gouging people on insulin costs but paid zero taxes last year. At least 60 of the nation’s biggest corporations didn’t pay a dime in federal income taxes in 2018 on a collective $79 billion in profits. Full Report: https://itep.org/notadime/
News Release: https://itep.org/60-fortune-500-companies-avoided-all-federal-income-tax-in-2018-under-new-tax-law/