Who were the 26 U.S. Reps who voted to allow more pollution to go into Lake Michigan?

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/491478,CST-EDT-guest01.article

BP: 'Beyond petroleum' or 'big polluter'?

August 1, 2007
BY ANN ALEXANDER

Like a pious preacher caught with the secretary in a cheap motel, the oil company that spent years promising to take us "beyond petroleum" has suddenly found itself at the center of a growing storm brought on by a severe case of hypocrisy. Instead of a public atonement, BP is digging in its heels. Odds are that this is a losing game, one that will leave both corporate and political reputations battered and broken.

BP has spent millions promoting itself as the greenest oil giant. But soon, the company plans to start dumping 1,600 pounds of ammonia and nearly 2½ tons of contaminated sludge each and every day into Lake Michigan from its refinery in Whiting, Ind., a mile from where 11 cities get their drinking water.

BP says its discharge is 99.9 percent water. But this merely dilutes the truth about what all those total tons of pollution will do to our lake. Ammonia is toxic to fish, frogs and other amphibians, and it can cause oxygen-gobbling algae blooms that smother aquatic life. Toxic metals in the sludge -- which likely include mercury -- will accumulate in the tissues of fish and anything (or anyone) eating them.

The company, which posted more than $6 billion in profits last quarter alone, could easily eliminate the hazardous discharges. But BP told Indiana regulators that it didn't have space to install the treatment equipment. And nobody from the state, it seems, wants to press them for an alternative solution.

<snip>Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 327-26 to pass a bipartisan resolution led by Illinois Democrat Rahm Emanuel and Michigan Republican Vernon Ehlers condemning the Indiana permit. Mayors in Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan are up in arms. Gov. Blagojevich is considering legal action. And Sen. Richard Durbin and others say lawmakers may go after BP's air pollution permits if all else fails.

[Jack Bone]

1. last week I saw..

on "Indiana News This Week", I think that's what it's called...it's on Indy's PBS channel..where the democrats in the Indiana state legislature have put a stop to this...I wish I had a link for ya...but Ann Delaney, former Indiana Dem. party chair, said that it is not going to happen..

I'll try to find a link...

[NNN0LHI]

2. I think its going through

https://www.chicagotribune.com/services/site/registration/access-registered.intercept

EPA backs BP dumping

Lake will get more pollution

Rebuffing bipartisan pressure from members of Congress, the Bush administration's top environmental regulator on Tuesday declined to stop the BP refinery in northwest Indiana from dumping more pollution into Lake Michigan.

Stephen Johnson, administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said he saw nothing wrong with the permit Indiana regulators awarded in June to BP, the first company in years allowed to increase the amount of toxic chemicals pumped into the Great Lakes.

As part of a $3 billion expansion of its Whiting, Ind., refinery, the nation's fourth largest, BP won permission to release more ammonia and suspended solids into the lake. Indiana regulators also gave BP until 2012 to meet a stringent federal standard for mercury pollution set by the EPA in 1995.

Even though the federal government has been pushing for more than three decades to eliminate pollution in the Great Lakes, the EPA did not object to the BP permit.