The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers failed to obtain a South Carolina pollution control permit for its controversial project to deepen the Savannah River, according to a lawsuit filed today in state court by the Southern Environmental Law Center on behalf of Georgia and South Carolina conservation groups.
On behalf of the Catawba Riverkeeper Foundation, the Southern Environmental Law Center today filed suit to stop contamination of the Wateree River, nearby groundwater, and wetlands by coal ash lagoons of South Carolina Electric and Gas Company in southern Richland County, South Carolina.
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.
Clean energy groups have reached an agreement with Duke Energy and Progress Energy to address concerns the groups raised in a South Carolina Public Service Commission proceeding on the proposed merger of the two companies. If the merger is approved, the newly formed holding company, Duke Energy, will be the largest electric utility in the country. Two subsidiaries, Duke Energy Carolinas and Progress Energy Carolinas, will continue as operating companies in South Carolina and North Carolina.
Georgia and South Carolina conservation groups today challenged a South Carolina agency’s approval of a $650 million project to deepen the Savannah River and warned Governor Haley not to destroy evidence concerning her office’s involvement in the matter.
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.
Problems cited by South Carolina in its recent denial of a certification for the Savannah Harbor deepening project echoed comments submitted to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers by conservation groups in Georgia and South Carolina.
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.
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.
Citizens of Charleston, South Carolina, today filed suit against Panama-based Carnival Cruise Lines to enforce local laws that protect the city’s healthy environment and treasured historic assets.
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.
Local groups today filed a motion to intervene in the court case over Colleton County’s denial of a special exception for South Carolina Electric & Gas Co. to dump large quantities of coal ash waste from its coal-fired power plant on a 1,700 acre site within the county using dump trucks that would travel through local communities.
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.
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.
The Corps’ environmental analysis of the proposed deepening of the Savannah Harbor is either so fundamentally flawed that it must be redone, or it shows that the project is a colossal waste of valuable resources, according to comments submitted today to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers by the Southern Environmental Law Center on behalf of the South Carolina Coastal Conservation League, the South Carolina Wildlife Federation, the Center for a Sustainable Coast, the National Wildlife Federation, and the Savannah Riverkeeper.
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.
Following a court challenge brought by conservation groups, the Army Corps of Engineers has reversed its removal of federal protection for a large wetland near Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, and brought the wetland under the federal Clean Water Act.
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 environmental study by the state Department of Transportation for the proposed extension of I-526 distorts relevant data, skews the analysis of alternatives, and is heavily biased in favor of building the 8-mile, $489 million highway through wetlands, marshes and rural communities, making the study illegal, two conservation groups said today.
The draft report released today by the South Carolina Department of Transportation, which describes the environmental impacts of the proposed Mark Clark Expressway, fails to consider alternatives that are far less harmful and less costly than building a major interstate through communities, open-space areas, and marshes west of the Ashley River in the Stono River watershed
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
As oil continues to spill and reaches the Gulf’s white sands, shrimp and fish nurseries, and productive wetlands and marshes, the Southern Environmental Law Center today called on the Obama Administration to go beyond a temporary stay of new drilling hinging on investigation and discontinue plans to expand risky oil drilling to the South Atlantic and eastern Gulf of Mexico coastlines for a few months supply of oil.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers late last week rescinded an earlier decision to remove federal protections for 492 acres of wetlands in Black Tom Bay near Charleston and informed the developer that waters subject to Clean Water Act protections exist on the property located within the Ashley River watershed.
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.
Opening much of the U.S. East Coast for the first time to oil and gas drilling risks too much for the South.
Conservation groups today notified the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers of their intent to challenge its decision that no permits are required under the federal Clean Water Act before the development of approximately 500 acres of South Carolina wetlands in Black Tom Bay.