This EPA pick kinda sucks

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

For the most part, I've been impressed with Obama so far. I've been OK on his cabinet picks and early moves, but I have a real issue with this one.

-----------
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/15/lisa-jackson-epa-chief-ja_n_151221.html

"But Jackson's critics, including a senior scientist who quit her department in frustration, say she has been too close to industry, withheld information from the public and fallen well short of the pledge she made when taking office in February 2006 to fix the state's beleaguered toxic waste program.

"The most important thing we are doing is developing a new ranking system to prioritize sites so that we focus our resources on the worst cases, those that present the greatest risk to public health and the environment," said Jackson in state senate testimony (PDF) in October 2006.

But two years into Jackson's tenure, the new system for cleaning up New Jersey's 16,000 abandoned toxic waste sites still hasn't been deployed.

"She identified this as her highest priority, but she never followed through," says Jeff Ruch, executive director of the Washington D.C.-based Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, or PEER. "This failure to perform risk-based ranking for determining cleanup priorities has contributed to the belated discovery of contaminated schools and day care centers."

---
I have to wonder if the people who freaked out over RFK Jr. being possibility, due to the issue of vaccines (which has zero to do with the EPA) are satisfied with someone getting the position who has as lousy a record as this.

[laconicsax]

1. FWIW, the RFK vaccine issue spoke to his integrity on scientific matters, or lack thereof.

Obama's own environmental plan shows that it isn't a priority for him and this pick only reinforces that.

[alarimer]

10. I agree. This pick is disappointing.

Although less disappointing than if he chose RFK Jr. She appears to be a tool of corporations but it depends on who you ask, the PIRG or the Sierra Club.

[truedelphi]

2. I have never in my entire life seen any issue that involves so much lockstep

As the issue of vaccines. So it is likely that Kennedy was punished for his stand.

When medical researchers realized that Reyes syndrome could injure and kill a young child with a fever who was given an aspirin, nobody began a campaign of doom against those medical professionals espousing this idea. No one said, "Well you don't understand what antibiotics and pain relievers have done for the populace as a whole." And the researchers were not blacklisted or condemned.

But any time that somebody suggests that day old infants should not be given vaccines that person is ridiculed and blacklisted. Andrew Wakefield merely suggested that vaccines be given separately, and then he was demonized.

RIP, Truth. YOur place in the scientific world has been replaced with the notion of Corporate loyalty.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

3. Well, the mercury fan club will love her

also from huffpo:

"Critics of Jackson's approach have also focused on what they see as her weak response to two contaminated New Jersey sites: One is a multi-million-dollar condominium community built on top of land where high levels of chromium, a carcinogenic chemical, have been found. The other involves Kiddie Kollege, a day care center developed inside an abandoned thermometer factory, where more than 30 children were exposed to mercury, a neurotoxin that slows brain development in children."

[FloridaGrl]

22. I am totally disappointed

by what I am reading about this lady. I was hoping for RFK. When are we going to start seriously looking into these chemicals we are injecting in our children? I have never been disappointed with an Obama appointee like how I am with this one. Many moms of special needs children including myself bought into this hope that we would see more care taken in the chemicals we are exposed to. I really hope it won't be business as usual. Many women voted for Sarah Palin because they bought into what she was saying about special needs. Please don't neglect our cry PE Obama.

[TheWraith]

5. God forbid that we should have policy based on SCIENCE rather than faith.

Because there's little to no science supporting the anti-vaccine hysteria. But that doesn't stop the gratuitous exaggeration and claims of persecution.

[truedelphi]

16. Have you never ever heard of Michael Belkin??

Perhaps not, but if you want science, check him out. His studies have been entered into the Congressional Record. He has done the due diligence providing the statistical end of it. He is a world class statistician, and his remarkable investigation into the risks posed by the hepatitis B vaccine have proven without any doubt, that an infant is put more at risk from the shots received from day one through to the end of the hepatitis vaccine series than would ever occur from the disease of hepatitis itself.

Anyway, the remarks of the pro-vaccine crowd prove my point exactly.

BTW, Belkins did not do this investigation because he has too much time on his hands. He did this investigation on account of his little daughter dying in his arms, during the routine adminsitration of this vaccine. His daughter was one of the majority of American children who had no chance, I mean, zero chance, of suffering from ill effects of the disease of hepatitis.

Check out also
www.coastalpost.com/02/07/05.htm

[gravity]

19. Was this study published in a peer review journal?

[truedelphi]

23. You do understand the mechanisms behind Peer Review right?

A Peer Review can be quite meaningful or absolutely meaningless.
Are the scientists on the same page. For example, if I have devoted my life to examining the melting temperatures of differing types of latex and their offshoots, and you too have spent time involved with latex products, your comments make sense regarding mypublished piece.

But when someone from the pesticide industry, who is being paid to say that such and such a product involves no significant health risks to children, goes and asks someone whose background is only in latex melting points - how does that constitute Peer Review? Yet today that is exactly the type of thing that is happening.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

21. No, but I looked him up.

http://www.whale.to/v/belkin.html

I like how he compares the CDC to Nazis.

[truedelphi]

25. A person who has lost their infant daughter to

THe FDA and CDC's horrible practices has every right to see these people as Fascists.

Belkin was not even able to get hte medical records from the doctor's office relating to the tragedy. Is that what happens in a free society or in a plutocracy??

[truedelphi]

17. Here's today's notice about Scientific Truth being manipulated

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3646569


Or read my posting about several other Truth manipulations here:
tinyurl.com/59g3ux

For accounts of yesterday's scientific truth manipulation, google "Aspartame" + Reagan.

Examine the L-tryptophan controversy that circa late 1980's, allowed 37 people to die from a 'rare' blood disease, Meanwhile the Corporate Media spun this as the food supplement being Bad Bad Bad, the truth behind the illness was that the L Tryptophan was grown on a GMO altered medium. Grow L Tryptophan on its usual culture and it is fine. Use the GMO stuff, and people are harmed and killed. But that fact never made it into the newspapers or TV's sixty second sound bytes. Yet to this day,. the GMO proponents say that GMO has never killed anyone.

WHEN CORPORATE AMERICA HAS CONTROL OVER THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM BECAUSE OF FUNDING THE LABORATORY AT ALMOST ALL UNIVERSITIES, WHEN CORPORATE AMERICA HAS CONTROL OVER THE MEDIA, AND ALSO OVER THE HALLS OF CONGRESS, HOW IS THERE ANY INDEPENDENT PEER REVIEW?

And what is worse is that PEER REVEIW is often a very corrupted buddy system. (In adition to all the factors stated above.) You review my company's work on genetically altered potatoes, even though all your really know about is the latex in tires, and I will help you get that appointment or promotion you need.

[dflprincess]

7. It probably doesn't help the RFK was looking into stolen elections as well -

another issue that the powers that be seem to prefer to ignore.

Bobby might be seen as having a potentional to be a rabble rouser, and we can't have that.

[boppers]

14. Science self-corrects by peer review.

Ideas that are found to be totally without merit or scientific backing tend to be looked down upon.

When somebody goes out of their way to champion ideas without merit or backing, there is even greater criticism.

That's just how it works.

[truedelphi]

15. Tell that to Warren Porter, tell that to Marc Lappe, tell that

To Michael Belkin, tell that to all the many others whose names I do not know.

One thing I do know, infants and children today have a rough time of it. How do we know who to blame for what? Record nuumbers of two year olds now have arthritis, and who do we blame?

Is it the formaldehyde and benzenes in the Glade air Fresheners. Or the Febreeze with its toxins? Or the alkyls in the lysol.

Or the fact that gas stations don't have gas station attendants, so pregnant womaen now gas up their own cars.

Is it bovine growth hormone, or GMO baby food? The hepatitis B vaccine given to one day olds as part of the "Healthy Baby Program?" Or maybe it is the melamine in the baby formula from China.

Here's a sad commentary on the very journal we used to be able to rely on:
www.coastalpost.com/02/07/05.htm

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

20. OK. Are there any other cranks you'd like me to tell it too?

"One thing I do know, infants and children today have a rough time of it."

You should have seen how rough they had it before vaccines.

"Record nuumbers of two year olds now have arthritis, and who do we blame?"

I don't know. Chemtrails?

"Is it the formaldehyde and benzenes in the Glade air Fresheners. Or the Febreeze with its toxins? Or the alkyls in the lysol.

Or the fact that gas stations don't have gas station attendants, so pregnant womaen now gas up their own cars.

Is it bovine growth hormone, or GMO baby food? The hepatitis B vaccine given to one day olds as part of the "Healthy Baby Program?" Or maybe it is the melamine in the baby formula from China."

No.

"Here's a sad commentary on the very journal we used to be able to rely on:
www.coastalpost.com/02/07/05.htm "

That is a very sad commentary. Loony, poor-written, and riddled with conspiracy theories.

Very sad indeed.

[Danger Mouse]

24. 9/11 WAS AN INSIDE JOB!!!!! TRUTH!!!!

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

18. "So it is likely that Kennedy was punished for his stand."

I sure hope so.

"When medical researchers realized that Reyes syndrome could injure and kill a young child with a fever who was given an aspirin, nobody began a campaign of doom against those medical professionals espousing this idea."

That's because there was evidence that aspirin actual caused this problem.

"But any time that somebody suggests that day old infants should not be given vaccines that person is ridiculed and blacklisted. "

Yes, because their is no evidence, and plenty of evidence that not vaccinating puts children in harm's way.

"RIP, Truth. YOur place in the scientific world has been replaced with the notion of Corporate loyalty."


Blah. Blah. Blah. Obama's birth certificate. Blah. Blah. Blah.

[Thrill]

4. Why because she has critics? She also has people who praise her

[FrenchieCat]

6. I understand that she was under budget constraints,

which is why her priority wasn't acted upon.

Have you researched that yet?

In the article you linked to, it also reads.....

Jackson's supporters ardently defend her record and place much of New Jersey's environmental problems on Gov. Corzine. They say that while Corzine has offered lofty rhetoric about environmental goals, he has not helped Jackson accomplish them. Jackson left the department to take a job as Corzine's chief of staff at the beginning of this month.

"Lisa Jackson has been forced to work without the resources or the leadership at the top to let her do what she wanted to do," says Amy Goldsmith, the state policy director for the New Jersey Environmental Federation. "Corzine just has different priorities, and if the leader isn't willing to lead, it is hard for somebody that's been appointed to take the reins."

Both Goldsmith and Tittel point to Jackson's work on climate change as an example of why she would make a great EPA chief.

Last year, Corzine signed the Global Warming Response Act, which aims to cut greenhouse gases in New Jersey 20 percent by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050.

"Lisa worked closely with the governor to champion this bill, and helped lobby the legislature to approve it," says Dena Mottola, executive director of Environment New Jersey.

But Ruch argues that the New Jersey environment department under Jackson's tenure failed to meet crucial deadlines for drafting procedures to actually implement the law.

"As a result, despite much ballyhoo, New Jersey does not have a coherent game-plan for achieving its climate change goals," Ruch wrote in a letter to President-elect Obama (PDF), opposing Jackson's nomination.

Again, New Jersey environmentalists come to Jackson's defense.

"No one worked more on this issue than my group, and if we thought missing that deadline was a huge concern we would have criticized it, and we didn't," says Mottola.

Eric Stiles, vice president for conservation at the New Jersey Audubon Society, said that while Jackson's record isn't perfect, she has always been receptive to his group's arguments and straightforward about her positions and the competing interests she was considering.

"She really took on some big issues and big battles and moved it forward in New Jersey," says Stiles. "Did she do everything I would have hoped for? No. But probably everything I would've hoped for was unreasonable."

It is Obama's vision and priorities on this that will count. I see her as doing the job required, not fighting it in any way.

[Muttocracy]

8. anyone know what she did between her chem eng degree and NJ DEP?

wiki doesn't say; wondering if she was in industry?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_P._Jackson

[PM7nj]

9. PEER are the only ones I have heard complaining about her.

Everyone else has had nothing but good things to say about her. Also, she had to work in NJ. That is no easy task. Nothing ever gets done in this state. Nothing!

[boppers]

11. I like her.

She seems to tangle reasonably well with those who would ban dihydrogen monoxide.

[babylonsister]

12. Dupe nt

[babylonsister]

13. Background on Jackson:

Lisa P. Jackson

By DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI
Published: December 11, 2008


A series of profiles of potential members of the Obama administration.


Name: Lisa P. Jackson

Being Considered For: Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency

Would bring to the job: Twenty years of experience as an environmental regulator and a reputation as a consensus builder. Ms. Jackson, who is a chemical engineer, brought a more policy-driven approach to New Jersey’s historically politicized Department of Environmental Protection as its commissioner. During her 33 months in that job, the state began conducting compliance sweeps to crack down on polluters in environmentally ravaged sections of Camden and Paterson, ended its controversial bear hunt and unveiled a plan to reduce carbon emissions 20 percent by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050.

Is linked to Mr. Obama by: His transition team. Like her boss, Gov. Jon S. Corzine, Ms. Jackson supported Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton over Mr. Obama in the Democratic presidential primaries. Besides making a $1,000 donation to Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2007, Ms. Jackson was an at-large delegate pledged to Mrs. Clinton; only later in 2008 did she donate $200 to the Obama campaign. Shortly after she was named Mr. Corzine’s chief of staff in late October — taking over on Dec. 1, becoming the first woman and first African American to hold the post — she was chosen by President-elect Obama in mid-November to serve on his transition panel for energy and the environment.

In her own words: “When it comes to the auto industry, the E.P.A. apparently is the Emissions Permissions Agency.” (Announcing in December 2007 that New Jersey would join other states in suing the Bush administration for its ruling that prevented states from enacting tougher fuel efficiency standards, a decision she called “a horrendous change of course.”)

Used to work as: An administrator in the federal Environmental Protection Agency for 16 years, where her duties included regulating the cleanup of hazardous waste sites under the Superfund program. She also ran various enforcement programs at both the E.P.A. and New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection, as well as New Jersey’s Land Use Management Program.

Carries as baggage: The E.P.A. criticized New Jersey in a recent report for moving too slowly to clean up some toxic waste sites. Some environmentalists also say she caved in to pressure from big business by supporting a plan that would privatize cleanup of hazardous waste sites, and from developers by diluting a proposal to enact stricter groundwater quality standards.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/11/us/politics/11web-jackson.html