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For Immediate Release
June, 09 2011, 09:57am EDT
Contact:
Daniel Patterson (520) 906-2159; Kirsten Stade (202) 265-7337
Cutbacks Cripple Arizona Air Pollution Enforcement
Despite Looming EPA Sanctions, County Signals Corporate Kid Glove Treatment
PHOENIX
Even as it faces federal sanctions for noncompliance with air quality standards, Maricopa County is laying off so many inspectors and other staff that it will no longer routinely issue fines for air pollution violations, according to an Air Quality Department (MCAQD) email posted today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). This internal email was forwarded by the MCAQD Director to an unofficial advisory committee with representatives from industry, including the state Chamber of Commerce, contractors and gravel mines, among others.
With nearly 4 million people, Maricopa County is the biggest in Arizona and one of the largest counties in the U.S., including the megalopolis of metro Phoenix, with a bigger population than 23 states. In a May 27, 2011 email, MCAQD Director William (Bill) Wiley told his kitchen cabinet of corporate, government and non-profit advisors:
"Below is an email, I sent to County Air Quality employees yesterday. It has been a challenging time and we have now reduced our staff by over 20 positions this year. With the reductions in previous years we are now down over 100 positions in 2 years."
The loss of 100 positions would be a nearly 50% reduction in the MCADQ workforce which was listed as 156 employees earlier this year before the latest layoff. In his email to employees, Wiley ordered them to avoid taking enforcement action against polluters except as a last resort:
"Moving forward, we will shift our focus to creating a culture of Compliance Assurance. Compliance Assurance focuses on increasing the percentage of facilities operating in compliance by utilizing a variety of approaches. This may include outreach, business assistance, training, targeted inspections as well as enforcement. Enforcement should be both potent and effective but used as a final option when other efforts have failed."
"Director Wiley might as well have told Arizona's biggest polluters that his department has declared a permanent enforcement holiday," stated Southwest PEER Director Daniel Patterson, noting that industry could save substantial sums if it did not have to follow increasingly strict air quality controls to protect public health. "How do you encourage clean air compliance when there is no penalty for cheating?"
Earlier this year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found Maricopa County in violation of Clean Air Act standards. If MCAQD does not reduce pollution emissions it can face escalating sanctions, such as denial of federal transportation funding.
Wiley's "heads up" was delivered to an unofficial advisory committee comprised of several industry lobbyists and attorneys which meets every month in the MCAQD building but the meetings are not publicly noticed or open to the public. Making outside scrutiny more difficult, agency management even moved the meetings from the 5th floor to the 8th floor in the MCAQD office building so as to hold them in space rented by a private firm. In February, a local group requested an investigation from the Attorney General into alleged state Open Meeting law violations but the Attorney General declined to take action.
"Even if this arrangement is not illegal, this sort of clubby, closed door dealing on matters affecting public health and quality of life is bad practice," added Patterson. "Industry insiders should not be privy to information about departmental enforcement that is not available to everybody."
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Read the MCAQD e-mail about layoffs and enforcement de-emphasis
Look at worsening air quality in Maricopa County
Note the total number of MCAQD employees
View the Open Meeting law complaint
See the Attorney General's declination
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) is a national alliance of local state and federal resource professionals. PEER's environmental work is solely directed by the needs of its members. As a consequence, we have the distinct honor of serving resource professionals who daily cast profiles in courage in cubicles across the country.
LATEST NEWS
Warning of Grave Threat to Free Speech, Judge Frees Rümeysa Öztürk
"There has been no evidence that has been introduced by the government other than the op-ed," U.S. District Judge William Sessions III said, referring to Öztürk's article urging divestment from Israel.
May 09, 2025
Rümeysa Öztürk, one of several pro-Palestine scholars kidnapped and imprisoned by the Trump administration under its dubious interpretation of an 18th-century law and a Cold War-era national security measure, was released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody Friday following a federal judge's order.
U.S. District Judge William Sessions III in Vermont ruled that Öztürk—a 30-year-old Turkish Ph.D. student at Tufts University in Massachusetts and Fulbright scholar—was illegally detained in March, when masked plainclothes federal agents snatched her off a suburban Boston street in broad daylight in what eyewitnesses and advocates likened to a kidnapping and flew her to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in Louisiana.
"Thank you so much for all the support and love," Öztürk told supporters outside the facility following her release.
The government admits that Öztürk committed no crime. She was targeted because of an
opinion piece published in Tufts Daily advocating divestment from Israel amid the U.S.-backed nation's genocidal assault on Gaza and its apartheid, occupation, ethnic cleansing, and colonization in the rest of Palestine. Öztürk was arrested despite a U.S. State Department determination that there were no grounds for revoking her visa.
"There has been no evidence that has been introduced by the government other than the op-ed," said Sessions, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton. "That literally is the case."
BREAKING: a federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to immediately release on bail Rumeysa Ozturk, a Muslim grad student at Tufts University who was abducted and abused by ICE agents, all because she wrote an editorial, yes, an editorial, critical of the Israeli government's genocide.
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— CAIR (The Council on American-Islamic Relations) ( @cairnational.bsky.social) May 9, 2025 at 11:12 AM
"There is no evidence here as to the motivation, absent consideration of the op-ed, so that creates unto itself a very significant substantial claim that the op-ed—that is, the expression of one's opinion as ordinarily protected by the First Amendment—form the basis of this particular detention," the judge continued, adding that Öztürk's "continued detention potentially chills the speech of the millions and millions of people in this country who are not citizens."
"There is absolutely no evidence that she has engaged in violence, or advocated violence, she has no criminal record," Sessions noted. "She has done nothing other than, essentially, attend her university and expand her contacts in her community in such a supportive way."
"Her continued detention cannot stand," he added.
The Trump administration has openly flouted judge's rulings—including a U.S. Supreme Court order—that direct it to release detained immigrants. Sessions' Friday ruling follows his earlier order to send Öztürk to Vermont and Wednesday's 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmation of the judge's directive, both of which have been ignored by the administration.
Seeing that Öztürk was still in ICE custody hours after his order, Sessions reiterated his directive Friday afternoon.
"In light of the court's finding of no flight risk and no danger to the community, petitioner is to be released from ICE custody immediately on her own recognizance, without any form of body-worn GPS or other ICE monitoring at this time," the judge wrote.
Multiple media outlets reported Öztürk's release Friday afternoon.
Mahsa Khanbabai, Öztürk's attorney, toldCourthouse News Service she's "relieved and ecstatic" that her client has been ordered released.
"Unfortunately, it is 45 days too late," Khanbabai lamented. "She has been imprisoned all these days for simply writing an op-ed that called for human rights and dignity for the people in Palestine. When did speaking up against oppression become a crime? When did speaking up against genocide become something to be imprisoned for?"
The Trump administration has dubiously invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which allows the president to detain dor deport citizens of countries with which the U.S. is at war, in a bid to justify Öztürk's persecution. The administration has also cited the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which empowers the secretary of state to order the expulsion of noncitizens whose presence in the United States is deemed detrimental to U.S. foreign policy interests.
"When did speaking up against genocide become something to be imprisoned for?"
Secretary of State Marco Rubio—who lied about Öztürk supporting Hamas—has used such determinations to target people for engaging in constitutionally protected speech and protest.
"We do it every day," Rubio said in March in defense of the policy. "Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visas."
Rubio has invoked the law to target numerous other students who the government admits committed no crimes. These include Mahmoud Khalil, Mohsen Mahdawi, and Yunseo Chung—all permanent U.S. residents—as well as Ranjani Srinivasan and others. Far-right, pro-Israel groups like Betar and Canary Mission have compiled lists containing the names of these and other pro-Palestine students that are shared with the Trump administration for possible deportation.
Foreign nationals—and some U.S. citizens wrongfully swept up in the Trump administration's mass deportation effort—are imprisoned in facilities including private, for-profit detention centers, where there are widespread reports of poor conditions and alleged abuses.
These include denial of medical care, insufficient access to feminine hygiene products, and rotten food at the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center, where Öztürk—who, according to Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), has received no religious or dietary accommodations and had her hijab forcibly removed—is being held.
Öztürk also suffers from asthma and told Sessions via Zoom Friday that her attacks have increased behind bars due to stress. Dr. Jessica McCannon, a pulmonologist, testified that Öztürk's asthma appears to be poorly controlled in ICE custody, according to
courtroom coverage on the social media site Bluesky by freelance journalist Joshua J. Friedman.
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) was among those who on Friday demanded Öztürk's immediate release, while other lawmakers and human rights and free speech defenders celebrated Sessions' decision.
"Rümeysa Öztürk has finally been ordered released," Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said on social media. "She has been unlawfully detained for more than six weeks in an ICE facility in Louisiana, more than 1,500 miles away from Somerville. This is a victory for Rümeysa, for justice, and for our democracy."
In the United States, we guarantee free speech. No one here will lose their rights and freedom for publishing an op-ed. This is a win for the rule of law. Rümeysa is free!
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— Representative Becca Balint ( @balint.house.gov) May 9, 2025 at 1:24 PM
Seth Stern, director of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation, said in a statement that "it is unfathomable that in the United States legal system, it takes 45 days for a judge to rule that people can't be put behind bars for writing op-eds the government doesn't like."
"Without a system committed to its principles, the Constitution is just words on paper, and they don't mean much if this can happen here," Stern continued. "Öztürk's abduction and imprisonment is one of the most shameful chapters in First Amendment history."
"We're thankful that Judge Sessions moved it one step closer to an end and we call on the Trump administration to release Öztürk immediately and not attempt to stall with any further authoritarian nonsense," he added.
Amid President Donald Trump's defunding threats and pressure from ICE officials, universities have told "many hundreds" of international students that they have lost their immigration status and must immediately self-deport. These notifications were based on the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) termination of students' records on the Student Exchange and Visitor Information System (SEVIS), a database used by schools and authorities to access visa information.
Although DHS admitted in court that it had no authority to use SEVIS to revoke students' status, the Trump administration still canceled more than 1,800 visas before reversing course last month pending an ICE policy revamp.
In addition to moving to deport pro-Palestine students, the Trump administration is sending Latin American immigrants—including wrongfully expelled Maryland man Kilmar Abrego García—to a notorious prison in El Salvador, and the president has repeatedly threatened to send natural-born U.S. citizens there.
As with Öztürk and other detained students, the Trump administration has dubiously invoked the Alien Enemies Act in trying to deport García and others. However, federal judges—including multiple Trump appointees—have thwarted some of these efforts.
On Friday, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said that Trump and his advisers are "actively looking at" suspending habeas corpus as a means of overcoming judicial pushback against the administration's deportation blitz.
"Well, the Constitution is clear—and that of course is the supreme law of the land—that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in a time of invasion," Miller told reporters at the White House. No foreign entity has invaded the United States since Japanese forces landed in the Aleutian Islands in the then-territory of Alaska during World War II.
Critics pointed out that Miller's proposal is, in fact, blatantly unconstitutional.
"Since it appears needs to be said: The authority to suspend habeas corpus lies with Congress, not the president, and is only legal during extreme circumstances of rebellion or invasion," Democratic pollster and strategist Matt McDermott said on Bluesky. "Stephen Miller is full of shit."
It wasn't just Democrats and Palestine defenders who cheered Sessions' ruling Friday. Billy Binion, who covers "all things injustice" for the libertarian website Reason, said on social media that the government's "entire case against her is that... she wrote an op-ed."
"Hard to overstate how bleak—and frankly embarrassing—it is that the Trump administration wants to jail and deport someone for speech," he continued. "In America."
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Democrats' Bill Would Extend Social Security and Medicare Solvency 'As Far as the Eye Can See'
"Working-class seniors pay into Social Security and Medicare their whole careers so they can enjoy a dignified retirement, but they end up paying a much larger share of their income in taxes than billionaires because the tax code is rigged in favor of the rich."
May 09, 2025
Social Security and Medicare protect tens of millions of American senior citizens from poverty and medical bankruptcy each year, but economic justice advocates have long said the programs would be strengthened and remain fully solvent for as long as possible if the richest Americans contributed more to them—and on Thursday two Democratic lawmakers introduced legislation to ensure they do.
The bicameral bill, the Medicare and Social Security Fair Share Act, was reintroduced by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), with the aim of requiring people with yearly incomes of more than $400,000 to contribute a fairer share of their wealth to the two programs.
Currently the maximum amount of earnings for which American workers must pay Social Security taxes is just over $176,000.
The bill would lift the Social Security tax cap "to ensure that no matter the source of their income, high-income taxpayers would pay the same tax rate on their income exceeding that threshold," said the lawmakers in a press statement.
It would also increase the Medicare tax rate for income above $400,000 by 1.2% and include a provision ensuring owners of hedge funds and private equity firms can no longer avoid Medicare taxes.
Whitehouse and Boyle introduced the bill as the Trump administration and congressional Republicans work to slash Social Security—confirming Wall Street executive Frank Bisignano, who has backed billionaire Elon Musk's spending cuts at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), to run the program this week.
"While Republicans are pushing a $7 trillion tax giveaway to the ultrarich, we're working to protect the benefits that millions of Americans have earned—and we won't let them be stolen to fund another billionaire windfall."
Republicans have also suggested Medicare could be slashed in order to pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and have pushed to expand privatized Medicare Advantage plans.
"Working-class seniors pay into Social Security and Medicare their whole careers so they can enjoy a dignified retirement, but they end up paying a much larger share of their income in taxes than billionaires because the tax code is rigged in favor of the rich," said Whitehouse. "As the Trump administration and Congressional Republicans gear up to deliver budget-busting giveaways for their billionaire donors, I will continue pushing to make our tax code fair and protect these twin pillars of retirement security as far as the eye can see."
Actuaries at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and Social Security Administration estimated that Whitehouse and Boyle's proposal would extend Social Security and Medicare solvency by at least 75 years.
Without new revenue, the trust funds that finance Medicare and Social Security are projected to be 100% solvent only through 2036 and 2033, respectively.
The legislation is endorsed by groups including Social Security Works, the National Council on Aging, and the Center for Medicare Advocacy.
"From my first day in Congress, I've pledged to protect the long-term stability of Social Security and Medicare—two bedrock promises our country made to seniors, workers, and people with disabilities," said Boyle. "Now, with [President] Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and DOGE-fueled billionaires openly attacking these programs, that fight is more urgent than ever."
"While Republicans are pushing a $7 trillion tax giveaway to the ultrarich," he said, "we're working to protect the benefits that millions of Americans have earned—and we won't let them be stolen to fund another billionaire windfall."
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Warnings Grow Over US and Israel-Backed Plan for Gaza Aid
The plan "contravenes basic humanitarian principles," said a spokesperson for the United Nation's children's agency.
May 09, 2025
United Nations aid officials have rejected a U.S. and Israel-backed plan for aid delivery in Gaza that reportedly involves the use of a private foundation and U.S. military security contractors to deliver far less humanitarian assistance than the besieged enclave needs.
Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), warned Friday that the agency "will not participate."
"There is no reason to put in place a system that is at odds with the DNA of any principled humanitarian organization," Laerke told the BBC.
Since early March, Israel has blocked aid from entering Gaza, compounding widespread misery and hunger in the besieged enclave as Israel continues to mount a deadly military campaign there. U.N. officials have decried the fact that aid is close at hand but is not being allowed in.
Speaking in Jerusalem on Friday, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said that the plan involves a private U.S.-backed foundation, which will distribute aid from a set number of distribution sites, according to CNN. Huckabee said the idea is to create a system that prevents Hamas from obtaining the aid.
The private entity, called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, would administer those distribution sites using private U.S. military contractors and aid workers, according to CNN.
The plan reportedly entails only allowing 60 aid trucks a day, a sliver of what was allowed to enter the enclave during the two-month cease-fire that Israel ended in March. A document from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation states that there will initially be four distribution sites aimed at providing 1.2 million Palestinians in its first phase, or 60% of Gaza's population.
According to the The New YorkTimes, under the current aid distribution system, the U.N. says there are 400 distribution points.
Huckabee said that Israel would not be involved in delivering aid, but that Israeli forces would handle security around the distribution sites.
The Times of Israel, citing officials familiar with the plan, reported that the Israeli government and military have been involved in putting the plan together, even if the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is the entity that is slated to distribute the aid.
Reporting from The Washington Postpublished Monday, which cited unnamed Israeli officials and aid workers, framed the emerging plan as an Israeli initiative to take control of aid distribution in Gaza. The Post's reporting also stated that the distribution centers would be all be located in the south of Gaza.
The Post spoke with officials from a dozen international aid groups working in Gaza, who expressed concerns that restricting aid to a few locations would force more displacement and be discriminatory.
James Elder, spokesperson for the U.N.'s children's agency UNICEF, echoed this, according to the BBC, saying on Friday that the proposed plan would lead to more children suffering and that the decision to locate all the distribution centers in the south appeared designed to weaponize aid as "bait" to force Palestinians to be displaced once again.
The plan "contravenes basic humanitarian principles" and appears designed to "reinforce control over life-sustaining items as a pressure tactic," Elder said, according to U.N. News.
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