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16710 |
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Date: November 13, 2019 at 20:37:01
From: sheila, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Trump Has a Terrifying New Plan to Poison the Air, Water, Humans |
URL: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/11/donald-trump-epa-public-health-science |
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Trump Has a Terrifying New Plan to Poison the Air, Water, Humans
The EPA has drafted a proposal that would all but make it impossible to enact public health regulations.
By Bess Levin
November 12, 2019
At present the government formulates public health regulations, like those concerning clean air and water, based on scientific studies showing links between pollution and disease. For instance, we have rules surrounding mercury because studies conclusively proved that mercury from power plants negatively affects brain development, and rules concerning lead because of the data showing that lead in paint or dust can lead to behavioral disorders in children. The Trump administration, though, doesn’t like science or regulations, because they‘re impediments to Donald Trump’s industry cronies making as much money as possible, human health be damned. And now, his Environmental Protection Agency has found a nifty way to get rid of both in a move that is uniquely evil, even for this uniquely evil administration.
Per the New York Times, the EPA has drafted a proposal called “Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science,” which sounds well and good, but, of course, does the exact opposite of what the title suggests. According to the proposal, in order for an academic study’s conclusions to be considered, scientists would be required to disclose all of their raw data, including confidential medical records. Naturally, rather than lead to more “transparency,” the requirement would significantly limit medical and scientific research, which is, of course, the point. That would then make it extremely difficult to create new rules because tons of studies demonstrating links between pollution and disease are based on health information obtained under confidentiality agreements. And here’s the kicker: Not only would the proposal affect regulations moving forward, but it could retroactively apply to old ones too:
Public health experts warned that studies that have been used for decades...might be inadmissible when existing regulations come up for renewal. For instance, a groundbreaking 1993 Harvard University project that definitively linked polluted air to premature deaths, currently the foundation of the nation’s air-quality laws, could become inadmissible. When gathering data for their research, known as the Six Cities study, scientists signed confidentiality agreements to track the private medical and occupational histories of more than 22,000 people in six cities. They combined that personal data with home air-quality data to study the link between chronic exposure to air pollution and mortality.
“This means the EPA can justify rolling back rules or failing to update rules based on the best information to protect public health and the environment, which means more dirty air and more premature deaths,” Paul Billings, senior vice president for advocacy at the American Lung Association, told the Times. Michael Halpern, deputy director for the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, was even more blunt in his assessment: “It was hard to imagine that they could have made this worse, but they did,” he said. “This is a wholesale politicization of the process.” The Medical Library Association and the Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries said the proposal “contradicts our core values,” while the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners said in a statement that it was “deeply concerned” that the rule would ultimately result “in weaker environmental and health protections and greater risks to children’s health.” But screw the kids, right? And their meddlesome adult minders too!
more...
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[16711] [16714] |
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16711 |
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Date: November 13, 2019 at 20:44:54
From: sheila, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Trump Deals Final Death Blow to the Planet |
URL: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/06/trump-epa-affordable-clean-energy-rule |
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“We’re on the right side of history,” the administration said as it finalized a plan to let the coal industry regulate itself.
By
Bess Levin
June 19, 2019
n the 476 months that he’s been in office, Donald Trump has made it abundantly clear that he would like the earth to die in a fire—literally. In that time he has abandoned the Paris climate agreement; unveiled a proposal to freeze rules on planet-warming pollution from cars and trucks; claimed wind turbines aren’t a viable source of energy because the sound they make “causes cancer”; and hired a guy who believes carbon dioxide has been demonized like “Jews under Hitler” to discredit the findings of 13 federal agencies that increased levels of CO2 pose a national emergency. But it was only today that his pièce de résistance, when it comes to letting climate change really rip, was officially put into place.
On Wednesday, the administration officially replaced Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan with an alternative it cooked up called the Affordable Clean Energy rule. How do the regulations differ? Well:
•While Obama’s measure would have substantially reduced planet-killing pollution from coal plants, by setting national emissions limits and requiring the “reconstruction of power grids to move utilities away from coal,” Trump’s rule will almost certainly increase levels of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere by allowing states to decide how much they want to cut emissions. If they don’t want to cut them at all? That’s totally cool! (A 2018 joint study from Harvard, Syracuse, and Resources for the Future, a research organization showed that 18 states and D.C. would experience higher greenhouse emissions from the Trump rule; in 19 states, pollutants like nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide emissions would increase.)
•The Clean Power Plan was expected to prevent between 1,500 and 3,600 premature deaths annually by 2030. The Affordable Clean Energy rule? Last August, Trump’s own E.P.A. (quietly) estimated that its replacement would cause between 470 and 1,400 premature deaths each year by 2030, due to “increased rates of microscopic airborne particulates known as PM 2.5.” In addition, its own analysis concluded the rule would cause 48,000 new cases of “exacerbated asthma” and a minimum of 21,000 missed school days a year by 2030 due to ozone-related illnesses. Perhaps realizing how bad all this looked, last month, the New York Times reported that the E.P.A planned to get thousands of those pesky deaths “off the books,” not by doing anything to actually prevent them, but by altering “the way it calculates the health risks of air pollution.”
•The coal industry, along with the 28 states who sued to block Obama’s measure, were not fans of the Clean Power Plan, whereas, shockingly, companies whose profits rely on the burning of fossil fuels love themselves some Affordable Clean Energy.
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[16714] |
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16714 |
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Date: November 14, 2019 at 04:23:34
From: kay.so.or, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Trump Deals Final Death Blow to the Planet |
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we need to get rid of him now! thanks Sheila for posting these...he is 'the destroyer'...makes me just sick and scared for the earth and everyone.
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