More importantly, they are the first installment in a major effort to transform and revitalize our nation’s transportation infrastructure.

High-speed rail will create a modern, fast, comfortable and convenient travel option that reduces pollution, counteracts sprawl and brings people into the hearts of America’s cities. As ELPC Executive Director Howard Learner told the Christian Science Monitor “It’s a very important beginning…a giant step forward in the transformation of our nation’s transportation system.”

ELPC has worked to promote high speed rail since the organization began 15 years ago. Howard Learner joined Senator Dick Durbin, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn and Federal Railroad Administrator Joe Szabo and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley at a press conference celebrating Illinois’ rail funding. You can listen to the press conference at Chicago Public Radio’s website.

Read ELPC’s statement about funding for high-speed rail

Read Coverage in the Kansas City Star and Crain’s Cleveland

ELPC’s Clean Water Act implementation work in Indiana, supported by the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust, includes:

• Building citizen and local capacity to more effectively participate in the policy process
• Advancing the state’s under-developed “anti-degradation” rules
• Improving, upgrading and adding new use designations and water quality criteria, and
• Implementing and enforcing existing state clean water regulations.

ELPC attorneys are working with our partners at the Hoosier Environmental Council, Save the Dunes, the Sierra Club and other Indiana organizations to develop new “anti-degradation” rules that would correct future problems like the one involving the BP-Whiting refinery that generated so much controversy a few years ago. We also are following issues related to nitrogen and phosphorus pollution in the Hoosier State.

Fighting global warming pollution from oil refinery expansion.

Eight oil refinery expansions have recently been proposed across the Midwest due in large part to the newly commercially viable tar sands in Alberta, Canada. Alberta tar sands or Canadian crude is sandy, petroleum rich deposits which can be harvested, then transported to oil refineries to be processed and converted into workable fuel for our cars and trucks, among other things. The potential increase in global warming from the oil refinery expansions is huge. One proposed new oil refinery in Hyperion, SD would add 19 million tons of pollutants – the equivalent of 4 to 6 new coal-fired power plants to the state. The proposed expansion by BP in northwest Indiana is reported to increase global warming pollution by 40%.

I-69 boondoggle

The Environmental Law and Policy Center is working with local environmental, farm, business and taxpayers’ organizations to prevent one of the nation’s great boondoggles: the controversial proposed “new terrain” Interstate 69 highway from Indianapolis to Evansville, in Southwestern Indiana. NBC Nightly News called this billion-dollar highway a “Fleecing of America.” We are fighting for a plan to upgrade existing highways would create a travel time between Indianapolis and Evansville only ten minutes longer than the same trip made on the proposed new highway. This alternative, using Interstate 70 and an upgraded US 41, would save $600 million of taxpayers’ money. It would be far less damaging to farmland, to the environment, and to Indianapolis, Bloomington, and other communities.

By creating a guaranteed market for renewable energy, RPS legislation has attracted large amounts of private investment in these states and created manufacturing, installation and maintenance jobs to supply the renewable energy industry.

ELPC Executive Director Howard Learner said that Indiana needs a renewable portfolio standard to take advantage of its wind power potential. As Learner said, “There is widespread agreement that if we want to have extensive wind power development across the Midwest, in order to seize job creation, economic development and environmental value, we need to have a smart shift in policy to help grow the green economy.”

Read coverage in the Muncie Star Press

The groups have worked with IDEM for years in an attempt to improve Indiana’s water pollution rules, but the regulations still do not meet standards of the federal Clean Water Act. Large coal mines are currently allowed to pollute many of Indiana’s lakes and streams while pollution from industry and agriculture has contaminated over 800 Indiana Waterways with e coli bacteria.

The petition asks EPA to take back the authority for enforcing the Clean Water Act if IDEM does not improve its water pollution control program.

Read ELPC’s press release.

 Read coverage in the Indy Star.

Read the editorial “In Defense of Clean Water” by the Indy Star’s editorial board.

“We now call for the EPA to implement strong and fair standards that will reduce global warming pollution if Congress does not step up with legislation.  Implementing effective global warming solutions, such as energy efficiency and renewable energy development and high-speed rail development can create job growth, spur economic development, and help to solve our global warming problems.”

- Statement from Howard Learner, Executive Director, Environmental Law & Policy Center

ELPC hosted a special webinar on November 18th highlighting the potential for a solar power boom in the Midwest. Featured speakers included ELPC Executive Director Howard Learner, Staff Attorney Brad Klein and Policy Advocate Madeleine Weil. Listen to the webinar or download PDF slides.

Since ELPC published the first edition of the Community Wind Financing Guide in 2004, wind power has become the United States’ fastest-growing source of electricity. Community wind projects, which represent a small but growing share of the wind market, are largely owned by farmers and other local investors with a significant economic stake in the project. Such local ownership generates powerful economic and social benefits for rural areas.

The updated Handbook provides the latest information on financing community wind projects, including ownership structures, roles of financial intermediaries, sources of federal and state financial support and consultant/developer directories. Although building these projects has become somewhat easier over time, understanding and accessing financing opportunities remains perhaps the most important requirement for a successful project.  Download the Community Wind Financing Handbook.[pdf file]

In this guest column on Great Lakes Law, ELPC Staff Attorney Meleah Geertsma explains what the refinery expansion would mean and why ELPC and the EPA believe a better air permit it needed.

Read the post at Great Lakes Law

The decision is a victory for ELPC and the other citizens and environmental groups who petitioned EPA to object to the permit in August 2008 on the grounds that it did not accurately account for the large increases in dangerous air pollution that would be caused by BP’s expansion of the refinery. ELPC filed the petition with a coalition that included Hoosier Environmental Council, Natural Resources Defense Council, Save the Dunes Council, Sierra Club, Susan Eleuterio and Tom Tsourlis.

BP began a major expansion of the Whiting Refinery in 2008 in order to process dirty Canadian tar sands crude oil at the facility. The expansion would make the refinery the largest refiner of tar sands oil in the U.S. and would increase numerous traditional air pollutants like sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter. In addition, the expansion would create approximately as much new global warming pollution as a new 300-400 megawatt coal plant, about a forty percent increase from current refinery levels.

“BP needs to come clean about what this expansion really will mean for clean air and public health.” said ELPC Staff Attorney Meleah Geertsma.

Read the Press Release Here

ELPC Executive Director Howard Learner told the Indianapolis Star that the report shows progress, but that moving forward, the city should commit to firm goals for important areas such as reducing waste and improving air quality. “The city needs to step up and lead by example,” Learner said.

Read the article in the Indianapolis Star