Unbelievable:
The Bush administration is considering doing away with health standards that cut lead from gasoline, widely regarded as one of the nation's biggest clean-air accomplishments.
Battery makers, lead smelters, refiners all have lobbied the administration to do away with the Clean Air Act limits.
A preliminary staff review released by the Environmental Protection Agency this week acknowledged the possibility of dropping the health standards for lead air pollution. The agency says revoking those standards might be justified "given the significantly changed circumstances since lead was listed in 1976" as an air pollutant.
The Bush administration has, of course, a long history of doing the best it can to turn America into a toxic wasteland. This is not even a "tree hugger" issue, this is about public health. From the EPA's own web site:
Lead is a very toxic element, causing a variety of effects at low dose levels. Brain damage, kidney damage, and gastrointestinal distress are seen from acute (short-term) exposure to high levels of lead in humans. Chronic (long-term) exposure to lead in humans results in effects on the blood, central nervous system (CNS), blood pressure, kidneys, and Vitamin D metabolism. Children are particularly sensitive to the chronic effects of lead, with slowed cognitive development, reduced growth and other effects reported. Reproductive effects, such as decreased sperm count in men and spontaneous abortions in women, have been associated with high lead exposure. The developing fetus is at particular risk from maternal lead exposure, with low birth weight and slowed postnatal neurobehavioral development noted.
As a side note, isn't it odd how the right wants to prohibit women from choosing to get abortions, but has no problem with abortions being forced on them from pollution and third world sweatshops?
Anway, the AP article ends by naming a group called Battery Council International. The page with the members of this organization can be found here. While researching the opensecrets.org, I found that the organization spent $100,000 lobbying in 1998 and 1999.
So far, Henry Waxman is the only one who seems to care. Let's home that the Dems fight the good fight on this one.