Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

inanna

(3,547 posts)
Wed Nov 4, 2015, 02:15 PM Nov 2015

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

20 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies

Lodestar

(2,388 posts)
5. Are these EPA rules tied to fracking at all?
Wed Nov 4, 2015, 02:27 PM
Nov 2015

Just curious if fracking water quality issues are at least part of the reasoning behind the rules. Or maybe coal?

DFW

(54,445 posts)
6. The Senate cloakroom has Poland Spring bottled drinking water
Wed Nov 4, 2015, 02:28 PM
Nov 2015

(At least that's the brand they had when I worked there). What do they care?

Scalded Nun

(1,240 posts)
8. Why worry about the water
Wed Nov 4, 2015, 02:46 PM
Nov 2015

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)
9. They believe whatever the Oil and Mining lobby tells them. That's who is behind this:
Wed Nov 4, 2015, 02:57 PM
Nov 2015

Fracking, Coal and other mining, large scale timber harvesting, Real Estate development firms.

drray23

(7,637 posts)
10. who needs clean water after all ?
Wed Nov 4, 2015, 04:14 PM
Nov 2015

Better to have water contaminated by Fracking chemical or other industrial dump. We would not want to inconvenience businesses..

 

packman

(16,296 posts)
11. As I understand it -
Wed Nov 4, 2015, 04:33 PM
Nov 2015

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.

passiveporcupine

(8,175 posts)
17. Hey, we can always buy clean spring water bottled water from Nestles
Wed Nov 4, 2015, 09:53 PM
Nov 2015

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)
13. The vote was almost party-line.
Wed Nov 4, 2015, 08:27 PM
Nov 2015

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)
14. I think it has to do with who owns water rights.
Wed Nov 4, 2015, 09:02 PM
Nov 2015

My large corporations are buying, well, just read this:

Large multinational beverage companies are usually given water-well privileges (and even tax breaks) over citizens because they create jobs, which is apparently more important to the local governments than water rights to other taxpaying citizens. These companies such as Coca Cola and Nestlé (which bottles suburban Michigan well-water and calls it Poland Spring) suck up millions of gallons of water, leaving the public to suffer with any shortages.

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 company’s 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. Who’s to blame? He says it’s 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 Kong’s 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 Harrington’s 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). Let’s 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.

It’s 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)
20. There should serious restrictions on the notion of 'private land' ... when it comes to water.
Thu Nov 5, 2015, 03:36 AM
Nov 2015

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'.

Latest Discussions»Latest Breaking News»Senate backs resolution t...