A recent Sierra Club FOIA request of Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler’s emails and calendars show’s he is all too friendly with the industries he is supposed to be regulating. Here is a sampling of the findings from the first batch of newly-released documents:
Last Friday, Sierra Club filed a brief in the Ingham County Circuit Court case on DTE’s nearly billion-dollar proposed gas plant, arguing that MDEQ did not follow the law when approving the air permit. Sierra Club initiated this case in October, but this is the first time it has laid out its arguments for the Court.
The Sierra Club and partner organizations filed an appeal today challenging a key permit for a massive proposed petrochemical facility known as an “ethane cracker” in Belmont County. The plant is part of the industry’s push to steeply increase U.S. plastic production.
WASHINGTON, DC -- Today, a federal judge ruled that the Trump Administration’s attempt to add a xenophobic citizenship question to the 2020 Census is illegal. The Commerce Department announced the addition of the citizenship status question to the Census last March in an effort to intimidate and discourage noncitizens and their families from responding to the census, a move that would affect the total count of Americans. Without an accurate count of every living person in America, the incomplete data will skew the drawing of political districts, the number of seats each state has in the House of Representatives, and the distribution of federal funding for local communities.
WASHINGTON, DC - A federal court has ruled in favor of the Sierra Club that the Environmental Protection Agency must expedite the public release of approximately twenty thousand pages of emails, as well as calendars, for acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler, Air Office head Bill Wherum, and 23 other political staff involved in Wheeler’s rollbacks of critical public health and environmental safeguards.
New Report Shows Coal Plant Highly Uneconomic
SAINT PAUL, MN -- Today, opponents of the Line 3 tar sands pipeline filed multiple lawsuits with the Court of Appeals challenging the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) approval of the project. On June 28, the PUC approved Enbridge’s proposal to build a new Line 3 pipeline, which would run through Northern Minnesota and double the amount of oil running through the pipeline.
The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the US Forest Service’s federal approval for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline to cross two national forests and the Appalachian Trail.
MISSION, TX-- On Friday, the Sierra Club and the Southern Border Communities Coalition (SBCC) filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration to challenge its use of unlawful waivers to expedite border wall construction in the Rio Grande Valley, Texas.
Today, a federal judge reaffirmed that TransCanada cannot conduct any pre-construction field activities on its proposed Keystone XL pipeline. This ruling means that construction on the controversial tar sands pipeline will continue to be delayed.
A federal judge ruled today that the Trump administration violated bedrock U.S. environmental laws when approving a federal permit for TransCanada’s proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline project. The judge blocked any construction on the pipeline and ordered the government to revise its environmental review.