Environmental Protection Agency Protects Refineries Instead
By
AP – “The Bush administration proposed easing environmental rules Friday to allow oil refineries and other industries to change how they calculate whether they need pollution control equipment.The oil refinery industry says the eased regulation would open the way for production of more oil and other products. But environmental groups say the proposed rules are gimmicks and loopholes allowing industry to emit more pollution, evade pollution controls and save money.
“This is a big gift to the refinery industry,” said Frank O’Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch, an environmental watchdog group. “They are saying let’s close our eyes and pretend pollution is not happening.”
[...]
“The proposed rules essentially change how industry adds up how much pollution is being produced.For example, one proposed rule change would allow operators to consider pollution levels of equipment separately in determining whether its pollution level has gone up. Under current law, the total level produced by the affected equipment is considered.”
[...]
“John Walke, Natural Resources Defense Council’s clean air director, said EPA is doing little more than proposing accounting gimmicks that allow industry to evade installing pollution controls by considering smaller pollution amounts, rather than pollution from an entire plant.“It’s a way to allow industry to pollute more without cleaning up,” Walke said.
EPA must allow 60 days for public comment on its proposed rules before making the rules permanent.”
The Proposed Rule Changes are Here.
The EPA website encourages users to submit comments through EDOCKET. At the time of this posting, the EDOCKET link was not working.
Surprise, surprise, surprise. The Bush EPA is designed to do away with anything that might mean businesses spend more. The Bush EPA values corporate profits more than public health. And it asks for your input while making it very difficult to actually give input. It’s as though they don’t really want to hear from the citizenry…
3 Comments
September 10th, 2006 at 10:05 am
Check back on Monday with the EPA sight. I’ve noticed that a lot of government sites go down on the weekend. They probably do maintenance.
I think a better course of action is to go biofuel. I mean, the refinery crunch in America is real. The gas prices reflect it. Now we have anti-American proposals floating around like the windfall profit tax and in blessed California, prop 87 — the idea that we can levy a tax on a producer but not allow them to pass that onto the customer. Who are they kidding?
For now, the refinery situation must improve. If you don’t like the implications of using petroleum, go biofuel. Don’t waste your time fighting big governement and big industry.
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September 10th, 2006 at 10:37 am
I think our near future energy needs can be addressed only through a balance of conservation, biofuels and other alternatives (diversity is key), and scaled-back petroleum. As a big fan of plastics, I’m not ready to say sayonara to oil altogether, but its usefulness as a fuel needs to go the way of the dinosaur.
However, this administration and the Congressfolk who voted for the Bush energy bill have perpetuated the problem of Big Oil’s control.
Reducing pollution is a fight worth fighting. Some will push biofuels, and some will do other things. Some will fight to have our EPA do what it’s supposed to do. It’s like having Homeland Security ease restrictions on carrying weapons on planes…
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September 10th, 2006 at 11:37 am
Good point Screwy. I agree, it is going to be a portfolio of solutions that gets us out of this mess. I can tell you this. I preach the gospel of biofuels at my place of employment. I get a lot of interest from people who are looking for a way out of this petrolism (a term NYT’s Tom Friedman so aptly gave birth to). So, based on that, I think change is in the air (pardon the pun) and we all need to keep pushing at it. Once somebody goes alternative fuel, they start to ask hey, what about my light bulbs? What about my hot water consumption… you get the idea. The old environmental addage “Think globally, act locally.” fits with my general conservative philosophical foundation. It puts real responsibilty and real power in the hands of individuals. Its tough to move the needle on this stuff. It takes a lot of effort, research, time, etc. for even one person to change his/her lifestyle. But it has to be done.
I think Bush has come around on this a little. He’s been pushing ethanol, hysdrogen, biodiesel, and I beleive he’s truly excited by the recent technological developments that could actually deliver on the vision of the 1970′s. And he’s got his war to prosecute and the international oil market ain’t helpin’ in bringing our guys home. I think that “Amercia is addicted to oil” line actually resonated in the country. That said, I ain’t gonna wait around for the federal governemnt to solve this problem. Bush might be just playing games and trying to look good on TV doing it.
Fortunately, we live in America and free people are combining resources and efforts to make what difference they can now. And the law, while not perfect, is not yet standing in the way.
So, lets keep up the good fight!
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