Big Polluters Freed From Environmental Oversight by Stimulus

[Robbien]

In the name of job creation and clean energy, the Obama administration has doled out billions of dollars in stimulus money to some of the nation’s biggest polluters and granted them sweeping exemptions from the most basic form of environmental oversight, a Center for Public Integrity investigation has found.

The administration has awarded more than 179,000 “categorical exclusions” to stimulus projects funded by federal agencies, freeing those projects from review under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA. Coal-burning utilities like Westar Energy (WR) and Duke Energy (DUK), chemical manufacturer DuPont (DFT), and ethanol maker Didion Milling are among the firms with histories of serious environmental violations that have won blanket NEPA exemptions.

Even a project at BP’s (BP) maligned refinery in Texas City, Texas -- owner of the oil industry’s worst safety record and site of a deadly 2005 explosion, as well as a benzene leak earlier this year -- secured a waiver for the preliminary phase of a carbon capture and sequestration experiment involving two companies with past compliance problems. The primary firm has since dropped out of the project before it could advance to the second phase.

Agency officials who granted the exemptions told the Center that they do not have time in most cases to review the environmental compliance records of stimulus recipients, and do not believe past violations should affect polluters’ chances of winning stimulus money or the NEPA exclusions.

more . . .

http://www.minyanville.com/businessmarkets/articles/stimulus-projects-epa-polluters-nepa-didion/11/29/2010/id/31403


No one in DC has any respect for the environment. Pollution is just a big joke to them.

Pfft!

[joeybee12]

1. Nice...it was obvious Obama has no concern for the middle class...

he obviously has none for the environment either.

[Robbien]

2. "As a government, I feel we always have to give somebody a break."

said Fred Pozzuto, a department NEPA compliance officer. “We have to always be forgiving and look at this on a project-by-project basis.”

Energy Department employees involved in NEPA reviews acknowledge that companies with “horrible” compliance histories -- especially at the state level -- can slip under their radar.


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Every word in the article is heartbreaking.