Two decades ago Congress directed the EPA to expand the Clean Air Act to control mercury, arsenic, chromium and other air toxic emissions from power plants. Now the House Republicans are willing to shut down the Federal government to make sure that it still doesn't happen.
After twenty years of delay from unrelenting coal and oil industry pressure, the EPA, under a Supreme Court-ordered deadline, proposed regulations to reduce the toxic pollutants -- poisons that are well known to cause cancer, childhood asthma, bronchitis, and cognitive damage to infants and fetuses.
The shutdown threat is just the latest play in a long campaign of delay and distraction by polluting industries to prevent clean air regulations. They've got powerful allies now. The Republican leadership in the House of Representatives acting in service to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Koch brothers and an army of industry lobbyists has produced a stream of legislative proposals to defund regulatory agencies, weaken the law and ultimately unshackle industry from rules that get in their way.
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