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Texas asks court to intervene in fight with EPA
Headline Legal News |
2010/06/16 03:01
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| Texas asked a federal court on Monday to intervene in its fight with the Environmental Protection Agency over how the state regulates emissions from oil refineries and other petrochemicals plants. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott asked the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans to review the EPA's rejection in March of a 1995 state law that allows refineries to be modified without being subject to additional regulation, provided the changes don't increase a facility's overall emissions.pThe issue is part of an ongoing disagreement Texas and the EPA have over how pollution is regulated in the state, said Terry Clawson, a spokesman for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. In recent weeks, debate has focused on the state's use of so-called flexible permits, which sets a general limit on how much pollutants an entire facility can release./ppIn a news release, Abbott's office criticized the EPA for taking more than a decade before deciding to reject the law and said it filed the legal challenge in an effort to defend the state's legal rights and challenge improper overreach by the federal government./p |
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Pa. police sued for hearing aid rule
Law News |
2010/06/15 10:02
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| A Pennsylvania man is suing the state police over guidelines that forbid the use of hearing aids in the certification process for becoming a municipal police officer.pLawyers for 39-year-old Bill Furman have asked in the federal discrimination lawsuit filed Wednesday that the rule be changed so he has the chance to become eligible for certification. The state police oversees certification./ppFurman is a parking officer and constable. He lives in Boalsburg./ppHe was set to attend a police training academy last year when he said he was told he couldn't continue because of his hearing aids./p |
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High court rejects appeal in rendition case
Legal Business |
2010/06/14 08:58
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pThe Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from a Canadian engineer who was caught up in the U.S. government's secret transfer of terror suspects to other countries./ppThe court did not comment Monday in ending Syrian-born Maher Arar's quest to sue top U.S. officials, including former Attorney General John Ashcroft. Arar says he was mistaken for a terrorist when he was changing planes in New York on his way home to Canada, a year after the 2001 terrorist attacks. He was instead sent to Syria, where he claims he was tortured./ppLower courts dismissed Arar's lawsuit, which asserts the U.S. purposely sent him to Syria to be tortured. Syria has denied he was tortured./ppThe Canadian government agreed to pay Arar $10 million and apologized to him for its role in the case./ppA Canadian investigation found that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police wrongly labeled Arar an Islamic fundamentalist and passed misleading and inaccurate information to U.S. authorities./ppThe inquiry determined that Arar was tortured, and it cleared him of any terrorist links or suspicions.
/p |
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Kagan confirmation would affect major tobacco case
Headline Legal News |
2010/06/14 08:58
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| pIt's a simple matter of math: Elena Kagan's nomination to the Supreme Court has complicated the government's effort to force the tobacco industry to cough up nearly $300 billion./ppIf confirmed by the Senate as a justice, Kagan would have to sit out high court review of the government's decade-old racketeering lawsuit against cigarette makers. That's because she already has taken sides as solicitor general, signing the Obama administration's Supreme Court brief in the case — an automatic disqualifier./ppKagan is expected to step aside from 11 of the 24 cases the court has so far agreed to hear beginning in October./ppWithout her, the government and anti-tobacco advocates could find it difficult, if not impossible, to find a fifth vote to allow the government to seek $280 billion of past tobacco profits and $14 billion for a national campaign to curb smoking./p |
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Obama plans fourth tour of Gulf oil spill
Legal World News |
2010/06/14 05:58
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| pStruggling to show leadership in a crisis, President Barack Obama is embarking on a three-state tour of Gulf Coast states tainted by oil before speaking to the nation about the country's worst environmental disaster and what to expect in the weeks ahead./ppBefore the start Monday of a two-day trip to Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, the White House announced Obama would order BP to establish a major victims' compensation fund. When he returns to Washington on Tuesday evening Obama will use his first Oval Office speech as president to address the catastrophe./ppBP said in a statement that its costs for responding to the spill had risen to $1.6 billion, including new $25 million grants to Florida, Alabama and Mississippi. It also includes the first $60 million for a project to build barrier islands off the Louisiana coast. The estimate does not include future costs for scores of damage lawsuits already filed./ppObama's first three trips to the Gulf took him to the hardest-hit state, Louisiana. On Monday, Day 56 since BP's leased Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded and unleashed a fury of oil into the Gulf, he's flying to Gulfport, Miss. From there he'll travel along the coast to Alabama, where oil was washing up in heavy amounts along the shores Sunday in the eastern part of the state./p |
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