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Tom Pelton, Environmental Integrity Project, tpelton@environmentalintegrity.org
Hannah Connor, Center for Biological Diversity, hconnor@biologicaldiversity.org
Environmental groups sued the Environmental Protection Agency today for failing to set limits on harmful chemicals like cyanide, benzene, mercury and chlorides in wastewater emitted by oil refineries and plants that produce chemicals, fertilizer, plastics, pesticides and nonferrous metals.
The Clean Water Act requires the EPA to limit discharges of industrial pollutants based on the best available wastewater treatment methods, and to tighten those limits at least once every five years where data show treatment technologies have improved. But the agency has never set limits for many pollutants and has failed to update the few decades-old limits that exist — including limits set almost 40 years ago for oil refineries (1985), plastics manufacturers (1984) and fertilizer plants (1986).
Outdated pollution-control technology standards meant that, for example, 81 oil refineries across the United States dumped 15.7 million pounds of nitrogen and 1.6 billion pounds of chlorides, sulfates and other dissolved solids (which can be harmful to aquatic life) into waterways in 2021.
Twenty-one nitrogen fertilizer plants discharged 7.7 million pounds of total nitrogen, which causes algae blooms and fish-killing "dead-zones," and proposed new plants will add millions of additional pounds to that load. The EPA estimates that 229 inorganic chemical plants dumped over 2 billion pounds of pollution into waterways in 2019.
"No one should get a free pass to pollute. It's completely unacceptable that EPA has, for decades, ignored the law and failed to require modern wastewater pollution controls for oil refineries and petrochemical and plastics plants," said Jen Duggan, deputy director of the Environmental Integrity Project, which coordinated the action by the 13 environmental groups. "We expect EPA to do its job and protect America's waterways and public health as required by the Clean Water Act."
"For decades the EPA has let these dirty industries pollute our rivers and bays instead of making them keep pace with advances in technologies that tackle water pollution, as the Clean Water Act demands," said Hannah Connor, environmental health deputy director at the Center for Biological Diversity. "Forcing people and wildlife like endangered Atlantic sturgeon to bear the weight of toxic water pollution while industries rake in record profits isn't just morally wrong, it's also legally indefensible. The EPA needs to bring pollution standards into the 21st century."
Despite the legal mandate for regular reviews and updates to keep pace with technology, the guidelines for 40 of 59 industries regulated by the EPA were last updated 30 or more years ago, with 17 of those dating back to the 1970s. Outdated standards mean more water pollution is pouring into U.S. waters than should be allowed because some plants are using technology standards from the Reagan era — before common use of the Internet, email or cell phones.
The lawsuit was filed today in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco by the Environmental Integrity Project, the Center for Biological Diversity, Clean Water Action, Waterkeeper Alliance, Food & Water Watch, Environment America, Bayou City Waterkeeper, Black Warrior Riverkeeper, Healthy Gulf, San Antonio Bay Estuarine Waterkeeper, San Francisco Baykeeper, the Surfrider Foundation and Tennessee Riverkeeper.
The lawsuit challenges the EPA's decision in January not to update outdated and weak water-pollution control technology standards (called "effluent limitation guidelines" or ELGs and pretreatment standards) for seven key industrial sectors: petroleum refineries, inorganic and organic chemical manufacturers, and factories that manufacture plastics, fertilizer, pesticides, and nonferrous metals.
A January report by the Environmental Integrity Project, "Oil's Unchecked Outfalls," revealed that 81 refineries across the United States discharged into waterways 15.7 million pounds of algae-feeding nitrogen in 2021 — as much as from 128 municipal sewage plants — along with 60,000 pounds of selenium (which can cause mutations in fish), among other pollutants.
The six other industries with weak and outdated EPA effluent guidelines targeted in the lawsuit filed by the environmental groups are:
"Outdated standards allow far too many industries, from plastic producers to oil refineries, to pour their pollution into our rivers, bays, lakes and streams," said John Rumpler, senior clean water director at Environment America. "It's time for the EPA to rein in this pollution, as the public would expect and the Clean Water Act demands."
"The Clean Water Act is our best defense against unregulated industrial water pollution, but we continue to be exposed to large volumes of dangerous, toxic pollutants in our drinking water supplies, fisheries and recreational waters because EPA is not fully implementing the law," said Kelly Hunter Foster, Waterkeeper Alliance senior attorney. "EPA must update pollution standards consistent with modern technologies that can reduce or even eliminate the discharge of hazardous pollutants like heavy metals, benzene and mercury."
"Louisiana's waterways have been burdened by water pollution from refineries and chemical plants, and so there are no excuses for EPA to continue missing opportunities to improve standards for these industries," said Andrew Whitehurst, water program director at Healthy Gulf. "Technology-based guidelines for pollution-control systems must evolve with improvements in water cleanup technology."
"Those of us living in Houston are sick of sacrificing our health and ecosystems to inadequately regulated industries," said Kristen Schlemmer with the Houston-based Bayou City Waterkeeper. "These burdens are heaviest on our lower-wealth, Black and brown neighbors living in the shadow of industrial facilities along the Houston Ship Channel, who face increased risks of cancer and don't have equal access to our natural bayous and bays. Through this lawsuit, our hope is to get better regulations in place so our home can stop being treated as a sacrifice zone."
"Oil refinery pollution doesn't belong in San Francisco Bay or in any of the nation's waterways, and it certainly doesn't belong in our neighborhoods," said Eric Buecher, managing attorney at San Francisco Baykeeper. "It's high time we held the EPA accountable and compel the agency to crack down on the toxic pollution from oil refineries that's threatening both wildlife and human health around San Francisco Bay and across the country."
"Once again, EPA has failed to update the antiquated and ineffective water pollution regulations for these industrial dischargers, including plastics plants and fertilizer and pesticide manufacturers, allowing them to continue wreaking havoc on the environment," said Erin Doran, a senior attorney with Food & Water Watch. "Enough is enough — we're taking EPA to court."
"Regardless of where a person lives, they should be able to fish or swim in their local river or lake without fear of getting sick from pollution, and they shouldn't be burdened with a higher water bill because a refinery or plastics plant upstream contaminated their drinking water source," said Jennifer Peters, national water programs director at Clean Water Action. "EPA must do its job and update these archaic pollution standards as required by the Clean Water Act as soon as possible."
"Surfrider is pleased to join our coalition partners and Environmental Integrity Project in calling for EPA to fulfill its statutory duties to protect clean water and public health and ensure that technology-based standards for industrial polluters like petroleum refineries and pesticides plants reflect the realities of 2023," said Staley Prom, senior legal associate at Surfrider Foundation. "Surfrider members surf, swim, snorkel, fish and recreate in waters impacted by EPA's failure to act and deserve the protections of modern technology to minimize water pollution."
"It is a shame EPA has allowed industrial polluters such as chemical plants and oil refineries to escape accountability under the Clean Water Act by operating for decades without proper pollution controls in place," said Nelson Brooke with Black Warrior Riverkeeper (in Alabama). "It is imperative EPA swiftly right these wrongs by requiring modern pollution controls for industrial facilities in order to protect rivers and all the people and critters who depend on them to be clean and safe."
"Pollution from plastics, pesticides, petroleum and a grim litany of other toxins continue to plague public water supplies," said David Whiteside, founder of Tennessee Riverkeeper. "The Clean Water Act requires factories to use the best available methods to treat their pollution, but the EPA has failed to enforce this provision. Our lawsuit seeks to reduce a vast array of toxins in our environment from numerous industries by requiring polluters to finally use modern technology and obey the law."
At the Center for Biological Diversity, we believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature — to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild animals and plants. Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters and climate that species need to survive.
(520) 623-5252"We must push back hard against these next leaps down the pathway to tyranny," said one Democratic in the House.
Facing a string of judicial rulings in recent days that have struck down or at least put on hold a variety of efforts by the Trump administration that appeared to overstep its executive authority, both Vice President JD Vance and billionaire oligarch Elon Musk on Sunday took aim at the power of judges by saying their powers—despite being the recognized co-equal and third branch of the U.S. government—should be curbed or disregarded.
"If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal," Vance tweeted Sunday morning, in a legally dubious post. Despite the claim, military generals are not free—either from laws of war, international human rights treaties, or chains of command—to do anything they please.
"If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that's also illegal," Vance continued. "Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power."
Shortly before Vance's tweet, Musk, the world's richest person and who has been tasked by Trump to run the Department of Government Efficiency( DOGE) effort to dismantle key government agencies and programs, floated the idea that life-time appointed judges should, based on a set annual quota, be subject to termination by the political party in power. Currently, both chambers of Congress and the White House are controlled by Republicans.
"I'd like to propose that the worst 1% of appointed judges, as determined by elected bodies, be fired every year," Musk said on Sunday morning. "This will weed out the most corrupt and least competent."
Over the last week, federal judges have intervened to block DOGE efforts to have unfettered access to a key Treasury Department payment system and also blocked the so-called "Fork in the Road" offer to federal workers put forth by the unsanctioned Musk-led team at DOGE.
After a U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer responded to a suit brought by 18 state attorneys general on Friday by blocking DOGE access to the Treasury system, Musk retweeted a message suggesting that the best thing to do might be to ignore the order.
Musk also called for Engelmayer's specific ouster. "A corrupt judge protecting corruption," Musk tweeted. "He needs to be impeached NOW!"
Outside critics, Democratic lawmakers, and legal experts responded with grave concern to the comments about judges by both Vance and Musk, arguably President Donald Trump's closest advisors.
After initial litigation losses for their illegal actions, Trump Admin now begins intimidating/attacking judiciary. Vance—ignore court orders. Musk—impeach “corrupt” judges. We must pushback hard against these next leaps down the pathway to tyranny.
[image or embed]
— Rep. Lloyd Doggett (@doggett.house.gov) February 9, 2025 at 3:19 PM
In an email to CNBC on Sunday, Duke Law School professor Marin K. Levy explained that the state attorneys general and the judge in the Treasury case "were all acting well within their authority. What we saw here was the judicial system working as it is supposed to."
Mondaire Jones, a former congressman from New York and now a commissioner on the U.S. Commission for Civil Rights, characterized Vance's comments as being part of the Trump-led "fascist movement in American politics."
In a Sunday morning appearance on "Face the Nation," Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said what the nation is witnessing with Trump allowing people like Musk to run roughshod over federal agencies—and now attacking the judiciary—is nothing short of a "constitutional crisis" and "full-scale authoritarian takeover."
"We are seeing an executive branch," said Omar, "that has decided they are no longer going to abide by the Constitution in honoring Congress' role in the creation of the agencies, in their role deciding where money is allocated. And so the only recourse we have—since our congressional leadership, the Speaker [of the House Mike Johnson], will not stop the executive—is through the judiciary."
We're witnessing a constitutional crisis and a full-scale authoritarian takeover.
The executive branch has decided they’re no longer going to abide by the Constitution.
However, our judiciary system is fighting back. One-by-one, we will stop this illegal government takeover. pic.twitter.com/MMFgrLlXVV
— Rep. Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan) February 9, 2025
"When you think about the checks and balances we have," Omar continued, "the courts are the only recourse we have at the moment. And when we talk about the illegality of what the executive branch is doing, we have seen every single executive order that has been challenged in the court we found to be illegal."
Omar said that fact, hopefully, will offer some solace to the "American people that our courts are working as they should. The checks and balances are working, but what is not working is the way the executive is behaving and the congressional leadership that is failing the American people."
"There's no reason to build this in Guantánamo unless you want to do things you don't think you could get away with on the U.S. mainland. It's easy to put tents in Florida. But they're putting them in Cuba. Ask yourself why."
Fears are growing that the offshore U.S. detention facilities at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba are an ominous sign for what President Donald Trump has in store as he further disregards the rule of law and normalizes actions that previously would have been unthinkable or faced immediate, bipartisan opposition in Congress.
After the first pictures emerged Saturday of still unidentified persons transferred to the island from the U.S. mainland by immigration officials, progressive journalist Nathan Robinson was among those raising the alarm, accusing Trump of "building a concentration camp and deliberately putting it where it is hardest to monitor or enforce the law."
The New York Times, alongside pictures of newly-erected tents taken by photojournalist Doug Mills, reported Saturday that the administration had already "moved more than 30 people described as Venezuelan gang members to the U.S. Navy base at Guantánamo Bay, as U.S. forces and homeland security staff prepare a tent city for potentially thousands of migrants." Mills was traveling Friday with Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, as she made her first visit to the offshore site.
According to the outlet:
Ms. Noem visited the nascent tent camp, where the administration has suggested that thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of migrants who pose lesser threats could be housed. She watched Marines rehearse how to move migrants to the future tent city, and she was shown a tent with cots and a display of basic items to be provided each new arrival — T-shirt, shorts, underwear and a towel — and then got an aerial view of the mission from a Chinook helicopter.
"The Trump administration," the Times reported, "has not released any of their identities, though they are believed to all be men, nor has it said how long they might be held at the island outpost."
According to critics like Robinson, "There's no reason to build this in Guantánamo unless you want to do things you don't think you could get away with on the U.S. mainland. It's easy to put tents in Florida. But they're putting them in Cuba. Ask yourself why."
On Friday, a coalition of more than a dozen rights groups—including the ACLU, National Immigration Law Center, and others—sent a letter today to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Department of Defense (DoD), and the U.S. State Department demanding Trump officials provide immediate access to those who have been transferred out of the country to the offshore facility.
In addition, the groups demanded to know:
"Sending immigrants from the U.S. to Guantánamo and holding them incommunicado without access to counsel or the outside world opens a new shameful chapter in the history of this notorious prison," said ACLU deputy director of immigrant rights Lee Gelernt. "It is unlawful for our government to use Guantánamo as a legal black hole, yet that is exactly what the Trump administration is doing."
Setareh Ghandehari, advocacy director of Detention Watch Network, said Friday that expansion of operations at Guantánamo "is especially alarming given its remote location and the decades-long documented history of abuse and torture there, which will only be exacerbated by the well-documented abuse inherent to the ICE detention system, including abuse, unsanitary conditions, and medical neglect. In no uncertain terms—lives are in jeopardy."
While previous administrations have exploited the land seized by the U.S. in Cuba to detain and process asylum seekers and migrants in the past, those were individuals interdicted at sea or prior to having ever set foot on American soil. The facilities have not been used to hold noncitizens deported from the U.S. mainland.
Last week, Slate's Mary Harris interviewed journalist Andrea Pitzer, author of "One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps," who acknowledged that while many immediately think of Nazi Germany's death camps under Adolf Hitler when they hear the term "concentration camp," it is not wrong to describe the U.S. prison facilities at Guantánamo that way and for important reasons.
In her questioning, Harris posed to Pitzer how the existence of Guantánamo "doesn’t mean it’s going to become Auschwitz" necessarily, but that it does make "the road to Auschwitz more possible."
And Pitzer responded:
That's exactly right. And so what it means is even to do the most horrible things that humans have done takes time. It takes sort of a space and imagination and tools and resources. And the more of those kinds of tools and resources we line up in one place, the more room there is for the obscene or the perverted imagination to work. And even Auschwitz—keep in mind that it was 1933 when Hitler came to power and they started with concentration camps right out of the gate. So within the first weeks, Dakau is opened, though not quite in its final form, but it is already a camp and it takes almost a decade to get to even this final solution. And so, yes, absolutely, the Holocaust as we know it, as we remember it, has never been repeated. Nothing has come close to that. But you do not get to the death camps without having several years of Auschwitz, of Buchenwalds, of those beforehand.
"And right now," Pitzer said of Gitmo's legacy and the new purpose that Trump is giving it, "we have a place where there has been torture, we have a place where there has been riots, we have a place where there have been people held without trial for more than 20 years. And those are some of the most dangerous seeds that humanity can plant."
"The Holocaust as we know it, as we remember it, has never been repeated. Nothing has come close to that. But you do not get to the death camps without having several years of Auschwitz, of Buchenwalds, of those beforehand."
In a weekend column, the Philadelphia Inquirer's Will Bunch warned that even as much of the Trump administration's targeting of immigrants and refugees thus far should be seen as a "propaganda" exercise designed to titillate his base and antagonize his liberal opponents, the danger present by the Gitmo policy and others are very real.
"The bigger worry, " writes Bunch, "is that just because the cruelty of mass deportation is largely performative doesn’t mean these performances won’t scale up dramatically in the months ahead. Trump reportedly is already badgering his border czar, Tom Homan, and ICE to meet ambitious arrest targets, which would probably require crueler and more legally dubious measures that would fill those empty tents at Gitmo. If the president needs his phony war against a nonexistent border invasion to distract the American heartland from the coming evisceration of government services, the cruelty will become a bigger and bigger point."
Referencing the great Russian playwright's famous quote about the introduction of a gun onstage, Bunch opined that Trump's performative brand of governance does not mean the threat isn't real.
"You don't need Anton Chekhov," noted Bunch, "to understand that you don't build empty tents at Gitmo in Act One of your presidency unless you plan to fill them in Act Three."
Recent days have seen a full-frontal assault on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Trump's favorite billionaire has much to gain personally if the agency no longer has the ability to operate effectively on behalf of the American people.
The Trump administration's multi-pronged attack on the CFPB continues.
President Donald Trump's new acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Russell Vought, told the agency to cease nearly all its operations in a series of orders on Saturday night and the move is not just a gift to the broader financial industry and large Wall Street banks, say critical observers, but also a major potential gift to billionaire Elon Musk, the world's wealthiest person, who has a major vested interest in the agency's demise.
Vought, the right-wing architect of the anti-government Project 2025 who also now heads the powerful Office of Management and Budget, confirmed Saturday night he had taken control of the agency in an email to staff that called on them to halt most of their work.
"Musk wants to use the government to put more in his pockets. This is a blatant conflict of interest." —Sen. Ed. Markey
According to reporting by NBC News, which obtained a copy of the email,
Employees were instructed to "cease all supervision and examination activity," "cease all stakeholder engagement," pause all pending investigations, not issue any public communications and pause "enforcement actions."
Vought also told employees not to "approve or issue any proposed or final rules or formal or informal guidance" and to "suspend the effective dates of all final rules that have been issued or published but that have not yet become effective," among other directives listed in the email.
He said in the email that the directives are effective immediately, unless he approves an exception or a certain activity is required by law.
The agency has been a target for Republicans for years and the party has contested in court its source of funding, which unlike most other agencies is funded by the Federal Reserve as opposed to regular appropriations by Congress. That mechanism, however, was established by Congress when the CFPB was created—an approach that was designed to shield it from political interference—and has withstood all legal challenges, including one before the U.S. Supreme Court last year.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), credited with bringing the CFPB to life, said the orders from Vought make clear the Trump administrations intentions.
"Vought is giving big banks and giant corporations the green light to scam families," Warren said Saturday. "The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has returned over $21 billion to families cheated by Wall Street. Republicans have failed to gut it in Congress and in the courts. They will fail again."
Vought, in his online post, said he also informed Fed Chairman Jerome Powell on Saturday that the agency would be requesting $0 for the upcoming draw period, claiming that no additional funds were needed to fulfill its work.
"The Bureau's current balance of $711.6 million is in fact excessive in the current fiscal environment," Vought claimed. "This spigot, long contributing to CFPB's unaccountability, is now being turned off."
Critics point out that Musk, who has been appointed by Trump to head the Department of Government Efficiency( DOGE), has serious conflicts when it comes to the Trump administration's targeting of the CFPB.
DOGE is not a real department but has claimed sweeping authority to access the sensitive workings of federal agencies—triggering an avalanche of legal challenges as a result. In addition to Vought's statements, the previous CFPB acting director, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, last week issued an internal stop work order that was challenged by Democratic lawmakers.
On Friday, as Common Dreamsreported, Musk himself posted "CFPB RIP" on social media next to a picture of a gravestone and his detractors have argued his antagonism is not based solely on his ideological opposition to an agency that has returned over $20 billion to consumers over recent years from bad financial actors.
In an appearance Saturday on MSNBC, Lindsay Owens, executive director of the progressive advocacy group Groundwork Collective, explained that while Vought's targeting of CFPB can be explained by well-documented fealty to various corporate interests—and a desire "to destroy the government from the inside out"—Musk's motivations are likely "more sinister" and closer to home.
Elon Musk and Russ Vought have taken over the CFPB. That’s bad news for consumers.
Vought’s aim is to destroy govt from the inside out, and Musk's motive is more sinister. As he partners with Visa on a payment app, he has an interest in ensuring the CFPB doesn't get in his way. pic.twitter.com/C7FAFfG0xI
— Groundwork Collaborative (@Groundwork) February 8, 2025
Diminishing CFPB's ability to operate as well as getting a look at its trove of files, including the inner workings of those institutions it has been tasked with holding to account, said Owens, is a for Musk to "grease the skids for his new business interest."
"We know that Elon Musk is interested in starting his own payment app—he's partnered with Visa to do that," she explained, "and so he has a real interest in ensuring that the CFPB isn't blocking an effort like that."
Owens said that Musk's interest in the agency goes beyond that as well, because the CFPB has "trade secrets from enforcement actions against some of his likely future competitors."
On Friday, The American Prospect's David Dayen reported on the little-noticed Feb. 3 order that Bessent sent out to CFPB staffers which specifically halted new designation of non-bank entities, including "nondepository institutions," by the agency—a policy that could directly impact Musk's peer-to-peer payment venture he hopes to launch on X in partnership with Visa.
According to Dayen:
By stalling designation of nondepository institutions, Bessent ensures that X will not be designated for CFPB supervision, at least in the near term.
The more innocent explanation for the last-minute change is that Bessent was likely uninformed about what the CFPB does, and hastily added supervision later. But the inserted directive specifically bars designation of non-banks in the supervisory process, as a not-so-thinly-veiled shield for Big Tech payment app firms, and in particular the company run by special government employee Elon Musk.
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) expressed concerns along these grounds on Saturday night.
"Elon wants the CFPB gone so tech billionaires can profit from apps, like X, that offer bank-like services but don't follow financial laws that keep people’s money safe," charged Markey. "Musk wants to use the government to put more in his pockets. This is a blatant conflict of interest."