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WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court turned down a plea by environmental groups to rein in the Bush administration’s power to waive laws and regulations to speed construction of a fence along the U.S.-Mexican border.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has used authority given to him by Congress in 2005 to ignore environmental and other laws and regulations to move forward with hundreds of miles of fencing in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas.
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The concept of a border fence took on new life after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, which revived the heated immigration debate. Intelligence officials have said the holes along the southwest border could provide places for terrorists to enter the country.
Congress failed to pass comprehensive immigration reform when it had the chance in 2007. Thompson said, “Without a comprehensive plan, this fence is just another quick fix.”
Earlier this year, Chertoff waived more than 30 laws and regulations in an effort to finish building 670 miles of fence along the southwest border. Administration officials have said that invoking the legal waivers — which Congress authorized in 1996 and 2005 laws — will cut through bureaucratic red tape and sidestep environmental laws that currently stand in the way of fence construction.
Environmentalists have said the fence puts already endangered species such as two types of wild cats — the ocelot and the jaguarundi — in even more danger. The fence would prevent them from swimming across the Rio Grande to mate.
I’m more concerned about the other “wild cats” coming across to mate ; )
we have to pay the bill
puts a whole new meaning to “spaying and nuetering your pets”
how’s that for a environmental concern.
No credible securities analysis could conclude that the fencing of our Mexico border will make U.S. citizens safer OR keep dangerous illegals out.
Zero consequences for those hiring illegals retains the enticements to migrate. Only the hungry and the critters on the margins can be hurt by fences- human and animal.
The fencing is an empty symbol, but not to the wild cats who would ‘swim to mate’. Anyone would swim to mate, and should, and I certainly would.
Oh! and America be turning Brown whether you fence or not, paleface!
Ask the Chinese sometime about what a great job the Great Wall did keeping the Mongols from invading.
the berlin wall redux…that worked for a long while, but ultimately proved to be a disaster.
it’s more about keeping people in rather than out. hence the draconian “your papers please” requirements at what were once open borders.
the “wall” is nothing more than the physical manifestation of the propaganda to inspire hate and xenophobia. it will ultimately be proven an ill-advised boondoggle, just as the berlin wall was.
I wish someone would build a big fence around the White House. I would be so much nicer if what happens in the White House would stay in the White House.
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June 25 (Bloomberg) — A divided U.S. Supreme Court slashed the $2.5 billion punitive damage award against Exxon Mobil Corp. for the 1989 Valdez disaster to $507.5 million, ending a 19-year legal saga over the worst oil spill in U.S. history.
Writing for the court, Justice David Souter said the spill was caused by recklessness, rather than intentional wrongdoing, and wasn’t part of a company effort to “augment profit.” The spill dumped 11 million gallons of oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound, devastating wildlife and local businesses.
Souter said the maximum punitive damage award in that type of case should be about equal to compensatory damages — actual economic harm suffered by the victims. That level “is a fair upper limit in such maritime cases,” he wrote.
The award will go to a group that originally consisted of 33,000 commercial fishermen, seafood processors, landowners, native Alaskans and small businesses. The ruling slashes their recovery of punitive damages from about $75,000 apiece to $15,000.
Today’s ruling adds to a body of Supreme Court decisions that have tightened the limits on punitive damages.
Exxon Mobil Profits Soar
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."