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Obama Administration Delays Life-Saving Smog Standards
Today the Obama Administration made a decision that will endanger the health of tens of thousands of Americans. Its choice to delay stronger standards for smog lets polluters off the hook and leaves Americans with sicker family members and higher medical costs.
US President Barack Obama withdrew a new set of draft air quality standards. (AFP/File, Saul Loeb)
Smog standards exist because smog is dangerous to human health. It causes respiratory illness, cardiac disease, and premature death. Though we have made progress in reducing this harmful pollution in American skies, we haven’t licked the problem yet.
The stronger smog standards would have saved up to 4,300 lives and avoid as many as 2,200 heart attacks every year. They would have made breathing easier for the 24 million Americans living with asthma. And they also would have created up to $37 billion in health benefits annually.
By failing to deliver these health and economic benefits to the American people, President Obama has come down on the side of polluters and those extreme forces who deny the value of government safeguards.
In his statement today, President Obama referred to a need to reduce “regulatory burdens.” But having cleaner air to breathe is not a burden for the American people.
Nor is complying with safeguards an undue burden for business. Businesses would have incurred costs to reduce their smog pollution, just as they have to pay to haul away garbage, make sure transit fleets don't endanger drivers, and make sure their food products don’t sicken people. These are some of the costs of doing business.
In the case of ozone standards, the costs wouldn’t have kicked in for several years, long after the current economic downturn. And keep in mind that in 2010, the top 10 utilities had a combined $28.4 billion in profits and $7.5 billion in cash balances. They can afford to embrace innovative pollution controls and protect their customers’ health.
Meanwhile clean air investments yield enormous returns. The smog standards would generate $37 billion in value for a cost of about $20 billion by 2020. Take together, Clean Air Act standards generated approximately $1.3 trillion in public health and environmental benefits in 2010 alone for a cost of $50 billion. That's a value worth more than 9 percent of GDP for a cost of only .4 percent of GDP. The ratio of benefits to costs is more than 26 to 1.
Americans know it's cheaper to stay healthy than it is to pay for asthma attacks, missed work days, emergency room visits, and hospital stays. That's why a June poll for the American Lung Association of likely 2012 voters from all parties found that 75 percent support the EPA's effort to set stronger smog standards and 66 percent believe that EPA scientists--not Congress-should establish clean air standards.
Strengthening the standards for smog isn't just popular. It's required by law.
In 2008, the Bush EPA adopted ozone standards outside the range unanimously recommended by the EPA's science advisors. As a result, those standards were challenged by more than a dozen states, the American Lung Association, NRDC, and others for being unlawfully harmful to public health.
When the Bush EPA ignored its own science advisors on another air quality standard, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously overturned those standards. Lisa Jackson, the current EPA administrator, wanted to avoid a similar legal fate on ozone. She concluded that the Bush-era ozone rules are "not defensible" under the Clean Air Act, and she committed to creating a legal standard that protects Americans' health.
Today’s decision means the Obama administration now accepts the Bush-era standard. It also means NRDC will resume our lawsuit challenging it.
The Obama administration has been on the right side of the law and the science on other strong clean air protection—including the one limiting mercury pollution—which are now under attack in Congress. The President needs now to mount a forceful defense of those standards so we don't endanger Americans further.
27 Comments so far
Show AllThis presidency is a choking smog lingering without dissipation over our whole nation. Apparently Obama feels A-OK breathing its fumes.
Obama's white skunk stripe waves like a flag in the smelly wind.
Relax! how long do you think you'll live w/o a job drinking frack-waste water!???? srsly! >^^<
Or you could join the imperial military!
That's America you always have a choice yuk :(
Obama is unequivocally a scaredy-cat and a whopper of a need-to-pleaser. We can't afford this kind of person at the head of the country in a time when truly courageous decisions need to be made.
"Today the Obama Administration made a decision that will endanger the health of tens of thousands of Americans."
_____________
"If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."
Bush II. Who knew?
We were quite abundant, actually......
What more proof do you Obama supporters need?
The president won't even allow the EPA to test for possible radiation exposure from Fuckishima.............
The CIA has admitted to conducting operations in 160 out of 195 countries in the world under the Obama admin......
And STILL democrats support this guy?
So WHERE is your line in the sand democrats? If you don't have a line in the sand then you are WORTHLESS AND SPINELESS and deserve to disappear into the dungheap of history along with the other failed political parties......
regardless of what the 2 party apologists say there have been times in this country's history when one of the 2 major political parties disappeared and was replaced - I believe it is that time again.
OK - so now we must add "delays" to "caves", "bows", "concedes", "yields", "comprimises" in the list of inaction verbs in Obama's resume.
Actually, the GOP didn't lose the presidency in 2008 ....
Mr President is Mr Roll Over Me with lots of corporate cash.
The people let him to take his fee, then give themselves a brutal bash.
If this is truely democracy, then you must be smoking hash.
Its a form of chemical dopery while your bodies take the lash.
Wake up to yourselves, its time to start from scratch again,
Overthrow all money elves, give them some of your real pain.
Abandon the ruts of party chicanery, with their military and carbon sluts
Vote for honest explainary, and not for rutublicans or democruts.
The Republicans have long noticed what the Democrats have ignored, that Obama wears a "kick me" sign on his rear end.
He's crossed the line. No matter what happens from here on out, there will no vote for Obama. I'll vote for Palin before Obama. And, since the Democrats are complicit in this, I'll be voting NO INCUMBENTS too. Not one, from city government to federal. NO INCUMBENTS is the only way to solve this mess.
he must be an idiot .... an idiot with a degree from Harvard University ... why does anyone still think it means anything to have a degree from Harvard University? ... the USA needs a manager ... someone who can run a household in the black (no pun intended) ... not a pompous jackass who thinks that a degree from Harvard University automatically means something positive for the world ... and all the other idiots that think it means something that someone has a degree from Harvard University ...
not that there is anything wrong with Harvard University per se ... a bunch of people who are the best crammed together? what could possibly go wrong?
Frances Bienecke seems to think that spewing pollution into the atmosphere will only affect "Americans" or else she doesn't think it matters what effect it might have on other people around the globe.
Pathetic.
.
Speechless.
Except for this: Barack Obama Cave No. 957.
(That's how many days he's been our "leader".)
From the article:
"In his statement today, President Obama referred to a need to reduce “regulatory burdens.” But having cleaner air to breathe is not a burden for the American people."
-------------------
Obama is caving to the "regulatory burden" argument that the GOP is about to start dragging in when they return from vacation next week, when they will say that gubmint regs "stifle job creation."
The Boehner Repugs LOVE high unemployment. It is SOOO politically useful. And after 8 years of Dubya (and the Congress) driving up our debt and creating the Goldman-Sachs bank bailout to the tune of TRILLIONS, they have made sure that NO Keynesian job stimulus can happen.
"We must balance the budget." Even a Constitutional Amendment to that effect. (If such a proposition had been adhered to during WWII, we would have lost the war.)
There is NO SOLUTION in the existing political paradigm. Programs to reduce ozone levels would have created USEFUL jobs, not destroyed them.
It was 99 degrees F here today, and will be again tomorrow. The corn is doing badly. As one report says, "The stalks are being cannibalized [stalk feeding the ear], and they won't stand long." One can witness this process. Corn that a few weeks ago was 9 feet high is now 6 feet high, and the ears are small.
I watched the sun go down around 8:10 this evening. The haze was such that I could stare directly at an orange ball in the sky, while the nearest city had a "smog alert." What does that mean? Inner-city poor people, stay in your overheated apartment because if you go outside you will have trouble breathing?! We even have the TV weatherpeople invoking the "Placebo Effect." "The high tomorrow will be 94," when they know it will be 99. The Media: "Don't worry, be happy. Go shopping."
Don't believe yore own lyin eyes. If you stored up on canned pinto beans three years ago, your investment would have been far more profitable than any "investment portfolio."
-30-
"a need to reduce “regulatory burdens.”
When can we expect his reglatory burden of a health insurance mandate to be reduced? Why is it "regulatory burdens" on industry are the only ones that are ever reduced?
Today, Gaylord Nelson weeps. Here's one of his best quotes -- from nearly 40 years ago (how quickly we forget). And, if you don't know who Gaylord Nelson is, please google him. He's one of 23 progressives featured in my book: Wisdom of Progressive Voices at www.wisdomvoices.com. He was my hero:
“The wealth of the nation is its air, water, soil, forests, minerals, rivers, lakes, oceans, scenic beauty, wildlife habitats and biodiversity… that’s all there is. That’s the whole economy. That’s where all the economic activity and jobs come from. These biological systems are the sustaining wealth of the world.”
One of my neighbors is a retired African American woman, a 40-year veteran domestic worker, who put up a 4x8 Obama sign in her front yard in 2007, prior to the Iowa caucus'. Mary and I are always on the same side on local/neighborhood issues. Not on Obama.
I trash-talk the O every chance I get with most people. Not with Mary. We just look at one another when the subject comes up. I raise my brows. She remains loyal. I shut up.
Mary has chronic asthma. She has to carry an inhaler with her everywhere she goes. I know she's been following this smog-control issue because it affects her so intimately. Now she knows.
Next time I see Mary in the yard, I'm not going to edit myself. He's a son-of-a-bitch. I wait for the day when the sign disappears. That f'ing son of a bitch.
"iowapinko"
I have maintained since 2008 that the power of racism was and is central to the Obama presidency. When I saw all of the tears filling the eyes of so many people in Grant Park in Chicago after the election, I was terribly dismayed.
Obama's blatant disdain for the poor people, for people of color, and their national leaders was ignored because of the color of his skin. The democrats and their corporate controllers knew the majority of people would fall for the bait because of either so-called white guilt or the chronic desperation of so-called people of color.
Few people voted for him because of what he was (and is still) doing.
I wonder to what extent people still support Obama because they believe that the Mastah is forcing his hand and to what extent they think Obama is a victim. It is NOT something that really matters to me, even as I wonder about it, because the problem is much, much more deeply incorporated. So much so that any person who the democrats or the republicans would nominate has already sold their soul.
It is good that you are aware and constant, but, for a number of reasons, your misguided neighbor is also a victim and, as such, can only be offered a way out of her abusive relationship. It has to be her decision and you can only do so much.
p.s. If, as you comment seems to be saying, the sign for Obama is still in her yard, you have my deep sympathy. That sign is a celebration of masochism. I guess you could think of Job from the bible.
We all forget Obama is 1/2 white and grandma was a bank officer. And those are the traits he's most prominently demonstrated.
"gardenernorcal"
You seem to miss my point. Obama's (and anyone else's) skin color means nothing as a way of seeing character.
"White"ness is as big a lie as is blackness.
Whether a person is genuine when they speak and when they act is hard enough to determine without the deliberate further confusion of assigning characteristics to them based upon phony brainwashed beliefs about skin color.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment, BbA.
You bet the power of racism is central to the Obama phenomenon. It's a complex dynamic in american socio-pol relations and corporate interests have played the race card masterfully to sell their boy (and I use the term purposefully.)
Mary knows I think Obama is a sell-out. Of course, she knows it too. But her loyalty is still to him as the first black prez. She hasn't gotten past that yet. Don't know if she can.
If the sign ever comes down, we will be at a new stage of race relations in the US. Not there yet.
" These are some of the costs of doing business.
In the case of ozone standards, the costs wouldn’t have kicked in for several years, long after the current economic downturn. And keep in mind that in 2010, the top 10 utilities had a combined $28.4 billion in profits and $7.5 billion in cash balances. They can afford to embrace innovative pollution controls and protect their customers’ health."
Exactly why is it they need extra considerations? Have they made a written binding committment to hire more if they get these cuts? Do they promise to pay US taxes on their profits?
Or is this another unstipulated giveaway like the "bailouts"? What sort of further austerity cuts will we all have to pay to hand this further deregulation over to non-tax paying international corporations?
First the Keystone XL pipeline and now this. Obama is a one term president.