ALEC looks to shred EPA/ Lac-Megantic on verge of rebuilding

ALEC looks to shred EPA regulations

Even after an exodus of corporate members, the nonprofit is giving a stage to climate change skeptics

December 5, 2014    by Naureen Khan   Al Jazeera

WASHINGTON — The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) forged ahead with a new agenda at a D.C. Hyatt this week. Despite an exodus of corporate sponsors, who have balked at its policies and tactics, the nonprofit honed plans to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency, roll back energy regulations and give the stage to climate change deniers.

With ties to the billionaire Koch brothers, ALEC promotes free-market principles and has since 1973 served as a forum for corporate members and predominantly Republican state legislators to collaborate on legislation — often behind closed doors.....

.... This year, ALEC’s environmental agenda was particularly robust. Its energy, environment and agriculture task force, chaired by state Rep. Thomas Lockhart, R-Wyo., and Paul Loeffelman, director of environmental public policy at the utility company, American Electric Power, considered a number of resolutions in closed-door meetings.

Among them were plans to abolish the EPA and replace it with an agency comprised of state representatives, give sole authority over hydraulic fracturing to state governments, expand offshore drilling and allow state legislatures to delay implementing the EPA’s carbon emission guidelines.

“It’s a definitely an escalation from what we’ve seen in previous years, and that’s noteworthy because ALEC has come under a lot of criticism for its anti-environmental positions,” said Aliya Haq....
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Searchers dig on July 8, 2013, through rubble on a search for victims

UMF students find Lac-Megantic on verge of rebuilding after disaster

But the residents of the Quebec town are divided on how to proceed.

 
By Kaitlin Schroeder  Portland Press Herald  12/04/14

FARMINGTON — More than a year after a train carrying crude oil derailed and exploded in downtown Lac-Megantic, the Quebec town is making plans to rebuild.

A group of students from the University of Maine at Farmington who recently visited the town just over the Maine border said the community is working on a plan to rebuild, but is divided on how to proceed and hoping it can come up with the necessary money.....

... The town was devastated July 7, 2013, by the worst Canadian railway disaster in 150 years, when an unmanned train with 72 carloads of crude oil rolled down an incline, derailed and exploded, killing 47 people and leveling 40 downtown buildings in the town of 6,000....

.... The cost of rebuilding the town is estimated at as much as $200 million.

Bruce said some limited reconstruction already has started. After the downtown destruction, he said, some of the businesses left but others, such as a large grocery store, have set up shop again on the outskirts of town.....

....While community members disagree on some points, Bruce said, there is one area of consensus: Residents want to reroute the train tracks.

“They scare people,” he said. “People want the trains to go around the town.”.... read more here