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While it may seem quiet in Washington, the Bush administration has been busy attacking

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Peacetrain Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-21-08 11:06 PM
Original message
While it may seem quiet in Washington, the Bush administration has been busy attacking
the environment. If anyone thought that Bush/Cheney were lame ducking and just waiting to leave DC.. think again.

Some of the rule changes would ease or lift constraints on private industry, including power plants, mines and farms. Those and other regulations would help clear obstacles to some commercial ocean-fishing activities, ease controls on emissions of pollutants that contribute to global warming, relax drinking-water standards and lift a key restriction on mountaintop coal mining .

In the relaxation of standards for the coal mines would mean that they could dump toxic waste into lakes, drinking water reserves
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firedupdem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-21-08 11:08 PM
Response to Original message
1. I heard about this. The rotten bastards. Question...
I should probably know this but.....are these things Obama can overturn once he's in office or would they have to go through congress?
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Peacetrain Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-21-08 11:08 PM
Response to Reply #1
2. God I hope so...
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firedupdem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-21-08 11:11 PM
Response to Reply #2
3. Me too. These guys have no respect or care for people or the
environment. I'm glad the new team consists of real scientists and our President has a functioning brain.
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Peacetrain Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-21-08 11:12 PM
Response to Reply #3
4. Here is the link.. it says that it may be hard to overturn these last minute attacks
Edited on Sun Dec-21-08 11:12 PM by peacetrain
~sigh~

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2008/11/05/bush-administration-rushes-to-relax-environmental-rules-before-leaving-office/
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Muttocracy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-21-08 11:21 PM
Response to Reply #1
5. I think part of the problem is they've already gone through a "review process"
and it makes it harder to just change the regulations within the agency - I think another review process has to be initiated which takes months in some cases. Not sure in every case, but I've heard that about some issues.

I'm very glad Obama has worked so hard on the transition and getting people ready to hit the ground running - they'll need to.
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leftyclimber Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-21-08 11:29 PM
Response to Reply #5
8. Did they even PUBLICIZE public comment for this shit?
I know that a couple of Appalachian governors said "don't screw us even more, please" at some point (and WV's was conspicuously silent, the turd), but I hadn't heard word boo about the "valley fill" (pour shit in people's drinking water) change until the corporate media mentioned it in a way that it sounded like it was a done deal.

Like it would have mattered what public sentiment was.

:nuke:
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Muttocracy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-21-08 11:34 PM
Response to Reply #8
9. well, having a public comment period and paying attention to input
are two different things... :(
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leftyclimber Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-21-08 11:36 PM
Response to Reply #9
12. I hear ya.
The "responses to comments" over the last eight years have been so crazy I can't even begin to describe them.

Sigh.
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leftyclimber Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-21-08 11:24 PM
Response to Original message
6. They'd loosened the watershed regulations already
by redefining mine waste to "valley fill". We've got poisoned water, poisoned air, poisoned children, and annual "100-year" floods in Southern WV thanks to those sonsabitches. These assholes have been raping the Appalachian region for over a hundred years and they've found a way to make it even worse.

Motherfuckers.
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Peacetrain Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-21-08 11:27 PM
Response to Reply #6
7. The sulfur water that turns everything yellow.. what a nightmare
I can't believe they are going this..
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leftyclimber Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-21-08 11:35 PM
Response to Reply #7
10. Acid mine drainage.
We've got mines in north-central WV where I live that aren't mapped. People don't know where they are.

I reiterate, people don't know where they ARE.

An economist I know was asked to evaluate the economic impact of one of these unmapped mines blowing out into the Monongahela River, and he said it was incalculable.

You can mitigate AMD to a degree, but you're talking DECADES of limestone fines before the water is actually safe for habitat again. It's fucking INSANE what these people are willing to do to our country.

But it's OK. We're just Appalachia. :nuke:
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CoffeeCat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-21-08 11:35 PM
Response to Original message
11. I don't get it...
Don't their children drink water?

Don't their children and grandchildren plan on living on planet Earth in the future?

Do they love greed, corruption and corporatism so much, that they'll kill themselves off and poison
their own children and grandchildren?
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Muttocracy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-21-08 11:42 PM
Response to Reply #11
13. I guess they figure they can buy their way out of those problems?
I don't get it either.
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CoffeeCat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Dec-22-08 12:06 AM
Response to Reply #13
15. If they have the money to....
...but another habitable planet and the transportation to get there---then I guess they're golden!

If not, then they're screwed, just like the rest of us.
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NYC_SKP Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-21-08 11:43 PM
Response to Reply #11
14. By and large, their families are so rich they don't need to worry.
Thus has it always been for those at the top.

They either cannot see or care not to look.

They buy bottled water, so don't worry about tap. They travel in private aircraft, never take off shoes at an airport.

And their wealth protects them and their children from any eventuality, health care, lost job, housing, transportation, etc.

It's time to break out my bumper sticker that says,

Eat The Rich.
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Peacetrain Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Dec-22-08 09:48 AM
Response to Reply #11
17. That is what amazes me, the greed, the unbelievable greed
The inability to think about consequences.
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pansypoo53219 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Dec-22-08 02:01 AM
Response to Original message
16. so close to the end of the idiots term
i heard congress can undo a lot. IF they have the will.
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