Illinois To Sue EPA For Exempting Foxconn Plant From Pollution Controls (reuters.com) 127
Last week, Reuters reported that "Illinois' Attorney General said she plans to sue the EPA for allowing a proposed Foxconn plant in neighboring Wisconsin to operate without stringent pollution controls." From the report: On Tuesday, the EPA identified 51 areas in 22 states that do not meet federal air quality requirements for ozone, a step toward enforcing the standards issued in 2015. An exempted area was Racine County, Wisconsin, just north of the Illinois border that is known to have heavily polluted air, where Taiwan-based Foxconn is building a $10 billion liquid-crystal display plant. Pollution monitoring data show the county's ozone levels exceed the 70 parts per billion (ppb) limit. If Racine County had been designated a "non-attainment" area, it would have required Foxconn to install stringent pollution control equipment.
Attorney General Lisa Madigan said she would file a lawsuit in the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals challenging the EPA's ozone designations, saying its failure to name Racine County a "non-attainment" area puts people at risk. "Despite its name, the Environmental Protection Agency now operates with total disregard for the quality of our air and water, and in this case, the U.S. EPA is putting a company's profit ahead of our natural resources and the public's health," Madigan said in a statement.
Attorney General Lisa Madigan said she would file a lawsuit in the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals challenging the EPA's ozone designations, saying its failure to name Racine County a "non-attainment" area puts people at risk. "Despite its name, the Environmental Protection Agency now operates with total disregard for the quality of our air and water, and in this case, the U.S. EPA is putting a company's profit ahead of our natural resources and the public's health," Madigan said in a statement.
Re:Lisa Madigan (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:1)
So, I read her position on the matter as roughly equivalent to "I support more federal government regulation so long as it is of a variety that I like."
Uh yeah, that's how it works.
If you think about it, that is about par for the course for liberals and even many who call themselves conservative.
You mean all who call themselves conservative, you maroon. You don't even know what these words mean. Liberals are people who favor government interference in business, but not personal issues. Conservatives are the opposite. Both clearly favor government interference. If only you knew what these words meant, you could save yourself a lot of senseless posting.
Re: (Score:2)
There are a couple of different ways that could come up I guess: one is if you are a baker employed at a bakery, and the bakery owner tells you to bake a cake or you'll be fired. If you have some problem with baking this particular cake, let's say it's for a gay wedding and you don't like that, then you have the option to ref
Re: Lisa Madigan (Score:1)
My point was mostly lost in this thread that grew on it. The government involves itself in a lot of our personal business. I really doubt in the case of the bakery/wedding cake that there was no other choice available to the wedding organizers. There were plenty of other places to obtain a wedding cake for the celebration. It isn't like the jim crow south where blacks found themselves locked out of towns almost completely. So the legal action against the bakery was a targeted and organized attack on a busin
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
Welcome to the third world, USA (Score:3, Insightful)
A company is moving in to exploit your cheap labor with a special license to pollute from the government, while your leader is a grade-A supercrook and mostly just his political opposition cares about that fact. Welcome to the third world USA, after much effort you've finally made it. A complementary basket of rusty VW beetles, oil barrels and discarded tires will be sent in the mail.
Re: WI has been stupid for a long time (Score:1)
There's no question that Wisconsin is the 'Oklahoma of the upper Midwest (even Texans and folks from Arkansas and Kansas - none of them places to write home about - recognize OK as the twilight-zone shithole that it is).
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
name change (Score:3, Insightful)
51 AREAS?? (Score:3)
This dyslexic conspiracy theorist puts his hat on, backwards.
Fuck Scott Walker (Score:1)
And the rest of the Trump Eunuchs that think allowing dirtbag chinks to open a toxic factory with no hope of EVER making a profit is somehow great Job news. THE WHOLE FUCKING DEAL IS TAXPAYER SUBSIDIZED.
Re: Fuck Scott Walker (Score:1)
Wisconsin taxpayers are shelling out $3 Billion for maybe 4,000 relatively low paying factory jobs. Do the math...welfare would be cheaper. The factory is close enough to Illinois that a majority of the employees will be from Illinois, so we wonâ(TM)t even get income taxes. Walker screwed us again
Pump it elsewhere (Score:2)
Why not capture this ozone and release it into the upper atmosphere? Resurrect two birds with one stone.
Re: (Score:1)
Not exactly what you'd call a 'high concentration', except for human and animal respirational organs.
Also, 'capture' of ozone usually means having it react with something, but then it's no longer ozone.
But, having some kind of air cleaning effort going would be good.
Perhaps Wisconsin should require Foxconn to set up air cleaner units around inner city centers, if they want to build a factory.
I know I saw a story once about a
All is fair (Score:2)
Illinois sends their FIB's to Wisconsin to do 50 MPH over the speed limit and act like they own the state. Buying up land and building big expensive houses so residents of Wisconsin can't afford houses in their own state. Well guess what Illinois - FUCK YOU you FIB's! it's Wisconsin's turn to send shit your way! Keep your FIB's our of our state and maybe we will keep the pollution out of yours. Oh wait your already polluted. Oh and how is your gun control working there in Chicago? All those shootings you ha
Re:Jobs not important? (Score:5, Interesting)
Given the factory will be in neighboring state I would say Illinois doesn't really get the benefits (taxes etc) and gets all the bad stuff as pollution doesn't care about borders
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
"Chicago and most of the nation's other big urban areas have been on the list for years."
They already have, for years. No reason to leave Racine county off the list when it's already in non-attainment before the first shovel hits Foxconn's new grounds.
Re:Jobs not important? (Score:5, Informative)
You mean, no reason beyond the fact that high levels of ozone are a health threat, so that adding to already high levels of ozone increases the health threat, and local sources of ozone generating emissions will have an even greater impact upon ozone levels that remote sources of such emissions.
You mean, it's hypocritical to expect Wisconsin to follow the Clean Air Act, which requires controls whether or not those emissions are local or imported, merely because every other county in the U.S. has to follow that law.
You mean that a plant located within 5 miles of the shore (something about a need to divert 6 millions gallons of water per day from Lake Michigan for industrial use, in violation of the Great Lakes Compact) is not within "an extremely narrow band that follows Wisconsin's shoreline."
Fine. You can argue all of that. In court.
Re: Jobs not important? (Score:1, Informative)
Argue with facts now. Racine county has less than 25 non-attainment hours a year, due entirely from emissions from Chicagoland. And that water you claim will be "diverted" does not magically disappear. It gets treated to remove the mild detergent and returned to the ecosystem. And, nothing about the exemption proves anything about the emissions of the plant.
Do you have any data, at all, about ozone emissions expected from this plant, or did you just repeat what you were told to scream about.
Re:Jobs not important? (Score:4, Interesting)
If a Chicago politician really wanted to reduce ozone levels in that part of Wisconsin, they would push for Chicago area polluters to reduce pollution. In fact, Chicago is also an ozone nonattainment area; she could challenge that in court. She isn't doing that.
Also, it's beyond stupid to say that every other county in the nation follows those regulations. Chicago doesn't. NYC doesn't. Itty bitty Indian tribes and bands don't. The list of nonattainment areas is as long as your arm.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No it's beyond stupid that, once again [slashdot.org], I must point out that Chicago is a listed non-attainment area (and does follow non-attainment regulations, thank you), that Racine is in non-attainment yet was delisted as non-attainment area this year (and so will not be following those regulation
Re: (Score:2)
Says who? The EPA didn't list Racine County under the 2008 standards [epa.gov], didn't list it under the initial list of nonattainment areas [epa.gov] for the 2015 standards, and didn't list it under the additional areas list that was just published. Well after the Foxconn plant was announced, the EPA told Wisconsin they expected to list Racine County as a nonattainment area, but later changed their mind.
Since Madigan apparently missed the lecture on Chevron deference during law school, I'll point
Re: (Score:3)
Um, as you yourself wrote, the EPA [jsonline.com]?
"Tuesday's announcement was a shift from the EPA's stance in December when it determined
Re: (Score:3)
Maybe you should read the letter from the EPA to Wisconsin, which makes it clear that they never declared Racine County to be in nonattainment.
As for what air pollution does, it also doesn't follow county boundaries, but that is by far the most common way that the EPA declares which areas need to use stricter emissions controls. Prevailing winds might carry Chicago's pollution farther north rather than sending it ashore in Racine County. The bit to the south of Racine is part of Milwaukee, which can obvio
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe you should link to it, rather than flatly contradicting published reports of the EPA's determination in December that Racine county was in nonattainment.
Milwaukee is north of Racine county, yet supposedly sufficiently smog-free to be in attainment whil
Re: (Score:2)
This [epa.gov] is the December letter that your sources incorrectly described as saying that Racine County was in nonattainment.
Re: (Score:1)
Taking a look at this, I see that Racine county is not listed. Per the doc, "Implementing the 2015 Ozone Standards – Designated State Areas", "Areas not listed will be addressed in a separate future action"
Re: (Score:2)
Odd, because the final page, enclosure 1, lists "Racine" under "EPA's Intended Nonattainment Counties."
What was incorrect about that description, again?
Re: (Score:2)
"Intended" is not "current" or "actual". Nonattainment is determined by what the EPA actually determines, under the procedures it has defined under the CAA. It's not determined by what the EPA says it might do in the future.
Re: (Score:2)
And the reason for the change between December (draft rule) and May (publication of final rule) was, especially given the lack of changes in other regions of the intended nonattainment areas? Guess what - that's what will be litigated. And it had better be based upon data rather than W
Re: (Score:2)
But actual is actual [wi.gov] (page 30), not based on what the Pruitt EPA announces in a final rule, and WDNR's own data shows that Racine exceeded the 2015 NAAQS by more days above critical values than all but two other monitoring stations.
So show me the "actual" data that demonstrates attainmen
Re: (Score:2)
Kind of. This is Auer deference rather than just Chevron deference. Unless the EPA has really bogus reasons or obviously lies about its reasons, it will win the case. It only really needs a fig leaf under current precedent. Or do you think that this is the case where the Supreme Court will suddenly change its mind about courts deferring to the expertise of regulatory agencies?
Re: (Score:2)
Wrong. The EPA has a process for determining nonattainment, and that is what determines nonattainment, not "draft/preliminary" and "subject to change" numbers that "have not yet been CQ'ed or certified".
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:1)
Odd that you chose to respond only to that item. Odder still that you would assume that I wasn't in favor of stopping diversions through the Chicago canals [army.mil], which will likely be responsible for introducing asian carp to the Great Lakes [jsonline.com], further destroying the fishery, unless shut down.
But by all means, let's keep adding Great Lakes water
reopen the zion il nuclear plant! (Score:2)
reopen the zion il nuclear plant!
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Have you ever breathed in ozone? It hurts.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not sure I see the pollution problem? TFS says the county in WI already exceeds the O3levels, so IL is demanding that Foxconn not build there until the O3 levels are brought down. It says nothing about any additional O3 emissions from Foxconn; for all we know, the Foxconn plant may add zero additional O3.
IL was apparently content living with the existing O3 levels, but now that Foxconn is moving in, they raise a ruckus. To me, it sounds like either sour grapes against WI for getting the plant inste
Re: (Score:2)
well they can toll the small free part of I-94 / US-41
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
So Wisconsin, where the plant actually is, was fine with it, to the point of cutting their taxes on revenue from the plant to encourage it to be built, but I guess since Illinois isn't going to see much revenue from it, they want to line up to stop it, instead?
(BTW, in case you wondered, like I did, Racine County ends about 6-8 miles from the Illinois border. The plant location itself is about 15 miles away.)
So still curious, I took a look at the WI site for air quality [wi.gov] and Racine, as well as the County bet
Re: (Score:2)
Apparently so. Not that it is the source of the pollution (it's not even built yet!) or would cause such pollution. In fact, it seems to me that these ozone levels probably don't even come from inside Wisconsin. Hmm, I wonder where it comes from, it must be those darned Wisconsin ozone swamps, right? Oh wait, look at this big city over here where both the ozone and the even more toxic legal action is coming from! But to be fair, I suppose some of the ozone could have come from Michigan.
So it may have hit 70 at some point (Summer is usually worse), but it's probably not a frequent occurrence that it's up there.
Of course not, all t
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The county cannot meet the standards currently, mostly because of pollution from elsewhere (like Chicago) that is carried to the county by wind. Since the EPA started regulating ozone levels in 1979, at least one county in that part of Wisconsin has been a "nonattainment region" for the same reason. Why should a business in Wisconsin have to install expensive equipment to limit pollution when the problem is caused by polluters in other states?
Re: (Score:2)
I didn't say they hadn't been assessed. I said the articles (meaning the links in the summary) didn't quantify it.
Thanks for the quote, although it would have been more helpful if you'd also have provided a link to the article which contains the quote to get the full context.
Re:Jobs not important? (Score:5, Informative)
Not a shutdown. From TFA: "Pollution monitoring data show the county's ozone levels exceed the 70 parts per billion (ppb) limit. If Racine County had been designated a 'non-attainment' area, it would have required Foxconn to install stringent pollution control equipment."
Also, not particularly invested in your personal conclusion of attainment after having glanced at a one day, Spring season ozone report. Also from TFA: "The EPA, under Administrator Scott Pruitt, left Racine County off its non-attainment list despite an agency staff analysis of ozone levels in Wisconsin published in December, which found that the county's air exceeded federal ozone limits." We call that "arbitrary and capricious agency action" in my neck of the woods, and it's a good basis for a court suit.
Install the pollution controls required in a non-attainment area, and magically the suit goes away and the plant can run. Don't, and get sued.
Notice that the one thing not happening here is Wisconsin suing Illinois for failing to install ozone precursor emission controls in Illinois' developments.
Re: (Score:2)
Your comment makes no sense.
If the options are:
1. Build plant, hire workers, pay less taxes from plant itself for a few years (although others involved will pay more taxes)
vs
2. Don't build plant in WI at all
Which one do you think results in more taxes to WI? The State isn't paying them for building the plant, they're giving them tax incentives (i.e. reducing their taxes) for building it in WI. There is a new tax benefit per job, not a "cost per job". You seem to be imagining the comparison point is if they
Re: (Score:2)
Again, "paying 200 grand per job" wasn't one of the options. Being paid less taxes per job was what was passed. You're missing the point. No one is taking cash and paying the factory owners. The factory owners aren't having to pay as much in taxes for the first few years as they normally would.
The problem you're having is that you're reading news reports which purposefully try to confuse their readers by using false language to shade what was passed and make it sound like the State is giving the factory own
Re: (Score:1)
Re: Jobs not important? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: Jobs not important? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I can create millions of jobs for you if you just give me a small labour law exemption.
Re:Jobs not important? (Score:5, Informative)
When the Australian government gave everyone $900 it managed to be the only western country exposed to the 2008 financial crisis that not only avoided a recession, but actually experienced growth during it.
Imagine Wisconsin simply giving everyone $1700. I'm sure it would be a much better for the economy of the state than creating 10000 low wage jobs (as laughable as that figure actually is).
Re:Jobs not important? (Score:5, Interesting)
Go ahead, sue, sue until Foxconn moves to other places, taking with it the job opportunities for people living in the area
The jobs are not important. The plant will not employ many people to begin with, and it will employ even less in short order since Foxconn is a leader in automation.
Re: (Score:1)
The plant will not employ many people to begin with, and it will employ even less in short order since Foxconn is a leader in automation.
According to https://www.jsonline.com/story... [jsonline.com], to get full tax credits and sales tax savings, Foxconn would have to employ 13,000 workers from 2022 through 2032.
Re: Jobs not important? (Score:3, Informative)