EPA now an arm of industry - NOT to be swayed by scientists. NEW LAW

[Jude Iam]

BILL PASSED: EPA MUST TAKE ADVICE FROM INDUSTRY SHILLS, NOT FROM INDEPENDENT SCIENTISTS

Posted by: Daisy Luther | on November 23, 2014 | Reader Views: 772

read and weep. or better, do whatever you can think of. blessings, jude


The Environmental Protection Agency is a federal agency that is charged with the responsibility of writing and enforcing legislation to protect human health and the environment. Established under Nixon in 1970, the EPA is another one of those agencies that sounds like a good idea, until you peel off the shiny friendly top layer to discover the stench of corruption underneath. Up until now, they at least pretended to be there to serve as watchdogs, but it seems like they’ve decided to give up on that silly illusion.

Since they are looking after all things environmental, they need unbiased specialists to advise them on policies and issues.

Silly me, I always thought that sounded sort of…I dunno…science-y.

Our estimable House of Representatives disagrees.

Apparently they feel the EPA should not take advice from independent scientists at all. In fact, they believe it so strongly that they just passed a bill barring the freaking ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY from taking the advice of independent scientists. They are now expected to take their advice from people who are “industry affiliated.” Oh – and those people don’t actually have to be scientists at all.

Yeah. Because that’s not a conflict of interest.

Certainly people who work for companies like Monsanto or Dupont will be diligent in ensuring a healthy environment, even if it costs their companies extra money, right? I’m sure those folks that work for companies that indulge in fracking will absolutely halt it if it seems like it’s causing problems with the groundwater or something. No matter what the cost to their companies, we can all feel confident that they’ll stringently do what’s right.

A bill passed through the US House of Representatives is designed to prevent qualified, independent scientists from advising the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). They will be replaced with industry affiliated choices, who may or may not have relevant scientific expertise, but whose paychecks benefit from telling the EPA what their employers want to hear.

The EPA’s Science Advisory Board (SAB) was established in 1978 to ensure the EPA uses the most up to date and relevant scientific research for its decision making and that the EPA’s programs reflect this advice. It has served in this role, most often uncontroversially, through 36 years and six presidents. If the new bill passes the Senate and wins presidential approval, however, that is about to change.

The bill would prevent scientists from voting on the release into the environment of a chemical by their employers. Nevertheless, they would be allowed to vote to release a nearly identical chemical, Grifo notes, including some that would set a precedent that would be very useful to the company in future decisions.

More insidiously, research scientists are barred under the act from advising on any topic that might “directly or indirectly involve review and evaluation of their own work”. In other words, the only people barred from advising the EPA on a particular chemical are those who have actually studied its toxicity or effect on the environment. (source)

How does it even make the slightest bit of sense to have the foxes that financially benefit in charge of this particular hen house? How can they possibly justify this decision?

One controversy after another can be attributed to the EPA, an agency charged with protecting the air we breathe, the soil in which we grow our food and the water that we drink. Despite irrefutable proof that glyphosate causes cancer, the EPA increased the amount allowed to be used agriculturally. They regulate everyday folks, forcing upgrades of woodstoves, while allowing big businesses to pollute in far more spectacular an amount than a self-sufficient family could ever create. When the radiation from Fukushima became alarmingly high on our shores, the EPA was right on top of things with their response. First, they promptly closed down 8 of 18 radiation measuring stations in the hardest hit area, California. Then, to further calm the good people of the nation, the EPA magically changed the numbers. They’ve raised the amount of radiation that we can safely absorb and ingest. It wouldn’t do for the large factory farms to be unable to sell their tainted produce or for the huge dairies to be stuck with all that radioactive milk. In fact, the radiation in our food supply was of so little concern to the EPA that they began to tell us that a little bit of radiation is good for us. According to a report citing the EPA, a bit of radiation can prevent cancer, instead of causing it.

At the bottom of each controversy can be found ties to the conspiracies of the big businesses that really run the country. Decisions are being auctioned off to industry lobbyists with the most money and influence.

And now, the elected officials in the House of Representatives have just sanctioned a blatant corporate takeover of the EPA. They aren’t even pretending to be protecting the environment now.

About the author:

Please feel free to share any information from this site in part or in full, giving credit to the author and including a link to this website and the following bio.

Daisy Luther is a freelance writer and editor. Her website, The Organic Prepper, offers information on healthy prepping, including premium nutritional choices, general wellness and non-tech solutions. You can follow Daisy on Facebook and Twitter, and you can email her at [email protected]

[Star Man]

BILL PASSED: EPA MUST TAKE ADVICE FROM INDUSTRY SHILLS, NOT FROM INDEPENDENT SCIENTISTS

Posted by: Daisy Luther | on November 23, 2014

1. We live in Mike Judge's Idiocracy. Stupid people are in charge. This is what the Teapublicans have creamed their pants for. This is what the creationists have prayed for. An end to government oversight. Of course Jesus/God will save us from harm. After all, according to the bible, he gave us dominion over the world. How's that working out so far? There is no way to escape this. There are simply too many idiots now, and the less-than-idiotic people decided not to vote in the last election. Well, this is the world we (didn't) vote for.

2. We live in a corporatocracy. Government is of, by, and for the corporations, not We The People. Government has been bought by the corporations. Corporations have no soul and no emotions. They do not mourn the death of the bees or the despoiling of the Gulf of Mexico or the loss of shoreline in Louisiana. Corporations do not have to drink water to live. Corporations care nothing for a warming planet or rising seas. Corporations care only for profit. Nothing else.

3. We live at the beginning of a new age, the age of machine life. Evolutionary scientists have been calling the current era the Anthropocene because humans have made changes so vast that the planetary ecosystem is changed. Well the Anthropocene is only going to last a century or so, and it will be replaced by the Machinocene, the era of machine life. Scientists (there are good reasons not to trust some of them) are busily creating robots that can multiply themselves and robots that can think for themselves. Machines can live in a warmed planet with rising sea levels. Machines do not need drinkable water like biological organisms do, and they don't need to eat food at all, much less GMO-free food.

4. We humans should rename our species. We are NOT Homo sapiens. Points 1, 2, and 3 demonstrate that. We are Homo imprudens, the species that could not foresee the consequences of its actions, or maybe we are Homo bardus, the stupid people.

For myself, I spend my time celebrating the one thing that separates us from most organisms, our spirituality. No one will know when we are gone from the face of the earth. No one will care. There is no God to look with sorrow upon the failure of His creation or a Satan to laugh gleefully at the success of His plan. Reality is essentially ambiguous. It has only the meaning we give it. Few humans understand this concept. I choose to celebrate the end of a planet with such beautiful reefs, such awesome eagles, such powerful grizzlies, such pure air and water. The Cree prophets understood this well:

When all the trees have been cut down,
When all the animals have been hunted,
When all the waters are polluted,
When all the air is unsafe to breathe,
Only then will you discover that money can not be eaten.

Star Man

[Jude Iam]

yes: throughout my lifetime, i have seen this all too clearly, and it weighs heavily, as the world continues to worsen.
sustaining the will to live, with joy even, and do whatever can be done, must be based on something reasonable...
the wild card of a totally unexpected game-changer is not much to base the future of humanity on. possibilities of a mass awakening, new generations leadership, alien assistance… let it all be.
and there are glimmers of hope for the earth like this 5 minute video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysa5OBhXz-Q
jude

1. We live in Mike Judge's Idiocracy. Stupid people are in charge. This is what the Teapublicans have creamed their pants for...

[BobHeisler]

This is deplorable. Unfortunately, it's the kind of thing I've come to expect from a once-great country.