Biden Administration To Curb Toxic Pollutants From Chemical Plants (nytimes.com) 33
The Biden administration has proposed a new regulation to significantly reduce hazardous air pollutants from chemical plants, a move that environmental advocates predicted would significantly reduce the health risks to people living near industrial sites. From a report: The proposed Environmental Protection Agency rule calls on chemical plants to monitor and reduce the amount of toxic pollutants released in the air, including the carcinogens ethylene oxide, an ingredient in antifreeze, and chloroprene, which is used to make the rubber in footwear. The proposed rule would affect the vast majority of chemical manufacturers, applying to more than 200 facilities spread across Texas and Louisiana; elsewhere along the Gulf Coast; the Ohio River Valley; and West Virginia. It would update several regulations governing emissions from chemical plants, some of which have not been tightened in nearly 20 years. The action is part of the Biden administration's effort to address the disproportionate impact of environmental hazards facing communities that surround chemical plants. Known as fenceline communities, they are generally low-income, minority neighborhoods with elevated rates of asthma, cancer and other health problems.
Biden administration isn't going to do anything (Score:2, Insightful)
People really didn't understand just how vital the 2016 election was to their health and well being.
we can't do this after the trade war turns China (Score:1)
no we can't do this after the trade war turns China off
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You leftists allowed courts to take over roles of legislature and you were perfectly fine with it when it was working in your favour (like Roe vs Wade. What kind of a fucking backwater banana republic is it where *court* decides when you can have an abortion, not the legislative branch?! Name any other example? Separation of powers, three branches of government, hello?) so ima just gonna play a sad song on world's tiniest violin for you when it stopped working in your favour. Suck it up.
Roe was decided by a conservative court...
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That is the market is free to put them on the curb
The market is entirely secondary. You have no control over upstream suppliers of the companies you do business with so no one will get kicked to the curb. I buy t-shirts and coke bottles, not bulk purified terephthalic acid.
Externalized costs (Score:3)
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Yes, the general consensus is that when you want an omelette you have to break some eggs. And when you want to build up civilisation, you have to pollute. We'd still be sitting in caves if that first apeman who carried a burning stick back to his cave was required to sequester all the CO2 his campfire produced.
But is it really necessary to put the waste tube right into our mouths? Most animals poop at least slightly away from where they eat and drink.
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that's what guys like you don't get. Companies and individual consumers get to externalize the costs of pollution (e.g. you don't pay for some kid's medical bills when they get asthma or a 50+ year old when they have heart disease from breathing bad air) and neither do Ford or GM.
Actually in the US you DO pay for those because when they don’t have insurance, and they aren’t illegally booted from the ER, that’s where they go even if they can’t pay. The hospitals then charge everyone else including insurance companies, to make up the costs using logic so tortured, god herself couldn’t understand it.
Try to get cancer treatment at the ER (Score:2, Informative)
It does actually cost more you are right about that. It's very expensive to stabilize someone, much more so than treating the illness properly. But without that insurance companies wouldn't be incredibly profitable. Same for pharmaceuticals. Again externalized costs.
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But without that insurance companies wouldn't be incredibly profitable.
Look buddy, this is America. Companies would be profitable without insurance, even if we had to snatch children off the streets and cut them up for spare medical parts. Optimizing costs to bring the most value to people never sucked the cash from millions and funneled it to one sedentary insane person who then lives like a god which is really the heart and soul of this country.
What good is an EPA rule... (Score:3, Insightful)
...if your EPA enforcement arm is one guy in the basement of an auxiliary building, who only has a skateboard as budgeted transportation? Not saying that's the current state, but it's the current trajectory. You can start by saying, "Hey, you're not allowed to poison..." and that's as far as you'll get before somebody blocks you.
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...if your EPA enforcement arm is one guy in the basement of an auxiliary building, who only has a skateboard as budgeted transportation? Not saying that's the current state, but it's the current trajectory. You can start by saying, "Hey, you're not allowed to poison..." and that's as far as you'll get before somebody blocks you.
I imagine it as the stapler guy from office space “Excuse me, I believe you have polluted our pristine wil..”
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Are you serious? I can't tell if you're serious. Are you blaming the current 2 year old administration for the circumstances that led to these things?
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look man, just like the withdrawal from Afghanistan; it's all been high strategy, you just don't understand statecraft at this level!
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Wow, that's some pretty easy triggering. I said none of those things. The parent to my post was specifically ranting about Biden's administration for reasons I don't really understand.
Re: Oh FUCK OFF!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
The Palestine chemical train wreck -- where the big brains and their use of fire made it a million times worse. Which the Biden administration went out of their way to try and ignore, and then blame everyone else.
It's amazing how great deregulation is until you need a scapegoat when it causes a major disaster.
Not that I want pollution... (Score:3)
But this coming right on the heels of announcing how much manufacturing we're bringing back... guess which announcement we should believe.
So what if they haven't been tightened in 20 years (Score:1)
Good intentions... Until the lawsuits start flying (Score:2)
in the direction of Uncle Sam.
You can't do anything in the USA that would benefit the public at large without literally dozens of lawsuits being filed by vested interests to stop such moves dead in their tracks.
Lets face it people... the USA is suffocating under the weight of lawsuits, briefs and motions and with a Justice system that clearly can't cope with even half the number of cases they currently have.
Or... (Score:2)
Or, maybe people should not be living near industrial plants. Instead of making everything more expensive and uncompetitive with China and India, it might be better to spend the money to move people away from the affected areas.
I guess we'll be buying ... (Score:2)