The new Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, administrator, Lisa P. Jackson comments about President Obamaīs new budget for the EPA. "The Presidentīs budget proposes critical resources to protect the American people and the places where they live, work and play. We are no longer faced with the false choice of a strong economy or a clean environment. The Presidentīs budget shows that making critical and responsible investments in protecting the health and environment of all Americans will also lead to a more vibrant and stable economy. With these proposed resources and the Presidentīs strong environmental agenda, it should be overwhelmingly clear that the EPA is back on the job."
Now that the EPA is back in the business of strengthening environmental protection under President Obamaīs administration, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, will invest $7.22 billion for EPA administered projects and programs to protect human health and the environment, our two most important natural resources.
Highlights of the 2010 budget initiatives include for the EPA:
Strengthening EPAīs core research, enforcement and regulatory capabilities.
3.9 billion for the Clean Water State Revolving Fund and Drinking Water State Revolving Fund grants to support approximately 1,000 clean water projects and 700 drinking water projects EPA will work with state and local partners to develop a sustainable policy, including management and pricing, conservation, security and a plan for adequate long-term state and municipal funding for future capital needs.
A new $475 million, multi-agency Great Lakes Initiative to protect the worldīs largest fresh water resource. EPA and its partners will address invasive species, non-point source pollution, habitat restoration, contaminated sediment and other critical issues.
Download the complete budget at
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/I question, why are the industryīs that are responsible for the pollution, not made responsible for their waste products as part of their business objective in becoming a sustainable business? Why does the consumer, which is every citizen, have to pay for the harmful effects to their heath and/or through taxes and laws to rectify and clean up the issues caused by corporationsī waste and pollution?
Our bodyīs needs H2O to process, grow, maintain and we need fresh air to breathe life. These two natural resources along with food are what we need for basic survival and these natural resources are taken for granted. Letīs face it, the effects of air and water pollution are harmful to your mind and body. Asthma, lung cancer, heart disease and mercury poisoning, name a few. One of the most urgent tasks facing the EPA, is the dangerous effect that Mercury has, once it enters the food chain.
Despite the Clean Air Acts of 1963, 1967, 1970, 1977 and the updated 1990 Clean Air Act that mandates regulations requiring controls on mercury emissions, this has been ignored. Mercury ends up in fish and wildlife from the pollution thatīs released in our air and water from corporate industries including coal burning power plants, chlor-alkali plants and waste incinerators.
On one hand you eat fish as a low fat protein source, but when you add mercury to that, what use to be a nutritious food, can actually harm you when eaten in quantity. To put this in perspective, itīs recommended that women wanting to get pregnant, should not eat any fish throughout their pregnancy. Shouldnīt I be as concerned for my own health as that of an unborn child?
Dr. Jane Hightower, specializing in internal medicine with a private practice in San Francisco, CA has found a common denominator between the mercury in fish consumption and patientsī symptoms-commonalities that included fainting, headaches, hair loss and trouble with concentration. When she started testing for mercury levels in her patients and researching how they had been exposed to mercury, Dr. Hightower found the common link was seafood. She recommended to her patients to stop eating fish for six months, which they did and their blood mercury levels came down and resolved nearly all of their symptoms.
In 1998, the EPAīs Mercury Study Report to Congress: Overview, stated that Fish consumption dominates the pathway for human and wildlife exposure to methyl-mercury. This study supports a plausible link between anthropogenic releases of mercury from industrial and combustion sources in the United States and methyl-mercury in fish.
In 2005, when the EPA issued a first-ever federal rule to cap and reduce mercury emissions from coal-fired utility plants, they tried to EXEMPT coal and oil-fired utility plants from the Clean Air Act. These are the major polluters that the Clean Air Act was trying to regulate and what Congress had specifically mandated back in 1990. After the EPA was sued by fourteen states, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit vacated the mercury air emissions rule in February 2008.
When environmental decisions are driven by politics and not science, you can see why so much chaos by agenda was generated during the last administration. We went backwards, away from quality health decisions and renewable energies.
We can also see how corporate spin and deep pockets can advertise and make you believe like Big Tobacco did, persuading the population on the coolness of their product. Frances Beinecke, President of the Natural Resources Defense Council, NRDC, shows a great example. "The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, an industry-funded group is spending $45 million on advertising, in an attempt to convince the American public that coal power is good for the environment. No matter how much the industry spends on PR wizardry, it can't turn myth into reality. Saying coal is clean is like talking about healthy cigarettes. There is no such thing as clean coal."
If youīre relying on information from advertisements, you might rethink the accuracy of those ads. Truth in Advertising is subjective, so donīt be fooled. Check out websites like nrdc.org, onearth.org and sierraclub.org as a resource for finding more information thatīs relevant to your health. We're living in a state of Buyer Beware, where truth is less important than profit, which is more important than your health. We can change our priorities with businesses becoming responsible for their own sustainability and realizing that our health is our most precious personal asset. Understanding that, prevention is how we stop disease and cancers.
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