Center for Public Integrity: 179,000 Categorical NEPA Exclusions Granted to BIg Polluters as Part of "Stimulus"

Big Polluters Freed from Environmental Oversight by Stimulus

BP, Westar, and DuPont Among Companies Exempted from Environmental Law

By Kristen Lombardi and John Solomon | November 28, 2010

In the name of job creation and clean energy, the Obama administration has doled out billions of dollars in stimulus money to some of the nation’s biggest polluters and granted them sweeping exemptions from the most basic form of environmental oversight, a Center for Public Integrity investigation has found.

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The administration has awarded more than 179,000 “categorical exclusions” to stimulus projects funded by federal agencies, freeing those projects from review under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA. Coal-burning utilities like Westar Energy and Duke Energy, chemical manufacturer DuPont, and ethanol maker Didion Milling are among the firms with histories of serious environmental violations that have won blanket NEPA exemptions.


Read more at http://www.publicintegrity.org/articles/entry/2565/

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