Gaslighting Americans is no way to protect clean air, water and land
Lying to Americans is no way to protect clean air, water and land. Unfortunately, that is exactly what the new administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) did today when he announced the most massive rollback in U.S. history for regulations that limit toxic pollution while claiming to be “committed to protecting human health and the environment.” It’s clear the new EPA will be catering to the most polluting industries in the nation at the detriment of our most vulnerable populations: children, the elderly, those with chronic health conditions, and other at-risk people.
Montanans overwhelmingly support protections for clean air, clean water, and a stable climate. Yet the EPA is now claiming that Americans will be better off with more pollution, weaker public health protections, and more arsenic, lead, and mercury in our air and water. The harm caused by these pollutants is not theoretical or partisan; scientific findings have proven that eating fish with mercury causes harm, breathing air with higher levels of particulate pollution leads to more hospital visits, increases in the levels of lead in the air and water decreases our mental functions. These harms have been known for decades. Deregulating means removing protections for children, pregnant women, the elderly, and others – all in order to protect corporate executives of some of the largest industrial facilities in the nation. This is only one way in which this administration is moving this country in the wrong direction.
Giving the Colstrip plant – the most polluting coal plant in the nation – a free pass when its peers installed pollution control technology years ago is unfair and hurts people. Rolling back regulations on coal ash waste – one of the largest toxic waste streams in the nation – is absurd and will lead to even more ground and surface water pollution from these toxic waste traps. Weakening air pollution standards for fine particulates that lodge deep in the lungs and cause short and long-term cardiovascular and cognitive illnesses is beyond comprehension and downright cruel.
More people will get sick. More people will die. Fewer streams will support healthy aquatic life. Who actually voted for this heartless and unnecessary corporate giveaway? Deregulation didn’t work well for Montana in the ’90s, and it won’t work for Montanan’s health and the environment now.
Anne Hedges, MEIC Executive Director
