EPA may relax power-plant pollution rules

[phantom power]

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency is working at the Bush administration's direction on a new rule that would weaken regulations for power plants, allowing them to increase emissions without adding pollution controls.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20081027/sc_mcclatchy/3084333;_ylt=AuRX0n5gjemyC0ujlcXJC0hpl88F

[Fovea]

1. Purge the EPA.

When a tool like Christie Whitman quits, you should just bulldoze the EPA into the dirt and grow a new one.

[Lorien]

4. Amen. n/t

[NNadir]

7. I have met quite a number of EPA scientists in recent years, epidemiologists mostly.

They are honorable people who are more pained than anyone at what has happened to their agency.

Before the Bush administration usurped power, many people had established long working scientific careers at EPA. You don't join the EPA as a scientist if you hate the environment.

These people are prisoners. They don't need to be knocked off. They need to be rescued and restored.

[kristopher]

10. We rarely agree, but you are right in this case. nt

[baby_bear]

11. Thank you NNadir

As a career EPA scientist who started during the Reagan years, I appreciate your thoughtful and accurate observation. There is little turnover of EPA scientists because we are dedicated to our cause - not Bush's and Cheney's, or even the current EPA administrator's.

We work hard to make sure things will get better for the planet, even if it has to wait for a new administration. But in the meantime, we plug along and try to influence incremental changes that are positive. And guess what: we do achieve quite a bit. You won't read much about that, and that's okay, because we don't work for press coverage. I am glad when the negative stuff gets covered by the press, because that means that people will start caring more about the environment and put pressure on Congress, where it really matters.

b_b

[Faux pas]

2. Sounds like business as usual as far a boosh goes. He won't

be totally happy until he has killed off every living thing and has all the money.

[Lorien]

3. Oh geez. When will; humanity ever learn?

save a buck while human health deteriorates and the planet slowly dies. The Obama campaign could make an ad out of this crap; people DO care about big polluters putting us all at risk for small profits.

[FREEWILL56]

5. Am I missing something here?

What the hell does that really have to do with the energy produced or getting off being dependant on oil? This is like taking out your muffler and catalytic converter on your car for a very tiny power jump, which they aren't letting us do to save a small fraction on the gas consumption. It's only allowing a big savings for the cost of purchasing such pollution equipment to the energy conglomerates and really has nothing to do with our oil dependance.

[Fovea]

6. It is not about oil dependence.

It involves profits. Any other claim is window dressing.
We need to really ram the controls on emissions ( like tetra ethyl lead) right up their pachyderm asses.

[FREEWILL56]

8. Yes, I agree that's what it's about with bush and those energy conglomerates.

They don't need saved and it doesn't help our energy needs, our health, or dependances on foreign oil so it's another BS package that the dem leadership will allow bush to push through on fear factors.
knock knock Is anybody home or are our leaders just being zombies (bio-robots and suitable time of year) to these neocon zealots? They are going backwards for some that they shouldn't go backwards on and that's not good for anybody except the energy profiteers while they'd still gouge us for the energy while being allowed to pollute more.

Emissions on cars do need to be at a standard, but I think they can relax it a tad for cars as they need to regulate trucks and busses somewhat as they lack any requirements at all. Most times it's a matter of keeping it tuned rather than adding really expensive stuff, but minor things added to help our air should be implemented that aren't there for trucks and busses and one can say they need mpg standards implemented.

[Fovea]

9. I worry about Hubbards Peak quite a bit.

We have engineered a commuter world in America where average folks I know commute by car 60+ miles per day to work.

The problems coming up may not be quite so dire as Kunstler thinks, but they will be enough to destroy the value of suburbia significantly, and take the economy with it if we do not plan for a different, energy leaner future. This means greater population densities closer to centers of employment and more public transit, fewer vehicles. While this might feel like an anti American lifestyle change, I think that the American mobility lifestyle is doomed to a failure of fuel.

I am not adverse to adjusting automotive requirements for a short, defined period. But the CAFE is going to have to go up dramatically, because once the economy starts working again, oil will be back up to levels bigger and badder than before. I suspect it will peg at &175/bbl. Why? Because all the producing nations realize that Oil is a game with an endpoint now, and none of them wants to be controlling the short end of that stick.
That will further depress the value of exurban property, and put even more pressure on exurbanites.

For a while, exurbia will be the new ghetto. Then we will tear it apart for materials. By that point in time, let's call it 2024, most people will use public transit and neighborhood range vehicles for transport.

Call me weird, but that is what my crystal ball tells me.