by Steve Milloy, E&E Legal Senior Policy Fellow
As Appearing in Daily Caller
Scare tactics, bad science and political theater are the few tools remaining in the environmental extremists’ tool belt now that Donald Trump is President and Scott Pruitt is head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). And, since they no longer have a supportive White House to do their bidding, environmentalists are training their sights on states, like North Carolina and Virginia where they think they can exert some influence.
The Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) tried to pull one over on the people of Virginia by filing a suit claiming that coal ash from Dominion Power was a major health risk to the people of Virginia, but an Obama appointed federal judge put a stop to their antics by finding no threat to the people or the environment from coal ash. Further, the judge found the remediation demands of the SELC and its client, the Sierra Club, to be out of bounds. He ruled the removal of the coal ash would cost taxpayers hundreds of millions “for very little return.” In short, common sense rather than environmental hysteria prevailed in this case.
