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Meet Obama’s EPA pick: Gina McCarthy

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How one fracking company bullies residents and elected officials alike

by BayalaHillesland628 Posted on February 19, 2013

How one fracking company bullies residents and elected officials alike

chriswaits

Indeed.

When the EPA last year dropped its inquiry into methane seepage from wells fracked by Range Resources, it seemed like an unusual move. Texan Steve Lipsky’s water supply was bubbling over with the explosive gas, after all, which seemed like the sort of thing an agency built around protecting the environment should look into. But Range Resources threatened to pull out of a key fracking study, and the EPA backed off.

Because, according to a report from Bloomberg, that’s the game the frackers at Range Resources play: bullying, threatening, intimidating.

Critics say the Fort Worth-based company, which pioneered the use of hydraulic fracturing in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus shale, has taken a hard line with residents, local officials and activists. In one case it threatened a former EPA official with legal action; in another it stopped participating in town hearings to review its own applications to drill, because local officials were asking too many questions and taking too long.

“Range Resources is different from its peers in that it chooses to severely punish its critics,” said Calvin Tillman, the former mayor of Dish, Texas, and an activist who has been subpoenaed and issued legal warnings by Range. “Most companies avoid the perception of the big-bad-bully oil company, while Range Resources embraces it.”

The Bloomberg article outlines some of that bullying. A lawmaker who criticized Range had emails leaked to the local paper. And Steve Lipsky, he with the methane water, was sued.

[Range] argued in local court that Lipsky conspired to defame the company by getting his air and water tested by Alisa Rich, president of Wolf Eagle Environmental consultants, and taking that complaint to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and to the media.

“The object of the conspiracy was to make false and damaging accusations that Range’s operations had contaminated Lipsky’s water well,” the company said in its suit, filed in July 2011.

While the case is still being fought in court, Lipsky stands by his charge of Range’s culpability: “It’s ludicrous,” he said, referring to the case. “They’re ruthless.”

As Bloomberg notes, there’s a potential downside to alienating citizens and politicians for a company that relies on permitting and leasing land. Tangling with the EPA, however, seems to carry very little cost at all. At least to Range Resources.

Source

Texas fracker accused of bully tactics against foes, Bloomberg

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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Unable to stop climate change, EPA prepares for it

by gerdi Posted on February 8, 2013

Unable to stop climate change, EPA prepares for it

Jenna Pope

“We live in a world in which the climate is changing.”

This statement from the EPA, the first line in its draft “Climate Change Adaptation Plan” [PDF] released today, is basic. But that the EPA is saying it is important.

For two reasons. The first is that the agency is advancing an argument it will need to make more forcefully later this year as it pushes for curbs on greenhouse gas pollution that could stem some of the worst effects of that changing climate. Though the draft report is dated June 2012, it only came out today — less than a week before a State of the Union address in which Obama is expected to call for climate action. And, second, the EPA needs to get ready for what a warmed world looks like.

Until now, EPA has been able to assume that climate is relatively stable and future climate will mirror past climate. However, with climate changing more rapidly than society has experienced in the past, the past is no longer a good predictor of the future. Climate change is posing new challenges to EPA’s ability to fulfill its mission.

“Until now,” huh? If you say so.

Over the course of 55 pages, the agency outlines the ways in which its mission — protecting America’s air and water — will be threatened by climate change. For those who’ve been tracking the issue, it’s largely what you’d expect. It’s important to note: This is not a document meant to suggest how the EPA will prevent climate change. It simply says “here’s what will happen as the world warms” and then considers how that will affect its mission.

An appendix outlines and prioritizes the challenges, breaking them into three categories based on likelihood: “Likely,” “Very likely,” and “Certain.” What prediction fits into which category is interesting — and suggests just how conservative the EPA is still being.

Certain effects

Ocean acidification

Very likely

Increasing extreme temperatures
Sea-level rise
Increased water temperatures
Loss of snowpack
Changes in temperature

Likely

Increased tropospheric ozone pollution in certain regions
Increased frequency or intensity of wildfires
Increasing heavy precipitation events
Effects on the stratospheric ozone layer
Effects on response of ecosystems to atmospheric deposition of sulfur, nitrogen, and mercury
Increasing intensity of hurricanes
Decreasing precipitation days and increasing drought intensity
Increasing risk of floods
Melting permafrost in Northern Regions

Why is increased ocean acidification the only “certain” outcome? Because the National Research Council of the National Academies identified it as “[o]ne of the most certain outcomes from increasing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere.”

What all of these likely eventualities mean is massive shifts in how the EPA monitors and addresses air and water pollution. Like that “increased tropospheric ozone pollution.” That means much poorer air quality and visibility, more asthma and more premature deaths. In turn, the EPA needs to accelerate scientific research to indicate how increased ozone and other pollutants “will affect ecosystem growth, species changes, surface water chemistry” and more. Each issue is similarly considered, and suggestions are made for how the EPA can address it.

There is also a section of the report reflecting the urgency of limiting negative effects on low-income and minority communities. “EPA is committed to integrating environmental justice and climate adaptation into its programs, policies, rules and operations,” the report states, “in such a way that to the extent possible, it effectively protects all demographic groups, geographic locations and communities, and natural resources that are most vulnerable to climate change.”

For the next 60 days, the EPA report is open to public comment. Instructions for offering a comment can be found here. One comment I might recommend: “Too bad we didn’t do more a few decades ago to keep all of this from happening.”

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

Unable to stop climate change, EPA prepares for it

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EPA drops methane inquiry to keep oil company happy

by donnajansen Posted on January 17, 2013

EPA drops methane inquiry to keep oil company happy

EPA headquarters.

When Fort Worth resident Steve Lipsky discovered that his tap water was bubbling, the EPA sprang into action. Lipsky lived near natural gas wells being drilled by Range Resources, the likely source of the methane flowing into his water supply. From the Associated Press:

The EPA began investigating complaints about the methane in December 2010, because it said the Texas Railroad Commission, which oversees oil and gas drilling, had not responded quickly enough to the reports of bubbling water.

Government scientists believed two families, including the Lipskys, were in danger from methane and cancer-causing benzene and ordered Range Resources to take steps to clean their water wells and provide affected homeowners with safe water.

The agency issued a 2010 emergency order in an effort to address the problem. And then, without the problem being fixed, it pulled that order. Why?

Believing the case was headed for a lengthy legal battle, the EPA asked an independent scientist named Geoffrey Thyne to analyze water samples taken from 32 water wells. In the report obtained by the AP, Thyne concluded from chemical testing that the gas in the drinking water could have originated from Range Resources’ nearby drilling operation.

Meanwhile, the EPA was seeking industry leaders to participate in a national study into hydraulic fracturing. Range Resources told EPA officials in Washington that so long as the agency continued to pursue a “scientifically baseless” action against the company in Weatherford, it would not take part in the study and would not allow government scientists onto its drilling sites, said company attorney David Poole.

In March 2012, the EPA retracted its emergency order, halted the court battle and set aside Thyne’s report showing that the gas in Lipsky’s water was nearly identical to the gases the Plano, Texas-based company was producing.

The EPA’s efforts to study and possibly regulate fracking have been fraught from the outset. The massive production boom that’s reshaping entire states is lucrative for fossil fuel companies and a boon for politicians. That the U.S. is seeing recent highs in extraction — and recent lows in oil imports — is largely a function of increased hydraulic fracturing. There’s a huge disincentive for those in power to derail that train.

There’s even dissension within the government. The EPA and the Department of the Interior disagree on possible water pollution from fracking in Wyoming. Interior is developing its own fracking rules that will apply on federal land, due out later this year.

In this case, the EPA’s move is disconcerting and, on its surface, inappropriate. It’s another example of how an agency designed to be highly independent of political forces increasingly finds itself held hostage to them. Over the long term, everyone who might be affected by incomplete research into fracking suffers. Over the short term, people like Steve Lipsky do.

Lipsky, who is still tied up in a legal battle with Range Resources, now pays about $1,000 a month to haul water to his home. He, his wife and three children become unnerved when their methane detectors go off. Sometime soon, he said, the family will have to decide whether to stay in the large stone house or move.

“This has been total hell,” Lipsky said. “It’s been taking a huge toll on my family and on our life.”

Range Resources’ David Poole disagrees.

“[EPA] said that they would look into it, which I believe is exactly what they did,” Poole said. “I’m proud of them. As an American, I think that’s exactly what they should have done.”

Source

EPA changed course after oil company protested, Associated Press

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

EPA drops methane inquiry to keep oil company happy

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Shell’s Arctic drilling flunks even the lax air pollution standards it weakened

by RubinkJoseph Posted on January 14, 2013

Shell’s Arctic drilling flunks even the lax air pollution standards it weakened

In its semi-inexplicable eagerness to get Shell the permits it needed to try to drill in the Arctic last year, the government made an important and ironic concession: The company would be allowed relaxed air pollution standards. The quote the company gave in its effort to be allowed to exceed pollution limits was pretty classic, pointing out that it “demonstrated compliance with a vast majority of limits.”

But, anyway, Shell managed to not even meet the more lax pollution standards it insisted on. From the Houston Chronicle:

The Environmental Protection Agency issued two notices of violation [last] week alleging Shell ran afoul of the Clean Air Act permits governing its Kulluk drilling unit used in the Beaufort Sea and the drillship Noble Discoverer, as well as its support vessels, in the Chukchi Sea.

According to the agency, Shell’s self-reporting of emissions revealed both drilling vessels released excess nitrogen oxide, leading the EPA to conclude that Shell had “multiple permit violations for each ship” during the 2012 drilling.

The emissions go beyond ones the EPA agreed to grandfather in a waiver Shell sought before it began drilling last year. Shell had asked permission to emit an unlimited amount of ammonia and more nitrogen oxide than originally permitted from the main generator engines on the Discoverer.

The thing I like most about that paragraph is that not only did Shell not meet pollution standards, and not only did it not meet pollution standards that it specifically begged be lowered, but it did not meet those standards on two vessels both of which it lost control of at some point during the year. I mean, really, if you can’t even manage to keep the things properly anchored, a skill that was mastered by humans sometime before the birth of Christ, I’m not surprised that you can’t figure out how to keep the things from polluting.

Shell’s Curtis Smith responded as one would expect. “We continue to work with the agency to establish conditions that can be realistically achieved,” he argued. Some examples the company might find acceptable:

Shell is prevented from spilling more than a billion gallons of diesel fuel in the ocean.
Shell may not pollute more nitrogen oxide than a normal small-sized nation of half a billion people would create over the course of a decade.
Shell is allowed up to ten (10) vessels escaping from their moorings in any one (1) week period, but no more.
If Shell does actually somehow manage to drill into an oil pocket and manages to start extracting crude, it is not allowed to spill more oil than would produce a 1-to-1 ratio of oil to water in any ocean.
If Shell does manage to start extracting, it cannot be taxed on that oil because jobs.

Source

EPA faults Shell over Arctic emissions, Houston Chronicle

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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Chicken Little

by Posted on January 10, 2013

Chicken Little

Posted 10 January 2013 in

National

The poultry industry is once again trotting out untruths when it comes to food prices, so it’s time to take a closer look at the author behind their latest collection of “facts.”

In a recent study, Dr. Thomas Elam is repeating the same tired arguments about food prices we’ve all heard before. This is unsurprising, given that his methodologies have been questioned in the past. EPA took him to task back in 2008 saying that his modeling around impact of the renewable fuel standard did “not appear to accurately reflect market forces” and that EPA did not find the analysis “plausible.”

Even more telling is the company Elam keeps: his colleagues at the Center for Global Food Issues claim to conduct research on environmental issues and food production. But that’s hard to swallow when they avidly deny climate change (for instance, claiming that tropical rainbelts shift every few hundred years). Climate change is arguably the biggest threat to food production, affecting global temperatures, drought and water supplies.

Oil is one of the biggest global warming culprits. With 2012 topping the charts as the warmest year ever for the U.S., it’s time to get real about the connection between oil, climate change, and food costs.

Let’s take a look at the facts:

Fact: Oil prices drive food prices – and global food prices are dropping

Energy costs – along with labor, marketing and packaging – are the main driver of food prices, plain-and-simple.

The vast majority — 84% — of food costs are derived from non-farm costs, according to the USDA and the Economic Research Service. (And it’s not just ERS: the United Nations has raised the alarm about the impact oil prices are having on our food prices.) That means just 16% of the dollar that someone spends at the grocery store goes to pay for all of the different crops that made the food they’re buying. And out of that 16%, just 3% is for corn (Elam himself notes in the study that “corn is just one of many basic farm inputs used to produce the U.S. food supply.”)

Because of the major oil-based inputs to food prices, oil prices ultimately drive food prices, not ethanol. What’s more, when you look at food prices on a global scale, they’re actually dropping, according to the latest UN figures and information from the US EIA and BLS:

(Sources: EIA and Bureau of Labor Statistics)

When you know the facts, this line from Elam is particularly suspect: “other than major increases in corn production . . . the only other possibility for food affordability relief is to revisit the RFS, and lower ethanol production incentives.”

Reducing the cost of oil – both as a food cost input and as a driver of household costs for Americans – would be a great place to start to make food more affordable.

Between 2009 and 2011, average household spending on gasoline jumped nearly 44% according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics data, while spending on food at home was nearly flat, up just 1.0%.

Which brings us to our next fact . . .

Fact: Ethanol saves families money

Renewable fuel helps to lower the price of fuel, the key driver in food prices. An Iowa State University study found that in recent years, ethanol has cut gasoline prices by $0.89 per gallon from where they otherwise would have been. Overall, Americans saved $50 billion on imported fuel costs in 2011 thanks to renewable fuel. Renewable fuel has also driven a $500 billion increase in America’s farm assets since 2007, supporting our nation’s farmers and struggling rural economies.

Fact: Ethanol does not use nearly as much of the corn crop as people think

The “40% myth” is just that – it’s a myth, and it’s wrong.

Ethanol is produced from a different type of corn than the crop that people eat. This field corn, fed to livestock, delivers two beneficial products – the ethanol itself from the starch portion of the kernel – and the remaining part of the plant, with nutritious fiber, protein and more, is turned into valuable livestock feed.

When you look at both products, only 16% of the net corn crop goes to ethanol.

Worldwide, the vast majority – more than 90% – of the corn crop is available for non-ethanol use.

Elam not only ignores the reality of how global food prices have changed over time, but the central role that oil plays in those prices. Prices at the pump are what’s really eating into American’s paychecks, not ethanol.

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W.Va. congressmember compares EPA head to Gadhafi

by greenenergy4 Posted on January 4, 2013

W.Va. congressmember compares EPA head to Gadhafi

Here’s some political rhetoric for you, via The Hill.

Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.) said the change of leadership at the EPA might not be for the better.

“I don’t want a repeat of what happened in Libya when we helped topple [Moammar] Gadhafi and then we wound up having al-Qaeda,” McKinley told Environment & Energy Daily. …

McKinley, a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, is among the many Republicans who say President Obama’s EPA is harmful to the coal industry.

So let’s analyze this. Let’s break down this statement by the esteemed congressmember from the great state of West Virginia.

Moammar Gadhafi ruled Libya as dictator for 40 years after assuming power in a coup. During that time, he started a war with Iran that took the lives of 500,000 to a million soldiers and some 100,000 civilians. Hundreds more died in uprisings against his brutal regime. Gadhafi actively supported terrorism against Western targets, including providing material support for the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. During the 2011 uprising that eventually claimed his position and life, thousands more died.

Moammar Gadhafi, left. Lisa Jackson, right.

Lisa Jackson was appointed by President Obama to serve as the head of the EPA. In that position, she has pushed hard for new standards limiting mercury pollution, smog, particulate matter, and greenhouse gases. She oversaw new mileage requirements for automobiles that will dramatically decrease fuel use in the future. It is safe to say that the new standards implemented during her tenure will prevent hundreds of thousands of premature deaths and save the government billions in healthcare costs.

But then, the Libyan resistance didn’t give McKinley nearly $400,000 in contributions over the course of his career. Mining interests committed to continuing cheap pollution did. Which may help explain the good congressmember’s odd moral position.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

W.Va. congressmember compares EPA head to Gadhafi

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New EPA rules on industrial boiler pollution could prevent 8,100 premature deaths a year

by RubinkJoseph Posted on December 21, 2012

New EPA rules on industrial boiler pollution could prevent 8,100 premature deaths a year

The tricky thing about trying to reduce pollution is that Americans make so much of it, in all sorts of different ways, and at greatly varying scales. We get why it makes sense to curb pollution from coal-burning power plants; they pollute on a huge scale.

Here’s a trickier one: industrial boilers, the large steam-producing systems used by institutions for heat and power. There are a lot of them, and all together they produce a lot of pollution too. But it’s much trickier politically, since tightening pollution levels from boilers (and industrial incinerators) means imposing costs on hospitals and manufacturers and schools. For a decade, the EPA has been trying to figure out where to draw the line on the issue, how to decide between the huge benefits of reducing pollution and the huge backlash that would come from providing those benefits.

An industrial boiler in Reno.

After reviewing feedback on its initial regulatory proposal, the agency late yesterday released the final standard — apparently deciding to prevent backlash as much as pollution. From The Washington Post:

For the first time, large boilers and cement kilns will face strict limits on mercury, acid gases and fine particulate matter, or soot. But the EPA will give boiler owners three years to meet the new standards, with a possible extension for another year after that, meaning the earliest they will take effect would be in 2016. Cement plants will not have to comply with the new limits until September 2015, two years after they were originally set to take place.

The rules for cement plants are looser and have later deadlines than the EPA had originally proposed. While the rules affect far more boilers than cement plants, the damage cement plants do is far worse, per unit.

There are fewer than 115 cement plants in the United States, but they account for seven percent of the mercury emitted into the air from stationary sources. Mercury contamination gets into the food chain when it enters waterways and soils in the form of precipitation and can cause neurological damage in infants and young children.

Although the most restrictive limits will affect just 1 percent of the nation’s nearly 1.5 million boilers, industry had fought restrictions in the past because these facilities are integral to the operations of hospitals, paper plants and factories. Boiler operators had sought to delay the rules by five years, until 2018.

The measures will deliver significant health benefits and impose major costs on the U.S. manufacturing sector. Meeting the standards for boilers and some incinerators will cost industry between $1.3 billion and $1.5 billion annually, the EPA estimates, and is expected to avoid up to 8,100 premature deaths, prevent 5,100 heart attacks and avert 52,000 asthma attacks each year once fully implemented. The annual cost of the cement rules will run a few hundred million dollars, according to the agency, while delivering billions annually in health benefits.

Only a small percentage of boilers will need substantial improvements.

You know this rule is tilted toward the polluters because the cement industry is just fine with it:

The Portland Cement Association welcomed the revisions. “EPA’s revised rule strikes the right balance in establishing compliance limits that, while still extremely challenging, are now realistic and achievable,” Greg Scott, president of the industry group, said.

And here’s Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.), no fan of the EPA, as reported by The Hill:

“We welcome EPA’s revisions to make these rules more workable and achievable. EPA itself acknowledged that its original rules were flawed and rightfully commenced a reconsideration process,” Whitfield added in a Friday statement.

In a press release, the Natural Resources Defense Council called the final standard “a mixed bag.” Earthjustice attorney James Pew told the Post the final regulations were “an avalanche of bad news.”

Any regulation, any restriction on pollution, is better than no restriction. The cost and health savings the EPA estimates are not insignificant. But it’s another foot shuffled forward when environmental and health advocates were hoping for a leap.

If you are looking for something dull and hard-to-parse to read over the holidays, the final regulation is posted online. Enjoy.

Source

EPA imposes new pollution limits on boilers, cement plants, Washington Post

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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Appeals court rejects industry attempt to kill EPA regulation of greenhouse gases

by biglermyrta910 Posted on December 20, 2012

Appeals court rejects industry attempt to kill EPA regulation of greenhouse gases

Envios

Perhaps the debate’s next stop.

An appeals court in D.C. today rejected an attempt by the fossil fuel industry to gut a critical EPA pollution rule.

In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that the agency had the authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, as pollutants. Since that point, as the EPA has struggled to implement various rules limiting such pollution for both new and old power plants, there have been a series of court battles over its authority. The ruling today is not the final word, but is nonetheless an important victory.

From The Hill:

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia voted 6-2 to reject a request for the full court to reconsider a June ruling that upheld EPA’s interpretation of the Clean Air Act.

The court’s action could set up a Supreme Court challenge by industry, energy firms and the state of Alaska, which were pushing for the rehearing.

The decision in June by a three-judge panel determined EPA properly evaluated the health effects of greenhouse gas emissions. That allowed the agency to continue regulating those emissions through the Clean Air Act.

Unsurprisingly, the arguments from industry and oil companies (hereafter, “The Polluters”) suggested that the EPA’s scientific finding on the health threat of greenhouse gas pollution was faulty.

Circuit Judge David Sentelle, writing an opinion for the court, disagreed.

“Of course, we agree that the statute requires EPA to find a particular causal nexus between the pollutant and the harm in order to regulate. … But that is exactly what EPA did: it found that ‘greenhouse gases in the atmosphere may reasonably be anticipated both to endanger public health and to endanger public welfare,’” Sentelle wrote. …

Sentelle [also wrote], “Congress did not say ‘certain ‘air pollutants.’ … It said ‘any air pollutant,’ and it meant it.”

The EPA has a (somewhat dense) page with information about its various proposals aimed at stemming greenhouse gas pollution.

As the legal machinations play out, The Polluters continue to hurriedly burn coal and sell oil to make a few bucks. And the atmosphere slowly gets warmer.

Source

Court won’t revisit greenhouse gas ruling, The Hill

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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The EPA tightens limits on soot, predicting huge health benefits

by Myrna Posted on December 14, 2012

The EPA tightens limits on soot, predicting huge health benefits

At least there’s a bit of good news today: implementation of hard-fought public policy that will have a hugely beneficial effect on public health.

The EPA’s tightened standard on soot pollution — announced in June and sent for final sign-off to the White House earlier this week — has been approved.

National Archives

From The Washington Post:

The new rule limits soot, or fine particulate matter, which stems from activities ranging from burning wood to vehicle emissions, and which causes disease by entering the lungs and bloodstream. Fine particulate matter measuring less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, or one-thirtieth the width of a human hair, ranks as the country’s most widespread deadly pollutant.

The new rule is a result of a 2009 court ruling that said the EPA standards for the amount of soot permissible in the air on an annual average ignored the advice of scientific advisers by maintaining the standard established in 1997 and must be rewritten. That limit was 15 micrograms per cubic meter of air.

The EPA cut the level to 12 micrograms per cubic meter.

That new level is actually on the lower end of what the EPA was considering — still higher than the 11 micrograms some health advocates sought, but significantly better than it could have been. At 12 micrograms, the EPA expects that America will save between $2.3 and $5.9 billion a year in health costs. By 2020, that figure could rise to $9.1 billion annually. The Sierra Club’s Mary Anne Hitt notes that as many as 15,000 premature deaths will be prevented annually. Other soot-related health problems that the new rules will help prevent, according to the EPA:

nonfatal heart attacks,
irregular heartbeat,
aggravated asthma,
decreased lung function, and
increased respiratory symptoms, such as irritation of the airways, coughing or difficulty breathing.

Another benefit: The new limit will also improve visibility at national parks. And you’ll be alive to enjoy the views.

For states and counties, meeting the new standard may not be that difficult. An EPA compliance map suggests that only seven counties — all in California’s Central Valley and Inland Empire — won’t meet the new standard by the end of the decade.

MAP

EPA

The industries responsible for particulate pollution said what you’d expect, according to The Hill.

Several industry groups, including the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and the American Petroleum Institute, opposed the tougher rules and warned they would thwart economic growth. NAM CEO Jay Timmons slammed EPA’s decision on Friday and said the agency should stick with the standards set in 1997.

“This new standard will crush manufacturers’ plans for growth by restricting counties’ ability to issue permits for new facilities, which makes them less attractive for new business. Essentially, existing facilities will have to be shuttered for new facilities to be built in these areas,” Timmons said in a statement.

This is what is always said.

The soot regulation is good news: lives saved, preventable damage prevented, lobbyists defeated. Now if only we could be so rational in other areas of public policy.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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