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Conflicts of Interest Abound in State Supreme Courts

by Ha Zega Posted on December 5, 2013

Mother Jones

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A new investigation by the Center for Public Integrity reveals troubling conflicts of interest in state supreme courts nationwide. CPI combed through the financial disclosure forms of state supreme court justices in all 50 states and reviewed the states’ disclosure laws for judges. Their findings on both fronts are discouraging.

CPI discovered several instances of justices writing opinions that favored companies they had financial ties to. An Arkansas justice ruled in favor of a company that had been paying his wife a salary of as much as $12,499 for two years. A high court judge in California ruled in favor of Wells Fargo despite owning up to $1 million of the bank’s stock—even as a colleague who owned less stock recused himself. Other justices accepted perks from lawyers —from country club memberships to a $50,000 Italian vacation.

Uncovering such information is exceedingly difficult because most states’ disclosure laws for judges are pretty weak. While federal judges are required to recuse themselves from cases if they or a family member own even a single share of stock in a company involved, state laws are murky and inconsistent. CPI devised a system for grading the state standards for preventing these kinds of conflicts of interest: 43 got a D or lower.

Check out some of CPI’s finds below: Some recent examples of state supreme court justices weighing in on cases involving companies in which they or their spouses owned stock, and a list of the freebies thrown at top judges.

Taking Stock

Justice Jacquelyn Stuart, Alabama

Owned stock in: Regions Financial Corp. Amount not disclosed.

Case: A securities-fraud lawsuit brought by a group of shareholders against the company.

Outcome for company: Favorable

Owned stock in: 3M. Amount not disclosed.

Case: 3M petitioned the Alabama Supreme Court for a change of venue for a case in which landowners accused the firm of polluting their property with dangerous chemicals.

Outcome for company: Favorable

Justice Kathryn Werdegar, California

Owned stock in: Wells Fargo. Between $100,001 and $1 million.

Case: Denied an appeal to a couple accusing Wells Fargo of predatory lending and unlawful foreclosure.

Outcome for company: Favorable

Justice Warren Silver, Maine

Owned stock in: Idexx Laboratories. About $28,300 held by his wife.

Case: The company was involved in a land dispute between a local quarry operator and the city.

Outcome for company: Favorable

Justice Robert Cordy, Massachusetts

Owned stock in: Bank of America. “Several hundred shares” according to a court spokeswoman.

Case: The bank was accused of unfair and deceptive business practices as a trustee on leased land in Chatham.

Outcome for company: Favorable

Justice Lindsey Miller-Lerman, Nebraska

Owned stock in: Deutsche Bank. Amount not disclosed, but at least $1,000

Case: Disputing the bank’s foreclosure on a home.

Outcome for company: Favorable

Justice Robert Edmunds, North Carolina

Owned stock in: Abbott Laboratories. At least $10,000.

Case: Whether out-of-state lawyers representing a mother whose baby died should have been allowed to try a case against the hospital and Abbott, which made the formula the baby drank.

Outcome for company: Favorable

Owned stock in: Wells Fargo. At least $10,000.

Case: Upheld a lower court’s ruling in a foreclosure case, thus finding that Wells Fargo did not need to present an original note showing their ownership of the mortgage in question.

Outcome for company: Favorable

If it may please the court

Justice Courtney Goodson, Arkansas: In 2011, she accepted a $12,000 Caribbean cruise from attorney W.H. Taylor. In 2012, she accepted a $50,000 Italian vacation from Taylor.

Justice Robert Thomas, Illinois: For the last three years, he reported honorary memberships to two country clubs. He has received “Notre Dame tix” from his friend and personal attorney.

Justices Robert Rucker, Brent Dickson, Steven Davis, Mark Massa, Indiana: In 2012, all four got free tickets to the Indy 500 from the Indiana Motor Speedway.

Chief Justice Bernette Johnson, Louisiana: In 2012, she accepted a $9,466 junket to France from the Louisiana Association of Defense Counsel (LADC) to attend their annual legal education courses.

Justice Greg Guidry, Louisiana: Guidry also took a trip to France sponsored by the LADC. In 2011, the group flew him to Buenos Aires for its annual meeting.

Justice Ron Parraguirre, Nevada: Last year, he received a $250 gift from a registered lobbyist for Barrick Gold. Less than two months later, the Nevada Supreme Court decided to hear a case regarding one of the company’s mines. (It’s still pending.)

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Conflicts of Interest Abound in State Supreme Courts

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World Bank says no to nuclear as it lays out universal energy plan

by Charlie Carin Posted on November 28, 2013

World Bank says no to nuclear as it lays out universal energy plan

The leaders of the United Nations and World Bank have hatched a plan to make sure everybody in the world has access to electricity by 2030. It would involve a huge ramp-up in electricity generation, including continued growth in renewables, and vast improvements in energy efficiency. It would also require hundreds of billions a year in investments.

But not all energy sources are welcome. “We don’t do nuclear energy,” World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said in announcing a push for financing for the plan. (The World Bank doesn’t do much coal anymore either.)

The Sustainable Energy for All initiative is a joint effort by the U.N. and World Bank. From a World Bank press release:

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim [on Wednesday] announced a concerted effort by governments, international agencies, civil society and private sector to mobilize financing to deliver universal access to modern energy services such as lighting, clean cooking solutions and power for productive purposes in developing countries, as well as scaled-up energy efficiency, especially in the world’s highest-energy consuming countries.

Agence France-Presse reports on the no-nukes angle:

“The World Bank Group does not engage in providing support for nuclear power. We think that this is an extremely difficult conversation that every country is continuing to have[,” Kim said.]

“And because we are really not in that business our focus is on finding ways of working in hydro electric power, in geo-thermal, in solar, in wind,” he said.

“We are really focusing on increasing investment in those modalities and we don’t do nuclear energy.”

That decision could frustrate a handful of leading climate scientists, including James Hansen, who recently called for more investment in nuclear power to help fight global warming. But it will please many other environmentalists, who point to the risks and high costs of nuclear power.

Raising the $600 billion to $800 billion a year that Kim said would be needed to light up the developing world, however, could prove as challenging as building a perfectly safe nuclear power plant.

Source
World Bank says no money for nuclear power, Agence France-Presse
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim Outline Plans to Mobilize Financing for Sustainable Energy for All, World Bank

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.

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Postal Service Officially Taken Over By America Haters

by UIVJodiexgz Posted on November 19, 2013

Mother Jones

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The Postal Service inflamed the general public earlier this year when it tried to eliminate Saturday delivery, but now it’s really playing with fire. Stamp collectors are up in arms over their latest venture, and you do not want to piss off stamp collectors:

On Tuesday, the U.S. Postal Service is scheduled to release 20 postage stamps honoring Harry Potter, and officials at the cash-strapped agency hope the images, drawn straight from the Warner Bros. movies, will be the biggest blockbuster since the Elvis Presley stamp 20 years ago.

But the selection of the British boy wizard is creating a stir in the cloistered world of postage-stamp policy. The Postal Service has bypassed the panel charged with researching and recommending subjects for new stamps, and the members are rankled, not least of all because Potter is a foreigner, several members said.

….“Harry Potter is not American. It’s foreign, and it’s so blatantly commercial it’s off the charts,” said John Hotchner, a stamp collector in Falls Church and former president of the American Philatelic Society, who served on the committee for 12 years until 2010. “The Postal Service knows what will sell, but that’s not what stamps ought to be about. Things that don’t sell so well are part of the American story.”

Meh. I just googled Harry Potter stamps, and it looks to me like half the countries in the world have already issued them. If France and Albania can do it, why can’t we? So go ahead. Next up for the America haters: Babar postage stamps. I’d buy some.

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Postal Service Officially Taken Over By America Haters

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Nitrogen pollution from farming lingers for decades

by JaimeLockett Posted on October 23, 2013

Nitrogen pollution from farming lingers for decades

There goes the groundwater.

When a farmworker sprays fertilizer over a field, there’s a good chance he or she will be outlived by nitrogen pollution from that fertilizer.

A 30-year study published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals that nitrogen could linger in soil for nearly a century after fertilizer is applied.

Nitrogen from fertilizer helps crops grow, but it can be poisonous for humans and animals. When nitrates leach from farmed soil into groundwater, they can make it undrinkable.

“There’s a lot of fertilizer nitrogen that has accumulated in agricultural soils over the last few decades which will continue to leak as nitrate towards groundwater,” said researcher Mathieu Sebilo, the paper’s lead author.

Three decades after scientists applied fertilizer to sugar beet and winter wheat on two small experimental plots in France, they found that just 61 to 65 percent of its nitrogen had been gobbled up by the crops. Another 12 to 15 percent was still in the soil, and 8 to 12 percent had leached into the groundwater. (The scientists used a fertilizer with an artificially high concentration of a specific nitrogen isotope to help them track its movement over the decades.)

Based on those results, the scientists project that some of the nitrogen will still be lingering in the plots in another 50 years time.

Source
Long-term fate of nitrate fertilizer in agricultural soils, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Nitrogen fertilizer remains in soils and leaks towards groundwater for decades, researchers find, University of Calgary

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.

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France Upholds Ban on Hydraulic Fracturing

by Myrna Posted on October 11, 2013

The highest court ruled against an American company that had challenged a ban on the controversial drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing, known informally as fracking. Link: France Upholds Ban on Hydraulic Fracturing ; ;Related ArticlesFrance Upholds Fracking BanGreenpeace Leader Offers Himself to Aid DetaineesAs Drilling Practice Takes Off in U.S., Europe Proves Hesitant ;

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France Upholds Ban on Hydraulic Fracturing

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Typhoon and earthquake strike Fukushima

by xf0ks040u Posted on September 20, 2013

Typhoon and earthquake strike Fukushima

The trail to Fukushima.

Two and a half years ago, the Fukushima Daiichi power facility was knocked out by a tsunami and earthquake. Myriad troubles ensued. Then this week it was hit by a typhoon, flooding, and another earthquake. Can’t a nuclear plant catch a break?

On Monday, Typhoon Man-yi smacked into Japan, causing flooding in some parts of the country, and new troubles at Fukushima. From Agence France-Presse:

The operator of the leaking Fukushima nuclear plant said Tuesday that it dumped more than 1,000 tons of polluted water into the sea after a typhoon raked the facility. …

The rain … lashed near the broken plant run by Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO), swamping enclosure walls around clusters of water tanks containing toxic water that was used to cool broken reactors.

Then, early Friday morning, the Fukushima Prefecture was rocked by a 5.3 magnitude earthquake. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem to have done any additional damage to the already crippled plant. From the AP:

The U.S. Geological Survey says the quake struck early Friday at a depth of about 13 miles under Fukushima Prefecture and about 110 miles northeast of Tokyo. …

The Japanese news agency Kyodo News reported that the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., observed no abnormality in radiation or equipment after the quake.

Even before this latest earthquake, Japan’s government was clearly fed up with the perpetually beleaguered nuclear facility. “Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday ordered TEPCO to scrap all six reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant and concentrate on tackling pressing issues like leaks of radioactive water,” the AP reports.

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

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Indonesia to seed clouds, try to put out huge plantation fires

by Susan Ellie Posted on June 21, 2013

Indonesia to seed clouds, try to put out huge plantation fires

Record-breaking air pollution caused by peatland fires in Sumatra has Malaysians and Singaporeans locked indoors — and Indonesia today plans to try an unconventional approach to tackling the flames.

The Indonesians will dump chemicals from aircraft high above smoldering palm plantations in hopes of changing the weather. The goal is to seed clouds and force them to rain their moisture out over the stubborn conflagrations, which were triggered by slash-and-burn forest-clearing by the palm oil industry.

Smoke from fires on Indonesia’s Sumatra island is polluting Singapore and Malaysia.

From the Straits Times:

Two Casa 212 aircraft will be flown to the province’s capital, Pekanbaru, on Friday morning and a C-130 Hercules Air Force aircraft will also be readied for the effort.

Personnel, equipment and seed material to induce rain over clouds have already been sent to Pekanbaru on Thursday night, the agency in charge added.

Cloud seeding is an unusual approach to firefighting. But, then, this is no ordinary fire. From Agence France-Presse:

About 100 firefighters tackling the blazes were finding them difficult to extinguish as they were smouldering underground in carbon-rich peatland, mostly in oil palm plantations, he said.

“It is extremely difficult to extinguish the fires that are burning under the surface of the peatland,” [Indonesian Forestry Ministry official Raffles Panjaitan] said.

He said the success of the cloud-seeding operation would depend on weather conditions.

“Hopefully there will be lots of clouds so that we can produce a lot of rain,” he added.

The worst-hit area was Bengkalis district, where 650 hectares of land was ablaze, he said, adding that 555 fires had been detected in Riau, up from 356 the previous month.

The smoke is fraying tempers in neighboring countries. From the BBC:

Pollution levels reached a new record high for a third day in a row in Singapore, as smoky haze from fires in Indonesia shrouded the city state.

The Pollutant Standards Index (PSI) hit 401 at 12:00 on Friday (04:00 GMT) – the highest in the country’s history.

The haze is also affecting Malaysia, with another 100 schools closed in the south of the country.

But Indonesia said the other affected countries share in the blame for the blazes. From CNN:

“The slash-and-burn technique being used is the cheapest land-clearing method and it is not only used by local farmers, but also employees of palm oil investors including Singaporean and Malaysian companies,” Hadi Daryanto, a senior official at Indonesia’s Forestry Ministry, told Indonesian media.

“We hope the governments of Malaysia and Singapore will tell their investors to adopt proper measures so we can solve this problem together.”

(Americans share in the blame, too. Palm oil is used in everything from lipstick to margarine and biofuel, and American imports from cleared Southeast Asian forests continue to skyrocket.)

Cloud seeding may sound futuristic, but it’s been practiced in the U.S. since the first half of the last century, including by water managers in California [PDF] eager to fill their reservoirs. It’s controversial because it can be unreliable and because it involves dumping chemicals, such as silver iodide, into the atmosphere. We’ll soon find out whether it’s enough to douse Indonesia’s unneighborly fire problem.

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.

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Nicaragua OKs plan for cross-country canal, environment be damned

by bukaroso Posted on June 17, 2013

Nicaragua OKs plan for cross-country canal, environment be damned

“Let’s cut it in two and let shipping through.”

Nicaragua is one step closer to being carved in half by a massive cross-country canal. Leftist President Daniel Ortega rammed the project through his country’s congress last week.

The lawmakers gave the Hong Kong-based HKND Group a 50-year concession to excavate and operate the canal, which is intended to rival Panama’s. If it’s actually built — and that’s still a big if — it promises to give an economic boost to the bitterly poor country. Nicaragua would get a minority share of profits and, say backers, tens of thousands of jobs too.

But critics warn that would come at the expense of the environment and clean water supplies. From Agence France-Presse:

Centro Humboldt environmental group deputy director Victor Campos told AFP the project to link Nicaragua’s Atlantic and Pacific coasts will jeopardize the watershed that supplies water to most of the impoverished country’s population when it transits through Lake Nicaragua. …

HKDN spokesman Ronald MacLean said the company was considering four possible routes for the waterway, and all would necessarily go across Lake Nicaragua.

In the lake lies an island with an active volcano and some 300 islets that serve as breeding grounds for the American crocodile (Crocodylus acutus), the largest reptile living in Central America and the Caribbean.

One of the possible canal routes would pass through the sprawling Cerro Silva nature reserve between the southern Caribbean coast and the El Rama River port, home to coastal ecosystems, wetlands and tropical forests that environmentalists warn could disappear.

Also in the path of the construction is the Punta Gorda nature reserve in the southern Caribbean, home to more than 120 species of birds, mammals, reptiles, fish, amphibians, mollusks and crustaceans.

MacLean said environmental experts would be hired to measure and minimize environmental and social impacts. But groundbreaking is initially scheduled for May 2014, less than a year away, providing precious little time to prepare environmental analyses and recommendations.

Independent experts are skeptical, meanwhile, saying the plan would be so hard to pull off that it may never be realized. From The New York Times:

Experts say that while the approval process led by President Daniel Ortega has been swift, environmental opposition, changes in shipping patterns and construction costs could easily thrust the proposal onto the large list of discarded plans for a Nicaraguan canal.

“It’s not going to happen, that was my first reaction,” said Noel Maurer, an associate professor at the Harvard Business School who helped write a book about the Panama Canal. “A pipe dream might be too strong, but I would just consider it a really bad investment.”

The challenges for Nicaraguan canal planners have always been enormous, and the current project is nothing if not ambitious. It would entail slashing through around 180 miles of thick tropical terrain — roughly triple the length of the Panama Canal — and then pumping a virtual sea through a series of locks deep enough for massive cargo ships.

Activists are already protesting the plans. “Nicaragua isn’t for sale,” the Movement for Nicaragua, a coalition of civil-society groups, wrote in an open letter to the country, the AP reports. “Nicaragua belongs to all Nicaraguans and isn’t the private property of Ortega and his family.”

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.

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Japan and other nations say no to U.S. wheat, worried about GMOs

by Grover Nusom Posted on May 31, 2013

Japan and other nations say no to U.S. wheat, worried about GMOs

Japan wants to make sure its noodles remain untainted by GMOs.

Japan cancelled a bid on 27,500 tons of Pacific Northwest wheat on Thursday — the first bite taken out of America’s wheat export market after a rogue genetically engineered strain was discovered growing like a weed on an Oregon farm.

Other international buyers also reacted negatively to the news, with South Korea suspending its tenders to import U.S. wheat and European Union countries being urged to step up genetic testing of American imports. Taiwan said it may seek assurances that all imported wheat from the U.S. is GMO-free, the Wall Street Journal‘s MarketWatch reports.

From Agence France-Presse:

“As long as the situation remains unchanged, we have no choice but to avoid bidding for the product,” [a Japanese government] official said …

“We are asking US authorities to disclose information related to the incident as quickly as possible,” the official said. …

Japan imports around five million tonnes of wheat a year, 60 percent of which is from the US, making it one of the largest importers of the crop. …

In Brussels, the European Commission said Thursday it has asked EU member states to check imports of wheat from the United States which may be tainted with the genetically modified strain.

The budding global backlash is a reminder that while America is a friendly place for most GMO crops, other countries consider transgenic foods to be abhorrent. GMO wheat has not been authorized to be grown or sold anywhere in the world. Monsanto ceased efforts to market the transgenic wheat in 2005 when it became clear that America’s export-dominated market would not tolerate it.

America is the world’s biggest wheat exporter, shipping $8 billion worth around the world every year. Australia is No. 2. While many wheat buyers may now look to Australia to boost its exports, experts told Reuters that it was unlikely the country’s growers could meet a spike in demand.

This is not the first time that transgenic crops have popped up where they were not wanted. From Reuters:

The latest finding revives memories of farmers unwittingly planting genetically modified rapeseed in Europe in 2000, while in 2006 a large part of the U.S. long-grain rice crop was contaminated by an experimental strain from Bayer CropScience , prompting import bans in Europe and Japan.

The company agreed in court in 2011 to pay $750 million to growers as compensation.

Monsanto should prepare to face the ire of the world. And it was already very unpopular. Just last weekend saw rallies held around the globe in opposition to the company’s genetically modified products and business practices.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who

, posts articles to

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blogs about ecology

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

johnupton@gmail.com

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Beleaguered bees catch a break as E.U. bans dangerous pesticides

by Guadalupe Scharff Posted on April 29, 2013

Beleaguered bees catch a break as E.U. bans dangerous pesticides

By Claire Thompson

Now I can forage without fear.

Heads up, pollinators of the world: Now would be a great time to take that European vacation you’ve always dreamed of. The European Commission — the E.U.’s governing body — voted on Monday to implement a continent-wide ban on the class of insecticides widely suspected of contributing to colony collapse disorder, the mysterious phenomenon that’s been decimating bee populations since 2006.

In January, the European Food Safety Authority warned that three types of neonicotinoid pesticides should be considered unacceptable for use based on their danger to bees. A growing body of scientific evidence has found that, while neonics can’t be blamed directly for colony collapse disorder, they do mess with bees’ navigation, foraging, and communication abilities, throw off their reproductive patterns, and weaken their immune systems, leaving colonies more vulnerable to natural threats like mites and fungi. Neonics are the world’s most ubiquitous pesticides, used extensively on major crops like corn, soy, and canola. They’re applied to seeds before planting and then show up in the pollen bees come to collect.

Three neonics — thiamethoxam, clothianidin, and imidacloprid — will be banned for two years from use on crops bees pollinate, likely starting in December. From the BBC:

There was ferocious lobbying both for and against in the run-up to Monday’s vote, the BBC’s Chris Morris reports from Brussels.

Nearly three million signatures were collected in support of a ban. …

Chemical companies and pesticide manufacturers have been lobbying just as hard — they argue that the science is inconclusive, and that a ban would harm food production.

A study funded by major chemical manufacturers Syngenta and Bayer CropScience asserts that “If Neonicotinoid seed treatment were no longer available in Europe, there would be a significant reduction of food production,” and estimates that “over a 5-year period, the EU could lose up to €17bn [$22.3 billion].” On the other hand, 35 percent of the world’s food crops depend on pollinators, “accounting for an annual value of 153 billion Euros [$200 billion],” according to a 2012 study in the journal Ecotoxicology that reviewed 15 years of research on neonicotinoids’ effects on bees. With bee populations declining at an average annual rate of about 30 percent, I’d say the odds point to a neonic ban as a risk worth taking.

Experts agree. From The Guardian:

Prof Simon Potts, a bee expert at the University of Reading, said: “The ban is excellent news for pollinators. The weight of evidence from researchers clearly points to the need to have a phased ban of neonicotinoids. There are several alternatives to using neonicotinoids and farmers will benefit from healthy pollinator populations as they provide substantial economic benefits to crop pollination.” …

The chemical industry has warned that a ban on neonicotinoids would lead to the return of older, more harmful pesticides and crop losses. But campaigners point out that this has not happened during temporary suspensions in France, Italy and Germany and that the use of natural pest predators and crop rotation can tackle problems.

The U.K. opposed the ban. The country’s chief scientific adviser, Sir Mark Walport, “has said restrictions on the use of pesticides should not be introduced lightly, and the idea of a ban should be dropped,” according to the BBC.

Efforts to ban neonics in the U.S. have gone absolutely nowhere. Last summer, the EPA rejected a petition to stop the sale of clothianidin, one of the pesticides that the E.U. is now banning. Clothianidin has been on the market since 2003, despite the fact that a leaked memo revealed that EPA scientists found a Bayer-produced study of the pesticide’s effects inadequate. EPA now plans to complete its evaluation of neonicotinoid safety in 2018.

Here’s hoping the E.U.’s landmark ban forces action on this side of the pond.

Claire Thompson is an editorial assistant at Grist.

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