Environmental brief ~ Iowa laws to comply with Clean Water Act News
Environmental brief ~ Iowa laws to comply with Clean Water Act

[JURIST] Leading Tuesday's environmental law news, the Iowa Administrative Rules Review Committee [official website] has agreed to allow a set of water quality rules [backgrounder] to go into effect on March 22. The rules will bring Iowa into compliance with the federal Clean Water Act (CWA) [PDF text]. Amongst other differences, Iowa laws had been operating with a presumption that some waterways could not be brought into compliance with pollution levels, whereas the CWA presumes that all waterways can be cleaned unless shown otherwise. The Des Moines Register has more.

In other environmental law news…

  • The Idaho state Senate [official website] passed Resolution no.131 [text] Monday that would cap the state's mercury emissions level at zero until at least January 7, 2007 and calls on the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality [official website] to produce a report on the current levels and sources of mercury in the state. The resolution could stall a proposed coal-fired power plant from being built in southern Idaho. The Twin Falls Times-News has more.
  • Environmentalists and dairy farmers clashed at a public meeting Monday in the San Joaquin Valley of California. The meeting is part of a series of public workshops [PDF press release] about an air pollution rule) [draft rule 4570, PDF] being proposed by the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District [official website] which would apply to dairies with at least 1,000 milking cows. The rule would apply to over 230 farms in the district, and would require many of those created before 2004 to retrofit or modify their current practices. The rule is designed to allow the District to meet state and federal Clean Air Act [text] standards for volatile organic compounds (VOCs), a primary smog component. The Fresno Bee has more.
THIS DAY @ LAW

UN General Assembly approves Palestine partition plan

The UN General Assembly approved UN Resolution Resolution 181 (II) on November 29, 1947, recommending that the British Mandate for Palestine be split into a Jewish state, an Arab state, and an international zone for Jerusalem. The vote in the assembly was 33 for to 13 against, with 10 abstentions. The resolution sparked a war between Palestinian Arabs and Jews in 1947 and a wider war after Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon invaded the new State of Israel in 1948. Read Resolution 181 (II).

UN divided Palestine between Arabs and Jews

On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly voted to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab territories, leading to the establishment of a Jewish state the following year. Read UN General Assembly Resolution 181.

Defense Secretary Robert McNamara resigns during Vietnam Conflict

On November 29, 1967, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara announced that he was resigning from his office to accept an appointment as head of the World Bank. The announcement came as the Vietnam Conflict was becoming increasingly unpopular in the United States and abroad.