Bush Trashing the Environment

[Ice]

I'm going to have to agree with the Bush opposition on this single case.

What I do know, is that 'percholrate' is a highly controversial subject, with lots of law suits, looming lawsuits, and nervous companies and the military fearing lawsuits. Naturally, these business interests have formed a a powerful lobby. Sponsored 'medical research'. Tried to influence legislation.

I couldn't agree more. I'd like to see an independent commission, paid for by the government, give their findings on the issue. Until then, the feds should ban or regulate closely the substance in water.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I'm going to have to agree with the Bush opposition on this single case.
I couldn't agree more. I'd like to see an independent commission, paid for by the government,...

1. paid for by the government means by us, the taxpayers. Do NOT fall into the trap of thinking it all belongs to the government -- that way lies slavery.

2. Any study funded by the current executive branch (at least under the current administration) would be considered suspect by the very people who are angry with the current proposed ruling.

3. This, and other issues associated with Presidential leave-taking, are going to get more and more press. The goal is to minimize Bush's ability to do anthing aside from pack up his gear.


Extension on three: What really chaps the main-stream media and a lot of the US political left is that there is no constitutional way to get Bush to resign in favor of Obama and put Obama in office yesterday -- which is what they'd like to see. Their thinking runs thus: we repudiated everything you did and stand for, so why the are you still here?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

1. paid for by the government means by us, the taxpayers. Do NOT fall into the trap of thinking it all belongs to the government -- that way lies slavery.

2. Any study funded by the current executive branch (at least under the current administration) would be considered suspect by the very people who are angry with the current proposed ruling.

3. This, and other issues associated with Presidential leave-taking, are going to get more and more press. The goal is to minimize Bush's ability to do anthing aside from pack up his gear.


Extension on three: What really chaps the main-stream media and a lot of the US political left is that there is no constitutional way to get Bush to resign in favor of Obama and put Obama in office yesterday -- which is what they'd like to see. Their thinking runs thus: we repudiated everything you did and stand for, so why the are you still here?

RE: As to the point in the OP, I favor clean drinking water. If there are legitimate questions as to the science behind the EPA's proposed ruling, then it should be reviewed. Until the ruling is made, we should err on the side of safety.

[Louis VI the Fat]

2. Any study funded by the current executive branch (at least under the current administration) would be considered suspect by the very people who are angry with the current proposed ruling.

Well we would, wouldn't we, after the mockery the current administration has made of the EPA. Here's a fair and balanced account:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

WASHINGTON — Hundreds of Environmental Protection Agency scientists say they have been pressured by superiors to skew their findings, according to a survey released Wednesday by an advocacy group. The Union of Concerned Scientists said more than half of the nearly 1,600 EPA staff scientists who responded online to a detailed questionnaire reported they had experienced incidents of political interference in their work.

But Francesca Grifo, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists' Scientific Integrity Program, said the survey results revealed "an agency in crisis" and "under siege from political pressures" especially among scientists involved in risk assessment and crafting regulations. "The investigation shows researchers are generally continuing to do their work, but their scientific findings are tossed aside when it comes time to write regulations," said Grifo.

The EPA has been under fire from members of Congress on a number of fronts including its delay in determining whether carbon dioxide should be regulated to combat global warming. Johnson also has been criticized for rejecting recommendations from science advisory boards on a number of air pollution issues including control of mercury from power plants and how much to reduce smog pollution.

In the survey, the EPA scientists described an agency suffering from low morale as senior managers and the White House Office of Management and Budget frequently second-guess scientific findings and change work conducted by EPA's scientists, the report said.

The survey covered employees at EPA headquarters, in each of the agency's 10 regions around the country and at more than a dozen research laboratories. The highest number of complaints about political interference came from scientists who are directly involved in writing regulations and those who conduct risk assessments such as determining a chemical cancer risk for humans.

Nearly 400 scientists said they had witnessed EPA officials misrepresenting scientific findings, 284 said they had seen the "selective or incomplete use of data to justify a specific regulatory outcome" and 224 scientists said they had been directed to "inappropriately exclude or alter technical information" in an EPA document. Nearly 200 of the respondents said they had been in situations where they or their colleagues actively objected to or resigned from projects "because of pressure to change scientific findings."

What really chaps the main-stream media and a lot of the US political left is that there is no constitutional way to get Bush to resign in favor of Obama and put Obama in office yesterday -- which is what they'd like to see. Their thinking runs thus: we repudiated everything you did and stand for, so why the ... are you still here?

Yes, you are absolutely right. But is this the position that you want to take Seamus? US politics has fallen prey to extreme partisanship and pressure groups. Shockingly, this has dragged US science down with it. Obama will move in, the EPA will for the next four years deliver 'scientific' reports that support the politics of leftists and environmental pressure groups, and then Obama will leave again, and new special interest groups move in. Etcetera.

So what does one do about it? Decide on one side and squeak about the meanness of the other side? Or be outraged that a core scientific government institute is the toy of whomever is in power?


Might as well be militant to encourage further debate: I, for one, put as much stock in US scientific findings as I do on former Soviet science. Sure, the directness, and goal-driven approach often yields phenomenal results.
Physics and engineering somewhat trancend politicised approach. But pharmaceutical, medical, environmental, sociological, historical research? Gah! Everywhere you look, there is either a politicised government agency involved, or covert funding by a lobby group, or direct corporate interference.

The US has both the best funded scientific institutions and the greatest minds of the world, and both the world's most hostile and unscientifc culture. From high schools to the best research intitutions, US science is in the grip of 'Intelligent Design' onslaughts. That is, science is under attack from, or simply the output of, politics, pressure groups, disinformation. With American scientific reports, one never needs to read the conclusion, only the origin. Show me the financer, and I'll show the scientific results.

[Louis VI the Fat]

*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*---* Thread resurrection starts here *---*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*

Report: Politics corroded Bush decisions on endangered species

· Report says Bush administration official bullied scientists
· Committee critical of handling of endangered species act
· Politics played a role in 20 endangered species decisions



Politics corroded Bush administration decisions on protecting endangered species in regions nationwide, federal investigators have concluded in a sweeping new report. Former interior department official Julie MacDonald frequently bullied career scientists to reduce species protections, the interior department investigators found.

"The results of this investigation paint a picture of something akin to a secret society residing within the interior department that was colluding to undermine the protection of endangered wildlife and covering for one another's misdeeds,"

Endangered species protection or not is not the issue here. The issue is the style of the Bush administrations.

Its decisions are not based on sincere scientific reports. On the contrary, political decisions are imposed on scientific findings.

It is all remarkably similar to what happened during the run-up to the Iraq war: fake reports, invented 'facts', bullying of those with conflicting findings.

It borders on the obscene. For one, one can not trust the word of the US government for anything anymore. Not since the Soviets made perennial lying and deceit their trademark, has a government of a developed nation made such a mockery of politically independent scientific results.

[Fragony]

"The results of this investigation paint a picture of something akin to a secret society residing within the interior department that was colluding to undermine the protection of endangered wildlife and covering for one another's misdeeds,"

Now I know you are a frog Luigi but common this has PETA written all over it.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Now I know you are a frog Luigi but common this has PETA written all over it.

Quod non.

This is about Julie MacDonald, former interior minister under Bush. She already resigned in 2007 after an internal investigation found that she had tampered with scientific findings and violated federal rules by giving government documents to oil industry and property rights lobbyists.


A full report about it has now been published. It is damning in the extreme.


What is so damning about it? The tampering with science is. Bush is quite open in his policies: a full War on the Environment. Fine. If the American electorate wishes to undo in eight years all the efforts their ancestors made in the previous hundred years to protect America's stunning National Parks, then fine.

But...at stake is the science and honesty of this War on the Environment. It is frought with lies, deceit, corruption. And deliberate anti-science. Nonsense non-science.

Special interest groups have bought America's government. This government, Bush, has next abused its power to silence independent science.
The result is that America's national treasures have been sold for a pittance to businesses closely associated with the Bush administration. Here's Wikipedia, for a brief synopsis:

MacDonald is the deputy assistant secretary for fish and wildlife and parks in the Department of the Interior. That is, the one responsible for them.

On 30 October, 2006, the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit group that advocates scientific integrity, alleged that McDonald had "personally reversed scientific findings, changed scientific conclusions to prevent endangered species from receiving protection, removed relevant information from a scientific document, and ordered the Fish and Wildlife Service to adopt her edits."

According to the Inspector General, "MacDonald has been heavily involved with editing, commenting on, and reshaping the Endangered Species Program's scientific reports from the field."

MacDonald resigned on 1 May, 2007, one week before a House congressional oversight committee was to hold a hearing on the Inspector General's findings.

In November 2007, a followup report by the Inspector General found that MacDonald could have benefited financially from a decision to remove the Sacramento splittail fish from the federal endangered species list.

The Washington Post called the events leading to MacDonald's resignation "the latest in a series of controversies in which government officials and outside scientists have accused the Bush administration of overriding or setting aside scientific findings that clashed with its political agenda."[9] In the aftermath of her departure, many endangered species designation denials which had been issued during her tenure were reversed.

The report. It is not a PETA or lobby group report. It is from the Inspector General Earl Devaney. It confirms the allegations, in no uncertain terms, that led to MacDonald's resignation last year.

[Fragony]

a full War on the Environment.

Now I do understand that I kinda deserved that, but isn't that taking it little far?

[Ice]

1. paid for by the government means by us, the taxpayers. Do NOT fall into the trap of thinking it all belongs to the government -- that way lies slavery.

2. Any study funded by the current executive branch (at least under the current administration) would be considered suspect by the very people who are angry with the current proposed ruling.

3. This, and other issues associated with Presidential leave-taking, are going to get more and more press. The goal is to minimize Bush's ability to do anthing aside from pack up his gear.


Extension on three: What really chaps the main-stream media and a lot of the US political left is that there is no constitutional way to get Bush to resign in favor of Obama and put Obama in office yesterday -- which is what they'd like to see. Their thinking runs thus: we repudiated everything you did and stand for, so why the are you still here?

So it keep it banned until a committee, under the new Obama administration, is created to deal with the problem.

Airing on the side of safety in this situation seems prudent.

[Xiahou]

I couldn't agree more. I'd like to see an independent commission, paid for by the government, give their findings on the issue. Until then, the feds should ban or regulate closely the substance in water.

Right, so we should ban everything until a government committee and prove incontrovertibly that it isn't in any way harmful.

[Husar]

Right, so we should ban everything until a government committee and prove incontrovertibly that it isn't in any way harmful.

Right, so we should allow anything that was considered harmful for years just because someone new comes and says it's not and his opinion hasn't even been peer-reviewed or critisized. Because everytime someone new comes and says something, that person has to be right, so where's gay marriage then? Or does that only apply to environmental laws that are stopping poor american companies from dumping raw oil and chemicals into the next river?

[Ice]

Right, so we should ban everything until a government committee and prove incontrovertibly that it isn't in any way harmful.

Yeah, that's exactly what I said.

[Xiahou]

Yeah, that's exactly what I said.

Not quiet, it was just the logical extension of what you said. Everything is poisonous- it's all a matter of dosage. Until we know what the proper levels are for anything, it should be banned. Or does it only apply in this case because environmental activists got a one-sided article run pushing their position?

What determines whether something should be banned until proven safe?

[CountArach]

Xiahou - surely you can see that it is more important to keep anything remotely poisonous out of drinking water? Anything beyond that is debatable, but water must remain clear.

[Xiahou]

Xiahou - surely you can see that it is more important to keep anything remotely poisonous out of drinking water? Anything beyond that is debatable, but water must remain clear.

Water is poisonous. We should probably ban it until we can determine the what, if any, levels are safe.

Perchlorate could use some form of monitoring, sure- but it's also a naturally occurring substance that has uses in medicine. EWG throwing around labels like "neurotoxin", just makes me roll my eyes. And I'm certainly glad that the EPA's initial guidance of 1ppb never made it into any sort of binding regulation. Where on earth did they get that? It's like they pulled it out of the air.

A new report by the National Academies' National Research Council on the health effects of perchlorate, a chemical that in high doses can decrease thyroid function in humans and that is present in many public drinking-water supplies, says daily ingestion of up to 0.0007 milligrams per kilogram of body weight can occur without adversely affecting the health of even the most sensitive populations. That amount is more than 20 times the "reference dose" proposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in a recent draft risk assessment.

link

[Tribesman]

sure- but it's also a naturally occurring substance that has uses in medicine.

Kinda like Barium or opium then

Oh dear it looks like Rabbits study isn't up to date , the very small sample group used for that study has been superseeded by a peer reviewed study published by the EPA with a much much larger group of subjects ...and oh dear oh dear oh dear they conclude that the negative effect on peoples health starts at much lower intake levels than was previously thought possible , especially among women ....and yes it is also a later study than that used by Xiahou and also again has a much much much larger group of test subjects .

[Crazed Rabbit]

Xiahou - surely you can see that it is more important to keep anything remotely poisonous out of drinking water? Anything beyond that is debatable, but water must remain clear.

Do you know how many 'remotely poisonous' substances are in drinking water? If there is good science that a certain level of chemical is bad for humans, it should be regulated to a safe level.

Detection technology for chemicals in water is phenomenal; very, very small quantities, measure in parts per billion or trillion, can be detected. If you didn't drink any water that had the slightest bit of bad substances in them, you'd never drink any water.

CR

[CountArach]

Do you know how many 'remotely poisonous' substances are in drinking water?

Yes. I also drink filtered water.

If there is good science that a certain level of chemical is bad for humans, it should be regulated to a safe level.

Two peer-reviewed articles isn't enough for you?

Detection technology for chemicals in water is phenomenal; very, very small quantities, measure in parts per billion or trillion, can be detected. If you didn't drink any water that had the slightest bit of bad substances in them, you'd never drink any water.

CR

If they were to get to the levels where they could put anyone's life in danger, then they should be removed from water and the water content should be regulated.

[Husar]

Or does it only apply in this case because environmental activists got a one-sided article run pushing their position?

Or should we unban everything because industrial lobbyists got a one-sided study pushing their position?

[Ice]

Not quiet, it was just the logical extension of what you said. Everything is poisonous- it's all a matter of dosage. Until we know what the proper levels are for anything, it should be banned. Or does it only apply in this case because environmental activists got a one-sided article run pushing their position?

What determines whether something should be banned until proven safe?

This is a pretty one sided situation, X. Thoroughly and constantly proving our drinking water is still safe is a good idea imho.

[Tribesman]

If there is good science that a certain level of chemical is bad for humans, it should be regulated to a safe level.

Which is what this topic is about , the newer studies with more extensive research than those you and Xiahou posted have a strong suggestion that the safe levels are much lower than was previously thought and need new stronger regulation not an exemption from regulation .