Senate backs resolution to get rid of EPA clean water rules
Source: Associated Press
8 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (AP) The Senate has voted for a resolution calling for scrapping new federal rules to protect smaller streams, tributaries and wetlands from development and pollution.
Senators voted 53-44 in favor of a "resolution of disapproval," a measure that would void the regulations if also passed by the House and signed by the president. The White House has said it would veto the resolution.
The Obama administration says the rules issued by the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in May would safeguard drinking water for 117 million Americans. Republicans and some rural Democrats say the rules would give federal regulators unprecedented control of small bodies of water on private land.
Federal courts have already put the regulations on hold as they consider a number of lawsuits.
Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/senate-backs-resolution-rid-epa-clean-water-rules-175823905--finance.html
valerief
(53,235 posts)USA! USA! Home of morons and thieves.
passiveporcupine
(8,175 posts)valerief
(53,235 posts)passiveporcupine
(8,175 posts)I was agreeing with you. Sorry if I screwed up.
valerief
(53,235 posts)karynnj
(59,504 posts)They are out to kill our world.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)Lodestar
(2,388 posts)Just curious if fracking water quality issues are at least part of the reasoning behind the rules. Or maybe coal?
DFW
(54,445 posts)(At least that's the brand they had when I worked there). What do they care?
EndElectoral
(4,213 posts)Scalded Nun
(1,240 posts)When you cannot breathe the air?
These folks obviously believe they (and theirs) will have continuous access to quality life-support resources, so it's fuck-all for everyone else.
Ford_Prefect
(7,921 posts)Fracking, Coal and other mining, large scale timber harvesting, Real Estate development firms.
drray23
(7,637 posts)Better to have water contaminated by Fracking chemical or other industrial dump. We would not want to inconvenience businesses..
packman
(16,296 posts)the new rules would cover ALL water that flows, regardless of its source or its volume, into a water table that is used for drinking. In other words, the fed could come after a rancher whose cows shit in a stream which in turns flows into a creek, which flows into a river which water is purified for drinking.
Me- I like it. It might give some teeth to those abandoned mines spilling heavy metals into rivers.
Nitram
(22,890 posts)In the end, the wealthy will own all the clean water.
passiveporcupine
(8,175 posts)I'm kidding...I'm kdding. Their water is not natural spring water anyway. It's just filtered water like your tap water.
Eric J in MN
(35,619 posts)0 Republicans voted for clean water.
3 Democrats joined the Republicans to vote for dirty water.
Donnelly (D-IN)
Heitkamp (D-ND)
Manchin (D-WV)
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=114&session=1&vote=00297
Unknown Beatle
(2,672 posts)My large corporations are buying, well, just read this:
But Chairman, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, believes that access to water is not a public right. Nor is it a human right. So if privatization is the answer, is this the company in which the public should place its trust?
Here is just one example, among many, of his companys concern for the public thus far:
In the small Pakistani community of Bhati Dilwan, a former village councilor says children are being sickened by filthy water. Whos to blame? He says its bottled water-maker Nestlé, which dug a deep well that is depriving locals of potable water. The water is not only very dirty, but the water level sank from 100 to 300 to 400 feet, Dilwan says.
Source: Global Research
It's no accident that they're trying hard to pollute our water system, that way we'll have to buy it from them (private corporations) at a highly inflated price.
More from another article from Global Research:A disturbing trend in the water sector is accelerating worldwide. The new water barons the Wall Street banks and elitist multibillionaires are buying up water all over the world at unprecedented pace.
Familiar mega-banks and investing powerhouses such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, UBS, Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, Macquarie Bank, Barclays Bank, the Blackstone Group, Allianz, and HSBC Bank, among others, are consolidating their control over water. Wealthy tycoons such as T. Boone Pickens, former President George H.W. Bush and his family, Hong Kongs Li Ka-shing, Philippines Manuel V. Pangilinan and other Filipino billionaires, and others are also buying thousands of acres of land with aquifers, lakes, water rights, water utilities, and shares in water engineering and technology companies all over the world.
The second disturbing trend is that while the new water barons are buying up water all over the world, governments are moving fast to limit citizens ability to become water self-sufficient (as evidenced by the well-publicized Gary Harringtons case in Oregon, in which the state criminalized the collection of rainwater in three ponds located on his private land, by convicting him on nine counts and sentencing him for 30 days in jail). Lets put this criminalization in perspective:
Billionaire T. Boone Pickens owned more water rights than any other individuals in America, with rights over enough of the Ogallala Aquifer to drain approximately 200,000 acre-feet (or 65 billion gallons of water) a year. But ordinary citizen Gary Harrington cannot collect rainwater runoff on 170 acres of his private land.
Its a strange New World Order in which multibillionaires and elitist banks can own aquifers and lakes, but ordinary citizens cannot even collect rainwater and snow runoff in their own backyards and private lands.
Water is the oil of the 21st century. Andrew Liveris, CEO of DOW Chemical Company (quoted in The Economist magazine, August 21, 2008)
That says it all, in a nutshell.
brett_jv
(1,245 posts)Yes, you can 'own the land', you can build your house or factory, and 'own' all the coal or diamonds or gold that's on it ... but you should NOT be able to 'own' the water that just so happens to be, AT THE MOMENT, physically residing upon 'your land'.
IMHO, we should (mostly) ban the entire concept of 'private' water ownership. (Nearly) all water should be owned by the citizenry, via federal government agencies (since really not even States should be able to declare water as 'theirs').
The only exception should be for personal or agricultural use ... obviously if rain falls upon your garden or fields, you should be able to benefit from it naturally falling on your land. And there should be 'personal use' clauses that allow you to accumulate rainwater in lakes or tanks for later consumption or irrigation purposes ... but these cannot be 'commercial' water-gathering enterprises, designed to gather water for 'resale' purposes.
And groundwater should most DEFINITELY not be 'buy-able' by private entities ... just because you 'own the land' doesn't give you infinite rights to slurp as much water from wells on your property as possible. Because it's almost guaranteed that the aquifer you're drawing from ... extends FAR beyond the physical boundaries of your 'property'.