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Environmental groups urge Louisiana officials to oppose One Lake Project | Louisiana

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www.thecentersquare.com – By Jacob Mathews | The Center Square – 2024-06-25 11:50:00

(The Center Square) — Louisiana officials heard from groups opposed to a taxpayer-funded flood control lake on the Pearl River in Jackson, Mississippi on Tuesday.

The Lower Pearl River Basin Task Force in Louisiana held a hearing to hear about the potential environmental impacts on the project, which a draft environmental impact statement says could cost up to $2.1 billion.   

Andrew Whitehurst, a representative from Healthy Gulf, a program dedicated to preserving the Gulf’s natural resources, argued the One Lake Project would adversely affect Pearl River and its habitats through Mississippi and Louisiana. 

According to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the river drains an area of 8,760 square miles consisting of all, or parts, of 23 counties in Mississippi and parts of three Louisiana parishes. The Corps is hosting a comment period on the project that will end on July 22. 

Along with three meetings in Mississippi, the Corps will host a meeting in Slidell on July 11 at 11 a.m. at the Slidell Municipal Auditorium. 

A draft environmental impact statement issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on June 7 indicated while that the agency wouldn’t support the full One Lake project, it would support other flood control measures that could include a smaller lake. 

The Rankin-Hinds Drainage District, an entity of the state of Mississippi created to prevent flooding in the two counties, supports the project. District officials say the lake would not only prevent flooding in Jackson, but provide an urban waterfront that would increase city revenues and provide recreational opportunities. 

However, Whitehurst says the dredging and damming required to create the lake would cause wetland and wildlife habitat destruction that would be extremely environmentally damaging. 

Whitehurst said the dredging near toxic waste sites might loosen some slurry and leachate down the river system. He also said the lives of multiple turtle and fish species whose habitat near the current banks would be endangered. 

A project to fix the flooding in the area has been in talks for years and the One Lake Project has been working its way through committees and boards since 2011, according to Pearl River Keeper’s website, an organization devoted to preserving the Pearl River.

Louisiana lawmakers, representing constituents that could face downstream effects from One Lake, were opposed to this project as recently as 2018. Whitehurst urged the task force to recommend a new statement from the Legislature against the project due to the urgency of its decision. 

“It’s desired that this whole process wrap up with a record of decision on this EIS this fall. They’re not waiting,” Whitehurst said. 

Whitehurst also suggested that there is not enough economic explanations made to justify the impact to businesses on the river. 

“It’s something that they’re worried about,” Whitehurst said of those businesses who rely on the river remaining in its original state. “There’s not a cost or economic appendix released with this document. That’s one of the first things we looked for.”

Healthy Gulf says a combination of levee setbacks to widen a constricted floodplain, plus some improvements to existing levees along with floodplain buyouts could be employed to relieve flooding in Jackson without blocking the channel, destroying habitats or causing flow problems downstream. The Rankin-Hinds Drainage District has opposed this plan, saying it would be too expensive. 

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News from the South - Louisiana News Feed

Carbon capture hearings will hear from concerned residents, industry | Louisiana

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www.thecentersquare.com – By Nolan McKendry | The Center Square – (The Center Square – ) 2025-04-25 16:45:00

(The Center Square) − Louisiana Rep. Joseph Orgeron, R-Jefferson, is taking a less cautious position on carbon capture — acknowledging local concerns while defending the role the technology can play in reducing industrial emissions.

Orgeron will vice chair a high-stakes showdown over the future of carbon capture in Louisiana at the House Natural Resources and Environment Committee on Tuesday, where lawmakers are set to hear a sweeping package of bills aimed at reining in the state’s growing carbon sequestration industry.

“I sympathize with those constituents who are looking for the opt-out option—to not have it in their parish,” Orgeron told The Center Square in an interview. “But I represent an area basically awash in hydrocarbon harvesting from the early ’50s, ’60s. We’ve had our environment kind of shared with the hydrocarbon harvesting industry, so we’re a little bit more open to it.”

Orgeron chairs the state’s Clean Hydrogen Task Force and has positioned himself as an advocate for low-carbon technologies that can reduce emissions without sidelining Louisiana’s traditional energy sector.

“In Louisiana, we have the hydrocarbons, like natural gas, that can then be cracked to make the hydrogen feedstock that’s needed,” Orgeron said. “And rather than release [the carbon] into the environment… basically capture that carbon and sequester it safely in underground pore space that we also have a large amount of.”

Still, he acknowledged the desire of some parishes to block carbon capture developments and said he would support local opt-outs — though not without consequence.

“They would have to relinquish any and all benefits, monetary benefits, that they may receive from the added space, the added industry… that may come from carbon sequestration in the state,” Orgeron said.

The legislation, driven largely by Republican lawmakers from western and central Louisiana, targets everything from eminent domain powers to public notice requirements, with an emphasis on strengthening landowner rights and local control.

Rep. Rodney Schamerhorn, R-Beauregard, said in a previous interview that past land seizures for projects like Fort Polk and the Toledo Bend Reservoir have left lasting scars in his region, fueling deep mistrust of new carbon capture initiatives. While many residents initially supported the technology, he said they now feel misled about its purpose and risks.

The committee will also take up House Bill 4 by Rep. Charles Owen, HB353 by Rep. Shane Mack, HB522 by Rep. Danny McCormick, HB568 by Rep. R. Dewith Carrier, and Senate Bill 73 by Sen. Mike Reese.

The wave of proposals comes amid mounting scrutiny of carbon infrastructure, particularly in light of a 2020 pipeline rupture in Satartia, Miss. that released a cloud of CO2 into a nearby town when a landslide hit, causing residents to collapse or suffer seizures from oxygen deprivation.

Industry leaders are pushing back.

“This is a business opportunity,” said Tommy Faucheux, president of the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association. “If we lose that, the investments — and the jobs — will go elsewhere.”

“These CCS projects and the associated development could transform communities in ways they’ve never seen,” Faucheux said. “We’re talking about economic development in parts of Louisiana that haven’t traditionally benefited from the oil and gas footprint.”

“The industry has been spending a lot of time engaging with communities, with land owners,” he added. “The companies want to work and come to agreements with all the landowners. They want to have conversations about pipeline routes, for instance. The use of eminent domain has not been something we’ve prioritized or really led with. I think it has been really more the exception than the standard.”

 

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Eradication of divisive medical education policies applauded | North Carolina

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www.thecentersquare.com – By Alan Wooten | The Center Square – (The Center Square – ) 2025-04-25 15:59:00

(The Center Square) – Eliminating policies in higher education that U.S. Rep. Dr. Greg Murphy believes are detrimental to the best in health care is a step in the right direction, the North Carolina Republican says.



U.S. Rep. Dr. Greg Murphy, R-N.C.




“I applaud the Trump administration for rooting out the discriminatory and demeaning requirements of DEI in medication education,” Murphy said, referring to diversity, equity and inclusion. “These practices reward political activism and not merit. Patients deserve better.

“Liberal apologists played with patient’s lives to push a progressive discriminatory agenda. Doctors need to be selected as the brightest and hardest working, not on identity politics.”

Murphy’s assessment came a day after President Donald Trump’s executive order entitled Reforming Accreditation to Strengthen Higher Education.

The third graph of Section 2 reads in part, “The attorney general and the secretary of Education, in consultation with the secretary of Health and Human Services, shall investigate and take appropriate action to terminate unlawful discrimination by American medical schools or graduate medical education entities that is advanced by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education or the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education or other accreditors of graduate medical education, including unlawful ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ requirements under the guise of accreditation standards.”

Murphy, a practicing urologist, has repeatedly chastised the medical schools promoting diversity policies over merit.

Earlier this month, he responded to a writing in the New England Journal of Medicine entitled “Advancing health equity in the climate crisis – A climate justice curriculum for resident physicians.” He said it was “yet another example of irresponsible leadership in medical education.”

Murphy opined, “Instead of learning to take care of patients, medical residents are studying this nonsense. No wonder the questions about NIH funding are being asked.”

The National Institutes of Health operates with a budget of $47 billion. For worldwide biomedical research, it is the largest public funder.

Murphy believes the American health care system “is killing the patient” with the middlemen, including the education component.

He’s also spoken out on the Association of American Medical Colleges, saying it has been “exposed for their racially divisive lies.” A significant infant-mortality study, The National Review reported, was edited to preserve racial perspective. The story says “researchers deliberately obscured a data point about white babies under the care of Black physicians because ‘it undermines the narrative.’”

“Falsifying research,” Murphy said, “is why Americans have lost trust in medical education. All those involved in this scandal need to resign.”

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Feds launch investigation into UC Berkeley for not reporting CCP funding | California

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www.thecentersquare.com – Kenneth Schrupp – (The Center Square – ) 2025-04-25 14:45:00

(The Center Square) – The United States Department of Education announced it is investigating the University of California, Berkeley for not reporting significant funding from the Chinese government.

“The Biden-Harris Administration turned a blind eye to colleges and universities’ legal obligations by deprioritizing oversight and allowing foreign gifts to pour onto American campuses,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. “I have great confidence in my Office of General Counsel to investigate these matters fully, and they will begin by thoroughly examining U.C. Berkeley’s apparent failure to fully and accurately disclose significant funding received from foreign sources.” 

A 2023 House of Representatives investigation found Berkeley violated Section 117 of the Higher Education Act, which requires disclosure of foreign funding over $250,000, saying Chinese funding of American research institutions facilitates transfer of American-funded technology with military applications to the Chinese government.

“U.S.-Chinese joint education institutes like U.C. Berkeley’s partnership with Tsinghua University, and the University of Pittsburgh’s partnership with Sichuan University, serve as conduits for transferring critical U.S. technologies and expertise to China, including to entities linked to China’s defense machine and the security apparatus it uses to facilitate human rights abuses,” said Select Committee on the CCP in a report. 

At the time, Berkeley told the committee that it is “relinquishing all ownership” in the Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute. 

It also cited a Trump administration executive order directing the DOE to launch Section 117 investigations to secure compliance with reporting requirements that must be followed to continue receiving federal grant funding. 

In its announcement last week of a similar Section 117 investigation into Harvard University, DOE noted, “Noncompliance risks Department of Justice enforcement, including civil actions, or loss of federal funding eligibility.” 

The Department of Education says that “Berkeley’s responses revealed a fundamental misunderstanding regarding its Section 117 reporting obligations” in justifying its renewed investigation.

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