Posted on 11/26/2014 8:54:14 AM PST by jazusamo
On-again, off-again plans for the world's largest gold and copper mine could be back on again, after a federal judge in Alaska issued a preliminary injunction blocking the Environmental Protection Agency from its ongoing efforts to bury the project.
Pebble Partnership, the Canadian company behind the project, which would take place near Anchorage, claims the regulatory agency has conspired illegally with opponents of the mine to devise scientific and environmental justifications for blocking it. Salmon fishermen in Washington state and Alaska, Native American groups and environmental organizations have opposed the massive project for several years, and had appeared to have gotten it scuttled prior to Tuesday's ruling by U.S. District Judge Russel Holland, in Anchorage.
“We expect the case may take several months to complete,” Pebble Partnership CEO Tom Collier said Tuesday after the U.S. District Court ruling in Anchorage. “This means that, for the first time, EPA’s march to preemptively veto Pebble has been halted.”
Holland's ruling stops the EPA from taking action against the project until he makes a decision on Pebble’s lawsuit claiming the agency broke the law to stop the mine. Pebble Partnership's lawsuit claims the EPA secretly relied on opponents of the mine to help craft a “patently biased” environmental assessment that determined the project could be devastating for the salmon of Bristol Bay.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Thread from June of this year:
Ex-EPA official goes off the grid, dodges lawmakers' inquiry into Alaska mine project
Liberal corruption run deep in the EPA.
Stop his Federal pension checks and he'll surface.
I think the biggest “Help America” project could be the widespread publishing the names, phone numbers, email addresses, and physical addresses are for every EPA employee. That’s what I think.
I agree, they’d be a lot more courteous in dealing with the public and probably start operating within the law instead of lawless EPA rules.
Tony Beets is bringing over his dredge.
They (all) are no better than the Jack Boots of the SS or Gestapo, IMO.
Ole Sasquatch? :-)
Not the first time the EPA has manufactured science and lied to the courts. Glad this judge had the courage to call them out
This is just the first successful salvo which claims an "illegal conspiracy" exists between the EPA and supposed envireonmental groups.
There is alledgedly evidence that the EPA invites envireonmental litigation so they can intentionally lose , and fund additional envireonmental causes.
And then there is EPA Director ,Gina McCarthy, who still refuses to turn over scientific documentation justifiying polution standards and how they were determined.
An illegal conspiracy, heavens no !
Not in this the "most transparent administration ever" ... /s
At the same time the EPA is imposing standards which will increase the expense to consumers for electricity (+25%) and natural gas (+50%) by year 2020.
Confine EPA’s responsibility to clean air and clean public waterways. Nothing else.
And I agree that fed bureaucrats need to personally answer to the people whose lives they make miserable.
Following orders has never been an excuse for crimes against the people until now.
They need to be confronted and scared for what they do. Same for the SOB politicians.
I think this whole country is either on Valium or is low-T.
Present.
So the question is, why are they, when the economy could be helped with it? Is it a fear of outsiders? A fear of losing what solitude they have, or a concern that the company may not hire locals, but bring in outsiders?
:-) Shoulda pinged you.
Being a former Washington State salmon fisherman who also fished Bristol Bay, I can say that the evidence was not manufactured and the mine will indeed destroy the world’s largest sockeye fishery, worse it will greatly impact all the other fish species in the Gulf and the Bay. It is an ecosystem of which any major disruption in one area will impact all the others.
Pollack = fish sticks, Hake = false crab, Salmon will be only available in the US from chemically farmed artificially colored salmon, King, Red, Opilio crab (Deadliest Catch) et al will be exclusively imported from Russia.
Judge Holland made it clear that he sides with big business when he elected to find for Exxon in the Prince William Sound oil spill decision a few years back. He does not like commercial fisherman of any stripe, and commensurately lowered the award to next to nothing. PWS has still not recovered from the spill.
Remember all this when one day you go to the grocery store looking for real food, and find the shelves empty of any, just the usual very expensive imported vegetables and meats, all the rest being chemically produced from oil byproducts and random road kill.
Messing with your food supply is an exceedingly stupid thing to do, when all you get in exchange is inedible metals and a handful of transitory jobs.
Thanks. If it’s a genuine risk that would threaten salmon and the industry I understand the argument against it.
There’s a legal process to fight projects of this nature and the EPA did not follow that process. Now they and this Phillip North are trying to cover up their illegal behavior.
In my view whether the Pebble mine is approved or not this North and anyone else complicit in the EPA should be prosecuted.
Back at the beginning of the pipeline project most of the construction companies brought workers up from the southern states to work at very low rates of pay. The State of Alaska stepped in and mandated that all workers had to be paid at the prevailing rate. Since it was no longer economical to import labor (and pay for transportation) local workers were finally able to compete for the high-paying jobs.
Those laws are still in effect.
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