December, 18 2017, 01:15pm EDT
![Earthjustice](https://assets.rbl.ms/32012672/origin.jpg)
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Lisa Evans, (781) 631-4119, levans@earthjustice.org, Lisa Hallowell, (202) 294-3282, lhallowell@environmentalintegrity.org
As Spreading of Toxic Coal Ash Increases, Groups Oppose Reviving EPA Promotional Reuse Program
EPA Considering Reviving Previously Shut Down Program that Promoted Coal Ash Reuse After Inspector General Found EPA Had Not Verified that Promoted Reuses Were Safe.
WASHINGTON
Following industry requests that EPA revive an ill-fated partnership to "promote" the reuse of toxic coal ash, 13 public health and environmental groups today sent a letter urging EPA not to revive that controversial program and to complete a long-delayed study of historical coal ash fill sites as well as evaluate the risks of coal ash reuses.
The placement of toxics-laden coal ash at fill sites has skyrocketed 23% percent following the EPA's passage of a 2015 rule allowing fill sites to avoid disposal regulations. Under the guise of "reuse," EPA allows toxic coal ash - the waste left over from coal-burning power plants - to be spread as fill dirt anywhere in the U.S. Industry now wants EPA not to just to allow this dangerous practice, but to promote it, requesting that EPA reinstate the scrapped "C2P2" partnership, despite the fact that the Office of Inspector General required EPA to shut down the program in 2011 when EPA violated agency procedures and ethics by promoting reuses that it had not determined to be safe.
Coal ash waste contains deadly toxins, including arsenic, lead, mercury and chromium. The toxics raise the risk for cancer, heart disease, and stroke, and can inflict lasting brain damage on children.
While some reused coal ash is placed into products like drywall and concrete, which minimizes the risk that the toxics in the ash would cause harm, "unencapsulated" uses - those involving loose ash - can release dangerous amounts of hazardous substances to water and air. It is these reuses that are on the rise. Industry has dramatically ramped up unsafe "recycling" of loose coal ash particulates or sludge, which essentially just moves pollution from one place to another. "Unencapsulated" reuses include construction fill, fill for mines, road base, blasting grit, snow and ice control, agricultural uses, and more.
In a letter sent to EPA and the Office of Inspector General today, 13 environmental groups urge the four federal agencies involved - the EPA, U.S. Department of Energy, Federal Highway Administration, and U.S. Department of Agriculture - to hold off reinstating the coal ash reuse promotional program, because EPA failed to confirm unencapsulated uses will be safe for the public.
"The EPA has documented pollution at many sites where coal ash was used as fill, and that's not acceptable," said Earthjustice Senior Counsel Lisa Evans. "The EPA needs to determine where this pollution is threatening public health before promoting increased use."
The 2011 Inspector General's report, "EPA Promoted the Use of Coal Ash Products with Incomplete Risk Information," raised serious questions about the C2P2 program's safety and concluded that contamination of drinking water posed a significant concern at large fill sites. The report called for changes that have not been made.
The environmental groups' letter points out that there are numerous documented cases of coal ash fill causing contamination of water and air, including a Superfund site in Indiana where a community's drinking water was contaminated. At least 22 fill sites have already been classified by EPA as "confirmed damage" cases, meaning they have had releases of pollutants above regulatory standards and/or had damage to health or the environment documented in scientific studies or administrative or court rulings. The EPA has documented water contamination from coal ash used as fill in Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Wisconsin, Illinois, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
"No one--especially not the Environmental Protection Agency--should be encouraging putting coal ash in uses that have not been proven to be safe," said Lisa Hallowell, Senior Attorney for the Environmental Integrity Project. "EPA admitted that coal ash has caused 'the largest number of damage cases in the history of the RCRA program.' With so many of those damage cases occurring at fill sites, EPA should be acting to limit--not expand--placement at these sites until they can prove doing so will be safe for communities."
The groups are asking the EPA to do an in-depth, rigorous evaluation of known sites where coal ash has been used as fill to identify health and environmental impacts and to determine whether additional measures are necessary to protect public health and the environment from releases of coal ash pollutants. The groups point out that EPA failed to fulfill its 2012 commitment to the Office of Inspector General to provide milestones for determining whether action is warranted to address these historic CCR fill sites.
Earthjustice is a non-profit public interest law firm dedicated to protecting the magnificent places, natural resources, and wildlife of this earth, and to defending the right of all people to a healthy environment. We bring about far-reaching change by enforcing and strengthening environmental laws on behalf of hundreds of organizations, coalitions and communities.
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Critics Warn Manchin-Barrasso Permitting Bill 'Is Taken Straight From Project 2025'
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Climate and environmental defenders on this week implored U.S. senators to block a permitting reform bill introduced this week by Sens. Joe Manchin and John Barrasso that one campaigner linked to Project 2025, a conservative coalition's agenda for a far-right overhaul of the federal government.
Common Dreamsreported Monday that Manchin (I-W.Va.) and Barrasso (R-Wyo.)—respectively the chair and ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee—introduced the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) noted that although the proposal "includes several positive reforms for the accelerated development of transmission projects," it also advocates "limiting opportunities for communities to challenge projects, loosening oversight for drilling and mining projects, extending drilling permits and fast-tracking [liquified natural gas] permits, and several other provisions friendly to fossil fuel giants."
"This dangerous bill doesn't deserve a floor vote."
These are nearly identical policies to what's proposed in Project 2025's Mandate for Leadership. The plan, which was spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, calls for "unleashing all of America's energy resources," including by ending federal restrictions on fossil fuel drilling on public lands; limiting investments in renewable energy; and rolling back environmental permitting restrictions for new oil, gas, and coal projects, including power plants.
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Hartl added that "to preserve a livable planet," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) "must squash this legislation now."
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NRDC managing director of government affairs Alexandra Adams said Wednesday that "this bill is a giveaway for the oil and gas industry that will ramp up drilling and environmental destruction at a time when we need to be putting a hard stop to fossil fuels."
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Sudan's military is blocking United Nations aid trucks from entering at a key border crossing, causing severe disruptions in aid in a country that experts fear may be on the brink of one of the worst famines the world has seen in decades, The New York Timesreported Friday.
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Last week, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the United States ambassador to the U.N., said that the SAF's obstruction of the border was "completely unacceptable."
Both warring parties in Sudan continue to perpetrate brazen atrocities, including starvation of civilians as a method of warfare. This piece focuses on the SAF's ongoing obstruction of essential aid. The situation is catastrophic. The policy is criminal. https://t.co/FKhqQh3EI9.
— Tom Dannenbaum (@tomdannenbaum) July 26, 2024
The Sudanese who've made it out of the country and into Adré reported dire and unsafe conditions in their home country.
"We had nothing to eat," Bahja Muhakar, a Sudenese mother of three, told the Times after she crossed into Chad, following a harrowing six-day journey from Al-Fashir, a major city in Darfur. She said the family often had to live off of one shared pancake per day.
Another mother, Dahabaya Ibet, said that her 20-month-old boy had to bear witness to his grandfather being shot and killed in front of his eyes when the family home in Darfur was attacked by gunmen late last year.
Now the mothers and their families are refugees in Adré, where 200,000 Sudanese are living in an overcrowded, under-resourced transit camp.
In addition to those that have made it out of the country, there are 11 million people internally displaced within Sudan, most of whom have become displaced since the civil war began in April 2023.
An unnamed senior American official told the Times that the looming famine in Sudan could be as bad as the 2011 famine in Somalia or even the great Ethiopian famine of the 1980s.
In April, Reutersreported that people in Sudan were eating soil and leaves to survive, and The Washington Postcalled it a nation in "chaos," reporting that World Food Program trucks had been "blocked, hijacked, attacked, looted, and detained."
In late June, a coalition of U.N. agencies, aid groups, and governments warned that 755,000 people in Sudan faced famine in the coming months.
The U.S. last week announced $203 million in additional aid to Sudan—part of a $2.1 billion pledge that world leaders made in April, which some countries have not yet delivered on.
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Vance "meant no disrespect to cats, but he did mean to demean women and still holds the view in 2024 that they should be punished for not having children."
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After days of condemnation from critics including actress Jennifer Aniston and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, U.S. Sen. JD Vance was given the opportunity on Thursday to clarify his remarks from 2021 in which he said the Democratic Party was run by "childless cat ladies."
Instead, the Ohio Republican and running mate of former President Donald Trump assured SiriusXM host Megyn Kelly on "The Megyn Kelly Show" that while he has "nothing against cats," he meant what he said in terms of "the substance" of his argument.
Vance made it clear, said Aaron Fritschner, deputy chief of staff for Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), "that he meant no disrespect to cats, but he did mean to demean women and still holds the view in 2024 that they should be punished for not having children."
The comments in question were made by Vance to then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson when Vance was running for the Senate.
Calling out Buttigieg—who, the secretary disclosed this week, was struggling at the time to adopt a child with his husband—and Vice President Kamala Harris, a stepmother of two and the Democratic Party's presumptive presidential nominee, Vance said people without biological children "don't really have a direct stake in" the future of the country and therefore shouldn't hold higher office.
In separate remarks that same year, Vance said parents should "have more power" at the voting booth and that "if you don't have as much of an investment in the future of this country, maybe you shouldn't get nearly the same voice."
He also specifically categorized people who don't have children as "bad" in an interview in 2021, saying the government should "reward the things that we think are good" and "punish the things that we think are bad," with people taxed at a lower rate if they have children.
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In his interview with Kelly on Thursday, Vance attempted to pivot away from his own comments, saying his point was to criticize "the Democratic Party for becoming anti-family and anti-child" and claiming without evidence that the Harris campaign had "come out against the child tax credit"—a signature policy of the Biden-Harris administration.
"I'm proud to stand for parents and I hope that parents out there recognize that I'm a guy who wants to fight for you," said Vance. "The Democrats, in the past five, 10 years, Megyn, they have become anti-family. It's built into their policy, it's built into the way they talk about parents and children. I don't think we should back down from it, I think we should be honest about the problem."
Vance and Kelly went on to lament the anxiety "hardcore environmentalists" and progressive lawmakers such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) have expressed about the damage fossil fuel extraction is doing the planet, accusing them of pushing people to forgo having families—but said nothing about Republican policies that have made child-rearing less accessible.
In recent years, the entire Republican caucus in Congress was joined by conservative then-Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia in blocking the extension of the enhanced child tax credit, which had been credited with cutting the national child poverty rate in half. Republicans also allowed a pandemic-era universal school meal program to expire, while several Democratic-led states have passed state-level programs to ensure all children can have meals at school, regardless of their family's income.
Under Republican abortion bans, numerous stories have cropped up of pregnant people who have been forced to carry pregnancies to term despite finding out that their fetuses had fatal abnormalities and would die soon after birth—as have stories of children who were forced to give birth or had to cross state lines in order to get abortion care.
As with his position that nonparents should be "punished" for not having children, "who else does 'pro-child/family' Vance think should 'face consequences and reality' by way of curtailing choices, rights, and freedoms?" asked writer Alheli Picazo. "Women and girls who become pregnant through rape/incest."
University of North Carolina law professor Carissa Byrne Hessick said that one could test "empirically" Vance's claim that Democratic policies are anti-family.
"But I haven't heard the GOP talk much about things that would help my family and my kids," she said, "like reducing childcare and tuition costs."
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