New: @EricBoodman reports from Bristol, a town straddling TN and VA, on battles over an abortion clinic and a landfill that’s sickening residents https://t.co/FZllhab7hk
— Megan Thielking (@meggophone) April 18, 2023
by Anne Laurie| Leave a Comment
This post is in: Environmental Rights, Excellent Links
New: @EricBoodman reports from Bristol, a town straddling TN and VA, on battles over an abortion clinic and a landfill that’s sickening residents https://t.co/FZllhab7hk
— Megan Thielking (@meggophone) April 18, 2023
by David Anderson| 53 Comments
This post is in: Climate Change, Environmental Rights, Local Races, Make The World A Better Place, Racial Justice
Last night, the Chapel Hill Town Council voted 6-3 to modify the town’s land use management ordinance (LUMO). The big change is to allow by right duplexes and cottage apartments on most of the land that had been zoned as of yesterday morning as detached single family housing only plots. Other chunks of the proposal made it easier for triplexes and quadplexes to be approved in areas that are already zoned for multi-family housing.
The intent of this process change is to modestly (and I mean modestly) increase density and new construction in pre-existing neighborhoods. Most of Chapel Hill once you get more than half a mile from the UNC campus is car dependent suburbia. These neighborhoods have been built during periods of very restrictive and structurally exclusionary zoning which made building with any density difficult. There had been a few windows in the town’s history in the past two generations where some density was temporarily allowed and those periods have created most of the current inventory of not outrageously expensive housing.
The driver of the change is a simple recognition that the town is part of a rapidly growing region. There is massive demand for housing in the greater Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill triangle. Home prices are soaring and a lot of construction is happening in green fields 40 to 60 minutes of daily driving away from the job centers. The new construction in town has mostly been either single family detached housing at a half million or more price points or 5+1 apartment blocks where studio apartments start at $1500/month. The newly allowed housing concepts aims to allow for within neighborhood construction of smaller and more affordable housing units. In Chapel Hill, the limited construction means home prices have sky rocketed. My family bought our home in 2019 in Chapel Hill. We could not afford to buy the same property today even if I was working at my regular salary instead of my grad student stipend.
Will it solve every housing problem in the town?
HELL NO!
Is it a reasonable step in a direction to increase supply and relieve some of the price pressure as well as reduce regional vehicle miles driven on the margin?
HELL YES!
Has it been an ugly ugly fight for a necessary but grossly insufficient step?
YEP!
Is this a political fight that should be taking place in pretty much every town that is home to a flagship state university/med school complex?
INDUBITABLY!
This has been one of the things that I’ve been spending some of my time and attention on besides grad school and instead of health policy writing over the past six months as I think it is important to live our values by changing policy. Zoning determines whether or not diversity and inclusion is a slogan or a reality.
This post is in: Biden Administration in Action, Environmental Rights, Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat
To lead the world in environmental justice, we must start at home.
And two years in, we’re making real progress on the most ambitious environmental justice agenda in history.
With today's Executive Order, we’ll go even further. pic.twitter.com/ICFWmIqrNv
— President Biden (@POTUS) April 22, 2023
Today, @POTUS signed an Executive Order making environmental justice the responsibility of every single federal executive agency.
This means every federal agency must take into account disproportionate environmental and health impacts on communities – and work to prevent them. pic.twitter.com/ukvEsecFfK
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) April 22, 2023
Per the Associated Press:
… “Environmental justice will be the mission of the entire government woven directly into how we work with state, local, tribal and territorial governments,” Biden said in remarks at the White House.
The order tells executive branch agencies to use data and scientific research to understand how pollution hurts people’s health, so that work can be done to limit any damage. Under the order, executive agencies would be required to inform nearby communities if toxic substances were released from a federal facility.
As part of the announcement, Vice President Kamala Harris is separately traveling to Miami, Florida, to announce $562 million to help protect communities against the impacts of climate change.
The EPA last year formed its own Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights, merging three existing EPA programs to oversee a portion of Democrats’ $60 billion investment in environmental justice initiatives created by last year’s Inflation Reduction Act.
The order puts more pressure on federal agencies — and the White House itself — to deliver on promises the Biden administration has made to clean up the environment in communities of color and poor communities and prepare them for the effects of climate change….
This is quite literally one of the biggest pro-environment moves ever made in the Federal Government.
We're getting a White House Office of Environmental Justice.
Absolutely incredible. https://t.co/tP8o703JHt
— Michael Paulauski (@mike10010100) April 21, 2023
I would've named it the White House Office (for) Keeping Environmental Safety. For the acronym, of course. https://t.co/XtVvly2iVc
— Ragnarok Lobster (@eclecticbrotha) April 21, 2023
Saturday Morning Open Thread: Earth Day in the Biden AdministrationPost + Comments (68)
This post is in: Environmental Rights, Fuck The Middle-Class
I’m not sure if you all are aware of the little Bhopal disaster we have going on here in my neck of the woods up in East Palestine, Ohio, but if you are not, you can hardly be blamed. The media is barely covering it and it’s actually fucking flabbergasting. Most of the information I have seen has come from twitter and tiktok.
At any rate, about fifty miles from mere as the crow flies, up in East Palestine, Ohio, a Norfolk Souther train derailed last week. Here’s a handy map showing where I live and where the accident occurred:
The trains were carrying a load of toxic chemicals that are dangerous in their own right, but when on fire, are basically the gas used in WW1 in trench warfare. Don’t take my word on it, here are a bunch of nerds at Chemical and Engineering News breaking it down for you:
An evacuation order issued following the derailment of a Norfolk Southern freight train carrying vinyl chloride in Ohio was lifted Feb. 8 after state and federal authorities determined that air and water quality were safe for residents to return to their homes. But questions remain about the safety of transporting the hazardous chemical.
People living near the accident, which occurred Feb. 3 in East Palestine, Ohio, a town of about 4,700 residents on the Pennsylvania border, began leaving immediately as a column of black smoke rose over town. In an effort to avoid an explosion, railroad and state authorities began a controlled release and burn of the vinyl chloride Feb. 6. Earlier that day, the governors of Ohio and Pennsylvania ordered an immediate evacuation of a 1- by 2-mile area that crossed the state line.
In all, about 50 cars—20 of which were carrying hazardous materials—left the tracks in the accident. Of most concern were the 5 carrying vinyl chloride. In a statement announcing the evacuation order, Ohio governor Mike DeWine warned that people closest to the derailment faced “grave danger of death.”
While vinyl chloride itself is a carcinogen, the burning of the chemical, which releases hydrogen chloride and phosgene, can be immediately lethal. Phosgene, a highly toxic, colorless gas with a strong odor, was notoriously used as a weapon during World War I.
It’s bad. There were evacuations, but they were too little too late, Norfolk Southern and Gov. DeWine are assuring people it is safe now and the water is fine, but it’s not. And to prove their transparency, they arrested the only national reporter covering the press conference:
A NewsNation correspondent was arrested on Wednesday after he began reporting live during a news conference held by Ohio authorities regarding a train derailment – an incident police said involved a confrontation between him and a National Guard official after he was told to stop speaking during the governor’s remarks.
Law enforcement officers interrupted NewsNation correspondent Evan Lambert as he broadcast from the event, where authorities announced they were lifting a multiday evacuation order near the site of a fiery weekend derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.
An argument then broke out between Lambert and Harris, who pushed the reporter away from him as Lambert was approaching Harris “in an aggressive manner,” police said.
After Harris reported the interaction to law enforcement, officers told Lambert he needed to leave the building because the situation had “evolved into a physical confrontation and required law enforcement intervention,” police said. After Lambert refused, the officers tried to de-escalate by asking him to step outside to talk, but Lambert did not, police said.
The reporter was then advised he was under arrest and escorted out of the building, at which time he tried to pull away, according to police.
This is, of course, bullshit coverage. An argument didn’t break out. A fucking cop and a meathead in the National Guard came and told him he was not allowed to do his job and then they arrested him.
At any rate, a direct line can be traced from this disaster to the policies of Norfolk Southern, which, conveniently, is majority owned by hedge funds (Vanguard, Blackrock, JP Morgan, etc), who have slashed maintenance, slashed crews, and done all the usual shit to maximize profits. This is exactly what rail workers were protesting last summer that… got shut down by congress.
@nipplebottomjeans #stitch with @pearlmania500 #fyp #news #environment #pa #trains #ohio ♬ original sound – Thoms
So, yeah.
This post is in: Biden Administration in Action, Environmental Rights, Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat, Show Us on the Doll Where the Invisible Hand Touched You
Biden officials are cracking down on power plant pollution–they'll take steps to curb mercury from smokestacks, reversing a 2020 Trump admin policy, @dino_grandoni reports.https://t.co/fHPvNjxQUh
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) January 31, 2022
Continuing the not-so-great American tradition where Repubs break things, and Democrats come in to fix the mess as best as can be done… literally!
After decades, some of America’s most toxic sites will finally get cleaned up https://t.co/dYTMp7nRNk
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) December 17, 2021
Biden administration kills Antofagasta's Minnesota copper project https://t.co/vV74rHSgKn pic.twitter.com/33ZZbeE6kY
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 27, 2022
Analysis: Biden gets climate win with court loss on Gulf of Mexico oil leases https://t.co/DrlyqmTaOJ pic.twitter.com/F9LB49j8nf
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 29, 2022
A U.S. judge’s surprise decision this week to annul the Biden administration’s first Gulf of Mexico oil lease auction because of its climate change impact has raised questions about the future of the nation’s federal drilling program – and played directly into the president’s hand.
President Joe Biden, a Democrat, made a campaign pledge to end federal oil and gas drilling to fight climate change, and he quickly announced a suspension of all new lease sales pending a broad review of drilling’s impact on global warming after taking office. Some 25% of U.S. oil and gas production comes from federal lands and waters.
But this administration was later forced into the sale after several drilling states successfully sued in federal court in Louisiana. They argued that U.S. law requires the federal government to hold auctions on a regular basis to enhance energy independence and generate revenue…
This week’s ruling, from a judge in the District of Columbia who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, came after a challenge by environmental group Earthjustice. The judge vacated the auction entirely, saying the Interior Department failed to properly account for its impact on global warming.
Biden’s Interior Department must now do what it originally intended: take a fresh look at environmental and climate impacts of drilling. It has not yet said yet whether it will suspend other planned drilling auctions pending review, or how long the review will take…
Chevron CEO Michael Wirth, whose company was one of the high bidders in the Gulf of Mexico sale, said Chevron was reviewing the decision.
“We’re disappointed because these lease sales have been conducted successfully in the Gulf of Mexico for decades now and have resulted in us being one of the largest leaseholders out there with over 240 leases,” he said.
One’s heart just breaks at the thought of this man’s suffering, no? (No.)
Up to $43.7 million is headed to New Mexico to clean up abandoned oil & gas wells, protecting our environment & providing good-paying jobs.
My thanks to @SenatorLujan & @RepTeresaLF for their sponsorship of this measure and to @MartinHeinrich & @Rep_Stansbury for their support!
— Michelle Lujan Grisham (@GovMLG) January 31, 2022
U.S. considering hike to royalty rate for drillers at onshore auctions https://t.co/KU04TQOMfw pic.twitter.com/0iIzeojgFj
— Reuters (@Reuters) February 1, 2022
Late Night Open Thread: Environmental StewardshipPost + Comments (28)
by Adam L Silverman| 217 Comments
This post is in: America, Civil Rights, Criminal Justice, Domestic Politics, Election 2020, Environmental Rights, LGBTQ Rights, Open Threads, Politics, Racial Justice, RIP, Women's Rights
Senator McConnell has placed his marker on the table.
ABC news is reporting that the President will announce his nominee shortly.
BREAKING: Pres. Trump is expected to put forth a nominee to fill Ruth Bader Ginsburg's seat in the coming days, multiple sources close to the president and with direct knowledge of the situation tell @ABC News. https://t.co/NpSSjiSOLo
— ABC News (@ABC) September 19, 2020
I expect that the President will announce his nominee no later than Wednesday and that Senator McConnell will have that nominee up for a vote before the full Senate no later than the Wednesday after that so that the new justice can be seated before the Supreme Court starts its new term in October. And to try to do sort of a judicial nomination shock and awe campaign by moving so quickly that no one can respond to what McConnell is doing.
I’ve seen Senator Murkowski’s statement, and it was nice to read, but the simple reality is that for Senators Collins, McSally, Gardner, Tillis, and Graham it is ride or die. They cannot let go of the tiger that is the President and his base at this point because it will not get them the Democratic votes to either save them in the case of Collins, McSally, and Gardner, nor to open up their reelection campaigns from the statistical ties that Tillis and Graham are in. Abandoning the President and his base of supporters on this will cost them more support and votes, then trying to look like they’re standing on principle.
The question is not what can be done to stop it, though I definitely believe as much hell as possible should be raised over what Senator McConnell is going to do. The question is what you are willing to do after Senator McConnell does what he is going to do to install a sixth conservative associate justice on the Supreme Court.
I expect there will be violence over this. Violence between senators. Violence directed at senators. And violence between Americans. I’m not calling for it, but as a nat-sec professional who works on low intensity warfare, this is what I expect.
Updated at 10:30 PM EDT
I just want to clarify and elaborate a bit on what I think is likely to happen. I expect that the violence directed at senators will come from the hard core and extreme right. It will be directed at the Republican senators who are being reported as potentially not supporting the President and Senator McConnell on confirming a new justice before the election and the inauguration; Gardner, McSally, Collins, Murkowski, Romney, Graham, Grassley, and Alexander. It will start with threatening emails, voicemails, and direct messages. And it may escalate to actual attempts at physical intimidation to send a message: get or stay in line or else… Similarly, I expect that violence between Americans will originate from the same direction. Some MAGA asshole will decide to gun his car through a vigil being held in memory of RBG or a demonstration and rally to demonstrate to Senator McConnell and his GOP majority that they have to abide by the rules McConnell established in 2016. Or that, as we’ve seen with the MAGA truck/vehicle rallies in Portland, that those supporting the President will show up and pepper spray and paintball those standing vigil for RBG or rallying to pressure McConnell and his GOP majority to not be hypocrites. This violence will be stochastic terrorism, but if it happens, I expect it will originate on the hard core and extreme right.
Open thread.
by Adam L Silverman| 115 Comments
This post is in: America, Civil Rights, Climate Change, Criminal Justice, Domestic Politics, Economics, Election 2020, Environmental Rights, Foreign Affairs, Healthcare, Immigration, LGBTQ Rights, Military, Open Threads, Politics, Racial Justice, Silverman on Security
Those Who Seek to Control Others Know Power, Those Who Seek to Control Themselves Know the Way*
— Lao Tzu; The Tao Te Ching
There’s been a lot of sturm and drang in the comments recently, not just today, about all is lost, there’s no way out, we’re doomed. This has often been married to doom and gloom about the primary, the differences between the candidates, and whether idealism, incrementalism, or pragmatism is the way to win the 2020 election. How about we all just step back, take a deep breath, and focus on the actual fight that is the 2020 campaign. That fight has five components:
The fourth and fifth components are important to set the conditions for a more representative redistricting after the 2020 census. The first three are important for other reasons. Maintaining the Democratic majority in the House is a necessary, but not sufficient requirement to return the US back to a solid political and economic footing. Retaking both the presidency and the Senate are both necessary and sufficient requirements to actually being able to do so. If the Democrats retake the presidency, but don’t retake the Senate, the next president will be a lame duck before her or his hand ever comes off the bible at the inauguration. No one they nominate, for political or judicial or diplomatic appointments, will ever get a vote. Nor will any legislation that passes a Democratic majority House, other than, perhaps, continuing resolutions to keep the government running at a previous year’s top line budget number. Right now the only way to reverse the damage that has been done, and to ensure that we get good policy on the climate and the environment, on immigration, on healthcare, on the economy including trade, and on criminal justice is to not just be able to pass laws through both chambers of Congress, but to have a Democratic president to sign that legislation and her or his political appointees in place to administer the executive branch agencies and fill judicial vacancies.
The only good news out of Senator McConnell’s court packing scheme, and that’s what it was a decades long strategy to achieve a Republican majority in the Senate and a Republican president to fill the vacancies that McConnell abused the Senate to keep vacant, is that almost every judicial vacancy that McConnell has filled was a judgeship that was held by a judge appointed by a previous Republican president. Retaking the Senate stops this before McConnell can replace the last batch of Bush 41 judicial appointees still serving, as well as the older Clinton and Bush 43 judicial appointees who will begin to retire. And it also stops him from replacing the next three Supreme Court judicial vacancies, vacancies that are likely to come open over the next several years whether we’d like them to or not. And yes, I fully expect that even as I write this, McConnell and members of the White House Counsel’s Office and Leonard Leo are working on Justice Thomas to get him to retire next year to both prevent a potential Democratic president from being able to replace Thomas after 2021 and to once again put the Supreme Court majority in play as a successful campaign strategy to both reelect the President and maintain a Republican majority in the Senate.
That reality recognized, this is all in our hands. We have the ability, we have the power to elect a Democratic president in 2020 and a Democratic majority in the Senate, as well as maintain the Democratic majority in the House. This is what the 2020 election is all about. And yes, it is about healthcare, immigration, climate, environmental, economic, foreign, defense, criminal justice, and trade policy, but it isn’t actually about whether to take an incremental approach versus a revolutionary approach. Or something in between. It isn’t really about a choice between VP Biden or Senator Warren or Senator Harris or Senator Sanders or any of the other Democratic primary candidates. The simple reality we face as Americans is that nothing positive, not a single damn thing, is possible on healthcare, immigration, the climate, the environment, the economy, foreign policy, defense policy, criminal justice, and/or trade policy if the President is reelected and if the Senate remains in Republican hands. The real issue right now isn’t whether VP Biden’s healthcare plan is too incremental or whether Senator Sanders is too idealistic and therefore unrealistic and improbable. And that either of them have the ability to deactivate Democratic voters because they’re not having their ideological pleasure centers tickled. At the Federal level, the real issue is electing a Democrat president with a Democratic majority Senate and maintaining the Democratic House. That’s it. Almost any of the Democratic primary candidates is acceptable given this reality. And even a one seat Democratic majority in the Senate is as well.
This is all doable. It is within not just the realm of possibility, but also probability and plausibility. But it is only doable if we both recognize the actual strategic objectives we’re trying to achieve and don’t give in to despair. One of the ways that tyrannies are able to subvert democracies, regardless of whether it is a democratic-republic like the US or a parliamentary democracy or any of the variations in between, is by exhausting the citizenry. Exhaustion and despair are the means to that end. The President, Senator McConnell, their trusted agents, their surrogates, and their supporters want everyone strung out, worn out, and so stressed out they can’t respond effectively. Americans are tired, they’re upset, they’re angry. Even the President and his supporters are angry and they’re getting everything they claim to want. They are the sorest winners in history. How about we give them something to actually be sore about!
It is within our power to turn this around. And to do so at the ballot box, which is the easiest way to do it. Trust me, you don’t want me to have to write the post about how to deal with this the hard way! The ways and means to do this are registering voters and getting out the vote and staying as calm and focused as possible. This means that the Democrats in Florida need to get their acts together and mobilize the Puerto Rican community in Florida. Both those who have been there for a long time and those who have arrived since Maria devastated the island. Do actual, real outreach. Get them registered. Get them motivated. Stay in regular contact. Remind them who has their back, who recognizes them as fellow Americans, and who doesn’t. Similar efforts need to take place, tailored to the demographic realities of each state, in each state to ensure the broad, multi-generational, ethnically and religiously diverse coalition that is the Democratic Party turns out to vote in such large numbers than no amount of shenanigans, no matter who is behind them, can thwart the will of the majority.
The fight right now is to elect a Democratic president, a Democratic majority in the Senate, maintain a Democratic majority in the House, maintain all the Democratic governors and state legislatures, and flip as many to the Democrats as possible. And the battlespace for the presidential election is the Electoral College, no matter how much we’d all like to see it placed in the dustbin of history.
We can do this. We can save ourselves. No one else will. But to do so we must stay focused, we must pace ourselves, we must not give in to despair and frustration and infighting. Because the alternative is simply unacceptable.
Open thread!
* Also translated as “Mastering others is strength, mastering yourself is true power” and “He who knows others is learned, He who knows himself is wise”, as well as several other variants depending on which translation one is referencing.