Foxconn-friendly air rules for SE WI draw IL lawsuit

The headwinds against Walker's beloved Foxconn project are gathering; do we need to replace Foxconn Fever with "Foxconn Follies?"

To the call last week from legal and environmental activists in Michigan for broader review of the controversial Foxconn water diversion hurriedly greenlit by Walker's 'chamber of commerce mentality' DNR, you can add the federal lawsuit Illinois is preparing over a preposterous recent EPA dirty air ruling that will help enable Foxconn's DNR-approved, 796-annual ton-air pollution spew. 

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan on Friday announced she plans to file a lawsuit challenging a recently issued ruling by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that significantly reduces the area of southeastern Wisconsin that would face stricter air pollution regulations....

In a news release, Madigan’s office said the EPA ruling would allow “proposed massive Wisconsin Foxconn plant to pollute air....and...is putting a company's profit ahead of our natural resources and the public health.”

“Despite its name, the Environmental Protection Agency now operates with total disregard for the quality of our air and water, and in this case, the U.S. EPA is putting a company’s profit ahead of our natural resources and the public’s health,” Madigan said. “I will file a lawsuit to protect the environment and people from the consequences of this unsupported decision.”

Nice to see the Illinois AG doing for Wisconsin what its own corporately-obeisant, Pruitt-pandering AG will not do for his own state and a clean environment.

I had made the connections between the recent EPA ruling, Walker's priorities and the Foxconn air permits, here: 

Last week it was the DNR's rushed approvals for four air pollution permits to allow Foxconn to emit annually 796 tons of eye-watering, land-and-water contaminating smog and other airborne pollutants.

 

Today it's the US EPA approval at Walker's request to exempt much of SE Wisconsin from clean air standards that will apply to much of the state and country.

The EPA found that portions of Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Sheboygan, Manitowoc, Door and Kenosha counties along the lake were in violation of a new tougher ozone standard. 

Racine County — the future home of the Foxconn Technology Group — was declared to be in compliance with the standard. 

The EPA also exempted Waukesha and Washington counties from 2015 standards advanced under Obama administration. 

By the way, data from the American/Wisconsin Lung Associations had already graded Kenosha, Milwaukee, Ozaukee and Sheboygan Counties "F" for particulate (read: ozone) pollution, and more data show the thousands and thousands of Wisconsinites in those counties and elsewhere in the state already at risk from pediatric asthma, adult asthma, lung cancer and cardio-vascular disease.