Speaking of Still-President Bush and his anti-environment practices, Michael Hawthorne catches the EPA again letting politics trump science:
Looking to bolster the fight against childhood lead poisoning, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last month approved a tough new rule aimed at clearing the nation’s air of the toxic metal.
A key part of the initiative is a new network of monitors that will track lead emissions from factories. But the Bush administration quietly weakened that provision at the last minute by exempting dozens of polluters from scrutiny, federal documents show.
Critics say the change undermines a rule that otherwise has been widely hailed as a powerful step forward in protecting children’s health.
In Illinois, at least a dozen factories that would have been monitored could now fall through the cracks, the state EPA estimates, including a steelmaking-waste recycler on Chicago’s Southeast Side and a lead-acid battery manufacturer in Naperville.
Is it January yet?
Faced with a court order to act more aggressively, the U.S. EPA last month lowered the maximum amount of lead allowed in the air. The new standard, 0.15 micrograms per cubic meter, is 10 times more stringent than the old standard, set in 1978.
To help meet the new limit, the EPA had planned to require lead monitors next to any factory emitting at least a half-ton of lead a year. But after the White House intervened, the agency raised the threshold to a ton of lead or more, according to e-mails and other documents exchanged between the EPA and the Office of Management and Budget.
As a result, dozens of factories won’t be checked regularly. Federal and state officials debate the exact number, but a Tribune review of EPA records found that the number of U.S. plants monitored could drop by nearly 60 percent, from 203 to 87.
“This sleight of hand by the administration ignores major sources of a dangerous neurotoxin,” said S. William Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies.
Read the whole sorry tale here, and the AP (at Wired) has slightly more on the corruption of science at the EPA, including:
President George W. Bush has made clear that he believes the Clean Air should not be used, in permitting new plants, to control greenhouse gases. It is not clear how the Obama administration will address regulating carbon dioxide. The Supreme Court has told the EPA it must decide on whether carbon dioxide endangers public health and welfare, and if it does it must be regulated.
Michael Gerrard, a lawyer not involved in the Bonanza case and author of “Global Climate Change and the Law,” said the decision “will embolden the lawsuits” challenging construction of new power plants based on their impact on climate.
“It means that the appeals board recognizes that carbon dioxide regulation of power plants is a very live and open issue. It does not ban them. It puts a cloud over them, by making it clear that this is a real issue,” Gerrard said in an interview.