FOUL PLAY HITS THE EPA

Excerpts from:
Fouling the Clean Air Act
By Dan Becker and James Gerstenzang

In a largely hidden component of its attack on the federal budget, the House of Representatives has approved a key Republican campaign promise to big business: protecting it from what the new majority calls the handcuffs of environmental safeguards. The Republicans would cuff the Environmental Protection Agency instead.

If the Republicans prevail in the Senate and overcome a White House veto, they would hobble the Clean Air Act, probably the most successful U.S. law protecting health and the environment, and threaten the authority of California and several other states to use it to fight pollution and global warming.

The Clean Air Act has meant fewer hospitalizations and missed workdays, and would save a projected $2 trillion in 2020 alone by reducing asthma, chronic bronchitis and premature deaths from lung disease. Now, having been given the go-ahead by the Supreme Court, the EPA is using it to cut back on carbon dioxide pollution, the prime culprit behind our changing climate.

Think of the law as the legal weapon—passed by an overwhelming bipartisan congressional majority, signed by President Richard M. Nixon, approved by the highest court—that has allowed every president beginning with Nixon to fight some of the nation’s most difficult health and environmental challenges. Using the law to reduce carbon dioxide will bring us solutions that people like: hybrid and other high-tech, gas-sipping cars that cut our gasoline bills by more than the costs of the improved technology.

But some of the nation’s biggest polluters have teamed up with the Republicans to try to stop progress—as the evidence of global warming grows: The 10 warmest years on record have all been since 1998; last year was tied with 2005 as the hottest. Together, the polluters and the GOP would turn the House into a special-interest court of appeals to circumvent the 2007 Supreme Court ruling that ordered the EPA to fight global warming. They would limit the clean air law’s protections against power plant pollution and block several states from adopting tougher pollution controls than the federal government.

California has been a leader in setting air pollution and emissions standards under Clean Air Act provisions. Its efforts to set strong standards have been joined by 13 other states, among them New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Washington.

Now, automakers are demanding that politicians—not scientists—write the clean car standards intended to reduce carbon dioxide pollution.

The automakers supported a 5 percent annual reduction in emissions that will get us to 35.5 miles per gallon in 2016—the biggest step we’ve taken against global warming. They say they cannot cut emissions 6 percent the next year. These are the same people who said they could not equip cars with seat belts, air bags or catalytic converters...

With the planet growing warmer, gasoline prices climbing and new turmoil in the Middle East threatening our energy security, we can’t afford to allow polluters to team up with the new House leadership to deny us progress.

As Mark Twain said, “Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.”

Link to complete article:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/fouling_the_clean_air_act_20110303/

SHELTON BLOG NOTE:

CONTACT:

Sen. Patty Murray:
http://murray.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=ContactMe

Sen. Maria Cantwell:
http://cantwell.senate.gov/contact/

SIGN CREDO ACTION ONLINE PETITION TO SENS. MURRAY & CANTWELL:
http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/epa_assault/