Tesla must fix air quality problems at its electric vehicle manufacturing facility in the San Francisco Bay Area after racking up more than 100 violations for allegedly releasing toxic emissions into the atmosphere over the last five years, an air quality board said Tuesday.
The Bay Area Air Quality Management District planned to issue a written abatement order later this week after Tuesday’s announcement. Each of the 112 violations can emit hundreds of pounds of illegal air pollution, the board said.
The plant is in the city of Fremont, in the East Bay, and the agency’s independent hearing board pointed to the facility’s paint shop operations as a specific problem. The board has ordered Tesla to hire an independent consultant and develop a proposed implementation plan for approval, which it then must execute to stop the toxic emissions.
They’re doing the exact same thing in Texas. The water near one of their facilities smells really bad.
Yeah but in texas they’ll get a tax break for that.
Hahaha just kidding, of course they don’t pay taxes there.
The Gulf is severely polluted because of Texas lack of regulations.
Sure. Texas is a blight in multiple dimensions.
But theres good people there too, so. Let’s hope we collectively get our s—t together.
Fine Tesla! What is the god damned problem here?
In this day and age there needs to be a non-corporate independent panel that categorizes by type and sets a steep price on each lb or kg of air pollution.
That way when this shit happens they get hit with a bill high enough it can’t be just added to the business as operating costs.
Give them x days to pay and charge interest like a corp would do to normal people. Having the gov’t back this panel would be better.
Pass laws locally in the areas these plants exist and start there.
We have a toothless EPA that can determine the problems. Every time they attempt to impose a fine, more power is taken from them. The newly conservative SCOTUS took power plant regulations out of their control just two years ago.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/30/us/epa-carbon-emissions-scotus.html
Don’t worry, SCOTUS keeps going exactly how you describe
Fuck. Well, this is what we get for thinking we can change the government with abstention.
Seems like a local or state regulation - epa has no jurisdiction
Congress writes the law, then the EPA supports local and state agencies like the DEP in defining processes to uphold it. If the EPA doesn’t have the authority, then it’s likely the state programs don’t either. It would be up to the governor to empower the DEP or other local environmental enforcement agencies to have more authority than the EPA.
They’ll spend $5M to fight the $30K fine for this, I’m sure.
I honestly don’t know why anyone would manufacture/paint vehicles in a place with VOC regulations in the first place, and with their history of smog California has some strict VOC regulations.
You can use low VOC paint and institute capture systems all you want, but if you’re doing it on an industrial scale that “low VOC” paint will add up real quick.
Why doesn’t the government just force a permanent shutdown until these problems are fixed? The government is allowing this to happen.
The EPA has been left completely toothless by SCOTUS.
Like they do with restaurants. You get a bad grade or something like this? Auto shutdown until problem is fixed. It’s a community health hazard.
Unfortunately, a lot of the times restaurants are allowed to continue to operate even with serious health code violations as long as they promise to fix them before the checkup visit. It’s rare that they get shut down on the spot.
Just look at what happened when they tried that during COVID. Elon is a loud idiot who’ll screech about how he’s being oppressed, and unfortunately still has a lot of equally loud idiots as followers who will gladly harass the underpaid government employees who actually have to enforce the shutdown on his behalf.
…and the agency’s independent hearing board pointed to the facility’s paint shop operations as a specific problem.
Good thing that won’t affect the Cybertruck, the widely adored and flawless jewel in Tesla’s crown!
Next time you are in court, remind the judge this is only your 99th violation.
