This week, the Supreme Court approved the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to regulate Greenhouse Gas emissions, but restricted the EPA's reach. Many commentators lauded the vote, and pointed out the ruling allowed the EPA to go after 83% of those polluters, although the EPA tried to target 86% of them.
I, and tens of thousands of other folks, live within 2.5 miles of the biggest Greenhouse gas polluter in Oregon. It now escapes regulation for most of its emissions, some of which are also virulently hazardous.
Almost all of us use a phone, a Kindle, or maybe the very computer upon which you are reading this diary, with "Intel Inside."
Read below the fold about what Intel does outside, and what the Court ruling does for Intel's neighbors.
Intel operates a computer wafer and chip fabrication complex on hundreds of acres about 15 miles west of Portland Oregon. Intel employs 17,000 folks there, including many immigrants working under H-1B visas. Every level of government gives Intel multi-million dollar tax breaks to keep them happy.
Intel's fabrication process requires the use, and emissions of over 100 different chemicals, including the most aggressive acids, caustics, and solvents on earth. Many of these chemicals are a combination of fluoride and other chemicals, with names like Trifluoromethane.
Some of these fluorinated compounds are 10,000 times more potent greenhouse gasses than the carbon dioxide that coal fired power plants spew.
Some of these chemicals also degrade during use and produce the highly dangerous chemical vapors of hydrofluoric acid. Intel stores and uses thousands of pounds of raw hydrofluoric acid (HF) also.
Exposure to concentrated HF acid will burn through your skin on its way to dissolve your bones.
For almost 40 years, Intel lied to State regulators and claimed it didn't emit any fluorides. It's like claiming you drive a car but never put any gasoline in it.
Last year, when Intel filed paperwork to build a new fabrication plant, they finally admitted they did emit fluoride. Intel's abrupt disclosure angered many of their neighbors. This giant company didn't even know what was going out its stacks for decades? Asses!
A neighborhood group engaged a couple of competent public interest lawyers, and filed a Citizens' Court Suit. When an agency fails to punish a polluter, in some instances any affected citizen can sue the polluter themselves.
Intel began negotiating with the citizens, including me, and belatedly filed new permit applications, including an application to emit Greenhouse Gasses.
I'd been involved in several Citizens' suits before, often with volunteer attorneys. It's easy, and manifestly unfair, to ride an unpaid lawyer hard and put them up wet. One case I had lasted eight years. I had a volunteer attorney abandon another Citizens' Suit case to go into a mental hospital, the pressure was so great.
Intel was anxious to settle, so I supported an agreement, to which everyone agreed, that wrapped up the situation in less than a year.
I knew we could then lay in wait for the Greenhouse Gas permit, and make our case that Intel should reduce their pollution by substituting less toxic chemicals with less greenhouse gas potency.
After we settled, Intel paid a fine to the State that was about two minutes worth of their annual profits.
But today I learned the Supreme Court has ruled there will never be a greenhouse gas permit review for companies like Intel. We'll never have a regulatory lever to force Intel to get rid of the hydrofluoric acid that endangers everyone for miles, and to use less harmful chemicals to etch and wash their wafers and chips.
Thanks for reading, I'll respond to comments in the late afternoon.