Diesel vehicles face charges after UK government loses air pollution case

Drivers of polluting diesel vehicles could soon be charged to enter many city centres across Britain, after the government accepted in the high court on Wednesday that its current plans to tackle the nation’s air pollution crisis were so poor they broke the law.

The humiliating legal defeat is the second in 18 months and ends years of inadequate action and delays to tackle the problem which causes 50,000 early deaths every year.

Ministers are now bound to implement new measures to cut toxic air quickly and the prime minister, Theresa May, indicated the government would this time respond positively: “There is more to do and we will do it.”

The most likely measure is using charges to deter polluting diesel vehicles from “clean air zones” in urban centres, which could be in place next year in London and in 2018 in Birmingham and other cities. Nitrogen dioxide, the pollutant at the heart of the legal case, has been at illegal levels in 90% of the country’s air quality zones since 2010 and largely stems from diesel vehicles.

EU law requires the government to cut the illegal pollution in the “shortest possible time” but legal NGO ClientEarth, which brought the cases, argued the government’s plans ignored many measures that could help achieve this.

In the high court on Wednesday, Mr Justice Garnham agreed. He said it was “remarkable” that ministers knew they were using over-optimistic pollution modelling, based on flawed lab tests of diesel vehicles rather than actual emissions on the road, but proceeded anyway. He also said the law required the protection of health to come above the costs of measures: “I reject any suggestion that the state can have any regard to cost.”

The government said it would not appeal against the decision and agreed in court to discuss with ClientEarth a new timetable for more realistic pollution modelling and the steps needed to bring pollution levels down to legal levels. The parties will return to court in a week but if agreement cannot be reached, the judge could impose a timetable upon the government.

At prime minister’s questions, May said: “We now recognise that Defra [the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs] has to look at the judgment made by the courts and we now have to look again at the proposals we will bring forward. Nobody in this house doubts the importance of the issue of air quality.”

The government’s own estimates show air pollution causes at least £27.5bn a year and in April MPs called the issue a “public health emergency”.

ClientEarth lawyers said they looked forward to working with Defra ministers to make a genuine attempt to rapidly cut pollution to legal limits throughout the UK, including a national network of clean air zones by 2018. “The government will have to be tougher on diesel,” said James Thornton, CEO of ClientEarth. “If you put in clean air zones, it works overnight.”

“Today’s ruling lays the blame at the door of the government for its complacency in failing to tackle the problem quickly and credibly,” said the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who took part in the case. “In so doing they have let down millions of people the length and breadth of the country.” Khan aims to have pollution charging in place in central London by 2017 and across the area within the north and south circular roads by 2019.

The government said it would not appeal against the decision and agreed in court to discuss with ClientEarth a new timetable for more realistic pollution modelling and the steps needed to bring pollution levels down to legal levels. Photograph: Philip Toscano/PA

ClientEarth defeated the government on the same issue at the supreme court in April 2015. Ministers were then ordered to draw up a new action plan, but on Wednesday that new plan was also found to be illegal. The UK’s duty to cut illegal air pollution as quickly as possible derives from EU laws but the action required following the high court defeat will be taken well before Brexit takes place. The government has said it will transfer all EU rules into UK law but, post-Brexit, the government could revise air pollution legislation.

The court defeat is also a blow for the new runway at Heathrow the government has backed. Its approval depended on the effectiveness of the government’s national air pollution plan to meet legal requirements on air quality. The Liberal Democrat leader, Tim Farron, said: “This ruling deals a huge blow to May’s reckless Heathrow expansion plans. The government has already illegally delayed meeting EU pollution limits until 2025 – building a third runway would make the situation even worse.”

Documents revealed during the high court case showed the Treasury had blocked initial government plans to charge polluting diesel vehicles for entering towns and cities blighted by air pollution, due to concern about the political impact of angering motorists.

Both the environment and transport departments recommended changes to vehicle excise duty rates to encourage the purchase of low-pollution vehicles. But the Treasury also rejected that idea, along with a scrappage scheme for older diesels, which ClientEarth supports.

The government’s draft plan had envisaged 16 clean air zones, but in the final plan the number was cut, on the grounds of costs to business, to just five outside London: Birmingham, Leeds, Nottingham, Derby and Southampton. The further cities and towns that now need to introduce clean air zones will be determined by the more realistic pollution modelling ordered by the court on Wednesday.

Keith Taylor, Green party MEP, said: “The failure highlighted by the judge today is as much moral as it is legal: ministers have displayed an extremely concerning attitude of indifference towards their duty to safeguard the health of British citizens.”

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Diesel vehicles face charges after UK government loses air pollution case

Architect of Private Alternative Loses Election, Is Medicaid Expansion Turning Politically Lethal for State Lawmakers?

By Jonathan Ingram, Nic Horton and Josh Archambault—Mr. Archambault and Mr. Ingram are Senior Fellows, and Mr. Horton Policy Analysis Analyst, at the Foundation for Government Accountability.

U.S. Property Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s gorgeous loss in the Virginia principal to underfunded insurgent candidate David Brat sent shock waves by means of the nationwide political establishment, but its affect on the American men and women may rival the outcome of a state senate major in Arkansas, as the architect of the “Private Option” Medicaid growth lost his major largely on the expansion issue. Lawmakers in the 24 states that have not expanded are beginning to see the prospective political fallout from supporting an “alternative” Medicaid expansion program.

Voters Driven by ObamaCare’s Medicaid Expansion Situation

In Arkansas, three-term Republican State Representative John Burris misplaced a main runoff for a State Senate seat to first-time candidate and political novice Scott Flippo. Rep. Burris, an architect of the ObamaCare “Private Option” Medicaid expansion, need to have walked away with the GOP nod right into the State Senate right after a November vote for which Democrats failed to area their personal candidate.

Rep. John Burris: Private Choice ObamaCare Growth Architect

Burris had much more identify ID and substantially a lot more funding: the most recently offered campaign reviews display Burris obtaining outraised Flippo almost three-to-one—including tens of thousands of dollars in contributions from hospital lobbyists and other Personal Selection-supportive well being care special interests.

By all accounts, Rep. Burris has been the face of the ObamaCare Private Choice. Not only did he sponsor the ObamaCare growth bill, he came up with numerous of the empty guarantees utilised to squeeze just enough help to enact the plan.

Despite the political frenzy induced by the Personal Choice debate, Rep. Burris was still the favored. Flippo was a political unknown when he announced his candidacy earlier this yr, but as he hit the trail his message was simple and clear: ObamaCare growth is undesirable for Arkansas taxpayers, and John Burris is to blame for it.

Rep. Burris must have been a minor weary heading into the runoff.

An anti-Private Selection message throughout a specific election for a State Senate seat last yr vaulted Republican John Cooper to workplace in a district that hadn’t elected a Republican given that Reconstruction.

As Flippo’s anti-PO message seemed to take root, Rep. Burris’ campaign message seemed to vacillate among help and opposition for the system. While he claimed to have by no means shied away from his assistance for the Private Selection, he explained on at least a single voter’s manual that he “opposed” the Private Option law he crafted. And later on, he claimed in a Television ad to have blocked the ObamaCare exchange, even though he truly voted for it.

Despite his try to muddy the waters, and his supporters’ complaints that Flippo was making the entire race about ObamaCare, Rep. Burris couldn’t escape his direct involvement with expanding Medicaid below ObamaCare in Arkansas.

The Future of ObamaCare’s Medicaid Expansion Personal Alternative is Uncertain At Best

Final 12 months, funding for the Personal Alternative just barely squeaked by in the Arkansas Legislature. This previous legislative session, the plan barely survived a funding-reauthorization vote in March. Soon after 4 failed attempts, weeks of arm-twisting and legislators publicly trading their votes for pet projects, the system just barely survived, without having a single vote to spare in the Senate. Principal elections have previously tipped the stability strongly against the Private Choice.

The Senator whose retirement designed a pitched battle among Burris and Flippo was also a supporter of the ObamaCare Private Choice. And prior to this runoff, another Personal Option supporter, Senator Bruce Holland, was defeated in his own major by a committed anti-Personal Selection candidate.

Architect of Private Alternative Loses Election, Is Medicaid Expansion Turning Politically Lethal for State Lawmakers?

Optical Express loses bid to near laser eye surgical procedure critic"s web site

Optical Express says rigid recommendations hold the problems charge in laser eye surgery quite low. Photograph: Alamy

High street optician Optical Express has misplaced a battle to have a internet site that strongly criticised its record in laser eye surgical treatment closed down more than what it claimed were defamatory attacks funded by a industrial rival.

The company’s attorneys tried to have the domain area of the internet site, Optical Express Ruined My Existence, eliminated, but the bid was thrown out by the business that registered the campaign site’s identify. Nominet, the web registry company, stated Optical Express’s primary charge – that the site had been set up and funded by its major competitor, Optimax – was “really significant” and not verified.

Optical Express Ruined My Existence (OERML) was set up in April 2012 by Sasha Rodoy, a campaigner searching for tighter regulation of laser eye surgical treatment with the help of Labour MP John McDonnell. Rodoy had previously run a site referred to as Optimax Ruined My Lifestyle, right up until she came to a confidential settlement with the company.

Dismissing Optical Express’s declare, an specialist panel formed by Nominet said allegations manufactured by the firm had been designed to “impugn the honesty and integrity” of Rodoy, who was named as the respondent in the situation.

It mentioned the substance of the allegation was “that the OERML website is not, as it seems, a bona fide protest website operated by the respondent as part of her campaign against what she perceives as deficiencies in the way refractive eye surgical procedure is practised and regulated.

“As an alternative the complainant alleges that the OERML website and/or the respondent are currently being covertly funded by its bitter competitor Optimax, and this is element of a covert campaign meant to harm the complainant and, presumably, to benefit Optimax.”

But it extra: “The panel is unable to attain a discovering that both the OERML website or the respondent are covertly funded by Optimax.

“If the complainant wishes to pursue an allegation of that nature, it should do so in a forum much more appropriate for identifying significant and disputed allegations of integrity and dishonesty against someone who, on the encounter of issues, appears to be pursuing a bona fide protest campaign.”

Rodoy welcomed the choice and said she had set up the internet site after becoming inundated by complaints about the company, which has 93 stores and 54 consultation centres and is the UK’s greatest practitioner of laser eye surgical procedure.

A single complainant, the Observer has realized, is Ken Cocking, 75, founder, with his sons, of the West Cornwall Pasty Firm, which the household offered in 2007 for £40m.

Cocking, who has asked solicitor Geoffrey Simpson-Scott of law firm Colemans to act for him, says Optical Express failed to notice that he was suffering from glaucoma (which is now sophisticated) in the weeks and months after it replaced lenses in his eyes. He informed the Observer that his daily life was “ruined, utterly ruined”.

He explained: “I advised them that my sight was terrible following the operations and they informed me that there was no dilemma. If they had spotted my issue, I could have been caught early.”

A spokesman for Optical Express said it was “very disappointed” by Nominet’s rejection of its case and was unable to comment on Cocking’s claims.

The spokesman additional: “We think we had a really robust case. We are now actively contemplating our choices with regard to pursuing our challenge by means of other avenues.

“While we can’t comment on the specifics of person patient instances due to confidentiality rules, in a case such as this we would offer ongoing clinical care and do every thing in our electrical power to obtain a optimistic outcome for the patient.

“Laser eye surgery vastly improves the day-to-day lives of hundreds of 1000′s of sufferers in the United kingdom each and every year. In a latest survey of more than 97,000 Optical Express patients, much more than 99% mentioned they would suggest Optical Express to household and friends.

“This is demonstrated by the thousands of thank-you cards, emails and tweets we obtain from grateful individuals each and every 12 months.

“Nevertheless, all surgical procedures carry a danger of complication. Due to Optical Express’s stringent guidelines our complication rate is extremely minimal – .7% in a recent analysis of virtually 27,000 laser eye surgical treatment procedures carried out by our surgeons.

“People patients are managed by a crew of clinical authorities that offer skilled and compassionate care, with 96% of them proceeding to obtain 20/20 vision or better as a consequence.”

Nominet’s choice is the most recent blow to Optical Express, which right up until last summer season was feared to be the next huge name on the substantial street to encounter monetary collapse.

The business, which owed a lot more than £30m to RBS, had a request for a even more loan rejected. The largely state-owned financial institution threatened to seize the firm and promote it to recoup its debts till founder David Moulsdale, who is now chairman, agreed to get the group’s exceptional debts.

Optical Express loses bid to near laser eye surgical procedure critic"s web site