[Marxism] Obama names lawyer who defended top polluter to top environmental post

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/15/ignacia-moreno-superfund/
Obama Nominates Superfund Polluter Lawyer To Run DOJ Environment Division

President Barack Obama has nominated a lawyer for the nation’s largest 
toxic polluters to run the enforcement of the nation’s environmental 
laws. On Tuesday, Obama “announced his intent to nominate” Ignacia S. 
Moreno to be Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural 
Resources Division in the Department of Justice. Moreno, general counsel 
for that department during the Clinton administration, is now the 
corporate environmental counsel for General Electric, “America’s #1 
Superfund Polluter“:

     Number five in the Fortune 500 with revenues of $89.3 billion and 
earnings of $8.2 billion in 1997, General Electric has been a leader in 
the effort to roll back the Superfund law and stave off any requirements 
for full cleanup and restoration of sites they helped create.

This February, General Electric lost an eight-year battle to “prove that 
parts of the Superfund law are unconstitutional.” One of the 600-person 
DOJ environmental division’s “primary responsibilities is to enforce 
federal civil and criminal environmental laws such as” the Clean Air 
Act, Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the Superfund.

Before General Electric, Moreno worked as a corporate attorney at 
Spriggs and Hollingsworth. Moreno’s name is found in the Westlaw 
database as an attorney defending General Motors in another Superfund 
case, the GM Powertrain facility in Bedford, Indiana:

     Historical uses and management of PCB containing hydraulic oils and 
PCB impacted materials has contaminated on-site areas as well as the 
sediment and floodplain soil within Bailey’s Branch and the Pleasant Run 
Creek watershed.

Although General Motors entered into an agreement in 2001 with the EPA 
to clean up the site, a number of local residents whose land has been 
contaminated by polychorinated biphenyls (PCBs) have sued for damages in 
Allgood v. GM (now Barlow v. GM), in a contentious and caustic dispute 
over cleanup, monitoring, and lost property values.

During the Clinton administration, Moreno was involved in another 
controversial case, unsuccessfully defending the Secretary of Commerce’s 
decision to weaken the dolphin-safe tuna standard. In Brower v. Daley, 
Earth Island Institute, The Humane Society of the United States, and 
other individuals and organizations brought suit against the United 
States government for actions that were “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse 
of discretion, and contrary to law,” winning their case in 2000.

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