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For Immediate Release
March, 31 2016, 12:15pm EDT
Contact:
Emily Rosenwasser, Emily.Rosenwasser@sierraclub.org, 720-308-6055
After EPA Rejection of Weak Missouri Air Pollution Proposal, 600 Missourians Speak Out In Support of Protecting Communities from Dangerous Sulfur Dioxide
EPA Comment Period on Process to Designate Parts of St. Charles County and Franklin County as Failing Air Quality Standards Ends 3/31
LABADIE, M.O.
Today, nearly 600 comments from Missouri citizens were delivered to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), U.S. Senators Claire McCaskill and Roy Blunt and many U.S. Representatives voicing support for steps to designate parts of St. Charles and Franklin Counties as failing to attain air quality standards for sulfur dioxide (SO2) pollution.
The main sources of SO2 pollution are coal-fired power plants. Ameren operates three coal-fired power plants without modern pollution controls in the St. Louis metro area, including Ameren's Labadie coal-fired power plant in Franklin County. Pollution controls that have been available for decades could reduce the Labadie plant's SO2 emissions by about 98 percent. Ameren's Labadie coal-fired power plant is the largest source of SO2 pollution in the state, and one of the largest sources in the country.
In February, the U.S. EPA issued a letter to Missouri Governor Jay Nixon indicating the agency's intention to reject the Missouri Department of Natural Resources' (DNR) earlier weak recommendation for the area.
"The public health tragedy and state failure in Flint, Michigan prove that it is more important than ever for state agencies and public officials to be vigilant about protections for public health," said Patricia Schuba with the Labadie Environmental Organization. "DNR had the data that clearly showed there is a public health issue attributable to Ameren's coal pollution, but it chose to stand with industry rather than people. We've spoken out to the EPA and our state leaders so they know they have our support to do what's right."
The U.S. EPA is required to make a final decision by July 2016 about SO2 air pollution around the Labadie coal plant, and was accepting recommendations from the state until fall of 2015. In September 2015, DNR made a disappointing recommendation to designate the area as "unclassifiable," despite the agency's own modeling data that showed clear SO2 pollution violations.
"Ameren has failed to install well-proven, modern pollution controls at Labadie while DNR disregarded EPA requirements for classifying the area as polluted. We thank the EPA for protecting the health of Missourians and we urge public officials to stand up for Missouri's health too," said Andy Knott, Senior Campaign Representative with the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign in Missouri.
Exposure to sulfur dioxide pollution from coal plants and other sources for as little as five minutes can cause lung function impacts, asthma attacks, and respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. Children and elderly adults with asthma are particularly at risk for adverse health effects from short-term sulfur dioxide pollution exposure.
The Sierra Club is the most enduring and influential grassroots environmental organization in the United States. We amplify the power of our 3.8 million members and supporters to defend everyone's right to a healthy world.
(415) 977-5500LATEST NEWS
First Confirmed Judge of Second Trump Term Called a 'Direct Threat' to Fundamental Freedoms
"Whitney Hermandorfer has a clear record of putting her loyalty to Donald Trump over the Constitution," said one watchdog.
Jul 15, 2025
Civil rights organizations and anti-corruption groups voiced alarm Monday after the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate confirmed the first federal judge of President Donald Trump's second term, granting 38-year-old Whitney Hermandorfer a lifetime position on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit.
"Her limited legal career shows a demonstrated hostility towards the protection of civil and human rights—including a disturbing and unacceptable record on reproductive rights, LGBTQ equality, birthright citizenship, labor and employment, environmental protections, and the expansion of executive power—which should be disqualifying for any judicial nominee," Lena Zwarensteyn, senior director of the fair courts program the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said following Hermandorfer's confirmation via a party-line vote.
Caroline Ciccone, president of the watchdog group Accountable.US, said that "Hermandorfer has a clear record of putting her loyalty to Donald Trump over the Constitution, and her confirmation is a direct threat to Americans' fundamental freedoms."
"She has stood in lockstep with the president as he pursued blatantly unconstitutional actions and worked to expand executive power," Ciccone added. "Given that, it's no wonder Trump picked her for a lifetime appointment to the bench."
"Hermandorfer's lack of experience, extreme agenda, history of advocacy for the wealthy and powerful, and loyalty to Trump make her an ominous bellwether of what's to come for our courts."
Opponents of Hermandorfer's confirmation pointed specifically to her record as director of the Tennessee attorney general's Strategic Litigation Unit, where she argued in support of the state's near-total abortion ban and filed amicus briefs backing Trump administration actions, including its effort to end birthright citizenship through executive order and seize control of independent federal agencies.
In a letter to senators ahead of Monday's vote, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights also highlighted Hermandorfer's history of "undermining union and labor protections."
"As a researcher for the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute, she frequently wrote about supporting the corporatization of public education and busting teachers unions as a way for principals and superintendents to make 'necessary' changes," the group observed. "Ms. Hermandorfer has submitted amicus briefs in many cases that undermine fair labor practices and the right of workers to unionize. She submitted a brief on behalf of Tennessee to the U.S. Supreme Court in Starbucks Corp. v. McKinney, a case brought in 2024 after several employees at Starbucks were fired after attempting to unionize."
Rachel Rossi, president of Alliance for Justice, warned Monday that "Hermandorfer's lack of experience, extreme agenda, history of advocacy for the wealthy and powerful, and loyalty to Trump make her an ominous bellwether of what's to come for our courts."
In addition to becoming the first judicial confirmation of Trump's second White House term, Hermandorfer is the first federal judge pick in years who was not formally vetted by the American Bar Association (ABA). In May, Attorney General Pam Bondi restricted the ABA's access to judicial nominees, heightening concerns about the president's efforts to fill court vacancies with inexperienced ideologues and sycophants.
Hermandorfer is part of a slate of far-right judicial nominees that includes Trump loyalist Emil Bove, who is currently the principal associate deputy attorney general. The Senate Judiciary Committee is set to consider Bove's nomination to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit on Thursday.
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'What Are They Hiding?': Republicans Block Vote to Release Epstein Files
"We won't stop until the files are released," Rep. Ro Khanna said after the GOP shot down his amendment. "This may have been our first attempt, but the public will not be gaslit. We will keep fighting for transparency."
Jul 15, 2025
Republicans on the House Rules Committee have blocked an amendment that would force the Department of Justice to release the full Jeffrey Epstein files to the public.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) introduced the amendment to a cryptocurrency bill on Monday, seizing on the controversy that erupted after the Trump administration said it would not release any more documents related to the sex-trafficking billionaire.
Had the measure passed out of committee, it would have required the entire House to vote on whether to force Attorney General Pam Bondi to publish all documents related to Epstein to a "publicly accessible website."
"Trump promised that his administration would release the Epstein files to the public," Khanna said before the amendment's introduction. "Now, the Department of Justice is shielding Trump's rich and powerful friends by refusing to release additional files."
All four Democrats on the committee voted for Khanna's amendment. They were joined by Republican Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.). Seven other Republicans voted the measure down, while Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) did not vote.
Explaining why he joined Democrats, Norman said: "The public's been asking for it. I think there are files. All of a sudden not to have files is a little strange. We'll see how it plays out… I think the president will do the right thing."
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), the chair of the Rules Committee, defended her colleagues' decision to vote down the amendment.
"I think most of us believe what's appropriate will be released when it is time for the president to release it," Foxx said.
The administration's back-track on the Epstein files has ripped apart the MAGA coalition in recent days, with prominent Trump allies issuing some of their fiercest criticisms of the president's entire second term after he told the public to "not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein."
Trump himself is also potentially implicated in the release of the files. He has a well-documented history with Epstein, who once referred to himself on tape as "Donald Trump's closest friend."
In June, amid a public falling-out with the president, billionaire Elon Musk said that the Trump administration, which he'd just departed, was covering up the files to protect Trump.
Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández (D-N.M.), who voted in favor of the amendment, said before the vote that it was of particular interest to her as the chair of the Democratic Women's Caucus.
"The Epstein files concern the abuse of women and the abuse of children," Fernández said to her Republican colleagues. "Why are they not just releasing them?"
"What are they hiding?" she asked on Instagram after the vote failed.
Khanna said this will not be the last attempt to get a vote to the House floor for a release of the files.
"We should see whose side are you on. That's really what this Epstein file issue has become," he told MSNBC. "It's not just about knowing who's being protected, the rich and the powerful...who had interactions with Jeffrey Epstein. It's the sense that people have that the government is too beholden to certain interests who have their thumb on the scale."
He mentioned other Democratic congresspeople who are pushing for the release of the files, including Marc Veasey (D-Texas) who introduced his own resolution calling for their release this weekend.
"We won't stop until the files are released," Khanna wrote on X. "This may have been our first attempt, but the public will not be gaslit. We will keep fighting for transparency."
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'Wallowing in Corruption': Lobbyist Who Helped Ultra-Rich Dodge Taxes Now Heads Trump Tax Office
"By putting a professional tax dodging consultant in charge of their tax law, Republicans are continuing to make their intentions crystal clear—this law is a gift to billionaires and huge corporations."
Jul 15, 2025
A corporate lobbyist who for decades has helped major companies and rich Americans dodge taxes is now serving as the U.S. Treasury Department's top tax policy official, a position in which he will write rules implementing the newly passed Republican budget law.
That role is "enormously powerful," The New York Times' Jesse Drucker wrote in a Monday profile of Ken Kies, whom the GOP-controlled U.S. Senate confirmed as assistant treasury secretary for tax policy in a party-line vote last month. President Donald Trump selected Kies for the position in January.
The Republican budget measure, which President Donald Trump signed into law earlier this month, contains around $4.5 trillion in tax cuts that will flow disproportionately to the wealthiest Americans over the next decade, according to nonpartisan analysts.
"By putting a professional tax-dodging consultant in charge of their tax law, Republicans are continuing to make their intentions crystal clear—this law is a gift to billionaires and huge corporations like those Ken Kies has spent his career looking out for," Leor Tal, campaign director for the progressive advocacy group Unrig Our Economy, said in a statement Monday.
"As families struggle with rising prices from Trump's tariffs and face devastating cuts to Medicaid and SNAP," Tal added, "Republicans are doubling down on helping the richest of the rich, while working people pay the price."
In his role as a lobbyist whose client list has included Goldman Sachs, Pfizer, Microsoft, and other corporate behemoths, Kies has helped secure major tax giveaways for large companies and wealthy Americans—including in the 2017 Trump-GOP tax law that the new Republican budget package extends.
"In the George W. Bush administration, Mr. Kies successfully pushed for legislation to make such offshore tax dodges even easier to execute. During the Obama administration, he fended off another attempted crackdown on those strategies," Drucker wrote Monday. "In 2017, as part of a sweeping package of tax cuts signed by Mr. Trump, Mr. Kies lobbied for a new tax break that provides a 20% deduction to certain businesses, which overwhelmingly benefits the richest Americans."
Drucker noted that in his new position, Kies "will oversee about 100 attorneys and economists at the Treasury Department's Office of Tax Policy, a powerful corner of the federal government."
"The office issues regulations to help the government administer tax laws and provides guidance that can render the latest tax-dodging strategy a gold mine—or doom it," he added.
Kies previously served as managing director of the Federal Policy Group, a lobbying firm at which he "delivered significant legislative and regulatory results for his clients, which include major corporations, trade associations, and coalitions of companies with common objectives," according to a since-removed biography of Kies.
"Mr. Kies has led coalition efforts to enact legislation responding to the World Trade Organization's ruling against U.S. foreign sales corporation benefits, to avert enactment of broad 'corporate tax shelter' legislation that would have an adverse impact on legitimate business transactions, and to reverse Treasury regulations targeting 'hybrid' arrangements of U.S. multinational corporations, among other projects," the biography stated.
Highlighting the Times profile of Kies, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) wrote Monday that the Trump administration is "wallowing in corruption."
"Five trillion dollars in tax cuts for the wealthiest, written and administered by the wealthiest," she wrote. "On the backs of stripping healthcare and food from working and poor people. Shame on you."
In addition to implementing the new Trump-GOP law, Kies could be positioned to help deliver another sizable tax break to the rich.
The Washington Post's Jeff Stein reported last week that on the heels of passage of the GOP budget law, right-wing organizations and Republican lawmakers are set to push the Trump administration to unilaterally "drastically reduce what investors pay on their capital gains."
"The plan rests on changing how the Treasury Department calculates those taxes," Stein wrote. "The highest-earning 1% of Americans would receive 86% of the benefits from indexing capital gains to inflation, while the bottom 80% of income earners would get just 1% of the benefits, Penn Wharton projected in 2018."
Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, wrote in response to Stein's reporting that "after gutting health care for millions of Americans and passing massive tax breaks for billionaires, Republicans are now working on even MORE tax breaks for the ultra-rich."
"They aren't interested in fighting for working families—only their rich friends," Boyle added.
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