Latest news with #EnvironmentalLawandPolicyCenter
Chicago Tribune
15-05-2025
- Business
- Chicago Tribune
NWI environment advocates worry about BP permit application
Local community and environmental groups are worried about a proposed water pollution control permit for the BP Whiting refinery. Permit comments filed by the Environmental Law and Policy Center and Environmental Integrity Project say the permit will allow the facility to dump 'unhealthy levels of pollutants,' including mercury, into Lake Michigan, according to a news release. In a statement to the Post-Tribune, a spokesman for BP said a draft of the permit is available for public comment, but it has yet to be issued. The corporation's National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit is subject to renewal every five years. The Indiana Department of Environmental Management held an April 22 public hearing as part of the renewal process, according to BP. '(BP) is committed to safe and compliant operations at the Whiting Refinery and across our global operations,' the company's statement said. 'We will continue working every day to keep this commitment and to ensure the refinery remains an important part of the Northwest Indiana economy for years to come.' Activists are asking IDEM to revise a draft permit for the plant to include stronger pollution limits for mercury, PFAs and other toxins, including arsenic, benzene and lead, according to the news release. Mercury is harmful to people of all ages, according to the news release, and it can cause brain damage to infants and poisons fish. PFAs are dangerous in very small 'parts per trillion' amounts and don't easily break down in the environment. 'The permit demonstrates BP's and the state of Indiana's disregard for the health of the people of Northwest Indiana and the Chicago area,' Kerri Gefeke, associate attorney at the Environmental Law and Policy Center, said in the news release. 'It's particularly egregious for the state to allow BP to discharge elevated levels of mercury, unknown amounts of 'forever chemicals' like PFAs, and numerous other chemicals into Lake Michigan mere feet from the beaches where people swim and fish, and a short distance from where the City of Hammond withdraws its drinking water.' Meg Parish, senior attorney at the Environmental Integrity Project, agreed with Gefeke, saying the state of Indiana shouldn't allow the permit. Various organizations sent a letter to IDEM asking the department to not renew the permit at the Whiting refinery. Carolyn McCrady, member of Gary Advocates for Responsible Development, said IDEM works for people and asked the agency to do a 'real analysis' before allowing the permit. Lisa Vallee, organizing director for Just Transition Northwest Indiana and a Whiting resident, said she was dumbfounded by the permit renewal application. The new permit contains more lax regulations, neglects to address more than 20 toxic chemicals and concerns about forever chemicals, Vallee said in a statement. 'We are not fools,' Vallee said. 'We know because we live here; every day, we smell it, see it and become ill. We will never stop fighting for the clean water, air and land we deserve.'
Yahoo
11-02-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Illinois' largest utility unveils $100M to spur EV adoption
As the Trump administration attempts to block billions of dollars in federal funds for electric vehicle charging, an Illinois utility is moving forward with a massive investment to promote wider EV adoption. At a press conference last Thursday ahead of the 2025 Chicago Auto Show, ComEd announced $100 million in new rebates designed to boost EV fleet purchases and charging stations across northern Illinois. The program helps meet the mandate for the state's Climate and Equitable Jobs Act, which calls for 1 million EVs on the roads by 2030. Of the $100 million, $53 million is available for business and public-sector EV fleet purchases, while nearly $38 million is designated to upgrade infrastructure for non-residential charger installations. An additional nearly $9 million is intended for residential charging stations. The money is in addition to $87 million announced last year for similar incentives. Funding for the rebate programs comes from distribution charges and 'has nothing to do' with the federal government, Melissa Washington, senior vice president of customer operations and strategic initiatives at ComEd, said during an interview. This means that there is no risk of withholding or reductions from the Trump administration. Washington anticipates continued high levels of interest and engagement in the programs. 'Based upon what we saw last year, there was a quick demand. Applications came right away the minute we opened it up. I would imagine people will be going on [ComEd's website] and immediately trying to see what we have available for them,' Washington said. Since launching its EV rebate program last year, ComEd has funded projects in more than 300 ZIP codes, including nearly 3,500 residential and commercial charging ports, and provided funding for municipalities, businesses, and school districts to purchase more than 200 new and pre-owned EV fleet vehicles. The utility designated more than half the available rebate funds for low-income customers and projects in environmental justice communities. ComEd also partners with the Chicago-area Metropolitan Mayors Caucus on the EV Readiness Program, which helps local governments create ordinances and safety and infrastructure plans to accommodate the growing demand for EVs in their communities. Since its initiation, more than 41 northern Illinois municipalities have participated in the program. The importance of utility funding for the rebate programs was highlighted by Susan Mudd, senior policy advocate for the Environmental Law and Policy Center, who noted that a St. Louis-area school district is still waiting on 21 electric school buses that had been promised and ordered. The district has been unable to access the online portal to receive its federal funding, due to an executive order issued by the Trump administration. 'During the last four years, the federal government was a reliable partner with policies and programs that helped propel electric vehicle production and implementation and updated standards to save consumers money while cleaning up the air,' Mudd said at the press conference. 'That order has already meant that students who would already be riding quiet zero-emission buses are still on old, dirty diesel ones, and the business that was to deliver them can't get paid. 'While the new administration is willing to sacrifice the health of people across the U.S. and the world, thankfully, we in Illinois can continue to improve things,' Mudd said.
Yahoo
07-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump, Musk move to oust EPA staff in the Great Lakes region, including dozens responsible for protecting drinking water for 30 million in US and Canada
CHICAGO — For more than two years, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials from Chicago have been aiding a poor, predominantly white Ohio village upended when a train derailed and spilled more than 100,000 gallons of hazardous chemicals. Vice President JD Vance, a former Ohio U.S. senator, visited the East Palestine accident site this week and vowed the EPA would finish the cleanup. At the same time, the Trump/Vance administration is moving to fire or force out more than 20% of the agency's Chicago staff, including officials who enforce clean air and water laws and others dedicated to helping poor communities disproportionately harmed by pollution in the Midwest. The disconnect highlights how Trump, his aides and fellow Republicans in Congress repeatedly attempt to gut environmental protections while promising to guarantee Americans have clean air and water. 'They say they want to bring EPA back to its core mission,' said Nicole Cantello, president of the union for about 1,000 agency employees in Chicago. 'But how do you protect health and the environment if they constantly undermine us?' The EPA's Midwest office traditionally has been one of the agency's biggest and busiest, prosecuting companies that pollute the air, water and land in Illinois, Ohio and four other states around the Great Lakes. Trump purged dozens of career officials in the Chicago office during his first term. His latest attempt to cull the workforce is led by billionaire Elon Musk, whose companies Tesla and SpaceX have been fined by the EPA for multiple violations of environmental laws. 'Elon Musk wants to turn EPA into every polluter's ally,' U.S. Sen. Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, said Thursday at a rally in front of the agency's headquarters. 'He wants to take environmental cops off the beat.' History suggests Musk and scores of other polluters are going to catch a break during the next four years. Water pollution cases filed by the EPA in the Great Lakes region declined during each of the first three years Trump was president, according to an analysis of agency records by the nonprofit Environmental Law and Policy Center. Meanwhile, the number of chronic violators of the Clean Water Act in the heavily industrialized states skyrocketed under Trump, who as a candidate in 2016 vowed to abolish the EPA. Among other things, Trump appointees declined to punish U.S. Steel when career EPA staff confirmed the company had repeatedly, and illegally, released harmful pollution into Lake Michigan, the Chicago area's chief source of drinking water. The Trump EPA brokered a settlement with U.S. Steel only after a threatened lawsuit from the Abrams Environmental Law Clinic at the University of Chicago. It took another threatened lawsuit from the Environmental Law and Policy Center to force more rigorous scrutiny of the northwest Indiana steel mill now owned by the Cleveland-Cliffs conglomerate. The mill had dumped fish-killing ammonia and cyanide into a Lake Michigan tributary. During Trump's first term, the EPA was led by Scott Pruitt, a former Oklahoma attorney general who repeatedly sued to block clean air and water regulations, and Andrew Wheeler, a coal industry lobbyist. Pruitt and Wheeler said during Trump's first term that it was up to states to decide which environment and public health initiatives should be a priority. At the same time, the Trump White House proposed deep cuts in federal grants that account for a large share of the funding for state environmental programs. The latest Trump appointee to lead the EPA, former New York lawmaker Lee Zeldin, has frozen billions of dollars of EPA grants funded by laws enacted by Congress, in particular money set aside to slow climate change and encourage the use of electric vehicles. Zeldin, like all other congressional Republicans, voted against the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act intended to boost renewable energy and clean manufacturing in the U.S. At his Jan. 16 confirmation hearing, Zeldin said he plans collaborate with industry 'to promote common-sense, smart regulation that will allow American innovation to continue to lead the world.' He vowed that under his leadership the EPA 'will prioritize compliance as much as possible. I believe in the rule of law and I want to work with people to ensure they do their part to protect the environment.' One of Zeldin's deputies spent the first Trump term attempting to block more stringent regulation of chemicals, including cancer-causing PFAS — per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — found in the blood of nearly every American, and ethylene oxide, a highly toxic gas used to make plastics and sterilize medical devices. Nancy B. Beck formerly worked for the American Chemistry Council, the industry's chief trade group. She has testified before Congress in favor of Republican-sponsored legislation that would effectively make it more difficult to restrict PFAS, ethylene oxide and other chemicals. The chemical industry trade group is suing to block PFAS and ethylene oxide regulations adopted during the Biden administration. More than 8 million people in Illinois get their drinking water from a utility where at least one PFAS has been detected, a 2022 Chicago Tribune investigation found. The discovery of high levels of ethylene oxide pollution led to the closure of a sterilization plant in southwest suburban Willowbrook and prompted a state law requiring another facility in north suburban Waukegan to dramatically reduce emissions. Back in East Palestine, Ohio, Vance this week blamed Democrats for failing to enact legislation intended to prevent more disastrous trail derailments. Several Republican senators opposed the bill, as did most of their colleagues in the Republican-controlled House. ____
Chicago Tribune
07-02-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
Trump, Musk move to oust EPA staff in the Great Lakes region, including dozens responsible for protecting drinking water for 30 million in U.S. and Canada
For more than two years, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials from Chicago have been aiding a poor, predominantly white Ohio village upended when a train derailed and spilled more than 100,000 tons of hazardous chemicals. Vice President JD Vance, a former Ohio U.S. senator, visited the East Palestine accident site this week and vowed the EPA would finish the cleanup. At the same time, the Trump/Vance administration is moving to fire or force out more than 20% of the agency's Chicago staff, including officials who enforce clean air and water laws and others dedicated to helping poor communities disproportionately harmed by pollution in the Midwest. The disconnect highlights how Trump, his aides and fellow Republicans in Congress repeatedly attempt to gut environmental protections while promising to guarantee that Americans have clean air and water. 'They say they want to bring EPA back to its core mission,' said Nicole Cantello, president of the union for about 1,000 agency employees in Chicago. 'But how do you protect health and the environment if they constantly undermine us?' The EPA's Midwest office traditionally has been one of the agency's biggest and busiest, prosecuting companies that pollute the air, water and land in Illinois, Ohio and four other states around the Great Lakes. Trump purged dozens of career officials in the Chicago office during his first term. His latest attempt to cull the workforce is led by billionaire Elon Musk, whose companies Tesla and SpaceX have been fined by the EPA for multiple violations of environmental laws. 'Elon Musk wants to turn EPA into every polluter's ally,' U.S. Sen. Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, said Thursday at a rally in front of the agency's headquarters. 'He wants to take environmental cops off the beat.' History suggests Musk and scores of other polluters are going to catch a break during the next four years. Water pollution cases filed by the EPA in the Great Lakes region declined during each of the first three years Trump was president, according to an analysis of agency records by the nonprofit Environmental Law and Policy Center. Meanwhile, the number of chronic violators of the Clean Water Act in the heavily industrialized states skyrocketed under Trump, who as a candidate in 2016 vowed to abolish the EPA. Among other things, Trump appointees declined to punish U.S. Steel when career EPA staff confirmed the company had repeatedly, and illegally, released harmful pollution into Lake Michigan, the Chicago area's chief source of drinking water. The Trump EPA brokered a settlement with U.S. Steel only after a threatened lawsuit from the Abrams Environmental Law Clinic at the University of Chicago. It took another threatened lawsuit from the Environmental Law and Policy Center to force more rigorous scrutiny of the northwest Indiana steel mill now owned by the Cleveland-Cliffs conglomerate. The mill had dumped fish-killing ammonia and cyanide into a Lake Michigan tributary. During Trump's first term, the EPA was led by Scott Pruitt, a former Oklahoma attorney general who repeatedly sued to block clean air and water regulations, and Andrew Wheeler, a coal industry lobbyist. Pruitt and Wheeler said during Trump's first term that it was up to states to decide which environment and public health initiatives should be a priority. At the same time, the Trump White House proposed deep cuts in federal grants that account for a large share of the funding for state environmental programs. The latest Trump appointee to lead the EPA, former New York lawmaker Lee Zeldin, has frozen billions of dollars of EPA grants funded by laws enacted by Congress, in particular money set aside to slow climate change and encourage the use of electric vehicles. Zeldin, like all other congressional Republicans, voted against the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act intended to boost renewable energy and clean manufacturing in the U.S. At his Jan. 16 confirmation hearing, Zeldin said he plans collaborate with industry 'to promote common-sense, smart regulation that will allow American innovation to continue to lead the world.' He vowed that under his leadership the EPA 'will prioritize compliance as much as possible. I believe in the rule of law and I want to work with people to ensure they do their part to protect the environment.' One of Zeldin's deputies spent the first Trump term attempting to block more stringent regulation of chemicals, including cancer-causing PFAS — per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — found in the blood of nearly every American, and ethylene oxide, a highly toxic gas used to make plastics and sterilize medical devices. Nancy B. Beck formerly worked for the American Chemistry Council, the industry's chief trade group. She has testified before Congress in favor of Republican-sponsored legislation that would effectively make it more difficult to restrict PFAS, ethylene oxide and other chemicals. The chemical industry trade group is suing to block PFAS and ethylene oxide regulations adopted during the Biden administration. More than 8 million people in Illinois get their drinking water from a utility where at least one PFAS has been detected, a 2022 Chicago Tribune investigation found. The discovery of high levels of ethylene oxide pollution led to the closure of a sterilization plant in southwest suburban Willowbrook and prompted a state law requiring another facility in north suburban Waukegan to dramatically reduce emissions. Back in East Palestine, Ohio, Vance this week blamed Democrats for failing to enact legislation intended to prevent more disastrous trail derailments. Several Republican senators opposed the bill, as did most of their colleagues in the Republican-controlled House. Originally Published: February 6, 2025 at 7:09 PM CST
Yahoo
27-01-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Trump order freezes funding for Illinois EV charging network, raises questions about other clean energy projects
In its quest to get a million electric vehicles on the road by 2030, Illinois was counting on $148 million in federal funding to help build a statewide network of public EV chargers. Now that funding has been frozen — and targeted for possible reduction or elimination — under a wide-ranging executive order that President Donald Trump signed on his first day in office. Also in limbo: another federal program that was to provide Illinois with millions of dollars for public EV chargers. 'I'm very nervous right now that (the Trump executive order) is going to limit Illinois' ability to achieve its EV future,' said Brian Urbaszewski, environmental health programs director at the Chicago-based Respiratory Health Association. If the federal funding drops or disappears, 'it really puts that (1 million EV) goal that we have in Illinois in jeopardy,' he said. EVs and their chargers appear to be a prime target of Trump's 'Unleashing American Energy' executive order, but they are by no means the only Illinois clean energy projects that could be in for a bumpy ride as the president takes bold steps to reverse the ambitious clean energy policies of his predecessor. The executive order pauses funds coming from President Joe Biden's signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, including incentives for solar and wind projects and a federal tax credit of up to $7,500 for EV buyers. The executive order also targets the opportunity for states to adopt California-style vehicle emissions rules that exceed national standards, an approach that Illinois is currently considering. The executive order sets up a 90-day review period for clean energy projects funded under the Inflation Reduction Act and the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, after which agency heads will submit recommendations. Illinois experts and advocates noted that there are still a lot of unknowns. Environmental Law and Policy Center Chief Executive Officer Howard Learner said Trump's power is limited in areas such as solar energy tax credits and EV tax credits, which were voted into law by Congress. 'No president in an executive order can willy-nilly overturn congressional legislation,' Learner said. The president can go to Congress with his preferred policies and ask for changes, Learner said, but solar energy tax credits and wind production tax credits already have strong bipartisan support. Funds for the Illinois EV charger network under the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program, on the other hand, are subject to more direct presidential control. 'Here the administration does have a degree of flexibility, and can decide, with regard to new expenditures, whether to move forward or not,' Learner said. 'If (the expenditures) have been congressionally authorized and appropriated, the administration has to follow what Congress has decided.' Of the $148 million in money for an electric charger network that Illinois was expecting from the EV formula program, the state announced $25 million in grants in September for 37 projects with 182 new charging ports. Applications are currently open for a second round of funding, expected to distribute about $24 million in grants. It's unclear how much of the money could be vulnerable under the Trump executive order, but Urbaszewski said the state has to first spend its own money and then get reimbursed by the EV formula program or the federal Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Grant Program. That reimbursement system means money stays in federal hands longer, which could be a disadvantage if funding is cut off. 'That, and the fact that those two programs are specifically called out in the executive order — specifically — makes me a little nervous,' Urbaszewski said. Asked about the effects of Trump's executive order on Illinois, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency issued a written statement saying, 'At this time, IEPA is not aware of any impacts to grants and will be monitoring the situation closely.' At the Union of Concerned Scientists, Midwest Policy Director James Gignac highlighted another issue for Illinois: the Inflation Reduction Act's solar and wind incentives. 'There's a lot of development that's underway, based in part on those incentives. If they were to be eliminated, reversed or taken away, that could have an effect for sure on this area,' he said. The executive order is not expected to have much impact on residential solar in Illinois, according to Illinois Solar Energy & Storage Association Executive Director Lesley McCain. The federal government currently offers a tax credit worth up to 30% of the cost to install a solar roof. 'The executive order does not impact (that tax credit), as it is part of the federal tax code, but we will keep a close eye on further developments,' McCain said in a written statement. Urbaszewski, who supports a bid to adopt the California-style clean car and clean truck rules in Illinois, said those rules could help Illinois meet its EV goals if federal EV-charger funding were cut. The rules, currently under consideration by the Illinois Pollution Control Board, would require that all new passenger vehicles sold in Illinois be zero emissions by 2035. During his first term, Trump tried to rescind a waiver that allowed California to pursue car emissions standards stricter than the federal government's. 'This is all going to end up in court, and it's going to take years to figure out whether the U.S. EPA under Trump actually has the authority to take back a waiver once it has been granted,' Urbaszewski said. In the meantime, he'd like to see Illinois adopt the California standards, which he said would accomplish the EV formula program goal of expanding the Illinois charging network. 'If there's a lot of (electric) cars that show up, businesses are going to smell opportunity, and they're going to build chargers,' he said. The Inflation Reduction Act has spurred economic growth in both blue states and red states, and Learner said that solar energy tax credits and wind power production tax credits have strong support on both sides of the aisle. Since the Inflation Reduction Act, companies have announced 751 new clean energy projects in the U.S., including battery manufacturing sites, new or expanded electric vehicle manufacturing facilities, and solar and wind manufacturing plants, according to a recent report from Climate Power, a strategic communications organization. More than half of those projects are in congressional districts represented by Republicans in the House of Representatives. Learner sees a parallel between the Biden climate plan and another high-profile piece of Democratic legislation: the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. During his first term, Trump vowed to repeal Obamacare, but the program developed bipartisan support as a wide range of Americans started to experience its benefits. 'Today, Obamacare is in place,' said Learner. 'There have been some ways in which it's been cut back or changed by the first Trump administration, and by some of the Supreme Court decisions, but by and large, (24) million Americans are now covered by Obamacare and the program has been successfully implemented.' nschoenberg@
