Before Flint, Hillary Clinton Voted Against Measure To Prevent Groundwater Pollution

[99th_Monkey]

Before Spotlighting Crisis In Flint MI, Hillary Voted Against Bill To Prevent Groundwater Pollution
BY ANDREW PEREZ & DAVID SIROTA * 03/04/16 * ibtimes.com

When the Democratic presidential contenders meet on Sunday for their debate in Flint, Michigan — where thousands of residents have been poisoned by polluted water — the candidates’ records on clean water policy are likely to be in the spotlight. Hillary Clinton seems eager for that discussion, recently telling NPR: “The idea that you would have a community in the United States of America of nearly 100,000 people who were drinking and bathing in lead-contaminated water infuriates me.”

But despite that rhetoric, the issue of clean water may be politically perilous for the leading Democratic candidate, thanks to her vote against banning a possible carcinogen at the center of one of the largest water pollution scandals in recent history.

Facing reports that a controversial fuel additive was contaminating water supplies across America, Clinton as a senator in 2005 opposed a bipartisan measure to ban the chemical — even though Bill Clinton’s Environmental Protection Agency had first proposed such a prohibition. At roughly the same time, one major company producing the chemical also tried to use provisions in a trade deal backed by Hillary Clinton to force local governments in the United States to let it continue selling the toxic compound.

Clinton’s campaign did not respond to International Business Times’ questions about her vote. ... Breaking with then-Sen. Barack Obama, Clinton joined 14 Republicans and 11 Democrats in voting against the measure to phase out MTBE, which passed the Senate by a vote of 70-26. ... When Clinton cast her vote against banning MTBE, she was in the midst of a re-election campaign in which she raised more than $74,000 from the oil and gas industry, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

http://www.ibtimes.com/political-capital/hillary-clinton-spotlighting-crisis-flint-michigan-voted-against-measure-prevent

[CalvinballPro]

1. There was plenty in that bill to vote against for a liberal.

This article refers to the Energy Policy Act of 2005, a major priority of the GWBush administration at the time. (This was already litigated in the 2008 primary, you know. Obama voted for it, Clinton didn't.)

Some facts about this bill:
-The bill exempted fluids used in the natural gas extraction process of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) from protections under the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, and CERCLA.

-it seeks to increase coal as an energy source while also reducing air pollution, through authorizing $200 million annually for clean coal initiatives, repealing the current 160-acre (0.65 km2) cap on coal leases, allowing the advanced payment of royalties from coal mines and requiring an assessment of coal resources on federal lands that are not national parks

-it provides incentives to companies to drill for oil in the Gulf of Mexico

-it exempts oil and gas producers from certain requirements of the Safe Drinking Water Act

-it directs the Secretary of the Interior to complete a programmatic environmental impact statement for a commercial leasing program for oil shale and tar sands resources on public lands with an emphasis on the most geologically prospective lands within each of the states of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming.

And here's Clinton's explanation for her vote. (Again, just like Sanders' explanation of his Crime Bill vote.)

"So that 2005 energy bill was a big step backwards on the path to clean, renewable energy," said Clinton. "That's why I voted against it. That's why I'm standing for the proposition — let's take away the giveaways that were given to gas and oil, put them to work on solar and wind and geothermal and biofuels and all of the rest that we need for a new energy future."

[99th_Monkey]

2. Thanks for the additional information. Glad there's a plausible explanation

Too bad her campaign couldn't call David Sirota to provide this info to him before
this article was published.