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Air Pollution in Louisville, Rule of Law in New Jersey

by Theresa Fritz Camoriano

Item #1 Air Pollution:  On Friday, The C-J published a front page story with the following headline:  “Jefferson tops air-pollution list for Southeast”, and included large photos of a coal-fired electrical generating plant and of the back ends of automobiles.  Anyone who did not study the article carefully would come away with the idea that Louisville has the dirtiest air in the Southeast, and this severe pollution is caused by electrical generating plants and automobiles.  However, upon closer study, one would find that the ranking is not based on the air quality alone but rather on some mysterious mix of air quality and the numbers and ages of the people living in the area.  So, for example, an area with cleaner air but more elderly people would rank worse than an area with dirtier air but fewer elderly people.  Further, the data used for the ranking were 4-8 years old. 

The photograph of the supposed pollution rising from the generating plant shows steam, or hot water, which is not a pollutant.  And the automobiles are cleaner than ever, thanks to pollution control equipment installed at the factory.  Buried in the article is a statement from Art Williams, saying that “Jefferson County rose to the top of the list largely because of its industrial emissions and its relatively larger number of younger and older residents.”  Williams said that “diesel emissions also were deemed significant, perhaps…because of heavy truck use on the county’s three major interstates:  71, 64 and 65.”  So, from Williams’ statement, we can deduce that our ranking had as much or more to do with our population mix as with the quality of our air, and, to the extent that traffic was involved, it was primarily diesel truck traffic, not automobile traffic.

Despite its front page placement and sensationalist headline, this article really tells us very little of any use.  It doesn’t tell us how our air quality ranks relative to other cities or whether the air includes levels of pollutants that are likely to harm our health.  The bits of information it does provide are very misleading and outdated.  This use of pseudo-facts to confuse and mislead people can result in very harmful public policies, so beware.

Item #2 Rule of Law in New Jersey:  Sen. Torricelli dropped out of the New Jersey Senate race fewer than 51 days before the election.  According to New Jersey’s law, there cannot be a substitution of candidates that close to the election.  However, the plain meaning of the law didn’t prevent the New Jersey Supreme Court from ruling unanimously that the Democrats could substitute Frank Lautenberg as their candidate.  What this means is that there is no separation of powers and no rule of law in New Jersey.  In other words, it doesn’t matter what laws the people’s elected representatives pass, because the Supreme Court will make its own laws as it sees fit in order to get the outcome it wants.  This is an extremely bad precedent.  Regardless of whether the members of the New Jersey Supreme Court like the law, it is their job to uphold the law as it is plainly written.  They have failed in upholding their responsibility, and the people of New Jersey should be very concerned about this development.  When there is no rule of law, there is instead a rule by brute force.  Even those who are currently in power, including the members of the Supreme Court, should be very frightened by such a development, which leaves everyone vulnerable to the whims of a few powerful people.

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