Friday, May 11, 2018

What Human Cost?

In a predictable instance of ratfuckery, Scott Pruitt's EPA is going to change clean air standards, ostensibly to factor in 'economic considerations' in pollution standards, to the detriment of human health.

In Pruitt's world, the economic costs of respiratory diseases don't factor into the equation... especially since poor air quality disproportionately affects poor children of color. We can't let the lungs of indigent children in the Bronx or Houston get in the way of Scott Pruitt's bottom line, now.

2 comments:

mikey said...

Just as with CAFE standards, they're going to have to litigate this with the states, particularly California. And the states have all the legal precedent on their sides.

If the there are two sets of standards, in most cases the polluters are going to have to abide by the stricter ones - it's cheaper than trying to manage two sets of standards by geography.

And California is the 4th biggest economy in the world. The sellers just can't ignore that. And if we get Gavin Newsome as governor in November, the war with Washington will ramp WAY up...

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

California really is the bulwark against bad Federal policy. THANKS