Monday, 20 Mar 2006

The Humpty Dance

Bush attempts to weaken Clean Air Act are illegal, court rules

Americans who breathe scored a big victory on Friday, when a federal appeals court declared illegal the Bush administration's long-running effort to undermine pollution rules for coal-fired power plants and other pollution-belching industrial facilities. Judge Judith Rogers, writing for the court, castigated the U.S. EPA for trying to redefine language in the Clean Air Act to selectively exclude many facilities from the requirement that they install new air-pollution controls when making significant upgrades. "EPA's approach would ostensibly require that the definition of 'modification' include a phrase such as 'regardless of size, cost, frequency, effect,' or other distinguishing characteristic," Rogers wrote. "Only in a Humpty Dumpty world would Congress be required to use superfluous words while an agency could ignore an expansive word that Congress did use. We decline to adopt such a worldview." Oh, snap! Enviros and the 14 states that brought the case hailed the decision. No word yet on whether EPA will appeal.


Farmworkers suffer from chemical-related illnesses at a higher rate than any other occupational group, says Tirso Moreno of the Farmworker Association of Florida, which fights for safety and equal rights for farmworkers. As InterActivist this week, Moreno chats about the tribulations of immigrants, the need for stiffer penalties for agri-biz pollutocrats, and why some farmwork is modern-day indentured servitude. Send Moreno a question of your own by noon PST on Wednesday; we'll publish selected answers on Friday.

If At First You Don't Succeed, Tritium Again

Illinois nuke-plant operator sued for tritium spills it tried to hide

Boy, we can't wait for that "safe, clean nuclear power" President Bush is always talking about, 'cause this stuff we have now is kind of nasty. The Braidwood nuclear power plant in Illinois, owned by Exelon Corp., has been leaking millions of gallons of water laced with radioactive tritium, and working overtime to cover it up. The fallout [rim shot]: Last week, the state attorney general and the attorney for Will County filed suit against Exelon, as did a number of nearby homeowners. After people living near the plant pressured the Illinois EPA to get Exelon to test for contamination, the company finally revealed information about four tritium spills at Braidwood between 1996 and 2003; during that time, it had opposed public discussion about tritium as well as legislation to require groundwater monitoring near nuke plants. There was another spill at Braidwood early last week, and tritium leaks have also been found at two other Exelon plants. The mismanagement revelations come just as the nuke industry tries to drum up public support for a new generation of nuke plants. Awkward!


How can you make sure your little bundle of joy doesn't become a little bundle of toxins? You can start by outfitting said baby's nursery with eco-friendly furnishings and trappings. Today, an expectant mother asks advice maven Umbra Fisk how to go about that, and Umbra offers up some pitter-patter.

Yeah, Right, and Greenland Is Melting

Study confirms that rising ocean temps mean more intense hurricanes

A major new study in Science confirms the findings of previous studies: rising ocean temperatures are the primary factor behind stronger, more intense hurricanes in the last few decades. Since 1970, global sea-surface temperatures have risen by 1 degree Fahrenheit, while the yearly number of Category 4 or 5 hurricanes has doubled, it shows. The new study also posits that higher temperatures may lead to a greater number of hurricanes in the North Atlantic basin. Of course, this being a climate-change-related study, there is controversy: skeptics cite other natural phenomena like decreased wind shear as factors behind stronger hurricanes. The study doesn't address why the ocean temperature is rising in the first place. We have a little fringe theory about greenhouse gases, but we'll see how it plays out.

So 2003

Luxury SUVs are losing their cool

The jerk-offs who drive enormous, fuel-hogging luxury SUVs between their gated McMansions, plastic surgeons, and corporate-whore jobs -- not that there's anything wrong with that -- are slowly but surely realizing that they are, in fact, jerk-offs. Sales of all SUVs have dropped, but luxe behemoths like the Hummer H2 are taking a particularly big hit; more than half the folks who bought them and their like are opting for something a little less jerk-offy when they return to the dealer lot. Don't blame high gas prices -- if you can afford a $60,000 personal vehicle, you can afford gas. Instead, status flaunters are starting to detect the one thing that can change their behavior: the disapproval of their peers. It seems contributing to global warming, conflict in the Middle East, and aesthetic pollution is no longer cool.