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November 30, 2010

Big Polluters Exempted From Environmental Oversight
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The Center for Public Integrity has revealed the Obama administration
has doled out billions of dollars in stimulus money to oil giant BP and
some of the nation’s other biggest polluters and granted them sweeping
exemptions from the most basic form of environmental oversight. The
administration has awarded more than 179,000 “categorical exclusions” to
stimulus projects funded by federal agencies, freeing those projects
from review under the National Environmental Policy Act. Coal-burning
utilities like Westar Energy and Duke Energy, chemical manufacturer Du
Pont, and ethanol maker Didion Milling are among the other firms with
histories of serious environmental violations that have won blanket NEPA
exemptions.



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