EPA

Will a state be willing to act against the Environmental Protection Agency’s practice of exposing humans to diesel exhaust emissions, when medical authorities and the courts have refused to intervene?

It may be the case in North Carolina, where doctors have conducted such experiments at EPA’s Human Studies Facility in Chapel Hill. A bill introduced at the state legislature would criminalize research that subjects human beings to the inhalation of “fine particulate matter” (called “PM2.5” in regulators’ lingo), which EPA and previous Administrator Lisa Jackson have said causes cancer and even premature deaths. A felony conviction, if the bill is passed as written, would require punishment at the same level as those found guilty of patient abuse, and assault inflicting bodily injury.

Now that he’s been forced out as chairman and CEO of Duke Energy, James Rogers is apparently looking for something else to do, and may now be more receptive to the idea of becoming President Obama’s next Secretary of Energy.

The new speculation, primarily from the Charlotte Business Journal, which is based in Duke’s home city, arose following an interview that Rogers did with Bloomberg News while at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Whereas Rogers used to routinely dismiss suggestions that he might be up for a cabinet post, when asked this time by Bloomberg reporter Tom Keene what he would bring to the job if the president asked him to serve, he was unhesitant.

A former student at the University of North Carolina has come forward publicly to call attention to the disturbing experiments the Environmental Protection Agency has conducted – and is likely still performing – at its Human Studies Facility in Chapel Hill, N.C.

Meanwhile Sen. James Inhofe (pictured), ranking minority member on the Environment and Public Works Committee, has requested that Chairman Barbara Boxer conduct a hearing about EPA’s activities during the current lame-duck session.