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Louisiana EPA conflict of interest

tschuetz
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Facing a pivotal federal investigation into Louisiana’s relationship with petro-chemical companies, the state’s attorney general hired lawyers who were simultaneously representing one of the main corporations at the center of the investigation, documents reveal.

The revelations, contained in documents released under public records requests, have led to allegations of a major conflict of interest and come just weeks after the Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] dropped its civil rights investigation.

Internal emails, contracts and payments, show that the office of the attorney general, Jeff Landry, hired two lawyers to enter closed-door negotiations with the EPA during the 14-month civil rights investigation. But John King and Tim Hardy were also representing the Taiwanese chemicals firm Formosa in separate litigation, challenging a decision to revoke the company’s state air permits. (Moran and Sneath 2023).

Formosa's "bidding war" between Texas and Louisiana

tschuetz
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In the 1980s, Formosa Plastics Corporation purchased financially struggling petrochemical plants in Delaware, Texas, and Louisiana. The company subsequently shifted its operations to Texas and Louisiana, where a competitive bidding process ensued between the two states, both of which were known for industry-friendly policies (Tubilewicz 2021). As political scientist Tubilewicz (2021, 16) has argued, the politics surrounding Formosa's investments in these states were not purely motivated by profit but were also shaped by the ongoing struggles of sub-state actors such as politicians and NGOs over issues of internationalization and representation in global affairs.

An example of this can be seen in Formosa's attempt to build a rayon fiber plant in Louisiana's St. John Parish in the late 1990s, an area also known as "Cancer Alley." Protests broke out due to concerns about massive tax exemptions, displacement of Black residents, and the plant's location on the historic Whitney Plantation (Tubilewicz 2021, 11). However, the project was eventually abandoned due to declining market demand and delays. In addition, the local St. John Governor was indicted for illegal industrial rezoning of land around the plantation and receiving $200,000 in real estate commission (Tubilewicz 2021, 11).

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Zackery.White
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"Data collection: Gather submissions from anyone, anytime, anywhere"

"Data management: Manage and triage reports with filters and workflows"

"Data visualization: Map submissions and chart what happened"

"Automatic alerts: Receive alerts about changes and update"

"Enterprise systems:Let our team help you build and scale your deployment"

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a_chen
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The Ushahidi Ecosystem has aimed to serve people that have limited access to the world, for example, areas around (East) Africa (“hard-to-reach places”).  One of the event the platform focused on is the post-election violence in Kenya 2008, whereas people have raised their voice to the world via the handy technological tools.  

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a_chen
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Most of the partners of the platform (world leading foundations/organisations: e.g. Resilience Network Initiative) have used the tools to increase the access on relevant information in order to assist the citizens/populations that need helps. Furthermore, to protect marginalised communities.

“Anyone can use Ushahidi, but traditionally it has been a tool used by Crisis Responders, Human Rights Reporters, and Citizens & Governments (such as election monitoring or corruption reporters).”

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a_chen
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“Ushahidi provides open source crowdsourcing software for responding to crisis, helping human rights, and increasing transparency.”

For the event of post-election violence in Kenya 2008, map reports are created to flow the voices.

With the mobile apps (iOS/Android) of the system, data collection can gather other’s voice from multiple sources such as SMS, emails, Twitter and RSS. These data can also be managed and formed into visual charts and maps. Other functions such as alerts and customer services are also provided.

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a_chen
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The received data can be managed and visualised into charts or map tiles (e.g. open street maps or satellite maps). The data is visualized in the panel of “Visualize Your Story “with four modes of visual features.

  • Branded Deployment
  • Map Mode
  • Timeline Mode
  • Activity Analytics Mode