When companies want to build new facilities, they’re required to assess the impact of pollution on the community’s air quality – but more than 90% of the time, corporations and regulators in Michigan did not use proper methods to determine whether new facilities would violate federal pollution limits, according to reporting by Tom Perkins for The Guardian. With support from the Fund, Perkins obtained a decade of major permit applications in Michigan, issued under both Republican and Democratic administrations. In one case, a corporation and regulators monitored air in a rural community 17 miles away from the Detroit suburb where an auto plant was planned.
Analysis by grantee shows how regulators and corporations manipulate air-quality data to build factories in Michigan
