While it may seem quiet in Washington, the Bush administration has been busy attacking

[Peacetrain]

the environment. If anyone thought that Bush/Cheney were lame ducking and just waiting to leave DC.. think again.

Some of the rule changes would ease or lift constraints on private industry, including power plants, mines and farms. Those and other regulations would help clear obstacles to some commercial ocean-fishing activities, ease controls on emissions of pollutants that contribute to global warming, relax drinking-water standards and lift a key restriction on mountaintop coal mining .

In the relaxation of standards for the coal mines would mean that they could dump toxic waste into lakes, drinking water reserves

[firedupdem]

1. I heard about this. The rotten bastards. Question...

I should probably know this but.....are these things Obama can overturn once he's in office or would they have to go through congress?

[Peacetrain]

2. God I hope so...

[firedupdem]

3. Me too. These guys have no respect or care for people or the

environment. I'm glad the new team consists of real scientists and our President has a functioning brain.

[Peacetrain]

4. Here is the link.. it says that it may be hard to overturn these last minute attacks

~sigh~

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2008/11/05/bush-administration-rushes-to-relax-environmental-rules-before-leaving-office/

[Muttocracy]

5. I think part of the problem is they've already gone through a "review process"

and it makes it harder to just change the regulations within the agency - I think another review process has to be initiated which takes months in some cases. Not sure in every case, but I've heard that about some issues.

I'm very glad Obama has worked so hard on the transition and getting people ready to hit the ground running - they'll need to.

[leftyclimber]

8. Did they even PUBLICIZE public comment for this shit?

I know that a couple of Appalachian governors said "don't screw us even more, please" at some point (and WV's was conspicuously silent, the turd), but I hadn't heard word boo about the "valley fill" (pour shit in people's drinking water) change until the corporate media mentioned it in a way that it sounded like it was a done deal.

Like it would have mattered what public sentiment was.

:nuke:

[Muttocracy]

9. well, having a public comment period and paying attention to input

are two different things... :(

[leftyclimber]

12. I hear ya.

The "responses to comments" over the last eight years have been so crazy I can't even begin to describe them.

Sigh.

[leftyclimber]

6. They'd loosened the watershed regulations already

by redefining mine waste to "valley fill". We've got poisoned water, poisoned air, poisoned children, and annual "100-year" floods in Southern WV thanks to those sonsabitches. These assholes have been raping the Appalachian region for over a hundred years and they've found a way to make it even worse.

Motherfuckers.

[Peacetrain]

7. The sulfur water that turns everything yellow.. what a nightmare

I can't believe they are going this..

[leftyclimber]

10. Acid mine drainage.

We've got mines in north-central WV where I live that aren't mapped. People don't know where they are.

I reiterate, people don't know where they ARE.

An economist I know was asked to evaluate the economic impact of one of these unmapped mines blowing out into the Monongahela River, and he said it was incalculable.

You can mitigate AMD to a degree, but you're talking DECADES of limestone fines before the water is actually safe for habitat again. It's fucking INSANE what these people are willing to do to our country.

But it's OK. We're just Appalachia. :nuke:

[CoffeeCat]

11. I don't get it...

Don't their children drink water?

Don't their children and grandchildren plan on living on planet Earth in the future?

Do they love greed, corruption and corporatism so much, that they'll kill themselves off and poison
their own children and grandchildren?

[Muttocracy]

13. I guess they figure they can buy their way out of those problems?

I don't get it either.

[CoffeeCat]

15. If they have the money to....

...but another habitable planet and the transportation to get there---then I guess they're golden!

If not, then they're screwed, just like the rest of us.

[NYC_SKP]

14. By and large, their families are so rich they don't need to worry.

Thus has it always been for those at the top.

They either cannot see or care not to look.

They buy bottled water, so don't worry about tap. They travel in private aircraft, never take off shoes at an airport.

And their wealth protects them and their children from any eventuality, health care, lost job, housing, transportation, etc.

It's time to break out my bumper sticker that says,

Eat The Rich.

[Peacetrain]

17. That is what amazes me, the greed, the unbelievable greed

The inability to think about consequences.

[pansypoo53219]

16. so close to the end of the idiots term

i heard congress can undo a lot. IF they have the will.