Advocates are pushing for regulators to consider cumulative impact – the idea the totality of environmental threats affecting a community should be considered in permitting decisions – which is not typically how environmental permitting decisions are handled today.
Posted inAccountability
Where was the environment in Duggan’s State of the City?
While the mayor touched on serious problems like gun violence, he failed to mention air pollution, basement flooding, water shutoffs, or the power outages that left thousands of Detroiters in the dark recently.
Posted inAccountability
DTE is asking to hike electric rates again. What Michigan customers need to know.
The company is asking for $622 million a year from ratepayers, and residential customers would see the sharpest increase.
Posted inAccountability
State regulators ask EPA to ignore Detroit air quality data, paving way to avoid ozone regulation
Ozone is a known cause and trigger of asthma. The asthma mortality rate in Detroit in 2017-2019 was about three times the rate for Michigan.
Posted inAccountability
Why the White House’s environmental justice tool is still disappointing advocates
After assuming office in early 2021, President Joe Biden announced the Justice40 initiative, which promised that 40 percent of federal investments in infrastructure, clean energy, and other climate-related programs would be directed toward disadvantaged communities. The program is an effort to counteract the legacy of past policies that have unevenly distributed the country’s environmental burdens, […]
Posted inAccountability
After the ice: Anger and a push for public utilities
Municipalities from Ann Arbor to Highland Park to Pontiac are calling for public utilities amid DTE power outages.
Posted inAccountability
East Palestine waste could mean more PFAS, dioxins in Michigan waterways
Officials in Michigan and Texas were blindsided this week when they learned that contaminated soil and liquid from the Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio were coming to disposal sites just outside Detroit and Houston, or had already arrived. “We have a right to know; 1.8 million people have the right to know,” […]
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Michigan AG wants to shed light on DTE, Consumers political spending
A recent request by Michigan’s Attorney General Dana Nessel could require utilities to inform regulators about how much they spend on lobbying when requesting rate increases, giving officials and the public more insight into their spending to influence public policies that ultimately affect ratepayers. Nessel’s request follows a recent report that showed DTE Energy-linked dark […]
Posted inAccountability
Hubbard Richard residents ‘devastated’ after council approves Moroun land transfer
Despite objections from more than a dozen residents who said the move would take away their last leverage to secure community benefits, Detroit City Council voted 6 to 3 Tuesday to approve a 3.8-acre land transfer to the Moroun-owned Detroit International Bridge Company. The vote closes the book on a 2015 deal that the council […]
Posted inAccountability
Train derailments get more headlines, but truck crashes involving hazardous chemicals are more frequent and deadly in US
Michael F. Gorman, University of Dayton Less than two weeks after train cars filled with hazardous chemicals derailed in Ohio and caught fire, a truck carrying nitric acid crashed on a major highway outside Tucson, Arizona, killing the driver and releasing toxic chemicals into the air. The Arizona hazmat disaster shut down Interstate 10, a […]