Ask the people in Toms River New Jersey about the increased incidence of leukemia among their children until after decades of fighting they got Industry to clean up the poisons in their drinking water. Ask the people of Love Canal in Buffalo about the poisons that leaked into their homes and the people in West Virginia about their poisoned drinking water.
I can still remember hearing as a child over 50 years ago a voice on the radio saying, “Those environmental wackos want to stifle industry and not allow manufacturing companies to send wastewater into streams.”
I lived in Syracuse, NY for many years and watched Allied Chemical pollute Onondaga Lake for years. Onondaga Lake was probably one of the most beautiful lakes in the country. First we were told that we can fish in the lake, but must throw the fish back and not take it home. Then we were told no fishing was allowed in the lake at all. Allied Chemical didn’t break any laws by polluting the lake since there were no restrictions at the time. Ultimately Allied Chemical was told to clean up the lake. So Allied Chemical instead closed their plant and let approximately 1000 workers go. Honeywell is now spending money on cleanup after merging with Allied Chemical.
Perhaps half of the people in America who own stock own GE stock. If you look in GE’s annual report you’ll see money set aside for cleanup. They are trying to clean up areas of the Hudson River, sites in Massachusetts and other sites where they took responsibility for polluting the ground and waterways. There are now thousands of superfund sites in the country where companies are spending millions of dollars to clean up irresponsible polluting in the past.
In the past when the political right wing (Republicans and their followers) wanted to “protect” industry and called the EPA too restrictive on industry. In the past when lobbyists fought to eliminate all regulations by government, it resulted in hurting industry, not protecting it.
There are now thousands of companies spending millions of dollars on toxic cleanup that may take a century to accomplish. Those millions of dollars could have been spent on research and development to compete with competitors in China and elsewhere. Money that could have been spent on developing engines that get 100 miles to the gallon and money that could have been spent to cure cancer instead of pollution that causes cancer.
Ask the people in Toms River New Jersey about the increased incidence of leukemia among their children until after decades of fighting they got Industry to clean up the poisons in their drinking water. Ask the people of Love Canal in Buffalo about the poisons that leaked into their homes and the people in West Virginia about their poisoned drinking water.
My blood boils when I hear Jack Welch as a guest on CNBC tell his right wing hosts that America has too many government regulations. Jack Welch who on his watch at GE sent PCB’s and other contaminants into our ground and water and now GE must spend millions to try to correct the problems it caused when there were no regulations on contamination. When companies lobbied congress and the EPA not to restrict indiscriminant pollution of our environment the result now is that industry has an insurmountable task to try to undo what it did for years.
And what do we now hear from the right wing Republicans? We hear them say, “Climate Change Doesn’t Exist,” “Eliminate the EPA” and “Government has too many regulations and restrictions on industry.” They say, “Government needs to get out of the way of industry.” They say, “Government is the problem not the solution.”
This is only one example of the Republican and right wing lies that they have been feeding America for as long as I can remember. The Republican and right wing platform has resulted in hurting our capitalist economy. Instead of helping industry, their policies hurt our system.
What if we had the proper EPA regulations in force to prevent the past 100 years of pollution? What if we had proper EPA regulations and prevented the Exxon Valdese oil spill and the BP oil spill in the Gulf? What if we did the right things in the past to protect our environment?
If we would have done the right things in the past and industry followed moral economic policy, we would not see any objections to fracking now because we would trust the process in place to protect America. Right now, no one trusts industry and government because of our experiences of the past, and one political party wants to continue the destruction of our economy and of our social fiber.