From the Chicago Tribune story,
EPA researchers tested samples from 29 Chicago area homes and at least 1 liter in the first 12 tested in 15 of the 29 homes exceeded 15 parts per billion of lead. The current procedures require only the first liter out of the pipes be tested. The current procedures, obviously give an inaccurate account of the lead levels as the higher levels were registered in the proceeding water.But, Republicans know that by simply eliminating the EPA the Lead levels will effectively drop to zero because no agency will be measuring for them!
The EPA says there is no safe level of lead exposure, especially for vulnerable populations including children, pregnant women and infants who drink formula made from tap water. Miguel Del Toral notes that lead is the only substance other than carcinogens for which the EPA exposure goal is zero.
As I related with my post Peter Roskam called me the other day about the Job-Killing EPA in which I asked Representative Roskam why the Republicans overwhelming support the idea of eliminating the EPA and federal clean water standards HR 2018, A Republican House bill in which 223 of 236 (94.5%) of Republicans voted to eliminate the Clean Water Act of 1972. The answer is always that the EPA harms jobs.
"Whether it’s the EPA, the FDA, the FCC, the SEC, the CFTC, you name it, there is an acronym for a federal agency causing harm right now. We’re trying to pull that in." - Eric Cantor, famous Republicon Hit Man for the Plutocracy who demanded disaster relief for Tornado victims in Joplin, MO only be appropriated from cuts to Medicare.Oh, but don't worry Corporations have your best interest at heart, they certainly will voluntarily reduce their toxic pollution! It's the Myth of Self-Regulation.
As we have seen with every deregulation and privatization scheme Chicago and Cook County residents would face the prospect of tainted water with little to no remedy to face giant Corporate Criminals who regularly violate EPA and State rules now and would pollute and poison Americans with absolute impunity if the Republicons succeed in their efforts to dismantle the EPA.
4 comments:
So are you saying the oligarchs and the congress they bought would do things that would favor their social advantages, financial interests and influences even if it might *inconvenience others?
Really, I shall look into this. .......... I called my Senator, but the secretary wouldn't put me through, they had never heard of me.
*brain damage, mental health, learning and behavior issues, early death.
Somewhere there is a lobbyist with a carpetbag full of money - profit over people.
It is the Republican way...
Ron
I lived in North Chicago and Mundelein as a kid in the early seventies. There was a story about a kid being lead poisoned every day. Mike Royko did a column a month on it.
And still, nobody with the authority to do something about it does anything about it.
Because the Randians in our midst hold to the belief if we just let the Free Market handle it, everything will work out.
Of course, hundreds of kids will die or be born with brain damage but in 100 years who will remember what company poisoned what and what hydraulic fracking polluted what ground water?
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