In and Out Urge

smells like...victory!

Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, in a two to one ruling, reversed Obama' Cross State Air Pollution Rule, the act that would regulates power plant omissions that travel to neighboring states. This is a major victory for air polluters. The EPA estimated that by 2014 the rule would have saved between 13,000 and 34,000 lives a year and provide health benefits for an estimated 240 million americans. The agency predicted that in two years this rule, in concert with others, would have cut sulfur dioxide emissions nationwide by 73 percent, compared with 2005 levels, and reduce nitrogen oxide emissions by 54 percent.

The two majority judges, Judge Brett Kavanaugh and Judge Thomas Griffith are both George W. Bush appointees.  A Clinton appointee, Judge Judith Rogers, dissented. Power company lawyers are of course thrilled. They said that the provisions were costly and burdensome and would have forced the shutdown of some of the older coal fired plants.

The dissenter, Judge Judith Rogers, a Clinton appointee, wrote that her two colleagues were "trampling on this court's precedent on which the Environmental Protection Agency was entitled to rely in developing the Transport Rule rather than be blindsided by arguments raised for the first time in this court".

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Casey Anthony is free today, her one year probation over, although she now has to face a lawsuit from Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez, a woman whose reputation she besmirched during her trial, and who eventually lost her house and job because of Anthony's prevarication. Anthony said that a babysitter with Gonzalez name had stolen her baby, later recanted and admitted that she had made the whole thing up.

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In a just, perfect world, Appeals Court Judges would have to live downwind of polluting power plants and defense attorneys who are complicit in bullshit stories that get murderers off would be required to let killers who walk live in their homes with them and their families for a year or two after they are set free. Cut the grass and watch the kids.

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Central Valley Meat Co. has a serious public relations problem after this undercover film was shot and sent to the Department of Agriculture. Supposedly the USDA had two inspectors at the Hanford plant at all times but maybe they weren't looking. This is one of the plants that furnishes In and Out it's beef and was a major supplier to the National School Lunch Program. I never liked In and Out burgers, never could figure out why so many people are fanatical about them, even less apt to grab a burger there now.