Facing South

Are utilities' plans for shoring up hazardous coal ash dams good enough?

2010-02-09T15:05:28Z

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has released action plans submitted by 22 coal-fired power plants to improve the safety of the massive dammed surface impoundments where they store toxic coal ash, but environmental advocates question whether the plans do enough to protect the public from disaster.

That's because in the absence of federal regulations treating coal ash as hazardous waste, the EPA lacks authority to strictly enforce the plans.

The utilities submitted the plans to EPA in response to the agency's on-site assessments of the impoundments, ordered after the catastrophic December 2008 collapse of a coal ash impoundment at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston power plant in eastern Tennessee. The agency made the plans available to the public last week.

"EPA is committed to making communities across the country safer places to live," said Mathy Stanislaus, assistant administrator for EPA's Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response. "The information we are releasing today shows that we continue to make progress in our efforts to prevent future coal ash spills."

The plans made public so far address recommendations for 43 impoundments at 22 plants, including 10 across the South. Altogether, the agency has identified 49 coal ash impoundments at 30 different plants as high-hazard, meaning that a failure would probably cause a loss of human life. Not all of the action plans submitted to date are for the highest-hazard facilities.

Attorney Lisa Evans, a coal ash specialist with the environmental law firm Earthjustice, praised EPA for sharing the companies' plans with the public. But she questioned whether these voluntary plans for shoring up the structures are adequate given the potential threat to communities.

"Where are the administrative orders to the facilities with enforceable time lines?" asked Evans. "Unless these things are formalized, enforceable and tracked by the agency, I don't think there's much use to them."

EPA stated that if facilities "fail to take sufficient measures, EPA will take additional action, if the circumstances warrant" -- but it does not specify what that action might be. Evans pointed out that unless coal ash is declared hazardous, there cannot be strict federal enforcement. And to date, the EPA has declined to designate coal ash as hazardous waste.

"We can't fault EPA for not issuing orders in lieu of accepting voluntary agreements, since the law is not there for them to enforce," Evans acknowledged. "This clearly illustrates an important gap that could have life-or-death consequences."

Since last May, EPA has been conducting on-site assessments of coal ash impoundments and similar waste storage facilities at electric utilities nationwide. It hired contractors with expertise in dam safety to assess all of the known units with a dam hazard potential rating of "high" or "significant" as reported by the electric utilities themselves (except for those owned by the federally overseen Tennessee Valley Authority, which are being evaluated on a separate schedule).

Evans also questioned the adequacy of the inspections, which were based on visual assessments of the sites, interviews with on-site personnel and reviews of technical reports and other documents where available. "No new core samples or really invasive and diagnostic testing was conducted," she said.

In some cases, the companies' vague plans to address serious problems seem to justify concerns about EPA's lack of enforcement authority. For example:

* The final inspection report [pdf] for Alabama Power/Southern Co.'s Plant Gorgas in Walker County, Ala. noted "minor" seepage at one location on the dam. In response, the company said it "intends to monitor this issue and take any measure as [it] may deem necessary to ensure the continued integrity of the structure," but it did not offer any specifics. Plant Gorgas is located on the Mulberry Branch of the Black Warrior River, which along with its tributaries is a major source of drinking water for cities including Tuscaloosa and Birmingham, Ala.

* The final inspection report [pdf] for Duke Energy's Allen plant in Gaston County, N.C. documented the presence of scarps -- large cracks cause by erosion -- near the crest of a dam as well as seepage, and recommended maintenance work to detect stability issues. In its action plan [pdf], the company said that the "scarps and seepage noted in this inspection report have been identified in previous inspections performed by independent engineering consultants" and that it "will continue to monitor these areas." The Allen plant sits on Lake Wylie, a man-made reservoir on the Catawba River, which was named the most endangered U.S. river in 2008 by American Rivers.

* Inspectors recommended [pdf] that the LG&E/E.ON US Trimble plant near Bedford, Ky. develop plans to establish a firm schedule for maintenance at its ash pond. But the company's action plan [pdf] said only that it is "currently considering development" of such plans. The plant is located on the Ohio River 50 miles northeast of Louisville, Ky.

* At Progress Energy's Cape Fear plant in Chatham County, N.C., inspectors found [pdf] an area of ponded water at the edge of one dike and recommended improving the grading or, if the area couldn't be fully drained, buttressing the structure. Progress Energy responded [pdf] that it needed to gain permission from an adjacent landowner to access the problem area and would make the necessary improvements "[p]roviding access is allowed." The plant sits alongside the Haw River, a tributary of the Cape Fear.

* Meanwhile, EPA is getting push-back on inspectors' recommendations for the impoundments at American Electric Power's Philip Sporn plant along the Ohio River in Mason County, W.Va. The company has indicated its willingness to conduct some stability studies, but said the recommended liquefaction tests -- another assessment of stability -- would not be necessary since the company has conducted generic liquefaction tests. However, EPA's inspector for the site continues to believe liquefaction studies should be conducted for the plant's two impoundments, which have been designated high-hazard facilities. On Nov. 13, 2009, EPA sent a letter to AEP requesting the tests, but there is no indication that the company will conduct them.

The EPA had promised to release proposed federal regulations for coal ash by the end of 2009, but in December said that it was delaying the release "due to the complexity of the analysis." The utility industry has been lobbying hard to keep coal ash from being designated as hazardous waste, even though the material contains potentially dangerous levels of toxins including arsenic, lead and mercury.

To see the action plans submitted by the utilities, click here and scroll down to the documents marked "New."

(Photo shows the aftermath of the December 2008 coal ash impoundment failure at the TVA's Kingston power plant in eastern Tennessee.)

Who dat in the New Orleans mayor's office?

2010-02-08T19:08:28Z

With the Saints en route to a dazzling Super Bowl victory and Mardi Gras celebrations ramping up towards Fat Tuesday, in New Orleans it was almost an afterthought that they were electing a mayor this weekend.

But in many ways, Lt. Governor Mitch Landrieu's landslide victory in the mayoral race was just as eye-opening as a Terry Porter interception or a shiny Shangri-La krewe float.

Landrieu was heavily favored in the 11-strong field of mayoral hopefuls. But the final votes were even more lopsided than expected: When the dust settled, Landrieu garnered 66% of the city vote, easily enough to bypass a run-off and assume leadership of the city.

Here are some numbers and history to give you a sense of just how big Landrieu's landslide victory was:

* Out of 366 precincts in Orleans Parish, Landrieu got 50% or more of the vote in all but 10 of them, or 97% of all precincts. Landrieu was the leader, winning the plurality of votes, in all precincts but one (09-45A, in far-east Lake Catherine).

* Landrieu also won 64% of early voters, about two-thirds of which were African American voters.

* Landrieu's dominance is especially notable given that primaries for New Orleans mayoral races are usually at least somewhat competitive: Only three primary races have avoided run-offs in the last 24 years:

NOLA MAYOR PRIMARY VOTE LEADERS, 1986 - 2010

2010 - Mitch Landrieu - 66% (no run-off)
2006 - Ray Nagin - 38% (won in run-off)
2002 - Ray Nagin - 29% (won in run-off)
1998 - Marc Morial - 79% (no run-off)
1994 - Donald Mintz - 37% (lost in run-off to Marc Morial)
1990 - Sidney Barthelemy - 54% (no run-off)
1986 - William Jefferson - 39% (lost in run-off to Sidney Barthelemy)

Landrieu clearly had a lot going for him: Name recognition, lineage in one of Louisiana's most powerful political families, support from the state Democratic machine and a healthy campaign war chest.

But Landrieu had many of those same advantages in 2006, when he pushed Ray Nagin to a run-off but ultimately lost 52-48.

In the 2006 election, Nagin was propelled to victory largely thanks to massive turnout from African-American voters, who drove hundreds of miles from places like Atlanta, Houston and Memphis to ensure their voice was heard and the city's black political heritage was protected.

For various reasons, many African-American voters pulled the lever for Landrieu this time. But there are understandably mixed feelings about the first white mayor taking office since 1978, when Landrieu's father Moon Landrieu left office.

Beneath the excitement of the Super Bowl and Mardi Gras, one statistic from Saturday's election reveals the ongoing struggles the people of New Orleans face: In 2006, there were 442 voting precincts in New Orleans.

This year, there were only 366 precincts -- a reflection of the fact that since Katrina, at least 20% of the population has never made it home.

VOICES: Job losses a social state of emergency

2010-02-06T17:01:58Z

Ajamu Dillahunt is a long-time labor and community activist in the South, outreach director at the N.C. Justice Center and co-chair of the board of the Institute for Southern Studies. The following speech was given at a press conference for HKonJ, an annual march in Raleigh, N.C. promoting a state-wide progressive agenda. The march this year will take place on February 13.

By Ajamu Dillahunt

Communities across the United States are experiencing the most difficult economic times since the Great Depression. Our region in particular is suffering under the weight of joblessness, foreclosures and escalating incarceration rates.

Changes in the political landscape that led to President Obama's victory in 2008 have not translated into changes in the quality of life for many residents of our region.

As reported by the Institute for Southern Studies in their recent report, 8 out the 13 Southern states have unemployment rates over 10%, rank number 8 of the 10 states with the lowest median income and occupy position number 11 of the 15 states with the highest rates of incarceration.

The popular wisdom in the African American community says that when white America gets a cold, the black community gets pneumonia. Clearly what is a rough recession for the rest of the country is a Depression for African Americans. Black unemployment was 16.2% in December of last year in comparison to the white rate of 9%, a drop from November.

According to United for a Fair Economy, blacks earn 62 cents for every dollar of white income. Blacks have 10 cents of net worth for every dollar of white net wealth. Blacks are 3 times as likely to live in poverty as whites. Black unemployment in North Carolina is a frightening 14%, 5 points higher than that for whites. This last statistic is the basis for a "social state of emergency."

What we need to bring an end to the suffering is a public jobs program that pays living wages, provides training and offers sustainable employment. Billions of dollars have been spent to bring relief to the banking industry but not nearly enough has been done for the working families in our urban and rural communities.

We want a jobs program that provides funds for states, municipalities, non-profits and small businesses to immediately hire the long termed unemployed to do work that rebuilds our communities.

Weatherization, repair and rehabilitation of schools and other public facilities, daycare and other human services functions are examples of what the newly employed workers can do while helping local economies with the income and spending that has long been absent because of extreme joblessness. Tax incentives to small business that hire will not generate enough jobs at the rate they are needed.

Those lawmakers in Washington like the Congressional Black Caucus who have advocated a targeted approach to job creation have identified the best way to help those in greatest need. Communities with the highest rates of unemployment and greatest number of unemployed low income persons should receive a rapid infusion of federal dollars that will come from redirecting funds that were set aside to assist the financial institutions and increasing taxes on the wealthy.

We are asking that our Congressional delegation, along with our state and local officials join us in supporting legislation like the Put America to Work Act, HR 4268 that will create 1 million jobs. There are other initiatives like the Community Jobs Emergency Employment Program being advanced by groups like the Center for Community Change which calls for 2 million jobs over a two-year period.

And we call on our friends to support the efforts of coalitions like Jobs for America Now that call for an extension of unemployment insurance benefits and COBRA benefits, in addition to a robust jobs program. We are willing to work with state government in crafting projects that will utilize the funds from a public jobs program without displacing current employees.

Regrettably, the initial federal government efforts were aimed at Wall Street. More recently the target for support has been the so-called "Main Street." We would add to that a call for aid for "Martin Luther King Blvd" and "South Street."

Communities that were struggling before the recession have to be a priority if the entire state and nation is going to recover.

Tea Party dabbles in immigration politics

2010-02-05T15:24:28Z

By Marcelo Ballvé, New America Media

The Tea Party movement has energized activism against President Obama's vision for immigration reform.

The link between Tea Partiers and immigration politics developed last summer, when the impact of illegal immigration on the health care system became a prominent side issue in town hall debates.

Since then, illegal immigration has steadily gained ground on the Tea Party agenda.

Immigration "is one of our main issues in the state of North Carolina," said David DeGerolamo, co-founder of Tea Party group NC Freedom, in a phone interview. "And what it comes down to is that the United States is a republic based on the rule of law. What part of illegal is right?"

DeGerolamo is scheduled to give a talk today on "How to Unite State Tea Party Groups" at the National Tea Party Convention, which began yesterday in Nashville.

The Nashville event has devoted a good share of its spotlight to activists devoted to promoting get-tough policies against illegal immigrants and blocking White House plans to offer a path to legal status for the nation's 12 million undocumented immigrants.

These activists label such legislation as amnesty, and they helped derail a similar effort in 2007 that had the backing of then-President George W. Bush.

Tom Tancredo, a former Colorado congressman whose signature issue was illegal immigration, was yesterday's kick-off speaker at the Nashville convention, which is headlined by former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

Tancredo served 10 years in the House beginning in 1999, but gained widespread notoriety in 2002 when he called for the deportation of an undocumented honors student after a newspaper wrote about his inability to gain in-state tuition for college.

Also leading a session at the convention is NumbersUSA, a Washington, D.C. organization that advocates for lower immigration levels.

In the Tea Parties, groups like NumbersUSA discovered a new opportunity to spread and amplify their message, said Devin Burghart, who tracks the Tea Party movement from Seattle for the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights.

"It has become far more common for Tea Party groups to discuss the topic of undocumented immigrants at events and on their websites," he said. "In terms of their long-term planning it is clearly becoming a part of their agenda."

Of course, the links between hardline immigration activists and Tea Partiers don't necessarily add up to a united front on immigration.

With a movement as fractured, fast changing and diffuse as the Tea Parties, it's difficult to establish a clear idea of activists' views on a single issue.

"Immigration is not a part of the movement's 'platform,'" Keli Carender, a prominent Tea Party blogger and speaker at the Nashville convention, wrote in e-mail to New America Media. "I'm sure every person involved in the movement has their own personal views on immigration, and though they may be espoused from time to time, they ... may not be representative of anyone else in the movement."

Individual candidates linked to the Tea Party movement, however, have embraced the illegal immigration issue.

Judge Roy Moore, who is running as a conservative in Alabama's 2010 governor's race and will speak in Nashville, has made immigration one of the five topics covered in his platform.

Moore is known for his refusal as Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments from the state courthouse.

"Definitely, he's against illegal immigration," said Moore spokesman John Wahl. "There are a lot of things that can be done. There's things like making the official language [in Alabama] English. That's just common sense when you think about it." Moore also supports state laws to penalize undocumented immigrant workers.

Moore's support for establishing English as an official language in Alabama is part of a wave of similar "English first" proposals that have caught on in state houses and city council chambers, in part thanks to the efforts of anti-illegal immigration activists. The issue has caught on with Tea Partiers, too.

For example, "official English" made a strong showing in the "Contract from America," a document being prepared online with input from Tea Partiers nationwide. The contract will signal the Tea Party movement's policy priorities ahead of the 2010 midterm elections.

Of the various immigration policy proposals submitted, "An Official Language of the United States" won the most votes. And it ranked eighth overall -- higher than interstate health insurance competition and just below a proposal to end lifetime salary and benefits for members of Congress.

The contract, which will be finalized this spring, has won praise from former House majority leader Dick Armey who heads FreedomWorks, the Washington, D.C.-based conservative group that has promoted Tea Party activism.

In the Florida Republican primary for a U.S. Senate seat, Tea Party-fueled upstart conservative Marco Rubio has been pressed to take a more vocal stance against illegal immigration as he tries to steal the primary away from sitting Governor Charlie Crist, a moderate.

Javier Manjarres, 37, a Colombian-American conservative activist in South Florida, uploaded a video on YouTube Jan. 26 in which he grills Rubio on immigration and reminds the candidate of his opposition to "any form of amnesty for immigrants who have broken federal law and stayed in our country illegally."

The video was meant to showcase Rubio's views on illegal immigration after conservatives who accused him of being soft on the issue had heckled the candidate at a forum in Broward County, Manjarres said. "I think he just had to become more vocal. I think he's always had these views. He just never really had to defend them."

"Immigration is huge" with the Florida Tea Partiers, said Manjarres, who heads his own Ft. Lauderdale-based organization, Conservative Republican Alliance and moves in conservative and Tea Party circles. "Everyone knows what's at stake there. The immigration issue will be as big as health care."

Manjarres's organization was among the first to endorse Rubio's candidacy.

In Martin County, Fla., north of Palm Beach, the Martin 9-12 Tea Party Committee lists "enforcement of immigration laws," along with limited government and lower taxes, as one of its conditions for candidate endorsements.

The Tea Partiers' connection to immigration was forged last summer and fall, when the health care and immigration debates fused at Tea Party events and protests. One such event was an August town hall event in Raleigh, N.C. organized by DeGerolamo, NC Freedom's co-founder.

Two of the four invited speakers were prominent immigration restrictionists: William Gheen, head of Americans for Legal Immigration Political Action Committee (ALIPAC) and John Armor, a lawyer associated with the American Civil Rights Union.

On YouTube videos of the event, Gheen warns the Tea Partiers about Obama's "massive amnesty" plan to legalize undocumented immigrants, and both Gheen and Armor described the problem of "anchor babies."

Immigration restrictionists have long alleged immigrant mothers enter the country illegally to give birth on U.S. soil so that their children will have citizenship and eventually, through family reunification visas, be able to pass legal status to the rest of the family.

At the same Aug. 26 town hall, Ada Fisher, Republican National Commiteewoman for North Carolina, earned a loud round of applause for this statement criticizing federal laws requiring multilingual medical interpreters: "You cannot be one nation under God when everyone's speaking something different."

Not everyone agrees that Tea Party organizing has begun exerting a significant influence on the immigration debate at a national level.

Tamar Jacoby, a conservative who heads ImmigrationWorks USA, a pro-immigration business group, agrees that Tea Partiers may take up immigration in earnest in the future.

But for the time being, she sees the Tea Partiers still in a very early stage of organizing and far more zeroed-in on limited government and fiscal issues.

And the Tea Party movement's allies in the political establishment, Republicans like Armey of FreedomWorks and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, still have a chance to influence the course Tea Party activism will take on issues such as immigration, Jacoby said. "Leadership will matter. What Palin and Armey say will be very important."

Palin and Armey are hardly firebrands on the immigration issue.

Armey, as Jacoby pointed out, is an "old friend" of immigration reform. Armey has spoken out about making the system "more orderly" but "not more restrictive."

Palin's position on immigration is still hazy. In a recent interview on the Glenn Beck program she said, "I think Republicans, conservatives are at fault when we allow the other side to capture this immigration issue and try to turn this issue into something negative for Republicans," she said, according to a Fox News transcript.

Palin stressed immigration laws should be followed, but added, "We need to continue to be so welcoming."

Whatever the ultimate Tea Party effect is on immigration politics, candidates and elected officials often come to recognize there is a political cost to taking hard-line stances, said Stephen Fotopulos of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition.

Fotopulos cited the example of Harold Ford, Jr. who ran "sensationalist ads about being tough on illegal immigrants" when he ran for office in Tennessee. Now, Ford is campaigning for U.S. Senate in New York, where the immigrant vote is powerful.

"We will see those ads again, used against him," said Fotopulos.

(Photo of Tea Party protest by Sage Ross via Wikimedia Commons)

Tea Time: What next for the tea party "movement?"

2010-02-05T13:09:24Z

This weekend, the tea party cause -- which exploded on the scene in opposition to the stimulus package and Wall Street bailouts last spring -- gets its closeup with its first major national meeting: The National Tea Party Convention in Nashville, Tennessee.

There's no denying that the tea partiers are a real political phenomenon. But the convention comes at a time of growing inner turmoil among key activists and looming questions about the movement's direction.

Here are four key issues to watch heading into the tea party confab this weekend:

1 - IS THERE A POPULIST IN THE BUILDING? Going to the tea party confab isn't for those of modest means: On top of a $560 registration fee, attendees are staying at the "luxurious" Gaylord Opryland Resort ($149/night + $25/day parking, conference rates). Tickets are sold out, but the curious can still buy a $349 ticket to see Sarah Palin keynote the convention banquet tomorrow, a gig that will net her $100,000.

For a movement focused on Washington excess, these big numbers have rankled many in the tea party ranks, as did news that the conference organizer -- Memphis-area DUI lawyer Judson Phillips -- saw the conference as a money-making venture.(Erick Erickson of the blog RedState: "I think it is a great con of people making money off the passions of others.")

Some of the sparring is just jockeying for position among self-anointed tea party leaders. But it also points to a real tension at the heart of the tea party, or any right-wing populist movement: the disconnect between the leadership, who aim to protect the interests of the wealthy, versus the realities of their less-privileged base, who must be persuaded that all of their economic hardships can be blamed on high taxes and big government.

As the tea party cause grows -- and as conservative leaders try to piggy-back on its success -- the disconnect will grow between groups like FreedomWorks, the slick DC operation with $8 million in annual revenues (2008 director's salary: $550,000), and grassroots outfits like Tea Party Patriots, a volunteer operation open to "anyone who identifies with the tea party movement."

2 - CAN THEY GET ORGANIZED? No one doubts they have passion. They also have a decent public image: A CNN poll this week found that one-third of the U.S. public has a favorable view of tea partiers.

But organizationally, the movement is a mess. Relationships between the 12 leading tea party groups have been increasingly marked by bickering and turf wars. Ned Ryun of American Majority's attacks on convention organizer Phillips are typical:

"Who is this guy? What are his motivations? And what gives him the credibility to try to step in and insert himself as a leader of the movement?"

The big issue now is how to relate to the Republican Party. Tea partiers are bitterly divided on the question: GOP operatives want to absorb the activist energy and channel it towards electoral victories in 2010 and beyond; many grassroots activists want to stay independent.

These are dilemmas any opposition movement runs into: inside vs. outside, top-down or bottom-up, power vs. purity. But it's an especially big challenge for the tea partiers, a group born out of anti-Washington anger who balk at the idea of being turned into foot soldiers for a system they despise.

3 - WILL THE SOCIAL CONSERVATIVES TAKE OVER? So far, tea partiers have largely succeeded in maintaining peace between two wings of the conservative base: economic libertarians and "values voters." But they've largely done that by downplaying the latter's concerns over immigration, abortion and gay marriage; as Grover Norquest of Americans for Tax Reform noted, "[W]hen you talk to [tea party] leaders, they say, we just do economics. We don't do other stuff."

But yesterday, the "kick off speaker" opening the convention was Tom Tancredo, the former Colorado congressman who has become a controversial leader of the anti-immigration movement. In his speech, Trancredo thundered that "people who could not spell the word vote or say it in English put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House."

Such dalliances into the murkier swamps of nativism and divisive social debates may appeal to people like religious conservatives in the GOP base, but it also risks further splintering the cause and driving away independents.

4 - CAN THEY BROADEN THEIR BASE? Tancredo's presence also points to another problem for the tea partiers: Their narrow social base. If you watched the town hall protests last year, the profile of typical convention attendee might sound familiar. As Jay Newton-Small of Time reports:

Attendees were mostly white and older; there were more women than men. Some were Republicans, more were Independents. To a person they loved Sarah Palin. A couple were even Democrats.

In our increasingly-diverse country, that means tea partiers are drawing from a shrinking base of voters and the public. Tennessee, where the conference is being held, has the fourth fastest-growing Latino/Hispanic population in the country. 17% of the state's population is African-American, and 55% of Tennesseans under age 30 voted for Barack Obama.

In other words, the tea partier's base of "old, angry and white" puts them on the wrong side of where our country is headed demographically. It also makes them easy to dismiss as sentimental conservatives: afraid of change, more interested in fighting to bring back the good old ways rather than shaping the future.

INDEX: Nuking the taxpayers

2010-02-04T14:54:19Z

Percent by which President Obama's latest budget proposal would increase taxpayer-backed loan guarantees to build new nuclear reactors: 300

Amount the Department of Energy under President Bush originally proposed spending on loan guarantees for nuclear reactors: $18.5 billion

Amount the Obama administration is now proposing to spend: $54 billion

Number of new reactors that Energy Secretary Steven Chu says that amount could support: 7 to 10

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office's estimate of the risk of default on these loans, leaving taxpayers to pick up the tab: 50%

Potential risk exposure to taxpayers based on various proposed scenarios for new nuclear plant construction, as calculated by the Union of Concerned Scientists: $360 billion to $1.6 trillion

Current price estimate for a new reactor: $10 billion

Of the 4 nuclear reactor construction projects considered front-runners for loan guarantees*, number in the South: 3

Early cost estimate for the two reactors proposed for the V.C. Summer plant in South Carolina, a joint project of SCE&G and Santee Cooper: $9.8 billion

Current cost estimate for that project: nearly $11 billion

Current estimated cost of the project to build two new reactors at the Southern Co./Georgia Power Plant Vogtle in Waynesboro, Ga.: $14 billion

Year in which the Georgia legislature passed a law allowing Georgia Power to begin charging customers for the Vogtle reactors even before they were licensed: 2009

Date on which the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced that Westinghouse failed to demonstrate that the building designed to shield its AP1000 reactor -- the design slated for Vogtle and Summer -- was safe: 10/15/2009

Original cost estimate for the two reactors at the South Texas Project, which involves NRG Energy, CPS Energy and Toshiba: $5.4 billion

Adjusted cost estimate announced last fall: $13 billion

Current cost estimate for the project: $17 billion

Amount in damages CPS is seeking via a lawsuit that alleges NRG and Toshiba conspired to mislead its officials on the reactors' cost: $32 billion

Current estimated cost of the EPR reactor proposed for Calvert Cliffs in Maryland, not including financing: $10 billion

The estimated cost of an identical reactor being considered in Pennsylvania: $13 billion to $15 billion

During the previous nuclear push of the 1970s and 1980s, number of new plants utilities abandoned due to cost overruns: about 100

Estimated amount taxpayers and ratepayers paid for those abandoned plants: $40 billion

Amount ratepayers paid in today's dollars in cost overruns for the plants that were built: over $200 billion

Year in which Forbes magazine called the previous round of nuclear plant construction "the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster on a monumental scale": 1985

Estimated additional amount it would cost to generate electricity today from 100 new nuclear reactors instead of generating the same amount of power from a combination of energy efficiency and renewables: $1.9 trillion to $4.1 trillion

* In the South, two new reactors are slated for V.C. Summer in South Carolina, two for Plant Vogtle in Georgia, and two at the South Texas Project near San Antonio. One reactor is also planned at Maryland's Calvert Cliffs, a joint undertaking of Constellation Energy and the French government-owned Electricité de France.

(Click on figure to go to the original source.)

North Carolina orders utilities to test groundwater near coal ash ponds

2010-02-03T17:56:59Z

Duke Energy's permits to release pollution from three coal-burning power plants in the Charlotte area expire early this year, and for the first time the North Carolina Division of Water Quality will require the company to test groundwater near the facilities' coal ash ponds.

The move is part of a broader effort by North Carolina to address environmental concerns in the wake of the disastrous 2008 collapse of a coal ash waste pond at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston plant in eastern Tennessee -- but some are wondering whether the state's action is too little, too late.

NCDWQ has asked Duke Energy as well as Progress Energy -- the state's two largest electric utilities -- to select sites for installing groundwater monitoring wells near the ash ponds, the Raleigh News & Observer reports. The three Duke plants whose permits are up for renewal soon are the Riverbend and Allen plants in Gaston County and the Marshall plant in Catawba County.

The state's policy change comes after an environmental advocacy group documented serious problems with groundwater contamination at the state's coal ash ponds. Last fall, Appalachian Voices' Upper Watauga Riverkeeper released an analysis of in-depth monitoring data from coal ash ponds located next to Duke and Progress Energy's 13 coal-burning power plants across the state, finding that all of them are contaminating groundwater with toxic metals and other pollutants.

The existing wells that provided the data were installed voluntarily by the utilities close to the ponds. The wells that the state wants installed would be located further away from the ponds.

But Catawba Riverkeeper David Merryman called the state's monitoring well order a "baby step" and questioned whether its placement requirements were appropriate, the Charlotte Observer reports:

"Really we need wells on the border of the property," he said, "and if there's contamination they need to look outside the boundary."

Over at the blog of Creative Loafing, Charlotte's alternative weekly, Rhiannon Bowman -- who recently wrote a story about Merryman's efforts to protect Charlotte's drinking water from ash pond contamination for Charlotte magazine -- greeted the North Carolina's announcement with skepticism:

The state has known about contaminated groundwater at these sites for quite some time. The moment they discovered the water was contaminated they should have demanded further testing, but they didn't.

In addition, it remains unclear what North Carolina regulators would do if the required monitoring wells confirmed groundwater contamination coming from the coal ash ponds.

ANALYSIS: Southerners a stronghold of far-right views in Republican Party

2010-02-03T14:05:44Z

This week, DailyKos released the eye-opening results of a poll of 2,000 Republicans across the country, which found that astonishingly large numbers of GOP voters believe President Obama is racist, a socialist, and a non-citizen -- views that have become staples of far-right radio and TV pundits.

As Sam Stein of the Huffington Post says:

[The poll] illustrates the incredible paranoia enveloping the party and the intense pressure drawing lawmakers further and further away from political moderation.

But the poll has one big flaw: 42% of those polled came from Southern states -- way out of proportion with their share of Republican voters nationally.

This over-sampling of Southern Republicans (846 total) skews the national results, but it also means the data gives us an especially rich picture of the views held by GOP voters in the South.

And the picture is unmistakable: On almost every issue, Southern Republicans are far to the right of their national GOP brethren. In fact, GOP Southerners appear to be the driving base for some of the most extreme views circulating in the Republican Party today.

To measure this, normally we'd compare the Southern results to the national average, and then see what the difference is. But since the poll disproportionately surveyed Southerners to start with, instead I looked at how the Southern answers compared to the next most conservative region.

For example, here are four questions the poll asked Republicans about President Obama, with the Southern poll numbers compared to the next-highest region (in each of these cases, the Midwest):

QUESTION: Should Barack Obama be impeached, or not?
South: 42% yes
Next-highest region: 38% yes
Southern difference: +4%

QUESTION: Do you believe Barack Obama was born in the United States, or not?
South: 43% no
Next-highest region: 33% no
Southern difference: +10%

QUESTION: Do you think Barack Obama is a socialist?
South: 67% yes
Next-highest region: 61% yes
Southern difference: +6%

QUESTION: Do you believe Barack Obama wants the terrorists to win?
South: 28% yes
Next-highest region: 22% yes
Southern difference: +6%

An important reminder: These are just self-identified Southern Republicans -- a big caveat, given that Democrats still have a voter registration advantage in most Southern states, even in "red states" that voted against Obama in 2008 (for example, Louisiana has twice as many registered Democrats as Republicans).

It's also true that Southerners are hardly alone in holding extreme views: The fact that "only" 60% of Republicans in the West, for example, believe that Obama is a socialist, or that 34% of GOP voters in the Northeast think the president should be impeached is hardly a testament to national moderation.

But it's also clear that the South remains a uniquely strong base for the GOP's most extreme views. The embrace of Southern Republicans of the "birther" issue is especially notable, given its likely roots in discomfort with Obama's cultural and racial heritage.

In short: The poll doesn't reflect a general shift to the right in the South. But it does show the growing hold of a certain form of far-right politics in Southern Republican circles, and a high level of receptivity among Republican Southerners to some of the conservative movement's most extreme views.

Alabama dump taking TVA's spilled coal ash declares bankruptcy

2010-02-02T17:56:02Z

The landfill in Perry County, Ala. that has been taking coal ash spilled from the failed waste pond at Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston plant has declared bankruptcy -- a move that leaves a planned lawsuit to halt the dumping up in the air.

Arrowhead Landfill owner Perry-Uniontown Ventures I LLC, also known as Perry County Associates, filed for bankruptcy last week in Mobile, Ala., the Selma Times-Journal reports:

In court documents filed with the bankruptcy petition, Perry-Uniontown Ventures I LLC claimed two other operations, Phillips & Jordan Inc. and Phill-Con Services have withheld money paid by the TVA for accepting coal ash at the landfill located near Uniontown.

The complaint also asked for an accounting, indicating PUV did not know where the money paid by TVA for the disposal went.

Perry-Uniontown Ventures I LLC claims its three largest creditors are P&J for $3.9 million, the Perry County Commission for $779,837 and the Alabama Department of Revenue for $11,000 in sales tax.

TVA and its disposal contractor say the bankruptcy filing won't stop ash shipments to the facility. However, the filing automatically brings a halt to a planned lawsuit aimed at stopping the dumping, since no new litigation can be brought against entities in bankruptcy proceedings.

The coal ash is currently being shipped by rail from the spill site in eastern Tennessee's Roane County, with more than 1 million tons received to date. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which is overseeing the disposal, expects 3 million of the 5 million cubic yards of ash spilled from the TVA plant to end up at the Perry County dump. The deal was among the reasons cited by environmental justice advocates calling for an investigation into the EPA's treatment of black communities in the South.

Some residents of Perry County -- a majority African-American Black Belt community where more than 30% of residents live below the poverty line -- were planning to file a federal lawsuit against the facility.

David A. Ludder, an environmental attorney in Florida who has been working with about 150 Perry County residents, submitted notices of intent to sue to the landfill's owners in December. The notices allege violations of the federal Solid Waste Disposal Act and the Clean Air Act, the Perry County Herald reports. Ludder said he's now examining their options.

Among those who have accused the landfill of not operating safely is Hurricane Creekkeeper John Wathen, who says he's discovered the operators dumping liquid waste into ditches along the road in front of people's homes, the Locust Fork News-Journal reports. Nearby residents -- some who live literally a stone's throw from the dump -- have also complained of foul odors.

Proponents of the dumping plan have argued that it would bring jobs to the area as well as a much-needed economic boost to the impoverished county's coffers. Under the dumping deal, Perry County is supposed to get $1.05 for each ton of ash delivered.

UPDATE 2/4/2010: In the latest news on the bankruptcy filing, the Tuscaloosa News reports that no money was in fact withheld from Perry County. Jeffery J. Hartley, the attorney who represents the companies that own the landfill and hold the permits, told the paper that the bankruptcy filings would be amended to reflect that.

(Photo of Arrowhead Landfill by John Wathen/SouthWings.)

VOICES: A corporate full-body scan

2010-02-02T15:17:21Z

By Phil Mattera, Dirt Diggers Digest

The one redeeming feature of the abominable Supreme Court ruling on corporate electoral expenditures is the majority's retention of the rules on disclaimers and disclosure. While opening the floodgates to unlimited business political spending, the Court at least recognizes that the public has a right to know when a corporation is responsible for a particular message and a right to information on a corporation's overall spending.

Writing for the majority, Justice Kennedy states: "The First Amendment protects political speech; and disclosure permits citizens and shareholders to react to the speech of corporate entities in a proper way. This transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages."

There's no question that steps must be taken to mitigate the Citizens United ruling, whether through changes in corporation law, shareholder pressure, enhanced public financing of elections, or even a Constitutional amendment.

Yet while these efforts progress, it is also worth taking advantage of the Court's affirmation of the principle of transparency and push for even greater disclosure than what we have now. Groups such as the Sunlight Foundation are already moving in this direction.

The effort could begin with pressing the Federal Election Commission to tighten the existing reporting rules on what are known as "electioneering communications" and to enforce them more diligently. But that's not enough.

In the wake of Citizens United, we've got to demand more information on the many ways corporations exercise undue influence not only on elections but also on legislation, policymaking and public discourse in general. Now that Big Business is a much bigger threat to popular democracy, we have to subject corporations to intensive full-body scans to find all their hidden weapons of persuasion. The following are some of the areas to consider.

Lobbying. In his State of the Union Address, President Obama said that lobbyists should be required to disclose every contact with the executive branch or Congress. That's fine, but why stop there? Many corporations do their lobbying indirectly, through trade associations which disclose little about their sources of funding. How about rules that require those associations to disclose the fees paid by each of their members and require publicly traded companies to disclose exactly how much they pay to belong to each of their various associations?

Front Groups. Corporations also indirectly seek to influence legislation and public opinion by bankrolling purportedly independent non-profit advocacy groups. Such front groups -- such as those taking money from fossil-fuel energy producers to deny the reality of the climate crisis -- do not have to publicly disclose their contributor lists. Why not require publicly traded companies, at least, to reveal all of their payments to such organizations?

Union-Busting. Encouragement of collective bargaining is still, in theory, official federal policy. Yet many companies violate the principle -- and the rights of their workers -- by using corporate funds to undermine union organizing campaigns. The existing rules on the disclosure of expenditures on anti-union "consultants" are too narrow and not vigorously enforced. That should change.

These are only a few of the ways that undue political influence and other forms of anti-social corporate behavior could be addressed through better disclosure. Yet, as we've seen, transparency by itself does not counteract corporate power unless something is done with the information.

This came to mind in reading the last portion of the Citizens United ruling. Not all five Justices in the majority went along with the idea of maintaining the disclaimer and disclosure rules. Parting with Kennedy, Roberts, Scalia and Alito, Justice Thomas argued not only that corporate independent expenditures should be unrestricted, but also that they should be allowed to take place under a veil of secrecy.

He bases his argument not on legal precedent, but rather on dubious anecdotal evidence that some supporters of California's anti-gay-marriage Proposition 8 were subjected to threats of violence after their names appeared on public donor lists. Thomas thus suggests that corporations should be able to make their political expenditures anonymously to avoid retaliation.

While I am in no way advocating violence, I think activists need to use the information that becomes public as the result of expanded disclosure to make corporations pay a price for any attempts to buy our political system. If we can get them to worry about (non-violent) retaliation to the point that they limit their expenditures, then we will have gone a long way toward neutralizing the pernicious effects of the Citizens United ruling.

Obama's nuclear generation gap?

2010-02-01T18:03:49Z

During the energy portion of his first State of the Union address last week, President Obama called for "building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country."

That raises a question: Exactly what generation of nuclear power is Obama talking about -- and what makes it an improvement over the generation we now have, with its high cost and threats to public health and the environment?

The commercial nuclear power plants operating in the United States today are what are known as Generation II reactors. Built through the 1990s, they include the design types known as Pressurized Water Reactors, which comprise the majority of all U.S. nuclear plants, as well as Boiling Water Reactors, the other type used by the U.S. power industry. Both of them are what are known as "Light Water Reactors," which means they use ordinary water to cool the reactor.

Before the reactors of today came those of Generation I, the first commercial nuclear power plants in the U.S. Among them are Shippingport near Pittsburgh, which operated from 1957 to 1982; Fermi on the shore of Lake Erie about 30 miles from Detroit, which began operating in 1957 and closed in 1972, six years after experiencing a partial fuel meltdown; and Dresden Unit 1 at Exelon's existing nuclear plant near Morris, Ill., which went active in 1960 and retired in 1978.

The so-called Generation III reactors have designs similar to their Gen II predecessors but have incorporated some improvements, like more advanced safety systems. These models include GE's Advanced Boiling Water Reactor, the design selected for the planned expansion of the South Texas Project on the Colorado River 90 miles southwest of Houston, and Mitsubishi's Advanced Pressurized Water Reactor, two units of which are planned for Luminant's Comanche Peak plant 60 miles southwest of Dallas. There are also what are known as the Generation III+ reactors; these include Westinghouse's AP1000 reactor, 13 of which are slated for plants across the Southeast. However, the AP1000 still has not received Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval due to serious design flaws.

And then there are the Generation IV reactors. At the moment, these designs are largely theoretical and aren't expected to be available for commercial construction for at least another decade. They include so-called fast reactors, which require richer fuel and are cooled by substances other than regular water, such as liquid sodium.

One of the loudest cheerleaders for Generation IV nuclear power plants -- particularly the fast reactors -- has been James Hansen, director of NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies and an outspoken advocate for addressing manmade global warming. In a recent interview posted at the Big Think website, Hansen makes the case for Gen IV nuclear as a necessary piece of a warming world's energy future:

And there's also the possibility for fourth-generation nuclear power. That's a technology which allows you to burn all of the nuclear fuel. Presently, nuclear power plants burn less than 1% of the energy in the nuclear fuel. Fourth-generation nuclear power allows the neutrons to move faster, so it can burn all of the fuel. Furthermore, it can burn nuclear waste, so it can solve the nuclear waste problem. And the United States is still the technology leader in fourth-generation nuclear power. In 1994, Argonne National Laboratory, now called Idaho National Laboratory, was ready to build a fourth-generation nuclear power plant, but the Clinton-Gore administration canceled that research because of the antinuclear sentiments in the Democratic Party. Well, we still have the best expertise in that technology, and we should develop it because it's something we could also sell to China and India, because they're going to need nuclear power. They are not going to be able to get all of their energy from the sun and from the wind.

However, not everyone is as keen on Gen IV nuclear as Hansen. Amory Lovins, a leading sustainable energy expert with the Rocky Mountain Institute in Colorado, argues that there is no economic, environmental or security rationale for the kinds of Gen IV reactors most often promoted, including fast reactors. In a recent analysis titled "'New' Nuclear Reactors, Same Old Story," Lovins points out that these reactors are touted for their ability to burn plutonium, a radioactive waste product created in currently operating nuclear power plants. However, that would require plutonium reprocessing facilities, which creates a whole other bunch of thorny problems:

Reprocessing of any kind makes waste management more difficult and complex, increases the volume and diversity of waste streams, increases by several- to manyfold the cost of nuclear fueling, and separates bomb-usable material that can't be adequately measured or protected. Mainly for this last reason, all U.S. Presidents since Gerald Ford in 1976 (except G.W. Bush in 2006-08) discouraged it.

Lovins also challenges Hansen's claim that fast reactors "can solve the nuclear waste problem" by burning the waste:

[Fast reactors] are often claimed to "burn up nuclear waste" and make its "time of concern ... less than 500 years" rather than 10,000-100,000 years or more. That's wrong: most of the radioactivity comes from fission products, including very long-lived isotopes like iodine-129 and technicium-99, and their mix is broadly similar in any nuclear fuel cycle. [Fast reactors'] wastes may contain less transuranics [that is, radioactive elements with atomic numbers greater than uranium], but at prohibitive cost and with worse occupational exposures, routine releases, accident and terrorism risks, proliferation, and disposal needs for intermediate- and low-level wastes. It's simply a dishonest fantasy to claim that such hypothetical and uneconomic ways to recover energy or other value from spent [Light Water Reactor] fuel mean "There is no such thing as nuclear waste." Of course, the nuclear industry wishes this were true."

But with U.S. efforts to address climate change hampered in part by powerful corporate interests' stranglehold over the legislative process, at least one longtime anti-nuclear group has said it's willing to discuss Gen IV nuclear as part of the potential solution to man-made global warming.

Last week, the N.C. Waste Awareness and Reduction Network wrote to Hansen in advance of his Feb. 1 speech at UNC-Chapel Hill. In the letter, Executive Director Jim Warren said his group's respect for the scientist -- along with the severity of the accelerating climate crisis -- meant it was "willing to be persuaded" on fourth-generation nuclear power technology.

While noting its opposition to Gen II and III plants as well as the problems with Gen IV fast reactors and associated nuclear waste reprocessing, N.C. WARN has called for a "vigorous and honest debate" ... that "could help determine whether and where it might be necessary to pursue new nuclear -- or put all available resources behind clean, efficient energy."

But the question remains: Is this Gen IV technology -- with all its promise and perils -- what President Obama was talking about in his State of the Union address when he referred to a "new generation" of nuclear power?

It appears that the answer is no, given that Obama's proposed Fiscal Year 2011 Department of Energy budget being unveiled today will reportedly triple the taxpayer loan guarantee program for new reactor construction to $54 billion. That program is providing financing for building Generation III reactors -- not the Gen IV variety promoted by Hansen.

Obama's decision to promote the continued building of old-school nuclear reactors -- which as a candidate he said he did not embrace because of safety concerns and the need for huge taxpayer subsidies -- is especially perplexing given that his administration has canceled plans to store radioactive waste in the Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada.

That raises another question: What does the president plan to do with all that radioactive waste that's currently piling up at nuclear power plants nationwide? To date, Obama still has not offered the American people an answer.

(Graphic from the Gen IV International Forum website.)

A monument to courage at the Greensboro five and dime

2010-02-01T14:00:45Z

It was 50 years ago today that Ezell Blair Jr., Franklin McCain, Joseph Alfred McNeil and David Richmond -- four freshmen at Agricultural and Technical College, a historically black school in Greensboro, N.C. -- defied Jim Crow segregation by sitting at a whites-only Woolworth lunch counter in that Southern city and asking to be served.

Refused service and abused by white customers, the students still kept coming back, joined by others, day after day. Their nonviolent act of courage was inspired by others before it and inspired others like it, bringing momentum to a movement that would transform America. Within two months, sit-ins were taking place in 54 cities in nine states. Within six months, the Woolworth lunch counter in Greensboro was desegregated.

Today that same building on Greensboro's Elm Street will host the grand opening of the International Civil Rights Center and Museum, a 30,000-foot archive, museum and teaching center devoted to the international struggle for civil and human rights. The museum's opening is the culmination of an effort that began in 1993, when local Guilford County Commissioner Melvin "Skip" Alston and Greensboro City Councilman Earl Jones established the nonprofit Sit-In Movement Inc. to raise funds to keep the historic Woolworth, since closed, from being turned into a parking lot.

Over the years the project's cost grew into the tens of millions of dollars: At one point a stream was found flowing through the building's foundation, necessitating extensive work. Voters in Greensboro -- a city with a contentious racial past and present -- twice voted down bond referenda to provide public financing for the project. But the museum ultimately did find financial support from the city, as well as from North Carolina, Guilford County, the National Park Service and the Bryan Foundation.

The gala program to celebrate the museum's opening planned for this past Saturday was postponed to Feb. 13 due to heavy snow, which also resulted in the cancellation of Sunday's Celebration of Unity Service. But the museum's grand opening is scheduled to go today on as planned, with original sit-in participant McCain among the speakers. The museum's exhibits aim to help visitors who never experienced legal segregation better understand what Jim Crow looked like, and to educate the public about the movement that toppled it.

"To see those four young men sitting down at that lunch counter on those stools at Woolworth was a source of inspiration," says former civil rights leader and Congressman John Lewis (D-Ga.) in this public service announcement for the museum:

(Photos from the website of the International Civil Rights Center and Museum.)

VOICES: Haiti, hell and hope

2010-01-29T14:36:29Z

By Bill Quigley

Smoke and flames rose from the sidewalk. A white man took pictures. Slowing down, my breath left me. The fire was a corpse. Leg bones sticking out of the flames.

Port-au-Prince police headquarters is gone, already bulldozed. A nearby college is pancaked. Government buildings are destroyed. Stores fallen down. Tens of thousands of buildings destroyed. Hundreds of thousands homeless.

Giant piles of concrete, rebar, metal pipes, plastic pipes, doors and wires.

Corpses are still inside many of the mountains of rubble. No estimates of how many thousands of people are dead inside.

Electrical poles bend over streets, held up by braids of thick black wires. On some side streets the wires are still down in the street.

Buildings take unimaginable shapes. Some are half up while the other side slopes to the ground. Some like collapsed cakes. Others smashed like children's toys.

Everywhere are sheet shelters. In parks, soccer fields, in the parking lot of the TV station, tens of thousands literally in the streets and on sidewalks.

Thousands of people standing in the hot sun waiting their turn. Outside the hospital, clinics, money transfer companies, immigration offices, and the very few places offering water or food.

Troops and heavy machinery are only seen in the center of the city.

After days in Port-au-Prince I have seen only one fight -- two teens fighting on a streetcorner over a young woman. No riots. No machetes.

Hope is found in the people of Haiti. Despite no electricity, little shelter, minimal food and no real goverment or order, people are helping one another survive.

Men and boys are scavenging useful items from the mounds of fallen buildings. Women are selling mangoes and nuts on the street. Teens are playing with babies.

Beautiful hymns are lifted as choirs calling to God in every sheet camp every evening. People pray constantly. The strikingly beautiful tap tap cabs trumpet In God We Trust or Merci Jesus on bright colors.

Everyone needs tents and food and medical care and water. But when you talk to them, most will lead you to the ailing great grandma or the malnourished child.

What should outsiders do?, I asked Lavarice Gaudin. Lavarice, who helps the St. Clares community feed thousands each day through their What If Foundation, said, "Help the most poor first. Some who labored their whole lives to make a one bedroom home will likely never have a home again. Haiti needs everything. But we need it with a plan. Pressure the Haitian government, pressure USAID to help the poorest."

International volunteers who work hand in hand with Haitians are welcomed. Others not so much

Lavarice saw the Associated Press story that reported only one penny of every U.S. aid dollar will go directly in cash to needy Haitians. "I can understand that they distrust the government, but why not distribute aid through the churches and good community organizations?"

"We hope this will help us develop strong leadership that listens and responds to the people."

"No matter what, we will never give up. Haitians are strong, hopeful people. We will rebuild."

A frequent contributor to Facing South and other online publications, Bill Quigley is a long-time advocate for human rights in Haiti and a veteran of the post-Katrina recovery. He sent this dispatch from Haiti this morning.

HIGH-SPEED HYPOCRISY? A plan once embraced by Republicans now faces conservative attacks

2010-01-29T13:48:27Z

When President Obama announced $8 billion in federal grants for high-speed rail this week, Republicans and conservatives responded with bellows of outrage.

Actually, the heckling started after Democrats passed the stimulus bill last year, which included earmarks for inter-city train lines. The Washington Post's Robert Samuelson was typical in warning last August of "a rail boondoggle,moving at high speed."

Now grants are going out to a handful of states like Florida, where Obama visited yesterday to boost a future link between Tampa/St. Petersburg and Disney World. This latest news has been met with a barrage of criticism, with "boondoggle" still the attack of choice: Fox asked "Is High-Speed Rail Project an $8 Boondoggle?" Pundits Michelle Malkin and at the Reason Foundation followed suit. Yesterday Tea Party protesters took to the streets in Florida hoping to derail the project.

(Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush won't comment, although he once called it a "boondoggle of epic proportions" -- remember that as you keep reading.)

But the high-speed rail projects unveiled by the White House this week weren't the brainchild of Obama and the Democrats. The genesis of these plans can be traced to the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) -- a bill passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in 1991 and signed into law by Republican President George H.W. Bush.

The ISTEA, as the federal Department of Transportation later noted, was "a landmark piece of legislation." With Eisenhower's interstate highway system "nearly complete," the bill argued that the new challenge was to bring clarity and coordination to a transportation system marked by pork-barrel politics and chaos.

Specifically, the ISTEA aimed to better integrate how we travel -- planes, trains and automobiles -- as well as the players involved: local, state and federal officials. It also pushed to ensure greater compliance with the Clean Air Act and other environmental standards.

Although introduced by Democrats, the bill was warmly embraced by Republicans who helped it pass in landslide votes: 372-47 in the House, 79-8 in the Senate. The first President Bush signed the ISTEA into law on December 18, 1991.

The bi-partisan ISTEA also set in motion plans for high-speed rail in the United States. For the first time, the bill authorized the creation of official high-speed "corridors": big-traffic routes where states could receive federal funding to upgrade existing rail lines -- improve track, remove risky crossings -- for faster trains. The original ISTEA in 1991 authorized five such High Priority Corridors.

Since then, 75 more corridors were put on the list -- including two major routes added under the second President Bush in the Midwest (2001) and Northeast (2004). Put together, those routes are the ones you've seen in news reports (see here and here) about "Obama's high-speed rail plan" this week:

Another big supporter of inter-city rail: the late Paul Weyrich, founder of the Heritage Foundation and often called the "father" of the modern conservative movement. A fan of trains and public transport, Weyrich was part of the federal Surface Transportation Commission, which before expiring in 2008 issued a report heartily endorsing upgraded intercity rail projects:

The Commission believes that Intercity Passenger Rail is a critical missing link in the Nation's surface transportation system. Over the past 50 years, passenger rail lines have shrunk dramatically in parts of the country ... Intercity passenger rail investment would help meet important national energy and environmental goals by shifting travel to trains, which consume approximately 17 percent less energy per passenger mile than air carriers and 21 percent less energy per passenger mile than automobiles.

In fact, Weyrich wanted even stronger language, and wrote an entire passage -- approved by the commission on a 9-3 vote -- arguing for federal funding of rail projects that was mysteriously removed by the Bush administration from the final report. Weyrich's text focused on transit within cities, but also included these words (later deleted without explanation) endorsing new rail lines between cities:

Intercity passenger rail was a crucial factor in the settlement and economic development of the United States. It was the primary means of mid-and long-distance transportation from the mid-1800's until the early 1950's. It provided a vital connection between the East and West Coasts, opened the Western and Central United States to settlement, and was important to the military in transporting troops and supplies.

Weyrich would surely surprised to see the high-speed rail projects announced this week, so heartily embraced by Republicans and conservatives not long ago, so viciously attacked as "boondoggles" by the right-wing politicians and pundits of today.

Enviros take action to counter the might of the coal ash lobby

2010-01-28T17:32:35Z

Today is the National Day of Action on Coal Ash, an effort by environmental advocates and concerned citizens to urge the Environmental Protection Agency to release its promised rule regulating disposal of the toxic byproduct of burning coal for electricity -- and to classify the stuff as hazardous waste.

The effort comes the day after revelations from the watchdog group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility that EPA has for years allowed coal ash industry representatives to edit official government reports, brochures and fact sheets about coal ash to remove references to potential dangers and to emphasize alleged benefits.

"For most of the past decade, it appears that every EPA publication on the subject was ghostwritten by the American Coal Ash Association," says PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, who examined thousands of communications between the industry and EPA. "In this partnership it is clear that industry is EPA's senior partner."

During the Bush administration, EPA entered into a formal partnership with the coal industry -- especially the ACAA -- to promote the use of coal ash for industrial, agricultural and consumer products. The deal helped develop a multi-billion industry that is now fighting efforts to regulate the coal combustion byproducts -- which contain dangerous levels of heavy metals and other toxins -- as hazardous waste.

The documents obtained by PEER under the Freedom of Information Act show how the industry was able to make a number of changes. They included removing cautionary language from an EPA brochure about applying coal ash on agricultural lands and replacing it with what the industry called "exclamation point ! language" "re-affirming the environmental benefits."

The industry also got EPA to alter official fact sheets and Power Point presentations to delete references to certain potential "high risk" uses of coal combustion waste, and it lobbied to insert language about the need for "industry and EPA [to] work together" to weaken or block "state regulations [that] are hindering" expanded use of the waste.

In addition, EPA staff gave the industry advance notice about conference calls and other agency deliberations, including discussions about growing concerns over the leaching of arsenic from the coal ash. PEER notes that the working relationship between the EPA and the industry is so close that an industry insider joked to EPA staff in an October 2008 e-mail about a news article about mercury contamination from coal ash, writing:

"We are in bed with the EPA again, it looks, at least according to this article. The advocacy groups are well organized and have the ready ear of the press."

In an effort to counter the industry's lobbying efforts against more stringent regulation of coal ash, environmental advocacy groups have organized today's action. They're calling on concerned citizens to contact President Obama and tell him the EPA should treat coal ash as hazardous waste, and to ensure that residents of communities impacted by coal ash disposal get to have a say in how the material should be handled.

For more information about the National Day of Action on Coal Ash, click here.