Commissioner: We Need To Balance the Interests of People With "Corporate Citizens" By Given Corporations Everything They Want

The Commissioner who is in charge of deciding whether Ameren should be allowed to build a toxic coal ash landfill in the middle of the Missouri River floodplain is hinting that he's going to decide against the wishes of area residents:

“If we’re not going to approve this, then I think we have to give them some direction, or at least something other than we don’t want it.” Presiding Commissioner John Griesheimer tells KMOX it’s his opinion there has to be some partnership and balance between residents and corporate citizens. “That plant has been there for 40 years and it’s been producing fly ash. There’s two big fly ash ponds there now. A lot of these, most of the people who are complaining moved into the area after the power plant was there.”

In other words, the way to find a balance between residents and "corporate citizens" is to give "corporate citizens" whatever they want. Or, to put it more charitably, if those pesky residents oppose having toxic sludge in their backyard, it's up to them to come up with a perfect proposal that explains where the toxic sludge should go instead. After all, it was their decision and not Ameren's to produce the toxic sludge in the first place. Oh wait, no it wasn't.

National Coal Council Cancels Meeting Because of Wash U Student Protesters

Wow, this is a pretty cool story from StudLife:

A National Coal Council meeting in downtown St. Louis was canceled following a protest from Washington University Green Action.

Directly after council members had finished taking roll call on Tuesday, students from Green Action and Missourians Organized for Reform and Empowerment entered the meeting at the Hilton St. Louis at the Ballpark. The students unfurled a banner proclaiming, “Coal is never clean” and sang, “Clean coal is a dirty lie.”

“Clean coal doesn’t exist, and we’re opposed to the lie that there’s any way to use coal safely without hurting communities,” said Green Action member Harry Alper, a senior.

The group was escorted from the hotel by two officers from the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. The Hilton’s head of security had not yet arrived at the event.

According to Officer Mana, the situation was “no big deal,” and students were polite and peaceful as they left the building.

According to the article, they decided to cancel the meeting, but still stuck around to eat their private lunches. So why have a meeting in the first place? Oh yeah, because they have money to burn.

Read the whole thing.