Yesterday we had some good news and some bad news when it come stop air pollution. The good news, surprisingly came from the Supreme Court. The bad new, unsurprisingly, from Paul Ryan and his corrupt conservatives in Congress. First the good news: Chief Justice John Roberts rejected a plea to block an EPA air pollution rule for power plants that was led by America's most toxic Governor, Michigan Republican Rick Snyder, best known for poisoning the children of Flint. He still hasn't been indicted or lynched. Michigan and the states backing Snyder sued the EPA for the right to have their industries belch mercury into the air. Lead poisoning wasn't enough for Snyder apparently.
In a significant victory for the Obama administration, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. on Thursday refused to block an Environmental Protection Agency regulation limiting emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants from coal-fired power plants.Chief Justice Roberts rejected an application from 20 states that said a federal appeals court in Washington had effectively thwarted their victory in the Supreme Court in June, when the high court ruled that the E.P.A. had failed to take into account the punishing costs its mercury regulation would impose. In that 5-to-4 decision, Michigan v. Environmental Protection Agency, the Supreme Court ruled that the agency had run afoul of the Clean Air Act by deciding to regulate the emissions without first undertaking a cost-benefit analysis to show the regulation to be “appropriate and necessary.”“It is not rational, never mind ‘appropriate,’ to impose billions of dollars in economic costs in return for a few dollars in health or environmental benefits,” Justice Antonin Scalia, who died last month, wrote in June. “Statutory context supports this reading.”...The action by Chief Justice Roberts is an indication that Justice Scalia’s death has altered the balance of power on the Supreme Court.
The bad news was also mercury-related. Ohio reactionary, Bill Johnson, complains that EPA rules to limit toxic gases, primarily mercury, from the brick and tile industry, is too costly to the industry and that the EPA emission standards are too strict and too onerous (on his campaign donors). Johnson's bill, H.R. 4557, which was cosponsored by 5 right-wing Republicans and two major bribe-taking corrupt conservative Democrats, Sanford Bishop (Blue Dog-GA) and Terri Sewell (New Dem-AL), would, if passed by the Senate and signed by Obama, prohibits the EPA "from requiring compliance with Clean Air Act rules concerning national emission standards for hazardous air pollutants with respect to brick and structural clay products manufacturing or clay ceramics manufacturing until judicial reviews of the rules are complete." It passed 238-163, all members of the House Poison The Air Caucus (AKA, the Republican Party) voting for it and all the Democrats except 7 voting NO. The 7 Democrats who would like to see their constituents' children die of mercury poisoning:
• Brad Ashford (Blue Dog-NE)• Sanford Bishop (Blue Dog-GA)• Jim Cooper (Blue Dog-TN)• Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)• Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)• Terri Sewell (New Dem-AL)• Kyrsten Sinema (Blue Dog-AZ)
Vaporized mercury poisoning can cause kidney malfunction, respiratory failure and death. Common symptoms include insomnia, mood swings, nervousness, irritability, muscle twitching, muscle atrophy, tremors and decreased cognitive functions. But corrupted conservatives don't feel it's worth the cost of cleaning up the process-- at least not to the guilty companies' bottom lines (their campaign donors).