EPA today provided long overdue and vitally important health protections for American families and children by issuing standards for toxic air pollution from power plants, said the Southern Environmental Law Center.
The federal government ignored the impact of BP’s 200 million gallon oil spill in its assessment of risks and precautions for the Gulf of Mexico before the first new lease sale since the Deepwater Horizon disaster, according to a lawsuit filed today in D.C. federal court by conservation groups.
The Alabama Department of Transportation is attempting an end-run around federal law by pursuing permits for one section of the proposed Northern Beltline in the face of persistent questions about whether the beltline as a whole merits a multi-billion dollar investment by federal taxpayers, and while a lawsuit challenging the beltline's environmental study is pending, two local groups say.
The new federal drilling plan ignores the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster by using the same flawed assumptions to continue leasing the Gulf of Mexico to oil companies for more risky deep water drilling.
The Alabama Environmental Management Commission (EMC) today unanimously voted to approve a permit issued for the Shepherd Bend coal mine, a 1,773-acre strip mine to be located less than 1,000 feet from Birmingham's primary drinking water intake.
Conservation groups filed a lawsuit today challenging an Environmental Protection Agency rule that exempts large-scale biomass-burning facilities from carbon dioxide limits under the Clean Air Act for the next three years.
Two local groups have asked the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) to remove the Northern Beltline from the proposed four-year funding plan because of the project's ballooning price tag, questionable economic benefits and harmful effects on the environment.
Two leading conservation organizations, the Alabama Rivers Alliance and Southern Environmental Law Center, today released a report detailing the changes needed in state policies to ensure that Alabama has clean and plentiful drinking water and healthy river systems for the long term.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, in its overall effort to rein in heat-trapping greenhouse gases, took a major step backwards today with a final decision to ignore carbon pollution from biomass-burning plants for at least three years.
Today’s vetoes by Governor Perdue of two bills--S.709 and S.781— defend North Carolina’s clean energy economy and a safe, healthy environment for residents and tourists, said the Southern Environmental Law Center.
Yesterday's ruling by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the decades-long tri-state water wars should be a wake-up call for Alabama to get serious about planning its own water future, Alabama conservation groups said today.
The federal government illegally authorized new deepwater drilling by claiming that risky operations will cause no significant harm to the environment despite last year’s BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, said four environmental groups in a court filing today. The coalition challenged government approval of Shell’s plan to conduct new deepwater exploratory drilling off Alabama’s coast in waters 2000 feet deeper than the BP Deepwater Horizon even though regulators acknowledge that the operations may result in an oil spill ten times bigger than last year’s disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
After hundreds of visitors enjoy the Memorial Day weekend on North Carolina’s beaches, the N.C. House will vote to request that the federal government open its coast to the risk of oil spills from offshore drilling under the same practices that led to the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster and oiled 641 miles of Gulf Coast over 87 days.
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama ruled that Defenders and SELC may pursue their claims that the government violated the National Environmental Policy Act and Endangered Species Act in approving at least 221 oil drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico following the BP Deepwater Horizon blowout and oil spill.
Senators from Virginia and North Carolina voted today on a bill (S. 953) that would expose the coasts, fishing, and tourism of both states to the risk of an oil spill from drilling under the same practices that led to the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster a year ago, according to the Southern Environmental Law Center.
Ignoring lessons learned from the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster, the U.S. House of Representatives today passed the last of three oil company bills that continues a lax approach to risky oil company activities, according to the Southern Environmental Law Center.
New guidance proposed today by the Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency would bring long-awaited and much needed clarity to the protection of our nation’s streams, wetlands, and open waters.
As the one-year anniversary of the deadly BP Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill nears, the Southern Environmental Law Center today called on Congress to fix systemic problems with oil drilling and the oil industry that the Presidential Oil Spill Investigation Commission identified as leading to the disaster.
In violation of federal law, the state Department of Transportation failed to fully account for the environmental impacts of the massive, high-priced Northern Beltline, conservation groups said in a lawsuit filed today in federal district court in Montgomery.
The Alabama Rivers Alliance, Black Warrior Riverkeeper and the Cahaba River Society have filed a motion to intervene in a permit appeal by a business organization filed against the Alabama Department of Environmental Management to help defend the agency's stormwater program for small cities.
SELC comments on the Department of Interior's finding of no significant impact from deep water drilling after the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster.
Twenty years after Congress updated the Clean Air Act, the Southern Environmental Law Center welcomed today’s announcement from EPA proposing maximum limits for more than 80 hazardous air pollutants by large power plants and called on the government to follow through implementing strong protections for the American people. Studies estimate that these pollution limits will save 17,000 people each year from premature death and cases of childhood asthma symptoms each year.
A report from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today shows that pollution controls for ozone and soot in the 1990 amendments of the Clean Air Act-currently under harsh attack from polluting industries and allies on the Hill-will yield approximately $2 trillion in benefits in 2020 while saving 230,000 people from early death in that year alone.
Two Alabama river groups are appealing an administrative law judge's approval of a permit for a massive strip, auger and underground coal mine in Blount County. The Southern Environmental Law Center, on behalf of the Black Warrior Riverkeeper and Friends of Locust Fork River, filed the necessary papers this week with the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals; only a few coal mine permits have ever been appealed to this level in Alabama.
Today the EPA changed course and said it will not regulate carbon dioxide from facilities that burn trees and other biomass for at least three years. In the meantime, biomass facilities that come online or upgrade will not have to control for those emissions.
SELC called for systemic reform and better oversight after the oil spill commission’s investigation found the BP Deepwater Horizon blowout resulted from pervasive problems.
Problems in the oil industry by the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling confirms the need for systemic reform and better oversight.
The federal agency that oversees offshore drilling today announced it will revise the environmental analysis under which BP’s Deepwater Horizon operated and other oil drilling activities in the Gulf of Mexico continue, according to the Southern Environmental Law Center.
Conservation groups today filed suit against oil giant BP under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) for the ongoing unlawful harm or killing of endangered and threatened wildlife caused by the company’s massive Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico.
Following are statements by the Southern Environmental Law Center regarding the findings released today by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, with state-by-state rankings for energy efficiency
Statement by Catherine Wannamaker, senior attorney, SELC, on the lifting of the temporary moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico
The federal moratorium announced July 12 pauses risky deepwater drilling operations until safety and environmental safeguards can be assessed.
Environmental groups expressed disappointment over a federal district court decision today to halt a six-month federal moratorium on new deepwater oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico that would have allowed for safety reviews after the loss of life in the Deepwater Horizon explosion and ongoing deepwater oil spill damaging the Gulf Coast.
The Minerals Management Service (MMS) continues to approve new leases after the Deepwater Horizon explosion that give British Petroleum and other companies the right to drill even more deepwater wells in the Gulf of Mexico under the same inadequate oversight that led to the current oil spill, according to a new legal challenge filed by the Southern Environmental Law Center and Defenders of Wildlife. The groups say current policies create an incentive to allow drilling even in the face of evident risks because once a lease is issued by MMS, the U.S. government is obligated to pay the lessee either the fair market value of the lease or the amount spent to obtain the bid plus costs and interest if the government cancels the lease or refuses to allow drilling.
The Southern Environmental Law Center applauds action by the U.S. Senate today voting down a proposal that would have prolonged the country's addiction to fossil fuels even as oil continues to spew into the Gulf of Mexico in the worst man-made environmental disaster in U.S. history.
The Southern Environmental Law Center and Defenders of Wildlife today notified BP that they would file suit against the company for the unauthorized take of endangered species caused by the continuing oil spill and use of dispersants.
Defenders of Wildlife and the Southern Environmental Law Center today filed suit challenging the Minerals Management Service’s (MMS) complicity in the Gulf oil disaster and continued lax oversight of oil drilling operations, including its failure to require a thorough examination of spill risks from exploratory drilling operations like the Deepwater Horizon.
We welcome a renewed focus in the U.S. Senate on addressing the problem of climate change, and look forward to working with policymakers to improve the effectiveness of draft legislation outlined today by Senators Kerry and Lieberman.
After years of delay, tragedy in Tennessee, EPA proposes regulatory options but stops short of issuing a strict rule
SELC welcomes the introduction of a bi-partisan compromise in the U.S. House of Representatives that restores long overdue protections for streams and wetlands.
The Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Transportation today jointly issued a historic rule on curbing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from light-duty vehicles, which contribute about one-fourth of America's share of the world's climate-change pollution.
Consistent with the latest scientific data about the growing health threat from breathing smog pollution, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today proposed to strengthen the national limit for allowable ozone levels. The move would mean that more areas, such as some mid-size cities, will come under Clean Air Act requirements and deadlines leading to more people breathing cleaner air in the future.
The Southern Environmental Law Center today petitioned for a hearing on a permit issued last month for a 3,255-acre coal mine in Blount County. The proposed mine would have more than 60 pollution discharge points into the main stem or feeder streams of the Locust Fork, a tributary of the Black Warrior River that is already on the state's list of the worst polluted streams.
The U.S. EPA agreed to adopt rules reducing toxic air pollution from the nation¹s coal- and oil-burning power plants by November 2011, according to a settlement agreement reached in a federal lawsuit brought against the agency by a coalition of public health and environmental groups.
The Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) released a report today that for the first time provides a comprehensive overview of the multiple pieces of Birmingham’s air-pollution challenge in layman’s terms to better engage the broader Birmingham community in understanding and solving the problem.
Senators Mark Warner and Jim Webb of Virginia and Senator Kay Hagan of North Carolina, along with 17 members of the Southeast's congressional delegation are joining more than 150 colleagues from across the country and from both sides of the aisle to introduce a bill in the House and Senate today that would permanently protect 58.5 million acres of America's premiere public land.
SELC welcomed EPA's announcement on a proposal to establish nationwide standards for controlling largest sources of heat trapping gas pollutants.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today announced it will re-evaluate the national limit for ozone pollution.