THE WILL POWER REPORT: ABOLISH THE EPA?

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Nothing but the Truth!
 
By Will Power
 
December 21, 2011 (San Diego) -- Newt Gingrich, the current Republican presidential frontrunner wants to "abolish the EPA".  Gingrich characterizes the EPA as a "jobkiller".
  
The EPA is the only Federal Agency charged with protecting our air, water, and soil. The Oil Companies want to abolish it so they can continue poisoning the air and water, mining coal unsafely, and protect themselves from lawsuits by consumers.
 
 
Big Coal wants to continue blasting entire mountainsides into rubble, poisoning streams and rivers. Big gas wants to continue injecting "proprietary" chemicals into underground aquifers, a convenient way to dispose of toxic waste.  All of these groups oppose federal air management standards, deny Global Warming, and hope to continue using the Earth's atmosphere as a dumping ground.
 
 
Abolishing the EPA would mean no oversight of chemical dumping, fracking, or waste disposal. Corporations would be able to drill without permits, mine without restrictions on cyanide use, and quite probably start using National Parks for energy development.
 
 
Gringrich and his supporters say that Corporations would not willingly damage the environment. The historical record makes him a liar.
 
 
Trees, fish, water, soil, and animal species cannot defend themselves. If we rely on Corporations to police themselves, within fifty years most of the scenic US will look like what's left of Russia, a chemical wasteland operated by private interests who will exclude the public from visiting their own public lands.
 
 
The Tree of Life will be a leafless bald skeleton, with all of its branches dead or dying. Extinct is forever.
 
 

Will Power is a retired history teacher and creative writing instructor.  The views in this column reflect the views of its author and do not necessarily reflect the views of East County Magazine. 


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