August, 18 2021, 03:18pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Julie Teel Simmonds, Center for Biological Diversity, (619) 990-2999, jteelsimmonds@
Sharon Lavigne, RISE St. James, (225) 206-0900, sharonclavigne@gmail.com
Anne Rolfes, Louisiana Bucket Brigade, (504) 452-4909, anne@labucketbrigade.org
Barbara Washington, Inclusive Louisiana, (225) 678-6857, bobbybee51@hotmail.com
Army Corps Orders Full Environmental Review of Formosa Plastics' Controversial Louisiana Plant
Decision follows lawsuit, permit suspension, public pressure.
WASHINGTON
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced today it will require a full "environmental impact statement" for the massive petrochemical complex Formosa Plastics proposes to build in St. James Parish, Louisiana. The decision is a major victory for opponents of the plant, who sued to block the project in January 2020 and convinced the Army Corps to suspend its permit last fall.
Today's announcement means the Army Corps will now do a complete analysis of the public health, environmental, climate, environmental justice and cultural impacts of what would be one of the world's biggest plastic-making plants. Plaintiff groups representing the Black and low-income communities affected by the project -- from an already polluted industrial corridor known as Cancer Alley or Death Alley -- have long said a proper environmental review would show the project should never be built.
"The Army Corps has finally heard our pleas and understands our pain. With God's help, Formosa Plastics will soon pull out of our community," said Sharon Lavigne with RISE St. James, who earlier this year was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize for her work defending her community from petrochemical polluters. "Nobody took it upon themselves to speak for St. James Parish until we started working to stop Formosa Plastics. Now the world is watching this important victory for environmental justice."
RISE St. James, Louisiana Bucket Brigade and Healthy Gulf were represented in the litigation over this permit by the Center for Biological Diversity. Local opponents of the project have been aggressively dismissed, arrested and publicly criticized over their work to stop this project, which received huge taxpayer subsidies from the state.
"Today's announcement is the ultimate David v. Goliath victory," said Anne Rolfes, executive director of Louisiana Bucket Brigade. "We were not scared of Formosa Plastics and its $9 billion project, or the fact that our governor has been cheering for Formosa all along. St. James Parish residents are the ones who have shown leadership and wisdom. What the Corps has done today is common sense. Of course one of the biggest plastics plants in the world should require an environmental impact statement. Our state and federal officials should have demanded it from the outset. I am hopeful that this is the nail in the coffin of Formosa Plastics in St. James Parish. And don't try to build somewhere else. Pack up and go home."
The proposed facility would emit 13.6 million metric tons of greenhouse gases each year, the equivalent of 3.5 coal-fired power plants. It will also produce 800 tons of toxic air pollutants annually, doubling air emissions in St. James Parish, to produce plastic for single-use packaging and other products. Recent studies have linked exposure to air pollution with higher COVID-19 death rates. It's one likely factor in the disease's disproportionate impact on Black Americans.
The lawsuit sought to invalidate Clean Water Act permits issued by the Army Corps in 2019. It asserted that officials violated federal laws in approving the destruction and damage of wetlands, which help protect the region from hurricanes that are intensifying with climate change. The Corps also ignored the water, air, climate, and health impacts of the complex and failed to properly evaluate and protect burial sites of enslaved people discovered on the property.
"This long-overdue review will show the unacceptable harm Formosa Plastics' massive petrochemical complex would inflict on this community, our waterways, and our climate," said Julie Teel Simmonds, a senior attorney at the Center. "This terrible project shouldn't have been rubber-stamped and it should never be built. Climate action and environmental justice mean we have to stop sacrificing communities and a healthy environment just to make throwaway plastic."
The growing chorus of project opponents includes the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights, which called the project "environmental racism" in March and urged U.S. officials to reject the project.
"Our region is already full of toxic, polluting plants," said Myrtle Felton, director of Inclusive Louisiana. "If Formosa Plastics is allowed to build, it will be a death sentence for us. We can't breathe already so we say no to Formosa and its pollution."
Formosa Plastics' massive proposed petrochemical complex would include 10 chemical manufacturing plants and numerous support facilities, spanning 2,500 acres, just one mile from an elementary school. By turning fracked gas into the building blocks for a massive amount of single-use packaging and other wasteful plastic products, the project would worsen climate change and the ocean plastic pollution crisis.
Last year Formosa Plastics agreed to pay a record $50 million in cleanup and restoration costs to settle a civil lawsuit after its Point Comfort plant discharged billions of plastic pellets into Texas waterways over many years. That settlement included a commitment to zero future plastic discharges from the Texas plant -- a standard that has not been applied to its plant in Louisiana.
At the Center for Biological Diversity, we believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature — to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild animals and plants. Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters and climate that species need to survive.
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'This Is What We're Funding': At Least 50 Children Killed in Israeli Strikes on Jabalia
"Civilians and civilian structures... must always be protected in accordance with international humanitarian law," said the head of UNICEF. "Yet these principles are being flouted over and over again."
Nov 03, 2024
The United Nations children's agency on Saturday condemned the Israel Defense Forces' "indiscriminate strikes on civilians in the Gaza Strip" after at least 50 children were reportedly among those killed in attacks on Jabalia refugee camp in the northern part of the enclave.
Northern Gaza has been under siege since early October, when Israel resumed its attacks there, claiming it was targeting Hamas militants.
The current situation in northern Gaza has been called "apocalyptic" by leading humanitarian groups in recent days, with women and children making up the majority of the hundreds of people killed, and Israel imposing a near-total blockade on humanitarian aid.
Now, said Catherine Russell, executive director of the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF), "the entire Palestinian population in North Gaza, especially children, is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine, and the ongoing bombardments."
In addition to the attacks on residential buildings this weekend in Jabalia, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that an attack on a healthcare center in Gaza City injured at least six people, including four children. The facility was participating in a polio vaccination drive, the second round of inoculations for children across Gaza.
"The Sheikh Radwan primary healthcare center in northern Gaza was struck today while parents were bringing their children to [get] the life-saving polio vaccination in an area where a humanitarian pause was agreed to allow vaccination to proceed," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. "These vital humanitarian-area-specific pauses must be absolutely respected. Ceasefire!"
Russell said the vehicle of a UNICEF staffer who was working on the vaccination campaign was attacked by "what we believe to be a quadcopter while driving through Jabalia—Elnazla."
The staff member was not injured, but Russell said "the attacks on Jabalia, the vaccination clinic, and the UNICEF staff member are yet further examples of the grave consequences of the indiscriminate strikes on civilians in the Gaza Strip."
"Civilians and civilian structures, including residential buildings, as well as humanitarian workers and their vehicles, must always be protected in accordance with international humanitarian law," said Russell. "Yet these principles are being flouted over and over again, leaving tens of thousands of children killed, injured, and deprived of essential services needed for survival."
The Gaza Health Ministry reports that at least 43,341 people have been killed in Gaza and at least 102,105 have been injured since Israel began its assault on the enclave more than a year ago in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack. Women and children make up most of those killed, even as Israel and the United States, the largest international supporter of the IDF, have insisted the military is targeting Hamas.
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Rights advocates were energized by the "gold standard" poll results, but called on progressives to continue working to turn out voters.
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Political observers expressed shock Saturday evening as the Des Moines Register released its final poll before Election Day showing Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris leading Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump by three points.
Harris was supported by 47% of respondents compared to 44% who backed Trump.
The newspaper's poll, conducted by pollster J. Ann Selzer, is widely regarded as the "gold standard" survey of voters in the state and has been recognized as "predicting" numerous election results in Iowa and giving a potential preview of how candidates could fare in other Midwestern states with similar demographics.
Progressive advocates cautioned against placing too much faith in a single poll—even a widely respected one—and urged Harris supporters to continue canvassing, phone-banking, and taking action to defeat Trump and the far-right MAGA movement.
But the unexpected result in a state that hasn't been considered a swing state in this election, and was widely assumed to be a Trump-supporting state, led political observers to look closely at the poll, which showed significant shifts toward Harris among women.
Women aged 65 and older supported Harris over Trump, 63% to 28%, in the poll. Women who identify as political independents also backed her, 57% to 29%.
Overall, women in the state are backing Harris in the poll by a margin of 20 points, according to the survey.
Lyz Lenz, a journalist based in Iowa, said she believed the poll could be linked to one major change in Iowa since the last presidential election: the six-week abortion ban that took effect in July, banning abortion care after fetal cardiac activity can be detected. Similar abortion bans have been blamed for at least four deaths of pregnant women in Texas and Georgia.
"It's the abortion ban," said Lenz. "Women are furious."
Daniel Nichanian, editor-in-chief and founder of the digital magazine Bolts, said the result could preview losses for state Supreme Court justices who have upheld abortion bans in a number of states, including Iowa.
In 10 states this year, voters will make their voices heard on ballot initiatives regarding the right to abortion care. In traditionally red states including Kansas and Kentucky since Roe was overturned, people have voted to protect the right to obtain an abortion.
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Selzer herself told the BBC that many respondents talked about abortion rights.
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Sean Trende, senior elections analyst for RealClearPolitics, said it would be "foolish to dismiss [Selzer's] poll," but cautioned election watchers against abandoning "all of [their] prior views about the state of the race."
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"Dr. Davis, what do I do?" asks a man frantically, kneeling near his partner as she writhes in pain on the floor.
"John, she needs an abortion, or she's going to die from the pregnancy," answers the doctor over the phone.
But a Republican congressman suddenly appears and tells the man, "That's not happening," explaining that abortion care is now banned because the GOP is in control of the government.
The scenario plays out in the latest ad from Progress Action Fund, a Democratic political action committee that's produced a number of viral videos focusing on how Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's policies and those outlined in the right-wing agenda Project 2025 would impact both men and women's ability to make private decisions.
In the ad, the Republican lawmaker tells the man, "I won the last election, so it's my decision" whether the woman is able to receive the standard care needed to end her pregnancy.
"Don't worry, you can still have children," he tells the man. "Just not with her."
Watch:
The ad went viral on social media late Saturday, the day after ProPublica reported on Nevaeh Crain, an 18-year-old in Texas who died last year at six months pregnant, when she was diagnosed with sepsis—a fast-moving and potentially deadly condition that can result from an infection.
Because of Texas' six-week abortion ban, which threatens doctors with prison time if they terminate a pregnancy before a fetal heartbeat has stopped, Crain made three emergency room visits and was required to have multiple ultrasounds as she became increasingly ill. By the time doctors confirmed "fetal demise," Crain's organs had begun failing. She died hours later.
The investigative outlet has also reported on the deaths of another woman in Texas—Josseli Barnica—and two women in Georgia, Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller—from state abortion bans since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022.
"This is a healthcare crisis and Donald Trump is the architect of this crisis," said Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, after the two Georgia women's deaths came to light in September.
Abortion bans and restrictions like those in Texas now exist in 21 states. Both Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) have expressed support for a nationwide ban on abortion care—a position from which they have both attempted to distance themselves as polls have increasingly shown a majority of voters support access to abortion care.
Other viral ads by Progress Action Fund have been more risqué and have even used absurdist humor to warn voters about Project 2025's proposal to ban pornography and emergency contraception.
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