As I wrote yesterday, one of the main goals of Trump and his cronies is to cut all the rules and regulations that prevent the wealthy and large corporations from making even more money, even if the moves result in actual harm to people. One of the most disturbing examples of this is the announcement today that they are planning to eliminate the rules that sought to reduce the amount of lead and other toxic elements in water supplies.
Republicans in Congress and the Trump administration are attempting to repeal the Biden administration’s groundbreaking rules that require all the country’s lead pipes to be replaced over the next 13 years and lower the limit on lead in water.
Environmentalists expressed alarm about the moves, which, if successful, would in effect prohibit the government from ever requiring lead line replacement in the future, or lowering lead limits.
The Trump administration is also working to kill a recently implemented ban on TCE, a compound that is among the most toxic and common water pollutants, and particularly a risk on military bases.
The damage that lead does to children especially is well known, adversely affecting their brains and leading to aggressive behavior in adulthood.
If the GOP is successful in repealing the lead rule, tens of millions of people would continue to have drinking water contaminated with the heavy metal, a neurotoxin that the EPA has found lowers IQ scores in children, stunts their development and increases blood pressure in adults.
The agency estimates the stricter standard will prevent up to 900,000 infants from having low birthweight, save about 200,000 IQ points in children and avoid up to 1,500 premature deaths annually from heart disease.
However, the water utility and chemical industries have lobbied hard against the lead rules, claiming they “are not feasible”. Industry consultants estimated the initiative would cost $90bn, a figure the NRDC wrote is based on flawed methodology intended to inflate the estimated cost so they can justify killing the rules.
Trump has nominated a water utility industry lobbyist to help lead the EPA’s water division.
…Meanwhile, the attempts to kill the TCE ban are at odds with the Toxic Control Substances Act (TSCA), the law that governs the country’s toxic chemicals. The EPA found TCE presents an “unreasonable risk” to human health under the TSCA. The chemical is used in industrial applications like aviation, and is linked to cancer, male reproductive damage, liver disease, kidney disease, neurological damage and Parkinson’s disease. TCE water contamination is thought to be behind multiple US cancer clusters, and has sickened and killed service members at bases across the US.
Note that “Trump has nominated a water utility industry lobbyist to help lead the EPA’s water division”. This is what we are going to see everywhere in government, people with vested interests in eliminating restrictions on their businesses placed in charge of the very institutions that are charged with regulating them.
That’s an amazing statistic. While they’re at it, they could opine on how it would affect children’s astrological signs or the alignment of their chakras.
I had previously considered the Environmental Protection Agency to be a serious department staffed and run by educated people who knew what they were doing. Well, I’m getting used to being wrong about stuff like that…
See, that’s one thing Americans should be worried about.
DementoDon can cause a lot of harm abroad (his mad, tragic wrecking of USaid is one example), but there’s a lot more potential for purely domestic harm.
After all, he’s a senile old man flailing around in all directions, and the easiest targets are those nearest him. Plus, his court of bootlickers all have lists of items to steal or destroy in the government structure.
It’s very likely the fabric of society in the US will be degraded in many unexpected ways, and to recover from such damage is never easy or quick.
outis@#2:
it is possible that infrastructure damage and self-repair is an evolutionary process, speaking as a senile (mild dementia) older man.
Reduced intelligence, increased aggression. Behold: Republicans.