Trump appointees overruled EPA experts on pollution requirements for Foxconn site: report
Source: the hill
By John Bowden - 05/28/19 11:59 AM EDT
Political appointees at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reportedly convinced then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to reverse course on declaring a Wisconsin county in violation of federal smog standards, which allowed Foxconn to build a facility in the area without new anti-pollution technologies.
Documents obtained by the Sierra Club and reported by the Star Tribune revealed that a top scientist at the agency questioned the basis for Pruitt's guidance that reversed an earlier decision by officials to declare Racine County as "non-attainment," meaning it would have to adopt new standards to battle air pollution to continue receiving federal funds.
“I do not see a sound technical basis for the area we are being directed to finalize in Wisconsin,” Jenny Liljegren, an EPA scientist focused on air quality, wrote in April 2018, according to the Star Tribune.
“I am still in disbelief,” added another who was not named.
A former acting air quality administrator with the EPA called the revelations in the emails "disturbing," adding that it showed a preference for political influence over the agency's actual scientific work.
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Read more: https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/445748-trump-appointees-overruled-epa-experts-on-pollution-requirements
This is so sickening.
Posted on Tue, May 28th, 2019 by Reuters
Emails show Trump EPA overruled career scientists on Wisconsin air pollution
https://www.politicususa.com/2019/05/28/emails-show-trump-epa-overruled-career-scientists-on-wisconsin-air-pollution.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Politically appointed U.S. environmental officials last year overruled concerns of career scientists about air pollution in a Wisconsin county where U.S. President Donald Trump has pushed for a factory to be built by Foxconn Technology Co, newly released internal emails show.
Trump has been a supporter of the Taiwanese technology giant Foxconn building a flat screen factory in Racine County Wisconsin, a project the company said could create up to 13,000 jobs. He announced the project at a ceremony in 2017 and has claimed it is proof of his ability to revive U.S. manufacturing. Former Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, a Republican, helped secure about $4 billion in tax breaks for the project.
But Racine County has suffered some of the state’s worst cases of smog, also known as ozone, pollution that causes premature deaths from lung and heart complications.
The emails obtained by the Sierra Club and Clean Wisconsin under a freedom of information request show Trump administration officials, including then-administrator Scott Pruitt, overruled career EPA scientists to exempt Racine County from a list of counties that break smog standards. That has freed Foxconn from having to make millions of dollars in pollution control devices, if the project is eventually built.
The Racine County case is latest example of the administration overlooking concerns flagged by agency scientists over other issues such as climate change or hazardous chemicals.
“My background is in air pollution health effects and more specifically on acute exposures, so for me personally this is hard to digest and support,” Lars Perlmutt, an EPA scientist, wrote to colleagues in an April email last year about pressure to make the exemption, one of the emails shows....................................
Trump’s Foxconn boondoggle could end up being a big liability
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/05/28/trumps-foxconn-boondoggle-could-end-up-being-big-liability/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.5ccb51f101a5
President Trump shakes hands with then-Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R), and Terry Gou, chairman of Foxconn Technology Group, stands beside them at the groundbreaking ceremony for a Foxconn facility in Mount Pleasant, Wis., on June 28, 2018. (Daniel Acker/Bloomberg)
By Christian Schneider
May 28 at 3:03 PM
In late July 2017, President Trump gathered the media at the White House to announce that Taiwanese corporate giant Foxconn Technology Group would be building a $10 billion manufacturing plant in southeastern Wisconsin.
“This is a great day for American workers and manufacturers and for everyone who believes in the concept and the label 'Made in the USA,’” boasted Trump, promising a “state of the art manufacturing facility for the production of LCD panel products.”
Trump made room in his victory declaration to include Foxconn chief executive and chairman Terry Gou, praising him for his “faith and confidence in the future of the American economy.”
“If I didn’t get elected, he definitely would not be spending $10 billion,” Trump said of Gou, at which point he turned and grabbed the unsuspecting businessman, engaging him in an awkward left-handed bro-grip.
Soon, it will be up to Gou to determine whether that cringe-inducing moment was more of a political death grip.
Since its 2017 unveiling, the Foxconn project has been beset by negative news. By the end of last year, the company had spent only 1 percent of the amount it had pledged to build the factory and had hired only about 10 percent of the employees it anticipated hiring by the end of the project’s first year. In June 2018, the company announced it was downgrading the plant from a “Generation 10.5” facility to a “Generation 6 plant,” which would produce smaller LCD panels. In January, the company announced it was scrapping the LCD portion of the factory altogether, but quickly backtracked after a call from Trump.........................................
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