The Climate Bill Fiasco

The big news on the climate front is the bill released by Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chair Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Senator John Kerry (D-MA) last month. It is disappointing to many environmentalists and activists but they are now saying it may be as ambitious as we can hope for given the fossil fuel industry’s stranglehold on Congress. I am really not happy with it because it just won’t make a significant impact on our increasingly unstable climate. I consider that a disaster.

I guess this bill is a bit better, though, than the 1427 pages of garbage that Waxman and Markey pushed through the House in June. This is known as the American Clean Air and Security Act and both Waxman and Markey are Democrats. It was a complex bill that was hard to read and understand but it essentially had the fingerprints of agribusiness and oil industry lobbyists all over it. This bill by Kerry and Box is a leaner, cleaner bill with a few less fingerprints but it still doesn’t get past environmentalists and climate scientists who actually care.

 

The Environmental Impact of Imported Goods

I can recall the economists, bureaucrats and investors rejoicing loudly and proudly when the Commerce Department announced that U.S. exports were rising overall, as much as $28.8 billion higher than the year before. But what the department made less noise about and even failed to mention in many instances, was the rising tide of imports, which were up as much or more, around $26.4 billion between the year 2007 and 2008.

I also read an article explaining that the nation’s seaports, airports, railways and highways were still faced with moving an additional $40 billion worth of stuff in and out across our borders, on top of the $330 billion worth of stuff that’s already going in and out each month. These figures omit the increases in the import cost that comes from rising oil prices, which is a huge factor.

But imports of consumer and industrial goods continue to dominate over exports in our trade balance. This is what is called a “trade deficit”. We make and export far less than we import and consume and this has had a huge impact on our economy and current inability to pull ourselves out of the recession. And the need for imports just keeps rising as our capacity to manufacture those items keeps disappearing. The hauling, sorting and delivering of all these foreign-made goods has evolved into a fast-growing, high-tech, high-profit industry. On that end, those that profit from this business are hard pressed to slow it down or correct the imbalance and this is also a huge part of our current picture.

 

The EPA Lies About Chemicals

As I’ve reported before in this blog, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as a rule, allows companies to keep new information about chemicals they use in their products a secret from the public. This includes compounds and additives that have been shown to cause cancer, respiratory problems and immune reactions. This boils down to a conspiracy of sorts, whereby the EPA and the companies they protect lie to the American people.

In a recent investigation, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newspaper examined more than 2,000 filings in the EPA’s registry of dangerous chemicals for the past three years. In more than half the cases, the EPA was shown to have agreed to keep the chemical name a secret. In hundreds of other cases, it allowed the company filing the report to keep its name and address confidential.

 

Chemical Secrecy in America

According to a fantastic investigation by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA ) has kept data about potentially dangerous chemicals secret.. The newspaper said its analysis of more than 2,000 EPA dangerous chemical filings over the past three years found that the agency allowed the names of chemicals added to consumer products to remain undisclosed in more than half those cases. As well, in hundreds of the registered reports, both the company and its address remained confidential.

In its mission to protect human health and the environment, the EPA is supposed to act as a clearinghouse for information about hazardous chemicals. It is not a protectionist agency and it should not be invested in trade secret keeping or other patent and copyright protection activities. Therefor, there is no excuse for keeping these chemicals secret except to protect specific companies from public backlash. Their first duty is to the consumer, not the producer.

 

The Environment Gets Bushwhacked!

I know this man is still in that office another month or two but I can hardly stand it. How much more damage can he do? Everyone says he’s a “lame duck” which usually means he’s ineffective.. but, somehow, this awful person is still managing to get horrible stuff done. I mean, I should not be surprised… but somehow I am… that he is making a huge personal effort to just tear apart our environment, as if it were some cause of his or a personal mission. Seriously. I know he doesn’t believe in global warming. I mean, really, he thinks he knows everything, so how on earth could he be wrong? I am sorry but this crap amazes me. Stupidity, it seems, knows no bounds and is exceedingly dangerous.

In his waning days, he is making sure that oil shale mining in the Rocky Mountains gets a go-ahead and he is recreating regulations to dismantle environmental safeguards. Everyone is calling this “midnight regulations” because he’s doing it in secret, under the cover of the night I guess. Again, I’m sorry, but what a creep. America just voted a new President into office in what could be called a landslide and this new President has professed environmental initiatives a priority to our overall approval and this person in the White House is still acting on his own! I mean, the American people be damned!