How do you know if something is toxic? The government requires a label, or a public disclosure or something, right? Wrong, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s mandate includes a toxics program designed to protect Americans from new, dangerous chemicals created by industry. The program identifies dangerous compounds and puts on public record what they are, who makes them, and where and when they’re used. But the agency under Bush has routinely been redacting all the important details of its files, making the program meaningless and breaking the law. Such a procedure is permitted in extraordinary circumstances only, but Bush’s EPA has made it business as usual, allowing redactions of filings in more than half of the cases.
In one case, an EPA case file “marks as confidential the names of the chemical and the company that makes it. Even the generic class of chemical has been removed.” So a program designed to alert consumers and residents about newly discovered toxic chemicals does precisely the reverse. Another example of the utter perversion of democratic processes embraced by the Bush administration. But, sadly, there’s no undoing the redactions barring expensive additional research, so these black marks—flagging dangers to your health without telling you what, or where, or when—will remain in the public record long after Bush is gone.
Surprised? Let’s recap some highlights of the EPA under George W. Bush. Reasonable Republican head Christine Todd Whitman was forced out for trying to protect the environment and keep Bush’s campaign promise to regulate carbon dioxide emissions. Despite a Supreme Court ruling prompting the agency to regulate greenhouse gases, the agency has refused to do so. The current administrator, Stephen Johnson, defied legal precedent and the advice of his employees to reject California’s request for a waiver allowing it to regulate its own greenhouse gases. Just this month, Johnson told regulators not to consider GHG emissions when ruling on permits for new coal-fired power plants.
Environmental Protection Agency, indeed. Make that
Environmental Protection Agency.