Obama Nominates Superfund Polluter Lawyer To Run DOJ Environment Division

[BigBearJohn]

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.

SOURCE: http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/15/ignacia-moreno-superfund/

[FLAprogressive]

1. is this what we voted for?

[Vidar]

20. It sure as hell looks that way, doen't it?

[LWolf]

26. Yes.

Not that some of us didn't sound warnings for 2 years before election day.

[slay]

32. The more time goes by since the election - the less I recognize him

He is NOT the Obama who campained and no, this is NOT the man I voted for. Fucking god damnint I KNEW I should have just written in Dennis Kucinich and been done with it - KNOWING I had done the right thing. Grrr.. argh!

[w4rma]

2. Does Obama think this guy wants to make amends for what he's done? (nt)

[msongs]

3. "Change we can believe in" TM - nt

[TBF]

4. K&R for visibility. n/t

[DJ13]

5. Whats next, Charles Manson running the prison system?

[Dragonfli]

6. Brilliant Chess Move!

Don't you idiots see that this will confuse the polluters and lull them into a false sense of security? They will never see their crushing defeat until it is too late!!!

The final move when he destroys all pollution by his sagely tactical prowess will be soooo Sweeeet!

[Individualist]

7. and don't forget the ever popular secret plan!

[Dragonfli]

9. So secret it can never be put into action

If the plan is ever deployed - they will see it coming and we will lose the tactical advantage of surprise and it will fail.

:silly:

[QC]

18. And the plan is so brilliant that no mere mortal could possibly comprehend it anyway. n/t

[SammyWinstonJack]

23. .

:spray:

[jberryhill]

8. And You Believe This Says:

(a) This person is familiar with the subject matter

or

(b) This person's personal beliefs are those of his former client?

or both.

He became a lawyer in some matter because he's a big fan of pollution? Is that it?

[DCKit]

21. Experience says this is the set-up to a HUGH payoff from industry when he leaves the Administration.

The excuses aren't even plausible any more.

Sure, you hire a fox to watch the hens, but are the other foxes going to take him back if he actually does the job, or are they going to expect him to deliver chicken dinners every Sunday?

[Canuckistanian]

10. Once, JUST ONCE, I'd like to see "Obama nominates firebrand liberal"

Instead, all we see are firebrand corporatists. "Insiders" and so-called "moderates" we get.

I give up.

[GreenPartyVoter]

13. I hear that. *tired sigh*

[QC]

14. Don't hold your breath while you wait for that one. n/t

[Hanse]

19. That's a false dichotomy.

[mitchum]

11. Same as it ever was

[G_j]

12. K&R

[defendandprotect]

15. Isn't this a bit over the top in Obama following in W's footsteps . . .

appoint those who would destroy the agencies and the work they are appointed to????

Yeah - fox/chickenhouse . . .

[Hanse]

16. lawyers bad!

RRRRAAWWWWRGH!

[Joe Fields]

17. This is the kind of stuff that JUST DRIVES ME CRAZY!!!

And yes, it's a short drive.

The very first year Bush was in office, he appointed more than 70 corporate shills in sensitive areas of the government, many in the EPA, BLM, National Parks system, Interior Dept., etc... Next thing you know, the tops of mountains are being blown off, lakes and rivers are becoming clogged with debris, spawning grounds are lost, watersheds are forever changed, wetlands disappear, whole forests are clearcut.....

To top it all off, the administration stated the other day that it would adopt the same position as the Bush administration on the issue of global warming.

[TexasObserver]

22. So much for the "no lobbyists" pledge.

This is a sellout, pure and simple.

[Bandit]

24. Take their best people and put them on our side

With people like this person, it is all about money. I doubt they care if the world gets polluted or not so they work for the brand. Now the brand is America, so a brilliant lawyer will fight for us.

[Individualist]

25. and appoints a neocon as ambassador to China

This administration may as well have a sign saying progressives need not apply.

[LWolf]

27. "Progressives need not apply"

I believe I heard that between the lines back in January of '08 when he admired Reagan for "changing the trajectory" of the nation away from the "excesses of the 60s and 70s."

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=3263

This might just be the 200th time I've mentioned that here on DU since then, not that anyone gave a shit as they marched him to the convention.

[Pat Riot]

31. Noticed that too

At the time I thought he was just trying to be "a uniter, not a divider" - you know, everybody was comparing Obama to Lincoln so the Reps had to cling to their old Reagan worship. I thought Obama was just giving a nod to that to make them feel better. I still think keeping Gates for defense was a good idea, but these last two appointments are a wtf?? moment. It's so disillusioning and disheartening I don't want to try to wrap my head around it.

[readmoreoften]

34. Yes but people were already addicted to the brand and didn't want to hear the loopholes

His appropriation of Shepard Fairy's appropriation of grassroots/leftist stencil gave him a lefty patina. It was incredibly painful for me to watch everyone fall into this rabbit hole and bend over backwards trying to explain what he "really" meant. Now many in the democratic/left wing of the party have buyers remorse. The reality is that REAL CHOICE isn't when you get to pull the lever between two corporate funded candidates--it's when you have power over the forces that create your choices at the onset.

I have to admit that he has backtracked from his most "liberal" positions at a faster rate than even I expected. I expected some pretenses to continue. I thought we'd be where we are by sometime next year.

[LWolf]

35. Good points. nt

[Reterr]

28. This is NOT what we voted for

You know at least the Clintons started off at least pretending to care about issues that matter to progressives like health care reform and then went on to do bad shit like NAFTA.

[datasuspect]

29. oh man, all i can do is just laugh

jeez.

[omega minimo]

30. Reagan/Bush Reagan/Bush Bush Bush Clinton Clinton Bush Bush Obama/Clinton

[DU GrovelBot]

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