Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Bush et al v. The Rest of Us: making the world safe for polluters
Anyone who thinks we still live in a Democracy, raise your hand! Oh... no one? The power grabbing of the executive branch knows no bounds. Today, a major environmental victory was hamstrung by the Bush admin, through the insertion of an amnesty clause in a settlement requiring American Electric Power to clean up pollution under the Clean Air Act's "New Source Review" requirement. The amnesty clause in this settlement shows that the Bushies can, essentially, change laws at will after Congress has passed them--in favor of polluting industries.
There have been many legal battles fought over what "new source" means. This settlement takes us back to the Reagan years and Chevron and undercuts more recent cases like NY v. EPA. Power cos have fought to be allowed to enlarge their plantswithout the new enlargements being called "new"--and thus subject to tighter pollution controls--so the new parts of a plant can continue to spew pollutants at the same rate as the older, grandfathered parts of the plants.
Oh, only one more year to go to stop the Bush juggernaut--unstoppable even when when his ratings are only 32%.
Anyone who thinks we still live in a Democracy, raise your hand! Oh... no one? The power grabbing of the executive branch knows no bounds. Today, a major environmental victory was hamstrung by the Bush admin, through the insertion of an amnesty clause in a settlement requiring American Electric Power to clean up pollution under the Clean Air Act's "New Source Review" requirement. The amnesty clause in this settlement shows that the Bushies can, essentially, change laws at will after Congress has passed them--in favor of polluting industries.
There have been many legal battles fought over what "new source" means. This settlement takes us back to the Reagan years and Chevron and undercuts more recent cases like NY v. EPA. Power cos have fought to be allowed to enlarge their plantswithout the new enlargements being called "new"--and thus subject to tighter pollution controls--so the new parts of a plant can continue to spew pollutants at the same rate as the older, grandfathered parts of the plants.
Oh, only one more year to go to stop the Bush juggernaut--unstoppable even when when his ratings are only 32%.
