Regulators weigh environmental review of Milepost 7 tailings basin expansion after Cleveland-Cliffs submits permit application. 6:00 pm, Jan. 22, 2021 ×
An aerial view looking southeast at Cleveland-Cliffs’ Milepost 7 tailings basin. The basin holds 40 years worth of tailings behind dams and on top of a 2,100-acre footprint. An expansion project planned by Cliffs, would expand that footprint by 850 acres a 40% increase in the basin’s surface area. The darker areas visible in the basin are shadows of cumulus clouds. (Clint Austin / 2020 file / caustin@duluthnews.com)
Environmental groups say the DNR is required to, and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is waiting on the DNR to make its decision before it proceeds with its own separate permit for the project.
(AP Photo/Ben Margot)
ST. PAUL, Minn. (CN) Minnesota car dealers took to federal court Wednesday to fight proposed changes to the state’s emissions rules for new automobiles, saying that the state’s ongoing rulemaking is preempted by federal environmental laws.
The regulations at issue would bring Minnesota’s emissions standards for new car sales up to par with those enforced in California. Minnesota would be the first Midwestern state to take up that elevated and contested standards, which were made possible by an Environmental Protection Agency waiver revoked in 2019.
Fourteen other states and the District of Columbia have also adopted the standard, which sets low targets for greenhouse-gas emissions and proportional minimums for zero-emission vehicles offered for sale to consumers.
Climate Justice Advisory Groups Are in Vogue. But Are State Agencies Listening?
Residents from Brownsville, Brooklyn, disrupted National Grids construction site at the intersection of Junius St. and Linden Boulevard halting their so-called Metropolitan Reliability Infrastructure Project, better known as the North Brooklyn Pipeline, successfully shutting it down for the day, on December 10, 2020.
Erik McGregor / LightRocket via Getty Images
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As hurricanes flood superfund sites and prompt chemical leaks at oil refineries, corporations and governments can no longer hide the fact that low-income communities of color are disproportionately exposed to industrial toxins and particularly vulnerable to the climate crisis.
In an attempt to address these injustices, state and federal agencies have launched formal groups to advise government agencies, designed to bring in representatives from communities most impacted by the climate crisis in what is often expressed as an effort to make