Environmental Groups Take Actions Against Luminant

Energy Futures Holding Corp. and its subordinate, Liminant Generation Company, and LLC have made 38,000 violations of the Clean Air Act. On behalf of the Sierra Club, Earthjustice and the Environmental Integrity Project are threatening to sue. They are targeting the Big Brown power plant located in Freestone County and the Monticello power plant located in Titus County. According to company data, the Big Brown power plant violated its opacity limits over 20,000 times in the past five years and its particulate matter limits 370 times in the past three and a half years.  Three of Luminant's coal plants:  Big Brown, Monticello, and Martin Lake, are the top three industrial polluters in Texas among nearly 2,000 industrial plants. According to data Luminant filed in 2009 with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, these three power plants make up more than 25 percent of the state's industrial air pollution and more than 46 percent of the state's coal plant pollution.

                So why hasn’t the government taken any action to put this polluting to a stop?  Erin Fonken, the Environmental Integrity Project attorney states that "Breathing excessive levels of harmful air pollution should not be a way of life for the people who live and work near Luminant's plants; Luminant must be held accountable for its thousands of violations and clean up its act." Someone must do something about these violations before the whole world becomes completely polluted. Sierra Club and Earthjustice are taking the iniciative and taking control of the situation. They hope to influence the government to do the same and support their actions to sue the companies. "It's high time for Luminant to act like a good neighbor and stop dumping harmful pollution on its neighbors within the state and outside the state," said Earthjustice attorney Suma Peesapati.

                

Bums Take on New York

                 Ashley Herzog, the author of Feminism vs. Women gives a powerful apposing front against the “occupy wall street” movement. She claims that the lazy unemployed group is demanding that the government hand them money, health care, and education without lifting a finger.  Herzog does not hold back in the slightest regarding the “thousands of ungrateful losers,” and imply that they have Narcissistic Personality Disorders.

                I completely agree with the author, these protesters should stop complaining and start working. There are so many working young adults that are paying their way through school, and yet there are those who expect to receive everything on a silver platter.  It is understandable that sometimes there are just not enough jobs to go around, as Herzog has stated in her blog. However, this group of activists decides to spend their time arguing and complaining that they are being treated unfairly, instead of job hunting.

                The author gets her point across in an obvious and concise way.  She is very convincing and can easily get the reader on her side. I was immediately outraged by the “occupy wall street” movement and also disappointed in my fellow Americans.  It is astonishing to even think of the notion that one can live through life without contributing to their country in some shape or form. All previous generations have been very hard working, so it’s insane to think that such a generation now could exist. Ashley Herzog even questions who raised these people to have such a sense of entitlement. To read her opinion yourself, go to her blog in the Texas Insider.