Thursday, December 8, 2016

Get ready for air and water 'regulation,' Russian-style

Let me do two things in light of Donald Trump's selection of sworn US EPA exterminator and energy company errand boy Scott Pruitt US Environmental Protection Agency administrator:

1.  Apologize to all insecticide, oil company and animal feeding operators officials I smeared in this posting when I said:

Nine months after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency warned against flushing water systems before testing for lead, the state Department of Natural Resources has not yet passed that advice on to public water systems in Wisconsin.
I'm guessing that [Wisconsin DNR Secretary Cathy] Stepp and [Wisconsin GOP Gov. Scptt] Walker figure that Donald Trump will appoint an insecticide plant manager or oil company CEO or feedlot manure producer to run the US EPA so Wisconsin can go about leaving the business of clean air and water to the pollution lobby.
Pruitt and the damage he will do puts him in a special-interest bell-hopping category by himself.
Smoke stacks from a factory.
2.  Pruitt's selection shows us also that Trump really loves Russian strongman Vladimir Putin's 'management' model and methods.

Putin serves the oligarchs, the billionaire-deal making oil and natural gas extractors he's made richer if they play ball with him.


Pruitt - - and whomever Trump selects to run the Interior Department with its our oil and natural gas-laden Bureau of Land Management properties and off-shore leasing powers - - will be key Trump American oligarch enablers who will green-light whatever these resource drillers (think frackers and Florida coast and Gulf of Mexico and Arctic National Wildlife Preserve) and pipeline planners and coal-burning power plant belchers will demand and obtain.


Regardless of the caustic, life-expectancy-diminishing effects from dirty air and water that will be dumped literally on Americans across the US, much as what the Russian people suffer with everyday because, like Trump, their authoritarian Glorious Leader thinks climate change is a hoax that restrains their corporate, polluting pals:

Guests staying at a modern hotel in Sochi, Russia, for the 2014 Winter Olympics recall signs in English next to their water faucets that read: “Do not use on your face because it contains something very dangerous...” 
Russia has the dubious distinction of having the world’s worst air pollution, according to international experts. An assessment in 2011 that supported that conclusion noted that only 15 percent of Russian city dwellers breathe unpolluted air... 
One reason Russia’s pollution continues to be so bad is that the country has never devoted adequate resources to addressing it. Part of that is ideology. President Vladimir Putin has said publicly that manmade climate change is a lie that Western countries have perpetrated to try to hold back development in Russia and other countries.
Think this can't happen here?

Did you think Donald Trump would become President?

Did you know that he has pledged to demolish the EPA, leaving "tidbits?"

3. One more thing. 

If environmental protection in name only is left to the states (wink-wink), look how Wisconsin GOP Gov. Walker has already rigged it with his 'chamber of commerce mentality'-managed Department of Natural Resources steadily undermining the public interest.

And in his corner is ally and GOP Attorney General Brad Schimel, who ran for the office promising to sue (as he did) the US EPA over clean air initiatives - - the very effort led by incoming EPA destroyer and Trump nominee Scott Pruitt - - and who appointed an energy industry lobbyist as the Wisconsin Attorney General office chief of staff.

"Moscow on the Hudson" was a play.

"Sochi on Lake Superior" - - where the DNR may approve a 26,000 hog fattening operation, for example - - can be the reality.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hmmm...DNR Environmental Management staff were told at a Division meeting that state regulations would now be incorporated by reference into state law rather than re-written as separate language in state code.