If Iowa hadn't exercised good judgment and supported Barack Obama in the caucuses nearly two years ago, I wouldn't have awakened in my Des Moines hotel last week and felt as grateful as I did.
For on the front page of the Des Moines Register last Thursday was the announcement that should have been made years ago. The Obama administration's Environmental Protection Agency is taking a U-turn and plans a yearlong investigation into the safety of the second most commonly used herbicide in the nation: atrazine.
The Environmental Protection Agency today reversed its stance on the
potential hazards of atrazine, one of the most commonly-used herbicides
in the country, saying it will re-examine how the chemical affects
human health.
When the Environmental Protection Agency declared this year on September 11 that all pending mountaintop removal mining permits in four Appalachian states stood in violation of the Clean Water Act and required further review, Lora Webb didn't have time to join in any celebrations. As she and her husband, Steve, a coal miner, packed up their possessions and left his family's ancestral property outside Lindytown, West Virginia, Lora was more concerned about finding a place to sleep that night.
Tens of thousands of chemicals found in
everyday items, from toys and cell phones to food containers and
medical devices, would face high levels of federal scrutiny and control
under a set of guidelines unveiled Tuesday in San Francisco by
President Obama's top environmental official.
The effort to rewrite how the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
evaluates and enforces the use of potentially harmful chemicals marks
the most significant overhaul of the nation's chemical policies since
the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976.
Exelon, one of the country's largest utilities, said Monday that it would quit the United States Chamber of Commerce because of that group's stance on climate change. It was the latest in a string of companies to do so, perhaps a harbinger of how intense the fight over global warming legislation could become.
"The carbon-based free lunch is over," said John W. Rowe, Exelon's chief executive. "Breakthroughs on climate change and improving our society's energy efficiency are within reach."
Residents of Treece moved a step closer to being moved out of their lead-polluted town Thursday when the U.S. Senate approved an amendment to allow the Environmental Protection Agency to buy out and shut down the community.
The amendment was attached to the Interior and Environment Appropriations Act by Sens. Pat Roberts and Sam Brownback, both R-Kan., and James Inhofe, R-Okla.
The bill passed the Senate on Thursday evening.
The Treece amendment "represents one of the rare instances of true bipartisan support," Roberts said.
The Environmental Protection Agency made good on its promise today to
assert greater scrutiny and "use the best science and follow the
letter of the law" with regard to controversial mountaintop removal
mining permits in the Appalachian coalfields. In a highly anticipated
announcement, the agency declared that all seventy-nine pending
permits in four states would "likely cause water quality impacts" and
sent them on for additional review under the Clean Water Act.
Lawyers representing the maker of the herbicide atrazine are asking that documents related to the company’s lobbying and trade association activities be excluded from a class action lawsuit being filed by some Illinois water utilities.
WASHINGTON - Carbon dioxide will soon be declared a dangerous pollutant - a move that could help propel slow-moving climate-change legislation on Capitol Hill, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency said Monday.
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson told reporters that a formal "endangerment finding," which would trigger federal regulations on greenhouse gas emissions, probably would "happen in the next months."
From the moment of its inception, in December 1970, the Environmental Protection Agency was caught in a trap. It could not honestly protect “human health and the environment” from the perpetual onslaught of toxins and outright pollution of the industrial behemoth of the United States.
The federal government organizations that tried to protect human health and the environment before 1970 were the giant Departments of Agriculture; Interior; and Health, Education and Welfare. They had failed miserably, which was the real reason for the establishment of EPA.
