BushCo. Environmentalism

Just add that to the list of oxymorons that have been created about this maladministration.

Just days after it was revealed that a key actuary had been threatened with firing if he revealed the true cost of the Rethugs' Medicare bill, comes the latest outrage. Outrageous, yes. Surprising no. When you read the following paragraphs from this morning's Salt Lake Tribune, think about Dick Cheney's energy task force:

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Mike Leavitt is trying to mitigate political damage from revelations that EPA scientists were muzzled as utility lobbyists and White House appointees wrote a new regulation for toxic mercury emitted by coal-fired power plants.

[snip]

Utility industry lobbyists wrote key portions of the rule that would regulate pollution created by their clients, according to EPA staffers who claimed they were ordered not to conduct the normal scientific review of the proposal.

Mercury is a known and dangerous neurotoxin with especially deleterious effects on children and developing fetuses. You would think that even the most callous and profit driven of corporate lobbyists would not really want such a poison wafting into the air that their own families have to breathe. Apparently, you'd be wrong.

BushCo. and it's allies in business do not care about their children or yours. They care only about advancing their own industries, their own profits, their own salaries. It is not a stretch to say that they would sell their own children in exchange for their masters' ability to pollute without restrictions. It's not a stretch because in effect, it's exactly what they are doing; but it's much more insidious than that. Mercury stays in the environment for a long time, bioaccumulating further and further up the food chain. Think for a moment who happens to be (for now) at the top of that food chain.

These greedy bastards are not just endangering children alive today or just the next generation. No. Their avarice threatens the health of generations of our families.

Leavitt has come under pressure to change the rules and has requested that the EPA re-evaluate them. However;

"It's no wonder Gov. Leavitt is uncomfortable with this mercury rule because he's realized the agency didn't have any analysis to support what they proposed," said Hawkins, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council Air and Climate Center. "The question is whether he will be personally motivated to correct it and whether the administration will let him."

UPDATE: Added links for the actuary story and Cheney's energy task force story.