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Illinois To Sue EPA For Exempting Foxconn Plant From Pollution Controls (reuters.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the unruly-neighbors dept.

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.

4 of 127 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Lisa Madigan by pots · · Score: 5, Informative

    She is. Whew, glad she meets your approval. It'd be a shame if she did one thing to protect the people of her state without also doing every other thing you can think of first.

  2. Re:Jobs not important? by DRJlaw · · Score: 5, Informative

    Whoosh. Is your problem with reading comprehension or retention? The greater Chicago area is the cause of much of the pollution in surrounding areas, including coastal Wisconsin and Michigan. Lacking the windborne pollution originating in Illinois and Indiana, there's no reason to believe Racine county would have any sort of issue. No reason to force Racine to mitigate Chicago's pollution. And it's disingenuous and hypocritical for Illinois to sue claiming Wisconsin might cause more pollution.

    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.

  3. Re:Jobs not important? by DRJlaw · · Score: 4, Informative

    So still curious, I took a look at the WI site for air quality and Racine, as well as the County between it an Illinois, looks fine. Even if you go to the highest ozone level report, it's still maxing out at 47ppb. 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. Certainly nothing to shut down a plant hiring 3k -13k workers over. I notice none of the articles attempt to quantify what, if any, difference the plant will make to ozone levels.

    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.

  4. Re:Jobs not important? by thegarbz · · Score: 4, 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).