Word comes from Politico that after 17 years of trying, "Republicans for Environmental Protection" is 86'ing the concept and changing its name to some kind of focus-group-tested "ConservAmerica." It's not so much that conservatives have abandoned the environment and public health. Poll after poll shows broad support for most of the environmental agenda, and over the last 20 years some of the most successful projects Downwinders has pulled off have been with Republican office-holders as partners. It's that a controlling faction of the Republican Party is increasing hostile to what has been an historical bi-partisan set of goals for their own sake, differing only in approaches. In 2012, the very value of having clean air is routinely questioned by that faction, as is the science behind any advance in knowledge that contradicts a worldview where corporations make all the decisions about our risks for us. So instead, the former RFEPs are hoping to attract conservatives in general. “We’re seeing more and more independents out there,” said David Jenkins, the group’s vice president for governmental and political affairs. “Messaging through a Republican frame doesn’t reach those people as well as reaching them through a conservative frame.” They may be on to something. The most ardent conservative critics of pollution in North Texas are not state or federal Republican office-holders, but grassroots right-wingers like former DISH Mayor Calvin Tillman, who feels as though the GOP has let him down. It's one more sign that the modern Republican Party is further isolating itself on an issue that really doesn't give a flip about the politics of your lungs.   Read More

 That would be Congressman "Smokey Joe" Barton, who thanks to redistricting has put his Arlington home up for sale and moved back to his hometown of Ennis in hopes of being in his current district by the time the dust settles on the court challenge now headed to the Supreme Court. His current district, while not exactly blue, was getting more purple as the percentage of Arlington voters grew. By trying to squeeze another possible Hispanic-dominated district or two into DFW, redistricting may have given new life to Barton's incumbency by drawing him a more Republican-centric district to represent.   Read More

Readers are no doubt familiar with the latest two-year assault on all things EPA by House Republicans, including already passed cement kiln emission rules, coal plant emission rules, cross-state pollution rules, and so on. Forget that a lot of these are due to the last administration trying to fudge implmentaiton of these rules and getting called on it by the courts, thus forcing the Obama EPA to take them on and try to do them right. There is a wave new regulations. But it turns out the House Republicans aren't satisfied with voting down all the real EPA clean air initiatives. Now they're making them up. Like this farm dust meme that was never true, but served as a great rallying cry. This is what the current House leadership has come to. Do you really want to see the same obsession control the agenda of the Senate and the Oval Office?   Read More

Among the many faux EPA outrages Big Business and House Republicans have fostered upon us, you may remember the meme that the feds were going to put thousands of hospitals and school boilers out of business with super strict new emission rules. In fact, the facilities most affected by the rules weren't schools or hospitals. They were on-site chemical incinerators and boilers and of course, cement kilns. However, the pile of manure that was churned out enveloped the Agency and, as with the new ozone standards, made it retreat and reconsider the originally-proposed rules. Newly reconstituted, the Commercial and Industrial Solid Waste Incineration rules (CISWI) were dumped by the Administration last Friday at closing time like a late-night gangland victim at a hospital emergency room. After review, it's easy to understand why. The rules did not go far enough for industry, which would find any regulations onerous. And in an attempt to win the business community favor, the administration gave away strict standards for particulate matter, dioxin, and toxic heavy metals like lead and cadmium. Nothing was done to narrow the broad definitions of "nonhazardous solid waste" that allows for the burning of just about everything is it gets the right exemptions, including tires, plastics garbage, car interiors, and creosote-treated wood. This is where the entire industry is headed - the grey area of these nonhazardous solid wastes - as exemplified by TXI's "landfill in the sky" permit recently awarded by TCEQ to the company without any public notice or opportunity for comment.  And for the time being, this administrations seems happy to allow it.   Read More

Six Republican Senators joined their Democratic colleagues to thwart an attempt to rollback EPA's recently announced Cross State Pollution Rules that requires approximately 30 states, including Texas, to curb emissions of nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide, which contribute to smog and haze problems in other states. President Obama had threatened to veto the legislation if it had managed to get out of the Senate, although despite two years of trying, House Republicans have yet to find a piece of EPA rollback legislation that can make it through the other chamber. But that won't keep them from trying. Expect to hear about similar results in the coming weeks for bills nullifying the 2008 cement plant emission standards, the 2010 rules for small boilers and incinerators and other clean air legislation.   Read More

Throughout most of the last 15 years, various Downwinders board members have traveled east to testify to Congress or the EPA about the public health harms of living adjacent to a cement plant. Many times it's been on behalf of the emission standards passed in 2008 that were the first national industry air pollution standards Our name and situation are well-known among congressional staffers of those members of Congress trafficking in environmental and public health issues, like the esteemed Henry Waxman (D-Ca) former Chair of the House Commerce and Energy Committee. So it wasn't a complete surprise when Waxman used a graphic illustration of what's at stake with the House Republican plan to roll back the 2008 cement plant emission rules by enlarging the picture of the Baxter Elementary School's proximity to Holcim's cement kilns in Midlothian and using it in Wednesday's floor debate over the Cement Bill Regulatory Relief Act. Still, it's nice to know we're still he poster child for these rules.  Read More

It won't come to that because this thing will never make it out of the Senate, but ti's still good to see the President draw the line in the sand somewhere, Here's the complete statement issued by the Administration yesterday:  Read More