June, 20 2012, 02:28pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Sam Edmondson, Earthjustice, (415) 217-2005
Ben Wrobel, NAACP, (202) 292-3386
Life-Saving Clean Air Protections Upheld in Senate Vote
Dirty air resolution to lock in coal plant pollution rejected
WASHINGTON
Sen. Jim Inhofe's (R-OK) legislative effort to exempt the nation's dirtiest industrial polluters from the Clean Air Act ended in defeat today. The senator sought to block recently-finalized limits on power plants' unrivaled emissions of mercury, arsenic and other toxic air pollutants with a Congressional Review Act resolution. This obscure legislative maneuver would have nixed these clean air protections and prevented the Environmental Protection Agency from proposing similar limits in the future.
Jacqui Patterson, Director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program said: "This cynical maneuver would have disregarded the well-considered solution put forth by the EPA and refined by the hundreds of thousands of American citizens who came forth during the rule's comment period. We are pleased that the standards to protect the health and well-being of our communities were upheld today."
Earthjustice attorney James Pew, who has worked for more than a decade to obtain the mercury and air toxic standards for power plants and who is currently defending them from industry attack on behalf of the NAACP, Sierra Club, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, and Clean Air Counsel said:
"The Senate took a stand for public health by rejecting Sen. Inhofe's polluter-friendly resolution. Reducing power plants' toxic pollution will prevent up to 11,000 premature deaths, 4,600 non-fatal heart attacks and 130,000 asthma attacks in children every year. I find it impossible to relate to the senator's view that such benefits are 'negligible,' and thankfully, a majority of his colleagues appear to as well.
"The coal-fired power industry is rich and well-connected politically. It has taken every advantage of that influence to avoid cleaning up its pollution, despite the fact that effective technology to do so is widely available. In fact, many forward-thinking companies have already reduced their dangerous emissions without shuttering their plants--exposing as a lie the main 'sky-is-falling' argument of those who support the rights of polluters to keep on polluting. The American public is sick, quite literally, of paying for coal-plant pollution in higher medical costs and the avoidable deaths of their loved ones."
Power plants are peerless when it comes to toxic air pollution. Coal-burning plants are responsible for about 50 percent of man-made mercury emissions in the U.S. Mercury poses grave threats to children and fetuses, including damage to their ability to think and learn. Estimates indicate that nearly 300,000 newborns every year have been exposed to potentially dangerous levels of mercury. The rules finalized by the EPA in December will cut mercury emissions from power plants by 90 percent.
"Nearly 1 million people spoke out to support these life-saving protections," added Patterson of the NAACP. "Senator Inhofe's plan was not only extreme, it was out of touch with what the public wants: clean air and better health. It's time for the dirty actors in this industry to play fair, follow the law and take steps to reduce their pollution."
Earthjustice is a non-profit public interest law firm dedicated to protecting the magnificent places, natural resources, and wildlife of this earth, and to defending the right of all people to a healthy environment. We bring about far-reaching change by enforcing and strengthening environmental laws on behalf of hundreds of organizations, coalitions and communities.
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As Senate Prepares for NDAA Vote, Progressive Caucus Says It Is 'Past Time' to Slash Pentagon Budget
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Jayapal, who was one of 140 lawmakers to oppose the package, emphasized that the Pentagon has failed seven consecutive annual audits.
Despite being the only federal agency to never have passed a federal audit, said Jayapal, the Department of Defense "continues to receive huge boosts to funding every year. Our constituents deserve better."
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The vote is expected to take place early next week, and 60 votes are needed to begin debate on the package.
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Jayapal noted that the funding package includes substantive pay raises for service members and new investments in housing, healthcare, childcare, and other support for their families.
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The Constitution vests Congress, not the president, with the power to declare war (though presidents have used military force without getting the OK from Congress on multiple occasions in modern history, according to the National Constitution Center).
During the Cold War, when nuclear weapons policy was produced, speed was seen as essential to deterrence, according to Jon Wolfsthal, the director of global risk at the Federation of American Scientists, who wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post last year that makes a similar argument to Markey and Lieu.
"There is no reason today to rely on speedy decision-making during situations in which the United States might launch first. Even as relations with Moscow are at historic lows, we are worlds removed from the Cold War's dominant knife's-edge logic," he wrote.
While nuclear tensions today may not be quite as high as they were during the apex of the Cold War, fears of nuclear confrontation have been heightened due to poor relations between the United States and Russia over the ongoing war in Ukraine, among other issues. Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree lowering the threshold for potential nuclear weapons use not long after the U.S. greenlit Ukraine's use of U.S.-supplied long range weapons in its fight against Russia.
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Erika Guevara Rosas, Amnesty's senior director for research, advocacy, policy, and campaigns, said in a statement that "these four attacks are emblematic of Israel's shocking disregard for civilian lives in Lebanon and their willingness to flout international law."
The September 29 attack "destroyed the house of the Syrian al-Shaar family, killing all nine members of the family who were sleeping inside," the report states.
"This is a civilian house, there is no military target in it whatsoever," village mukhtar, or leader, Youssef Jaafar told Amnesty. "It is full of kids. This family is well-known in town."
On October 16, Israel bombed the Nabatieh municipal complex, killing Mayor Ahmad Khalil and 10 other people.
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Survivor Jinane Hijazi told Amnesty: "I've lost everything; my entire family, my parents, my siblings, my daughter. I wish I had died that day too."
As the report notes:
A fragment of the munition found at the site of the attack was analyzed by an Amnesty International weapons expert and based upon its size, shape, and the scalloped edges of the heavy metal casing, identified as most likely a MK-80 series aerial bomb, which would mean it was at least a 500-pound bomb. The United States is the primary supplier of these types of munitions to Israel.
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Guevara Rosas said: "These attacks must be investigated as war crimes. The Lebanese government must urgently call for a special session at the U.N. Human Rights Council to establish an independent investigative mechanism into the alleged violations and crimes committed by all parties in this conflict. It must also grant the International Criminal Court jurisdiction over Rome Statute crimes committed on Lebanese territory."
"Israel has an appalling track record of carrying out unlawful airstrikes in Gaza and past wars in Lebanon taking a devastating toll on civilians."
Last month, the court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with Israel's 433-day Gaza onslaught, which has left more than 162,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing in the embattled enclave.
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