Former EPA official: Trump Cuts would target most vulnerable communities

[riversedge]

EPA emerges as major target after Trump solicits policy advice from industry


https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/epa-emerges-as-major-target-after-trump-solicits-policy-advice-from-industry/2017/04/16/87a8a55a-205d-11e7-ad74-3a742a6e93a7_story.html?utm_term=.6f9503b6ca32&wpisrc=al_alert-COMBO-politics%252Bnation&wpmk=1


By Juliet Eilperin April 16 at 3:07 PM
Former EPA official: Cuts would target most vulnerable communities
Play Video4:53

Washington Post reporter Dennis Brady talks with Mustafa Ali, a former EPA environmental justice leader who served more than two decades with the agency, to discuss the consequences of President Trump's budget proposal. (McKenna Ewen/The Washington Post)

Just days after taking office, President Trump invited American manufacturers to recommend ways the government could cut regulations and make it easier for companies to get their projects approved.
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Among the notable items on industry’s to-do list:

●BP wants to make it easier to drill for oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico by reducing how often companies must renew their
leases.

●A trade association representing the pavement industry wants to preclude the U.S. Geological Survey from conducting what the group says is “advocacy research” into the environmental impact of coal tar. The Pavement Coatings Technology Council says this research could limit what it uses to seal parking lots and driveways.

Tearsheet from Pavement Coatings Technology Council letter.
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●The Chamber also wants to jettison a requirement that employers report their injury and illness records electronically to the Labor Department so they can be posted “on the internet for anyone to see.”

●And in its 51-page comment, “Make Federal Agencies Responsible Again,” the Associated General Contractors of America recommended repealing 11 of President Barack Obama’s executive orders and memorandums, including one establishing paid sick leave for government contractors.............................





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[Hortensis]

1. Regulatory roll-back, PLUS trying to close down the ENFORCEMENT division.

The Rump administration is considering trying to shut down the EPA's entire enforcement division, but itm they can and are just stopping investigations and enforcement.

It was also just leaked that the entire Chicago office may be closed, "consolidated" with the Kansas City office, up to 1000 people no longer doing this work. Plus another one, unidentified, is to be closed.

Ever wonder where medical biohazard waste, radioactive isotopes used in testing and treatment for instance, goes? Even low-grade waste is very expensive to store while their, I think, max 2-year half-life plays out. Our local cancer clinics' profit margin would respond nicely to just pouring it down the drain, or dumping it in alleys behind people's homes. (Also an in-my-back-yard way to handle the NIMBY problem such as New Hampshire faced with disposal of its stockpile. So much cheaper than secretly shipping it across country to someone else's.)

And why be limited to isotopes with such short half-lives if opening that up would mean more profits? In the world the libertarians propose, it would be our responsibility to research the materials used. If we didn't want an 8-year half-life, then we'd be free to take our business elsewhere. Market forces over time would punish businesses that lied and hurt their patients with failure.

Leaked Trump administration plan to close Chicago EPA office puts 1,000 jobs at risk, Great Lakes threatened by reported move to close regional office.
President Donald Trump’s proposed cutbacks to the Environmental Protection Agency may include the closure of the agency’s regional office in Chicago, a move that could undermine the agency’s ability to monitor pollution in the Great Lakes and curtail its ability to implement enforcement actions against coal-fired power plant owners in the six-state region.

The workforce for the Chicago Region 5 office would be consolidated with the EPA office in Kansas, the Chicago Sun-Times reported, citing anonymous sources. Trump’s budget chief Mick Mulvaney singled out the EPA as a target for budget cuts and the agency, under the leadership of former Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt, was tasked with choosing two regional office for closure by June 15. The identity of the other regional office has yet to be disclosed.

https://thinkprogress.org/trump-targeting-chicago-epa-office-e722bdaedac5