EPA coal ash standards setback for environmental groups

NASHVILLE, Tenn. –  Six years ago, there was a massive spill of coal ash sludge in Tennessee. Three years later, tons of coal ash swept into Lake Michigan. Last February, there was another spill and gray sludge spewed into the Dan River in North Carolina.
With each disaster, environmentalists sounded alarms and called for the byproduct of burning coal to be treated as hazardous waste. On Friday, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released the first standards for the coal-burning waste, but they were hardly what environmental groups were hoping for.
The EPA ruled that the ash can be treated like regular garbage, meaning regulating the stuff will be left up to states and watchful citizens.
"We had to go to court to force EPA to issue this first-ever coal ash rule, and unfortunately, we will be back in court to force coal plants to clean up their ash dumps and start disposing of their toxic waste safely," said EarthJustice attorney Lisa Evans.
Added Scott Slesinger of the Natural Resources Defense Council: "Unlike the majority of environmental standards — which are backstopped by federal enforcement — this rule all but leaves people who live near coal ash dumps to fend for themselves."
The coal industry supported the less strict classification, arguing that the ash wasn't dangerous, and that a hazardous label would hinder the ash recycling market. About 40 percent of coal ash is reused, in products such as cement.
In Tennessee, the spill happened when a containment dike burst at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston Fossil Plant, releasing more than 5 million cubic yards of ash from a storage pond. The sludge flowed into a river and spoiled hundreds of acres in a riverside community 35 miles west of Knoxville.
A couple of dozen families used to live on a peninsula near the plant, but now the sole resident is Tommy Charles and his wife.
Charles said on the night of the rupture, he was awakened by a phone call from a friend who was checking on them.
He took a flashlight and went outside. "I didn't know what I was seeing," he said Friday. "It was just a mess of goo."
The Tennessee Valley Authority is spending $1.2 billion to clean up the mess. Since the December 2008 disaster, the EPA has documented 132 cases in which coal-fired power plant waste damaged rivers, streams and lakes, and 123 where it has tainted underground water sources, in many cases legally.
The EPA said the steps they were taking would protect communities from the risks associated with coal ash waste sites and hold the companies operating them accountable.
"It does what we hoped to accomplish ... in a very aggressive but reasonable and pragmatic way," EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said.
The rules will increase monitoring for leaks and control blowing dust, and require companies to make testing results public. They also set standards for closing waste sites, and require those that are structurally deficient or tainting waterways to close.
The new rules apply to closed coal ash ponds at sites where utilities still have active operations, such as the Duke Energy plant in Eden, North Carolina, where the sudden collapse of a drainage pipe triggered a massive spill in February that coated 70 miles of the Dan River in gray sludge. Duke was operating a new natural gas plant on the property at the time of the spill, and no longer creating coal waste.
Prior to the spill, tests showed it was among 32 unlined pits being operated by the company in the state and tainting groundwater in violation of state standards. The new rule requires new waste pits to be lined.
The regulations do not cover sites at shuttered power plants. And in some cases, they would allow existing landfills that do not meet the new standards to continue to operate.
State officials were still interpreting the new rules.
Tony Hatton, Kentucky's solid waste division director, said it's still unclear how long states have to draft their own plans following the EPA guidelines. He said utilities in Kentucky have been moving away from "wet-handling" of the ash in recent years, where the waste is stored in ponds and instead dumping it in dry landfills.
With a dry landfill "you're less likely to get into compliance problems from a groundwater perspective and it's a lot more protective of groundwater," Hatton said.
Coal ash has been piling up in ponds and landfill sites at power plants for years, an unintended consequence of the EPA's push to scrub air pollutants from smokestacks.
In volume, it ranks only behind household trash in quantity, and it is expected to grow as the EPA controls pollutants like heat-trapping carbon dioxide and mercury and other toxic air pollutants from the nation's coal fleet. On the upside, a switch from coal to natural gas-fired power plants in recent years has generated less ash.

High School: Islamic vocabulary lesson part of Common Core standards

Parents in Farmville, North Carolina want to know why their children were given a Common Core vocabulary assignment in an English class that promoted the Prophet Muhammad and the Islamic faith.
“It really caught me off guard,” a Farmville Central High School student who was in the class told me. “If we are not allowed to talk about any other religions in school – how is this appropriate?”
The Islamic vocabulary worksheet was assigned to seniors.
“I was reading it and it caught me off guard,” the student told me. “I just looked at it and knew something was not right – so I emailed the pages to my mom.”

I asked the school district to provide me with a copy of vocabulary worksheets that promoted the Jewish, Hindu and Christian faiths. The school district did not reply.

“In the following exercises, you will have the opportunity to expand your vocabulary by reading about Muhammad and the Islamic word,” the worksheet read.
The lesson used words like astute, conducive, erratic, mosque, pastoral, and zenith in sentences about the Islamic faith.
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“The zenith of any Muslim’s life is a trip to Mecca,” one sentence read. For “erratic,” the lesson included this statement: “The responses to Muhammad’s teachings were at first erratic. Some people responded favorably, while other resisted his claim that ‘there is no God but Allah and Muhammad his Prophet.”
Another section required students to complete a sentence:
“There are such vast numbers of people who are anxious to spread the Muslim faith that it would be impossible to give a(n)___ amount.”
I spoke to one parent who asked not to be identified. She was extremely troubled by what her child was exposed to in the classroom.
“What if right after Pearl Harbor our educational system was talking about how great the Japanese emperor was?” the parent asked. “What if during the Cold War our educational system was telling students how wonderful Russia was?”
The parent said the material was classwork disguised as Islamic propaganda.
“It’s very shocking,” she said. “I just told my daughter to read it as if it’s fiction. It’s no different than another of fictional book you’ve read.”
A spokesman for Pitt County Schools defended the lesson  – noting that it came from a state-adopted supplemental workbook and met the “Common Core standards for English Language Arts.”
“The course is designed to accompany the world literature text, which emphasizes culture in literature,” the statement read.
The problem is it’s emphasizing a specific culture and religion – and the school district acknowledged there were concerns “related to the religious nature of sentences providing vocabulary words in context.”
“Our school system understands all concerns related to proselytizing, and there is no place for it in our instruction,” the statement goes on to say. “However, this particular lesson was one of many the students in this class have had and will have that expose them to the various religions and how they shape cultures throughout the world.”
I asked the school district to provide me with a copy of vocabulary worksheets that promoted the Jewish, Hindu and Christian faiths.
The school district did not reply.
I also asked for the past or future dates when the students would be given those vocabulary worksheets.
The school district has yet to reply.
The student I spoke with told me they have not had any other assignments dealing with religion – other than the one about Islam.
Why is that not surprising?
Based on its official statement, Pitt County Schools seems confident that the vocabulary lessons are in compliance with three Common Core standards related to literacy. If you want to look up those standards, reference CCSSELA-Literary L11-12.4.A, 12.4.D and 12.6.
Since the Common Core folks seem to be infatuated with sentence completion – let me try one out on them.
Use “Islamic” and “proselytizing” in the following sentence: Somebody got their ____ hand caught in the ____ cookie jar.
UPDATE: I asked the school district if there had been similar vocabulary assignments about Judaism, Christianity or other religions. I also asked for the exact dates of those assignments. Here’s the reply I received from the school district:
"The class recently finished reading Night by Elie Wiesel. As part of the study of this book, students were exposed to Judaism. I'm told that one of the next couple of lessons that will be taught in this class includes an examination of Psalm 23 as part of the lesson. Additionally, the workbook in question has another vocabulary lesson with words used in a passage about India's three great beliefs (Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism). Keep in mind that this workbook is just one of numerous resources used in the course. Students are exposed to various cultures, values, and beliefs through the reading of multiple types of literature, but teachers certainly aren't advocating for any of them.”
Notice how the school district dodged my question?

US reportedly asks China to help curb North Korea's cyberattack abilities

Another Fool of the Week.

The Obama administration has asked China for help with curbing North Korea's ability to launch cyberattacks like the one federal officials say crippled Sony Pictures, according to a published report. 
The New York Times reports that the White House requested help from Beijing in recent days, but the Chinese have not responded. However, a senior Obama administration official claimed to the Associated Press that the U.S. and China have shared information about the Sony attack. The official also says China agrees with the U.S. that destructive cyberattacks violate the norms of appropriate behavior in cyberspace.
The United States has previously attempted to use China as a channel for influencing North Korean policy, particularly on matters such as nuclear tests, weapons launches, and relations with South Korea. However, successes have been rare and fleeting. In the specific case of the hack on Sony Pictures, The Times reports that Chinese cooperation would be the key to blocking North Korea's cyberwarfare capabilites, since virtually all of the country's telecommunications run though Chinese operated networks. 
However, Washington and Beijing have their own cybersecurity issues to work through. This past May, the Justice Department indicted five hackers working on behalf of the Chinese military on charges of trying to steal sensitive data from American companies. The Chinese government denies any wrongdoing. 
U.S. officials blame North Korea for the Nov. 24 hacking, citing the tools used in the Sony attack and previous hacks linked to the North, and have vowed to respond. The break-in resulted in the disclosure of tens of thousands of confidential Sony emails and business files, and escalated to threats of terror attacks against U.S. movie theaters that caused Sony to cancel the Christmas Day release of "The Interview," a comedy about a plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
An editorial in the Global Times, a newspaper published by China's ruling Communist Party, said that any civilized country will oppose hacker attacks or terror threats, but it also condemned the movie. "The vicious mocking of Kim is only a result of senseless cultural arrogance," it said.
Meanwhile, The Times reports that U.S. officials are weighing what options to present to Obama that would constitute the "proportional response" to the Sony hacking that the president promised in his year-end press conference Friday. The paper reports that among the options being discussed are economic sanctions against high-ranking North Korean officials, similar to those levied against Russian officials close to that country's president, Vladimir Putin. 
Another option being discussed is a propaganda campaign designed to make use of the North's internal computer and radio systems to relay messages inside the country, along the lines of similar South Korean initiatives. The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that the U.S. is also considering returning North Korea to a list of countries deemed to be state sponsors of terrorism, which would also bring heft sanctions. 
One option that appears not to be a serious consideration at this point is a retaliatory cyberattack against North Korean military facilities or communications networks, with a senior official telling The Times that the U.S. does not want to risk escalating the situation and increasing the possibility of a retaliatory attack against a vulnerable U.S. target. 
"There are a lot of constraints on us," the official said, "because we live in a giant glass house."

Fool of the Week: Stephen Colbert

He won us over with his parody of your typical talking head cable TV host. Stephen Colbert is a brand. A successful, popular brand.
He took shots at conservatives through parody and pun.
I loved his humor even though he took several personal shots at me.
He was that good.
Colbert will take over "The Late Show" from David Letterman in 9 months.
And the character that was "Colbert" will go away.
And the real Stephen will host that show.
So why would he give it all up?
Well, for the fame and the money of course!
That’s where you lost me Stephen.
A bigger name -- Jon Stewart -- is sticking around for now, after getting bigger offers than "The Late Show."
That’s commitment!
Stephen Colbert, for abandoning what made you a star, you've earned yourself "The Fool of the Week" title.

N. Korea Cartoon

Court brief: Rogue agency defied judges to carry out partisan probe of Wisconsin conservatives

Agents for the embattled state Government Accountability Board in Wisconsin continued a zealous campaign finance investigation into dozens of conservative groups even after judges who preside over the board voted to shut it down, according to a previously sealed brief made public Friday. 
The documents, from an updated complaint filed by conservative plaintiffs in a case against the GAB, appear to support claims that the campaign finance, ethics and election law regulator is a rogue agency. They also show that the GAB considered using the state's John Doe law to investigate key state conservatives and even national figures, including Fox News' Sean Hannity and WTMJ Milwaukee host Charlie Sykes. 
Wisconsin Reporter also obtained some of its information from previous court documents that were supposed to have been redacted. 
"What we have uncovered so far shows the Government Accountability Board, or at least its staff, being anything but 'accountable,'" said Eddie Greim, attorney for plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the GAB. "For example, the public has learned for the first time, over GAB's objections, that GAB set up a secret system of Gmail accounts for its staffers and the prosecutors who ran the John Doe. We also know that GAB hoped its 'illegal coordination' theory could even extend to allow it to subpoena media figures like Charlie Sykes and Sean Hannity." 
A spokesman for the agency did not immediately return a request for comment. 
Wisconsin's unique "John Doe" procedure is much like a grand jury investigation, without the benefit of a jury of peers. A judge vested with extraordinary powers to compel witnesses to testify presides over the probes.
Click for more from Watchdog.org.

Obama administration accused of political motives in push for new citizens

Nearly 20 years after reporters and congressional investigators caught the Clinton administration trying to register a million immigrants as new citizens and Democratic voters -- many without proper documents -- some Republicans fear the Obama administration is instituting a similar policy. 
The November memorandum issued by the White House and Department of Homeland Security on immigration does more than give a reprieve to millions of illegal immigrants. It also makes a push for legal immigrants to become citizens. It allows legal immigrants in the U.S. to, for the first time, pay their $680 naturalization fee by credit card. And the plan offers to waive the cost, based on income, for families earning up to $47,000 for a family of four. 
In the past, the government prohibited such partial waivers. The plan, dubbed "New Americans," will also include a comprehensive media campaign in major media markets in 10 states.
Critics worry this is part of an effort to register new Democratic voters and turn red states blue by the next election.
"The goal is to naturalize as many as they can with the idea of registering them to vote with the hope that they're going to vote Democratic as they did in 1996," said Republican strategist Randy Pullen. "They're using our money for political means for their 2016 path to victory in their minds."
But Ali Noorani, director of the National Immigration Forum, a Washington, D.C.- based policy organization, said the goal is to "bring them into the full fold of society, make sure they are assimilating, learning English, learning their civics and becoming U.S. citizens." He called that a positive. 
The administration argues immigrants are good for the economy, representing just 13 percent of the population, but 16 percent of the labor force and 28 percent of all new businesses. The White House Task Force on New Americans, according to the November document, will consist of almost a dozen Cabinet-level agencies. They will train and support other agencies and nonprofits to "improve long term integration and foster welcoming community climates." 
But the GOP sees something else behind the plan.
"They're cutting fees with the intent to spur naturalization on, but someone else is going to pay for this," Pullen said. "We're talking about millions of naturalization cases that will have to be handled. The vast majority in the next 18 months."
The plan will target 8-12 million legal immigrants living in states like New York, California, Florida, Illinois, Virginia and Arizona. In some states, the number of legal permanent residents eligible for citizenship far exceeds the margin of victory for candidates in the last election. About half the green-card holders are Hispanic, followed by Asians. In 2012, almost 70 percent of Hispanics voted Democratic. Among Asians, nearly 60 percent did so. 
"To have more people become citizens is good for our democracy and at the end of the day, whether a candidate is a Republican or a Democrat, they just have to make the best case possible to get that voter," Noorani said. "If Republican candidates, whether it's for president, Senate, House or city council, want Asian, Latino voters to come to them, they have to compete for them."
Indeed, George W. Bush won 44 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2004. But Republicans fear a repeat of 1996, when the Clinton administration tried to create a million new voters by Election Day, three times the normal amount. In the process, officials pushed the Immigration and Naturalization Agency beyond its capacity, illegally hiring some 900 volunteers without background checks, a violation of federal employment law. 
An inspector general's report found numerous memos showing the White House urged the INS to "approve, approve, approve" for political reasons, disregarding policies and protocols designed to keep out immigrants who did not qualify for citizenship.

Obama says Keystone pipeline mostly helps Canadian oil companies, not Americans

WASHINGTON –  President Obama on Friday downplayed the potential benefits of the Keystone pipeline, claiming it would not lower gas prices much for Americans -- but instead would boost Canadian oil companies.
Obama, who was speaking at a year-end news conference, said the controversial pipeline was not “a magic formula to what ails the U.S. economy” and added that it’s “hard to see on paper where exactly they’re getting that information from.” 
The president often downplays the economic benefits of the project, but appeared to be putting new emphasis Friday on claims that it would disproportionately help Canada. He said it would be “not even a nominal benefit for U.S. consumers.” 
A spokesman for developer TransCanada fired back in a statement late Friday, noting the project would support thousands of U.S. jobs and describing it as mutually beneficial. 
"The Keystone system is about helping our Canadian and American customers -- which includes leading U.S. oil producers and refiners -- get a safe, secure and reliable supply of crude oils they need to create products we all need -- gasoline, diesel, aviation fuels and many other products we use and consume here in North America," spokesman Shawn Howard said. "After being approved, Keystone XL will employ thousands of skilled American pipeline industry workers in the United States." 
He also said there are no plans to export this oil overseas. 
Obama spoke ahead of a new congressional session where majority Republicans are expected to push the pipeline as a first order of business. 
Earlier this week, incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the Keystone pipeline would be the first bill taken up in the new GOP-controlled Senate, setting up a potentially contentious showdown with the Obama administration as well as environmental activists who have championed against the pipeline.
The $8 billion oil pipeline would run from Canada’s oil sands to the Texas Gulf Coast. It has become a symbol of divisions over the country’s energy and environmental policy.
Republicans and other supporters say the project would create jobs and reduce U.S. reliance on oil from the Middle East.
The 1,179-mile project is proposed to go from Canada through Montana and South Dakota to Nebraska, where it would connect with existing pipelines to carry more than 800,000 barrels of crude oil a day to refineries along the Texas Gulf Coast. TransCanada filed its first permit application with the State Department in September 2008.
The Republican-led House has repeatedly passed legislation approving the pipeline. But the bills have died in the Democratic-controlled Senate. Last month, a bill fell one vote short of advancing in the Senate.
In a recent Fox News poll, nearly seven voters in 10 support building the Keystone XL Pipeline (68 percent). That included just over half of Democrats (53 percent), two-thirds of independents (69 percent) and almost all Republicans (85 percent). 
Overall support for the pipeline has held steady over the last couple years: it was 70 percent in 2013 and 67 percent in 2012, according to the Fox News poll.
When asked by a reporter on Friday if Congress would force his hand on the issue, Obama replied, “I’ll see what they do. Take that up in the new year.”