| Government's role is not to get out of the way and let business and entrepreneurs do their work. It is to regulate and supervise business and entrepreneurs so that the general public is not endangered by environmental contamination and by dangerous consumer products. |
| The list of highway foxes embedded in the regulatory henhouse highlights the Bush era’s anointment of big industry across the spectrum of public and worker safety, from mines to Interstates. The head of the government truck safety agency, Joseph Clapp, was a trucking executive who led a foundation that produced research ludicrously discounting driver fatigue as a factor in accidents. David Addington, a trucking industry force for loosened regulations, eventually became chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney — and a zealot for overweening executive power.
Source: "Making the Highways Less Safe" - NY Times - December 10, 2006 Even the tobacco industry's own lawyers were surprised when the Bush administration pulled its punches in the final rounds of a tobacco racketeering trial this week, suddenly asking for far less than expected from the corporate defendants. This last-minute cave-in was reportedly dictated by political appointees in the Justice Department who overruled the career professionals who have been prosecuting the case for six years. It was an egregious example of favoritism toward a big politically connected industry by an administration that is making such favors a hallmark of its governing style. The Bush administration has never liked this inherited case. When John Ashcroft was attorney general, he tried to settle it or undercut the legal team, but he let the case go forward after a public outcry. Now, according to press reports, high officials in the Justice Department - including the associate attorney general, whose former firm represented one of the defendant companies - ordered the department's career lawyers to seek far less money than they wanted. Source: "Torpedoing a Tobacco Suit" - NY Times - 6/10/05 Michele Merkel, a former staff attorney in the EPA's enforcement division, filed the agency's first suit against a CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operation) for Clean Air Act violations in October 1999, under the Clinton administration. The suit charged Premium Standard Farms -- a pork company that raises more than 2.5 million pigs a year and produces more sewage than the city of St. Louis -- with violating clean-air standards, and was settled out of court. A second such suit filed by the EPA was also settled out of court. But the Bush administration put the kibosh on these enforcement efforts, according to Merkel. "Once the Bush team came in, I was not allowed to pursue any further air lawsuits against CAFOs," she told Muckraker. "We got political cover to continue what was underway, but I was told that new efforts were off-limits. It wasn't just coming from my EPA superiors, it was coming from the White House." Merkel found it so demoralizing to see the enforcement process hamstrung that she quit. Source: Grist Magazine "Muckraker: Fowl play-- Factory farms get off easy on air pollution" - 5/24/04 |
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| Comments | Contributor | Date Submitted |
| I guess the Bush administration wants the U.S. to go back to the 1970's, when rivers were catching on fire. Industry will not regulate itself; haven't we learned that by now? | Linda Denton |
12/10/2004 |
| China's Serious Environment Problem China's Serious Pollution Problem Are you going to China? Then I will tell you pollution in China is very serious. The Chinese and government official's environmental protection consciousness is very low. The Chinese industry economy increases quickly; pollution grows more serious more; and the great majority of Chinese are insensitive to the pollution. This is a Chinese, as well as, global disaster in the making. I request you help China. Car and motorcycle traffic is increasing greatly. The population in China is multitudinous"1300000000".is five times as the population of the US. China is short of cultivated land. in spite of this case,The Chinese government is developing the private car industry greatly, new highway construction will take up large areas of land. Traffic accidents increased greatly. In 2003 200,000 people died in traffic accidents in China. Building development is in mass confusion. Building technique is primitive and building in consuming large amounts of materials. In 2003 China poured 44% of the world's cement. Building a house will consume more amounts of cement brick and decorative colorful brick in China than The Western Nation. But these houses make little use of insulation letting heat flow out in the winter and letting the heat in during the hot summer months. House repairs are more difficult, too.chinese concerns beauty of own house very much,but chinese don't concern about environment round the house.they spend large money on their own house,but they are stingy in cost of the environment around their house. Garbage removal is primitive.chinese don't know Garbage classification.waste plastic bags is visible everywhere. The Chinese people like to use plastic bags and batteries just once and then throw them away.china government pay great attention to beauty of city.they afford large money in images structure of city.but they pay little attention to garbage classification.large amounts of garbage is made by large consumption. River is polluted by chemical fertilizer,pesticide,chemical synthetic detergent,industry waste water,human excrement and urine,garbage.waste water excrement and urine flow directly into river without any sanitation practices.the most river in china is unsuitable for drinking.many china people is harmed by drinking water in polluted river. Education in protecting environment is blank. People's understanding and concept of protecting the environment is quite low. China's people are poor, but they are not frugal.Chinese are concerned the beauty of house but don't concerned the beauty of environment,Chinese are concerned about their own health but don't care about environmental health. They like to inject and swallow more medicines,eat more wild animals, but they don't realize that the polluted food, water and air is threatening their health greatly. China is imitating the West's high pattern of consumerism. Chinese hope per a people owning private car and Motorcycle,living big and big house. Consuming large power source as Western nations do. The Chinese government is making effort to realize this aim. China is producing large cars and motorcycles, large cement and brick.Exploiting large coal mines and oil field, large ore mines. Building large multi-story buildings and huge highway construction patterns. Enlarging blindly more and more area of cities and towns land. Large areas of land are damaged by the exploitation of natural resources. The population in China is multitudinous, 1.3 billion people, five times the population of the US. China is short of cultivated land. The actual situation demands that China doesn't imitate the West's high consumption. China should develop electronic information consumption. Should develop economizing energy industries. If not, the Chinese would ruin their own environment,in further more, affect the global environment. The Chinese don't realize that pollution is their most dangerous enemy. ----------------------------------------------------- name:chenyu. ADDRESS:people hospital.huangchuan County.henan Province.china. code:465150 Email:chenyu0397@yahoo.com.cn telephone:008613598583618 home telephone:008603973923000 -------------------- I like green.like science.like internet.like to live in a small house around plants trees.oppose private car.oppose high consumption. appeal all over the world people pay attention to china's serious environment problem. | 5/18/2005 | |
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