In an AP story released today, the Evironmental Protection Agency has decided that a little bit of rocket fuel in our drinking water is ok.
Three paragraphs into the story it says, "The ingredient, perchlorate, has been found in at least 395 sites in 35 states at levels high enough to interfere with thyroid function and pose developmental health risks, according to some scientists."
Now, that does not necessarily mean that those scientists are correct. However, the Bush administration is notorious for quashing things that makes it look bad, is bad for the businesses backing it or more probably both.
Back in 2006 when An Inconvenient Truth brought much more attention and information to the public at large. By the end of the year, scientists by the dozen were accusing the Bush administration of repression of well, "loaded words." Words like "Kyoto" (as in the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement to reduce emissions that the US never ratified), "global warming" and climate change were not to be used under any circumstances.
The reason: scientists are not supposed to talk about policy.
But it's gone further, with congressional committees being blocked access to NASA climate scientists and even getting up Howard Dean's blood pressure. On CNN's Situation Room in late 2006, he accused the Bush administration of "bullying" scientists to ix-nay on the imate-clay ange-chay.
So when it comes to light that "The Pentagon could face liability if EPA set a national drinking water standard that forced water agencies around the country to undertake costly clean-up efforts," I think only fair that some eyebrows are raised in suspicion.
And keep in mind that this is the same Bush administration EPA that said that fallout from the 9-11 bombings was safe for clean-up workers to breathe. Now, they are sick and dying.
With experts in the field saying that the perchlorate-infested water many are ingesting is a potential health hazard, the Bush administration has once again shown a callous disregard for the health of its constituents.
There enough enough things in this world making us sick. Does the water we drink have to join the ranks of our menaces?
Three paragraphs into the story it says, "The ingredient, perchlorate, has been found in at least 395 sites in 35 states at levels high enough to interfere with thyroid function and pose developmental health risks, according to some scientists."
Now, that does not necessarily mean that those scientists are correct. However, the Bush administration is notorious for quashing things that makes it look bad, is bad for the businesses backing it or more probably both.
Back in 2006 when An Inconvenient Truth brought much more attention and information to the public at large. By the end of the year, scientists by the dozen were accusing the Bush administration of repression of well, "loaded words." Words like "Kyoto" (as in the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement to reduce emissions that the US never ratified), "global warming" and climate change were not to be used under any circumstances.
The reason: scientists are not supposed to talk about policy.
But it's gone further, with congressional committees being blocked access to NASA climate scientists and even getting up Howard Dean's blood pressure. On CNN's Situation Room in late 2006, he accused the Bush administration of "bullying" scientists to ix-nay on the imate-clay ange-chay.
So when it comes to light that "The Pentagon could face liability if EPA set a national drinking water standard that forced water agencies around the country to undertake costly clean-up efforts," I think only fair that some eyebrows are raised in suspicion.
And keep in mind that this is the same Bush administration EPA that said that fallout from the 9-11 bombings was safe for clean-up workers to breathe. Now, they are sick and dying.
With experts in the field saying that the perchlorate-infested water many are ingesting is a potential health hazard, the Bush administration has once again shown a callous disregard for the health of its constituents.
There enough enough things in this world making us sick. Does the water we drink have to join the ranks of our menaces?
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