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Tribal advocates keep up legal pressure for fair political maps; 12-member jury sworn in for Trump's historic criminal trial; the importance of healthcare decision planning; and a debt dilemma: poll shows how many people wrestle with college costs.

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Civil rights activists say a court ruling could end the right to protest in three southern states, a federal judge lets January 6th lawsuits proceed against former President Trump, and police arrest dozens at a Columbia University Gaza protest.

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Rural Wyoming needs more vocational teachers to sustain its workforce pipeline, Ohio environmental advocates fear harm from a proposal to open 40-thousand forest acres to fracking and rural communities build bike trail systems to promote nature, boost the economy.

EPA Black-Eye Means NY May Get Help In Mercury Fight

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Monday, February 11, 2008   

Albany, NY - It's another legal black eye for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and it could mean New York will finally get some federal backup in its fight against mercury pollution. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said the EPA violated the Clean Air Act when it dropped a mercury-control policy intended to capture more than 90 percent of mercury releases. Instead, the agency established a cap-and-trade approach.

Jared Snyder, assistant commissioner for the New York Department of Environmental Conservation, says the cap-and-trade system would allow power plants, the biggest emitters of mercury, to continue polluting.

"This decision means the EPA has to go back to the drawing board and do it right this time -- enact a mercury control program that will actually protect public health and the environment to the extent needed."

The EPA says it is reviewing the decision, and is not prepared to give up on the cap-and-trade system. But environmentalists report that cap-and-trade can lead to mercury "hot spots" around some plants. Jim Pew, who argued the case for Earthjustice, says the court found the agency in violation of the federal Clean Air Act, which mandates that utilities use the best technology possible to capture mercury from power plants.

"What EPA was doing behind all the showmanship was allowing power plants to reduce mercury by much less than the maximum amount that's achievable, much later than it should, and ignore all the other toxins that power plants emit."

New York has rules to reduce mercury emissions 90 percent by 2015, but Snyder says the main source is airborne mercury from other states, which makes stronger federal rules critical.

"What we do in New York has a significant impact on our waters in New York, but it's still just a minority. We need national reductions that are comparable to what we are getting in New York to restore the quality of our waters."

He'd like to see New York's tough rules adopted for national use by the EPA.

Read the court decision on the Web at pacer.cadc.uscourts.gov/docs/common/opinions/200802/05-1097a.pdf.





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