November, 03 2019, 11:00pm EDT
![Environmental Working Group (EWG)](https://assets.rbl.ms/32012671/origin.jpg)
WASHINGTON
On Monday, the Trump Environmental Protection Agency announced plans to roll back regulations on how coal-fired power plants store coal ash waste and dispose of industrial water contaminated with heavy metals, according to The Hill.
Coal ash is a highly toxic byproduct of burning coal at power plants and can contain dangerous levels of arsenic, chromium, lead and mercury. In 2015, the Obama administration adopted safeguards that required coal-burning facilities to invest in technologies that, according to the EPA at that time, would stop roughly 1.4 billion pounds of coal ash from being released into rivers, lakes and streams. These measures were designed to protect drinking water sources from coal ash pollution.
The proposals announced today by EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler will scale back installation of new technologies for the treatment of coal ash contaminants and exempt a substantial number of power plants from all environmental requirements adopted in 2015 under the Obama-era rule, according to two sources with inside knowledge of the new rules, as reported by the New York Times.
This is the latest regulatory rollback by Wheeler and President Trump in their desperate attempt to save the dying coal industry, which just a few years ago provided well over 50 percent of the nation's electricity. Today, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, coal makes up around 27 percent of the energy mix as it continues its precipitous decline in the face of cheaper natural gas and the abundance of renewable sources like wind and solar.
"This is yet another destructive ploy by the Trump administration to aid and abet 'clean coal,'" said EWG President Ken Cook. "These rollbacks further cement for the American people that public health and environmental protection are as high up on the president's list of priorities as free and fair elections."
"This move may keep a coal plant operating a year or two longer, but the industry is on its last gasp and there's no number of rollbacks the Trump EPA can do to reverse its certain demise as a major U.S. energy source," said Cook. "These steps taken by Mr. Wheeler will, however, continue to allow industry to cut corners and ignore its responsibility to protect drinking water sources from extremely dangerous contaminants."
Toxic coal ash is one of the biggest contamination challenges facing the U.S. In 2014, Duke Energy, the nation's largest investor-owned utility, with one of the worst environmental and public health records among the electricity industry, dumped nearly 40,000 tons of coal ash into the Dan River, which runs through Virginia and North Carolina.
Drinking water sources near coal-fired power generators are regularly polluted with coal ash contamination. In March 2019, the Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice analyzed data made public by power companies showing that 241 of the 261 plants, or 91 percent, that were required to monitor ground water under the 2015 Obama administration rules had unsafe levels of one or more coal ash contaminants. And more than 50 percent of those power plants had dangerously high levels of arsenic in nearby groundwater.
The majority of Americans who live near coal-fired power plants and coal ash contamination sites are often low-income communities of color.
The Environmental Working Group is a community 30 million strong, working to protect our environmental health by changing industry standards.
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'It'll Be Fixed!': Trump Tells Supporters No Need to Vote in the Future
The Republican nominee's promise, at a Christian rally in Florida on Friday night, drew scrutiny from critics who view him as a threat to democracy.
Jul 27, 2024
Republican nominee Donald Trump on Friday night told rally-goers at a far-right Christian event in West Palm Beach, Florida that they needed to vote "just this time" and wouldn't need to do so after four more years, raising concern from critics about his commitment to democracy.
"Christians, get out and vote!" the former president told attendees of the event, hosted by the far-right youth advocacy group Turning Point Action. "Just this time. You won’t have to do it any more, four more years, you know what? It'll be fixed! It'll be fine. You won't have to vote any more, my beautiful Christians."
"Get out–you gotta get out and vote," he added. "In four years, you don't have to vote again. We'll have it fixed so good, you're not gonna have to vote."
Trump: You have to get out and vote. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four years, it will be fixed, it will be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore.. In four years, you won’t have to vote again. pic.twitter.com/DBGcBr3Wht
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 27, 2024
Trump's words left some ambiguity as to his intentions, but the implication that further elections wouldn't be necessary once he took office raised alarms, especially given his history of pro-authoritarian remarks and his failed efforts to overturn the 2020 election that he lost.
"When we say Trump is a threat to democracy, this is exactly what we’re talking about," Caty Payette, communications director for Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), wrote on social media.
Katie Phang, an MSNBC host, interpreted Trump's remarks to mean that he would try to remain in power indefinitely, if reelected.
"In other words, Trump won’t ever leave the White House if he gets reelected," she wrote on social media.
Liberal commentator Keith Olbermann read Trump's comments the same way, writing: "Oh. Trump just cancelled the 2028 election."
Though Trump's Friday remarks received attention on social media, they were not initially well covered by major U.S. news media outlets. The Guardian, a U.K.-based newspaper with a large U.S. presence, did cover the story, drawing praise from social media users, several of whom called forThe New York Times and The Washington Post to cover the story. The Timesobliged late Saturday morning.
If Trump's remarks didn't dominate the U.S. media cycle, it may be because they weren't taken seriously. But experts on authoritarianism warn against such complacency.
"Trump has worked very hard to condition Americans to accept authoritarianism as a superior form of government," Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian based at New York University, toldProject Syndicate last month, saying it was part of "an emotional re-training."
Trump pledged in December to be a dictator on "day one," if reelected, though he said he wouldn't be a dictator after that. He has in the past expressed admiration for strongmen around the world, and has framed his 2024 campaign as one of retribution, even calling his opponents "vermin." He and his allies have threatened to prosecute their political enemies—political figures and bureaucrats—if they take power in 2025.
A German observer, pointing to his own country's history, pleaded with Americans to take the Republican nominee's proclamations seriously.
"My German grandparents' generation didn’t take Hitler's manifesto Mein Kampf seriously at the time," Stefan Rahmstorf, a prominent oceanographer at the University of Potsdam, wrote on social media in response to Friday's night remarks. "They paid a devastating price for that. I strongly recommend taking very seriously what Trump says."
Critics of the religious right also noted the audience to which Trump made the remarks, warning that Trump was calling for a Christian nation.
"He's talking to 'my beautiful Christians' here. And saying they won't have to vote again," Andrew Seidel, a civil rights attorney and author of a book critical of Christian nationalism, wrote on social media. "This is not subtle Christian nationalism, he's talking about ending our democracy and installing a Christian nation."
Right in the middle of Trump's controversial remarks, he appeared to say that he's not a Christian, and The Guardian initially reported it that way, though the newspaper later amended its article to remove the reference. Others didn't hear it that way. Trump said "I am *A* Christian," drawing out the indefinite article, Seidel argued.
In either case, Trump made his love for his Christian audience clear.
"I love you, Christians, I’m [unclear word] Christian, I love you."
Many Christians seem to love Trump back. A Pew poll from April showed that more than 80% of white evangelicals support the Republican nominee.
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US Voter Registrations Surge as Republicans Try to Limit Ballot Access
One group said it has registered over 100,000 new voters since U.S. President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 race.
Jul 26, 2024
The group behind a popular get-out-the-vote technology platform said Friday that it's registered more than 100,000 new U.S. voters since President Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential race, a surge that came amid mounting Republican efforts to make it harder to register and vote.
Vote.org said that 84% of voters registered in the new wave are under age 35. Nearly 1 in 5 new registrees is 18 years old. Andrea Hailey, the group's CEO, said that "since 2020, we have led the largest voter registration drive in U.S. history," with more than 7.8 million people registered.
After dropping out, Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to face former Republican President Donald Trump and Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) in the November election. The new presumptive Democratic candidate has already earned endorsements from many Democrats in Congress and groups advocating on issues including climate, labor, and reproductive rights.
Vote.org's success comes as Republicans at the federal level are proposing and passing legislation creating obstacles to the ballot box.
Earlier this month, U.S. House Republicans passed Rep. Chip Roy's (R-Texas)
Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which would require proof of American citizenship to vote in federal elections. Republicans claim the bill is meant to fix the virtually nonexistent "problem" of noncitizen voter fraud.
However, Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.)
slammed the bill as a "xenophobic attack" meant to silence "Black voices, brown voices, LBGTQIA+ voices, [and] young voices."
Lee said the SAVE Act underscores the need to pass her recently introduced Right to Vote Act, "which would establish the first-ever affirmative federal voting rights guarantee, ensuring every citizen may exercise their fundamental right to cast a ballot."
Earlier this year, U.S. Senate Democrats also reintroduced the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, legislation its sponsors say will "update and restore critical safeguards of the original Voting Rights Act."
Meanwhile, Republican-controlled state legislatures and red-state governors are enacting laws imposing tough restrictions on voter registration, with violations punishable by stiff fines that critics say are meant to dissuade people from registration drives and similar efforts.
Again under the guise of preventing fraud, Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis last year signed legislation limiting voter registration drives, with fines of up to $250,000 for violators.
"These draconian laws and rules are like taking a sledgehammer to hit a flea," Cecile Scoon, an attorney and president of the Florida chapter of the League of Women Voters,
toldThe New York Times in an article published Friday.
Three years after Kansas passed a law making "false representation" of an election official a crime, campaigners say it's become extremely difficult to sign up new voters.
"In 2020, even with the pandemic, we had registered nearly 10,000 Kansans to vote. Now, we haven't been able to register anyone," Davis Hammet, president of the youth voter mobilization group Loud Light, told the Times.
In Louisiana, Republican state lawmakers quietly passed legislation making it easier for election officials to toss out absentee ballots with missing details, limiting how people can mail in other voters' ballots, and restricting the ability to assist people with disabilities with their ballots.
"What we've found is that these measures have a disproportionate impact on voters with disabilities, both Black and white," NAACP Legal Defense Fund senior policy counsel Jared Evans
toldNola.com earlier this week.
"It's clear that their goal is to make it harder to vote, harder for specific communities to vote especially," Evans added. "What they don't realize is that these laws hurt white voters, too."
In Nebraska, Republican Secretary of State Bob Evnen last week
ordered county election offices to stop registering voters with past felony convictions who have not received official pardons. The move came after the state's unicameral Legislature passed a bill granting voting eligibility to felons immediately after they have completed their sentences instead of waiting two years.
"We refuse to accept thousands of Nebraskans having their voting rights stripped away," ACLU of Nebraska legal and policy fellow Jane Seu said in a statement. "We are confident in the constitutionality of these laws, and we are exploring every option to ensure that Nebraskans who have done their time can vote."
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Critics Warn Manchin-Barrasso Permitting Bill 'Is Taken Straight From Project 2025'
"You thought Project 2025 was just a threat after the election? It's actually happening *right now,*" said one climate campaigner.
Jul 26, 2024
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 campaigners 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.
While Manchin has been trying—and failing—to pass fossil fuel-friendly permitting reform legislation for years, Brett Hartl, director of public affairs at the Center for Biological Diversity, said that his "Frankenstein legislation is taken straight from Project 2025, and it's the biggest giveaway in decades to the fossil fuel industry."
Hartl said the bill "deprives communities of the power to defend themselves and gives that power to Big Oil by making it harder for communities to challenge polluting projects in court," and "prioritizes the profits of coal barons over public health."
"And it mandates oil and gas extraction in our oceans," he continued. "The insignificant crumbs thrown at renewable energy do nothing to address the climate emergency."
"Monday was the hottest day in recorded history," Hartl noted. "It's shocking that as the climate emergency continues to break records around us, the Senate continues to fast-track the fossil fuel expansion that is killing us. This dangerous bill doesn't deserve a floor vote."
Hartl added that "to preserve a livable planet," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) "must squash this legislation now."
Manchin—who has said this will be his last term in office—has been a steadfast supporter of the fossil fuel industry, partly because his family owns a coal company. The senator says his permitting reform bill "will advance American energy once again to bring down prices, create domestic jobs, and allow us to continue in our role as a global energy leader."
However, Allie Rosenbluth, Oil Change International's U.S. manager, warned Thursday that "this bill is yet another dangerous attempt by Sen. Manchin to line the pockets of his fossil fuel donors, sacrificing communities and our climate along the way."
"Don't be fooled: The Energy Permitting Reform Act is another dirty deal to fast-track fossil fuels above all else," she continued. "It would unleash more drilling on federal lands and waters, unnecessarily rush the review of proposed oil and gas export projects, and lift the Biden administration's pause on new LNG exports."
"We urge Congress to reject this proposal and commit to action that protects frontline communities from the impacts of fossil fuel development and the climate crisis," Rosenbluth added.
"Don't be fooled: The Energy Permitting Reform Act is another dirty deal to fast-track fossil fuels above all else."
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."
"We cannot afford to roll back so many of our bedrock environmental and community legal protections and offer a blank check to the oil and gas industry," she stressed. "We need new solutions for permitting if we are going to meet our clean energy potential and address the climate challenge. But this is not it."
"This bill would altogether be a leap backward on climate, health, and justice if passed into law," Adams added. "The Senate should reject it and look toward alternative solutions already being considered."
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