{"id":1422,"date":"2009-05-17T10:49:17","date_gmt":"2009-05-17T14:49:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=1422"},"modified":"2009-05-17T10:49:17","modified_gmt":"2009-05-17T14:49:17","slug":"obama-nominates-superfund-polluter-lawyer-to-run-doj-environment-division","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/obama-nominates-superfund-polluter-lawyer-to-run-doj-environment-division\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama Nominates Superfund Polluter Lawyer To Run DOJ Environment Division"},"content":{"rendered":"

The below just in via the ThinkProgess<\/a> site, & with the dismal news of the democratic majority voting to neuter environmental lesgislation, looks like its business as usual in D.C.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Bedford,
\nGM cleanup of the Bedford Superfund site.<\/div>\n

President Barack Obama has nominated a lawyer for the nation\u2019s largest toxic polluters to run the enforcement of the nation\u2019s environmental laws. On Tuesday, Obama \u201cannounced his intent to nominate\u201d\u00a0Ignacia S. Moreno<\/a> to beAssistant Attorney General for the Environment<\/a> and Natural Resources Division in the Department of Justice. Moreno, general counsel for that department during the Clinton administration, is now the corporate environmental counsel for General Electric, \u201cAmerica\u2019s #1 Superfund Polluter<\/a>\u201c:<\/p>\n

Number five in the Fortune 500 with revenues of $89.3 billion and earnings of $8.2 billion in 1997,General Electric has been a leader in the effort to roll back the Superfund law and stave off any requirements for full cleanup and restoration of sites they helped create<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This February, General Electric\u00a0lost an eight-year battle<\/a> to \u201cprove that parts of the Superfund law are unconstitutional.\u201d One of the 600-person DOJ environmental division\u2019s \u201cprimary responsibilities is to\u00a0enforce federal civil and criminal environmental laws<\/a> such as\u201d the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the Superfund.<\/p>\n

Before General Electric, Moreno worked as a corporate attorney at Spriggs and Hollingsworth. Moreno\u2019s name is found in the Westlaw database as an attorney defending General Motors in\u00a0another Superfund case<\/a>, the GM Powertrain facility in Bedford, Indiana:<\/p>\n

Historical uses and management of PCB containing hydraulic oils and PCB impacted materials has contaminated on-site areas as well as the sediment and floodplain soil within Bailey\u2019s Branch and the Pleasant Run Creek watershed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Although General Motors\u00a0entered into an agreement<\/a> in 2001 with the EPA to clean up the site, a number of local residents whose land has been contaminated by polychorinated biphenyls (PCBs) have sued for damages in\u00a0Allgood v. GM<\/a> (now Barlow v. GM), in acontentious and caustic dispute<\/a> over cleanup, monitoring, and lost property values.<\/p>\n

During the Clinton administration, Moreno was involved in another controversial case, unsuccessfully defending the Secretary of Commerce\u2019s decision to\u00a0weaken the dolphin-safe tuna standard<\/a>. In\u00a0Brower v. Daley<\/a>, Earth Island Institute, The Humane Society of the United States, and other individuals and organizations brought suit against the United States government for actions that were \u201carbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, and contrary to law,\u201d winning their case in 2000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The below just in via the ThinkProgess site, & with the dismal news of the democratic majority voting to neuter environmental lesgislation, looks like its business as usual in D.C. GM cleanup of the...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[1716,343,574],"class_list":["post-1422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-ge","tag-obama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1422\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}