A federal judge in California ruled that the nation’s top environmental official, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, violated the law by missing the deadline to implement the agency’s ozone pollution rule, Yvette Cabrera reported at ThinkProgress (3/12).
In his decision, US District Court Judge Haywood Stirling Gilliam Jr. wrote that Pruitt broke the law under the Clean Air Act by failing to identify which areas in the United States have smog levels that violate the nation’s ozone health standards.
The EPA revised its national ambient air quality standards in 2015 under the Obama administration, but Pruitt missed the Oct. 1, 2017, deadline to announce the areas that were in compliance under the ozone pollution rule. Pruitt subsequently announced findings only for areas in compliance, not those out of compliance.
“There is no dispute as to liability: Defendants admit that the Administrator violated his nondiscretionary duty under the Clean Air Act,” wrote Gilliam.
Gilliam ordered the EPA to publish it’s findings for most of country by April 30, and by July 17 for eight counties surrounding San Antonio, Texas, rejecting the agency’s request for more time to determine whether those counties are violating the ozone standard.
Mustafa Santiago Ali, a senior adviser for environmental justice and community revitalization in the Obama EPA, said he was pleased with the court’s decision, but is also displeased with the Trump administration’s slow pace in tackling the pollution problem across the country.
“Each day that they move slowly, they place our most vulnerable communities, especially our children’s lives, in jeopardy,” Ali told ThinkProgress.
“We know that in our communities — African American, Latino communities, and some Asian American communities as well — that we are disproportionately impacted by air pollution and that we have higher levels of asthma and asthma attacks, so each day that they move slowly it places our children in harm’s way,” said Ali, who is now senior vice president for climate, environmental justice and community revitalization at the Hip Hop Caucus, a civil and human rights organization.
The nonprofit environmental law organization Earthjustice, which filed a lawsuit in December against the EPA for failing to identify violators by the deadline, praised the court’s decision. Once the EPA identifies the areas out compliance, the work of cleaning up elevated smog levels can begin, the nonprofit noted in a press release.
“Everyone deserves to breathe clean air. And because of the Clean Air Act, we’re legally entitled to it. The court got it right when it ordered the EPA to finish making ozone designations sooner than the agency requested,” said attorney Seth Johnson, who represented Earthjustice in the case, in a statement.
HOUSE WITHIN REACH FOR DEMS. Sabato’s Crystal Ball (CenterForPolitics.org/crystalball/) has shifted 26 House races toward Democrats, concluding: “After these ratings changes, for the first time this cycle we have fewer than 218 seats (the number needed for a majority) at least leaning to the Republicans.”
One of the seats rated a toss-up is Pennsylvania’s 18th Congressional District, which supported Donald Trump by 20 points in 2016 but Democrats have been consistently overperforming Hillary Clinton’s presidential performance in special elections since then. Geoffrey Skelley has been tracking these elections, which are mostly for state legislative seats but also include a handful of congressional specials, and he calculates that Democrats have been running on average 13 points ahead of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 margin in the nearly 90 races held so far featuring a Democrat and a Republican. Former federal prosecutor Conor Lamb (D) has run a stronger campaign than state Rep. Rick Saccone (R) in PA-18 and polls rate the race within the margin of error, so even if Saccone wins (3/13), Pennsylvania likely will have a new congressional map, created by the Democrat-dominated state Supreme Court for the general election, which will remove much of the gerrymandered advantage for Republicans.
Making his debut in Sabato’s competitive House ratings is the chamber’s most powerful member, Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI). While his district is competitive but clearly Republican-leaning on paper, this shift mostly reflects uncertainty surrounding his future.
Sabato still rates the chances of Dems taking the House at only 50-50, “although those odds are probably generous to Republicans at this point. But we’re also cognizant of the fact that there’s still a long way to go. … And while a Democratic majority is far from certain, the expanding battlefield also illustrates that the Democrats have the potential to not just win the House, but net a significant number of seats beyond the 24 they need if conditions worsen for the Republicans.”
HEALTH CARE STILL #1 ECONOMIC ISSUE. Since the Parkland, Fla., high school shooting, there’s been a lot of talk about reasonable gun violence prevention laws. If you look at surveys, most people support them, David Akadjian wrote at DailyKos (3/11). But healthcare is still the top issue when it comes to economic concerns, according to the Marketplace and Edison Research Economic Anxiety Index, as 30.5% rated health care the No. 1 economic concern, nearly twice the response of the next nearest concern — rising prices, which came in at 16.1%, and jobs/unemployment at 13.9%. In other findings:
• 55.2% of those surveyed think the new tax law will be best for the rich
• 50.4% think income inequality has increased since 2008
• 41% think regulations on banks and financial institutional should be increased; 81.6% think they should be increased or left the same.
“As Republicans ramp up for the 2018 midterms, the story is going to be: We care about the economy, you care about identity,” Akadian concluded.
“As we fight in 2018, don’t forget the economy. We should not lose sight of health care. This does not preclude talking about other issues, but if we want to translate anger into political power, we must keep coming back to the economy. For example, when I talk about identity issues, I often talk about how identity issues are economic issues.
“The economy tends to be the No. 1 issue people cite when voting. Right now, the numbers from the Economic Anxiety Index don’t bode well for the current administration. Let’s keep them that way.”
TRANS-PAC PARTNERSHIP PACT EXPANDS INVESTOR-STATE DISPUTE SETTLEMENTS. While President Trump, who withdrew the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, was announcing tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum, the remaining 11 TPP countries — including Canada and Mexico — signed the TPP model for their countries in a cynically renamed “Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership,” Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch noted.
While some of the most egregious provisions pushed by Big Pharma that would have further threatened access to life-saving medicines were fortunately set aside (for now) in the revised TPP-11 deal, most of the TPP’s dangerous rules remain intact, Melinda St. Louis noted at Public Citizen’s blog on Globalization and Trade. “It is shocking, for instance, that Canada, Mexico and others agreed to maintain the infamous investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) system (with only some minor tweaks), that empowers multinational corporations to attack public interest laws before panels of three corporate lawyers.
“We dodged a bullet here in the United States — the TPP would have doubled US exposure to investor-state attacks against US policies by newly empowering more than 1,000 additional corporations in TPP countries, which own more than 9,200 additional subsidiaries in the United States, to launch investor-state cases against the US government.”
In the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) renegotiations, the US has proposed to radically roll back ISDS, which should be good news for Canada and Mexico, since Canadian and Mexican taxpayers have paid $392 million to mostly US corporations who won ISDS attacks against their public interest laws using NAFTA, St. Louis noted.
“The corporate lobby, which has been doing all it can to block the positive NAFTA proposal to roll back ISDS, is undoubtedly rejoicing that the TPP-11 countries have signaled their willingness to accept expansion of the controversial ISDS system.
“But the diverse consensus to end ISDS in NAFTA and elsewhere spans the political spectrum, with stark criticism coming from voices as disparate as US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, Reagan-era associate deputy attorney general Bruce Fein, the pro-free-trade libertarian Cato Institute think tank, US Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz, unions and environmental groups.”
GOP’S HASTILY PASSED TAX SCAM IS ERROR-RIDDLED. After years of dishonestly whining that the Affordable Care Act was written in secret and rushed through Congress with insufficient debate, Congressional Republicans and the Trump administration cobbled together their tax legislation in December and rushed it through Congress, Josh Israel noted at ThinkProgress (3/11). Now, it appears, American are paying the price for their shoddy work.
Desperate to pass the bill — which contained massive tax cuts for Trump and the very rich, and tax increases for many poor and middle class families — with only Republican votes, the GOP majority was forced to make deals and amendments on the fly. Indeed, USA Today reported in December that the Senate actually passed its version of the bill with last-minute alterations that were “handwritten into the margins.”
Now, the error-riddled legislation Trump signed into law may be so problematic that it may need to be re-written, the New York Times reported (3/11). “Companies and trade groups are pushing the Treasury Department and Congress to fix the law’s consequences, some intended and some not, including provisions that disadvantage certain farmers, hurt restaurateurs and retailers and could balloon the tax bills of large multinational corporations,” the paper reported. Even the pro-GOP US Chamber of Commerce wrote to the Treasury Department raising concerns about ambiguities in the legislation.
One problem, known as the “grain glitch,” is a 20% deduction for farmers who sell to cooperatives, but offers no such deduction if they sell their crops to independent agribusinesses. “We will be much more receptive to selling our business if this happens,” Todd Lafferty, co-chief executive of Wheeler Brothers Grain Company in Watonga, Okla., told the Times. “It’s going to result in further consolidation of the industry, but that’s not what we want to do.” Lafferty, a Republican, said he was excited about the new tax legislation until he heard about the provision. Despite the other benefits of the law, he said, he would rather be governed by the old tax code than face a competitive disadvantage to nearby cooperatives.
Thomas Lien Jr., of Dakota Mill and Grain in Rapid City, S.D., told the Times he already regretted the $20 million investment his business made last year to build a shuttle loader grain elevator for moving large quantities of grain because farmers were now only interested in selling to cooperatives. Now he wondered how his business and others like it could survive. “It’s going to drive investments in rural America away,” Lien said. “We can’t compete.”
Another drafting error in the bill means that restaurants and retailers who do renovations will have to deduct their costs over 39 years, instead of the intended 15-year period.
Unlike the legislation itself — which was rammed through under the budget reconciliation process so as to require only 51 votes in the Senate — any legislative fixes will require some Democratic support. But Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) told the Times that his party will demand substantive changes as well: “We’re not just going to sit down and fix the things they did badly because they did it in the dead of night with lobbyists at the table.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) have steadfastly blocked even bipartisan efforts to make technical fixes to that legislation.
TRUMP COULD FEED EVERY HOMELESS VET FOR COST OF HIS MILITARY PARADE. Donald Trump’s military parade is set to kick off on Veterans Day, but at a cost that even conservative estimates show could feed every homeless veteran for at least two weeks, a Newsweek analysis found (3/11).
The military showcase was initially estimated to cost $10 million and $30 million, White House budget director Mick Mulvaney told the House Budget Committee in February. That cost accounted for Trump’s vision of tanks rolling through Washington D.C.—not unlike what he witnessed in France during its Bastille Day celebration, or what occurs in North Korea, China and Russia—though a Pentagon memo originally obtained by CNN nixed the use of heavy military vehicles.
Though not an exact science—parade cost estimates included using tanks et al., and it’s impossible to determine exact figures of homelessness by nature of their transience—these numbers provide a financial comparison and a look at the Trump administration’s priorities.
Using the most conservative estimates available from federal agencies and non-profit organizations, Newsweek found Trump could completely eliminate hunger among homeless veterans, serving them three meals a day, for at least 14 days.
TRUMP HAS MADE 2,436 FALSE OR MISLEADING CLAIMS AS PREZ. In the 406 days since he took the oath of office, President Trump has made 2,436 false or misleading claims, according to the Washington Post Fact Checker’s database that analyzes, categorizes and tracks every suspect statement uttered by the president, Meg Kelly, Glenn Kessler and Salvador Rizzo wrote (3/2).
That’s an average of six claims a day.
When the Post started this project for the president’s first 100 days, he averaged 4.9 claims a day. Slowly, the average number of claims has been creeping up.
An interactive graphic at (washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker) displays a running list of every false or misleading statement made by Trump. It also catalogues the president’s many flip-flops, since those earn Upside-Down Pinocchios if a politician shifts position on an issue without acknowledging he or she did so.
Before Congress even began debating tax legislation, the administration’s rhetoric was full of Pinocchio-worthy claims. And as much of that spin has reemerged, it is fresh with new or altered exaggerations.
NUMBER OF PEOPLE WHO HATE TRUMP’S OFFSHORE DRILLING PLANS KEEPS GROWING. Public meetings for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s five-year offshore drilling plan wrapped up in early March, but opposition to the plan — which would open nearly all federal waters to oil and gas extraction — doesn’t appear to be quieting down.
The proposal, first made public in January, would open up 90% of the nation’s offshore areas to oil and gas leasing. At the time, Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke touted the proposal as offering “the largest number of lease sales ever proposed.”
But as the Dept .of the Interior concludes its 60-day public comment period for the proposal, a number of local and state representatives, religious leaders and environmental groups are pushing to make sure that their opposition to the offshore drilling plan is made clear.
Attorneys general from 12 states filed comments in opposition to the plan, arguing that increased offshore drilling would contribute to climate change and associated consequences, such as sea level rise and more frequent and severe extreme weather events. The attorneys general also argued that offshore drilling could compromise sensitive coastal ecosystems and marine economies in the affected states.
US Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) sent a letter to Zinke requesting clarification on what the secretary intends to do with Florida, which had originally been included in the proposal but was temporarily removed less than a week into the public comment period.
At the time, Zinke said that he had chosen to remove Florida because the state “is unique and its coasts are highly reliant on tourism as an economic driver” — reasoning that legal experts warned could open the department up to legal action. Since then, an Interior Department official has said that Florida is still being considered for potential offshore leases.
The proposal previously generated fierce opposition from nearly every governor of a state that would see its waters opened to oil and gas extraction under the five-year plan. The only governor that has not opposed the plan is Paul LePage (R-ME).
TRUMP WANTS NEW AUTHORITY OVER POLLING PLACES. President Trump would be able to dispatch Secret Service agents to polling places nationwide during a federal election, a vast expansion of executive authority, if a provision in a Homeland Security reauthorization bill remains intact, Annie Linskey reported in the Boston Globe (3/9).
The rider has prompted outrage from more than a dozen top elections officials around the country, including Secretary of State William F. Galvin, D-Mass., who says he is worried that it could be used to intimidate voters and said there is “no basis” for providing Trump with this new authority.
“This is worthy of a Third World country,” said Galvin in an interview. “I’m not going to tolerate people showing up to our polling places. I would not want to have federal agents showing up in largely Hispanic areas.”
The provision alarming him and others is a rider attached to legislation that would re-authorize the Department of Homeland Security. The legislation already cleared the House of Representatives with bipartisan support.
The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs didn’t include the measure in the version of the bill it approved this week, according to Ben Voelkel, a spokesman for Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., who chairs the Senate committee.
The full Senate must still approve the bill, and then the two versions of the legislation would need to be reconciled before going to the president for approval.
“There is no discernible need for federal secret service agents to intrude, at the direction of the president, who may also be a candidate in that election, into thousands of citadels where democracy is enshrined,” according to a letter opposing the provision that was signed by 19 bipartisan secretaries of state and elections commissioners.
The letter — sent to the Senate’s majority leader, Mitch McConnell, and its minority leader, Charles Schumer (3/9) —requests that the Senate keep the Secret Service provision from the final legislation. The elections officials described the proposal as “unprecedented and shocking.”
OIL AND GAS INDUSTRY PANEL ON EXTREME HURRICANES NEVER MENTIONS CLIMATE CHANGE. Everyone sitting on an oil and gas panel discussing last year’s devastating storms and how to prepare for future natural disasters could agree on one thing: Hurricane Harvey was unlike any other event they had seen. All the panelists, however, failed to mention a key reason: climate change.
Speaking on the last day of the week-long CERA Week energy conference in Houston, Texas — a city devastated by Harvey just six months ago — industry executives, along with Sylvester Turner, the mayor of Houston, discussed what lessons could be learned from last year’s hurricanes.
“This storm was unprecedented,” Turner told a room packed with members of the fossil fuel industry. “More water hit [the city] than any time in its history.”
Over the past three years, Turner said, Houston has repeatedly experienced 1-in-500 year level storms. And Harvey was the worst.
These are storms that are so strong that on average, under normal conditions, would only be experienced once every 500 years. Thanks to climate change, however, extreme weather events are increasingly more severe and destructive, Kyla Mandel noted at ThinkProgress (3/9).
“We recognize we are dealing with a new normal,” said Turner, who has over the past year joined other mayors across the US to call for increased action to address climate change under President Donald Trump.
Scientists have been able to show that climate change played a role in making Hurricane Harvey a stronger storm with heavier rainfall. As waters become warmer with rising temperatures, the additional heat fuels the intensity of storms. And warmer air also holds more moisture. So while climate change might not necessarily lead to more hurricanes, those that do occur are likely to be stronger and wetter than before.
The panelists, however, danced around the issue. And there was no mention of the fossil fuel industry’s role in driving climate change.
“Harvey was a very, very different storm,” said Brian Coffman, chief executive of Motiva Enterprises, which operates a refinery on Port Arthur, Texas. “We received 26 inches of rain in 24 hours. Who could’ve predicted that? Except, perhaps, NOAA.”
“One of my big learnings [sic] is that mother nature will humble you every time,” said Eric Silagy, chief executive of Florida Power & Light Company. “Every storm is absolutely different.”
From The Progressive Populist, April 1, 2018
Blog | Current Issue | Back Issues | Essays | Links
About the Progressive Populist | How to Subscribe | How to Contact Us
PO Box 819, Manchaca TX 78652