The EPA is evil

Because it prevents corporations from poisoning your food, dumping toxic waste, befouling the air. Bring back the good old days when people died from eating canned goods and breathing polluted air!!

...Just how stupid are these people?

WTF?

Watchdog criticizes feds for pulling back on radiation monitoring

An environmental watchdog group is criticizing the federal government for scaling back its radiation monitoring, while simultaneously planning to raise allowable levels of radiation releases in food, water and soil after a nuclear incident.

The group, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, issued a press release yesterday condemning the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's decisions.

The EPA and the Food and Drug Administration increased their radiation monitoring efforts after a massive earthquake and tsunami off the coast of Japan set off the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

But on May 3, the EPA announced [PDF] in a press release that it was falling back to a business-as-usual schedule of radiation monitoring, citing “consistently decreasing radiation levels.”
The EPA will begin analyzing milk and drinking water on a quarterly basis, with monthly testing of rainwater.

According to the federal agency, detectable levels "are well below any level of public health concern, and continue to decrease."

But the environmental group isn't buying it.

“With the Japanese nuclear situation still out of control and expected to continue that way for months and with elevated radioactivity continuing to show up in the U.S., it is inexplicable that EPA would shut down its Fukushima radiation monitoring effort,” said Jeff Ruch, executive director of the watchdog group, in a statement.

He said the agency found high levels of radiation in drinking water, and now was not the time to be pulling their efforts back.

He also said the EPA’s monitoring program, RadNet, is unreliable and fails to cover large swaths of the West Coast.

A spokesman for the EPA denied Ruch’s allegations.

Toxic kids

An email from the Sierra Club:

Did you know that babies are being born with more than 300 industrial chemicals in their bodies, many associated with diseases from childhood cancer to birth defects, infertility and learning deficits?

America's toxic chemical safety law fails to protect the most vulnerable in society, kids. It assumes that chemicals are safe and relies on the government to identify dangerous chemicals among the 80,000 on the market. That hasn't worked. Instead, the burden should be on chemical manufacturers to prove that chemicals are safe for infants and children before they enter the marketplace.

California Senator Barbara Boxer has long supported the Kids-Safe Chemicals Act, which will make many important changes to chemical safety law to protect children. Urge her to keep up the good work and pass the bill.

As Chair of the Senate's Environment Committee, Senator Boxer is in a key position to pass legislation to protect kids’ health from toxic chemicals in our food, air and water. The Kids-Safe Chemical Act would put the burden on chemical manufacturers to test chemicals' health effects thoroughly before marketing them, guarantee the public’s right to know about health and safety data, and give the EPA clear authority to ban or restrict chemicals.

Senator Boxer has long been a leader in advocating protection of childrens' health. Urge her to pass the Kids-Safe Chemical Act ASAP.

Thanks for taking action to protect our children's future.

Greg Haegele
Director of Conservation

When you put a moron in charge...

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is undermining the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to determine health dangers of toxic chemicals by letting nonscientists have a bigger — often secret — role, congressional investigators say in a report obtained by The Associated Press.

The administration's decision to give the Defense Department and other agencies an early role in the process adds to years of delay in acting on harmful chemicals and jeopardizes the program's credibility, the Government Accountability Office concluded.

At issue is the EPA's screening of chemicals used in everything from household products to rocket fuel to determine if they pose serious risk of cancer or other illnesses.

A new review process begun by the White House in 2004 is adding more speed bumps for EPA scientists, the GAO said in its report, which will be the subject of a Senate Environment Committee hearing Tuesday. A formal policy effectively doubling the number of steps was adopted two weeks ago.

Update: via Blue Girl of Blue Girl, Red State:

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration on Friday urged a federal appeals court to stop meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease, but a skeptical judge questioned whether the government has that authority.

The government seeks to reverse a lower court ruling that allowed Kansas-based Creekstone Farms Premium Beef to conduct more comprehensive testing to satisfy demand from overseas customers in Japan and elsewhere.

Less than 1 percent of slaughtered cows are currently tested for the disease under Agriculture Department guidelines. The agency argues that more widespread testing does not guarantee food safety and could result in a false positive that scares consumers.

"They want to create false assurances," Justice Department attorney Eric Flesig-Greene told a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

But Creekstone attorney Russell Frye contended the Agriculture Department's regulations covering the treatment of domestic animals contain no prohibition against an individual company testing for mad cow disease, since the test is conducted only after a cow is slaughtered. He said the agency has no authority to prevent companies from using the test to reassure customers.

"This is the government telling the consumers, `You're not entitled to this information,'" Frye said.

It should be evident that the Bush administration really really really is not compassionately conservative... unless that really means drawing the blinds of their house while poor people writhe about on the ground dying from cancer from toxic chemicals or from Alzheimer's from mad cows....

Following Dick Cheney's lead

The EPA declares executive privilege and refuses to explain why it said no for the first time in 32 years to California's greenhouse gas regulations:

Invoking executive privilege, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency refused to provide lawmakers Friday with a full explanation of why it rejected California's greenhouse gas regulations.

The EPA informed Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., that many of the documents she had requested contained internal deliberations or attorney-client communications that would not be shared with Congress.

"EPA is concerned about the chilling effect that would occur if agency employees believed their frank and honest opinions and analysis expressed as part of assessing California's waiver request were to be disclosed in a broad setting," EPA Associate Administrator Christopher Bliley wrote.

More than a week after a deadline set by Boxer, the agency gave the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which she chairs, a box of papers with large portions of the relevant documents deleted, Boxer said. The documents omitted key details, including a presentation that, according to Senate aides, predicted EPA would lose a lawsuit if it was taken to court for denying California's waiver.

The refusal to provide a full explanation is the latest twist in a congressional investigation into why the EPA denied California permission to impose what would have been the country's toughest greenhouse gas standards on cars, trucks and sport utility vehicles.

Via Nicole Belle of Crooks and Liars, Think Progress points out that Vice President Dick Cheney met with automakers before the EPA denied California's waver. Gee... doesn't this sound familiar?

Anything to keep us guzzling that 100 dollar a barrel crude, huh, Dick?
(crossposted at SteveAudio)

Our Gropenator is going to sue!

(CNN)-- California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger plans to sue the federal government over its decision not to allow a California plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, he announced Thursday.

Environmental Protection Agency chief Stephen Johnson announced the decision Wednesday, refusing the state's request for a waiver that would have allowed it to cut emissions faster than a new federal plan the president signed into law Wednesday.

"It's another example of the administration's failure to treat global warming with the seriousness that it actually demands," the governor said at a news conference Thursday.

Bush on Thursday defended the decision of his EPA administrator.

"Is it more effective to let each state make a decision as to how to proceed in curbing greenhouse gases? Or is it more effective to have a national strategy?" he said.

(Bryan of Why Now? predicted this in comments.)

When the hell have you had any kind of nation strategery except to try and break the federal government, Georgie?

Take this washing machine

And shov...... stand in the way of progress....

California has filed a lawsuit against the US Department of Energy for failing to allow the state to make its household washing machines more water-efficient.

In 2004, California approved rules imposing water efficiency standards for household washing machines that are higher than federal standards. The proposed new standard required washing machines sold after 2007 to use no more than 8.5 gallons of water per cubic foot of washing machine capacity. And by 2010, this figure would have to be reduced by a further 30%.

Overall, the new rules were expected to save 303 billion litres of water a year by 2019, but they could only come into effect if approved by the federal Department of Energy. However, the DOE refused to grant California a waiver from less stringent federal standards in 2004.

"For a state that faces perpetual water issues, every drop counts," says Jackalyne Pfannenstiel, chair of the California Energy Commission. "Less water use in California clothes washers will eventually save enough to supply a city the size of San Diego every year."

DOE spokesperson Julie Ruggiero says California did not meet requirements for the granting of a waiver. A waiver request has to be "economically feasible and technologically justified," she says.

Too high, too fast

"We are committed to increasing efficiency on a variety of fronts, but you have to meet the law in order to change the law," says Ruggiero. "In California, if we were to raise the standard that high, that quickly, it could have a negative impact on the producer and the consumer."

The more water-efficient machines will cost about $130 more, but according to the energy commission, savings on water and energy will save the average consumer about $242. The suit, which was filed on 20 April, also claims the state would save electricity and natural gas, and cut greenhouse gas emissions.

"California has had to sue the DOE five times over the last several years to get them on board with energy efficiency. The courts have sided with California five times," says Claudia Chandler, spokesperson for the California Energy Commission. "So, we'll see them in court."

Cleaner air

The announcement of the washing machines suit comes a day after California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger threatened to sue the federal Environmental Protection Agency if it does not act soon on the state's request to impose stricter-than-federal automobile emissions standards.

California requested in 2005 to get a federal Clean Air Act waiver that would allow it to regulate auto emissions more aggressively.

Five of the 11 states that also seek stricter auto emission standards – Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Maryland, Oregon and Rhode Island – sent letters to the EPA in support of California's threat.

The EPA has now agreed to consider California's request to limit tailpipe emissions and hold a hearing on 22 May in Washington.

Gee, that's mighty big of them. Since when did they worry about the little guy not being able to afford stuff? .... OOhhhh. The PRODUCER and the consumer. That's the Bush administration I know.