Tag: clean air
Dave Brat Wants to Cripple EPA
Republican Party platform for 2012: clean air is a liberal conspiracy...
These villains are not the antagonists you'll find in any of the most recent Batman films, but the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) Action Fund's (along with Environment America) naming of 193 U.S. House members and 39 U.S. Senators as "Dirty Air Villains" are no less dangerous to the health of American's than the evil characters Bane or the Joker.
Not surprisingly, but no less disturbingly, the NRDC Action Fund analysis "found that on average, House members who took more than $100,000 in career polluter campaign contributions voted against clean air laws nearly twice as many times as those who accepted less than $100,000 from dirty industries." Similar conclusions were found for members of the U.S. Senate.
What a revelation! Money influences the votes of the U.S. Congress!
If you'd like to view more of the disturbing findings, go to http://whovotesdirty.com/, just make sure you wear a gas-mask (it really stinks!).
Let Polluters Keep Killing People, or No? Warner, Webb Reportedly Undecided
Today, the Senate is expected to vote on a bill by Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) to block the Environmental Protection Agency from setting science-based standards for mercury and other toxic pollutants. That Sen. Mark Warner & Sen. Jim Webb are considered "swing votes" by the coal mining industry is a sad statement about how the Democratic Party of Virginia remains pathetically in the back pocket of the coal industry.
Pollution from coal-fired power plants is a major cause of asthma attacks. Historically in America, rather than address those causes, we enjoy "cheap" electricity, then let people get sick - 20 million Americans a year have asthma attacks, with 2 million of those being treated in the emergency room, and 5,000 people a year dying. Economists call those people externalities - costs that don't show up on your power bill.
Thirteen years after public health and conservation groups started pushing the Clinton administration to strengthen clean air standards, the Obama administration finally delivered last December, unveiling new rules. But electric utilities and their allies, led by Sen. Inhofe, are trying to block the rule, giving $9,313,822 to Congress so far this cycle alone (61% to Republicans). Virginia parents, despite their inability to write the large checks demanded in this post-Citizens United world, are fighting back: