Month: March 2019

• The New York Times put out a misleading report on the halt in EPA inspections during the shutdown.
• The Times neglected to mention that states carry out the vast majority of inspections.
• “Most U.S. environmental laws work through cooperative federalism.”

The New York Times’ claim that furloughed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials have not been able to complete “hundreds” of inspections during the government shutdown creates a false impression of where the vast majority of U.S. environmental enforcement takes place.

The Times’ reported Wednesday the ongoing government shutdown has halted the “most important public health activities, the inspections of chemical factories, power plants, oil refineries, water treatment plants, and thousands of other industrial sites for pollution violations.”

While it’s true EPA halted inspections of regulated facilities, The Times’ story left out an extremely important detail that left readers with the impression industry has free reign to pollute the air and water.

The Times neglected to mention a key part of environmental compliance and enforcement — state regulators carry out the vast majority of inspections.

Also, EPA’s compliance office tends to conduct most inspections in the spring and summer months, not in winter, according EPA officials who spoke to The Daily Caller News Foundation on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press.

In all, states are responsible for carrying out more than 98 percent of federal environmental programs designed to protect air and water quality and insure safe disposal of waste, according to the Environmental Council of the States (ECOS).

“Most U.S. environmental laws work through cooperative federalism. That means the federal government sets national environmental standards while states implement those standards within their borders,” reads ECOS’s website.

For example, all but three states and the District of Columbia are authorized to implement the Clean Drinking Water Act, according to EPA information. Forty-nine states take the lead on enforcement under the Safe Drinking Water Act and 48 states are authorized to implement the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, which governs solid and hazardous waste disposal.

EPA maintains a public database called Enforcement and Compliance History Online (ECHO), which, among other things, tracks on enforcement and inspections carried out by federal and state officials.

In almost every regulatory category — ECHO’s data for drinking water facilities doesn’t differentiate between federal and state inspections — state officials carry out the vast majority of inspections and enforcement actions.

For example, EPA officials inspected 1,232 facilities to ensure compliance with the Clean Water Act in 2018 while states inspected 30,368 last year, according to ECHO.

Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

It’s a similar story for enforcement actions taken against facilities that violated Clean Water Act requirements. EPA took 543 enforcement actions against facilities out of compliance, while states took 15,796 enforcement actions, according to ECHO.

EPA still roughly 11,700 inspections every year, according to The Times. Inspections are carried out by the agency’s Office of Compliance and Enforcement (OECA).

The Times estimated “hundreds of such inspections may have already been canceled this year, with the potential for hundreds more to not take place should the shutdown continue for days or weeks more.”

The Times quoted one furloughed EPA inspector who gave the ominous quote: “Now there’s nobody out there to check if they’re complying.”

One EPA official took issue with The Times’ estimate of missed inspections, and noted that OECA conducts most of its inspections during spring and summer months, so right now is not the peak period for inspections.

“The speculation they had there, I would characterize it as misleading,” the official told TheDCNF.

Most of EPA’s roughly 600 environmental compliance officers are furloughed due to the ongoing government shutdown, which became the longest in history as of Saturday. The now 24-day partial shutdown was precipitated by a fight over funding for a U.S.-Mexico border wall.

Democratic lawmakers used The Times’ report to attack President Donald Trump, with Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey saying the ongoing shutdown “means toxic water and air for our communities.”

The Trump administration came under fire last year for a drop in environmental enforcement activities, continuing a trend that started under the Obama administration.

However, EPA criminal enforcement agents are still on the job and the agency has non-furloughed agents standing by for emergencies or if the agency sees an imminent threat to public health.

An EPA official told TheDCNF that The Times’ report gave a “false view of what EPA inspectors do.” EPa inspectors often comb through records compiled by regulated facilities or do walkthroughs.

“It’s not like they regularly go out and plug leaks,” the official said. “That rarely happens.”

“It takes time for EPA professionals to review this information,” including looking through reams of documentation of facilities’ emissions or discharges to see if they were in compliance, the official said.

EPA stayed open during the first week of the ongoing government shutdown, but was forced to close its doors and furlough most of its 15,000-strong workforce when their funding ran out in late December.

Immigration advocates plan to fight the Trump administration’s new directive of requiring asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their claims are processed.

Speaking Thursday before a House Judiciary Committee hearing, Secretary of Homeland Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen revealed a sweeping new policy for migrants who claim asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border. Dubbed the “Remain in Mexico” plan, migrants who seek asylum at the country’s southern border will no longer be allowed to stay in the U.S. while their cases maneuver through the immigration courts, but instead will have to wait in Mexico.

Much like other immigration reforms President Donald Trump has attempted to enact since entering office, this new policy is due to receive court challenges.

“Pushing asylum-seekers back into Mexico is absolutely illegal under U.S. immigration law,” senior director at Human Rights First, Eleanor Acer, told reporters Friday, according to the Daily Beast. “This scheme will increase, rather than decrease, the humanitarian debacle at the border.”

A number of immigration-rights groups argue the “Remain in Mexico” policy violates international laws and guarantees of due process set out in the Constitution. Opponents also point to federal laws that protect child migrants.

“Refusing to process children very clearly violates the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, written specifically to protect this vulnerable population,” Lisa Frydman, vice president of Kids in Need of Defense, a nonprofit that helps unaccompanied children, said Friday. Frydman described the Tijuana shelters that unaccompanied children stay in as “squalid.”

However, the Trump administration argues that the new policy stops migrants from abusing the U.S. asylum process by entering the country and never showing up to their immigration court hearings.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) recorded 78,564 requests for asylum in 2017, a dramatic uptick from the 13,880 requests made in 2012. The requests have only increased, with the USCIS recording a record-setting 99,035 asylum requests — 62,609 of which included Guatemalans, Salvadorians and Hondurans — during the 2018 fiscal year.

“They will not be able to disappear into the United States,” Nielsen stated Thursday. “They will have to wait for approval. If they are granted asylum by a U.S. judge, they will be welcomed into America. If they are not, they will be removed to their home countries,” she continued, adding in a subsequent press statement that “catch and release” will be replaced with “catch and return.”

If immigration-rights groups are successful, it wouldn’t be their first court victory. In a five to four decision, the Supreme Court on Friday rejected the Trump administration’s bid to make illegal immigrants ineligible for asylum protections.

Immigration remains at the forefront of debate as the federal government has shutdown, with congressional Democrats and Trump at odds over funding for a wall on the country’s southern border. The shutdown is expected to last past Christmas.

Gillibrand Makes Her First Political Flip Flop Since Announcing Presidential Run

Molly Prince on January 16, 2019

Democratic New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand reversed her position on allowing illegal immigrants to obtain drivers’ licenses only a day after she announced that she would be seeking the Democratic nomination for the presidency in 2020.

During her presidential campaign kickoff on Wednesday, Gillibrand told reporters in just outside of Troy, New York that she is now supportive of granting illegal immigrants the ability to procure a drivers’ license, reported the New York Daily News.

“I think we have to make it possible for people to provide for their families,” the New York senator said. “We need comprehensive immigration reform.Without doing that, you’re not going to get the problem solved for the rest of the country.”

Gillibrand notably expressed her opposition to the proposal in 2007 while she was serving as the congresswoman for New York’s 20th Congressional District, according to The Free Beacon. Instead, she supported legislation requiring individuals to provide proof of citizenship prior to obtaining a driver’s license.

Gillibrand announced on Tuesday that she is launching an exploratory committee to challenge President Donald Trump in 2020. Only months earlier, she pledged prior to her midterm election she would serve her full six-year term if re-elected to the Senate. After she handily won re-election by 33 points in November, she seemingly walked back that pledge.

Following Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Gillibrand is the second senator, and second female senator, to declare their plans to begin the legal process of running for president in 2020.

Gillibrand’s campaign will likely focus on intersectionality and gender politics as she tries to carve out a niche in a potentially crowded Democratic primary field. She attended a private meeting with roughly 20 feminist leaders on Saturday, including feminist Gloria Steinem, asking for their assistance with her impending presidential run.

Jussie Smollett’s attorneys said reports claiming the “Empire” actor planned his own attack on Jan. 29 “further victimized” him and were lies, according to a Saturday night statement.

Smollett reported two men beat him up, tied a rope around his neck, said racial and homophobic slurs, threw an unidentified chemical substance on him and yelled, “This is MAGA [Make America Great Again] country,” at him on Jan 29.

“As a victim of a hate crime who has cooperated with the police investigation, Jussie Smollett is angered and devastated by recent reports that the perpetrators are individuals he is familiar with,” attorneys Todd Pugh and Victor P. Henderson said according to NewNowNext. “He has now been further victimized by claims attributed to these alleged perpetrators that Jussie played a role in his own attack. Nothing is further from the truth and anyone claiming otherwise is lying.”

The statement comes following reports that two Chicago Police Department (CPD) sources believed Smollett paid the suspects to help him plan his own attack, according to CNN. The sources said records showed the two brothers purchased the rope found on Smollett’s neck at a Chicago hardware store.

The Nigerian brothers were released Friday after getting arrested for suspicion of assault and battery.

“We can confirm that the information received from the individuals questioned by police earlier in the Empire case has in fact shifted the trajectory of the investigation,” CPD spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement to The Daily Caller News Foundation. “We’ve reached out to the Empire cast member’s attorney to request a follow-up interview.”

Guglielmi said earlier that media reports claiming the attack was a hoax were “unconfirmed” and the “supposed CPD sources are uninformed and inaccurate” on Twitter Thursday.

One of the “purported suspects” was Smollett’s personal trainer who prepared him for a music video, according to the attorneys’ statement.

One of the suspects worked on “Empire.”

Pugh and Henderson did not immediately respond to TheDCNF’s request for comment.

Congress passed bipartisan legislation that aims to streamline the regulatory process for commercial nuclear plants, bringing relief to an industry that has witnessed decline and uncertainty.

The Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act was approved in the House of Representatives by wide margins Friday, clearing the chamber by 361 to 10. The Senate had already approved the bill on Thursday by a voice vote.

Introduced by Wyoming GOP Sen. John Barrasso and co-sponsored by a number of Republicans and Democrats alike, the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act calls for a number of reforms that would unburden the industry. The legislation streamlines how the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) regulates facilities by improving licensing procedures and giving licensees more transparency on how the agency spends its money. Additionally, it encourages investment in nuclear research and supports the development of new technology in labs around the country.

The end goal of the bill is to make the development and commercialization of nuclear technology more affordable.

The trade association representing U.S. nuclear plants hailed the vote.

“The Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act (NEIMA) is a significant, positive step toward reform of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission fee collection process,” Maria Korsnick, president of the Nuclear Energy Institute, said in a statement Friday. “This legislation establishes a more equitable and transparent funding structure which will benefit all operating reactors and future licensees. The bill also reaffirms Congress’s support for nuclear innovation by working to establish an efficient and stable regulatory structure that is prepared to license the advanced reactors of the future.”

In passing the bill, Congress joins a growing number of state governments that are also working to save their nuclear fleet.

Regulators in Connecticut have tentatively agreed to consider the Millstone Nuclear Power Station — the only nuclear plant in Connecticut and the largest in New England — to be “at risk,” allowing it the ability to participate in the state’s support program for carbon-free energy. This action follows New Jersey, where regulators have worked on a Zero Emission Credit program that will support uneconomic nuclear plants in the state. Illinois and New York have already established Zero Emission Credit programs in their states.

The federal and state action comes as numerous nuclear plants have closed down in recent years, and more are at-risk of early retirement. Pitted against cheap natural gas and subsidy-backed renewables, many nuclear facilities have been rendered uneconomical.

However, both Republicans and Democrats are recognizing the vital role nuclear plays in the country’s power market, providing reliable energy with zero carbon emissions. The decline of the nuclear industry has caught the attention of environmentalists who are concerned about climate change and more conservative officials who worry nuclear plant closures places the grid’s reliability at risk.

The family of a white man who was wrongfully accused of gunning down a 7-year-old black girl has continued to receive death threats even after he was officially determined not to have any involvement in the crime.

Robert Cantrell was accused of killing Jazmine Barnes in a racially-motivated drive-by shooting in northeast Houston. Barnes was sitting in the backseat of her mother’s car on Dec. 30 when another vehicle pulled up alongside and began spraying bullets.

The crime received national attention after Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez and activist Shaun King began to promote a narrative that a white man murdered Barnes, which they continued to push even after they received a tip that a 20-year-old black man named Eric Black Jr. and another individual had shot Barnes.

King widely circulated a sketch of the alleged perpetrator along with Cantrell’s mugshot. Cantrell, who had been arrested on unrelated felony charges resembled the composite. In a now-deleted tweet, King asked his more than one million followers for information on Cantrell.

“What more can you tell me about Robert Cantrell? He was arrested in Houston hours after Jazmine was murdered on another violent crime spree,” King tweeted. “We’ve had 20 people call or email us and say he is a racist, violent asshole and always has been. Just tell me everything you know.”

Despite the arrest of two black men for their involvement in the crime, Cantrell and his family continue to receive threats. Hailey Cantrell, Robert’s niece told ABC7 that they are still being posted on Facebook.

“I hear, ‘Someone is going to rape, torture and murder the women and children in your family,” Hailey read.

“I just want everyone to back off,” Hailey said. “The truth is out. It had nothing to do with us, nothing to do with my uncle at all.”

On the first day of negotiations over a border security compromise, Democrats gave their opening bid: A plan that contains zero funding for a physical barrier.

A select group of 17 Republicans and Democrats from both the House and Senate met Wednesday for the first day of border negotiations. Formed after the federal government experienced the longest partial shutdown in U.S. history, the group is tasked with reaching a deal by Feb. 15 or else face the prospect of another shutdown. However, it could prove nearly impossible for lawmakers to find a plan that can both pass Congress and earn President Donald Trump’s signature.

“If the committee of Republicans and Democrats now meeting on Border Security is not discussing or contemplating a Wall or Physical Barrier, they are Wasting their time!” the president tweeted Wednesday morning before the meeting.

Democratic members on the negotiating team demonstrated how difficult the process will likely be by offering a solution that contains zero funding for a border wall — a demand that Trump has continuously made clear is a deal-breaker.

“We’ve seen that walls can and will be tunneled under, cut through or scaled,” California Democratic Rep. Pete Aguilar stated, according to The Washington Post. “We cannot focus on archaic solutions in order to address this very modern problem. Technology works for securing the border.”

Included in the Democrats’ initial offer was funding for 1,000 additional customs officers, upgrades for ports of entry, new technology that can scan for drugs or other contraband in vehicles, and other measures.

Despite strong support from National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd and other U.S. immigration officials, Democrats — not eager to give in to Trump’s long-sought request — have been averse to funding a wall on the southern border.

“Our Border Patrol tells us they need physical barriers to help them do their job — not from coast to coast, but strategically placed where traffic is highest,” stated Alabama Republican Sen. Richard Shelby, a member of the negotiating committee. “It’s unfortunate the issue has become politicized,” the senator added. “That has not always been the case.”

However, Democrats may simply be playing their cards close to the vest as they gear for what will likely be two weeks of tough negotiating. New York Democratic Nita Lowey, the House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman and member of the group, refused to say whether wall funding was nonnegotiable.

“We’re open to everyone’s facts and figures,” Lowey said at a news conference.

During the record-setting shutdown that lasted 35 days, Trump demanded $5.7 billion for border wall funding. While Republicans are hesitant to enter another shutdown, the president has suggested that he is willing if he does not receive a bill that includes funding for a border wall.

A federal court ruled Monday against Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring’s attempt to hide information from a Washington, D.C., think tank seeking information about the state’s role in an attorney general-led climate crusade.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute sued Herring in 2018 for attempting to evade a Freedom of Information Act case seeking reasons why the Democratic attorney general denied requests for information confirming the state’s authority to hire privately funded lawyers.

CEI’s Chris Horner argued state law only allows assistant attorneys general to be paid through taxpayer expense.

Herring applied for a program in September 2017 that was designed to hire privately funded lawyers to work on environmental litigation through a group founded by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Herring’s office claimed it reviewed Virginia’s laws and found no problems with the arrangement.

Horner argued that Virginia’s code not only does not authorize such a deal but prohibits taxpayer dollars from going to private attorneys. Horner’s CEI sought the records underlying this assertion. The office of the attorney general (OAG) insists it has none.

Bloomberg Philanthropies launched a $6 million campaign to embed experienced attorneys in state’s attorney’s offices across the country to push back against Trump administration efforts to roll back environmental regulations. Bloomberg, a billionaire politician turned environmentalist, is considering running for president in 2020 as a Democrat.

“Today the Court rightly ruled that Attorney General Herring and his staff must not be permitted to avoid legitimate scrutiny under Virginia’s FOIA law by simply asserting ‘Trust us,’” Horner said in a press statement Monday night. “Unfortunately, as we informed the Court, this OAG has a history of providing false ‘No Records’ responses when records do in fact exist.”

Herring has not responded to The Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment about what the court’s ruling means for his office. One of the legal fellows New York City hired was heavily involved in New York’s lawsuit targeting ExxonMobil’s climate record

A special assistant in the New York AG’s office signed a lawsuit in October alleging Exxon misled investors about the risks Exxon’s oil products pose to the environment. The assistant is one of several lawyers associated with Bloomberg Philanthropies the state hired through the NYU State Environmental Energy Impact Center.

Chinese President Xi Jinping called for his country’s reunification with Taiwan Wednesday, saying China would pursue peaceful means for now but would not rule out the use of force, The New York Times reported.

Taiwan, which refers to itself as the Republic of China, is the remnant of Western-backed forces that opposed the communist revolution in China. Since losing its civil war, Taiwan has occupied a dubious place internationally, with mainland China encouraging other countries not to recognize it. Xi insisted that any future talks must revolve around Taiwan, a democracy, coming under communist authority, refusing to take violence off the table should Taiwan insist on its independence, according to NYT.

“Different systems are not an obstacle to unification, and even less are they an excuse for separatism. The private property, religious beliefs and legitimate rights and interests of Taiwanese compatriots will be fully assured,” Xi said in a statement. “We make no promise to abandon the use of force, and retain the option of taking all necessary measures.”

The U.S. adopted the One China policy in 1979, officially recognizing the communist People’s Republic of China as the legitimate authority of both Taiwan and mainland China. The U.S. nevertheless maintains its shipments of advanced weapons technology to the island.

Wednesday’s statement comes amid escalating tensions between the U.S. and China. While U.S. President Donald Trump and Xi had appeared to come to a trade agreement in late 2018, the U.S. then called for the arrest an extradition of a Chinese tech executive, infuriating the Chinese government.

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen said she would welcome talks so long as her government was allowed to represent itself and pursue self-rule. Xi, however, sees reunification under communist rule as inevitable.

“The country is growing strong, the nation is rejuvenating and unification between the two sides of the strait is the great trend of history,” Xi said.

A potentially deadly superbug infected U.S. patients from multiple states after they had surgery in Mexico, underscoring a worrying trend in the rapidly growing medical tourism sector.

Twelve patients, who are from states including Arkansas, Oregon and West Virginia, contracted the multidrug-resistant bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa after being treated at clinics in Tijuana, Mexico, according to U.S. health officials cited by The Washington Post. The patients crossed the border looking for cheaper medical care. Instead, they came back with infections that have led to through-the-roof medical bills for many of them.

An Arkansas woman named Tamika Capone is still fighting her infection months after surgery and has rung up at least $30,000 in medical bills, reported WaPo. And a Utah woman named Mindy Blohm said she had to sell her house to afford $50,000 in hospital bills after contracting a different strain of Pseudomonas.

The link between the women? Both Capone and Blohm traveled to Grand View Hospital in Tijuana for weight-loss surgery in October. Both returned to the U.S. with symptoms doctors traced back to the dangerous bacteria, which can’t be spread through the air but still necessitates precaution. The World Health Organization prioritized the bug as one of three “most critical” bacteria that needs more treatment options in a 2017 letter.

These patients’ medical emergencies come as “medical tourism” becomes more popular among Americans, many of whom face rising insurance costs.

“In 2007, it is estimated that 750,000 Americans traveled to other countries for health care. In 2017, more than 1.4 million Americans sought health care in a variety of countries around the world,” researchers wrote in The American Journal of Medicine in January.

Capone, a mother who has struggled with her weight ever since an immobilizing car wreck in 2011, sought bariatric surgery in Mexico because she could cut costs by thousands of dollars. When her husband’s health insurance plan didn’t cover $17,500 for the surgery, she decided to travel to Tijuana for surgery at a fraction of the cost.

Now she has an infection that is resistant to nearly all antibiotics. Capone tried colistin, a drug that can cause kidney and nerve damage, but could not take it for more than two days before it made parts of her face go numb and swell, reported WaPo. Only 86 cases of that strain of Pseudomonas had been documented in the U.S. before 2017, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials told WaPo.

Eight of the patients who contracted pseudomonas had surgery at Grand View, where Capone went under the knife, according to WaPo. One of the cases dates back to a 2015 surgery, although most of the surgeries occurred between August and December, reported the Sacramento Bee. The CDC warned travelers against seeking treatment at Grand View on Jan. 9, and portions of the hospital were shut down temporarily in December, according to WaPo.

Grand View officials did not return WaPo’s requests for comment. A medical tourism agency they work with, Weight Loss Agents, didn’t give an official statement, but a woman who answered the business’s phone called the reports “a competitor’s smear campaign,” reported WaPo.

Concerns over Pseudomonas and “medical tourism” come as many U.S. lawmakers seek solutions to high health care costs by thinking outside the border. Utah’s Public Employee Health Program started giving its members cash incentives to encourage them to travel to Tijuana for drugs to treat ailments like osteoporosis, prostate cancer and multiple sclerosis in fall 2018.

And new Senate Finance Committee Chair Chuck Grassley revealed his initial plan to cut drug prices, including by importing cheaper drugs from Canada, Jan. 9. The idea’s not a new one. As far back as 2004, Grassley and other senators introduced legislation to let consumers import cheaper drugs from Canada, according to his office. It never became law.