Bill to exempt factory farms from pollution laws

Byoliveridley

pigSmell manure?

FEED – May 2006

Congress may exempt factory farms from pollution laws Large agribusiness companies are pushing their friends in Congress to exempt factory farms from the pollution reporting and cleanup provisions in key pollution laws. The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA, also known as Superfund) and the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act (EPCRA) provide an essential safety net for protecting water supplies from livestock pollution and for providing warnings of toxic air emissions from factory farms. Over 140 representatives are supporting a bill, H.R. 4341, that would give this sweetheart deal to factory farms. The bill may soon be attached to a “must-pass” spending bill in an effort to speed this ill-conceived measure through Congress. Please call your representative and urge him or her to oppose this dangerous legislation. To learn more, read the Sierra Club’s fact sheet (pdf) on this issue.

Factory farms tend to be located in rural areas next to communities that do not have the power to stop them/mobilize against them. This provision will further stack the deck against these communities. Anyone who thinks manure, pesticide runoff, ammonia, etc are not hazardous to the ecosystem and to human health needs to live next to one of these “farms”. I am hazarding a really wild guess that Congressman Hall (the sponsor) does not have to deal with issues such as these.

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    This is how you’re supposed to regulate chemicals, burden of proof on the manufacturers, makes sense because they are the ones who have the most information, and the most to gain or lose. So, you have the right motivators with the right tools to ensure that a decision can be reached in the right amount of time. If you reverse the burden of proof, the group (people/government) with incomplete information and little monetary motivation is going up against a group (the industry) which has all the information on its side, and powerful monetary motivation to do nothing, because in doing nothing, the burden of proof will ensure that they win.

    Makes so much sense, doesn’t it!

    EU bans 22 hair dye chemicals feared unsafe – Yahoo! News

    BRUSSELS, Belgium – The European Commission said Thursday it would ban 22 hair dye substances, following the release of a scientific study that concluded the long-term use of these chemicals could cause bladder cancer. The ban will go into effect Dec. 1. “Substances for which there is no proof that they are safe will disappear from the market,” said European Union Industry Commissioner Guenter Verheugen.

    Well said, sir, way to motivate industry to prove safety!

    “Our high safety standards do not only protect EU consumers, they also give legal certainty to (the) European cosmetics industry.”

    A crucial point, industries adjust to regulation very well, as long as the regulation is clear, stable and consistently applied. Not to say that they don’t work to undermine the regulations at times, but most of the time, stability is more important than the regulation itself. The regulation just gets added to the cost of doing business, and you protect yourself against lawsuits, you have plausible deniability, all the good stuff.

    The Commission had asked the cosmetics industry to provide safety files for all chemicals used in hair dyes to prove they do not pose a health risk for consumers. The ban concerns 22 chemicals for which no safety files were submitted by producers.

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    Canada loves asbestos (in third world lungs)

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    In a normal world, when something is severely restricted in your country, you would not export it to another country under the pretense that used under certain, very restricted conditions, your product only causes a moderate increase in cancer.

    While the federal government projects an image of being a helpful, international Boy Scout on issues ranging from peacekeeping to nuclear proliferation, Canada has a peculiar relationship to asbestos.

    globeandmail.com: Asbestos shame

    But we don’t live in a normal world, because asbestos is exported from Canada to India where it is added to cement.

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    Asbestos is one area where Canada lags even behind the US. And Canada’s environmental practices are going to come under increasing scrutiny as climate change unfreezes the great white North and exposes the resources underneath.

    Canada, the world is watching.

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  • Volcanos and Climate Geoengineering

    Byoliveridley

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    Vote Strategically for the Environment

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    via Vote For Environment / Voter Pour l’Environnement.

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    Byoliveridley

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