I admit it. I'm biased against the Bush administration and any and all agencies operating under the flag of the Bush administration. I'm especially biased and angry with the Environmental Protection Agency, which would be better named the Environmental Destruction Agency.
Seth Borenstein of the Associated Press reports that last May the EPA adjusted the "value of a statistical life." Five years ago, the EPA valued an American life at about $7.9 million. Today, the EPA says an American life is only worth $6.9 million.
Why did the EPA drop the value of an American life?
Because the agency is "cooking the books." Why are they cooking the books?
Because it allows the EPA to allow more companies to pollute more air. The polluters are freed of onerous regulations which cut their profits.
As Borenstein explains: "When drawing up regulations, government agencies put a value on human life and then weigh the costs versus the lifesaving benefits of a proposed rule. The less a life is worth to the government, the less the need for a regulation, such as tighter restrictions on pollution."
In other words, if the value of an American life drops, the EPA can relax its pollution rules and the corporate muggers get happy as their pockets fill with money.
S. William Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, said "It appears that they're cooking the books in regards to the value of life. Those decisions are literally a matter of life and death."
Smog kills! Greenhouse gases cause global warming!
A former EPA official and now director of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy, Dan Esty claims "It's hard to imagine that it has other than a political motivation."
Current EPA honchos disavow any such shady political motivations.
Of course they do.
1 comment:
I think we have been complicit in devaluing our life. Once other lives are considered less valuable then ours, ours is cheapened. We have allowed it to happen. Where is the outrage? Where are the protestors? Where are the Million Man Marches? Where is the media? Where are our prosecutors and courts? Where are the keepers of morality? We have met the enemy and it is us, is not just the wise saying of a cartoon figure. We do have problems but no problem can be solved if it isn’t defined first.
Bob Poris
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