I was just in St. James Parish, LA interviewing local residents about the overwhelming pollution in Cancer Alley. I don’t think most people understand how bad it is. I didn’t.
It's hard to explain how widespread the repercussions of overturning Chevron deference will be. Even if you narrow the scope down to tech policy, you're left wrangling a super-explainer on a friday afternoon www.theverge.com/24188365/che...
No one goes outside from 4-6PM because the smell is everywhere, like burning tires and mustard hanging thick in the air. I smelled it. I saw the flares from the burning stacks, and the storage containers sitting 300 feet back from someone’s backdoor.
I held a woman’s hand while she burst into tears and walked me through a patch of grass and dirt where her ancestors were buried, the same spot these petrochemical companies want to build a new plant. The people who live there, mostly Black people of course, are being sacrificed to industry.
Same in Texas. And all of this ostensibly while there are means to regulate. The means to regulate is not the same as regulating, as these families know.
I suspect the wealthy will always have things regulated in their area and the poor never will.
