In surfing the net yesterday, I came across an article that struck close to home for me. It is entitled EPA Set to Abandon 30 Years of Air Quality Control. If you have read any of my other articles on our blog concerning TXU Energy pushing 11 new coal fired power plants in Texas, then you will understand my concern with heavy metal poisoning. I am currently undergoing my second round of chelation therapy for lead and mercury toxicity. So, I am mad as hell about this news today!

There are mainly two heavy metals that I am concerned with — mercury and lead. The mercury mainly comes from the emissions of coal fired power plants. The lead comes from lead based paint, leaded gasoline, lead smelters, and lead pipes in plumbing. With such dire consequences to the public’s health with lead poisoning, why would the EPA abandon a true success story and stop regulating lead? This is going backwards instead of forward.

What I am wondering is, is this all part of Bush’s despicable agenda to look the other way in regards to air pollution, carbon emissions and global warming? I just published an article yesterday on Bush’s participation in Exxon’s campaign to discredit traditional scientists’ position on global warming. Now, I see this issue involving the EPA. When will all this influence peddling and pandering end?

If you want more information regarding this, read a book by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, called Crimes Against Nature. In his book Kennedy details “how the Bush administration has rewritten the nation’s environmental laws in favor of industry and filled his administration with former lobbyists and corporate executives who now oversee the regulation of their former industries”.

What appears to be happening in this case is that the EPA seems to be wavering on critical environmental issues again and I don’t see it getting any better. In fact, there are 10 states who are suing the EPA over its decision not to regulate carbon dioxide pollution as a contributor to global warming. The EPA’s position is that it is a natural atmospheric gas, like oxygen. So, the relaxing of standards appears to be more of a problem for all of us today who are genuinely concerned about the environment.

In regards to the EPA’s responsibility, I did a little research on the lead issue. And, I found this sentence in reviewing the First Draft Staff Paper for Lead which is open for public comment, here is what it says:

The Clean Air Act requires EPA to set National Ambient Air Quality Standards for “criteria pollutants.” Currently, lead and five other major pollutants are listed as criteria pollutants. (The others are ozone, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and particulate matter.) The law also requires EPA to periodically review the standards to ensure that they provide adequate health and environmental protection, and to update those standards as necessary.

In order to get an updated ruling on lead, the Missouri Coalition for the Environment filed a lawsuit against the EPA to which the court ruled that the EPA has to finalize the Air Quality Criteria Document for Lead and prepare a Staff Paper for review by the public (which is provided in the link above). Sounds good right? Well, towards the end of the first Draft Staff Paper there is a little sentence that says,

Given the significantly changed circumstances since lead was listed in 1976, this review will evaluate the status of lead as a criteria pollutant in light of currently available information and assess whether revocation of the standard is an appropriate option for the Administrator to consider.

In other words, unless we all tell them otherwise, they may abandon the standard for lead regulation.

I realize that lead pollution has been drastically reduced from 1980 to 2005, by outlawing leaded gasoline, but if the EPA does not continue its constant pressure on larger industries whose lead emissions include metals processing, particularly primary and secondary lead smelters, aviation planes and race cars, then we may slip back into complacency.

I say, we keep the pressure on and insist that the EPA renew its standards on lead as a “criteria pollutant” and retain it in the National Ambient Air Quality Standards, along with ozone, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and particulate matter.

If you are as concerned about your health and your children’s health as I am, you can do your part by sending a “pre-prepared” email to the EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson. The email form is ready to go and you can access it at ucsaction.org. Please think about what kind of world we will be leaving to our children and their children, if we don’t insist that our regulatory agencies constantly monitor and regulate these dangerous toxic pollutants.

If we don’t insist on protective regulation, then these pollutants may cause the same dire effects as DDT did in 1958, if left unchecked. Rachel Carson, in a book called Silent Spring, meticulously described how DDT entered the food chain and accumulated in the fatty tissues of animals, including human beings, and caused cancer and genetic damage. She presented her case as a lawyer would with over 55 pages of notes and lists of experts that DDT was contaminating the entire world’s food supply. Due to her efforts, DDT was banned. The results of her investigation illustrated that technological progress can be so fundamentally at odds with natural processes that it must be curtailed.