I don't like regulations, especially when they apply to me.
But I sure do like regulations that protect the lives of my children, grandchildren and all the other children getting ready to take over from us someday.
Can't other parents and grandparents empathize with me? Have we forgotten rivers catching on fire back in the 70s?
Are we gullible enough to swallow hook, line and sinker the lies we hear in Congress that regulations, especially environmental regulations, are stymieing small businesses and hurting the average Joe out there who wants a job.
One example is a bill that was passed by the US Congress today. HB 2018 gives states the right to regulate themselves, and not the Federal Government's Environmental Protection Agency that monitors the Clean Water Act, signed into law by President Richard Nixon himself.
Groups and businesses like the National Farm Bureau, the National Chamber of Commerce and Massey Energy supported this bill and were instrumental in getting it passed. Even Democrats from states like West Virginia (tops in Mountaintop Removal) and Pennsylvania (with strong mining interests) joined with the Republicans in voting and passing this bill.
If it is any consolation, pundits claim that it will have a tougher fight in the Senate, and President Obama has said he will veto it if it comes to his desk.
Nevertheless, that anything like this can even be debated disturbs me to no end. Regulatory agencies like the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act were passed to protect the common person, not to harass industry. Forty years ago, most Americans realized this.
They also knew that polluted water and air know no boundaries. They aren't confined to state lines.
As I meditate on the value of clean water for drinking, swimming in, for living near, I shudder to think that so many of our elected leaders only think of making business even easier for companies like Massey Energy.
What short memories so many of us have! We lament that a woman wasn't given the death penalty for the death of her daughter last week due to inconclusive evidence, but they seem to think nothing of their millions of children's lives being threatened by loosely protected water upstream.