Good news for breathers, the EPA is cracking down on air pollution created by coal plants. And, this is great news for Charlotte, since the city is virtually surrounded by coal plants.

From ThinkProgress.org's Wonk Room:

Today, the Obama administration proposed a sweeping plan to reduce power plant emissions that cross state lines and kill tens of thousands of Americans every year. The proposed Clean Air Transport Rule replaces the Bush administration’s so-called “clean air interstate rule” (CAIR) that was shot down by the courts because it permitted so much interstate emission trading that even some power companies filed suit.

Read more here.

But, what does this mean for Charlotte-based Duke Energy, the company that owns the coal plants surrounding the Queen City? Well, it's a little too early to tell, but there's speculation Duke may have to close some of the company's older plants, like the 80-year-old Riverbend plant that's a mere dozen miles from the heart of Uptown, sooner than anticipated.

So, what does this mean for you? Better health.

According to the EPA's press release:

Today’s action would yield more than $120 billion in annual health benefits in 2014, including avoiding an estimated 14,000 to 36,000 premature deaths, 23,000 nonfatal heart attacks, 21,000 cases of acute bronchitis, 240,000 cases of aggravated asthma, and 1.9 million days when people miss school or work due to ozone- and particle pollution-related symptoms. These benefits would far outweigh the annual cost of compliance with the proposed rule, which EPA estimates at $2.8 billion in 2014.

In case you missed the news over the holiday weekend, you might want to know that Bloomberg Markets magazine is featuring a couple of Charlotte's big banks in their August issue, and not because they're impressed with them:

Just before sunset on April 10, 2006, a DC-9 jet landed at the international airport in the port city of Ciudad del Carmen, 500 miles east of Mexico City. As soldiers on the ground approached the plane, the crew tried to shoo them away, saying there was a dangerous oil leak. So the troops grew suspicious and searched the jet.

They found 128 black suitcases, packed with 5.7 tons of cocaine, valued at $100 million. The stash was supposed to have been delivered from Caracas to drug traffickers in Toluca, near Mexico City, Mexican prosecutors later found. Law enforcement officials also discovered something else.

The smugglers had bought the DC-9 with laundered funds they transferred through two of the biggest banks in the U.S.: Wachovia Corp. and Bank of America Corp., Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its August 2010 issue.

This was no isolated incident. Wachovia, it turns out, had made a habit of helping move money for Mexican drug smugglers. Wells Fargo & Co., which bought Wachovia in 2008, has admitted in court that its unit failed to monitor and report suspected money laundering by narcotics traffickers -- including the cash used to buy four planes that shipped a total of 22 tons of cocaine.

The admission came in an agreement that Charlotte, North Carolina-based Wachovia struck with federal prosecutors in March, and it sheds light on the largely undocumented role of U.S. banks in contributing to the violent drug trade that has convulsed Mexico for the past four years.

Read the rest of this article, by Michael Smith, here.

Here's the thing that gets me about drugs in America:

Americans demand the drugs, and we're willing to pay top dollar for them. We, therefore, create the market, which is quite lucrative. So our always money-hungry banks assist growers and dealers in their efforts to get the drugs into our hands to meet our unending demand in exchange for our precious dollars.

Then, our courts penalize the growers and dealers and users whenever they're caught. But, that doesn't quell our appetite, and as long as we have the appetite for drugs (and we do and will) and we have the money to buy them (and we do and will) then this shitty cycle will continue.

Meanwhile, the American taxpayer pays the wages of those charged with playing cops and villains throughout every inch of this great land. We then pay to house the villains in prisons after they've been caught and processed through our expensive judicial system. And don't forget, we also pay exorbitant fees at banks that screw us repeatedly while continuing to assist said villains in their villainous trade.

And, what do we call this nonsense? We call it a war. In this "war," we're supposedly the good guys and anyone who's involved in the drug trade (excluding giant banks, apparently) are the bad guys. Meanwhile, all hell breaks loose in Mexico — but not here, so we mostly ignore the problem and pretend we have nothing to do with it (even if we're the ones looking for a bump in the back of the club).

Listen: This is crazy.

THIS IS CRAZY, do you hear me?

We either need to accept that Americans are a bunch of drug-using hypocrites, end the so-called "war" and start treating drugs like any other import; or, we need to get serious about the war and hold these big dogs accountable just like we hold the dealer on the street, the crack whore and the crew hauling in a truckload of snow from the border accountable.

This is not a "them" problem. This is an "us" problem. This may even be a "you" problem. And, we're not going to be able to do a thing about it until we take responsibility for our role in it. Without our money and constant demand for drugs, this would be a non-issue and the murder rate in Mexico, and some American border cities, would be significantly lower.