EPA reverses Bush-era water safety standards, will regulate contaminants

[RamboLiberal]

Source: Washington Post

The Environmental Protection Agency reversed Bush administration drinking water policies Wednesday, announcing that it will regulate perchlorate, a component of rocket fuel, and 16 other chemicals, called volatile organic compounds, that can cause cancer at high enough doses.

The perchlorate decision "is about protecting the health of between 5 million and 17 million Americans that are exposed to perchlorate in the water they drink," said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson in remarks to the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.

In a statement, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who has sought to regulate perchlorate since 2002, said, "I will do everything I can to make sure this new protection moves forward."

The EPA said it would take an additional two years to propose a perchlorate regulation, a pace that angered some environment groups. "The science is already out there," said Jennifer Sass, a scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group. "Anything that anybody needed to say about this process is already done." The EPA has already collected 39,000 public comments regarding perchlorate regulations.



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/02/AR2011020205267.html?hpid=moreheadlines

[Kingofalldems]

1. K and R

[JanBrady]

2. Even victories are half-hearted.

[Tikki]

3. Since I live in a place where I drink water and...

take a shower in water and wash my clothes in water and etc...
I'm pretty damn happy my Senator is working on my behalf.

Tikki

[Buzz Clik]

4. +1. No idea what is "half hearted" about progress.

You'd think we were at the wrong website.

[LawnKorn]

5. This is good. I want to read more headlines about Bush Administration policies being reversed.

[LawnKorn]

6. K&R

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

7. Good news, now they need to make it PERMAMENT.

[keopeli]

8. The two years is simply to give businesses time to clean up their act...

...and their paperwork. Our government favors business, for good or ill.

This will be drowned in the sea of policies that compromised our nation which were implemented by Bush business thugs. Yet, this one act alone has put enormous pressure on our health care industry, our Medicare and Medicaid support institutions, and the quality of life of millions of Americans. It has also set a precedent that will make future abuses easier to accomplish.

The relatively quiet changes, both de-regulation and re-regulation, are exceptional examples of how the American media controls what we as a people are aware is happening. It's also a questionable political strategy that fails to hammer home the truth about government regulation. Many of these laws existed previously, during a recent time in which our country prospered. The de-regulation experiment has proven to be detrimental to almost all conditions of life in America. Using our collective wisdom and recent memories, it's easy to conclude that a politician would be well served to point out that we're not talking about adding Government Regulations to hamper business; we're talking about re-regulating our capitalist country to a place we know works well.

[JDPriestly]

9. Why did this take two years?

[shanti]

10. thank you, barbara boxer!

my senator :loveya: clean water is one of, if not, THE most important issues around. i live near a large perc contaminated plume too.

[hootinholler]

11. I was hoping this was about fracking, but good news

Western Washington and parts of Idaho have contamination fields, possibly a remnant from the cold war silos.

-Hoot