Month 12, Day 11: It’ll Feel Better When It Stops Hurting. But When Will It Stop Hurting?

Well, this sucks:

The Obama administration is retreating on long-delayed environmental regulations — new rules governing smog and toxic emissions from industrial boilers — as it adjusts to a changed political dynamic in Washington with a more muscular Republican opposition.

The move to delay the rules, announced this week by the Environmental Protection Agency, will leave in place policies set by President George W. Bush. President Obama ran for office promising tougher standards, and the new rules were set to take effect over the next several weeks.

Beating my head against a wall would feel better.

President Obama’s reversal on EPA policy is a shameful capitulation to some of the most environmentally irresponsible elements in the global economy. The big oil companies, unsatisfied with year after year of record-breaking profits, are anxious to undermine the only remaining authority with the capacity to regulate pollution — and the President, incomprehensibly, seems to believe that acceding to their agenda will be a positive step for this country and the world. When accelerating climate change is endangering the world’s agricultural systems, when increased acidity is jeopardizing the ability of our oceans to sustain life, when the scientific evidence for human causes of global warming is irrefutable — it is not the time to bow to the desires of the fossil fuel industry for an even more unconstrained regulatory environment. Fossil fuel is the crack cocaine of the American economy. Why should we reward the dealers?

Warren Senders