Respectfully submitted by Lawrence Rafferty (rafflaw)-Guest Blogger
It seems that you can’t go anywhere on the Internet and not read an attack on the EPA by a Republican member of Congress. The Hill; McClatchey Unfortunately, I was not surprised how many of the Republican Congressmen were attacking the EPA and its attempts to control and eliminate air pollution. However, I was surprised by how many of those Congressmen were physicians.
“What would you think if your physician told you, “Keep smoking because quitting would kill tobacco and health care jobs.” Or, “Don’t take your high blood pressure medicine, you can’t afford it.” And, “Don’t lose weight, no one has proven obesity is bad for you.” That’s exactly the quality of medical advice we are getting from the 18 Republican physicians currently serving in Congress. Some of the most well known are the father and son team of Rep. Ron Paul and Sen. Rand Paul, and Sen. Tom Coburn. Almost all of these physician/Congressmen have been key soldiers in the Republican war on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), calling it a “job killer,” pronouncing relevant health science “unproven,” claiming we “can’t afford” their regulations.” Truthout
The “unproven” science that claims that air pollution is deadly comes from over 2,000 medical studies is significant in its numbers and content. “In the last ten years, over 2,000 scientific studies published in the mainstream medical literature have revealed that air pollution has much of the same physiologic and disease consequence as first- and second-hand cigarette smoke.(1, 2) Those studies show that just as there is no safe number of cigarettes a person can smoke, there is no safe level of air pollution a person can breathe. Even pollution at “background” levels still causes health consequences, including increased mortality rates.(3, 4)” Dr. Brian Moench
Dr. Moench’s Truthout article provides a plethora of citations to studies that confirm the need for and importance of taking the steps that the EPA has outlined in its August, 2010 report titled, “The Benefits and Costs of the Clean Air Act, 1990-2020”. EPA I guess some people can deny the science behind the studies and the EPA report. We have seen the climate change deniers put ear plugs in their ears when legitimate and voluminous studies are presented. Maybe I am naive, but I cannot understand how medical doctors can claim that we can’t afford the regulations needed to save lives of adults and children.
Over 1,800 medical doctors, nurses and health care professionals signed a letter to Congress imploring the Congressional members to honor the original intent of the Clean Air Act and allow science to trump politics by implementing the needed regulations to save lives. “The result is saved lives and improved quality of life for millions of Americans. But the job is not finished. Communities across the nation still suffer from poor air quality. Low income families face the impacts of toxic air pollution every day. From smog causing asthma attacks to toxic mercury harming children’s neurological development, far too many people face a constant threat from the air they breathe and the impacts of climate change. Please fulfill the promise of clean, healthy air for all Americans to breathe. Support full implementation of the Clean Air Act and resist any efforts to weaken, delay or block progress toward a healthier future for all Americans.” Lung.org
As someone who has Asthma, this fight to allow for the full implementation of the Clean Air Act has special meaning. I can only hope that Congress, including the Doctors who are in Congress will hear the call to do whatever is necessary to save lives. Politics should never get in the way of common sense and achievable changes and improvements in the air that we breathe.
Do you believe in the science behind the Clean Air Act and if not, where is the science to refute the claims of over 2,000 studies from all over the globe? Is there any health issue that can trump the vitriolic politics of our time? As quoted above, the original Clean Air Act and its amendments enjoyed bipartisan support. Why can’t that same bipartisan support be found for the full implementation of the Clean Air Act knowing it will save lives and create jobs? How many more must die or suffer before political gain is put aside?
Ok are you serious? You think Greenspan was a Randian after he became chairman? He spoke in the worst economic jargon possible, he was a political person bar none, he held interest rates at near zero for 2 years if I remember correctly. Your economic arguments are baseless against liberty, that’s why we fought a revolution, but socialists want there cake and to eat it to. Well life doesn’t work that way, you can’t pick and choose what parts of the economy you deem necessary for govt control, as history has show govt is only interested in power and grabbing it where possible. I think you’d fit much better in the EU which has been socialist a lot longer and despite the new currency is still bankrupt.
DS,
You need to reread your recent history.it wasn’t Krigman behind the Bush recession. Take a peek at the book, Griftopia and read about that Rand disciple Mr. Greenspan. It is his Randian principles that aided and abetted the economy tanking in December 2007.
Had humans followed the advice of Jesus with humans giving whatever to each other that asked we would not have money, and we would not have an economy, and we would not therefore have a debt. God in us giving to others that have God in them. Then we would give the money to the dead corpses that have their images on them.
What do you call what we have now? Capitalism? Hardly? Bail outs, mandates, more regulations than one could read in a lifetime. Where’s the economy? In the tank, we dont have a market option in pollution, and u would argue if we must have them if should be local. As for Mises not being an economist and libertarianism
being some flawed idea, I’m sure you subscribe to Paul Krugman’s, Helicopter Ben and Keynesian economics which has led to the biggest financial bubble in world history. Libertarianism built the US, Keynesianism is destroying it. Perhaps you should read Hayeks road to serfdom as well, it is dedicated to socialists.
DS,
You still haven’t shown us how you and Rep. Paul are going to clean the air when corporations won’t do it unless they are forced to by the EPA. Gene has it right that your suggestion that corporations will take care of everything is a large step on the path to fascism.
“So central planning or free market? You can’t have both.”
Another example of binary thinking. Actually, you can have both. It’s called regulated markets and a blended economy. It works well in the countries that have implemented it. It worked well here in the past. In fact, it brought us unsurpassed prosperity until the era of Reagan and deregulation began under the aegis of the clowns from the Austrian School exerting their corporatist cum fascist agenda. You don’t like China? What you advocate in the Austrian School, will lead precisely to a the same situation but with actual private ownership instead of state ownership. The primary difference between a Corporatist State and a State Capitalism (what China practices) is who owns the corporations. And the difference between them both and fascism is to what ends the autocratic authoritarianism inherent in corporatism is directed. Free markets put business above the law. Corporatism allows corporations to self-regulate and dictate policy. Laissez-faire capitalism is inherently anti-democratic. Libertarianism is ultimately a path to fascism, no matter how you try to color it and wrap in the misapplied words of liberty and freedom. Liberty and freedom mean nothing if you’re simply trading them for economic tyranny. Economic tyranny is what a free market guarantees – not just outcomes. Libertarianism is based on bad ideas and flawed precepts about human nature, many of which were developed and exemplified by a hypocritical mad woman: Ayn Rand. Von Mises was no real economist either. He eschewed the scientific method and analysis of data opting instead for what is a political polemic he calls economics but isn’t. While I’m sympathetic to the malaise created by malfunctioning government that attracts many to look at Libertarianism, it’s an inherently bad idea once placed under critical scrutiny. The problems of our government can be solved without throwing the Constitution out the window – which despite your inevitable contentions to the contrary is precisely what it would take to enact a Libertarian model of government and a totally free market. The problems of government can be solved by more democracy and removing corporate influence from the electoral and legislative processes so that government is forced to do it’s proscribed job per the Constitution and look out for the best interests of all Americans instead of the biggest “campaign contributors” (read “graft merchants”). The problems of government can be fixed by restoring accountability on the pols and upholding the Rule of Law when they break it. The problems of government will not be fixed by Libertarianism or Austrian School “economics”. Down that path – just like the current path to Corporatism – lies certain ruin.
I never said pollution isn’t a problem but people can solve problems without gov’t. Since your endorsing state solutions which I’ve noticed in a few of your posts, I’d like to refer you to China, which is a centrally planned economy, yet a huge polluter, so which is it you endorse? Buy products from China which rampantly pollutes, so you don’t have to have it here. Which completely stifles the real economy here so you can have a nice place to live. So central planning or free market? You can’t have both.
Tootie and DS,
It is unfortunate that you have absolutely no facts to back up your desire to follow Rep. Paul. Tootie, who is “yelling”?
DS,
Rep. Paul wants the market to solve all problems of pollution and history has already proven you and Tootie and Rep. Paul to be wrong. That is why the EPA is necessary.
Well said Tootie, question when was the EPA brought into existence? 1970!! So 40 years of govt intervention must make the case that Dr. Paul is wrong and the EPA is right. I hardly think so, with the advances in technology and the Internet alone the EPA could be scrapped as people are far more informed than ever. However bleeding hearts still blame the evil companies for polluting? If you own almost any electronics you are subsidizing China, so basically your endorsing poor environmental controls but not in your own back yards. I find it quite absurd.
Climate change a fact? To yell at people because they supposedly don’t believe in “climate” change is like yelling at people who already believe the earth revolves around the sun. Why yell at people for something that is natural to the planet and not in dispute so you can pretend they oppose science?
The climate has always changed. No one disputes that. And the reason they stopped calling it global warming was because there wasn’t any that could be proven linked to mankind or unnatural, so they couldn’t sell their deceptions with the old scare tactic moniker “global warming”.
And scientists were intentionally deceiving the public and discredited themselves. So they were forced to pick a new term and landed on one no one in their right mind could argue with. It was “the earth revolves the sun” term called “climate change”.
What caused the ice age to melt the glaciers that formed the Great Lakes?
The combustion engine? Al Gore’s big mouth?
It is a bit shabby to put out quotes and not give the sources. It smells of deceit. Ron Paul would no doubt tell you that clean air and sensible eating are the best practices. But that is not the business of the Federal government. They are matters to be handled buy the states and the people.
Some factory in Philly is polluting your city? Take them to court and prove it. Then sue the heck out of them and ruin them. Your eating and obesity is causing you expensive health problems? Let your insurance charge you more or suffer the consequences yourself. It’s between you and your doctor and insurance company, not you and Uncle Sam.
Ron Paul is the biggest friend of the health food industry. NOT THE FDA who would ruin it if it could and has treated health food stores with contempt and abuse for decades.
It is the FDA which is trying to outlaw natural supplements being sold through the health food industry (and now even Walmart). Guess who would benefit from that prohibtion? Big pharma! Of course!
Ron Paul is not opposed to clean air and good eating just because they are expensive. He is opposed to their being the business of the federal government AND, by the way, they are also expensive to the tax payer when the government gets involved as it now is.
And Ron Paul doesn’t claim the “market” should solve these problems. He claims that it is the lawyers who should. In court.
He wants people to be ruin companies who contaminate other peoples air and soil. And he wants it based on simple laws like assault and murder and not on clean air standards from the federal government. He was a legal solution to the matter, not a federal program.
If you really believe there is evidence that proves that cleaner air is more healthy you should be able to prove that in a court of law and take the culprits (polluters) to the cleaners. What are you afraid of? That a lawyer could not prove company X is contamining water or air in city/state Y and Z?
If you are so afraid they could not prove it, then maybe you and your scientists are a bunch of chicken little frauds?
Know what? I think you can prove it. And I think that is where the solution should be: in the courts.
If you believe that the facts prove that obesity is bad, insurance companies should be able to deny you coverage or make it exceedingly expensive. What are you afraid of? That a lawyer could not make the case either in a court of law?
If you believe the things you are saying are true there is no need for the EPA, just a need for good lawyers and demanding insurance companies.
Obesity is expensive to the federal government only because it has put itself into harms way by making obesity its business. But please don’t pretend Ron Paul supports obesity just because he opposes penalizing the tax payer for buttinski government over reach.
What Gene said!
DS,
My grandchildren don’t deserve to get sick while your market allegedly solves it’s own messes that could be prevented.
Then you believe in a fantasy regarding environmental issues. History shows that the market would make no such correction over any span of time. Polluters will pollute as long as it makes them profits sufficient to overcome any incidental costs. Markets do not provide just outcomes. Justice isn’t their purview. Profits are the business of business and profits are simply amoral. Part of the function of government as defined by the Constitution is the establishment of justice and it can pursue justice through regulation and litigation against businesses via the powers given to Congress, the courts and through the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause. If you want free markets to be your solution, legally speaking, this isn’t the right country for you. Property rights have never been absolute here as a matter of law and they cannot be in any country that has courts in equity as a matter of function. Libertarianism and laissez-faire economics are pipe dreams based upon incorrect assumptions about both human nature and the nature of markets. There has never been either a Libertarian state or a laissez-faire economy for the same reason there is has never been an anarchic state and why Communism failed: they may sound great on paper, but they don’t work in the real world.
Of course companies polluted wildly, but over time the market would punish these companies via lawsuit/reputation. It’s not like a lot of big companies aren’t cozy with the US govt to get exemptions/ allowed to break rules right? There isn’t a one size fits all answer for everything. The EPA while well intentioned is a govt agency that can be lobbied to and bought the same way other branches are. How many regulations the EPA writes are in favour of big companies to stifle competition? Do I know the answer, no but I still believe in a market answer before govt.
The historical facts of companies polluting wildly before the EPA is a tough fact for you to reconcile with Rep. Paul’s claim that the EPA is an extremist and wasteful agency. The market has proven itself unable to prevent and repair environmental damage.
I can’t speak for Dr. Paul but I’ll guarantee his view would be something like this: The EPA is a useless govt institution that is not only wasteful in our bankrupt country but over regulating the US economy. Why does this have to be a federal matter, are there not property rights any longer in the US? Meaning no person or entity could violate your land/air. The argument is always if the gov’t doesn’t force these laws everyone would just wildly pollute/destroy the environment. This is sheer stupidity, is it not reasonable that we could have responsible citizens do a consumer reports style job for pollutants and such? Why do we need beauracrats in Washington to tell everyone what’s permissible? There’s going to be millions of concerned citizens looking out for eachother in various manners without govt. How was everyone not sick/dead before the EPA? Because decent people are generally well informed and care about themselves and their environments, they don’t need bought and paid for environmental extremists dictating everything they can handle/breathe.
rafflaw wrote:
They are the portion of the bad medicine that kills hundreds of thousands of Americans each year.
They are also those who scorned a scientist who just passed away:
(Guardian). Deniers thought that since CFC’s, like CO2, were natural they could do no damage.
They had no concept of balance. Water is good but too much can drown you, CO2 keeps us warm, but too much will fry us.
The EPA enforced the CFC episode, which if not halted, would have killed millions.
Sound familiar?
http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2012/03/11/exclusive-gingrich-perry-pre-convention-ticket-works
Swarthmore,
Thanks for the links! Gingrich and Perry? What a team. Yikes.
http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2011/12/09/on-paul-the-most-anti-environmental-candidate-ever/ We don’t have to worry about Ron Paul anymore but Gingrich is talking about teaming up with Perry. lol