December, 19 2014, 02:15pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Keith Rushing, Earthjustice Campaign Press Secretary, (202) 797-5236; (757) 897-2147
Tom Pelton, Director of Communications, Environmental Integrity Project, (202) 888-2703; (443) 510-2574
EPA's First-ever Coal Ash Rule Leaves Communities to Protect Themselves
Rule Leaves Critical Gaps in Protection from Toxic Coal Ash
WASHINGTON
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today issued long-delayed federal regulations for coal ash, but failed to fix major pollution problems from the disposal of coal ash waste, including contamination of rivers and drinking water supplies.
The Obama Administration's failure to issue strong ash disposal regulations means that environmental disasters like the Dan River coal ash spill in North Carolina in February, and the massive 2008 ash spill in Kingston, Tennessee, could happen again.
"Today's rule doesn't prevent more tragic spills like the ones we are still trying to clean up in North Carolina and Tennessee. And it won't stop the slower moving disaster that is unfolding for communities around the country, as leaky coal ash ponds and dumps poison water," said Earthjustice attorney Lisa Evans.
The new rule fails to phase out the dangerous practice of storing immense quantities of toxic waste in unlined "ponds" behind earthen dams that are often structurally unstable and prone to failure. EPA's approach effectively lets the utility industry police itself without federal or state oversight.
"While EPA's coal ash rule takes some long overdue steps to establish minimum national groundwater monitoring and cleanup standards, it relies too heavily on the industry to police itself, " said Eric Schaeffer, Executive Director of the Environmental Integrity Project. "The devil is in the details, and we will review the regulation closely for loopholes. But regardless of what the rule requires, companies like Duke Energy, First Energy, and TVA have already learned that spills and leaking ash ponds add up to billions of dollars in cleanup costs."
While the rule does require closure of some inactive ponds, like the one that failed on the Dan River in North Carolina, it only mandates closure of ponds that are located on the site of active facilities.
"This power industry has had half a century or more to clean up its act, but even in the face of huge spills and a terrible record of proven water contamination around the country, it is still dumping ash in huge unlined pits," said Evans. "These dumps aren't going away by themselves, and unfortunately under today's rule, EPA is putting the burden on citizens to get them safely closed."
The rule requires water quality monitoring and public disclosure of the results, which should help citizens to track damage from dumps and to go to court to force clean-ups. However, communities are understandably concerned that coal plant operators will not reliably identify, report and remedy water contamination and structural risks without independent oversight.
When she heard about the new regulations, Esther Calhoun, of Uniontown, Ala., who lives near a coal ash dump said: "It seems like the EPA doesn't give a damn about people. "
Calhoun lives near the Arrowhead landfill in Uniontown which received four million cubic yards of coal ash form the 2008 Kingston disaster.
"Our people have heart attacks and breathing problems. They're dealing with this big mountain of coal ash in their face. This is a civil rights issue just as much as an environmental and health one. "
Coal ash is the toxic waste formed from burning coal in power plants to make electricity. It is filled with some of the deadliest toxins known to man, including hazardous chemicals such as arsenic, lead, mercury, and hexavalent chromium. Coal ash--the second largest industrial waste stream in the United States--is linked to the four leading causes of death in the U.S.: heart disease, cancer, respiratory diseases and stroke.
Unsafe disposal of coal ash into the nation's more than 1,400 coal ash waste dumps has contaminated more than 200 rivers, lakes, streams and sources of underground drinking water in 37 states.Coal ash, when dumped in unlined lagoons and landfills, often poisons drinking water and kills fish and wildlife.
Earthjustice, and the groups that sued the EPA over its failure to regulate coal ash, are planning to keep up the fight for critical public health and environmental protection. "We had to go to court to force EPA to issue this first-ever coal ash rule, and unfortunately, we will be back in court to force coal plants to clean up their ash dumps and start disposing of their toxic waste safely," said Evans.
Coal ash regulations were proposed in 2010 following the largest toxic waste spill in U.S. history in Kingston, Tenn., when one billion gallons of coal ash sludge destroyed 300 acres and dozens of homes. But in response to pressure from the coal power industry, EPA delayed finalizing the proposed rule.
Eric Schaeffer, Executive Director of the Environmental Integrity Project, said: "EPA's coal ash rule is too little and too late. Too little because its standards are minimal, vague, and unenforceable. Too late, because damage from collapsing dikes and leaking ash dumps has accumulated in the absence of common sense rules designed to prevent those disasters."
In 2012, Earthjustice sued EPA in federal court on behalf of ten public interest groups and an Indian tribe to obtain a court-ordered deadline. The groups involved in the lawsuit include: the Moapa Band of Paiutes (NV),: Appalachian Voices (NC); Chesapeake Climate Action Network (MD); Environmental Integrity Project (D.C., PA); Kentuckians For The Commonwealth (KY); Montana Environmental Information Center (MT); Physicians for Social Responsibility (DC); Prairie Rivers Network (IL); Sierra Club (CA); Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (eight southeast states); and Western North Carolina Alliance (NC),
In 2013, a consent decree was lodged in federal court that set a deadline of December 19, 2014 for EPA's final rule.
Quotes from Partner Groups
Vickie Simmons, Moapa Band of Paiutes in Nevada
Email: simmonsvickie@ymail.com
Phone: 702-865-2910
"Our people have been harmed for decades by the toxic dust that blows from coal ash dumps at the Reid Gardner plant," says Vickie Simmons of the Moapa Band of Paiutes in Nevada. "We wanted a far stronger rule."
Amy Adams, North Carolina Campaign Coordinator, Appalachian Voices
Email: amy@appvoices.org
Phone: (252) 944-6459
"For the thousands of citizens whose groundwater is no longer safe for consumption due to leaching ponds or whose air is contaminated by fugitive dust, failing to regulate coal ash as hazardous is a slap in the face. We will continue to fight for cleanup of these toxic sites."
Traci Barkley, Water Resources Scientist, Prairie Rivers Network (she said use all or part of the quote)
Email: tbarkley@prairierivers.org
Phone: 217.344.2371
"While these rules put forward clean-up and safety standards to protect communities, the EPA is leaving oversight and enforcement almost entirely to the states.
Illinois has over 90 aging coal ash pits with coal ash pollutants found in the groundwater near every one. Communities rely on at-risk rivers and groundwater for drinking water, recreation, and business."
Barbara Gottlieb, Director for Environment & Health at Physicians for Social Responsibility
Email: bgottlieb@psr.org
Phone: (202) 587-5225
"It's high time that those communities get adequate protection from coal ash toxics like arsenic and chromium poisoning their water and their air," said Barbara Gottlieb, Director for Environment & Health at Physicians for Social Responsibility.
Mary Love, Kentuckians For The Commonwealth
Email: mbloveky@yahoo.com
Phone: 502-541-7434
"Hundreds of thousands of Kentuckians depend on the Ohio River for their drinking water. Of the 44 coal ash disposal sites nation-wide that the EPA has listed as high hazard, 19 of them sit on the Ohio River or one of its tributaries. As a result, Kentuckians are vulnerable to exposure to toxins from coal ash, especially since state officials do little to protect the public. Current Kentucky law regulates municipal garbage dumps more stringently than it regulates coal ash disposal sites. "--Mary Love, Kentuckians For The Commonwealth
Anne Hedges, Deputy Director of the Montana Environmental Information Center
Email: ahedges@meic.org
Phone: (406) 443-2520
"This rule comes far too late to protect the people who rely on groundwater in Colstrip, Montana. We can only hope that this rule will help get the toxins out of their water. Colstrip area ranchers told the state decades ago that the Colstrip ash ponds would leak but no one expected them to hemorrhage toxic water into ground and surface water for decades," said Anne Hedges, Deputy Director of the Montana Environmental Information Center.
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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US Dodges Growing Calls for Probe of Mass Graves at Gaza Hospitals
"Somehow I don't think the U.S. State Department would defer to Russia as a credible source to investigate itself if a mass grave were discovered in Ukrainian territory it had occupied," said one legal expert.
Apr 24, 2024
While continuing to give Israel billions of dollars in support to wage war on the Gaza Strip, the Biden administration this week has declined to join the growing global demands for an international probe into mass graves discovered at hospitals in the besieged Palestinian enclave.
Two journalists on Tuesday questioned Vedant Patel, a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department, about the administration's response to the hundreds of bodies found at Gaza City's al-Shifa Hospital and Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis as well as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk's call for an independent investigation.
"Would you support such an independent investigation?" Said Arikat asked during a press briefing. Patel responded, "Right now, Said, we are asking for more information... That is squarely where we are leaving the conversation."
Patel added that "I don't have any details to match, confirm, or offer as it relates to that. We're aware of those reports, and we have asked the government of Israel for additional clarity and information. And that's where I'm at."
When Said asked a follow-up about potential U.S. support for a probe, Patel reiterated that the administration is awaiting information from the Israeli government.
Later, Niall Stanage asked Patel to explain U.S. "resistance" to supporting a probe, the spokesperson insisted that "it's not about resistance to this particular situation, it is me not wanting to speak in detail about something which Said posed as a hypothetical question when, from the United States' perspective, I don't have any additional information on this aside from the public reporting."
After Patel again stressed that the administration has asked Israel for more information, Stanage inquired, "And do you believe the government of Israel is a credible source in enlightening you?"
The spokesperson interrupted Stanage to say, "We do."
While supporting the six-month Israeli assault on Gaza that the International Court of Justice has found to be plausibly genocidal, the Biden administration is also arming Ukrainians' resistance to a Russian invasion. Brian Finucane, a senior adviser for the Crisis Group's U.S. program and a former legal adviser at the State Department, pointed to the latter.
"Somehow I don't think the U.S. State Department would defer to Russia as a credible source to investigate itself if a mass grave were discovered in Ukrainian territory it had occupied," Finucane said on social media in response to Stanage's questioning.
Meanwhile, European Union spokesperson Peter Stano made clear Tuesday that the E.U. supports an independent probe.
"This is something that forces us to call for an independent investigation of all the suspicions and all the circumstances, because indeed it creates the impression that there might have been violations of international human rights committed," Stano said. "That's why it's important to have independent investigation and to ensure accountability."
Human rights groups around the world joined the call for an independent investigation on Wednesday, as the official death toll in Gaza hit 34,262 with 77,229 people injured and thousands more missing and presumed dead beneath the rubble.
In an Arabic statement translated by Al Jazeera, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said that the number of bodies found in the mass graves is "alarming, and requires urgent international action, including the formation of an independent international investigation committee."
The group added that some of those killed were subjected to "premeditated murder as well as arbitrary and extrajudicial executions while they were detained and handcuffed."
Amnesty International senior director of research, advocacy, policy, and campaigns Erika Guevara Rosas said in a statement that "the harrowing discovery of these mass graves underscores the urgency of ensuring immediate access for human rights investigators, including forensic experts, to the occupied Gaza Strip to ensure that evidence is preserved and to carry out independent and transparent investigations with the aim of guaranteeing accountability for any violations of international law."
"Lack of access for human rights investigators to Gaza has hampered effective investigations into the full scale of the human rights violations and crimes under international law committed over the past six months, allowing for the documentation of just a tiny fraction of these abuses," she noted. "Without proper investigations to determine how these deaths took place or what violations may have been committed, we may never find out the truth of the horrors behind these mass graves."
Guevara Rosas continued:
Mass grave sites are potential crime scenes offering vital and time-sensitive forensic evidence; they must be protected until professional forensic experts with the necessary skills and resources can safely carry out adequate exhumations and accurate identification of remains.
The absence of forensic experts and the decimation of Gaza's medical sector as a result of the war and Israel's cruel blockade, along with the lack of availability of the necessary resources for the identification of bodies such as DNA testing, are huge obstacles to the identifications of remains. This denies those killed the opportunity to have a dignified burial and deprives families with relatives missing or forcibly disappeared the right to know and to justice—leaving them in a limbo of uncertainty and anguish.
Noting that the International Court of Justice directed Israel to preserve evidence in its initial genocide case order, Guevara Rosas said that "amid a total vacuum of accountability and mounting evidence of war crimes in Gaza, Israeli authorities must ensure they comply with the ICJ ruling by granting immediate access to independent human rights investigators and ensuring that all evidence of violations is preserved."
"Third states must pressure Israel to comply with the ICJ orders by allowing the immediate entry into the Gaza Strip of independent human rights investigators and forensic experts, including the U.N.-appointed Commission of Inquiry and investigators of the International Criminal Court," she added. "There can be no truth and justice without proper, transparent independent investigations into these deaths."
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Sanders Launches Probe of 'Outrageously Overpriced' Ozempic and Wegovy
The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee chair said that the popular medications "will not do any good for the millions of patients who cannot afford them."
Apr 24, 2024
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday opened an investigation into an "outrageously overpriced" medication manufactured by a Denmark-based company whose value by market capitalization is larger than the Scandinavian country's gross domestic product.
Sanders (I-Vt.), who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, sent a letter to Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen, CEO of Novo Nordisk. The company makes semaglutide, a glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) agonist used to treat Type 2 diabetes under the brand name Ozempic and, when sold as Wegovy, to treat obesity in adults with at least one weight-related comorbidity.
"The scientists at Novo Nordisk deserve great credit for developing these drugs that have the potential to be a game-changer for millions of Americans struggling with Type 2 diabetes and obesity," Sanders acknowledged. "As important as these drugs are, they will not do any good for the millions of patients who cannot afford them."
"Further, if the prices for these products are not substantially reduced they also have the potential to bankrupt Medicare, Medicaid, and our entire healthcare system," he added.
Sanders continued:
Today, Novo Nordisk is charging patients in the United States up to 15 times more for Ozempic and Wegovy than it charges patients in Canada, Europe, or Japan. For example, your company charges $969 in the United States for one month of Ozempic but just $155 in Canada and just $59 in Germany. Further, Novo Nordisk charges Americans $1,349 for one month Wegovy but just $140 in Germany and just $92 in the United Kingdom.
"Meanwhile," the senator noted, "researchers at Yale University estimate that both of these drugs can be profitably manufactured for less than $5 a month."
"The result of these astronomically high prices is that Ozempic and Wegovy are out of reach for millions of Americans who need them," Sanders said. "Unfortunately, Novo Nordisk's pricing has turned drugs that could improve people's lives into luxury goods, all while Novo Nordisk made over $12 billion in profits last year—up 76% from 2021. That is unacceptable."
As of March 2024, Novo Nordisk was Europe's most highly valued company by market capitalization. Its $554 billion market cap is significantly higher than Denmark's annual gross domestic product of approximately $410 billion, according to International Monetary Fund figures.
Sanders also pointed out that Novo Nordisk is charging different prices for Ozempic and Wegovy, even though they're "the exact same drug."
"Novo Nordisk charges Americans with obesity nearly $400 more every month than those with Type 2 diabetes for the same product provided in similar doses," he wrote.
"The unjustifiably high prices of Ozempic and Wegovy are already straining the budgets of Medicare and Medicaid and severely limiting access for patients who need these drugs," the letter says. "Last year, researchers at Vanderbilt University's Department of Health Policy and the University of Chicago's Department of Medicine estimated in the New England Journal of Medicine that it would cost Medicare over $150 billion a year to cover Wegovy and other similar weight loss drugs."
"To put this in perspective, the cost of all retail prescription drugs covered by Medicare in 2022 was less than $130 billion," Sanders added.
"As chairman of the committee, I am asking Novo Nordisk to substantially reduce the price of Ozempic and Wegovy so that these important drugs can be available to Americans with Type 2 diabetes and obesity," he wrote.
Existing law empowers the government to step in to lower drug prices in service of the public interest. Under the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980—legislation meant to promote the commercialization and public availability of government-funded inventions—federal agencies reserve the right to "march in" and authorize price-lowering generic alternatives to patented medications developed with public funding.
However, U.S. administrations—including President Joe Biden's—have been loath to exercise "march-in" rights.
Under pressure from the public and lawmakers led by Sanders, Novo Nordisk last year announced that it would cut prices by up to 75% for some of its insulin products.
Responding to Wednesday's letter, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America—Big Pharma's leading lobbyist—accused Sanders of "attacking an innovative company to advance a political agenda instead of addressing the real cause of affordability challenges."
Noting Novo Nordisk's bigger-than-Denmark market cap, Warren Gunnels, the HELP Committee's majority staff director, wrote on social media that the company "made over $12 billion in profits last year by, among other things, charging Americans $969 for Ozempic while it can be purchased for $59 in Germany and costs $5 to make."
"Our political agenda is to end this greed," he added. "Guilty. As. Charged."
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Texas State Troopers in Riot Gear Crack Down on UT Students' Gaza Protest
"Why do we even have these institutions of higher learning if we won't let students speak their conscience and protest?" said one University of Texas professor.
Apr 24, 2024
This is a developing story... Please check back for possible updates...
Civil rights advocates on Wednesday expressed alarm at a rapid escalation by Texas state troopers who descended on a student-led protest at University of Texas at Austin, which was organized in solidarity with Gaza and other U.S. college students taking part in a growing anti-war movement.
UT students gathered on campus at midday and were promptly given two minutes to disperse by state troopers, who had already been called to the scene.
The troopers were equipped with riot gear, with some carrying assault rifles and several stationed on horses.
Erick Lara, a 20-year-old sophomore, told The Dallas Morning News that the nonviolent protest transformed "within minutes" after the police began arresting demonstrators.
"I didn't think it would escalate this far," he told the outlet. "And I didn't think there would be this much police intervention from what's supposed to be a peaceful protest. Not very peaceful when there's a bunch of aggressors around, especially on horses."
The organizers called the gathering "The Popular University" and said it was aimed at pressuring UT to "divest from death."
The protesters walked out of their classes to demand UT divest from weapons manufacturers in order to end its complicity in Israel's U.S.-backed assault on Gaza, which has killed at least 34,262 Palestinians.
Student-run newspaper The Daily Texanreported roughly 50 state troopers were deployed to stop the initial protest of about 150-200 people.
Ryan Chandler, a reporter for NBC affiliate KXAN-TV and UT alum, reported that there were at least 10 students detained.
"Went here for four years, never saw anything like this," said Chandler, posting a video of a group of police pushing one student to the ground and arresting them.
Joseph Pierce, a Stony Brook University professor who attended graduate school at UT, also said the escalation was an unusually "drastic response to students advocating for an end to the genocide of the Palestinian people."
"It is a response that did not occur when in 2005 we protested the anti-gay marriage bill; in the late 2000s when we protested anti-immigration bills; in the 2010s when we protested the open-carry bill," Pierce said. "It is a clear attempt at silencing Palestinian and anti-Zionist Jewish voices."
The students faced the state troopers in a standoff on the university's main street.
"This violence against peaceful student protesters at UT Austin is absolutely horrifying—and should be condemned in the strongest terms by every politician and mainstream journalist," said former New Yorker editor Erin Overbey.
UT media and Middle East studies professor Nahid Siamdoust said the university "brought out everything but the kitchen sink to make sure" students couldn't erect an anti-war encampment like students at Columbia University, New York University, and other schools across the U.S. have in recent days.
The university had informed organizers with the on-campus Palestine Solidarity Committee on Tuesday that exercising their First Amendment rights in support of Palestinians in Gaza would "violate our policies and rules."
"The freedom to protest is integral to our democracy," said the ACLU of Texas Wednesday amid reports of the crackdown. "UT Austin students have a First Amendment right to freely express their political opinions—without threats of arrest and violence."
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