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The Latest by Sam Edmondson

Campaign Manager

July 20, 2012

Surprises Arise at Clean Air Public Forum

By Sam Edmondson  /  California Office

“This morning’s testimony was so moving, I wish I’d had tissues with me,” said one speaker. “It never occurred to me that I would need them at an EPA public hearing.”

June 20, 2012

Soot Gets Editorial Ink

By Sam Edmondson  /  California Office

The historical significance of the Environmental Protection Agency’s recently proposed new limits on fine particle pollution, colloquially called soot, wasn’t lost on a number of editorial pages.

June 20, 2012

Deadly Air Bill Voted Down in Senate

By Sam Edmondson  /  Policy and Legislation Team & Washington, D.C. Office

There are some straight spines left in the U.S. Senate, which today voted down a resolution from Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) that would have effectively exempted coal-fired power plants—the nation’s worst air polluters—from Clean Air Act controls that limit mercury and other toxic emissions. This is a critical victory in the decades-long effort to protect …

June 18, 2012

White House Vows Veto If Deadly Air Bill Passes

By Sam Edmondson  /  Washington, D.C. Office

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) is spearheading an egregious effort in the Senate to exempt the nation’s worst air polluters from the Clean Air Act. He is floating a resolution that would block recently finalized limits on the amounts of mercury, arsenic and other health-damaging pollutants that coal- and oil-fired power plants can emit. It’s up …

June 15, 2012

Spurred by Earthjustice, EPA Issues Limits for Deadly Soot

By Sam Edmondson  /  California Office

Just two weeks ago, the Environmental Protection Agency was dithering on a proposal to strengthen protections against an air pollutant that causes tens of thousands of avoidable deaths every year. Enter Earthjustice attorney, Paul Cort, who on behalf of citizen groups asked a federal judge to order the EPA to get moving. So compelling was …

May 31, 2012

Judge Jumpstarts Action on Deadly Soot

By Sam Edmondson  /  California Office

Nothing cuts baloney like a court order. Today, in response to a request made by Earthjustice, a federal judge gave the Environmental Protection Agency one week to sign a proposal for tightening standards on soot, an airborne mixture of tiny particles that causes tens of thousands of early deaths every year. The court’s action is …

May 29, 2012

An Unhealthy Mountaineer

By Sam Edmondson

Over this past long weekend, spent backpacking in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains, I was reminded of a memorable method for distinguishing two of our stateliest trees. Though these two specimens are similar in many respects, the pine cones of “prickly ponderosa” have small spikes that point outwards, while those of “gentle Jeffrey” curve inward. (The …

May 2, 2012

Looking Forward To The Long Summer Daze

By Sam Edmondson

“School’s out for summer!” When I was growing up, Alice Cooper’s 1972 hit usually infiltrated my head sometime around the beginning of May, looped incessantly, and hit a feverish crescendo in the few minutes before the final bell released us to summer break. Now, many years later, a very different line completes the couplet in …

April 24, 2012

Coal — The Earth's Food Poisoning

By Sam Edmondson  /  Headquarters Office

When you’ve got food poisoning, what’s the last thing on earth you want? A heaping plate of the offending dish, right? Well—new, dirty coal plants are to the planet what shrimp scampi is to a roiling belly. Industrial carbon pollution from coal plants is making us sick, driving climate change, and intensifying the smog-filled air …

April 17, 2012

Here's Why Asthmatics Need Dirty Air

By Sam Edmondson

A remarkable thing happened during a Senate hearing today on the EPA’s rule to limit toxic air pollution from coal-fired power plants. A critic of the agency’s policy argued that reducing air pollution from coal-fired power plants—the nation’s worst air polluters—is a bad idea because it will make it more expensive for asthmatics to run …