The Los Angeles Times published an article this week, which bore the title “Too Dirty to Fail.” The lead sentence is attention grabbing: “Since the beginning of this year, Republicans in the House have averaged roughly a vote every day the chamber has been in session to undermine the Environmental Protection Agency and our nation's environmental laws.”
Politicians ran on a platform of “Jobs Now,” which seems to mean do everything possible to ensure that corporations have no regulations and citizens have no rights. Anything that multinational corporations don’t like is described as job killing. We constantly see that argument in reader’s comments to online versions of the Sentinel and letters to the editor. Citizens believe the story they’ve been told by captains of industry.
Herman Cain said that Blacks have been brainwashed into voting for Democrats. Reality is that workers, especially here in Happy Valley, have been brainwashed into voting against their own best interests. People are convinced that we can’t have jobs and a vibrant economy if we regulate industries that pollute the air we breathe, the soil that grows our food, and the water we drink. Reality is that without regulations this High Desert that we call home would be uninhabitable. Without regulations the cost to clean up any environmental disaster falls to taxpayers, not the industrial polluters. Regulations protect human health against the excesses of corporate greed.
Today the Denver Post is reporting that the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling paving the way to enforce Clinton’s roadless rules pertaining to 49 million acres of roadless forests and grasslands. In Colorado the ruling protects 4.4 million acres of National Forest, which represents about a third of Colorado’s National Forests. There are some exceptions incorporated in the ruling, including an exemption if fire danger is high.
This ruling will irritate the oil and gas industry in Colorado, and they will send their attack dogs out to bark about jobs. Jane Danowitz, director of the Pew Environment Group's U.S. public lands program said, "Without the roadless rule, protection of these national forests would be left to a patchwork management system that in the past resulted in millions of acres lost to logging, drilling and other industrial development.” A “patchwork management system” is exactly what the industry wants, and why they were working on a separate Colorado roadless rule that allowed mining and drilling on public lands.
In the GOP war on the environment, a battle was lost in federal court yesterday. But the environment hasn’t yet won the war. When you hear about getting rid of regulations because they kill jobs, ask which jobs are going to be lost and which pockets are going to be lined. You may find that the jobs being protected are jobs that have been outsourced to foreign soil.
Homework
Too Dirty to Fail ßread this! It debunks the theory that regulations cost jobs.
Denver Post Story About Reinstatement of Roadless Rules
Pew Charitable Trust's Environmental program
Politicians ran on a platform of “Jobs Now,” which seems to mean do everything possible to ensure that corporations have no regulations and citizens have no rights. Anything that multinational corporations don’t like is described as job killing. We constantly see that argument in reader’s comments to online versions of the Sentinel and letters to the editor. Citizens believe the story they’ve been told by captains of industry.
Herman Cain said that Blacks have been brainwashed into voting for Democrats. Reality is that workers, especially here in Happy Valley, have been brainwashed into voting against their own best interests. People are convinced that we can’t have jobs and a vibrant economy if we regulate industries that pollute the air we breathe, the soil that grows our food, and the water we drink. Reality is that without regulations this High Desert that we call home would be uninhabitable. Without regulations the cost to clean up any environmental disaster falls to taxpayers, not the industrial polluters. Regulations protect human health against the excesses of corporate greed.
Today the Denver Post is reporting that the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling paving the way to enforce Clinton’s roadless rules pertaining to 49 million acres of roadless forests and grasslands. In Colorado the ruling protects 4.4 million acres of National Forest, which represents about a third of Colorado’s National Forests. There are some exceptions incorporated in the ruling, including an exemption if fire danger is high.
This ruling will irritate the oil and gas industry in Colorado, and they will send their attack dogs out to bark about jobs. Jane Danowitz, director of the Pew Environment Group's U.S. public lands program said, "Without the roadless rule, protection of these national forests would be left to a patchwork management system that in the past resulted in millions of acres lost to logging, drilling and other industrial development.” A “patchwork management system” is exactly what the industry wants, and why they were working on a separate Colorado roadless rule that allowed mining and drilling on public lands.
In the GOP war on the environment, a battle was lost in federal court yesterday. But the environment hasn’t yet won the war. When you hear about getting rid of regulations because they kill jobs, ask which jobs are going to be lost and which pockets are going to be lined. You may find that the jobs being protected are jobs that have been outsourced to foreign soil.
Homework
Too Dirty to Fail ßread this! It debunks the theory that regulations cost jobs.
Denver Post Story About Reinstatement of Roadless Rules
Pew Charitable Trust's Environmental program
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