SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
For Immediate Release
March, 12 2009, 03:45pm EDT
Contact:
Michael Oko, Tel. (202) 513-6245 or (202) 904-5245
New Coal Plants Would Create Nearly 18 Million Tons of Waste Annually
New Analysis Ranks 'Filthy 15' States by Coal Ash Produced by Proposed Plants
WASHINGTON
Proposed coal plants across the United States would produce nearly
18 million tons of dangerous waste, including toxic metals, each year.
Nearly 130 million tons of coal waste from existing plants is being
produced annually, most of which is disposed of in largely unregulated
landfills, ponds and other locations, posing serious public health and
environmental risks.
According to a new analysis by the
Natural Resources Defense Council, the 15 states that would be the
biggest polluters -- the "Filthy 15" -- have proposals for 54 coal
plants and would create nearly 14 million tons of dangerous waste.
The
list is topped by Texas (rank #1, 8 proposed plants, 4,093,087 tons of
coal ash waste); followed by: South Dakota (#2, 2, 952,630); Florida
(#3, 3, 911,118); Nevada (#4, 3, 888,272); Montana (#5, 3, 848,278);
Illinois (#6, 4; 797,450); South Carolina (#7, 2, 731,110); Ohio (#8,
3, 711,616); Wyoming (#9, 5, 697,850); Michigan (#10, 5, 686,897);
Kentucky (#11, 4, 593,662); Missouri (#12, 4, 515,709); Wisconsin (#13,
3, 507,952); Georgia (#14, 2; 445,202); and West Virginia (#15, 3,
430,275).
(A complete list of states and national data can be found here: https://www.nrdc.org/energy/coalwaste.)
"Coal
waste poses a large and unnecessary risk to people's health and the
environment, and we need to act before another Kingston disaster
strikes," said Peter Lehner, executive director of NRDC, "The EPA took
a big step forward this week by announcing it will regulate coal ash,
but they need to quickly examine how coal waste is handled and ensure
proper management and disposal are in place at all new plants."
Earlier
this week, EPA announced that it would begin to regulate coal ash, a
shift in position after years of delay. Many states currently allow
dangerous coal waste to be dumped, without proper oversight, into
poorly constructed landfills, ponds and even old mines. These storage
facilities risk having coal waste seep into ground water or breaking,
like the Kingston, Tennessee, disaster that unleashed 1 billion gallons
of coal ash last December.
The EPA conducted an
assessment in 2007 that showed that certain types of ash disposal sites
pose a cancer risk nearly 1,000 times the acceptable level. EPA also
identified 24 sites in 13 states that are known or suspected to be
contaminated by coal ash, but has not been regulating coal ash
disposal, instead allowing states to set their own regulations, which
are typically weak.
According to the new NRDC analysis,
proposed coal plants would also produce more than 18,000 tons annually
of toxic metals -- like arsenic, mercury, lead, and other toxic
substances. The toxic metals that are often found in coal waste can
pose serious health risks to people - especially children -- including
cancer, birth defects, reproductive problems, damage to the nervous
system and kidneys, and learning disabilities.
NRDC - COAL WASTE - ADD ONE
The
"Filthy 15" states with proposed plants that would produce largest
amount of toxic materials is led by Texas; and includes: South Dakota,
Florida, Ohio, Illinois, Nevada, Montana, South Carolina, Kentucky,
Wyoming, Michigan, Wisconsin, Missouri, West Virginia and Georgia.
"There
are cleaner, safer and more sustainable energy choices available," said
Lehner. "America should be moving toward energy efficiency and
renewable energy sources that will drive our economic recovery and meet
the challenges of the 21st Century."
In
conjunction with the new analysis, NRDC has released a new Web site
that includes a state-by-state breakdown of the total amount annually
of waste, including toxic metals, from existing and proposed plants. Go
to: https://www.nrdc.org/energy/coalwaste.
NRDC works to safeguard the earth--its people, its plants and animals, and the natural systems on which all life depends. We combine the power of more than three million members and online activists with the expertise of some 700 scientists, lawyers, and policy advocates across the globe to ensure the rights of all people to the air, the water, and the wild.
(212) 727-2700LATEST NEWS
GOP 'Doubling Down on a Failed Agenda' With New Reconciliation Framework, Says Key Dem
"Americans will pay a steep price if Republicans move forward with this disastrous agenda," said Sen. Ron Wyden.
Jan 13, 2026
The House Republican Study Committee on Tuesday released a blueprint for a new budget reconciliation package with the purported goal of making "life more affordable for working families."
However, according to an analysis by Washington Post economic policy reporter Jacob Bogage, two of the three most expensive items in the GOP budget blueprint would be the elimination of the federal estate tax, which would provide a massive windfall to the richest US households, and indexing capital gains to inflation, which even the conservative American Enterprise Institute contends "would further distort taxpayer decisions and increase the ability to shelter income from taxation."
Other items in the GOP blueprint include refilling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve with oil seized from Venezuela, blocking federal funds for abortion providers, and a new "excise tax on colleges that allow trans women in sports."
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, wasted no time ripping the proposal from the largest right-wing House caucus to pieces.
"After passing the largest health care cut in American history, Republicans are doubling down on a failed agenda that benefits billionaires and giant corporations while ripping away food, healthcare and other basic necessities,” Wyden said. “This legislation will eliminate protections for Americans with preexisting conditions, place more red tape between families and their healthcare, and seize ideological trophies instead of focusing on making life more affordable. Americans will pay a steep price if Republicans move forward with this disastrous agenda.”
Richard Phillips, pensions and tax policy director for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), marveled at the GOP loading up a bill supposedly focused on working families with massive giveaways to the wealthiest Americans.
"As part of it's new affordability agenda for the American people the Republican Study Committee reveals its plan to give the wealthiest 0.2% of estates a $281 billion tax break?" he wrote in a post on X.
Chuck Marr, vice president of federal tax policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, similarly called the GOP blueprint "tone deaf."
"Nothing says attack the affordability crisis working-class people face than Rs calling for eliminating the estate tax for the wealthiest heirs in the country—just months after giving them a $30 million tax free exemption," he wrote.
The GOP's second attempt at a budget reconciliation package comes months after it passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a reconciliation package that gave more tax breaks to the rich, but cut Medicaid spending by nearly $1 trillion over the next decade, while also slashing spending on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program by nearly $200 billion over the same period.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Where Were You Born?' ICE Conducting Show-Me-Your-Papers Stops in Minnesota Neighborhoods
"I was scared. I was devastated," said a Somali-American citizen who was accosted by ICE as part of what the agent called a "citizen check." No such thing exists in American law.
Jan 13, 2026
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agents deployed to Minnesota are pulling many nonwhite residents aside and asking them to prove their citizenship, according to several reports and multiple videos posted to social media this week amid the Trump administration's surge of immigration agents to Minneapolis.
There is no federal law requiring US citizens to carry proof of their citizenship, and immigration agents are barred from carrying out indiscriminate searches unless they have reasonable suspicion to believe that someone is in the country without authorization.
And yet, one video, posted on Sunday by a Somali resident of Minneapolis, a US citizen named Nimco Omar, shows a group of agents accosting her and asking her to show her identification as part of what they said was a "citizen check."
Omar said she was on a walk when masked agents who "looked like soldiers" approached her and began questioning her.
The video shows one of the agents asking Omar, "Do you have an ID on you, ma'am?"
She replied: "I don't need an ID to walk around in my city. This is my city."
"OK, do you have some ID, then, please?" the officer asked. "If not, we're going to put you in the vehicle, and we're going to ID you."
Omar responded: "I am a US citizen. I don't need to carry around an ID in my home. This is my home."
After being repeatedly asked, "Where were you born?" Omar replied simply, "Minneapolis is my home."
The agent then told her: "We're doing an immigration check. We're doing a citizen check."
Another agent then pulled out his cellphone and, without asking, appeared to snap a picture of Omar, likely to run through a facial recognition application that ICE has used to verify the status of people it detains—including citizens.
Omar continued to hold her ground, telling the agents: "I’m a US citizen. I don’t have to identify myself. I belong here— and it doesn’t matter where I was born.” After failing to get an answer, the agents then walked away.
"I was scared. I was devastated. I never imagined that something like this could happen to me in the United States," Omar wrote in a social media post documenting the encounter. "As a community member who grew up here, who built a life here, and who calls Minnesota home, I want to be clear: This is not acceptable. This is not something we should ever normalize. This is not what the United States of America is supposed to look like."
The scene was just the latest report of immigration agents conducting what Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said was "unlawful racial profiling by DHS agents" in a lawsuit against the agency filed Monday by the state of Minnesota. Illinois filed a similar but separate suit Monday.
"We're doing a citizen check."
Since last week, when ICE agent Jonathan Ross was filmed fatally shooting 37-year-old Renee Good in a Minneapolis neighborhood—which Vice President JD Vance said in a press conference occurred during "door-to-door" sweeps by ICE in search of undocumented migrants—several other similar cases have been documented in which immigration agents have approached nonwhite US citizens demanding they prove their citizenship.
In another case, on the same day of Good's shooting, a Somali Uber driver was pulled over outside the Minneapolis airport and asked to prove his citizenship. One of the agents told the driver he did not believe the driver's claim to be a citizen because "I can hear you don’t have the same accent as me," and asked the man where he was born repeatedly.
It mirrored another case from December in which another Somali man, a US citizen identified only as Mubashir, was tackled to the ground by immigration agents who refused to accept his government-issued Real ID as proof of citizenship.
Outcry over that case prompted Gregory Bovino, the commander at large of the US Border Patrol, who has taken part in several stops and raids as part of the Trump administration's operation in Minneapolis, to falsely claim that US citizens "must carry immigration documents" under the Immigration and Nationality Act.
About 83% of Somalis living in the US are citizens, according to census data. However, Minneapolis' large Somali population—which has an even higher rate of US citizenship—has been used as a justification by President Donald Trump to flood the city with immigration agents. In recent months, the president has referred to Somalis as “garbage” and called for them all to be deported from the country.
But Somalis have not been the only targets of arbitrary "citizenship" checks in recent days.
Another video, filmed on the day of Good's shooting, showed agents pinning a Hispanic Target employee, 17-year-old Jonathan Aguilar Garcia, to the ground, along with another employee, after asking him whether he was a US citizen. Even after shouting multiple times that he was a citizen and showing his government ID, Garcia was reportedly taken to an undisclosed location for hours with no notice given to his family about where he was or when he'd return.
In another case, detailed in the Minnesota lawsuit, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents "approached a team of four Minneapolis Public Works employees, working in Minneapolis and wearing city uniforms and badges. The agents asked the three nonwhite city employees for identification and questioned each of them about their citizenship and place of birth. The agents did not ask to see any identification or ask any questions of the fourth employee, who was white."
Four members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, who were homeless and living under a bridge, were also reportedly detained last week and have still not yet been located. The tribe's president has directed members to declare their tribal affiliation when encountering immigration officers, which makes them US citizens and therefore not subject to immigration enforcement.
"DHS said they were 'highly targeted' and go after 'the worst of the worst,'" said the Democrats on the House Committee on Homeland Security in a post on social media responding to agents' questioning of Omar. "In reality, DHS is indiscriminately profiling Black and brown American citizens.
They urged readers: "Protect yourself and your neighbors and film everything."
Keep ReadingShow Less
6 Federal Prosecutors Resign as Trump DOJ Pushes for Investigation Into Renee Good's Wife
“We had whistles,” Becca Good said after her wife's killing. “They had guns.”
Jan 13, 2026
A top prosecutor in the US attorney's office in Minnesota who for years oversaw a major fraud investigation in the state was among six federal prosecutors who resigned Tuesday as the Trump administration demanded they investigate Becca Good, the widow of the Minneapolis resident who was killed by a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent last week.
Joseph H. Thompson, who was second in command in the US attorney's office, had objected in recent days to the US Justice Department's (DOJ) refusal to investigate the killing of Renee Nicole Good as a civil rights matter. He also opposed the decision to cut off state investigators from probing Good's fatal shooting, which was carried out by an ICE agent who was one of several who had approached the front of her vehicle and reportedly given her conflicting orders.
On Tuesday, Thompson and several other prosecutors—including his deputy, Harry Jacob; chief of the violent and major crimes unit Thomas Calhoun-Lopez; and Melinda Williams—stepped down.
They declined to disclose to the New York Times the reason for their resignations. On top of the other DOJ decisions Thompson had objected to, senior Trump administration officials had begun pushing him and the other prosecutors to open a criminal investigation into Good's wife.
President Donald Trump and other top officials in the administration have relentlessly smeared Good and her widow in the wake of her killing—accusing them of domestic terrorism and rioting and, in the case of the president, suggesting they were to blame for her death because the couple was being "disrespectful" to the ICE agents.
Trump has presented no evidence as he's called the couple "professional agitators" who were being paid to observe ICE's enforcement actions in Minnesota, where the administration has surged thousands of agents largely to target the state's Somali population after Thompson's investigation uncovered fraud in Minnesota's social services system. The majority of those who have been charged are US citizens of Somali origin.
Brian O'Hara, the police chief in Minneapolis, suggested there was an irony to the fact that Thompson had resigned over the government's handling of Good's case.
“When you lose the leader responsible for making the fraud cases, it tells you this isn’t really about prosecuting fraud,” O'Hara told the Times.
As Trump pushes the narrative that Good was a "domestic terrorist"—a designation that would ordinarily not be used by officials before being confirmed by an investigation—the FBI is reportedly probing alleged ties Good had to "activist groups" that have been protesting Trump's mass deportation campaign, an operation that is opposed by a majority of Americans.
That probe comes months after Attorney General Pam Bondi signed a memo expanding the DOJ's definition of domestic terrorism to include actions like "impeding" law enforcement officers or doxxing them.
The DOJ is planning to investigate a number of activists who took part in community "neighborhood watch" activities aimed at alerting and protecting neighbors from ICE agents—the same kinds of actions taken by residents of Chicago and Charlotte, North Carolina last year.
“We had whistles,” Becca Good said in a statement after her wife's killing, as the president accused them of trying to harm ICE agents. “They had guns.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular