The US Environmental Protection Agency, which has brought us cleaner air and water over the past four decades, is under mortal attack.
Senator Lindsey Graham briefed us all at the LSE about the intentions of the US Congress and perhaps Senate to not only not lead on Climate Change, but to go backwards in a haste…
As a new found apologist for the forsaken Nuclear industry even in light of the Fukushima ongoing disastrous meltdown, senator Lindsey Graham asked us to support the build up of new Nuclear plants. He claimed that he lives in South Carolina within five miles of a nuclear plant… Except that he failed to mention that he lives in Washington DC. But never mind…
What his aim was in speaking to the English people apparently was to snow us under a load of BS. His following the line of the Republican party to gut the EPA and pollute the atmosphere became evident. His lack of imagination of any other way to power our lives and economies is astonishing. But his intent to gut the EPA is criminal. And this GOP movement of environmental destruction is in need of leadership and he seems to be applying for the top job…
Evidence of this movement is that the Republican leaders in the House of Representatives put together and passed a funding bill for the remainder of the fiscal year that would devastate nearly every facet of EPA’s work. The measure would reduce the EPA’s budget by an astounding $3 billion, cutting it 29 percent from 2010.
And while they were at it, the House included a provision to permanently suspend EPA’s ability to regulate the greenhouse gas emissions that result in climate change. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, thinks this would be a good thing for a few years… claiming that the American public wants it that way.
Although, the EPA has long been a target of polluting industries, their supporters, their lobbyists and their PR cheerleaders in Congress and Senate, this hate of it is unprecedented. Polluters, upset with what they view as excessive government regulation, that might make them pay for treating the atmosphere like an open sewer have got their knives out preparing for a knife fight. They present the American public as stupid and ignorant. of course after working on it with their unhealthy dose f PR bullshit, they now feel ready to ride the American public to the slaughterhouse…
And now their strategy is to slash the EPA’s budget, saving themselves a few bucks on top of their tax dodging, all together adding to their greed at the expense of severe environmental and health consequences for the American Public…
To put the proposed cuts in perspective, consider that the EPA’s budget today is about one-tenth of one percent of federal expenditures. That makes it hard to take seriously the claim that the cut is about reducing the deficit. That aside, it’s important to understand how poorly funded EPA has been historically, how its present budget is working out and the likely effect of cutbacks.
And EPA has suffered under the Cheney’s bush years but has also been chronically underfunded for many many years. As early as 1980, John Quarles, the agency’s first deputy administrator, observed that “In the nine years of EPA’s existence, its manpower has roughly doubled while its responsibilities have been multiplied by a factor of twenty. Today, it cannot perform its workload.”
Bad as it was in 1980, the situation worsened during the 1980s and 1990s. And even though catastrophes caused from Climate Change, like Katrina and others happened in America, the people didn’t connect the dots…
In the early ’80s, EPA’s budget was cut severely, then it rebounded to 1979 levels within one year. Yet during the same period, EPA’s responsibilities — as measured by the laws passed by Congress — grew enormously, and growth in the U.S. economy vastly expanded the number of industrial pollution sources subject to EPA regulation.
Although nominally unchanged, the EPA’s working budget also effectively decreased during the late 1990s and most of the 2000s because Congress repeatedly mandated cost of living pay raises for federal employees without appropriating any extra funds. Thus, at low levels of visibility, EPA has long been forced to operate “on a shoestring,” significantly hampering its ability to carry out its public responsibilities.
Still for over thirty years it has delivered us great results that we all take for granted — now that a fresh breed of Neanderthals have come to play footsie in the House.
Yours,
Pano
PS:
The Apologists for Pollution, dirty air, Fouling waters, killing the species and your children are at it again.
I had a conversation with Senator Lindsey Graham who is as enlightened a member of Senate as any and he had this to say:
There is no consensus for Carbon fighting in the US and there will not be a Climate and Energy bill in the foreseeable future either.
Claiming to give his only truth he went on to say that the Americans haven’t got consensus that Climate Change is real and that is why they will not act at all.
Fearing that it will raise the cost of doing business, they shall not act.
Hell, he said they will not even get their commitments from Copenhagen and Cancun funded.
Some serious shit coming down the pike in America me thinks…
PS2:
Senator Lindsey Graham went on to say that if Obama is smart he will not talk again about the Climate bill. Ever…
And he will do well to support Nuclear Energy plant building i America all over again.
Despite Fukushima and all…
PS3:
But still I asked the good Senator from South Carolina…
Was there a consensus in America when old Abe declared Slavery a bad idea?
Was emancipation declared because everyone agreed upon?
Or was it an idea whose time has come?
Much like Climate slavery that we should resist at any cost…
At this the eloquent Senator from America fell silent.
