17 YEARS, that is. From Maine’s Press Herald:
When the Environmental Protection Agency issued new limits on ground-level ozone two years ago, it made sense to give cities time to come into compliance.
But the EPA’s decision to grant regions up to 17 years to meet the new smog standards was an abuse of the agency’s discretion, a three-judge federal appeals panel in Washington has ruled.
The judges also rejected the EPA’s decision to exempt some cities already violating the new standard from the law’s most protective requirements.
I probably don’t need to point out that here in Massachusetts we are at the near-end of the nation’s tailpipe so air policy and federal oversight tends to be more important here in the eastt. I know our Governor-elect Deval Patrick knows this and also why Tom Reilly was a great Massachusetts Attorney General. So often people don’t make the connection between their vote and their own vitality. Environmental issues, for worse or better, are so often deemed to be about trees, scenic vistas and water bodies, not human health. While most of us know these things are all connected, keeping people thinking of tree huggers instead of asthmatic children is very politically convenient. Decisions such as this which assert Congressional authority over Bush’s federal agencies in order to protect public health may not have gotten much oxygen if Congress hadn’t flipped to the Dems in November so hooha again.
Happy Healthy New Year to the BMG community, especially Charley, Bob and David. 2007 ought to be pretty interesting.
Photo credit with thanks to Gary Braasch from his website World View of Global Warming.
Crossposted at Truth & Progress
It’s good to know that change is ALSO in the air!
The action by EPA scientists is encouraging for a number of reasons, not the least of which is this message: It is not enough for conservatives who would subvert the missions of federal agencies to change the leadership at the top.
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There was very disturbing information about the toxins left behind by hurricane Katrina, discovered by EPA scientists. Although this information came out through alternate news sources, it was ultimately and intentionally supressed by their superiors at the EPA, for any number of (mostly political) reasons.
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When we elect officials who boast that they don’t believe in government to run it, we should not be surprised when they break it.
That’s what I see going on with EPA…or even more literally in NOLA. Remember Norquist wanted to shrink government down so it was small enough to drag up to the bathtub and drown it? It seems that about 10,000 at EPA are not so fond of this concept.