Progress Illinois

The Tribune has a great article out today on the fight over BP's effort to expand its oil refinery in Whiting, IN. For many months now, environmental groups and local lawmakers have tried to block or delay the expansion, noting that BP's claims about how much pollution the expanded plant will produce are overly optimistic. As the protests have grown louder, BP has received the necessary air permits will little trouble, first from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, then from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

As the Tribune piece makes clear, over at the EPA, the left hand clearly isn't watching what the right hand is doing:

Federal regulators signed off on the BP permit late last month, seven months after the Environmental Protection Agency accused the company of repeatedly violating pollution limits on existing flares at the refinery.

For at least five years, the EPA wrote in a November complaint, the refinery's flares have routinely exceeded limits on sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide. Sulfur dioxide is an ingredient in smog and soot that can trigger asthma and other respiratory ailments; hydrogen sulfide is a pungent gas that can cause fatigue.

Officials at the EPA's regional office in Chicago said the ongoing enforcement action and the permit review are separate matters.

During the agency's investigation, regulators were stymied in their attempt to calculate the total amount of pollution emitted by BP's flares. Most of the devices were not equipped with pollution monitors until recently, said George Czerniak, the EPA's regional chief of air enforcement.

Call me crazy, but the EPA officials signing off on new air permits for the facility probably should have noticed that the company was under investigation for violating emissions limits.

A report today from the South Bend Tribune:

They were, once upon a time, opposing regiments of the same army.

The Sen. Hillary Clinton campaign and the Sen. Barack Obama campaign: two groups of local volunteers fervently working for their respective Democrat, each trying to get a little more support than the other team.

On Thursday night, party officials brought the two sides together for pizza and chatter in hopes, pundits would say, of unifying the party perhaps divided by a contentious primary campaign.

In hopes? Where has the media been, South Bend resident Vera Peele said. "I was unified from the beginning," she said. "I'm a Democrat."

There are some who were quoted in reports immediately after Clinton stopped campaigning as saying if they couldn't vote for Clinton they just wouldn't vote for president.

Chalk that up to emotion in the heat of the moment, said Bev Shelton of South Bend, who supported Clinton during the primary. "Sometimes you're like a volcano, and it erupts," she said.

But now it's about getting a Democrat elected to the White House, Shelton said, wearing a button that says "Do not vote Republican."

Don't assume people who were angry after Clinton's exit from the campaign will remain that way, said Pat McQuade, also a Clinton supporter in the primary campaign.

"We are more than one emotion," she said. "Sometimes people are pigeonholed into one specific response. Loss is grief."

But people get over it, she said. They move on.

(H/T Blue Indiana)

As the summer election season hits its stride, we're seeing more and more evidence that Barack Obama is benefiting from the cross-country battle he waged with Hillary Clinton during the Democratic primary. Yesterday, National Journal's Carrie Dann reported on how the drawn-out contest helped Democrats cement their presence in important battleground states:

A glance at the primary calendar offers a list of red to purple states where Obama and Clinton stumped feverishly after McCain accepted the party mantle against the backdrop of the White House lawn on March 5. Democrats battled in Indiana, North Carolina and Montana -- all states touted by the Obama campaign as potential electoral pickups -- as well as in Oregon and Pennsylvania, Democratic-leaning states where McCain hopes to gain ground. [...]

[T]he difference in simple ground covered in the five contested states that held post-March 4th primaries is striking. In the Tar Heel State, for example, Obama held a total of 14 events over nine campaign days. McCain has spent only three days there, one in a private meeting with evangelical iconBilly Graham and his son. In Indiana, Obama made 26 appearances over 20 days, to McCain's two. McCain trails Obama by more than five campaign stops in Montana, 10 in Oregon and 25 in Pennsylvania.

All told, in those five states, Obama has campaigned for a total of 54 days to McCain's 13, giving Obama a net lead of 41 campaign days. That lead has grown, not shrunk, since Obama clinched the nomination and began campaigning in nontraditional regions as part of his campaign's avowed 50-state strategy.

Continue reading »

According to The Times (of Northwest Indiana), the Obama campaign will be doubling its number of offices in Indiana in the near future:

Obama began running a biographical ad here in late June, and last week the campaign added a second television spot in Indiana and 17 other states.

Emily Parcell, political director for Obama's key caucus victory in Iowa, was selected to head up the campaign's Indiana operation. And Jonathan Swain -- an aide to U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., who served the Clinton campaign this spring -- became Obama's Indiana spokesman last week.

Swain said Obama plans to open 25 to 30 regional campaign offices across Indiana in the coming weeks. The campaign had 26 offices here prior to the May 6 primary.

The staff and advertising dollars pouring into Indiana, Georgia, North Carolina and other GOP-leaning states follow the 50 State Strategy that Howard Dean adopted after becoming Democratic National Committee chairman in 2005.

In related news, the Indianapolis Star triggered some buzz over the weekend around the idea of Obama tapping Sen. Evan Bayh as his running mate. It's an interesting piece, though I don't agree with some of the purported advantages of picking Bayh.

Continue reading »

A study commissioned by British Petroleum indicates that emissions from the expanded BP oil refinery in Whiting, IN could be much greater than the company initially claimed. The report was drawn up by Trinity Consultants and submitted to the Indiana Department of Environmental Management as part of BP's application for new state permits. It shows that the current expansion of the plant could result in a 50 percent increase in Co2 emissions (BP has claimed emissions would only rise by 20 percent). In terms of greenhouse gas pollution, this increase is roughly the equivalent of putting 200,000 to 400,000 new cars on the road.

Meanwhile, Co2 is only one of several pollutants that could be emitted at higher levels, reports the Post-Tribune, which received the study via a public information request:

According to the report by Trinity Consultants, nitrogen oxides -- which can irritate the eyes, nose, throat and respiratory tract -- could increase up to 11 times the threshold amount. To reduce nitrogen oxide emissions during combustion, BP will install new heaters and retrofit or replace existing heaters. Carbon monoxide -- an odorless, colorless gas that can kill and at lower levels headaches, dizziness, nausea and fatigue -- could go up more than five times the threshold.

BP claims that the report is misleading because it lists the amount of pollutants the plant would emit if ran at maximum capacity. Environmentalists counter that BP is known for polluting past legally sanctioned levels, and its ability to do so at Whiting constitutes a serious environmental and public health risk. The state of Indiana has already awarded BP the necessary permits to expand the facility and construction is ongoing. However, the decision to allow the expansion faces a legal challenge from environmental groups.

Well, it's a good thing the Obama campaign isn't ignoring Indiana. A SurveyUSA poll released today shows that it's a dead heat in the Hoosier State: Barack Obama garners 48 percent of the vote, John McCain 47 percent, and 2 percent remain undecided.

News from Michigan is good today as well. Public Policy Polling gives Obama a nine point edge (pdf), 48 to 39 percent.  Obama has seen his lead there extend since he started to campaign in the state.

(H/T Atrios and PSB)

When Barack Obama launched his Organizing Fellows program 10 days ago, Indiana was conspicuously absent, signaling that the campaign might be writing off our neighbors to the east. But this Indianapolis Star article suggests the Hoosier State could see a presidential battle after all:

Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign is calling Indiana "a battleground state," and it's putting money into the state and assigning a key staff member here [...]

Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, will begin running a 60-second TV ad in Indiana and 17 other states today.

Shannon Gilson, a spokeswoman for Obama's campaign, said the campaign feels so strongly about its chances in Indiana that it has assigned Emily Parcell, who was political director for Obama in the crucial first-caucus state of Iowa, to be state director in Indiana.

"She's one of our most valued (staff members)," Gilson said. "We wouldn't put Emily in a state we weren't taking very seriously.

It's not surprising that Obama would focus on Indiana. Although it's a culturally conservative state that hasn't voted for a Democratic presidential nominee since 1964, about 1.3 million Democrats voted in the state's highly contested primary this year. That's 300,000 more votes than Kerry received in his general election loss to President Bush four years ago, although still 200,000 shy of the number of votes Bush garnered. And while some voters nationwide are wary of voting for Obama because they haven't followed his career closely, many Indiana residents, especially in the Northwest corner of the state, are well aware of the Illinois senator's accomplishments. Our buddy Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight is currently giving Obama a slightly higher probability of winning the state than John McCain.

The state also has a competitive gubernatorial race this year, with Democrat Jill Long Thompson offering a strong challenge to incumbent Republican Mitch Daniels.  So it's nice to see the Obama campaign make a run at the Hoosier State, if only to bolster Long Thompson's chances and divert precious resources away from McCain.

Four Democratic members of the Illinois congregational delegation have sent a letter requesting that the Environmental Protection Agency suspend the expansion of the BP oil refinery in Whiting, Indiana. In the letter, Sen. Dick Durbin and Reps. Rahm Emanuel, Jan Schakowsky, and Mellissa Bean, say that "increased carbon dioxide emissions at Whiting remain a major concern."

The lawmakers' request comes as state and national environmental groups recently challenged Indiana's decision to allow an expansion of the plant. At issue is the addition of three flares that were not accounted for in BP's application for the expansion. Industry officials say these flares would only be used in rare instances. But environmental groups say the added Co2 emitted by the flares could pose a serious threat to the environment and to public health.

The blog Blue Indiana points to some good news in this article from The Times (of Munster, IN):

The primary elections may have been two weeks ago, but Porter County residents are still registering to vote en masse.

Instead of being able to take a breather after a hectic election, the Porter County voter registration office is scrambling to get work done -- starting with a stack of more than 1,000 voter registration applications waiting to be processed.

Kathy Kozuszek, the Democratic leader of the office, said the pile of forms is only from the last month and a half.

"I think we need another tray," Kozuszek joked, looking behind her at the stack. "I imagine this is how it's going to be all the way up to October for the general election."

If the pace keeps up, the county could be registering more than 3,000 new voters in the county for the Nov. 4 general election. Currently, there are 107,275 registered voters in the county.

One of the striking things about the baseline prediction laid out in Poblano's minority turnout model was how tight the general election race for Indiana looked.  At the time we published our article on the model, Poblano had Obama losing the state to McCain by 60,000 votes (assuming 2004 levels of turnout).  But if you increased youth, African-American, and Latino turnout by 25 percent, the state tipped into Obama's column.  If registration continues to skyrocket in Northwestern Indiana, the McCain campaign may end up having to pour some additional resources into defending the state.

Joining the efforts of three Indiana environmental groups, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has filed an appeal against the expansion of the BP refinery in Whiting, Indiana. The New York-based environmental group moved to halt the expansion of the plant on behalf of "Save the Dunes Council, the Sierra Club's Hoosier chapter, the Hoosier Environmental Council and two Lake County residents," according to the Indianapolis Star.

During an interview with WBEZ's Eight Forty-Eight this morning, NRDC senior attorney Ann Alexander explained the group's concerns about the emission calculations used by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management [IDEM] in approving BP's expansion permit:

ALEXANDER: What's wrong with the math is that there's a whole lot of emissions that they didn't include in the math. [...]

[BP is] building three big new flares and they’re also specifically intending to use the eight existing flares more. There’s going to be more going through those flares and they’re building three new flares. The problem here is that they did their math -- they calculated their emissions in determining that those emissions were going to go down by assuming that those three big new flares they’re building were never going to be used. We think that is unrealistic and frankly irresponsible not to count the emissions that are going to come out of those. [...]

We want them [IDEM] to do an honest evaluation of what the emissions are going to be from this expansion, because I think when you do that evaluation you find that they're going to increase significantly.

The NRDC also announced plans to file a federal lawsuit against BP, alleging that the oil giant has not made a good faith effort to explore ways of limiting pollution.

If the appeals are deemed credible by the Indiana Office of Environmental Adjudication, construction may be halted at the Whiting refinery. As Progress Illinois previously reported, Prairie State lawmakers and environmentalists are also concerned about the impact the BP expansion could have on Illinois air quality.