Gutting of EPA Funding Will Have Catastrophic Consequences For Most Americans

Most citizens have already heard or read that Trump said he’ll call for $54 billion in reductions to offset new spending for the Pentagon. Never mind the defense budget has doubled its share of GDP since September, 2001, moat of it on wasteful toys (like the F-35, and "Gerald Ford" aircraft carrier - a $13b monstrosity the Chinese could take out with just one Dongfeng -11 missile) so of little use in an asymmetric warfare scenario.

Now we know how disastrous the carnage will be as the first reports have emerged of the coming cuts to the EPA, as well as other positive national programs like Americorps. (Whose 80,000 education volunteers serve in hundreds of poor urban and rural communities) News reports from The Denver Post two days ago cite deep cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency that could slash the agency’s career staff to 12,000 from 15,000, largely through buyout offers and layoffs. The State Department also could be in line for a big reduction, which some estimates peg at 37 percent..  This magnitude of cutbacks is not merely disastrous, they're catastrophic. For example, the climate change protection allocation for the EPA has now been sliced by 70 percent. Incredibly, the Heartland Institute - behind many denier websites - asserted even that wasn't enough!

All this because mentally challenged Trump insists we need $54b  to "start winning wars", evidently forgetting that we brought the largest war machine ever assembled to confront peasant farmers (Viet Cong) in Vietnam and still lost!  We did so at a cost of over $260 b and 58,000 lives lost over what was really a civil war. We tried to flex our technological advantage in aircraft carriers, tanks, heavy weapons and still lost to peasants. We barged in, refusing to learn the lessons of Dien Bien Phu, where the French also were brought down and shown that military might is little use against a highly determined foe. Of course Trump, a five time draft dodger, likely never even read or processed any of that. He was too busy figuring out ways to screw people out of their money.

Meanwhile, as the Post has observed, the expectation of cuts is nerve-racking to civil servants already shaken by the arrival of several (swamp creature) Cabinet secretaries hostile to their missions, a hiring freeze and pledges by Republicans to upend job protections.  These faithful, hard working civil servants - including EPA scientists - deserve all credit for doing all they can before possibly being shown the door.

One human resources manager in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Pacific Northwest region who spoke on the condition of anonymity (because he was not authorized to speak publicly) said:

"The mission is important, but now it’s just maintaining our jobs. We’re in a holding pattern, and all we get is dribs and drabs and no specifics.  The uncertainty is starting to get mentally draining for people.”

Most federal employees affected are waiting to see whether the news really is as bad as they fear and if so, whether Congress will come to the rescue. Don't hold your breath! For now, they're reading the tea leaves on cable television as they pore over the recommendations of the conservative Heritage Foundation. This is the extremist think tank which the Bannon-led Trumpites are leaning on for guidance. Heritage’s list contains several agencies targeted not just for downsizing but elimination, including one that provides financial assistance to rural businesses, the International Trade Administration, and the Legal Services Corporation.

EPA scientists' biggest concern now is the impact of Trump's executive order targeting the EPA’s “Waters of the United States” rule, finalized in 2015, that revised  the Clean Water Act to extend federal protection to small and seasonal waterways. These are critical for water supplies in water-scarce regions of the West..  In particular, implementation of Trump's E.O. will not only drain water resources for fracking, but also pollute our remaining water stores with fracked chemicals  - most of them carcinogens, including benzene, xylene, toluene etc.

Trump, demented asshole that he is said the rule has “run amok” and called it “a disaster.” His order is titled “Restoring the Rule of Law, Federalism and Economic Growth”  which could be translated to read: "Reversing water quality for all citizens so they get more diseases and can't afford to pay for treatment 'cause we're taking away their ACA".

His E.O. directs EPA administrator Scott Pruitt to review the rule for consistency with goals of economic growth and regulatory certainty and to rescind or revise the rule. EPA officials have said the rule will have the greatest impact in states such as Colorado where protection for small and seasonal water previously was uncertain. In Colorado, 68 percent of streams are seasonal.

Trump's E.O. that enables dumping of coal waster into rivers, will also have terrible health consequences. One need only be reminded of the 2014 Elk River (West Virginia)  chemical spill -  of  the coal cleaner  methylcyclohexane methanol (MCHM).)  which caused enormous problems and a massive cleanup effort.

This time there will be no cleanup efforts because Trump doesn't give a crap. So all the millions who stand to be affected ought to brace for the many cancers now ready to be unleashed upon them, including of the pancreas, liver, kidneys, stomach, testes, breast and prostate. According to one of the West Virginia families affected in 2014, they were  informed their water was "so contaminated it was only fit for flushing toilets." 

Alas, when all those cancers, skin diseases, gastro intestinal reactions and others break out, people will no longer have the ACA to help carry the costs of their infirmities. As people will learn to their heartbreak when the GOP presents its "repeal and replace" for the ACA based on tax credits and health savings accounts - soon to be announced.

The Trump bunch, like the Bushies before them, do not grasp the extent to which the quality of the environment - including our water, air and soil, impacts our health.

Grab some consolation as you behold our newly Trump-revamped military. And when you do get that cryptosporidium or cancer of the pancreas, remember the real price you yours have paid for that "advance".

See also:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/george-lakoff/71462/the-public-s-viewpoint-regulations-are-protections

GOP & Tea Baggers Want You To Get Sick From Fouled Water

We know from past history that the shtick of the GOP and its Tea Bagger faction is to sink government in a bathtub if they can get enough dumb people to believe they can do it. The primary principle or precept is that "big gubmint" is bad and dammit, we're going to stop it from protecting workers' interests - say from slaving away in a mine filled with methane, or people drinking water from a lake laced with cryptosporidium.

The GOP and its conservo Huns who assert the Constitution is their main book (but can't tell you the difference between the 9th and 10th amendments and the meaning of unenumerated rights) thus would rather you die from being gassed in a mine, or from cryptosporidium than that the government extend its power to protect you, the citizen. (But, the same lamos won't blink when gov't is perverted to protect the interests of corporations).

Enter now House bill, H.R. 5078, which overrides a rule proposed in March by the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers, seeking to clarify two Supreme Court decisions that had made it difficult to determine whether waterways that are dry for part of the year are protected by the Clean Water Act — confusion that polluters have readily taken advantage of.  (As seen in several recent cases including in West Virginia and North Carolina - where tens of thousands were left without drinking water for weeks)

The new rule would give the EPA regulatory authority over millions of acres of wetlands along with about 2 million miles of small streams, the latter of which feed into rivers, lakes and reservoirs that provide drinking water for more than 115 million Americans (all of whom, presumably, prefer that water to be pollution-free). It would also protect critical fish and wild habitats.


The EPA emphasized (quite ardently) that it would not be expanding the Clean Water Act, only reasserting its authority over water sources that have historically been protected.

”We are clarifying protection for the upstream waters that are absolutely vital to downstream communities,”

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said in March, going on to point out - as if it was really necessary - though these days you have to wonder:

"Clean water is essential to every single American, from families who rely on safe places to swim and healthy fish to eat, to farmers who need abundant and reliable sources of water to grow their crops, to hunters and fishermen."

 How much cancer H.R. 5078 will generate is hard to say, but over time it's a good guess that at least 1 in 10 of the 115 million affected will develop a cancer of the liver, kidneys, pancreas or bladder, and possibly brain - not to mention leukemia. Will the GOP lay out their big pocket books to pay for all those cancer treatments? I somehow doubt it. Hell, they even have a boner to kill Obamacare. So why would they give a damn if some destitute farmer in the Appalachians were to develop cancer?

They wouldn't.

Then there is the illness we know will spread from fouled water, including from pollutants as well as the sort of red algae pollution that recently fouled the water of Lake Erie - not to mention the violent illness from crypto-sporidium. Ask the 490,000 people of Milwaukee who became ill from such an outbreak back in 1994.

It seems quite evident to me that if people seriously want their water protected - and with it their health interests- they will have to besiege the House and its anti-government buffoons with letters, emails, cards, whatever..... and let them know in no uncertain terms that their override is unacceptable.

Unless, of course, they have no problem with getting ill and having to deal with the inevitable mess and medical bills all by themselves. Which option is kind of incredible even given the purported Yankee affinity for "self reliance" - and the fact that the corporations meanwhile are laughing all the way to the bank over all the help the government is giving them. (For example, monumental corporate welfare to the tune of $180b each year, including tax "inversion".)

Europeans, by contrast,   would never tolerate such nonsense. They demand and expect their governments to have THEIR interests at heart which is why - for example - one beholds much greater degrees of data protection, as well as health costs covered. Oh, and having all GMO foods labeled, which Americans have been convinced (by their own gov't and corporations) isn't necessary.

Will Americans ever wake up to insisting that their government - and ALL political parties - protect their interest, otherwise known as the "general welfare"?

Doubtful, given that many don't even know the general welfare clause exists and is clearly stated in the Preamble of the Constitution. Maybe these Americans need to re-read it sometime.