Bush ("We're doing a lot to protect this environment")to ease clean-air rules

[kpete]

BUSH: "We're doing a lot to protect this environment. We've laid a solid foundation for further progress.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/04/20080416-6.html

Clean-Air Rules Protecting Parks Set to Be Eased

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 16, 2008; A01



The Bush administration is on the verge of implementing new air quality rules that will make it easier to build power plants near national parks and wilderness areas, according to rank-and-file agency scientists and park managers who oppose the plan.

The new regulations, which are likely to be finalized this summer, rewrite a provision of the Clean Air Act that applies to "Class 1 areas," federal lands that currently have the highest level of protection under the law. Opponents predict the changes will worsen visibility at many of the nation's most prized tourist destinations, including Virginia's Shenandoah, Colorado's Mesa Verde and North Dakota's Theodore Roosevelt national parks.

Nearly a year ago, with little fanfare, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed changing the way the government measures air pollution near Class 1 areas on the grounds that the nation needed a more uniform way of regulating emissions near protected areas. The agency closed the comment

more at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/15/AR2008051502880_pf.html

[flashl]

1. Drip, drip, drip

After Katrina, our 'leaders' passed, HR 3893, Gasoline for America's Security Act, which sacrificed the air we breathe to allow Oil company build refineries. That bill gave away Federal lands and closed military bases to oil companies to build those refineries.

Last week, the oil companies paid pennies to utilities after poisoning water supplies with MTBE. No mention about the harm to people, just repayment over a 30 year period to utilities for clean up.

[TrogL]

2. War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength

Regulation is let industry do whatever it wants.