A new report by the Senate finds that FEMA doesn't have a comprehensive disaster housing plan in place and is still not prepared to handle the housing needs of millions if another disaster like Hurricane Katrina hits the United States. More...
FACING SOUTH - Online Magazine of the Institute for Southern Studies
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February 2009 Archives
Louisiana officials will be breaking ties with their scandal-plagued Road Home contractor ICF International once ICF's contract expires in June. More...
It hasn't been a good year so far in terms of preventing regulatory failures at Southern manufacturing plants. This week while the nation is still reeling from a massive salmonella outbreak linked to peanut products from a Georgia plant, news surfaced that a North Carolina syringe factory that distributed tainted syringes operated for almost two years without a federal inspection. More...
Three and a half years after Hurricane Katrina, the Gulf Coast has largely faded from the headlines -- but there are still many tales to be told. More...
The Federal Emergency Management Agency can't seem to stay out of the headlines this week. Critics are blasting the agency for billions in unspent recovery aid. And now it looks like FEMA's New Orleans office is steeped in a scandal that could further jeopardize the already-troubled rebuilding efforts in the region. More...
Legislation has been introduced in states across the South to ban the burning of mountaintop removal coal in power plants. But the utility companies are gearing up for a fight. More...
In an effort to score political points, the governors of several Southern states threatened to refuse some or all of the stimulus money targeted to their states. Guest columnist Marc H. Morial explains why refusing stimulus funds is the political equivalent of cruel and unusual punishment for millions of people. More...
It's been three and a half years since hurricanes Katrina and Rita, but the Gulf Coast is still in crisis. Check out our Mardi Gras Index to see some statistics on how far New Orleans has come and how far the city still has to go. More...
The Tennessee Valley Authority just elected its new board chair: Mike Duncan, outgoing head of the Republican National Committee. The move only adds to the controversy at TVA, which is still grappling with the fallout of last December's catastrophic coal waste disaster in east Tennessee. More...
Ramping up for this week's State of the Union address, Obama again pledged to look out for the Gulf Coast. But where's the money, and what's the plan? More...
Last week the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center provided a 10-minute briefing to community leaders on the scale of the Katrina rebuilding effort compared with the economic stimulus bill. More...
For the past eight years, the oil giant formerly known as British Petroleum has tried to convince the world that its initials stand for "Beyond Petroleum." But guest blogger Phil Mattera suggests the real meaning of BP may just be Brazen Polluter... More...
As millions sit down to watch the Oscars tonight, advocates are calling on people across the nation to take a moment to ask Congress to support the reintroduction of the Gulf Coast Civic Works Act. More...
Nationally, some $2.5 billion will be going to Native American tribes. But tribes in Virginia won't be seeing any funds because Congress has yet to give them federal recognition. More...
A new study found that North Carolina's minority children lag far behind white children in several measures of a child's well-being, including health, poverty and education. More...
In a controversial move, the U.S. is set to deport more than 30,000 Haitians to their homeland, despite warnings from Haitian officials that the impoverished country is still struggling to recover from last year's devastating hurricanes. More...
Two U.S. Senators have written a letter to the Defense Department and U.S. Army demanding answers about the Houston-based contractor's role in knowingly exposing soldiers to a deadly cancer-causing chemical in Iraq. More...
The national stage is being set for one of the most critical labor rights' battles in a generation. As corporations mount aggressive PR campaigns against a pro-worker bill, labor rights groups argue that higher unionization rates can further recovery. More...
Louisiana sits in the potential path of destruction six months out of every year. Dr. Monteic Sizer reports on why Louisiana and other Gulf states must keep one eye on recovery preparedness when determining the use of stimulus funds. More...
New Orleans and Louisiana -- still reeling from Katrina and Gustav -- have countless "shovel-ready" recovery projects. But rising GOP star Gov. Bobby Jindal is threatening to turn down billions in federal stimulus money. Is he serious? More...
Did Duke Energy get special -- and potentially illegal -- treatment from clean air regulators in North Carolina? More...
Guest blogger Phil Mattera reports on the Peanut Corporation of America scandal that has left at least 8 people dead and sickened 500 others. More...
Two state emergency management chiefs, both with more than 20 years of experience, are the Obama administration's lead candidates to head FEMA. More...
FEBRUARY 2009 | An organization financed by the largest private oil and gas corporation in the country played a key role in the fight against the Congressional stimulus plan. Why? More...
Blackwater Worldwide, the controversial private-security firm based in North Carolina, is changing its name in an effort to rebrand its battered reputation. More...
Tests conducted by university researchers raise questions about whether a coal ash pond at a Progress Energy power plant is contaminating the environment. The findings come as Congress considers a bill to to better regulate coal ash storage facilities, but environmental watchdogs warn the legislation does not adequately address the problem. More...
The Army Corps of Engineers announced another delay in its final report on providing Category 5 protection for southern Louisiana. More...
Ten years ago in the small town of Tulia, Texas a rogue cop made one of the largest drug busts in Texas history. Tulia would become a symbol of the failure of the war on drugs and shine a light on a nation still grappling with systemic racism in its criminal justice system. More...
Facing massive deficits, at least 40 states, including 10 Southern states, are proposing or already reducing services to their residents, including some of their most vulnerable families and individuals. More...
Today is the 100th anniversary of the NAACP -- an organization that has not only fought for civil rights, but a broader progressive agenda. In a 2007 address, outgoing NAACP chairman Julian Bond makes the connection between the cause of black freedom and workers' dignity. More...
Following a massive outpouring of public opposition, a provision that would have provided taxpayer subsidies for new nuclear and high-tech coal plants was stripped from the compromise version of the economic stimulus bill. More...
A House committee grilled BoA CEO Ken Lewis after New York's attorney general attacked the bank's "apparent complicity" in Merrill Lynch's decision to hastily dole out nearly $4 billion in executive bonuses last December. More...
The Interior Secretary yesterday announced that he was taking a more careful approach to plans for expanded offshore drilling, but apparently not when it comes to Virginia. More...
Centrists helped force through an economic stimulus bill in the U.S. Senate today. But the compromise comes at a high price: 128,000 to 160,000 fewer jobs in Southern states, according to the Center for American Progress. More...
The federal trial for Jackson, Miss. Mayor Frank Melton began this week. Melton is accused of violating federal civil rights laws during crime-fighting sweeps with the city's mobile police unit. More...
MON 2/9 -- The past few years have seen one of the largest immigration enforcement efforts take place in the United States. But according to a new study, the raids are not picking up the most dangerous fugitives. More...
A handful of Southern governors have attracted media attention for opposing Congress' economic stimulus bill. But most Southern governors disagree -- and are openly calling for emergency funds to lessen massive budget shortfalls. More...
More than three years after Hurricane Katrina, billions of dollars that could go to rebuilding the Gulf region remain bottled up by bureaucratic red tape. More...
A new report released this week by the Black AIDS Institute outlines the promise and the challenge of the current moment in the fight against HIV/AIDS in the black community. More...
Coal combustion waste like the stuff that spilled from the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston power plant back in December is being spread on food crops across the South. But just how safe is the practice, which isn't regulated by the federal government? More...
Everyone is talking about "green jobs," guest contributor Phil Mattera reports. But the first in-depth study of employment in the emerging environmental sector finds a mixed record when it comes to how green industry treats its workers. More...
Activists protest a coal company's potentially catastrophic plans to start blasting operations near a dam holding back 7 billion gallons of toxic coal sludge. They ask the company to consider building a wind farm instead. More...
A report released this month by the Sentencing Project highlights 17 states -- five of which are in the South -- that have enacted sentencing and corrections reforms in 2008. More...
A new report commissioned by Greenpeace says the version of the economic stimulus plan proposed by the president would dramatically reduce U.S. carbon dioxide emissions. But does that plan have any hope of passing the Senate? More...
A lawsuit filed on behalf of juveniles at the New Orleans juvenile detention center has been certified as a class action by a federal judge. More...
More than 200 citizen groups and small businesses have signed on to a letter to U.S. Senators protesting the inclusion of up to $50 billion in taxpayer loan guarantees for nuclear reactors and new coal plants. More...
Bank of America/Merrill Lynch have received $45 billion in taxpayer funds. Does it have anything to do with the $14.5 million they spent on political contributions and lobbying last year? More...
A new analysis of water samples collected downstream of the massive coal ash spill in Tennessee show levels of heavy metals including arsenic, cadmium and lead exceeding various federal standards. Environmental advocates call for more testing -- and better regulation of coal ash. More...
Following in the footsteps of Martin Luther King Jr., climate activists are planning mass civil disobedience in the nation's capital next month to demand U.S. action on global warming. More...
Details are still sketchy of an inmate uprising at a privately-operated federal detention facility in West Texas last Saturday. Reports in the U.S. and Mexican press suggest the revolt, involving hundreds prisoners at the Reeves County Detention Center in Pecos, Tex., erupted after complaints of poor medical treatment went unheeded. More...
In a sign of their ongoing clout in politics and the finance industry, Southern banks have raked in nearly $50 billion in federal money used to purchase troubled bank stock. More...
A independent scientific analysis of the radiation risk from TVA's massive coal ash spill in eastern Tennessee shows how the company downplayed the danger. More...
Thousands of inmates rioted at a private prison in western Texas on Saturday, the second disturbance at the facility in the less than two months. The riots have shed a new light on the continued problems with private prisons. More...
While many of the Gulf states have some of the country's lowest levels of educational attainment, income, and life expectancy, Mississippi ranks last in the nation on overall human development. More...
