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Originally Posted by sprocket
.....Because something isn't regulated by the federal government, doesn't mean the states cant regulate it. Thats the whole idea... let states pick up where the feds leave off, and take over many regulatory roles that the federal government handles now.
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If Ron Paul were going to be that good for big business and the "elite", why isn't he a frontrunner? Even though Ron Paul doesn't take donations from corporations, with the powerful elite and mega-corps backing him in other ways, he would be the most popular candidate right now, bar none. He would be getting more facetime on the TV networks, than any other candidate. He's pro free market, not a corporatist.
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The "states" were in charge of voter registration and racial integration, and they did a heck of a job......
The "big money" in the US already controls the presidents it puts into office. Ron Paul is a wildcard....Bush is easily controlled, and there has been little regulatory enforcement and few consequences, because of it. So why would the wealthiest want to change anything. Do you think that the financial community, addicted to fractional reserve banking, in an era just after substantial rollback of regulations put in place in the 1930's to prevent abuses and conflicts of interests between banks, brokerages, and insurance businessed owned by the same entities, would support Ron Paul, and his proposals, now?
Here is what happens after a 25 year campaign designed to persuade you that government is "the enemy". It's also an example of what would happen if EPA enforcement was eliminated or transferred to local control. Atmosphere and water move from one state to another. It makes no sense to try to regulate the environment via each state. Big business installed Bush, Bush installed Jimmy Palmer, and he's still at EPA region 4:
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp...nguage=printer
Senators Assail EPA on Ala. PCB Cleanup
By Michael Grunwald
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 20, 2002; Page A05
A bipartisan Senate tagteam piled on the Environmental Protection Agency yesterday for its handling of PCB-saturated Anniston, Ala., blasting Bush administration officials for conflicts of interest and accusing the agency of ignoring the city's problems for years.
At a hearing of the appropriations subcommittee overseeing the EPA, Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) and Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) took turns bashing the agency, with Shelby even threatening to slash the agency's funding if its performance in Anniston does not improve. The people of west Anniston, where a Monsanto Co. factory dumped tons of PCBs from the 1930s to the 1970s, have the highest levels of the banned industrial coolants in their blood ever registered in a residential community.
The senators complained that the EPA was aware of the contamination as early as 1985, but did not sign a cleanup agreement for the site until this March. They also noted that the agreement was signed just days after an angry Alabama judge had threatened to impose a stringent cleanup. And they emphasized that Linda Fisher, an EPA deputy administrator and former Monsanto lobbyist, and Jimmy Palmer, an EPA southeast regional administrator who in an earlier job represented other industrial clients in Anniston, have both recused themselves from the high-profile case.
"This is just loaded with conflicts of interest," Mikulski said. "I'm very troubled. Who's going to be able to do anything about this if everyone's recused?"
Shelby and Mikulski also took shots at the Justice Department, which approved the March deal, and the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, whose predecessor knew about the PCB problems as early as 1969. But they focused on the EPA, repeatedly telling Palmer's deputy, A. Stanley Meiburg, that the agency's credibility was at stake in Anniston.
"You've botched this," Shelby said. "The EPA does not have the trust or confidence of this committee, and we're your funding committee."
Meiburg testified that neither Fisher nor Palmer has had anything to do with the case. He also defended the March agreement as a standard Superfund-style settlement, requiring the polluter to conduct a comprehensive study under tough EPA oversight., Solutia Inc., which was created when Monsanto spun off its chemical businesses in 1997, also agreed to pay $3 million to a special education fund in Anniston.
Meiburg did say the EPA would have been more aggressive in the past if it had realized the contamination had spread far beyond the factory and nearby creeks. Instead, it abandoned a draft proposal for a formal Superfund designation and left most of the mess to the state.
"It's fair to say that if we knew years ago what we know now, our course of action would have been different," he said.
The risks of PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, are still disputed, but there is evidence linking them to developmental disabilities, immune system problems and liver diseases; the EPA also considers them a "probable" carcinogen. In February, an Alabama jury found Solutia liable for releasing PCBs into Anniston and covering up its actions for decades; the judge in that case, who has blasted Solutia officials, is considering possible cleanup remedies.
But after signing its settlement last month, Solutia immediately argued that the agreement should preempt any court-ordered cleanup. John C. Hunter, chief executive officer of Solutia, also told analysts his company had a "mutual understanding" that it would not have to increase its spending on Anniston cleanups, which currently cost about $8 million a year. The EPA recently ordered General Electric to spend $460 million to dredge PCBs from the Hudson River, but EPA officials told The Post last year that they did not believe similarly "drastic actions" were needed in Anniston.
David Baker, a community activist in Anniston, yesterday denounced the settlement as a cave-in to corporate interests. "I'm here to report that the federal government has failed the people of Anniston and left the fox to guard the henhouse," he testified.
William A. Weinischke, the Justice Department attorney handling the case, said the settlement is as tough as anything he could have won in court, with the special education funding as a bonus. He also noted that a court-ordered cleanup could be tied up in appeals for years, and that the Superfund-style settlement will not necessarily preclude such a cleanup anyway.
Weinischke emphasized that there are no guarantees for Solutia, because no one will know if it will have to spend "millions or billions" until the studies are complete. The state of Alabama, which has joined 3,500 Anniston residents in the state lawsuit, is opposed to the settlement as well. Stephen Cobb, chief of the Alabama environmental department's hazardous waste branch, testified yesterday that it could "send an inappropriate message to the regulated community -- that [Superfund] is a safe haven from state regulations and civil proceedings, and the answer to one's legal problems."
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Published on Monday, June 6, 2005 by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Is EPA Exec Still a Pal to Polluters?
by Jay Bookman
It sounds like something out of a John Grisham best-seller. But the Big Hill Acres story isn't fiction, and neither is its cast of characters, including a now prominent federal environmental official.
Go back to the mid-'90s. Robert Lucas Jr., a developer in Grisham's native state of Mississippi, subdivides 2,600 acres near the Gulf Coast and starts selling off lots to lower-income residents for mobile homes.
However, the Big Hill Acres subdivision also happens to contain roughly 1,200 acres of federally protected wetlands, as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers tells Lucas in 1996. Undeterred, Lucas begins to illegally drain or fill those wetlands without a permit. He also hires an unscrupulous engineer, M.E. Thompson Jr., who is willing to lie and certify that septic tanks on the property have been installed properly, even though he knows that many of the septic units are sitting in wetlands and are almost guaranteed to fail.
Hundreds of lots are sold, families move their mobile homes onto the property and connect them to septic tanks, and the nightmares begin.
With every major rainfall, homes are flooded; hundreds of gallons of raw sewage flow up out of toilets and run unchecked through the subdivision and into nearby streams. Families who had invested meager life savings in their lot abandon the property.
By 1997, when the Health Department raises a ruckus about sanitation problems caused by faulty septic systems, local county commissioners respond — by attacking the Health Department. According to later court testimony, one commissioner told a Health Department staffer that the department "would either play ball with M.E. Thompson or [the commissioner] would cut the Health Department budget." They didn't play ball; the budget was cut drastically.
By 2000, state and federal regulators get involved. Lucas then hires lawyer Jimmy Palmer, who had just retired as head of Mississippi's Department of Environmental Quality, to make the problem go away.
And when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers finally demand that Lucas stop selling lots in the development, he agrees. Then he goes right on selling wetlands property to unsuspecting buyers.
Finally, the EPA takes the rare step of referring the case for criminal prosecution, something it does only in the most egregious of cases. Lucas, his daughter Robbie Lucas Wrigley, and Thompson are indicted on 22 counts of violating the Clean Water Act, 18 counts of mail fraud and one count of conspiracy.
Palmer, the former head of Mississippi's environmental protection agency, is subpoenaed to testify in the case this spring. In front of the jury, he recalls believing that the federal EPA had been heavy-handed in its dealings with Lucas, that the federal agency had acted unethically and that it had been inflammatory in how it had communicated with Big Hill Acres residents. He testified about a letter he had written to EPA officials accusing them of a crusade to destroy Big Hill Acres.
Two things make that testimony interesting:
First, the jury didn't buy it. In less than a day of deliberations, it convicted Lucas and his fellow defendants on all 41 counts. They now face up to 30 years in federal prison, and given how cavalierly they flouted the law, they deserve it.
And Palmer, the man who had described the EPA's enforcement actions against Lucas as heavy-handed, unethical and inflammatory?
Today, he serves as head of EPA's Region 4, based here in Atlanta, overseeing enforcement of environmental laws for eight southeastern states. He was appointed in October 2001 by President Bush.
In that job — one of 10 regional administrators around the country — Palmer now helps to decide which cases to pursue and prosecute, and on occasion even takes the lead in settlement negotiations with polluters and other violators of environmental law. Not surprisingly, Region 4 staff members are reportedly held under tight rein, discouraged from aggressively pursuing violators.
Unfortunately, Palmer did not respond to an interview request, turning down a chance to explain how he might see things differently now that he's running the agency he once criticized so harshly.
But it all leads you to wonder whether he sees his job as protecting the environment, or protecting polluters.
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http://www.epa.gov/region4/divisions/index.html
US EPA, Region 4
Sam Nunn Atlanta Federal Center
61 Forsyth Street, SW
Atlanta, GA 30303
404-562-9900
1-800-241-1754
<h2>Regional Administrator: J. I. Palmer, Jr.</h2>
Deputy Regional Administrator: Russell L. Wright, Jr., Acting
Chief of Staff: Don R. Christy
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http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=527
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DECEMBER 8, 2005
DEVELOPERS REPRESENTED BY TOP EPA OFFICIAL SENTENCED TO PRISON — EPA Official Testified Against His Own Agency at Criminal Trial
Washington, DC — Jimmy Palmer, the top U.S. Environmental Protection Agency official for the Southeastern U.S., served as the lawyer for Mississippi developers while they were committing pollution violations that caused them to be sentenced to lengthy federal prison terms this week. At their criminal trial this spring, Palmer testified against his own agency, according to trial testimony released by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Palmer testified that he considered EPA to have been “unethical,” heavy handed” and on a “crusade to destroy” his former client, who was then found guilty on precisely the grounds cited by EPA — and disputed by Palmer.
Palmer was selected by President Bush to oversee EPA operations in the eight-state Southeastern Region in October 2001 and was sworn in following Senate confirmation the following January. At the time of his selection, Palmer was the lawyer for a Mississippi developer named Robert Lucas who sought Palmer’s help in subdividing land and installing septic tanks in a 2600-acre development called Big Hills Acres.
In March 2005, after a jury trial, Lucas was convicted for misrepresenting the habitability of the lots and installing septic systems in saturated wetland soils at Big Hill Acres, despite warnings from the state Department of Health that doing so created a public health threat. Lucas also ignored numerous warnings, as well as cease and desist orders, from both the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and EPA because the deteriorating systems threatened to contaminate the local drinking water aquifer
This week Lucas was sentenced to 9 years in federal prison and his daughter Robbie was sentenced to prison for 7 years and three months. The U.S. Department of Justice hailed the sentences with one official calling them a “landmark criminal case [that] sends a strong message that corporations and individuals who commit flagrant violations of our environmental laws will be prosecuted vigorously and will face the possibility of long prison sentences.”
At the trial, Lucas called Palmer as a defense witness. Palmer, testifying on his own time under subpoena, confirmed his role in advising Lucas in how to sell lots for development despite official cease and desist orders. Palmer also admitted that he regarded EPA staff as “unethical” and overzealous in enforcing the Clean Water Act and aggressively resisted earlier enforcement efforts.
<h3>“Jimmy Palmer’s conduct in the Big Hills Acres case raises serious questions about his fitness to continue serving as a federal official who is supposed to be enforcing the very environmental laws that his clients, following his advice, were flouting,” asked PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that EPA has yet to veto a single development project for wetlands violations, or any other reason, during Palmer’s tenure.</h3> “In his official capacity, Palmer acts as if he is still representing unscrupulous developers.”
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http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2005/March/05_enrd_084.htm
TUESDAY, MARCH 1, 2005
WWW.USDOJ.GOV
ENRD
TWO CORPORATIONS AND THREE SOUTH MISSISSIPPIANS CONVICTED OF FILLING WETLANDS AND DEFRAUDING HOMEOWNERS ABOUT SUITABILITY OF LOTS FOR DEVELOPMENT
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Mississippi announced today that on Friday, February 25, 2005, a petit jury in Jackson, Mississippi, returned guilty verdicts on all counts in an indictment brought against Robert Lucas, Jr., of Lucedale, Mississippi; his daughter, Robbie Lucas Wrigley of Ocean Springs, Mississippi; and M. E. Thompson, Jr., of D’Iberville, Mississippi, and two affiliated corporations; Big Hill Acres, Inc., and Consolidated Investments, Inc. The three individuals and two corporations were charged with Clean Water Act violations in connection with their development of wetlands in a 2600 acre subdivision on property in Vancleave, Mississippi, known as Big Hill Acres.
In addition, the individuals and corporations were convicted of conspiracy and mail fraud for having sold hundreds of home sites in wetlands despite numerous warnings from public health officials that they were illegally installing septic systems in saturated soil. Warnings stated that these systems were likely to fail and contaminate the property and the drinking water aquifer below it.
“These defendants endangered the environment and public health by disregarding the law and by ignoring repeated warnings from federal, state, and local officials,” said Tom Sansonetti, the Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division. “In his Earth Day message, President Bush made it a priority of this Administration to preserve and protect wetlands. This case demonstrates the Department’s commitment to that goal.”
"The defendants illegally filled hundreds of acres of wetlands and defrauded low-income residents of Big Hill Acres who ended up with leaking sewage that put the health of their families at risk," said Thomas V. Skinner, EPA's Acting Assistant Administrator for Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. "The convictions should send a clear message that those who knowingly jeopardize public health will be held accountable for their crimes."
The indictment charged that as early as 1996, inspectors from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers informed Mr. Lucas that substantial portions of the Big Hill Acres property contained wetlands and could not be developed as home sites. The indictment recites a long record of warnings that the Mississippi Department of Health and other regulatory agencies issued to the defendants notifying them of the public health threat they were creating by continuing to install septic systems in saturated soil. Neither those warnings nor cease and desist orders from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency restrained Lucas, Wrigley, and engineer M. E. Thompson from improperly installing systems that did not conform to state health department regulations in lots that they continued to develop and sell.
The Big Hill Acres residents have suffered from seasonal flooding and the discharge of sewage from failing septic systems on the ground around their homes. The development has been the subject of numerous civil lawsuits by tenants against the developers.
This case was investigated by the FBI and the EPA with the assistance of the Department of Agriculture’s Soil Conservation Service and the Mississippi Department of Health. It is being prosecuted by Trial Attorneys Jeremy Korzenik and Deborah Harris of the Department of Justice’s Environmental Crimes Section and by Assistant United States Attorney Jay Golden of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Mississippi.
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http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2005/Dec...rd_644%20.html
DEFENDANTS RECEIVE MAJOR JAIL SENTENCES, PAY RESTITUTION FOR MAJOR WETLANDS CRIMINAL PROSECUTION
Total Incarceration More Than 23 Years; Total Fines More Than $5.3 Million
WASHINGTON, D.C. - In one of the most significant wetlands criminal enforcement prosecutions in United States history, Robert J. Lucas, Jr.; his daughter, Robbie Lucas; and M. E. Thompson, Jr.; and two affiliated corporations-Big Hill Acres, Inc., and Consolidated Investments, Inc.-were sentenced in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi, the Department of Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced today.
Robert Lucas was sentenced to nine years in prison followed by three years of supervised release, and will pay a $15,000 fine. Robbie Wrigley was sentenced to 87 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release, and is also required to pay a $15,000 fine. M.E. Thompson was also sentenced to 87 months in prison followed by three years supervised release, and will pay a $15,000.
Big Hill Acres, Inc. was fined $4.8 million and sentenced to five years probation. Consolidated Investments, Inc. was sentenced to 5 years probation and is required to pay a $500,000 fine.
“The defendants in this case defrauded their customers and destroyed wetlands that are critical to the Gulf Coast ecosystem,” said Sue Ellen Wooldridge, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division. “This landmark criminal case sends a strong message that corporations and individuals who commit flagrant violations of our environmental laws will be prosecuted vigorously and will face the possibility of lengthy prison sentences.” click to show
All five defendants were convicted after trial earlier this year of Clean Water Act violations for illegally filling hundreds of acres of wetlands during the development of a 2,600 acre subdivision on property in Vancleave, Mississippi known as Big Hill Acres. All of the defendants were also convicted of conspiracy and mail fraud for then selling hundreds of home sites on the filled-in wetlands despite warnings from public health officials that they were illegally installing septic systems in saturated soil that would contaminate the property.
“The defendants destroyed valuable wetlands and victimized the residents of Big Hill Acres, who ended up with polluted homes and yards with leaking sewage,” said Granta Y. Nakayama, EPA’s Assistant Administrator for Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. “This sentence sends a convincing message that those who knowingly violate environmental laws and place the public health and welfare at risk will pay a very heavy price.”
“The tireless efforts of the investigators who put this case together are to be commended,” said U.S. Attorney Dunn Lampton. “Today’s landmark sentence is a direct result of their hard work and dedication.” Robert Lucas and the other defendants developed Big Hill Acres from 1994 through 1999. Beginning in 1996, inspectors from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers informed Lucas that substantial portions of the property contained wetlands and could not be developed as home sites. The Mississippi Department of Health and other regulatory agencies told the defendants that they were creating a public health threat by continuing to install septic systems in saturated soil that could not support them properly. Despite warnings and cease and desist orders from the Corps and the EPA, Lucas and his associates continued to improperly install systems that did not conform to state health department regulations in lots that they continued to develop and sell.
Most of the land was sold to low and/or fixed-income families. While selling the property, Lucas and several other defendants fraudulently told prospective buyers that the property was completely habitable. More than 600 families moved into Big Hill Acres, within several years, a large number of the septic systems failed, causing raw sewage to seep up from the ground and flow across the development. A number of the homes in Big Hill Acres also suffered from slow drainage; brown, foul-smelling water backing up into bathrooms, kitchens, laundries and sinkholes; and standing water on the lots with debris rising to the surface.
On June 10, 2004, a grand jury in the Southern District of Mississippi charged Lucas and his associates with a total of 41 CWA and U.S. criminal code violations in connection with their development of the property. On February 25, 2005, following a two month-long trial, a petit jury in Gulfport, Mississippi returned guilty verdicts against all the defendants on all of the Clean Water Act, conspiracy and mail fraud counts.
This case was prosecuted by Senior Trial Attorney Jeremy Korzenik and Trial Attorney Deborah Harris of the Justice Department’s Environmental Crimes Section, and by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Golden. It was investigated by Resident Agent in Charge David McLeod of the EPA CID Jackson, Mississippi Resident Office and Special Agent Steve Champine of the FBI Pascagoula, Mississippi Office. Assistance from EPA Region IV’s Wetlands Section was invaluable for investigating and determining the amount of wetlands impacted. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Soil Conservation Service was also instrumental in helping to determine the hydric soils onsite.
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