EPA May Drop Lead Air Pollution Limits...

[bridgit]

The Bush administration is considering doing away with health standards that cut lead from gasoline, widely regarded as one of the nation's biggest clean-air accomplishments.

Battery makers, lead smelters, refiners all have lobbied the administration to do away with the Clean Air Act limits.

A preliminary staff review released by the Environmental Protection Agency this week acknowledged the possibility of dropping the health standards for lead air pollution. The agency says revoking those standards might be justified "given the significantly changed circumstances since lead was listed in 1976" as an air pollutant.

The EPA says concentrations of lead in the air have dropped more than 90 percent in the past 2 1/2 decades.

But Rep. Henry Waxman (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., the incoming chairman of the House Committee on Government Reform, called on the agency to "renounce this dangerous proposal immediately," because lead, a highly toxic element, can cause severe nerve damage, especially in children.

"This deregulatory effort cannot be defended," Waxman wrote EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson.' http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1207-01.htm

[lyonn]

1. Interesting, can they now put lead back in paint?

After years of getting rid of lead based paint in old houses how does it make sense to now legislate away this killer? Boggles the mind, this even being an issue after all the money that was spent to decrease lead in the atmosphere, etc.

[bridgit]

3. bush is still paying off his Big Bizz cronies...

the pressure is on and there'll be a gang of this kind of shit i my guess x(

[rodeodance]

2. there is no 'caring' for the people with this adm!!---just the 'bottom line"

[bridgit]

4. yep...

:thumbsdown: