Category: News Archive

Former Michigan governor Rick Snyder, his health director and other ex-officials have been told they’re being charged after a new investigation of the Flint water scandal, which devastated the majority Black city with lead-contaminated water and was blamed for a deadly outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in 2014-15, the Associated Press has learned.

Two people with knowledge of the planned prosecution told the AP on Tuesday that the attorney general’s office has informed defense lawyers about indictments in Flint and told them to expect initial court appearances soon. They spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Read more…
Photo credit: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Tuesday finalized a rule that would allow future greenhouse gas limits only on power plants, sidestepping oversight over the oil and gas industry, iron and steel manufacturers and other polluting industries.
The new rule from the EPA argues that only sectors whose pollution accounts for more than 3 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are “considered to contribute significantly to dangerous air pollution.”
The rule is a direct response to a 2017 executive order from President Trump that asked agencies to “immediately review existing regulations that potentially burden the development or use of domestically produced energy resources.” 
Read more…

Green groups on Monday filed a lawsuit in an attempt to prevent a new rule limiting the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) use of certain studies from taking effect.
The lawsuit takes aim at the EPA’s Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science rule, also known as the “secret science” rule, which restricts the use of studies that don’t make their underlying data public.
The agency has billed the rule as a transparency measure, though its opponents argue that it will prevent consideration of important public health studies that can’t publish their data for reasons such as privacy.
Read more…
Photo credit: istock

The Environmental Protection Agency has completed one of its last major rollbacks under the Trump administration, changing how it considers evidence of harm from pollutants in a way that opponents say could cripple future public-health regulation.
The EPA administrator, Andrew Wheeler, formally announced the completion of what he calls the “Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science” rule in a Zoom appearance before Competitive Enterprise Institute, a conservative thinktank on Tuesday. The EPA completed the final rule last week.
Read more…
Photo credit: Alex Brandon/AP

Though it may have been eclipsed in headlines and worrying by the coronavirus pandemic, the climate crisis has not gone away.
As new President Joe Biden tries to implement policies with the goal of redirecting economic development toward greenhouse gas reduction, he’ll have to contend with pressure not only from groups on the right who oppose environmental regulations, but with those on the left who may see Biden’s plans as too timid.
Read more…
Photo credit: (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

FLINT, MI – Federal prosecutors accuse the owner and president of a Flint chemical company with dumping nearly 50 million gallons of untreated liquid drained from eight different landfills into the city’s sewer system.

Robert J. Massey, the president and owner of Oil Chem Inc., 711 W. 12th St., is charged in a U.S. District Court indictment with a felony of knowing violation of the Clean Water Act.

Massey is charged with directing “his employees to dispose of the landfill leachate through a hose from a tank to a sanitary sewer drain located at the Oil Chem facility, without treatment and in violation of Oil Chem’s wastewater discharge permit” from January 2007 until October 2015, including waste from one hauler that included PCBs, according to information filed with the federal court on Dec. 21.

Read more…
Photo credit: Jake May | MLive.com

A group of Texas environmental groups say the federal Environmental Protection Agency looked the other way when Texas didn’t require tough enough rules on air pollution for several refineries, gas plants and chemical plants.

The Environmental Integrity Project, along with other Texas environmental groups, filed a lawsuit against EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler on Monday after he did not respond to a petition by the groups to correct what they say is a violation of federal law in Texas.

Read more…
Photo credit: REUTERS/Loren Elliott

“Broken Ground,” a podcast that discusses environmental stories in the southern United States, has recently come out with a new season that focuses on citizens — specifically in Norfolk and Charleston, S.C. — dealing with sea level rise and all the flooding that comes with it. The podcast is produced in the Charlottesville office of the Southern Environmental Law Center.
Read more…
Photo credit: Carolyn Lane | The Cavalier Daily