“Not only did we measure significant concentrations of PFAS in these containers, we can estimate the PFAS that were leaching off creating a direct path of exposure,” said study coauthor Graham Peaslee, PhD, professor of physics in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Notre Dame.”
I’m glad the EPA tried but have to wonder why congress can’t do their jobs.
If you learn to see the world the way capital sees it, it makes some sense.
If you tell a chemical company that it can't make X but it doesn't have a factory to make X, they are not going to be so sore about it.
If they've borrowed from the bank to make a factory that makes X and then you tell them they have to shut it down they are going to be a lot more upset. The EPA can't discharge their bank loan, for one thing.
there was a ban on the most wasteful uses of CFC, but the main effect was that people quit building new CFC factories, it took almost two decades to shut those factories down.
Congress can't do much of anything. Their ability to pass anything more important than naming a post office is essentially nil. They can't even perform the basic operation of keeping the government open, except by heroic last-minute effort.
Congress' rules were designed to protect minority opinions, and they're easily taken advantage of to prevent anything from happening at all. A fair number of Congresspeople were elected with the specific goal of locking Congress up, and they're pretty effective at it.
In Parliamentary system this is somewhat equivalent to "hung parliament" and usually results in re-elections. Governments must prove minimum support to pass legislations before they can claim to be "in charge"
Don't be hand wavey though, there's only one political party doing this bullshit, and they've been open about their strategy and goal since at least Obama, and possibly even as far back as Newt Gringrich.
And they seemed to have no problem "getting things done" when the task was to ram through a supreme court justice right before an election after spending a year saying you cannot approve a supreme court justice "during an election year"
> I’m glad the EPA tried but have to wonder why congress can’t do their jobs.
There is a certain large percentage of the population who vote in people who actively want to eliminate all oversight/regulations. How do you do that? Make the regulators look like they're not doing their jobs and say, "See? We just need to get rid of it all! They're wasting YOUR tax dollars!"
Yes Congress did give the EPA authority to evaluate the evidence and promulgate rules but they did not give them the authority to violate the law. This is but the latest example of of the EPA being correctly guardrailed by the courts. I only wished that the courts could directly penalize the person at the EPA who knowingly exceeded their authority. Admittedly it was for a worthy cause but they or the Congress needs to remedy this through lawful channels.
“does not count as a significant new use since Inhance has been using this process since 1983”
> They're subversives pushing for a fascist dictatorship.
Like you, I used too feel like one side had bad faith motives and just wanted to break stuff and hurt people. It was a really miserable outlook to have.
Fortunately through life, I ended up meeting a lot of people and being exposed to a lot of political and philosophical diversity, and I learned that it isn't true at all. There are some small number who do want to destroy things, but even they mostly only want that to get to a better place in the long term, (and they see the collapse or destruction as necessary and inevitable to get there).
I encourage you to meet people on the other side and really get to know them. It probably won't change your political opinions, but it will correct an erroneous pessimism about people's motives. The world becomes a much better place when you stop operating in defense mode and operate in discovery mode instead, so it's definitely worth it.
> why congress can’t do their jobs.
> Maybe because the primary interest of half the elected representatives is to make sure it doesn't. They're subversives pushing for a fascist dictatorship.
I don't think it is that simple or a helpful analysis. Moreover, there's also a paradox there - we are talking about banning something here, which would be the outcome of either the-majority-have-ruled or a decree by a "dictator".
PaulHoule|1 year ago
If you tell a chemical company that it can't make X but it doesn't have a factory to make X, they are not going to be so sore about it.
If they've borrowed from the bank to make a factory that makes X and then you tell them they have to shut it down they are going to be a lot more upset. The EPA can't discharge their bank loan, for one thing.
In the case of CFCs,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorofluorocarbon
there was a ban on the most wasteful uses of CFC, but the main effect was that people quit building new CFC factories, it took almost two decades to shut those factories down.
loa_in_|1 year ago
jfengel|1 year ago
Congress' rules were designed to protect minority opinions, and they're easily taken advantage of to prevent anything from happening at all. A fair number of Congresspeople were elected with the specific goal of locking Congress up, and they're pretty effective at it.
wobbly_bush|1 year ago
mrguyorama|1 year ago
And they seemed to have no problem "getting things done" when the task was to ram through a supreme court justice right before an election after spending a year saying you cannot approve a supreme court justice "during an election year"
HumblyTossed|1 year ago
There is a certain large percentage of the population who vote in people who actively want to eliminate all oversight/regulations. How do you do that? Make the regulators look like they're not doing their jobs and say, "See? We just need to get rid of it all! They're wasting YOUR tax dollars!"
codexb|1 year ago
bwestergard|1 year ago
ceejayoz|1 year ago
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/supreme-court-chevron-deference...
roamerz|1 year ago
“does not count as a significant new use since Inhance has been using this process since 1983”
BobaFloutist|1 year ago
jqpabc123|1 year ago
[deleted]
freedomben|1 year ago
Like you, I used too feel like one side had bad faith motives and just wanted to break stuff and hurt people. It was a really miserable outlook to have.
Fortunately through life, I ended up meeting a lot of people and being exposed to a lot of political and philosophical diversity, and I learned that it isn't true at all. There are some small number who do want to destroy things, but even they mostly only want that to get to a better place in the long term, (and they see the collapse or destruction as necessary and inevitable to get there).
I encourage you to meet people on the other side and really get to know them. It probably won't change your political opinions, but it will correct an erroneous pessimism about people's motives. The world becomes a much better place when you stop operating in defense mode and operate in discovery mode instead, so it's definitely worth it.
andsoitis|1 year ago
I don't think it is that simple or a helpful analysis. Moreover, there's also a paradox there - we are talking about banning something here, which would be the outcome of either the-majority-have-ruled or a decree by a "dictator".
malfist|1 year ago