New York
22 states sue New York, alleging environmental fund is unconstitutional
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Twenty-two states sued New York on Thursday, contending that a new law forcing a small group of major energy producers to pay $75 billion into a fund to cover climate change damage is unconstitutional.
The lawsuit, filed in Albany, lists state Attorney General Letitia James and other officials as defendants.
According to a statement, West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey led the coalition of states against New York’s Climate Change Superfund Act, which requires payments for damage allegedly done from 2000 to 2018.
The law requires major fossil fuel companies to pay into the fund over the next quarter-century based on their past gas emissions.
“This lawsuit is to ensure that these misguided policies, being forced from one state onto the entire nation, will not lead America into the doldrums of an energy crisis, allowing China, India and Russia to overtake our energy independence,” McCuskey said in a release.
“This law is unconstitutional, and I am proud to lead this coalition of attorneys general and brave private energy companies and industry groups in our fight to protect against this overreach,” McCuskey added. “If we allow New York to get away with this, it will only be a matter of time before other states follow suit – wrecking our nation’s power grid.”
“We look forward to defending this landmark legislation in court and defeating Big Oil once again,” Paul DeMichele, a spokesperson for Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office, said in an email.
The lawsuit accuses New York state of trying to force energy producers and consumers in other states “to subsidize certain New York-based ‘infrastructure’ projects, such as a new sewer system in New York City.”
It called the law “an ugly example of the chaos that can result when States overreach.”
According to the lawsuit, New York wants to blame the small group of energy producers for global greenhouse gases that entered the atmosphere from many sources.
“Yet coal, oil, and natural gas were helping New York during that time. They helped keep the lights on in Albany, manufacture the steel that supported New York City’s iconic skyscrapers, and fuel the industry that keeps New York ports humming,” the lawsuit said.
Besides West Virginia, the states joining the lawsuit are Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Wyoming.
Georgia
Judge: Railroad can seize land to build new track
ATLANTA (AP) — A judge has ruled that a Georgia railroad can buy land against the will of property owners to build a track, rebuffing a challenge that a libertarian group hoped could make it harder to use eminent domain to take property.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Craig Schwall Sr. ruled Tuesday that the Sandersville Railroad could condemn a 200-foot (60-meter) wide strip of property running 4.5 miles (7.3 kilometers) to build a rail line serving a rock quarry and other users. Landowners fighting the railroad had appealed a Georgia Public Service Commission ruling allowing the land taking.
Schwall kept a freeze on construction for now, with landowners saying they would appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court.
The case matters because private entities need to condemn private land for railroads and facilities including pipelines and electric transmission lines.
The Sandersville Railroad, owned by an influential Georgia family, wants to connect the quarry to the CSX railroad at Sparta, allowing products to be shipped widely. Sparta is a mostly Black rural town about 85 miles (135 kilometers) southeast of Atlanta in one of Georgia’s poorest counties.
Sandersville has agreements to buy some of the 18 parcels it needs. But other owners say losing a strip of property would spoil land they treasure, and that some families have owned for a century.
“Every day that Sandersville isn’t coming onto our land and starting to build is a good day,” Diane Smith, one of the owners, said in a statement. “But we won’t rest easy until we know for sure that they’ll never be able to take our land from us.”
Brian Brodrick, a lawyer for the railroad, urged opposed property owners in a Thursday statement “to return to the negotiating table so we can bring new opportunities and channels of trade to all the citizens of Hancock County and the region.” He said the spur would have “minimal impacts” on neighbors.
Some people in the rural neighborhood think the railroad would enable expansion at a quarry owned by Heidelberg Materials, a publicly traded German firm. They dislike the quarry because it generates noise, dust and truck traffic.
Supporters say if the railroad is built, the quarry will move its operation farther from houses, trains will reduce trucks on roads and the railroad will build berms to shield residents.
Railroads have long had the power of eminent domain, but Georgia law says such land seizures must be for “public use.” Opponents targeted the project by saying it would only benefit the quarry. The Sandersville Railroad says there are other users, including a company located at the quarry that blends gravel and asphalt for paving. Several companies have said they would truck products to load them onto the new line, saying they want access to markets served by CSX.
Schwall found the railroad met the public use standard, saying it was necessary for the “functioning” of Sandersville and “also serves a public purpose because it will provide a channel of trade in east middle Georgia.”
The group representing opponents, the Institute for Justice, hoped to use the case to chip away at eminent domain, the power to legally take private land while paying fair compensation.
The libertarian-leaning legal group lost a landmark 2005 case allowing the city of New London, Connecticut, to take land from one private owner and transfer it to another private owner for economic development. Schwall cited that case in his ruling.
“We remain committed to proving to the courts that a private railroad’s desire to build a speculative new line entirely for the benefit of a handful of private companies is not a public use under the U.S. and Georgia constitutions and Georgia’s eminent domain laws,” Institute for Justice attorney Bill Maurer said in statement.
New York
Man charged after pregnant woman, 33, dies in attempt to cross U.S.-Canada border
PLATTSBURGH, N.Y. (AP) — A man extradited from Canada was arraigned on human smuggling charges Thursday in the case of a 33-year-old pregnant woman found dead in a frigid northern New York river after she illegally crossed the border, according to federal authorities.
The body of Ana Vasquez-Flores of Mexico was found in the Great Chazy River just south of the Canadian border on Dec. 14, 2023, two days after her husband told U.S. border agents she had crossed illegally and was lost. Searchers found footprints in the snow leading to the river, where she drowned, according to federal authorities.
Vasquez-Flores’ death came amid a surge of people crossing into New York and New England from Canada. The incident became an example of the perils migrants face trekking through the wooded and often snowy landscape along the U.S.-Canada border.
Jhader Augusto Uribe-Tobar, 36, is accused by federal prosecutors of smuggling Vasquez-Flores into the United States for $2,500 and instructing her to wade through the river in the dark.
Uribe-Tobar pleaded not guilty to federal charges of alien smuggling and conspiracy to commit alien smuggling. He was detained pending a trial. Prosecutors say he is a citizen of Colombia and lives in Quebec, Canada.
“This tragedy highlights the dangers of illegal migration and how, as alleged, smugglers deliberately put people in harm’s way for profit,” U.S. Attorney Carla Freedman said in a prepared statement.
Uribe-Tobar’s federal public defender declined comment in an email.
New York
Former college adjunct professor gets 8 years in prison for sexually abusing women from El Salvador
NEW YORK (AP) — A former City College chemistry adjunct professor was sentenced Thursday to eight years in prison for sexually abusing three women from El Salvador after convincing them to travel to the U.S. for a better life.
Jorge Alberto Ramos, 45, was sentenced in Manhattan federal court by Judge John G. Koeltl. He had pleaded guilty in August to four charges, including aiding and abetting human smuggling.
U.S. Attorney Danielle R. Sassoon said the abuse occurred over a decade. Prosecutors had requested that Ramos be sentenced to over 13 years in prison.
Prosecutors said Ramos, who was born in El Salvador and maintained relationships with family and friends in the San Miguel area, groomed the women to make the trip by expressing concern for their families and by sending them gifts and money.
But once they arrived, they were raped by Ramos, who told two of them that he had “brought them to the United States so that he could have sex with them whenever he wanted,” prosecutors wrote in court papers. “And that is what he did — sexually abusing and raping each victim again and again.”
Prosecutors said he also threatened to turn them over to immigration authorities to compel them to have sex with him.
They said he first enticed a 25-year-old woman to come to the U.S. in 2013 or 2014, while a second woman, 27, came in November 2015. The third, they said, was 18 when she was persuaded to come to the U.S. in March 2017.
Authorities said Ramos convinced the women that they would have educational and other opportunities in the United States.
The indictment said the last two women eventually escaped Ramos.
City College has said Ramos hasn’t worked at the school since 2009.
In court papers, prosecutors said Ramos was “a serial sexual abuser who smuggled three vulnerable young women into the United States to use them for his own sexual gratification.”
They added: “The defendant targeted these Victims because he knew that they were poor and had limited educational and job opportunities in El Salvador. He groomed them through gifts and kind words, leading them to believe that he cared about them and would help them improve their lives.”
Jeremy Schneider, a lawyer for Ramos who declined to comment after the sentencing, said in court papers that his client deserved leniency after living in “hellish conditions” at a federal lockup since his arrest 17 months ago.
He said Ramos lived the first 13 years of his life in El Salvador in a war zone where some of his childhood friends were killed before he was brought to the U.S. by a human smuggler.
After graduating from high school at age 16, he eventually earned his doctorate in biophysics before working as an adjunct professor at various colleges in New York City, besides working as a mechanic and electrician.
Ramos, who will be deported after he serves his sentence, is “deeply remorseful,” Schneider said.
22 states sue New York, alleging environmental fund is unconstitutional
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Twenty-two states sued New York on Thursday, contending that a new law forcing a small group of major energy producers to pay $75 billion into a fund to cover climate change damage is unconstitutional.
The lawsuit, filed in Albany, lists state Attorney General Letitia James and other officials as defendants.
According to a statement, West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey led the coalition of states against New York’s Climate Change Superfund Act, which requires payments for damage allegedly done from 2000 to 2018.
The law requires major fossil fuel companies to pay into the fund over the next quarter-century based on their past gas emissions.
“This lawsuit is to ensure that these misguided policies, being forced from one state onto the entire nation, will not lead America into the doldrums of an energy crisis, allowing China, India and Russia to overtake our energy independence,” McCuskey said in a release.
“This law is unconstitutional, and I am proud to lead this coalition of attorneys general and brave private energy companies and industry groups in our fight to protect against this overreach,” McCuskey added. “If we allow New York to get away with this, it will only be a matter of time before other states follow suit – wrecking our nation’s power grid.”
“We look forward to defending this landmark legislation in court and defeating Big Oil once again,” Paul DeMichele, a spokesperson for Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office, said in an email.
The lawsuit accuses New York state of trying to force energy producers and consumers in other states “to subsidize certain New York-based ‘infrastructure’ projects, such as a new sewer system in New York City.”
It called the law “an ugly example of the chaos that can result when States overreach.”
According to the lawsuit, New York wants to blame the small group of energy producers for global greenhouse gases that entered the atmosphere from many sources.
“Yet coal, oil, and natural gas were helping New York during that time. They helped keep the lights on in Albany, manufacture the steel that supported New York City’s iconic skyscrapers, and fuel the industry that keeps New York ports humming,” the lawsuit said.
Besides West Virginia, the states joining the lawsuit are Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Wyoming.
Georgia
Judge: Railroad can seize land to build new track
ATLANTA (AP) — A judge has ruled that a Georgia railroad can buy land against the will of property owners to build a track, rebuffing a challenge that a libertarian group hoped could make it harder to use eminent domain to take property.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Craig Schwall Sr. ruled Tuesday that the Sandersville Railroad could condemn a 200-foot (60-meter) wide strip of property running 4.5 miles (7.3 kilometers) to build a rail line serving a rock quarry and other users. Landowners fighting the railroad had appealed a Georgia Public Service Commission ruling allowing the land taking.
Schwall kept a freeze on construction for now, with landowners saying they would appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court.
The case matters because private entities need to condemn private land for railroads and facilities including pipelines and electric transmission lines.
The Sandersville Railroad, owned by an influential Georgia family, wants to connect the quarry to the CSX railroad at Sparta, allowing products to be shipped widely. Sparta is a mostly Black rural town about 85 miles (135 kilometers) southeast of Atlanta in one of Georgia’s poorest counties.
Sandersville has agreements to buy some of the 18 parcels it needs. But other owners say losing a strip of property would spoil land they treasure, and that some families have owned for a century.
“Every day that Sandersville isn’t coming onto our land and starting to build is a good day,” Diane Smith, one of the owners, said in a statement. “But we won’t rest easy until we know for sure that they’ll never be able to take our land from us.”
Brian Brodrick, a lawyer for the railroad, urged opposed property owners in a Thursday statement “to return to the negotiating table so we can bring new opportunities and channels of trade to all the citizens of Hancock County and the region.” He said the spur would have “minimal impacts” on neighbors.
Some people in the rural neighborhood think the railroad would enable expansion at a quarry owned by Heidelberg Materials, a publicly traded German firm. They dislike the quarry because it generates noise, dust and truck traffic.
Supporters say if the railroad is built, the quarry will move its operation farther from houses, trains will reduce trucks on roads and the railroad will build berms to shield residents.
Railroads have long had the power of eminent domain, but Georgia law says such land seizures must be for “public use.” Opponents targeted the project by saying it would only benefit the quarry. The Sandersville Railroad says there are other users, including a company located at the quarry that blends gravel and asphalt for paving. Several companies have said they would truck products to load them onto the new line, saying they want access to markets served by CSX.
Schwall found the railroad met the public use standard, saying it was necessary for the “functioning” of Sandersville and “also serves a public purpose because it will provide a channel of trade in east middle Georgia.”
The group representing opponents, the Institute for Justice, hoped to use the case to chip away at eminent domain, the power to legally take private land while paying fair compensation.
The libertarian-leaning legal group lost a landmark 2005 case allowing the city of New London, Connecticut, to take land from one private owner and transfer it to another private owner for economic development. Schwall cited that case in his ruling.
“We remain committed to proving to the courts that a private railroad’s desire to build a speculative new line entirely for the benefit of a handful of private companies is not a public use under the U.S. and Georgia constitutions and Georgia’s eminent domain laws,” Institute for Justice attorney Bill Maurer said in statement.
New York
Man charged after pregnant woman, 33, dies in attempt to cross U.S.-Canada border
PLATTSBURGH, N.Y. (AP) — A man extradited from Canada was arraigned on human smuggling charges Thursday in the case of a 33-year-old pregnant woman found dead in a frigid northern New York river after she illegally crossed the border, according to federal authorities.
The body of Ana Vasquez-Flores of Mexico was found in the Great Chazy River just south of the Canadian border on Dec. 14, 2023, two days after her husband told U.S. border agents she had crossed illegally and was lost. Searchers found footprints in the snow leading to the river, where she drowned, according to federal authorities.
Vasquez-Flores’ death came amid a surge of people crossing into New York and New England from Canada. The incident became an example of the perils migrants face trekking through the wooded and often snowy landscape along the U.S.-Canada border.
Jhader Augusto Uribe-Tobar, 36, is accused by federal prosecutors of smuggling Vasquez-Flores into the United States for $2,500 and instructing her to wade through the river in the dark.
Uribe-Tobar pleaded not guilty to federal charges of alien smuggling and conspiracy to commit alien smuggling. He was detained pending a trial. Prosecutors say he is a citizen of Colombia and lives in Quebec, Canada.
“This tragedy highlights the dangers of illegal migration and how, as alleged, smugglers deliberately put people in harm’s way for profit,” U.S. Attorney Carla Freedman said in a prepared statement.
Uribe-Tobar’s federal public defender declined comment in an email.
New York
Former college adjunct professor gets 8 years in prison for sexually abusing women from El Salvador
NEW YORK (AP) — A former City College chemistry adjunct professor was sentenced Thursday to eight years in prison for sexually abusing three women from El Salvador after convincing them to travel to the U.S. for a better life.
Jorge Alberto Ramos, 45, was sentenced in Manhattan federal court by Judge John G. Koeltl. He had pleaded guilty in August to four charges, including aiding and abetting human smuggling.
U.S. Attorney Danielle R. Sassoon said the abuse occurred over a decade. Prosecutors had requested that Ramos be sentenced to over 13 years in prison.
Prosecutors said Ramos, who was born in El Salvador and maintained relationships with family and friends in the San Miguel area, groomed the women to make the trip by expressing concern for their families and by sending them gifts and money.
But once they arrived, they were raped by Ramos, who told two of them that he had “brought them to the United States so that he could have sex with them whenever he wanted,” prosecutors wrote in court papers. “And that is what he did — sexually abusing and raping each victim again and again.”
Prosecutors said he also threatened to turn them over to immigration authorities to compel them to have sex with him.
They said he first enticed a 25-year-old woman to come to the U.S. in 2013 or 2014, while a second woman, 27, came in November 2015. The third, they said, was 18 when she was persuaded to come to the U.S. in March 2017.
Authorities said Ramos convinced the women that they would have educational and other opportunities in the United States.
The indictment said the last two women eventually escaped Ramos.
City College has said Ramos hasn’t worked at the school since 2009.
In court papers, prosecutors said Ramos was “a serial sexual abuser who smuggled three vulnerable young women into the United States to use them for his own sexual gratification.”
They added: “The defendant targeted these Victims because he knew that they were poor and had limited educational and job opportunities in El Salvador. He groomed them through gifts and kind words, leading them to believe that he cared about them and would help them improve their lives.”
Jeremy Schneider, a lawyer for Ramos who declined to comment after the sentencing, said in court papers that his client deserved leniency after living in “hellish conditions” at a federal lockup since his arrest 17 months ago.
He said Ramos lived the first 13 years of his life in El Salvador in a war zone where some of his childhood friends were killed before he was brought to the U.S. by a human smuggler.
After graduating from high school at age 16, he eventually earned his doctorate in biophysics before working as an adjunct professor at various colleges in New York City, besides working as a mechanic and electrician.
Ramos, who will be deported after he serves his sentence, is “deeply remorseful,” Schneider said.
