EPA Weighs Easing Rules on Toxic Air Pollutants

[WhiteTara]

I love these late night news dumps.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5321132
Morning Edition, April 4, 2006 · A leaked document from the Environmental Protection Agency suggests that the agency is considering a significant change in air-pollution rules. It would give chemical factories, refineries and manufacturing plants new leeway to increase emissions of pollutants that cause cancer and birth defects.

John Walke, who heads the clean-air program for the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council, says he received the document from sources at the EPA who wanted the public to become aware of this "backward step."

Currently, any factory that emits more than 25 tons of toxic chemicals into the air each year must reduce its pollution as much as it feasibly can. Walke says the draft proposal would give a break to companies that own those plants. After they clean up, their only requirement would be to keep their pollution below 25 tons a year.

"Take an oil refinery that 10 years ago polluted 100 tons of toxic air pollution," Walke says. "Due to the Clean Air Act, that refinery today will emit only five tons of toxic air pollution. Under this EPA proposal, that refinery can increase it's toxic pollution from five tons to 25 tons."

more
:grr:

[Lorien]

1. Great. The planet's ecosystems are falling apart, we can't get

decent health care, and they've just decided to speed us towards the end a LITTLE BIT FASTER.

:grr: :grr:

[Pirate Smile]

2. Just within the past week didn't they ease regulations on clean water?

Or that they are going to try to...

[WhiteTara]

3. Bush Administration Directs Agencies to Ignore Clean Water Act

they haven't changed it yet, this is just the cheap way of not handling any problems.
http://www.bushgreenwatch.org/mt_archives/000182.php
September 14, 2004
Bush Administration Directs Agencies to Ignore Clean Water Act

Using a back-door route to deregulation, the Bush administration has removed clean water protections for 20 million acres of American wetlands and tens of thousands of miles of streams, lakes and ponds, according to documents obtained through the federal Freedom of Information Act. <1>

The documents, used to produce the report "Reckless Abandon: How the Bush Administration is Exposing America's Waters to Harm," outline the consequences of a 2003 federal policy directive that encourages regulators to routinely avoid enforcing Clean Water Act protections for American rivers, lakes, streams and wetlands unless otherwise directed.

The report was produced by nonprofit environmental groups Earthjustice, the National Wildlife Federation, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Sierra Club. It can be found online at www.cwn.org.

"For the first time in over 30 years of cleaning up our waters, we're going backwards," said Paul Schwartz, national policy coordinator for Clean Water Action. Schwartz noted that after the Clean Water Act took effect in 1972, the percentage of the nation's waters deemed clean enough for fishing and swimming nearly doubled. But recent state reports now show those numbers declining, he said.

"The water is getting dirtier, and the Bush administration is leading one of the most fundamental attacks on a law that has arguably done more to protect the environment and public health than any other environmental law," Schwartz told BushGreenwatch.

[HuffleClaw]

4. what a horror

only this administration would think up a loophole such as this.

[Hekate]

5. Well jeez, guys, it worked so well for New York City after 9-11...

...am I right?

I have this personal fantasy in which people who build polluting industries, and members of the federal government who think that's just peachy, should be *required* to live downwind of same. They and all their children.

All those other children living and dying with asthma are just the canaries in our national coal mine -- their parents can see it, but can't do anything about it -- and Bushco & Friends don't give a rat's patootie.

There should be a place in Hell...especially since they all claim to believe in it....

Hekate

[DanCa]

6. Damn those ass hats.

You know I have a serious fear that our population is going to ignore global warming until it's too late. It all comes down to money with these scum suckers.

[jus_the_facts]

7. Add to that nearly 5 TONS PER CAR PER YEAR.....

:nopity:

"Each car spills a witches’ brew of dangerous gases into the air each year, including an average of:
4,000 kilograms of carbon dioxide
300 kilograms of carbon monoxide
30 kilograms of nitrogen oxide
35 kilograms of ozone-forming hydrocarbons as well as lesser amounts of methane, lead and particulates."

http://www.rco.on.ca/factsheet/fs_b02.html

[Zorra]

8. Under Bushco, EPA stands for Environmental Polluting Agency n/t

[slay]

9. Absolutely sickening!

And I mean that literally. The very air we breathe is putting us all at risk of getting cancer - but wait, it gets better - because YET AGAIN corporations are the ones looked after by those brought in by the Bush administration - not the people. :( :mad:

[leftchick]

10. link to NRDC!

I have donated to them for twenty years and we need them now more than ever!

http://www.nrdc.org/

[fed-up]

11. Just another part of *'s "NO Child Left Alive" program nt

[rodeodance]

12. "Court Says New Pollution Rules Violate Clean Air Act"--story at site

Related NPR Stories

*
March 17, 2006
Court Says New Pollution Rules Violate Clean Air Act
*
Dec. 21, 2005
EPA, Advisers Differ on Fine-Particle Regulations
*
Oct. 14, 2005
EPA Proposal Eases Rules on Pollution Controls
*
Sep. 16, 2005
EPA Contemplates Measure Suspending Rules
*
Aug. 31, 2005
EPA Emissions Proposal Sparks Debate
*
March 11, 2005
EPA Unveils Plan to Cut Smog and Soot
*
June 23, 2004
EPA's Air Pollution List Meets Criticism