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West Virginia chemical spill shines spotlight on loose regulation

vesper said:
It seems rather reckless to allow such chemicals stored where they could endanger waterways in the first place. Yet according to the article West Virginia's Environmental Protection Agency was well aware of the practice as they had been to the cite multiple times over the past few years. The governorship in West Virginia has been in control by Democrats for 13 years. It's the environmentalists that provided money, zeal and manpower to Democrats to get them elected. What is so ironic is the chemical that leaked into the river is used to treat coal to cut down on the ash by orders of the EPA as they have declared coal ash hazardous.
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Energy and mining industry interests out spend environmental interests by more than 100 to 1 in terms of lobbying and contributions. They write their own rules. While Democrats, especially coal country ones, are far from perfect on environmental protection, they are infinitely better than today's Republicans are. Remember last time we had a Republican running things his Secretary of the Interior was a Mining Industry Lobbyist. His head of the forest service was a Timber Industry Lobbyist. The problem is not environmental groups, its the industry groups and the politicians they own.

Lobbying spending by Energy and Natural Resources for 2013: $261,382,097
http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=c&showYear=2013

Lobbying spending by Environmental Groups: $10,836,933

And we wonder why Environmental Regulation and Enforcement is so watered down.

By the way, coal ash is hazardous, the biggest environmental disaster in U.S. history was a ash / slurry spill in Tennessee. I swear, what is with some people constantly wanting to shoot the good guys...
 
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Regulations are pointless if there is not money for enforcement. The State Environmental Protection Agency in China has plenty of regulations, its problem is they do not fund it, and thus it cannot enforce its regulations.

Environmental Protection should not be a partisan issue. There was a time that it was not a partisan issue. Unfortunately, those days ended about the time Nixon left office. Today environmental protection is very much a partisan issue. You have Democrats largely in favor of stronger environmental protections and enforcement, and you have Republicans largely against them.

The League of Conservation Voters issues a scorecard every year based on voting Conservation / Environmental Protection Voting Records. In the most recent scorecard, the scores for House and Senate Leadership are as follows:

Scorecard.jpg

http://scorecard.lcv.org/sites/scorecard.lcv.org/files/LCV_Scorecard_2012.pdf

Unfortunately, trusting today's Republicans with Environmental Protection is about as smart as trusting Bernie Sanders with implementing a pro-business agenda. Luckily, despite many of them being bought and paid for by oil, mining and energy industry lobbyists, weakening environmental protections is so unpopular that they have not been that successful. Of course, anyone paying attention the last 20 years knows that Republicans by and large are very hostile to environmental protection. After all, in the what seemed like dozens of debates for the Republican Presidential Primaries, there was not a one where the EPA and its "job killing regulations" were not roundly bashed. Thus they have taken a different tact, they have weakened enforcement by gutting funding to the EPA:

Republicans have spent the past two years on the warpath against the Obama administration’s Environmental Protection Agency. As the EPA rolled out an ambitious slate of rules aimed at stopping climate change and curbing power-plant pollution, Republicans on the campaign trail and Capitol Hill slammed the agency as the embodiment of government overreach and so-called “job-killing regulations.”

Despite the outrage, the GOP’s efforts to stop the agency’s agenda haven’t succeeded—all of the many bills to block or delay EPA’s new regulations have failed in Congress.

But lawmakers have found another way to strike out at the agency they love to hate—by slashing its budget. Over the past two years, Congress has cut EPA’s budget by a whopping 18 percent, from $10.3 billion to $8.5 billion. And that’s not counting the effects of the across-the-board spending cuts that took effect with sequestration Friday.

Cutting the agency’s budget doesn’t take away its obligation to enforce environmental laws and implement new regulations, but it has dramatically weakened and slowed EPA’s ability to fulfill its mandate.
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EPA Funding Reductions Have Kneecapped Environmental Enforcement - NationalJournal.com

I am not saying that environmental organizations and liberals in general are 100% in the right in terms of environmental policy. I think their opposition to Natural Gas Fracking and Nuclear Energy is very counter productive, and their rabid hatred of GMO's is borderline idiotic. However, on balance, when it comes to environmental protection, they are the good guys, and anyone thats been paying attention knows who the bad guys are.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
Energy and mining industry interests out spend environmental interests by more than 100 to 1 in terms of lobbying and contributions. They write their own rules. While Democrats, especially coal country ones, are far from perfect on environmental protection, they are infinitely better than today's Republicans are. Remember last time we had a Republican running things his Secretary of the Interior was a Mining Industry Lobbyist. His head of the forest service was a Timber Industry Lobbyist. The problem is not environmental groups, its the industry groups and the politicians they own.

Lobbying spending by Energy and Natural Resources for 2013: $261,382,097
Lobbying Spending Database | OpenSecrets

Lobbying spending by Environmental Groups: $10,836,933

And we wonder why Environmental Regulation and Enforcement is so watered down.

By the way, coal ash is hazardous, the biggest environmental disaster in U.S. history was a ash / slurry spill in Tennessee. I swear, what is with some people constantly wanting to shoot the good guys...
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$261 million vs. $10 million. Dear god, we hardly stand a chance against that kind of money...but we still have a chance, and we'd better use it before the Earth decays into one giant cesspool.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
Energy and mining industry interests out spend environmental interests by more than 100 to 1 in terms of lobbying and contributions. They write their own rules. While Democrats, especially coal country ones, are far from perfect on environmental protection, they are infinitely better than today's Republicans are. Remember last time we had a Republican running things his Secretary of the Interior was a Mining Industry Lobbyist. His head of the forest service was a Timber Industry Lobbyist. The problem is not environmental groups, its the industry groups and the politicians they own.

Lobbying spending by Energy and Natural Resources for 2013: $261,382,097
Lobbying Spending Database | OpenSecrets

Lobbying spending by Environmental Groups: $10,836,933

And we wonder why Environmental Regulation and Enforcement is so watered down.

By the way, coal ash is hazardous, the biggest environmental disaster in U.S. history was a ash / slurry spill in Tennessee. I swear, what is with some people constantly wanting to shoot the good guys...
Click to expand...

Pretty clever with the numbers you quoted. It is no secret that environmental "donations" are way way down. My guess is because all the global warming hype has taken some real hits this past year. People can see the deliberate attack on certain industries in our economy lagging or pretty much on life support due to countless regulations from the "green". And the more the left talks about carbon credits the more people are getting turned off. They get the connection between mountains of new regulations and poor economic growth/loss of jobs. You all had them for awhile when you convinced them the polar bears were drowning in the Arctic. But recent polls show people aren't buying what the left has been selling hence contributions are way down.

BUT, if you use your same website, you will find a place where they provide graphs during election years for Obama where way much more was spent filling the coffers of Democrats from the environmentalist lobbies. Why in 2008 alone Obama received $1,182,094 from the environmentalist lobbies not to mention the multi millions they gave to other Democrats. But that was at the height of the fear mongering about the polar bears drowning at the North Pole and the sea ice would be gone by 2013 because of carbon :lamo That pretty much explains why donations are down. :lol:

Environment: Top Recipients | OpenSecrets
 
Two days into this thread, and I've yet to see the source for the "lack of regulation enforcement" charge.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
Regulations are pointless if there is not money for enforcement. The State Environmental Protection Agency in China has plenty of regulations, its problem is they do not fund it, and thus it cannot enforce its regulations.
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Funding for the EPA has rose feverishly in the past 5 years under Obama. It got cut during sequestration but in the new budget deal those cuts have been restored. The article in the OP clearly stated that the EPA had inspected the cite multiple times the past few years. There were no violations given even though the location storing chemicals was close to a waterway.
Environmental Protection should not be a partisan issue. There was a time that it was not a partisan issue. Unfortunately, those days ended about the time Nixon left office. Today environmental protection is very much a partisan issue. You have Democrats largely in favor of stronger environmental protections and enforcement, and you have Republicans largely against them.
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Everyone wants clean air and water but the EPA is currently on steroids pushing an agenda that is based on an unsettled science which is absolutely absurd by any standards.
Unfortunately, trusting today's Republicans with Environmental Protection is about as smart as trusting Bernie Sanders with implementing a pro-business agenda. Luckily, despite many of them being bought and paid for by oil, mining and energy industry lobbyists, weakening environmental protections is so unpopular that they have not been that successful. Of course, anyone paying attention the last 20 years knows that Republicans by and large are very hostile to environmental protection. After all, in the what seemed like dozens of debates for the Republican Presidential Primaries, there was not a one where the EPA and its "job killing regulations" were not roundly bashed. Thus they have taken a different tact, they have weakened enforcement by gutting funding to the EPA:
Click to expand...
Once again, you are being disingenuous over regulations based on an unsettled science. The funding for the EPA was super increased in the past few years,...... trimming it back is hardly an act of a doomsday scenario you paint. It was the sequester that cut the funding and that was done in agreement by both Democrats and Republicans. And none of this has anything to do with the weak/loose rules in West Virginia, a state where Democrat governors have been in control for 13 years. If Democrats are the shining stars and the only ones to trust on environmental issues then please explain why the last three Democrat governors in the state of West Virginia have allowed the storage of dangerous chemicals next to major waterways and it didn't become a problem for them until there was a leak! I live in Ohio. The chemical has now made its way into the Ohio River and has been detected at Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky.
I am not saying that environmental organizations and liberals in general are 100% in the right in terms of environmental policy. I think their opposition to Natural Gas Fracking and Nuclear Energy is very counter productive, and their rabid hatred of GMO's is borderline idiotic. However, on balance, when it comes to environmental protection, they are the good guys, and anyone thats been paying attention knows who the bad guys are.
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We sure do know who the bad guys are and three of them are the last three DEMOCRAT governors that have PERMITTED storing dangerous chemicals close to major waterways not only endangering their own citizens but now endangering surrounding states. Idiots.
 
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Samhain said:
Two days into this thread, and I've yet to see the source for the "lack of regulation enforcement" charge.
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That's because I happen to have something called "a life" outside of this forum. You'll get your answer now. My answer is May 26, 2011, when the EPA was gutted to the tune of 16% by both Obama and the Republicans. Specifically targeted and gutted was funds for reducing pollution by coal and power plants. It is ironic that the West Virginia spill was of a chemical used to treat coal.

By comparison, defense spending was increased by 5%. If the entire Federal government had been cut by the amount the EPA was cut, there would be no deficit at all. But it was the EPA that was targeted and gutted, which resulted in massive layoffs of EPA personnel. Like I said before, you can have all the regulations you want to, but if you don't have the funds to do the enforcement, then you essentially have no regulations at all, at least not any regulations that count for anything.

NOTE: As of today, there are still 150,000 people without water in the town, and there are dozens in the hospital with symptoms of chemical poisoning. And some people are whining that some company's rights are being violated by regulation? No, the people in the hospital, as well as the people who still have no water, are the ones who had their rights violated.
 
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vesper said:
Funding for the EPA has rose feverishly in the past 5 years under Obama. It got cut during sequestration but in the new budget deal those cuts have been restored. The article in the OP clearly stated that the EPA had inspected the cite multiple times the past few years. There were no violations given even though the location storing chemicals was close to a waterway.
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It was cut by 18% prior to sequestration. Your argument doesn't square with reality at all.

House panel approves bill with deep cuts for EPA - Darren Goode - POLITICO.com


Everyone wants clean air and water but the EPA is currently on steroids pushing an agenda that is based on an unsettled science which is absolutely absurd by any standards.
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Given their voting records, I think one could argue that congressional Republicans really don't care much about clean air and water. Moreover, a full 48% of the EPA's budget goes to water protection. Only a small percentage is devoted to climate change.

Once again, you are being disingenuous over regulations based on an unsettled science. The funding for the EPA was super increased in the past few years,...... trimming it back is hardly an act of a doomsday scenario you paint. It was the sequester that cut the funding and that was done in agreement by both Democrats and Republicans. And none of this has anything to do with the weak/loose rules in West Virginia, a state where Democrat governors have been in control for 13 years. If Democrats are the shining stars and the only ones to trust on environmental issues then please explain why the last three Democrat governors in the state of West Virginia have allowed the storage of dangerous chemicals next to major waterways and it didn't become a problem for them until there was a leak! I live in Ohio. The chemical has now made its way into the Ohio River and has been detected at Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky.
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Coal country Democrats are hardly better than coal country Republicans. In both cases they are bought and paid for by the coal industry.

We sure do know who the bad guys are and three of them are the last three DEMOCRAT governors that have PERMITTED storing dangerous chemicals close to major waterways not only endangering their own citizens but now endangering surrounding states. Idiots.
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Frankly, that is a stupid argument. Where in West Virginia would you store these chemicals that would not allow them to potentially leak into a waterway? Have you ever seen a topographic map of that state? There are no desert basins that would make ideal storage for hazardous chemicals.

Notice the map below:

westvirginia_usgs2.jpg

There is either a river or stream in everyone of those valleys and hollers. Where in that state do you propose hazardous chemicals be stored?
 
danahhea said:
That's because I happen to have something called "a life" outside of this forum.
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I don't know where you got your quote for this thread, since it doesn't match the article you linked, hence my original question. I asked the question twice yesterday, I didn't get a response, but you responded elsewhere in the thread. Doesn't mater, Ditto found one.

Dittohead not! said:
How's this?
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Thank You. The original article doesn't mention regulations or inspections, and I appreciate the link. The linked WSJ article within has lots of specifics. The chemical, MCHM, is on a list of potentially hazardous chemicals, but has never been studied for its effects on humans. That probably explains why there were no local or state inspections, although, federal inspections are supposed to happen yearly on above ground chemical retention units.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
It was cut by 18% prior to sequestration. Your argument doesn't square with reality at all.

House panel approves bill with deep cuts for EPA - Darren Goode - POLITICO.com
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What the House passes can not become reality unless the Democrat held Senate agrees to it. So your argument doesn't square.


Given their voting records, I think one could argue that congressional Republicans really don't care much about clean air and water. Moreover, a full 48% of the EPA's budget goes to water protection. Only a small percentage is devoted to climate change.
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The rules and regulations pouring out of the EPA are in the majority pertaining to the unsettled science of Climate Change. What makes it bad is this agency makes the rules and can bypass Congress in getting them implemented. And for the record the EPA was started by a Republican.

Coal country Democrats are hardly better than coal country Republicans. In both cases they are bought and paid for by the coal industry.
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No doubt some candidates Democrats and Republicans benefit from the lobbies of the coal industry where thousands have already lost their jobs. Just as others have received much funding from enviornmentalists to help make West Virginia their poster child. But it is worth noting that not one senate seat has been occupied by a Republican from West Virginia since Ike was president. And the last three governors have been Democrats.


Frankly, that is a stupid argument. Where in West Virginia would you store these chemicals that would not allow them to potentially leak into a waterway? Have you ever seen a topographic map of that state? There are no desert basins that would make ideal storage for hazardous chemicals.


Notice the map below:

View attachment 67160199

There is either a river or stream in everyone of those valleys and hollers. Where in that state do you propose hazardous chemicals be stored?
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But there is certainly technology available to make the containers more safe that store these chemicals. Especially this particular chemical that leaked, that has been approved to be used to lower the ash on coal to meet regulations the EPA has recently set.
 
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