Big Polluters Freed From Environmental Oversight By Obama Administration Stimulus, 175,000 waivers.

Center for Public Integrity ^ | November 29, 2010 | Kristin Lombardi

[GlockThe Vote]

In the name of job creation and clean energy, the Obama administration has doled out billions of dollars in stimulus money to some of the nation’s biggest polluters and granted them sweeping exemptions from the most basic form of environmental oversight, a Center for Public Integrity investigation has found.

Related Stories: ■NEPA Exemptions: The Dirty Dozen List ■Wisconsin Firm Receives Energy Grant Despite Chronic Pollution Problems The administration has awarded more than 179,000 “categorical exclusions” to stimulus projects funded by federal agencies, freeing those projects from review under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA. Coal-burning utilities like Westar Energy and Duke Energy, chemical manufacturer DuPont, and ethanol maker Didion Milling are among the firms with histories of serious environmental violations that have won blanket NEPA exemptions.

Even a project at BP’s maligned refinery in Texas City, Tex. — owner of the oil industry’s worst safety record and site of a deadly 2005 explosion, as well as a benzene leak earlier this year — secured a waiver for the preliminary phase of a carbon capture and sequestration experiment involving two companies with past compliance problems. The primary firm has since dropped out of the project before it could advance to the second phase.

[GlockThe Vote]

Comments at the site are PRICELESS.

Complete meltdown.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/29/big-polluters-freed-from-_n_789068.html#comments

[GlockThe Vote]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/29/big-polluters-freed-from-_n_789068.html#comments

[cripplecreek]

I suspect its done in hopes that they’ll screw up and put them in a position for siezure by government.

One of the interesting underreported facts about the Embridge spill in Michigan is the fact that we didn’t even have a required state inspector.

[GlockThe Vote]

This how the govt is un - pass all sorts of crazy nonsense - then the big players all get waivers while the rest of us drown in red tape and regulation.

Facism at its finest.

[MichiganConservative]

All regulation is collusion between government and the big players in the industry being regulated.

Regulation is put in place to protect the politically connected at the expense of the smaller players, entrepreneurs that want to innovate in the field, and ultimately, the consumer that doesn’t get the benefits of the entrepreneurs’ innovations.

[GlockThe Vote]

I can’t believe his thread has not gotten more hits.

[GlockThe Vote]

BUMP

[SunkenCiv]

In the name of job creation and clean energy, the Obama administration has doled out billions of dollars in stimulus money to some of the nation's biggest polluters and granted them sweeping exemptions from the most basic form of environmental oversight, a Center for Public Integrity investigation has found.

Sounds perfect to me. :'D Other than the "stimulus money". Thanks GlockThe Vote. Really though, with a corrupt, anti-American, racist Sock Puppet and incompetent empty suit, the HuffPo jackoffs have no complaint coming.

[XHogPilot]

Criminal Obomination!

[steelyourfaith]

Thanx SunkenCiv !

From the link:

Before Gulf Spill, BP Refinery Won Stimulus Grant

BP’s ill-fated Texas City refinery — site of that deadly 2005 explosion — has also managed to qualify for a NEPA exemption for the first phase of a stimulus project. Under the grant, industrial gas maker Praxair has led an experiment to capture carbon emissions from the refining process and store them underground in nearby oil fields, to both enhance peak-oil production and reduce greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

In October 2009, the Energy Department awarded $1.5 million to Praxair for preliminary planning and data collection. The company, which was to construct carbon-compression facilities, brought in pipeline operator Denbury Resources as a partner to “potentially purchase the CO2,” as its August 2009 application states. BP was to provide land and “necessary utility infrastructure” at its refinery.

 

Beam me to Planet Gore !