Not content to soak the Bill of Rights in a vat of acid, rip the heart out of social security, and let Medicare wither on the vine, the Republican leadership in Congress and the White House are now out to foul the very air that we breathe. Bush, Cheney and the rubber stamp Republicans of Capitol Hill are now seeking to push through new rules that would radically change laws that limit release of toxic chemicals like mercury into the air.
The public relations people at the Bush White House have named their new set of rules “The Clear Skies Initiative”. In truth, the only thing that this initiative makes clear is that the Republicans are willing to put Americans’ lives at risk for the sake of big energy corporations’ profits.
You see, part of the so-called Clear Skies Initiative actually makes it legal for huge coal-burning power plants spew as much mercury into the air as they want, so long as they have enough money to cover their tracks. Even those coal-burning power plants that don’t have enough money to bribe the system would be allowed to wait until 2020 before they would have to even start to install equipment to reduce the amount of mercury pollution coming out of their dirty smokestacks.
The truth is that the Clear Skies Initiative aims to take America back to the days when huge black and brown clouds of filth filled the air, with coal burning going full tilt across the United States. The Clear Skies Initiative would take the USA back into an era when cities and countryside alike were fouled by unregulated industrial pollution.
Yet, the George W. Bush says that his scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency have cleared the plan. President Bush has gone all around the country telling people that the EPA has conducted studies showing that a certain amount of mercury pollution is just fine. Oh, but there’s just one little catch: Bush was lying through his teeth.
Last week, a report by the Inspector General of the Environmental Protection Agency showed that the scientific research President Bush has been using to justify his plan to increase mercury pollution was fraudulent. According to the Inspector General, Republicans appointed by George W. Bush to run the EPA “instructed EPA staff to develop a Maximum Achievable Control Technology standard for mercury that would result in a national emissions of 34 tons annually, instead of basing the standard on an unbiased determination” because “34 tons represents the most realistic and achievable standard for utilities.”
Let me translate that for you: Republicans in the Bush Administration told scientists at the EPA to alter their research into mercury pollution in order to provide political justification for increased emissions of mercury under the Clear Skies Initiative – and did so in order to create new lax pollution standards that would be pleasing to big energy corporations. Bush’s people in the EPA purposefully forced their staff scientists to commit scientific fraud – and Bush is still pushing the Clear Skies Initiative, even though he knows that the mercury pollution standards in the new rules are extremely unsafe.
In the supermarket, when a product is made up of fake ingredients, the manufacturers are required to name the product in such a way that consumers will be able to tell that the food is not for real. The most obvious example is Cheez Wiz. Everybody knows that Cheez Wiz is not real cheese because it’s name is so obviously an imitation. When people buy Cheez Wiz, they’re not being tricked into eating an industrial simulation of food – they know what they’re in for.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if such truth in labeling were required for governmental programs? That way, the so-called Clear Skies Initiative would have to get a new name – after all, the scientific studies behind it have now been exposed as an purposeful fraud by the Bush Administration. What kind of new name can we give to the coal-burning, mercury spewing, air-poisoning set of rules? Well, if George W. Bush really wants to make his pro-pollution initiative sound like a clean air bill, all I ask is that the name be spelled in a way that reveals it to be an industrial imitation: How about The Kleer Skies Initiative?
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Ever since the inauguration, Bush and co. have been doing all the damage a dictator can do because there is no one around to stop him. All the comments and liberal radio counterpoint, all the rhetoric is not going to make him stop. Since the American people are basically distracted and ignorant sheep now (as opposed to the way we were when the country was founded – willing to fight the oppression with words backed up by deeds like the Boston Tea Party), don’t expect anything but more and more bad news. The America you were born in is rapidly going away and all the squawking won’t do anything to slow down the demise of the once great nation of idealists. We’ll be a bankrupt shell of a nation soon. The corruption is so deep (and backed by huge multi-national corporations who have no loyalty to anyone) that our day in the sun will be over before the next presidential term comes around. Until some concrete action is taken – even if it’s just mass protests in the streets like in the Vietnam War days – nothing will change for the better.
Tom, I share your frustration. However, there sure as heck aren’t going to be any mass protests if Americans of good conscience do not speak up – on the Internet, on talk radio, in their homes, on street corners if that’s what it takes. Without squawking, there will be no action.
Information is the first step towards action. Action out of anger, uniformed, is dangerous because it can be used towards unscrupulous ends.
If you want to focus on action, let me advise you to think almost two years ahead – to Election Day 2006. The only way to stop President Bush’s agenda now is to block it through a reassertion of the power of Congress. We need to end the Republican rubber stamp for Bush in Congress, and hold the President to account for his attacks on the law.
J. Clifford, can I get a source from you for the EPA report that tells of fraud? I’d like to read it and send the report around to those I think would be concerned about such silencing of science.
Gentlefolk, the situation will NOT improve unless and until we can succed in breaking the stranglehold the Republican Party has on the entire system of checks and balances we currently have in place. Furthermore, this situation is firmly in place until 2006…so you’d better be ready for more bad news. The most we can do right now is just as J Clifford pointed out: help create an informed public. But do not fear to take action in the streets. Remember what a few started in 1965…and how many were on board by 1971.
Tracy, here’s some links to stories about the report:
http://www.cleartheair.org/proactive/newsroom/release.vtml?id=25825
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2002170349_mercury04.html
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/02/04/MNG7AB5T7I1.DTL
…and here’s a link to the report itself:
http://www.cleartheair.org/documents/epa_oig_report.pdf
Clear Skies is better for the environment than the Clean Air Act
Opponents of the Clear Skies act from the environmental left would rather spend years in court paying herds of lawyers instead of supporting efforts to clean the nation’s air right now. They falsely claim that more emissions reductions would be achieved if existing Clean Air Act provisions were simply followed and that Clear Skies is a rollback of the existing provisions in the Clean Air Act. The basis for this misleading attack is an internal proposal and scenario that was developed by EPA officials, who have publicly declared that the proposal and scenario were not based in reality and were taken to the extreme as a negotiating tool.
FACTS: Clear Skies’ benefits are real and the country will start seeing them soon, beginning in just three years. Clear Skies is better than doing nothing because its benefits are certain to be enacted and emissions are certain to be reduced.
Clear Skies is significantly better for the environment than the existing Clean Air Act because it provides environmental certainty that NOx, SO2, and mercury will be reduced by 70% by 2018. Power plants will reduce their emissions and air quality will improve. Unlike efforts to reduce emissions by rulemaking, when Clear Skies is enacted into law it cannot be held up or derailed by litigation. Clear Skies is modeled after the national cap-and-trade Acid Rain Program, which is our nation’s most successful clean air initiative – reducing pollution faster and less costly than ever before.
Cleaner Air Quicker:
In 2008 nitrogen oxide will be required to be reduced by about 59 percent.
In 2010 sulfur dioxide will be required to be reduced by more than 50 percent.
In 2010 mercury will be required to be reduced by about 29 percent.
These levels will be required to be reduced further by 2018â€â€to below 2000 levels:
Sulfur dioxide will be reduced by 73 percent by 2018.
Nitrogen oxide will be reduced by 67 percent in 2018.
Mercury will be reduced by 69 percent in 2018.
Well, Anonymous. The fact is that your facts are straight-from-the-White House bunk.
Let’s focus on the Mercury emissions, for example. The so-called Clear Skies Initiative pushed by the Bush Administration doesn’t require coal burning power plants to institute mercury reduction measures until 15 years from now. Under current rules, those power plants have to reduce mercury now – but the Bush Administration has refused to enforce the current rules. How, is it possible to reduce mercury emissions by 69 percent in 13 years if power plants aren’t even required to take steps to reduce the emissions until 15 years from now?
These blue sky projections from the public relations folks at the White House just don’t add up.
Are you aware that key provisions of the Clear Skies Initiative were written by a group of lawyers hired by corporations that own polluting coal-burning power plants? The name of the firm is Latham & Watkins, a former employer of EPA Bush appointee Jeffrey Holmstead, who has overseen the creation of the filthy Clear Skies Initiative.
When the Bush government has such a record of forcing scientists to hide and distort basic information, only a fool would accept their numbers at face value. The Clear Skies Initiative reeks of corruption and purposeful deception.
Actually Mr. Cook, just to address your first point, there is no rule to reduce mercury now. There never has been. After punting the issue for 8 years Carol Browner decided during her last month in office to punt the decision another five years, some courage on her part. The mercury regulations scheduled to go final next month, reagrdless of the fate of Clear Skies, will be the first time mercury has ever been regulated from utility emissions. Nice try trying to confuse the public.
“even if it’s just mass protests in the streets like in the Vietnam War days – nothing will change for the better”
Nothing will change that’s just it people don’t have courage anymore and besides they are too busy watching survivoror some other scripted ‘fake life’ drama. The powers that be have already won society will break down and then they will come to our rescue offering a lovely life in a slave labour camp. That is when we will have a chance to retake our freedom, and not before.
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