I have made reference in other discussions as to the Bush Aministration's attempts to levy policy change via their power as an executor of public policy.
this is a perfect example (be warned, nytimes link, you'll need to regester w/ the times).
The relevent issues to this subject are too vast to mention. The problem inherent here, is that we have an administration who has from the outset been open and blatant friendship with the very people who they are entrusted with policing. Thus in an ironically hypocritical moment we find the bush administration denouncing wall street scandals for corporate conflicts of interest, while the Bush EPA runs further and further afoul of the legislation they are supposed to enforce.
It is a highly disturbing sign when the EPA has to debate whether or not to pursue violations of the law.
Posted by Kayla (Member # 2403) on :
quote: The current rule requires plant owners to install pollution-control devices if they undertake anything more than "routine maintenance" on their plants. Industries have long argued that the standard is too vague and hinders substantial investment in cleaner, more efficient equipment.
Wow, and the Republicans were up in arms about the meaning of the word is. Apparently, "routine maintenance" is replacing 20% of the plant?!? If I had to replace 20% of my car, I don't think I'd call that "routine maitenance." I think I'd call it major repairs. Routine maitenance is getting the oil changed, or a tune-up. Not replacing the engine. Posted by Ryan Hart (Member # 5513) on :
I think it means that if the plant does anything more than routine maintenance, it has to include installing the pollution filters.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
And of course since the plant ITSELF can do nothing to maintain its integrity, it remains a dirty plant.
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
Although the "New Source Review" rules, which came out of a 1977 congressional amendment to the Clean Air Act, were vauge, setting a 20% standard is way to high. Kayla is right, 20% is certainly not "routine maintenace." I predict that companies will 20% us to death, only doing 20% of improvements at a time to avoid expensive pollution controls. What a crock! An EPA spokesman, commenting on the pending rules change, from the link:
quote:"But I can say that we are working on this final rule," he said, adding that it would "encourage facilities to improve their efficiency, reliability and safety."
But not their pollution controls. Well, I guess we could call acid rain "efficient and reliable." Hardly a goal worth striving for.
[ August 22, 2003, 10:02 AM: Message edited by: Morbo ]
Posted by Sweet William (Member # 5212) on :
Actually, the more efficient a plant is, the less pollution it will produce, filters or no.
True efficiency and true safety are things which are good to encourage. I'm not exactly sure that the Bush Administration (especially with my guv, Mr. Leavitt) will do this in reality.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Surely no one is surprised? Fox. Henhouse.
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
I don't thinks so, Sweet William. Added efficiency without added pollution controls could only mean more energy produced from a given amount of fuel, with extra CO2, nitrous and sulphor oxides and other byproducts produced as well. It would mean cheaper energy, though, a good thing.
I'm concerned that energy companies are really dragging their feet on pollution controls, clear evidence that profits are more important to them than clean air. Which is the whole reason behind the Clean Air Act. Bush and many conservatives don't seem to get that.
[ August 22, 2003, 11:08 AM: Message edited by: Morbo ]
Posted by odouls268 (Member # 2145) on :
sometimes i do this: "oogyoogy yahyahgaga poopie blarny firjna binjanaholder"
but then i stop. this has been one of those times.
Posted by Celtic Flame (Member # 5556) on :
You mean to say that politicians are corrupt?? Nooooo, never. I wont believe it. Posted by Kayla (Member # 2403) on :
It's true, it's true!
Bits and pieces of a story below.
quote:The Tawdry Tale of WorldCom's Sweetheart Deal in Iraq.
After an $11 billion accounting scandal sunk the infamous telecommunications conglomerate into bankruptcy, the U.S. General Services Administration banned federal agencies from doing business with WorldCom. So how is a proscribed "company that has demonstrated a flagrant lack of ethics"--the words belong to Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), chairperson of the Senate's Governmental Affairs Committee--poised to land a $900 million Pentagon contract to build a cell phone system for occupied Iraq?
"I was curious about it, because the last time I looked, MCI has never built out a wireless network," comments Len Lauer of Sprint.
Indeed, WorldCom's MCI division never figured out how to build a cell network in the U.S., and ultimately gave up trying.
Now it's leveraging a $45 million deal with the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) into a Halliburtonesque sweetheart contract to build the first national mobile phone network in Iraq, where more than 2 million new customers are expected to sign up right away
The Pentagon's rush to protect WorldCom from a scrappy Bahraini-based competitor, Batelco, which has built cell networks in the Middle East, has exposed yet another unholy alliance between corporate America and the Bush Administration. Demonstrating the brand of lightening-quick entrepreneurship traditionally treasured by free-market-loving Americans, Batelco raced into Iraq after the U.S. invasion and installed cell towers throughout Baghdad. With half of land lines out of service and Saddam's 1990 plan to build cell towers stymied by U.N. trade sanctions, Baghdadis welcomed the new service. But the CPA shut down Batelco and threatened to confiscate its $5 million of equipment. Now the CPA is now prohibiting companies more than 10 percent owned by foreign governments from bidding on civilian cell business in U.S.-occupied Iraq. That eliminates Batelco and most other Middle East-based telecommunications companies and, according to analyst Lars Godell of Forrester Research in Amsterdam, leaves MCI with "a head start."
Ordinary Iraqis, meanwhile, are back in the pre-Alexander Graham Bell era.
I know he's a bit of a leftie. Anyone know how to verify this info?
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
No, No, No. The point of the grandfather clause was to protect older facilities that did not have the resources to modernize from being driven out of business by envirnmental regulation. That in and of itself is highly controversial but if a plant has the resources to replace 20% of its equipment to improve safety and efficiency, then it has the resources to install air-pollution control. This is simply a blind run on the clean air act.
Posted by Kayla (Member # 2403) on :
quote:At the White House's direction, the Environmental Protection Agency (news - web sites) gave New Yorkers misleading assurances that there was no health risk from the debris-laden air after the World Trade Center collapse, according to an internal inquiry.
President Bush's senior environmental adviser on Friday defended the White House involvement, saying it was justified by national security.
In all, the EPA issued five press releases within 10 days of the attacks and four more by the end of 2001 reassuring the public about air quality. But it wasn't until June 2002 that the EPA determined that air quality had returned to pre-Sept. 11 levels — well after respiratory ailments and other problems began to surface in hundreds of workers cleaning dusty offices and apartments.
A matter of national security NOT to inform people of the dust from the world trade center causing respiratory problems?
I call BS.
Posted by Strokeman (Member # 4625) on :
If people had to be told that the air quality wasn't any good, at the dust from WTC was hazardous, then they deserve every respitory problem they have. It's just common sense.
[ August 23, 2003, 09:45 AM: Message edited by: Strokeman ]
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Strokeman, that's ludicrous. The administration made specific assurances through the EPA that the air was NOT harmful.
However, as is now coming out, there were many large health concerns from it that were known quickly by the administration.
It was criminal to cover it up, and there should be people going to jail over it.
That's like me bringing you water all the time with a heavy carcinogen in it, telling you the water is fine, then in a few years when you have cancer saying "oh yeah, the water was carcinogenic".
Posted by Pod (Member # 941) on :
Stroke:
What fugu said.
Posted by Pod (Member # 941) on :
ya mean like keeping indoors with your windows shut, and wearing a face covering when going out side?
Gee, strange, sounds like what a good deal of citizens of other major countries do everyday!
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Okay, it's like the water in a city having pounds of a major carcinogen dumped in them (and this being known) and the residents not being told. As has been pointed out, there are lots of things people could do to avoid breathing the contaminated air as much as possible, lots of readily available things.
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