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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

SCOTUS Takes Up EPA Power-Plant Pollution Limits

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Wednesday, March 25, 2015   

The U.S. Supreme Court is to hear arguments about whether the Environmental Protection Agency can require power plants to clean up their toxic emissions, as the coal industry and its supporters continue to challenge the agency's standards for mercury and other airborne toxins.

The case is full of semantics about what is "necessary and appropriate" - but more than half of Americans live and breathe in the vicinity of a coal- or oil-burning power plant, including 13 in California.

Earthjustice attorney Jim Pew said the industry has avoided this type of regulation for 20 years.

"They're sort of chugging along, putting this stuff out in far greater amounts than any other industry in the country," he said, "and they're making the breathtaking argument that they, of all industries, should be exempted from having to control it."

The coal industry and EPA agree that it would cost about $9 billion a year to upgrade pollution controls at the plants, but they disagree on the value of the potential benefits of cleaner air. The EPA says it would prevent from 4,000 to 11,000 premature deaths a year, and that a monetary value can't be calculated for some of the benefits.

Exposure to toxins from power plants is higher in communities of color - 71 percent for African-Americans, compared with 56 percent for the general public - according to the NAACP, which partnered with other groups to survey the related health concerns in 2012. What they discovered prompted them to intervene in the case in favor of pollution controls, said Jacqui Patterson, director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program.

"We found that these coal plants are disproportionately located in low-income communities and communities of color," she said, "particularly African-American, Latino-American and Native American communities."

Exposure to airborne toxins is linked to heart attacks, asthma and birth defects. California is one of 17 states that signed a brief in favor of the need for air-pollution controls. Some power companies also support them.

The high court's decision is expected this summer. Information on the case is online at scotusblog.com.


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