NYTimes: Behind the White House’s rebuff to EPA’s boss, backslide on smog rules. It’s really simple…
Source http://tinyurl.com/7j8szks
The NY Times‘s John M. Broder brings readers today a compelling portrait of the angst and frustration that thicken the air in Washington DC – via multiple interviews with lobbyists and the people they lobbied to get the White House to duck a fight with the likes of the US Chamber of Commerce. The issue was a new set of smog rules that would reduce how much ozone the feds will tolerate before starting to demand major changes in how industry operates. The piece gives everybody a fair shake. While most NYTimes readers will be shaking their heads in sympathy with the crestfallen EPA boss who got told to back off by the President, one also finds persuasive the business leaders who warned that abruptly tougher smog rules would run a lot of people out of business. That’s not good politics with an election looming.
For Dems, it’s a choice. Risk thousands of premature deaths and illnesses if the airborne dreck is left as it is but at least keep a basically sympathetic Barack Obama in the Oval Office. Or raise chances for a GOP love fest with industry bosses at the White House as existing regulations and red tape get hit with a machete. It’s painted pretty clearly here how hard ball politics works while driving good-hearted people nuts.
Related News:
- Baltimore Sun (blog) Tim Wheeler: MD lawmaker questions EPA air-quality science ; Includes a weird sentence about two Republican critics of smog rules – they ask “why EPA calculates the same economic benefit for every premature death prevent, noting that most of those who die from inhaling suit are elderly.”
- The Tennessean – Elizabeth Bewley: Alexander back EPA smog regulation ;
- Charlie Petit
