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Articles by Sue Sturgis

Sue Sturgis is the editorial director of Facing South, the online magazine of the nonprofit Institute for Southern Studies in Durham, N.C.

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By the numbers: The myth of ‘job-killing’ regulations

Sue Sturgis Economics

This post originally appeared at Facing South.

3 — Number of weeks straight last month that Republicans used their weekly radio address to attack government regulations for killing jobs

0.3 — Percent of people who lost their jobs in 2010 because of government regulation

25 — Percent who lost their jobs because of a drop in business demand

More than 1,000 — Number of temporary workers hired by energy giant AEP to build a pollution scrubber for one of its coal-fired power plants in order to meet Clean Air Act regulations

40 — Number of full-time employees the plant then hired to monitor the scrubber

1,600 — Number of temporary jobs created by installing scrubbers at two PSE&G coal plants

24 — Number of permanent jobs the installation created

35 — Percent increase in boilermaker jobs from 1999 to 2001 alone due to Clean Air Act regulations

200,000 — Number of person-years of labor occupied over the past seven years to comply with just one Clean Air Act standard

1 — Rank of environmental spending among the most labor-intensive of all business expend... Read more

Sue Sturgis Economics

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  • Find out who’s behind the ‘information attacks’ on climate scientists

    This post originally appeared at Facing South. This week, in a courtroom in Prince William County, Va., a hearing will take place that could have implications for the privacy rights of scientists at colleges and universities across the country. It’s part of a lawsuit brought by the American Tradition Institute, a free-market think tank that […]

    Sue Sturgis Accountability

  • Industry-funded climate crank becomes a media darling

    A new study examining TV news coverage of federal proposals to regulate global warming pollution has turned up evidence of journalistic malpractice when it comes to accurately informing viewers about one of the most critical issues of our time. It also shows how the mainstream media turned a relatively obscure climatologist into a star — […]

    Sue Sturgis Science

  • EPA puts off long-promised coal ash protections

    (This post originally appeared at Facing South.) Communities imperiled by poorly managed coal ash won’t be getting help from the federal government any time soon. The Obama administration announced last week that it would not issue long-awaited federal regulations this year after all. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson shared the news in a March […]

    Sue Sturgis Uncategorized

  • On Valentine’s Day, activists show love for mountains with sit-in and march

    Activists in the Kentucky governor’s office.Photo: Chad Berry This post originally appeared at Facing South. This Valentine’s Day marks the fourth day of a historic sit-in at the Kentucky governor’s office calling for an end to mountaintop removal. Meanwhile, thousands of Kentuckians are gathering outside in the state capital of Frankfort for the “I Love […]

    Sue Sturgis Politics