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Green Party of New York Decries Senate Health Care Sellout
Written by mike bernhard   
Thursday, 24 December 2009



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The Green Party of New York State decries the “historic” deal reached
in the Senate as historic only in the sense of its betrayal of American
working people, women, and democracy. Green Party members across the
United States still demand single-payer, universal health care, the
most efficient and proven plan to cover all citizens. The plan on the
table in the Senate has had even the most basic “public option” removed
for the benefit of the insurance companies and the “Blue Dog”
Democrats, with the complicity of so-called progressive Senators like
Russ Feingold and Bernie Sanders. Sen. Benjamin Nelson managed to
extort a compromise that sacrificed women’s rights as well and
privileges for Nebraska in terms of Medicaid payments that no other
state will receive.

“The Senate bill represents the worst of all possible worlds: a mandate
for everyone to purchase private insurance, national non-profit private
plans that will absorb the most costly patients unwanted by private
insurance, massive subsidies to the insurance industry, and a complete
evisceration of a woman’s right to an abortion under her health-care
plan. To call this a victory even by the standards of what the weakest
of so-called progressives wanted during the summer is a farce; it is
complete capitulation to the conservatives in the Senate and the
insurance industry’s campaign donations and lobbying,” said Matt
Funiciello, owner of Rock Hill Bakehouse and Green Party activist.

“America has become a failed state, with a few Senators from states
with virtually none of the population twisting and destroying the
chance for real health care reform for the rest of the nation. Senator
Nelson received a promise from Harry Reid that the federal government
would pay for all Medicaid expansion in Nebraska in perpetuity,
something no other state is promised. Senators Lieberman, Baucus, and
the other Senate “moderates” were able to craft a bill with the
blessing of the insurance industry and no opposition from the White
House, and so-called progressives like Feingold and Sanders let it
happen. The Green Party has been arguing for years that we need one
person, one vote, which would mean abolition of the Senate and
unicameral Congress, and expansion of grassroots democratic control. If
this doesn’t show the need for campaign finance reform, nothing will,”
said Peter LaVenia, co-chair of the New York State Green Party.”

“What’s America’s breaking point? The Congressional Democratic
proposals were bad for health care reform from the start because they
sought to expand the role of private insurance companies when our
present system of insurance is the reason why we pay so much money for
the worst health care system among the world's industrial countries.
The Senate bill became so bad that even mainstream Democratic groups
and individuals such as Moveon.org, Howard Dean and the AFL-CIO could
no longer go along with the fraud. Rather than mandating that everyone
buy health insurance, we need to eliminate health insurance companies
from our health care system. We need a program that saves money while
guaranteeing quality health care to every American,” stated David
Doonan, mayor of Greenwich, NY.

Contacts:
Peter LaVenia: 518-495-8001, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
Eric Jones: 716-908-5226, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

 

 

 
 
U.S. wants farmers to use coal waste on fields
Written by http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/22/AR2009122203336.html?wprss=rss_busin   
Thursday, 24 December 2009


 

 

 
By Associated Press
Wednesday, December 23, 2009

The federal government is encouraging farmers to spread a chalky waste from coal-fired power plants on their fields to loosen and fertilize soil even as it considers regulating coal wastes for the first time.

The material is produced by power plant "scrubbers" that remove acid-rain-causing sulfur dioxide from plant emissions. A synthetic form of the mineral gypsum, it also contains mercury, arsenic, lead and other heavy metals.

The Environmental Protection Agency says those toxic metals occur in only tiny amounts that pose no threat to crops, surface water or people. But some environmentalists say too little is known about how the material affects crops, and ultimately human health, for the government to suggest that farmers use it.

"This is a leap into the unknown," said Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. "This stuff has materials in it that we're trying to prevent entering the environment from coal-fired power plants, and then to turn around and smear it across ag lands raises some real questions."

With wastes piling up around the coal-fired plants that produce half the nation's power, the EPA and U.S. Department of Agriculture began promoting what they call the wastes' "beneficial uses" during the Bush administration.

Part of that push is to expand the use of synthetic gypsum -- a whitish, calcium-rich material known as flue gas desulfurization gypsum, or FGD gypsum. The Obama administration has continued promoting FGD gypsum's use in farming.

 
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The administration is also drafting a regulatory rule for coal waste, in response to a spill from a coal ash pond near Knoxville, Tenn., one year ago Tuesday. Ash and water flooded 300 acres, damaging homes and killing fish. The cleanup is expected to cost about $1 billion.

The EPA is expected to announce its proposals for regulation early next year, setting the first federal standards for storage and disposal of coal wastes.

EPA officials declined to talk about the agency's promotion of FGD gypsum before then and would not say whether the draft rule would cover it.

Field studies have shown that mercury, the main heavy metal of concern because it can harm nervous-system development, does not accumulate in crops or run off fields in surface water at "significant" levels, the EPA said.

"EPA believes that the use of FGD gypsum in agriculture is safe in appropriate soil and hydrogeologic conditions," the statement said.

Eric Schaeffer, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project, which advocates for more effective enforcement of environmental laws, said he is not overly worried about FGD gypsum's use on fields because research shows it contains only tiny amounts of heavy metals. But he said federal limits on the amounts of heavy metals in FGD gypsum sold to farmers would help allay concerns.

"That would give them assurance that they've got clean FGD gypsum," he said.

Since the EPA-USDA partnership began in 2001, farmers' use of the material has more than tripled, from about 78,000 tons spread on fields in 2002 to nearly 279,000 tons last year, according to the American Coal Ash Association, a utility industry group.

About half of the 17.7 million tons of FGD gypsum produced in the United States last year was used to make drywall, said Thomas Adams, the association's executive director. But he said it is important to find new uses for it and other coal wastes because the United States will probably rely on coal-fired power plants for decades to come.

"If we can find safe ways to recycle those materials, we're a lot better off doing that than we are creating a whole bunch of new landfills," Adams said.

 
Community Health Survey Shows Shale Gas Threatens Human Health Groups, Town of DISH urge Texas regul
Written by http://earthworksaction.org/PR_DISH_HealthSurveyRelease.cfm   
Thursday, 17 December 2009

NEWS RELEASE
For Release:  Thursday, December 17, 8:30 am Central




EARTHWORKS * Texas Oil & Gas Accountability Project * Town of DISH
DISH, Texas, 12/17 -- Today, public interest groups and the Town of DISH released the final results of a health survey
of area residents focused on the impacts of Barnett Shale gas infrastructure. The results show that more than half of
surveyed maladies can be attributed to toxics first revealed in September in a DISH-commissioned study of area air
quality. Based on the results, EARTHWORKS, the Texas Oil & Gas Accountability Project and the Town of DISH are
calling on state regulators to immediately perform an in-depth health investigation, implement continuous 24-hour
emissions monitoring, and establish a same-day community odor and symptom tracking system.
Last Updated ( Thursday, 17 December 2009 )
Read more...
 
Dish official wants Congressional investigation
Written by mike bernhard   
Tuesday, 15 December 2009
"Longtime resident Chuck Paul, who’s lost the use of much of his land to eminent domain from multiple, redundant pipelines, acknowledged that the community’s attacks on state officials may seem personal."
"You see, we’ve been attacked for a long time,” Paul said.


TCEQ, Railroad Commission pressed for answers to air quality concerns
03:03 PM CST on Tuesday, December 15, 2009
By Peggy Heinkel-Wolfe / Staff Writer

DISH – Town Commissioner William Sciscoe Monday called for Congress to investigate how the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and the Railroad Commission have handled air quality concerns in the Barnett Shale.

During the town council meeting Monday night, Sciscoe pressed representatives from TCEQ, who came from Austin to answer questions about air quality studies currently in progress, when they knew about problems in Dish. Agency representatives told the crowd -- town leaders, about two dozen residents and several industry representatives -- they knew about the problems this summer.

But residents there have complained to both the industry and the state agencies ever since pipeline and compression facilities began expanding there in 2006, town leaders said. Town commissioners voted in May to pay for an air quality study. Results released in October showed troubling levels of neurotoxins and carcinogens in the air.

Sciscoe handed Susana Hildebrand, chief engineer for the air quality division, copies of letters where TCEQ inspectors had come out to investigate some of those complaints, calling them “a whitewash.”

“The field agent stood in my driveway and said he smelled gas at the time, but when the report was written, it said, ‘no odor was detected at this time,’” Sciscoe said. “The replies to our complaints are, ‘there’s nothing to worry about here.’”

He repeated the town’s call to cease and desist operations on Strader Road, where five companies treat and compress millions of cubic feet of gas from 11 high-pressure pipelines, until it could be proven that no harm was coming to the community.

“I’ve asked for a safety stand down and have had little reply from the industry,” Sciscoe said. “There is ample evidence that you all are in bed with the industries you are here to regulate, and all levels of the agencies are involved.”

He questioned why TCEQ hadn’t used its regulatory muscle and pulled permits.

“Here in the city, if they don’t follow the permit, we jerk the permit,” Sciscoe said.

While Hildebrand acknowledged she hadn’t seen the reports Sciscoe handed her, she told him she didn’t appreciate the characterization of ethical conflicts. She underscored the agency’s commitment to tackle the problem.

“We hear you,” Hildebrand said. “You’re our top priority now.”

Hildebrand told the crowd that energy companies install compression and other equipment with a “permit by rule” – essentially, companies claim their equipment emits less than 25 tons per year of volatile organic compounds.

“It’s an old rule,” Hildebrand said. “It was conceived of at a time when these weren’t being put in neighborhoods.”

Hildebrand described the studies that had already been conducted, including 40 hours of sampling and 15 hours of infra-red camera recordings, as well as sulfur sampling. The data is being checked for quality and will be turned over to the toxicology department by the end of December, she said. That report should follow in January.

In addition, Hildebrand and fellow air quality employee, Keith Sheedy, described a 7-day, 24-hour study that would be combined with 12 months of production data, to produce a comprehensive look at emissions in the area.

TCEQ would contract for that study, Hildebrand said, using money from the natural gas industry.

Many residents, some of whom suffer from health problems, told TCEQ representatives that they didn’t trust them any more and believed an industry-funded study would be tainted.

“How is that fair?” said Megan Collins. Collins said she developed a debilitating and mysterious neurological condition while living in Dish.

Longtime resident Chuck Paul, who’s lost the use of much of his land to eminent domain from multiple, redundant pipelines, acknowledged that the community’s attacks on state officials may seem personal.

“You see, we’ve been attacked for a long time,” Paul said.

Many residents said the community was out of time and needed relief now. Mayor Calvin Tillman said he was home Sunday washing his vehicles when the air smelled so bad, it started burning in his nose and lungs.

He went inside and called TCEQ and got bounced around and was eventually told to call the Texas Railroad Commission.

Hildebrand told Tillman that the managers were embarrassed when they heard about that and that they would change how complaint calls would be managed.

Near the end of the meeting, resident Robert Draper stood up, cowboy hat in hand, and asked whether, over the long term, the process meant the companies would stop polluting, or just get permission to keep polluting.

“Is there ever going to be a chance that this is a safe area and benzene-free?” Draper asked. “There’s no way anyone will buy my property now. We’re all stuck here until we die.”

PEGGY HEINKEL-WOLFE can be reached at 940-566-6881. Her e-mail address is This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

 

 
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