Criminals Against Humanity: BigCarbon

[boutons_deux]

Trump might limit states’ say in offshore drilling plan. Here’s how

When President Trump proposed opening nearly the entire U.S. coastline to more offshore oil and gas drilling, the backlash from states seeking exemptions was swift.

Governors, Republican and Democratic, and state legislatures up and down the Atlantic and Pacific coastlines protested so vigorously that the administration promised to consult with them before finalizing any plans.

Instead,

Trump is quietly laying the groundwork to weaken a decades-old federal law that empowers California and other states to slow and even stop offshore development in federal waters.

“Republicans are always supposed to be in favor of states’ rights,”

“But this is in fact an effort to take away states’ rights when it comes to offshore drilling.”

The 1972 law is widely considered one of the most powerful tools states have to regulate activity off their coasts.

It applies to all of the coastal and Great Lakes states, with the exception of Alaska.


The act gives states a voice when federal projects or industry development affect their coast,

even activities that occur outside a state’s jurisdiction, which extends three miles from the coast.

The scientific agency can’t change the law, but through regulation and implementation, it can have a major impact on how it is enforced.

https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-offshore-drilling-states-coastal-act-20190321-story.html

[boutons_deux]

Oil Giants Invest $110 Billion In New Fossil Fuels After Spending $1 Billion On Green PR

Exxon Mobil Corp., Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron, BP and Total together have spent more than $1 billion on public relations promoting green energy projects and lobbying on behalf of climate policy in the past three years, after virtually every nation on Earth agreed to cut emissions under the Paris Agreement.

The totals represent “significant efforts to maintain public support on climate while holding back binding policy,”

“As the pressure of climate change and the actual physical manifestations of it become accelerated, this account of what oil majors consider to be ‘on board with climate change’ becomes disconnected from reality,” Dylan Tanner, executive director of Influence Map, said by phone. “You have an extreme lobbying disconnect, and then you have a disconnect on their branding and their role in the solutions.”

The companies’ new tune on climate change (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/topic/climate-change) rings loud on many of the most influential English-language news outlets.

The New York Times regularly runs branded content (https://www.nytimes.com/paidpost/exxonmobil/the-future-of-energy-it-may-come-from-where-you-least-expect.html) from Exxon Mobil and Shell touting the firms’ investments in algae-based fuels and other low-carbon alternatives.

The Washington Post this month published an advertisement (https://t.co/v5bRMYYr3I) from the American Petroleum Institute, the industry’s top U.S. lobbying arm, pitching natural gas as where “the low- and no-carbon future starts.”

The banners on energy and environmental policy newsletters sent by such outlets as Politico and Axios

routinely feature the logos of Exxon Mobil and Koch Industries,

the privately held fossil-fuel conglomerate controlled by billionaire Republican mega-donors.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/oil-industry-climate_n_5c940962e4b0a6329e144e6c?ncid=newsltushp mgnews__TheMorningEmail__032219

[boutons_deux]

'In a Just World, It Would Be Treated as Crime Against Humanity': New Report Exposes Big Oil's Real Agenda

"InfluenceMap's research confirms a widely held suspicion that

Big Oil's glossy sustainability reports and shiny climate statements are

all rhetoric and no action."
https://www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_large/public/headlines/influencemap.png?itok=8U5TSKvf

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/03/22/just-world-it-would-be-treated-crime-against-humanity-new-report-exposes-big-oils?cd-origin=rss

[boutons_deux]

This Week's Giant Toxic Gas Cloud Over Houston Was a Symptom of a Much Bigger Problem (https://earther.gizmodo.com/this-weeks-giant-toxic-gas-cloud-over-houston-was-a-sym-1833473540)


https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--7A09IiJR--/c_scale,dpr_2.0,f_auto,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/zvevktznzlceaf1lqvjc.jpg

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--Scf6EGqm--/c_scale,dpr_2.0,f_auto,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/sbudno4dsjnjylhw3hhg.jpg

https://earther.gizmodo.com/this-weeks-giant-toxic-gas-cloud-over-houston-was-a-sym-1833473540?utm_source=gizmodo_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2019-03-22

but Repugs go after designated-hate-object AOC because she uses cars and planes! :lol

no doubt, TCEQ and Trash's gutted EPA will come down hard on the perpetrator.

[boutons_deux]

Texas petrochemical fire prompts hundreds to visit health clinic


https://www.reuters.com/article/us-texas-energy-houston-health/texas-petrochemical-fire-prompts-hundreds-to-visit-health-clinic-idUSKCN1R400D?feedType=RSS&feedName=healthNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FhealthNews+%28Reute rs+Health+News%29

[boutons_deux]

TX Shitbag Repug whores taking care of BigCarbon business

As Houston choked on toxic fumes, Texas legislators targeted air quality programs

Between Friday and Sunday, representatives in the Texas House filed at least a

dozen amendments to the proposed state budget. If any of them pass, they could

take away anywhere from $300,000 to $26 million from the state environmental agency and

allocate it to other projects, including a controversial state program that discourages women from getting abortions.

Of the dozens of amendments (https://capitol.texas.gov/BillLookup/PrefiledAmendments.aspx?LegSess=86R&Bill=HB1) Grist reviewed,

four of them target appropriations to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality,

the agency responsible for regulating chemical facilities and protecting the environment.

Other amendments would

siphon money from dedicated funds that are used to improve ground-level smog and particulate matter levels in Texas cities.

https://grist.org/article/as-houston-choked-on-toxic-fumes-texas-legislators-targeted-air-quality-programs/ (https://grist.org/article/as-houston-choked-on-toxic-fumes-texas-legislators-targeted-air-quality-programs/)

=====================

Major Texas industrial facilities rank first nationally in illegal water pollutionhttps://www.texastribune.org/2018/03/15/report-texas-industrial-facilities-rank-first-illegal-water-pollution/ (https://www.texastribune.org/2018/03/15/report-texas-industrial-facilities-rank-first-illegal-water-pollution/)

[boutons_deux]

Chemical that EPA allows to help clean up oil spills sickens people and fish, lawsuit claims

a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency, claiming that the agency has allowed 25 years to go by without updating the National Contingency Plan to respond to oil spills.

On Monday, the University of California at Berkeley Environmental Law Center issued the agency a 60-day intent to sue (https://www.law.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/REVISED-FINAL-NOI-3-22-2019-PDF-1.pdf) notice on behalf of several groups and individuals “for failure to perform a non-discretionary duty” under the Clean Water Act.

the EPA has continued to allow emergency responders to use a chemical mixture called Corexit (https://www.epa.gov/emergency-response/corexitr-ec9500a) to disperse oil into droplets that allow microbes to further break it down,

About 20 percent of nearly 5,000 Coast Guard personnel who responded to the BP spill and were exposed to the toxin reported persistent coughing. Others experienced wheezing and trouble breathing, according to a 2018 study commissioned by the National Institutes of Health.

“The combination of both oil and oil dispersants presented associations that were much greater in magnitude than oil alone for coughing, shortness of breath and wheezing,” the report said.

A Louisiana State University study two years prior reported a similar finding:

that symptoms from exposure resulted in “burning in nose, throat or lungs, sore throat, dizziness and wheezing."

during the Deepwater Horizon cleanup efforts, when

“dispersants and oil combined to form droplets of chemical enhanced oil that is more deadly than oil alone to people,”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2019/03/26/chemical-that-epa-sanctions-help-clean-up-oil-spills-sickens-people-fish-lawsuit-claims/?utm_term=.bc1ff7b10fd4 (https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2019/03/26/chemical-that-epa-sanctions-help-clean-up-oil-spills-sickens-people-fish-lawsuit-claims/?utm_term=.bc1ff7b10fd4)

(https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2019/03/26/chemical-that-epa-sanctions-help-clean-up-oil-spills-sickens-people-fish-lawsuit-claims/?utm_term=.bc1ff7b10fd4)