The Covid-19 pandemic has ushered in a wave of worrisome and needless regulatory relaxations that have increased pollution across the United States. Recent reporting by the Associated Press and other outlets has documented more than 3,000 pandemic-based requests from polluters to state agencies and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for waivers of environmental requirements. Numerous state governments, with the tacit encouragement of the EPA, went along with many of those requests. All too often, those waivers — requested, ostensibly, to protect American workers from exposure to the coronavirus — were granted with little or no review, notwithstanding the risks the resulting emissions posed to public health and the environment…
These regulatory failures have occurred against the backdrop of a steady decline in both federal and state environmental enforcement. The numbers of government scientists and attorneys whose work focuses on enforcing environmental laws has dropped significantly in recent years. There have also been substantial decreases in the numbers of in-person government inspections of pollution sources, the volume of enforcement actions pursued, the number of environmental criminal investigations, and the amount of money that polluters have been compelled to spend on pollution control as a direct result of enforcement activities. EPA has all but abandoned its longstanding oversight of state enforcement work. And the federal agency has cravenly deferred to state enforcement (or nonenforcement) priorities, even though quite a few states lack the resources and/or political will to effectively enforce environmental standards.
Howls of protest and a federal lawsuit prompted EPA to terminate its Covid policy as of Aug. 31. But too much damage has already been done. - In These Times
Sunday, October 4, 2020
Trump EPA shenanigans will be a public health and environmental disaster
An even more right-wing SCOTUS will make this all that much harder to try to fix.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Looking at the list of requests made to MPCA, it appears that many are just requests for delays in inspections and easing of unattended livestock feedlots (most are in Hagedorn's district).
ReplyDeleteI am not sure if these will have long term impacts since they are no longer granting these waivers.
I noticed that many were granted to SuperAmerica ... is that a Koch operation ... or did they sell it ?
Here's a link to the list
https://www.pca.state.mn.us/covid-19/requests-mpca-regulatory-flexibility-due-covid-19