When is this nightmare going to end? Trump is taking advantage of our understandable distraction over the fact that we’re dying like flies and our economy is in ruins to further destroy the environment, in ways that could ALSO kill and harm Americans. And mercury poisoning is incredibly toxic, so this could have long lasting implications and do untold harm.
In fact, this step represents an assault on government regulation of air pollution as a whole. The fossil fuel industry, of course, is behind this dastardly plot to damage America.
From the New York Times,
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Thursday will weaken regulations on the release of mercury and other toxic metals from oil and coal-fired power plants, another step toward rolling back health protections in the middle of a pandemic.
The final Environmental Protection Agency rule does not eliminate restrictions on the release of mercury, a heavy metal linked to brain damage. Instead, it creates a new method of calculating the costs and benefits of curbing mercury pollution that environmental lawyers said would fundamentally undermine the legal underpinnings of controls on mercury and many other pollutants.
By reducing the positive health effects of regulations on paper and raising their economic costs, the new method could be used to justify loosening restrictions on any pollutant that the fossil fuel industry has deemed too costly to control.
“That is the big unstated goal,” said David Konisky, a professor of public and environmental affairs at Indiana University. “This is less about mercury than about potentially constraining or handcuffing future efforts by the E.P.A. to regulate air pollution.”
www.nytimes.com/…
The article goes on to recap the many other attacks on the environment engendered by the G*dforsaken Trump regime, and explains they’re in a hurry to get this done during the pandemic because they fear losing power (ya think?)
Apparently a Democratic congress and President under the Congressional Review Act could quite easily reverse any changes done after May or June so they want to shove this down our throats immediately.
The mercury rollback is a particular victory for Robert E. Murray, the former chief executive of Murray Energy Corporation and a top fund-raiser for Mr. Trump. Mr. Murray personally requested the rollback in a written “wish list” to top officials shortly after the president took office. The company has since declared bankruptcy and is undergoing a reorganization.
There are no words. There are no words. We are witnessing evil on Lord of the Ring levels, Stalin, Pol Pot, Hitler levels, a degree of wickedness I find hard to believe if I weren’t seeing this unfold before my very eyes.
Damn Trump, damn the coal barons, damn the fossil fuel industry that is murdering this planet.
Damn them forever.
You know, my lovely niece found a stunning caterpillar today. She rescued him from a burning sidewalk and after we determined what he is she took him home and placed him in a shelter with his favorite food plant, hoping he’ll turn into a moth.
I think about that and it keeps me sane.