Around Orange County and the inland empire, but in l. A. Itself, do you have a goal of what you think is reasonable to sign up over the next year or so . Im striving for 220,000. You are. If that takes us a series of years, so be it, but were putting rhettthe resources behind this. It pays us back many times over. It makes business sense first and foremost but it also makes ethical sense. You alluded to this before but cities may intervene on the other side . Were looking to have a lot of other cities who stepped up saying they want to be a part of it, too. We dont have, quote unquote, local government or the federal part of the government saying were against this because if just a few voices decided to challenge, we think we can get a coalition of cities much larger and that is an important counterbalance for any court. They may win this first round judging by what ive heard from the court its in but it will be appealed, of course. As its being appealed, its very important for america
Issue. I commend the epa for working on this rule. Do you have a conference that this final rule is protective of health and the environment, are there gaps in the protections under this rule that would need to be filled by legislation . I believe the rule is very strong and very protective. And in terms of any gaps we dont believe there are any gaps. We believe all the risks are put in place. All the rigorous technical information. What about beneficial reuse . Will this rule restrict beneficial reuse in anyway to stigmatize coal ash . We dont believe it will. The real clarity is not subject to the rule. But still i expect were going to hear from the second panel that legislation is needed to remove epas authority to regulate cole ash under subtitle c in the future. What factors might lead epa to some day regulate coal ash under subtitle c. To be clear we had proposed an approach under d and c. We made a decision under d the seat proposal is no longer on the table. Like any other rule
They wrote that thing, to protect us from that sort of thing. Okay, chris. Chris, i guess one of the issues i would have with your assessment is we have cut the deficits by more than half of what they were when george bush was president. The dow was about 7,000. It exceeded 17,000. The economy was up as i said, over 12 . Corporate profits up over 46 and so the suggestion that these policies were bad for america just frankly doesnt make sense to me. Now, what does is that those policies stopped the collapse of our economy but now weve got to build a foundation for people who have been left behind. For those middle class workers who have been looking at their pay stubs saying i dont see those statistics. And thats why i believe and why democrats believe, the focus has to be the middle class. They deserve a break because my sense is particularly in any district, people say if youre really rich, the government is there for you and if youre really poor, the government will help you but if y
Is that agricultural employers dont like it very much. Because it includes theyre required to pay temporary workers more than they would have to pay u. S. Workers because its designed to protect u. S. Workers. And so agricultural employers have found it cumbersome and inconvenient to use. And because we dont really enforce employer sanction laws theyve gone around it and hired a lot of unauthorized workers instead. The h2b visa is for lowskilled nonagriculture workers in temporary jobs. The reason i dont consider it a fix and employers are willing to use that because it offers less protections than h2a to workers. The reason its a limited fix is that its only limited to seasonal jobs. So if you want to hire a worker to work in your restaurant or your factory or, you know your Service Sector job as a janitor, none of those jobs are covered. It has to be a job that is timelimited and its limited to 65,000 visas a year. So it only covers it basically covers people in truly Seasonal Work l
Neighborhoods. This situation is made worse because most of these pits are decades old and their infrastructure is rotting. We have had two catastrophic failures from coal ash in the south king stones, tennessee and duke energy in the river and North Carolina and virginia. One local water system is being forced to abandon public water drinking wells. Fish have been killed in the hundreds of thousands. Property owners have been affected and groundwater has been contaminated with substances like arsenic. My main point is this today. The congress should not take away should not take away the rights of local communities to protect themselves from this dangerous coal ash storage. The congress should not leave the future of these people to government beaurocracies alone. The citizens right to force a new epa rule is essential. Now, what we have seen in the southeast is clear. The state agencies have not effectively enforced the law against these politically powerful entities. Let me give you