EPA Commentary

The Environmental Protection Agency is asking for public comments “on regulations that may be appropriate for repeal, replacement, or modification.” That is a misguided effort if there ever was one.

With pipelines leaking, tires burning, polluted waste being dumped into wetlands, plastics floating in our waters, fracking causing earthquakes, obsolete coal-fired plants releasing pollution into the air, pollution increasing carbon in the atmosphere, and global temperatures rising, the EPA’s resources should be directed at more research, more regulation, and more enforcement, and even public education — in other words, at environmental protection!

Of course, obsolete and misguided regulations should be removed, but in the routine and orderly operation of the EPA, not as a priority when so many threats to our environment exist.

A full democracy requires that all people live, work, and play in a healthy environment. That is necessary for the public health of the population, and good health enables people to participate in the democratic process. A government of the people, by the people, for people — that’s a democratic lifestyle!

And yes, this is personal. I want to live, work, and play in a healthy environment.

We as a society are responsible for pollution. We can stop it.

Please do NOT accept the anti-science rhetoric as the new norm. It is a message spread by moneyed interests determined to pollute and profit at the public’s expense.

Please support the science, regulation, and enforcement necessary to clean up our world.

The EPA’s request for comments is at https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=EPA-HQ-OA-2017-0190-0042