Tag Archives: attorney

Utah Just Decided It Isn’t Going to Recognize the 1,300 Same-Sex Marriages It Already Certified

by Georgiana32J Posted on January 8, 2014

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

More than 1,300 same-sex couples got married in Utah in the two weeks between December 20, when a district judge ruled the state’s ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional, and Monday, when the Supreme Court stayed the decision pending the state’s appeal. But Gary Herbert, Utah’s Republican governor, just decided the state won’t recognize those marriages as valid.

Derek Miller, Herbert’s chief of staff, sent state agencies the following email Tuesday night:

Dear Cabinet,

I’m sure you are all aware of the issuance of the stay regarding same-sex marriage in Utah from the United States Supreme Court yesterday. This stay effectively puts a hold on the decision of the district court, which found state laws prohibiting same-sex marriage in Utah to be unconstitutional.

After the district court decision was issued on Friday, December 20th, some same-sex couples availed themselves of the opportunity to marry and to the status granted by the state to married persons. This office sent an email to each of you soon after the district court decision, directing compliance.

With the district court injunction now stayed, the original laws governing marriage in Utah return to effect pending final resolution by the courts. It is important to understand that those laws include not only a prohibition of performing same-sex marriages but also recognizing same-sex marriages.

Based on counsel from the Attorney General’s Office regarding the Supreme Court decision, state recognition of same-sex marital status is ON HOLD until further notice. Please understand this position is not intended to comment on the legal status of those same-sex marriages – that is for the courts to decide. The intent of this communication is to direct state agency compliance with current laws that prohibit the state from recognizing same-sex marriages.

Wherever individuals are in the process of availing themselves of state services related to same-sex marital status, that process is on hold and will stay exactly in that position until a final court decision is issued. For example, if a same-sex married couple previously changed their names on new drivers licenses, those licenses should not be revoked. If a same-sex couple seeks to change their names on drivers licenses now, the law does not allow the state agency to recognize the marriage therefore the new drivers licenses cannot be issued.

We appreciate your patience and diligence in this matter. We recognize that different state agencies have specific questions and circumstances that will need to be worked through. Please do so with the Assistant Attorney General assigned to your respective agency in coordination with the Governor’s General Counsel. We also recognize that these changes affect real people’s lives. Let us carefully and considerately ensure that we, and our employees throughout the state, continue to treat all people with respect and understanding as we assist them.

Regards,

Derek B. Miller

Chief of Staff

Governor’s Office State of Utah

So, that’s awful. Happy Wednesday.

See the article here: 

Utah Just Decided It Isn’t Going to Recognize the 1,300 Same-Sex Marriages It Already Certified

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Utah Just Decided It Isn’t Going to Recognize the 1,300 Same-Sex Marriages It Already Certified

The Outrage Continues: An Alabama Man Who Raped a Teenager Still Won’t Do Prison Time Under His New Sentence

by dfonis5 Posted on December 27, 2013

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

The Alabama man who was allowed to walk free after being convicted of rape has had his probation extended by two years, but he still won’t have to serve prison time under a new, supposedly stiffer sentence handed down this week.

In September, a jury in Limestone County, Alabama found 25-year-old Austin Smith Clem guilty of raping his teenager neighbor, Courtney Andrews, three times—twice when she was 14, and once when was she was 18. County Judge James Woodroof theoretically sentenced Clem to 40 years in prison. But Woodroof structured the sentence so that Clem would only serve three years probation, plus two years in the Limestone County corrections program for nonviolent criminals, which would allow Clem to work and live in the community. Only if Clem violated his probation would he be required to serve the prison time.

Clem’s lenient sentence touched off a national outcry, and Andrews eventually appeared on Melissa Harris-Perry’s MSNBC show to call for tougher punishment. In early December, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals found that the sentence was illegal and ordered Woodroof to mete out a stiffer penalty. But Clem’s new sentence, which Woodroof handed down Monday, only extends Clem’s probation from three to five years. And if Clem violates the terms of his probation, he will only have to serve 35 years in prison—less than he would have under his initial sentence.

Continue Reading »

Visit site:

The Outrage Continues: An Alabama Man Who Raped a Teenager Still Won’t Do Prison Time Under His New Sentence

Posted in FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Outrage Continues: An Alabama Man Who Raped a Teenager Still Won’t Do Prison Time Under His New Sentence

Read the Connecticut State’s Attorney’s Crime Report on the Sandy Hook Massacre

by al36olu Posted on November 25, 2013

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Tragedy in Newtown


The NRA Myth of Arming the Good Guys


A Guide to Mass Shootings in America


More Guns, More Mass Shootingsâ&#128;&#148;Coincidence?


Do Armed Civilians Stop Mass Shooters? Actually, No.


“A Killing Machine”: Half of All Mass Shooters Used High-Capacity Magazines


Mass Shootings: Maybe We Need a Better Mental-Health Policy


Why Mass Shootings Deserve Deeper Investigation


DATA: Explore our mass shootings research

See our full special report on gun laws and the rise of mass shootings in America.

Today Connecticut State’s Attorney Stephen J. Sedensky III released a report on the criminal investigation of the December 14, 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that left 20 children and six adults dead. The long-awaited document is only a summary of the yet-to-be released final crime report, which is estimated to run thousands of pages, according to the Hartford Courant.

The summary report includes a timeline of the police response to Sandy Hook, starting with the first 911 call. It also offers some insight into the family history, interests, and mental health of shooter Adam Lanza. Included is an inventory of violent video games he owned, along with a record of some of the evidence recovered from Lanza’s hard drive, such as images of him brandishing weapons, movies depicting mass shootings, and videos of people committing suicide by gunshot.

Sedensky has been criticized for delaying the publication of the report and withholding 911 recordings, which are routinely released to the public. He is currently appealing a ruling by the state’s Freedom of Information Commission stating he must release the emergency calls. A judge is expected to listen to the tapes and make a ruling in the near future. With today’s release of the crime report, the investigation into the massacre is officially closed.

We’ll be combing through the report and highlighting important revelations here. Check back for updates.

DV.load(“//www.documentcloud.org/documents/841589-sandy-hook-final-report.js”,
width: 630,
height: 450,
sidebar: false,
text: false,
pdf: false,
container: “#DV-viewer-841589-sandy-hook-final-report”
);

Click here to download the report.

Link to original – 

Read the Connecticut State’s Attorney’s Crime Report on the Sandy Hook Massacre

Posted in alo, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Read the Connecticut State’s Attorney’s Crime Report on the Sandy Hook Massacre

23 Petty Crimes That Have Landed People in Prison for Life Without Parole

by Ivan Nutter Posted on November 13, 2013

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

As of last year, according to a report released today by the American Civil Liberties Union, more than 3,200 people were serving life in prison without parole for nonviolent crimes. A close examination of these cases by the ACLU reveals just how petty some of these offenses are. People got life for, among other things…

Possessing a crack pipe
Possessing a bottle cap containing a trace amount of heroin (too minute to be weighed)
Having traces of cocaine in clothes pockets that were invisible to the naked eye but detected in lab tests
Having a single crack rock at home
Possessing 32 grams of marijuana (worth about $380 in California) with intent to distribute
Passing out several grams of LSD at a Grateful Dead show
Acting as a go-between in the sale of $10 worth of marijuana to an undercover cop
Selling a single crack rock
Verbally negotiating another man’s sale of two small pieces of fake crack to an undercover cop

comedy_nose/Flickr

Having a stash of over-the-counter decongestant pills that could be used to make methamphetamine
Attempting to cash a stolen check
Possessing stolen scrap metal (the offender was a junk dealer)—10 valves and one elbow pipe
Possessing stolen wrenches
Siphoning gasoline from a truck
Stealing tools from a shed and a welding machine from a front yard
Shoplifting three belts from a department store
Shoplifting several digital cameras
Shoplifting two jerseys from an athletic store

fanatics.com

Taking a television, circular saw, and power converter from a vacant house
Breaking into a closed liquor store in the middle of the night
Making a drunken threat to a police officer while handcuffed in the back of a patrol car
Being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm
Taking an abusive stepfather’s gun from their shared home

These are not typically first offenses, but nor are they isolated cases. The vast majority (83 percent) of life sentences examined by the ACLU were mandatory, meaning that the presiding judge had no choice but to sentence the defendant to a life behind bars. Mandatory sentences often result from repeat offender laws and draconian sentencing rules such as these federal standards for drug convictions:

Families Against Mandatory Minimums

The data examined by the ACLU comes from the federal prison system and nine state penal systems that responded to open-records requests. This means the true number of nonviolent offenders serving life without parole is higher.

What’s clear, based on the ACLU’s data, is that many nonviolent criminals have been caught up in a dramatic spike in life-without-parole sentences.

Among the cases reviewed, the vast majority were drug-related:

And most of the nonviolent offenders sentenced to life without parole were racial minorities.

All graphics by Associate Interactive Producer Jaeah Lee

Obviously, housing all of these nonviolent offenders isn’t cheap. On average, for example a single Louisiana inmate serving life without parole costs the state about $500,000. The ACLU estimates reducing existing lifetime sentences of nonviolent offenders to terms commensurate with their crimes would save taxpayers at least $1.8 billion.

In August, Attorney General Eric Holder unveiled a reform package aimed at scaling back the use of mandatory minimums for nonviolent drug offenders. As Dana Liebelson noted:

Under Holder’s new policy, mandatory minimums as they apply to specific quantities of drugs will no longer be used against offenders whose cases do not involve violence, a weapon, and selling to a minor, and they will also not be used against offenders that do not have a “significant criminal history” and ties to a “large-scale” criminal organization.

Continue Reading »

More:

23 Petty Crimes That Have Landed People in Prison for Life Without Parole

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on 23 Petty Crimes That Have Landed People in Prison for Life Without Parole

Virginia Republicans Change Vote-Counting Rules While Counting Votes

by John Grit Posted on November 11, 2013

Mother Jones

The race to become Virginia’s next attorney general remains in flux nearly a week after Election Day. Republican Mark Obenshain led Democrat Mark Herring by a little over 1,000 votes the day after the election, but that advantage whittled away to a toss-up as more exact results came in over the following days. Obenshain leads Herring by a scant 17 votes—out of over 2 million total—as of Monday morning, according to results posted on Virginia’s Board of Elections website. A recount is a certainty.

Legal wrangling is a given during any recount, but Virginia Republicans got off to an early start over the weekend, potentially exploiting the state’s new voter ID law to cast aside likely Democratic votes.

The vast majority of Virginia’s votes had already been tabulated by the end of last week, but a swath remains outstanding in parts of Fairfax County, a string of DC suburbs in Northern Virginia. Fairfax is still tallying provisional ballots—disputed votes that were set aside on Election Day. Virginia introduced a new strict photo ID requirement for the 2014 election; voters who lacked proper identification on Election Day could cast a provisional ballot to be assessed later. Fairfax County had previously allowed a lawyer or authorized representative to advocate on behalf of counting a provisional ballot during hearings to assess those votes. But on Friday, the Republican-controlled state Board of Elections sent a memo to the county ordering an end to this practice, shifting the rules after the election and midway through counting the votes.

As local radio station WTOP put it:

The state Electoral Board decided Friday to change the rules that had been followed in Fairfax County and ban legal representatives from stepping in to help get the ballot counted, unless the voter him or herself is there.

County Electoral Board Secretary Brian Shoeneman says he and board chairman Seth Stark disagree with the ruling, but they have to comply. The board is voting on some provisional ballots later Saturday.

“The office of the Attorney General advised us that this was the correct reading of the statute,” State Board of Elections Secretary Don Palmer says.

That attorney general is Ken Cuccinelli, the conservative who lost Virginia’s gubernatorial election last week. As AG, Cuccinelli filed one of the first legal challenges to Obamacare and asked the Supreme Court to uphold Virginia’s anti-sodomy law. Now he’s telling Fairfax to change its election rules mid-count.

Election expert Rick Hasen questioned the motivations of this new order in a blog post on Sunday: “It appears the directive came out after most of the provisional ballots (outside of Democratic Fairfax and Arlington counties) have already been counted—and it is not clear if the other counties used uniform standards in counting provisional ballots,” he wrote. “Further, it seems that the rule goes against both Fairfax County practice (which allowed legal representatives to argue for the counting of ballots rather than the voter in person), as well as Virginia’s Board of Elections posted rules.”

Link to original: 

Virginia Republicans Change Vote-Counting Rules While Counting Votes

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Virginia Republicans Change Vote-Counting Rules While Counting Votes

BP negligent in Texas refinery leak but absolved of wrongdoing

by celicjusz Posted on October 15, 2013

BP negligent in Texas refinery leak but absolved of wrongdoing

By

BP

The Texas City refinery.

Yes, of course BP was negligent when it allowed at least 500,000 pounds of toxic gases to stream out of a refinery in Texas City, Texas, for 40 days in 2010.

So ruled a Texas jury. But that’s where the good news out of a lawsuit that could affect 48,000 refinery neighbors ends. Despite the company’s negligence, a jury concluded that the fumes it released, which contained such cancer-causing chemicals as benzene and nitrogen oxides, caused no harm to its neighbors.

The Houston Chronicle reported that a 12-person jury deliberated for nearly three days before concluding that BP had been negligent but that it was to be absolved of wrongdoing:

“Today’s verdict affirms BP’s view that no one suffered any injury as a result of the flaring of the BP Ultracracker flare during April and May 2010,” BP spokesman Scott Dean said. “Armed with the knowledge gleaned from this case and this important jury verdict, the company will immediately begin to prepare for any additional proceedings involving other plaintiffs.”

Tony Buzbee, the attorney for the three residents who said they were harmed by the release, said he was surprised by the verdict.

“But I respect juries,” Buzbee said. “This was only the first one of the test cases. We learned some things. We will gear up and try another one in a couple of months.”

The three plaintiffs in the case said they fell ill and endured foul odors because of the gas leak. Now they have something new to feel ill about.


Source
Jury absolves BP in gas leak trial, Houston Chronicle

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Business & Technology

,

Climate & Energy

Link – 

BP negligent in Texas refinery leak but absolved of wrongdoing

Posted in Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, ONA, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on BP negligent in Texas refinery leak but absolved of wrongdoing

Cool news: Big fridges to get more efficient under new Obama rules

by bvds34dfsg Posted on August 29, 2013

Cool news: Big fridges to get more efficient under new Obama rules

By

Michael Kappel

Soon Ben & Jerry’s will get to live in more efficient freezers.

After sitting on two energy-efficiency rules for more than a year and a half, the Obama administration finally released them on Thursday. They won’t be official until early next year, after the public has time to comment and regulators have time to consider those comments, but at least they’re now moving forward.

The proposed rules would require commercial refrigeration equipment, like restaurant fridges and deli cases, to use less energy. OK, that might not sound like the sexiest initiative, but efficiency matters — a lot. Plus this means you’ll soon have one more reason to feel better about buying Ben & Jerry’s.

As The Washington Post reports, “The proposals have a significant environmental impact because of the size of the appliances involved.” The White House says the new rules “could cut energy bills by up to $28 billion and cut emissions by over 350 million metric tons of CO2 over 30 years.”

Still, the White House had to be pushed to actually release the rules. From Bloomberg BusinessWeek:

The proposals were issued after environmental groups and state governments pressed for action from the administration of President Barack Obama. The draft rules were sent to the Office of Management and Budget for review more than a year ago, and missed the 90-day deadline for release.

Because of those delays, New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman led 10 states in threatening legal action unless the rules were issued. Early this month, the administration settled with the states, and agreed to issue the proposals now and final rules in early 2014.

Earlier this month, the admin also proposed efficiency rules for the types of lights used in big-box stores and sports stadiums.

Efficiency is an important part of Obama’s climate plan, as laid out in his big June climate speech. And, fortunately, efficiency rules can be implemented without approval from an intransigent Congress.

Lisa Hymas is senior editor at Grist. You can follow her on Twitter and Google+.

Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Business & Technology

,

Climate & Energy

,

Politics

View post:  

Cool news: Big fridges to get more efficient under new Obama rules

Posted in ALPHA, Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Cool news: Big fridges to get more efficient under new Obama rules

Boulder and other Colorado cities try to fight fracking

by Eliza Kurth Posted on June 10, 2013

Boulder and other Colorado cities try to fight fracking

By John Upton

Shutterstock

Boulder tells frackers to piss off — for the next year, at least.

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) loves fracking — he once even drank fracking fluid to prove it — but other elected officials in the state are not so gung ho. A handful of Colorado cities are trying to limit or ban the practice — and are finding that it’s not so easy to do.

Boulder is the latest Colorado municipality to take on the frackers. Last week, its city council unanimously passed a one-year moratorium on fracking within city limits and on city-owned open space, and council members are considering options for a more long-term policy. From the Boulder Daily Camera:

Several council members … said they are warm to the idea of bringing forward a ballot measure in November to approve a longer-term ban — a process that would involve study sessions and public hearings in coming months. …

Several residents asked the City Council to go further by approving a longer fracking moratorium, an all-out ban or turning the issue over to voters. …

[But a]n analysis by Boulder City Attorney Tom Carr determined a one-year moratorium was the safest option because it addresses public health and safety concerns while protecting the city against potential lawsuits.

Boulder is right to be worried about lawsuits. The city of Longmont, Colo., where voters passed a fracking ban in November, has been sued by both the state government and the Colorado Oil and Gas Association. The industry argues that the fracking ban constitutes an illegal “taking” of mineral property and that only the state has the authority to regulate such practices.

Fear of lawsuits prompted the Fort Collins City Council last month to ease its recent ban on fracking. Prospect Energy, which had been fracking within city limits before the council passed the ban in March, will be allowed to resume its operations. From a May 22 article in the Fort Collins Coloradoan:

Mayor pro tem Gerry Horak said the council had little choice on the matter.

To continue the ban on Prospect Energy would invite a lawsuit the city would have little chance of winning, he said.

The Colorado Oil and Gas Association is taking the lead in fighting frack-averse cities. You might recall that this association tried to convince Fort Collins to shy away from a fracking ban by providing the city council with a petition full of fake signatures. The Coloradoan now brings us the news that the city’s police department is investigating whether any crimes were committed in producing that seemingly bogus petition.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Climate & Energy

Also in Grist

Please enable JavaScript to see recommended stories

View this article – 

Boulder and other Colorado cities try to fight fracking

Posted in Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, LG, ONA, solar, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Boulder and other Colorado cities try to fight fracking

Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris partied at Sean Parker’s eco-wrecking wedding

by siteforme Posted on June 7, 2013

Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris partied at Sean Parker’s eco-wrecking wedding

By John Upton

California Coastal Commission

Just your average

Game of Thrones

-style wedding backdrop.

We told you about billionaire Sean Parker’s obnoxious wedding romp in a Big Sur redwood grove. The Napster cofounder and former Facebook president will pay $2.5 million to the California Coastal Commission to help heal damages caused when a temporary wonderland backdrop was illegally built in the forest for his nuptial vows.

Well, it turns out that two of California’s most senior elected officials attended the wedding, living the kind of high life that only comes with an assault on threatened fish species and the trashing of a forest. Those officials were Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and state Attorney General Kamala Harris.

Newsom’s attendance at the anti-eco bash was interesting, given that the former San Francisco mayor has spent his political career yapping about how much he loves the environment.

Harris’ was interesting because she is the state’s top law enforcer, and Parker’s penalties stemmed from violations of state law.

(In an email to The Atlantic, Parker denied wrongdoing, saying the party preparations improved previously asphalt-covered campground lands and characterizing the $2.5 million payment as a conservation donation. But the commission’s report [PDF] is littered with accusations of violations, including construction without permits and “development undertaken in violation of the Coastal Act.” It describes at least $1 million that Parker must pay as a “penalty settlement” for the forestland violations.)

From the SF Weekly:

Enabled by a backroom deal that Parker cut with the Ventana Inn — a high-end resort that abuts an ancient forest and a creek teeming with steelhead trout — the wedding included an artificial pond, switchback stairways, fake ruins, and extra foliage that required Parker’s construction team to dig out, bulldoze, and otherwise molest areas of highly sensitive natural forest. …

Thus far, no one has divined whether Newsom’s fingerprints are on this deal. His website says that he rotates with State Controller John Chiang as chair of the three-member State Lands Commission, which oversees leasing of millions of acres of state-owned land and permitting of water channels in California. He also serves as a member to the California Ocean Protection Council. Interestingly, he also campaigned on a rather bullish environmental platform, claiming not only that he would work to conserve California’s precious natural resources, but that he would “work to secure permanent funding solutions for the California Coastal Commission.”

But Parker donated $13,000 to Newsom’s campaign for lieutenant governor, which suggests that the two of them might be (un)comfortably close. We have yet to hear Newsom’s report back from the wedding — calls to his office weren’t returned this morning.

We certainly hope the politicians enjoyed themselves. Otherwise it would be a waste of the scandalous trampling of a natural wonderland.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Business & Technology

,

Politics

Also in Grist

Please enable JavaScript to see recommended stories

Taken from – 

Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris partied at Sean Parker’s eco-wrecking wedding

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, green energy, ONA, Safer, The Atlantic, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris partied at Sean Parker’s eco-wrecking wedding

Walmart fined $82 million for dumping poisons

by heloltiki554 Posted on May 29, 2013

Walmart fined $82 million for dumping poisons

By John Upton

Shutterstock /

vvoe

The enchanted interior of a Walmart store.

Walmart doesn’t just scrimp on employee wages. It also scrimps on employee training, and that led to its workers dumping returned pesticides, bleach, and other hazardous products into the trash or sewer systems.

On Tuesday, Walmart pled guilty to violations of federal environmental laws and agreed to pay $81.6 million in fines and penalties for improper hazardous waste disposal.

From an EPA press release:

[U]ntil January 2006, Wal-Mart did not have a program in place and failed to train its employees on proper hazardous waste management and disposal practices at the store level. As a result, hazardous wastes were either discarded improperly at the store level — including being put into municipal trash bins or, if a liquid, poured into the local sewer system — or they were improperly transported without proper safety documentation to one of six product return centers located throughout the United States.

“By improperly handling hazardous waste, pesticides and other materials in violation of federal laws, Wal-Mart put the public and the environment at risk and gained an unfair economic advantage over other companies,” said Ignacia S. Moreno, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division.

Some of the $81.6 million will be invested in community projects, such as a new $6 million center that will help retailers learn how to properly handle hazardous waste.

But fear not for the company’s solvency in the wake of its reckless handling of solvents. From The New York Times:

The guilty plea comes after settlements that Wal-Mart reached with California and Missouri in 2010 and 2012 on the same charges. Tuesday’s fines include $60 million for violations of the Clean Water Act in California; $14 million for a violation of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act in Missouri; and a $7.6 million civil penalty to the E.P.A.

In total, Wal-Mart will have paid more than $110 million to resolve all these related cases. Wal-Mart, which had $128 billion in revenues last year, said the payments should not have a material effect on its business.

See also: Walmart’s greenwash: Why the retail giant is still unsustainable

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who

tweets

, posts articles to

Facebook

, and

blogs about ecology

. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants:

johnupton@gmail.com

.

Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Business & Technology

,

Living

,

Politics

Also in Grist

Please enable JavaScript to see recommended stories

Read More:

Walmart fined $82 million for dumping poisons

Posted in Anchor, Dolphin, FF, G & F, GE, ONA, solar, solar panels, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Walmart fined $82 million for dumping poisons