Lawsuit seeks to stop federal loan guarantee for coal planned for export from Hampton Roads

Daily Press

By Tamara Dietrich

As a registered nurse at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital for more than 20 years, Lorraine Ortega has noticed more and more serious asthma patients who need treatment.

“I was alarmed by the increased number of acute asthmatics in our area, as well as people actually being diagnosed with lung cancer when they’re non-smokers,” Ortega said.

One of those acute asthmatics happens to be Ortega’s daughter, who’s wound up several times in the emergency room. Ortega says she’s also had her own share of “really, really bad lung congestion” and pulmonary issues, even though she, too, is a non-smoker. She didn’t have such problems before moving from Brooklyn to Chesapeake in 1991.

She believes the culprit is coal.

Continue reading

Environmental groups, critical of coal export loans, file lawsuit

Cumberland Times-News

By Matthew Bieniek

CUMBERLAND — At the same time the coal industry is fighting against what industry leaders say is a war on coal, several environmental groups have filed a lawsuit to fight multimillion dollar loan guarantees to export U.S. coal to foreign nations including Japan, South Korea, China and Italy.

Much of that coal leaves the country through the Port of Baltimore.

Continue reading

Environmentalists sue Export-Import Bank over loan guarantee to domestic coal broker

The Washington Post

By Max Ehrenfreund

Above the harbor in Baltimore’s industrial Curtis Hill district is a one-acre urban farm. Jason Reed, a community organizer who works there, described the view. “I can look out over the harbor, and you can see the piles and piles of coal,” he said.

That coal is the subject of a lawsuit filed Wednesday by a coalition of environmental groups against the Export-Import Bank of the United States. The groups are challenging the federal agency’s financing of fossil fuel exports from ports in Baltimore and Hampton Roads.

Continue reading

Lawsuit Challenges Federal Financing of Coal Exports from East Coast Ports

Environmental groups today filed the first-ever lawsuit challenging the federal government’s financing for the export of Appalachian coal from the United States. The U.S. government approved this financial support for coal exports without considering the increased toxic air and water pollution that could affect communities near the mines and ports, and along the railways that connect them.

The groups filing the lawsuit charge that the U.S. Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im Bank) violated federal law by providing a $90 million loan guarantee to Xcoal Energy & Resources without reviewing the environmental impacts as required under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). According to Ex-Im Bank, the taxpayer-backed financing, approved on May 24, 2012, will help leverage a billion dollars in exports of coal mined in Appalachia. The coal will be shipped from ports in Baltimore, Maryland and Norfolk, Virginia to markets in Japan, South Korea, China and Italy.

“Ex-Im Bank turned a blind eye to the toxic coal dust, heavy train traffic and disruptive noise that our members living near ports and railways experience on a daily basis,” said Diana Dascalu-Joffe, senior general counsel at the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. “People on the front lines of the U.S. coal export boom deserve to know the risks and to have a say over whether their tax dollars finance it.”

Continue reading

Loudoun Rally Promotes Clean Energy

Leesburg Today

By Emily Moschetto

Almost 50 people gathered outside the Loudoun County Government Center Tuesday afternoon to catch the attention of local leaders and to raise awareness about how Loudouners can help combat climate change.

The “Wake Up Loudoun” rally drew members of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network and a group of activists from the “Walk for Our Grandchildren” group who are in the midst of a 100-mile walk from Camp David to the White House.

Continue reading

Another step toward Virginia offshore wind energy, but concerns over Dominion feet-dragging linger

Beth Kemler, Virginia State Director for the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, released the following statement in response to today’s announcement from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) that it is moving forward with an offshore wind energy auction off the coast of Virginia on September 4th.

“Every time we move a little closer to seeing powerful wind turbines generating energy off our coast, it’s cause for celebration. At the same time, we have lingering concerns that auctioning the area as one big block will reduce competition and enable the winning company to drag its feet. Dominion Power, which has an abysmal record of bringing new clean energy online in Virginia, was the main proponent of auctioning the lease area to just one developer, and a number of environmental groups warned BOEM against that proposal.

“We’re troubled by the possibility of Dominion winning the auction for the entire wind energy area, given the lackadaisical timetable for offshore wind development that company officials have expressed in the past. We don’t want the company to buy up the whole lease block and then sit on it for years and years.

“Climate change is here now. It’s flooding the streets of Norfolk through sea-level rise and it’s raising the death toll of summer heat. We need companies to develop large-scale clean energy projects as quickly as possible.”

###

#Walk4Grandkids Day 3: Reinforcements arrive

The following is a Day 3 update by Greg Yost, who’s on the trail of the Walk for Our Grandchildren, July 19th-July 27th.
Reinforcements arrive.
After spending the last two days walking down roads and through valleys where Confederate and Union troops maneuvered 150 years ago, it feels only natural to think of the huge influx of new walkers this evening as fresh troops arriving just in time for our offensive to recapture the future from fossil fuels. Our forces have more than tripled since Friday at Camp David.
We’re in Harpers Ferry, WV, itself a place pregnant with Civil War history and meaning. Steve Norris, one the Walk’s originators, made those connections for us as we gathered for orientation in a beautiful field now dotted with our tents on a bluff overlooking the Potomac River.
Continue reading

VP Biden: Virginians say no KXL

How do you get the attention of one of the most powerful decision makers in the world?

Many would say there is only one route: through his wallet. Though this past Saturday, I saw another way: through the people. After countless hours petitioning and phonebanking, the big day had finally come. We set up in front of the coliseum and waited for our activists to arrive. Over the course of fifteen minutes around seventy people showed up. We outfitted them with magic marker signs and homemade miniature wind turbines and began the slow march around the convention center.


 
Continue reading

Legislators and Advocates Launch Effort to Repeal Hybrid Car Tax in Virginia

Hybrid car owners and climate advocates join legislators at Alexandria DMV to protest punitive, illogical tax on day it goes into effect

ALEXANDRIA—As Virginia’s broadly renounced new annual tax on hybrid vehicles went into effect on Monday, Senator Adam P. Ebbin (D-Alexandria) and Delegate Scott A. Surovell (D-Mt. Vernon) joined hybrid car owners and climate advocates outside a Department of Motor Vehicles office to announce their plans to repeal the punitive policy.

Continue reading

Virginia legislators seek to repeal hybrid tax

The Washington Post

By Patricia Sullivan

Two Northern Virginia state legislators will introduce bills to repeal Virginia’s new tax on hybrid and electric vehicles on the first day of the next legislative session, they announced Monday, when the tax took effect.

“It’s illogical, unfair, not well thought out and hastily passed,” state Sen. Adam P. Ebbin (D-Alexandria) said Monday at the Alexandria office of the Department of Motor Vehicles. “The way to improve our environment is not to tax vehicle owners who are doing the right thing.”

Continue reading