On April 25 - Thursday evening - American icon and humble hero George W Bush took one small step for man, one slip-and-fall for humanity - as he re-entered a spotlight until-recently blissful to have been abandoned by him, for the dedication of his presidential library. Put aside for the moment that having an actual structure that houses things you read dedicated to him is like honouring Chris Christie with a gluten-free restaurant or naming a Bar Mitzvah after Vladimir Zhirinovsky. Hell, I half expected him to don his trusty flight suit and declare "all major combat operations over in Iraq", you know, just for the memories.

But really, he did not have to do anything of the sort. For it was perfect timing for the My Pet Goat Athenaeum to emerge from the steamy Sun Belt hydrofluorocarbons just as one disaster after another befell the country, a helpful reminder of the eight torturous (in more ways than one) years he and his corrupted West Texas ideology made the rest of the United States resemble, well, West, Texas.

From the explosion at the fertiliser plant due to flagrant flouting of environmental regulations to the attack in Boston, the rejection of common sense gun safety to the square dance around sequestration; this was shaping up to be a Bush Legacy week whether he stayed home to paint nude portraits of Jeb or chose to step out and try to defend a presidency many Americans must be still convinced was just one long phantasm brought on by a bad batch of Peyote.

Michael Lind points out in, Made In Texas, that we have had conservative presidents over the past century and southern presidents. We have not had the combination. And it is an important distinction. As Lind put it in an interview with BuzzFlash (2002), "His [Bush's] political values - ranging from aggressive militarism in foreign policy to small-government ideology and fervent support for laissez-faire economics" have come to define much of our political culture in Washington - hence last week.

First, we had the Festrunk Brothers launch an attack on the Boston Marathon two weeks ago, and just about everything involved had Bush's West Texas political culture written all over it. Because of the NRA, which "worked out of his White House", there is no way to track where gun powder was bought as there is with plastic explosives. Because... freedom! (And defence contractor profits!).

There was the fact that these two clowns apparently committed these atrocities because of anger over Iraq - for which I hope the younger brother (I refuse to give them attention by using their names) spends a nice, long, pain-enveloped life carving rocks into chess pieces at Shawshank. Ahh yes, Iraq. Remember that war? The one that George W Bush lied us into with tales of yellowcake and "curveball", that has now cost up to about $2 trillion?

It is because of this war, unpaid for tax cuts and Big Pharma boondoggles that we apparently have to eliminate Medicare, according to the Pied Piper of granny starving, Congressman and former vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan. But let us eliminate, post haste, the part of our silly self-created "sequestration" - flight delays! - that causes inconveniences to wealthy members of the Congress on their way to the next Ladybank-single-malt-festooned, campaign contributor bribe-fests.

We were also recently treated to the West Texas answer to allowing weapons of war on our streets to blow apart toddlers in schools. Nothing. Unless you count Congress' finding ways to allow itself to insider trade again. Because... freedom!

Finally, there is the tragedy in West, Texas. A fertiliser-plant explosion near Waco (just like the Crawford pseudo-ranch!) that engulfed the neighbourhood, due to an understaffed and barely functioning Chemical Safety Board (by Congressional design), a lack of common-sense zoning requirements and the no-follow-ups rule we like to impose on the Environmental Protection Agency when they find that a plant like say, this one, had no risk management plan in 2006. But hey, the plant self-reported (is that like self-deporting?) that it posed "no risk" of fire, and why would they lie?

You may remember that a certain convict-Congressman named Tom DeLay - of West Texas - compared the EPA to the "Gestapo" and current lunkhead Texas Governor Rick Perry attacks the very same EPA for its "misguided and job-killing policies", as opposed to his people-killing ones. And then there is, once again, George W Bush. The Decider decided as President that, as dictated by his West Texas ideology, he would assault the EPA by any means necessary, short of naming the former Arabian Horse Association guy to run it (he saved that for FEMA... phew!).

So, in a way, it was fitting to see the George W Bush library opening this past week. It is his West Texas world. We are just stuck living in it.

This syndicated column first appeared at Al Jazeera English

Follow me on Twitter: @CliffSchecter

1. “The Prairie State Energy Campus is also projected to produce 3.6 million to 4.8 million tons of toxic ash, which must be disposed.”

2. “The 1,600 MW plant would generate thousands of tons of coal ash, which includes toxins like arsenic, mercury, and cadmium…
[the ash landfill will ] ultimately contain a 250-foot high pile of coal ash sitting on flat farmland… ‘We’ve heard complaints from people up to a mile away about ash hitting the side of the house and respiratory irritation.’”

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (238)

PLAYS: (1682)

Embed

How mature of them! As we noted yesterday, on the day where Gina McCarthy's nomination for EPA head was to have been voted on in committee, Republicans decided a boycott was in order instead.

But not just any boycott. No, at least some of them decided it would be better to hang out with lobbyists at a nice lunch than do their damn jobs.

Weakening the EPA and obstructing its authority is a major priority for the polluting industries that fill many senators’ campaign war chests. At least three of the boycotting Republicans—Sens. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), and Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.)—won’t have to wait to hear the appreciation of their benefactors, since they’re raising money from the special interests impacted by EPA’s decisions on the same day as McCarthy’s vote.

Continue reading »

Seriously, ALL THEY DO IS OBSTRUCT. It's gotten to the point where even your uninformed voters get the message: The Republicans are just plain batshit insane, and they just proved it again. They're destructive in the way only a spoiled two-year-old is:

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee was scheduled to vote today at 9:15 on the nomination of Gina McCarthy to be the next EPA Administrator. Despite the fact that she has answered more than a thousand of the committee’s questions, Senate Republicans announced just before the hearing that they would be boycotting the vote, denying the committee quorum and postponing the confirmation hearing.

The committee rules require that at least two members of the minority party be present during a vote. Not a single Republican bothered to show up.

Senator Barbara Boxer, Chair of the committee, still held a meeting, allowing the Democrats in attendance to try to explain to the American people why they still have no EPA Administrator. The ostensible reason that the Republicans boycotted today’s vote was because they said she did not satisfactorily answer their questions.

Senator Boxer reminded those present that Gina McCarthy has already answered more than a thousand questions from the committee and moreover is eminently qualified with an excellent track record of working with the business community and and both parties to do her job.

Continue reading »

Meanwhile, in the Texan business community …Well, come to find out, the West Fertilizer Company lied to the EPA.

The fertilizer plant that exploded Wednesday night in West, Texas, reported to the Environmental Protection Agency and local public safety officials that it presented no risk of fire or explosion, documents show.

West Fertilizer Co. reported having as much as 54,000 pounds of anhydrous ammonia on hand in an emergency planning report required of facilities that use toxic or hazardous chemicals.

But the report, reviewed Wednesday night by The Dallas Morning News, stated “no” under fire or explosive risks. The worst possible scenario, the report said, would be a 10-minute release of ammonia gas that would kill or injure no one.

So the volunteer firefighters at the burning plant had no idea what they were dealing with. Because it’s easy to lie in Texas. All ya gotta do is check a box.

And why would they lie? They were storing 1,350 times the amount of ammonium nitrate that would normally trigger safety oversight by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). They didn’t want EPA or the DHS in their business. That might cost them time and money.We all know how Rick Perry feels about the EPA, don’t we? He thinks its sole goal is to kill jobs.

“Somebody has to tell the E.P.A. that we don’t need you monkeying around and fiddling around and getting in our business with every kind of regulation you can dream up,” he said. “You’re doing nothing more than killing jobs. It’s a cemetery for jobs at the E.P.A.”

So, Rick Perry handed us this mushroom cloud on a silver platter.

I cannot wait to hear hear him and Ron Paul explain how the market forces will correct this. The company will declare bankruptcy, its owners will keep their money and the injured people will hold bake sales to pay their medical bills. That’s what we call “Business Friendly” in Texas.

But now Rick Perry, John Cornyn and Ted Cruz just love the Federal Government. I tell you what, I would buy Chris Christie an airplane ticket if he would come down to West, Texas, and shake his finger in Ted Cruz’s face.

Cruz voted against aid for New Jersey but now wants aid for Texas.They can all kiss my big blue butt.

I am so very tired of seeing the horrific results of three decades of deficit hawkery, which weakened the regulatory infrastructure of this country and results in completely preventable and massive tragedies like this. Let's start with the lax zoning requirements, which allowed such a high-risk enterprise smack dab in the middle of a residential neighborhood.

And the Chemical Safety Board, which was deployed to the West TX site last night, is chronically understaffed and inadequate because... you guessed it, it's underfunded by a Big Oil-friendly Congress! They get $10.5 million to regulate an industry with 170 major companies making 70,000 different chemicals, totaling $750 billion revenue -- and they're still investigating the BP Gulf explosion. Thanks, Congress!

Then there's OSHA, which is supposed to protect workers in the workplace but is really more of a fig leaf. Do you know how many OSHA inspectors we have for the entire country -- more accurately, how many we don't? Six fertilizer plants were inspected by OSHA in the past five years. West Fertilizer was not one of them. (When West Texas was cited for OSHA violations in 1985, their fine was $30.)

Experts say for a country the size of the United States, we should have 12,000 OSHA inspectors. We have 2,220. And the fines are laughable.

So remember: This tragedy was completely preventable. We just didn't bother. Because Grover Norquist fights to keep that money out of government agencies and in the pockets of the 1%. Freedom!

The West Fertilizer Co factory of Texas, which exploded late Wednesday, was fined in 2006 by the Environmental Protection Agency for not having a risk-management plan. The same year the plant reported it posed ‘no risk’ of fire.

Complaints were made in June 2006 regarding a strong smell of ammonia emanating from the plant, according to reports publicized by The Dallas Morning News (DMN).

The concerns prompted Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to investigate. The plant was fined later in August by the EPA, which imposed a fine of $2,300 for failure to have a risk-management plan that was in line with federal standards.

Such federal regulations are in place to ensure the prevention of chemical accidents through safeguards.

A later report filed by the plant itself with EPA stated “no” under fire or explosive risks, saying that the, “worst possible scenario … would be a 10-minute release of ammonia gas that would injure no one.”

Ah, yes -- self reporting! The process pushed by Ronald Reagan to replace federal inspectors, who claimed companies would be honest because after all, who would want the liability costs of lying? Just about everyone, as it turns out.

They went on to say that their ‘second-worst’ scenario would be a leak from a broken hose used to transfer the product, which would also not result in any injuries.

Continue reading »

Isn't that special. Use improperly obtained IDs, run the fuel back and forth across the U.S. border, and collect millions of dollars! The Canadian border services and the EPA are investigating the possibility of fraud, although the companies claim that the practice was totally legal. But hey, as long as you're making money, doing the wrong thing is easy to live with:

A cargo train filled with biofuels crossed the border between the US and Canada 24 times between the 15th of June and the 28th of June 2010; not once did it unload its cargo, yet it still earned millions of dollars. CBC News of Canada was the first to pick up on this story on the 3rd of December 2012, and began their own investigation into the possible explanations behind this odd behaviour.

CN Rail, the operator of the train, stated their innocence in the matter as they had only “received shipping directions from the customer, which, under law, it has an obligation to meet. CN discharged its obligations with respect to those movements in strict compliance with its obligations as a common carrier, and was compensated accordingly.” Even so, they still managed to earn C$2.6 million in shipping fees.

During their investigation CBC managed to obtain an internal email which stated that the cars of the train were all reconfigured between each trip but that the cargo was never actually unloaded, because “each move per car across the border is revenue generated”, the sale of the cargo itself was inconsequential.

The cargo of the train was owned by Bioversal Trading Inc., or its US partner Verdero, depending on what stage of the trip it was at. The companies “made several million dollars importing and exporting the fuel to exploit a loophole in a U.S. green energy program.” Each time the loaded train crossed the border the cargo earned its owner a certain amount of Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs), which were awarded by the US EPA to “promote and track production and importation of renewable fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel.” The RINs were supposed to be retired each time the shipment passed the border, but due to a glitch not all of them were. This enabled Bioversal to accumulate over 12 million RINs from the 24 trips, worth between 50 cents and $1 each, which they can then sell on to oil companies that haven’t met the EPA’s renewable fuel requirements.

As I've pointed out several times, the Obama administration left the Bush political appointees in place at the EPA, to the point where the dedicated professionals who were trying to do their jobs were calling the agency "Bush 3." Many of us believe the wars to come won't be fought over oil, they'll be fought over water. From ProPublica:

Federal officials have given energy and mining companies permission to pollute aquifers in more than 1,500 places across the country, releasing toxic material into underground reservoirs that help supply more than half of the nation’s drinking water.

In many cases, the Environmental Protection Agency has granted these so-called aquifer exemptions in Western states now stricken by drought and increasingly desperate for water.

EPA records show that portions of at least 100 drinking water aquifers have been written off because exemptions have allowed them to be used as dumping grounds.

“You are sacrificing these aquifers,” said Mark Williams, a hydrologist at the University of Colorado and a member of a National Science Foundation team studying the effects of energy development on the environment. “By definition, you are putting pollution into them. … If you are looking 50 to 100 years down the road, this is not a good way to go.”

As part of an investigation into the threat to water supplies from underground injection of waste, ProPublica set out to identify which aquifers have been polluted.

We found the EPA has not even kept track of exactly how many exemptions it has issued, where they are, or whom they might affect.

What records the agency was able to supply under the Freedom of Information Act show that exemptions are often issued in apparent conflict with the EPA’s mandate to protect waters that may be used for drinking.

Though hundreds of exemptions are for lower-quality water of questionable use, many allow grantees to contaminate water so pure it would barely need filtration, or that is treatable using modern technology.

The EPA is only supposed to issue exemptions if aquifers are too remote, too dirty, or too deep to supply affordable drinking water. Applicants must persuade the government that the water is not being used as drinking water and that it never will be.

Would that be the same EPA that let BP off the hook for the massive Gulf oil spill? The same EPA that says it's safe to eat Gulf seafood? Just wondering, since they don't seem to have a very good track record with "facts":

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) — Federal environmental regulators say testing of scores of drinking-water wells in a northeastern Pennsylvania village has failed to turn up unsafe levels of contamination, providing ammunition to a gas driller that denies it polluted the aquifer with hazardous chemicals while prompting accusations the government is distorting the data.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released test results for an additional 12 homes on Friday and said they “did not show levels of contaminants that would give EPA reason to take further action.” It was the fourth and final release of data for homes in Dimock, a rural Susquehanna County community that’s found itself in the middle of a passionate debate over the safety of drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in deep rock formations like the Marcellus Shale.

The EPA testing is only a snapshot of the highly changeable aquifer and will not be the final word on the health of the water supply. But pro-industry groups and Cabot Oil & Gas Corp., the Houston-based driller whose faulty gas wells were previously found to have leaked methane into the aquifer, assert the test results justify their position that Dimock’s water is safe.

“Cabot is pleased that EPA has now reached the same conclusion of Cabot and state and local authorities resulting from the collection of more than 10,000 pages of hard data — that the water in Dimock meets all regulatory standards,” spokesman George Stark said Friday.

But residents who are suing Cabot and anti-drilling activists say the EPA has issued a series of misleading statements on what the tests show. They say some of the wells had a combination of chemicals, metals, gases and salts that suggest the influence of drilling and fracking; that drinking-water standards have not been established for some of the toxic substances that turned up in the wells; and that testing also revealed high and sometimes explosive levels of methane in about a third of the wells. Opponents also raised technical concerns about the data.

Coal ash, the residue left by coal-powered power plants, is some nasty stuff. Thank God we have ALEC trying to prevent the feds from regulating it:

At least 49 coal-fired power plants have acknowledged that one or more of their ash ponds or landfills have exceeded either Safe Drinking Water Act “Maximum Contaminant Limits” or state groundwater protection standards. The information was provided to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in response to an information collection request, and obtained by the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The data indicates that multiple contaminants at 116 coal ash disposal units at the 49 plants exceed federal or state standards, including arsenic (a potent carcinogen) reported at no fewer than 22 sites; manganese (a metal that can damage the nervous system in high concentrations) at 22; boron (a pollutant that can cause damage to the
stomach, intestines, liver, kidney, and brain when ingested in large amounts) at 12; selenium (a toxic pollutant that causes adverse health effects at high exposures) at 13; and cadmium (a toxic pollutant that can damage the kidneys, lungs, and bones) at 10.

The problem is, there's no uniform standard for measuring or reporting these contaminants. The EPA is trying to regulate coal ash, but our old friends at ALEC are trying to prevent any attempt to regulate it.

That's where Rep. David McKinley (WV-1) comes in. He's a member of the Tea Party caucus, the chairman of the West Virginia Republican Party, and also sits on the House Energy and Commerce committee.

McKinley, who's running against Democrat Sue Thorn, has raised $1.5 million so far in his reelection campaign, the largest single category of contributions come from mining interests. McKinley introduced a bill that prevents the federal government from regulating coal ash—and coincidentally, I'm sure, the bill also mirrors a coal ash resolution passed by ALEC.

He claims the responsible thing is to recycle the ash as building materials. (Of course! What could possibly go wrong?)

The Department of Homeland Security under Bush refused to release the dump locations, supposedly because an enemy could use the information to contaminate a large area. (Or they were afraid the locals would freak out after a 2008 Tennessee coal ash spill turned into a massive environmental disaster.)

Anyway, if you live in McKinley's district, Sue Thorn looks like a much better alternative - and certainly better for your health.