The Put-Corporate-Profits-First Act

Senator Toomey (official portrait)

Senate bill 1292 was introduced yesterday (June 29th) by Republican (of course) Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania. The text of the bill is not available yet, but I am eagerly anticipating the PDF from the GPO.

In the meantime, we can look at the bill’s Latest Title:

A bill to require the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to consider the impact on employment levels and economic activity prior to issuing a regulation, policy statement, guidance document, endangerment finding, or other requirement, implementing any new or substantially altered program, or denying any permit, and for other purposes.

Though I have yet to read the text of this bill, it is obviously meant to strip the EPA of their true duty in deference to the Republican Party’s masters’ profits.

Newsflash, Senator Toomey, it’s called the Environmental Protection Agency and not the Service Republican Corporate Masters Agency for a reason. It’s job is to protect the environment.

With any luck, this pile of garbage will die in committee, as it should.

Bachmann and GOP Want Dumber Kids

On June 13, 2011, CNN televised a debate between seven hopefuls for the Republican presidential nomination. At one point, when asked about whether the federal government should support vocational training at the community college level,  Michele Bachmann took the opportunity to say this:

 What we need to do is pass the mother of all repeal bills, but it’s the repeal bill that will get a job killing regulations. And I would begin with the EPA, because there is no other agency like the EPA. It should really be renamed the job-killing organization of America.

The EPA is one of the favorite targets of the Corporatism party, as I pointed out in my other blog. Anything that stands in the way of corporate profits is bad and must be eliminated.

What usually stands in the way, at least as far as the EPA is concerned, is the public health. You know, one of those things that modern Republicans don’t seem to give a damn about. Earlier this week, the Chicago Sun-Times ran an article about yet another health risk posed by a corporation.

A two-mile by two-mile section of the city that includes Pilsen does not meet the nation’s air quality standard for lead, according to a preliminary determination released Wednesday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

…

Those boundaries were recommended by the Illinois EPA earlier this month based on air samples it collected last year at a Pilsen elementary school.

At an elementary school.

Why is this of particular concern? Because, as the article states, “Even low levels of lead exposure can impair a child’s IQ, memory and learning capabilities.”

So that most hated of all government agencies, the EPA, has identified a health risk in an elementary school, and the surrounding community. They have identified the chief culprit, “a smelter that the state EPA has said is the primary contributor to elevated lead levels in the area.” And as a result, “If the area is formally designated by the EPA to be in violation of national health standards in October, the state will be required to submit a lead-reduction plan by 2013.”

If Bachmann and the GOP have their way, we soon won’t have an EPA to monitor air quality, or to hold businesses accountable for their actions, or to force polluters to change their way. What we’ll have is higher corporate profits and more kids at a disadvantage in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

Michele Bachmann claims to be pro-life, I guess that doesn’t mean pro-quality-life.

The Bankrupt Argument Against Regulation

Yesterday, Representative Judy Biggert (R-IL) tweeted the following:

Government regulations cost small businesses $10,585 per employee per year. Less regulations #4jobs.

This is the sort of brain-dead argument that passes for intelligent discourse on the right. It’s an argument that takes a variety of forms, with myriad targets. Just tonight, in the Republican presidential candidate debate on CNN, Michele Bachmann stated that the Environmental Protection Agency should be called the Job-killing Agency. Ooh, good one, Michele.

This argument has many flaws. I’ll try to hit a couple main ones.

First, it promotes a race to the bottom. They do this particular thing (or don’t do it) so we should (n’t) too. The question that goes unanswered is, “where do we draw the line?” China allows cement factories to belch mercury and other harmful chemicals, along with greenhouse gasses, into the air, so why can’t we stop the EPA from regulating their emission in the US? It takes away from company profits to have to take measures to not kill us all, so we should stop doing that. Other places, after all, are cesspools of industrial waste, so why not the US? Anything that boosts profits is good, this argument goes.

Getting back to the Biggert tweet, I would point out that there are other things that cost small businesses money. Health insurance, for example. Overtime pay. Vacation time. Holiday pay. Fire extinguishers. Air conditioning. The Republican argument seems to be that if the US would only return to the golden age of sweat-shop labor that pre-dated unions (and the middle class,) our economy would take off like a rocket.

Well, the rich would probably get richer, at least.