Conservatives Want More Dirt in Your Water
As Kieran Healy observes, this Robert Pear article focusing on the Bush administration’s efforts to weaken labor rights so as to make it easier for businesses to poison their workforce and so forth also contains a few more doozies mentioned offhand:
The Labor Department rule is among many that federal agencies are poised to issue before Mr. Bush turns over the White House to Mr. Obama.
One rule would allow coal companies to dump rock and dirt from mountaintop mining operations into nearby streams and valleys.
Yes, that’s right. In these troubled times, the right-wing has reached the conclusion that one of the primary issues facing the country is that it’s unduly difficult for coal companies to dump dirt into nearby streams. Because everyone wishes there was more dirt in their stream! Note that this is one of those issues where nothing about a commitment to free markets or property rights or liberty compels one to slavishly adopt the business-friendly view that people should have unlimited rights to ruin the water quality of people downstream. But that’s conservative governance in action.
30 Responses to “Conservatives Want More Dirt in Your Water”
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December 1st, 2008 at 9:21 am
Calling the waste “rock and dirt” is quite the understatement.
December 1st, 2008 at 9:26 am
Maybe an Ivy League trustfund scumbag like you has a problem with a dirty stream.
Real Americans like a little grit in their drinking water.
December 1st, 2008 at 9:39 am
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December 1st, 2008 at 9:42 am
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December 1st, 2008 at 9:54 am
LittleMac is correct. Just look at the success of bottled mineral water water.
December 1st, 2008 at 10:29 am
“Dirt” is actually one of the number one reasons for streams to be classified as “impaired” by EPA (along with acid mine drainage). Sedimentation as its called by the wonks pretty much destroys in-stream habitat for all sorts of wildlife, and actually creates a positive feedback loop where as more sediment enters the stream more dirt gets scoured from stream banks. As all this mine waste also carries tons of toxic metals it packs a double wallop to stream ecosystems.
December 1st, 2008 at 10:32 am
I don’t understand these various last minute executive orders. Can’t the incoming administration just issue a blanket reversal of all the executive orders from the last 3 months, or at least put them on freeze subject to a review?
It just seems like anything that can be done by executive fiat can as quickly be undone, so what’s the point? It’s not like the burrowing phenomenon by which you get appointees placed in positions that they’re tough to be removed from, or a pardon which is non-reviewable. An executive order is instantly reversible, by a stroke of the pen.
December 1st, 2008 at 10:32 am
Actually, “putting rock and dirt in the streams” doesn’t even come close to describing it; the Bush administration is trying to make it easier for coal companies to bury streams under thousands of tons of dynamited rock, which (since it used to be safely buried under a mountain) leaves the watershed poisoned by heavy metals (to the extent that a watershed still exists) and makes the land unusable for centuries. And we’re talking about a large proportion of the appalachian southern coalfields turning into a moonscape. Here’s a link for a Wash Post description of the process.
December 1st, 2008 at 10:34 am
Will there be opt-out provisions for front-loader operators who have conscientious objections to dirty water?
December 1st, 2008 at 10:43 am
Oh, c’mon, stop acting like mountains are these unrenewable resources. Eventually, in a few million years’ time, there might well be new mountains. So shut up, you whiny libs.
December 1st, 2008 at 11:03 am
This is an opportunity, if Democrats seize it. Use the CRA and undo everything, and make that the new paradigm: everything bad that’s done will be undone and then some. Greedhogs will be treated vindictively and end up far worse than when they started. Make them BEG any future outgoing Republican administration not to enact last-minute regulatory changes, for fear of how it will boomerang on them. Of course, that will be many years in the future and it’s unrealistic of me to expect anyone to have that long of a memory.
December 1st, 2008 at 12:07 pm
Doug T — according to the Robert Pear article, there’’s an important difference between executive orders and regulations:
A new president can unilaterally reverse executive orders issued by his predecessors, as Mr. Bush and President Bill Clinton did in selected cases. But it is much more difficult for a new president to revoke or alter final regulations put in place by a predecessor. A new administration must solicit public comment and supply “a reasoned analysis” for such changes, as if it were issuing a new rule, the Supreme Court has said.
They don’t say which Supreme Court case it is.
Apparently Congress</a. may be able to reverse last-minute regulations, but obviously that’s more cumbersome than simply reversing an executive order and it would be hard to do that while passing Obama’s legislative agenda. (Also note that that article was co-written by Erika Lovley of the global warming denialism article, so it may not be accurate.)
December 1st, 2008 at 12:16 pm
“to slavishly adopt the business-friendly view that people should have unlimited rights to ruin the water quality of people downstream”
I don’t believe that it’s a “business-friendly” policy in any
general sense: dirty streams hurt other businesses downstream,
for example small businesses paying taxes in towns that will
have to pay more to get clean water. It’s just a question of
selling the federal government to the particular businesses with
the biggest and best-connected lobbying operations.
After 8 years of Bush, culminating in a massive financial
crisis, a massive stockmarket crash, and a wave of huge
businesses teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, surely it’s
obvious that modern conservatism is not “business-friendly” ?
It’s just corrupt.
December 1st, 2008 at 12:49 pm
This seems more like Dick than Bush. Bush has his eco-friendly ranch and loves clearing brush and everything–he had some moderation in him once. I think that the past 8 years of being way way way way way way way beyond his natural abilities, and the sinking awareness of being history’s worst president, has made Bush into a mere shell of the superficial tit he was to begin with. To the point where Dick the ventriloquist can shove his hand about as far up the dummy’s arse as he wants.
December 1st, 2008 at 1:21 pm
The dumping of waste rock into fresh water streams is problematic. To begin, coal plants have been dumping waste rock into fresh water streams for many years. The fines for such violations are at most a minor annoyance for coal companies. The real issue here is whether the Bush administration will set policy and officially authorize such actions before Obama takes office. Of course, Obama will have the authority to reverse such actions, but it will take years to undo the harm and stop the practice.
Cheney, more so than Bush, has been a deep foe of any environmental stance that protects our country on a long term basis. One can only hope that reason and intelligence will prevail over idiotic policies implemented at the last moment by the most dangerous and treasonous administration ever to occupy the White House.
December 1st, 2008 at 2:26 pm
“The proposal would, in many cases, add a step to the lengthy process of developing standards to protect workers’ health.” Isn’t this precisely the kind of bureaucratic red tape that Republicans claim they want to avoid so that government will run more efficiently? I guess Republicans don’t mind red tape when it’s detrimental to workers.
December 1st, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Egad. If the Bush administration were fictionalized, people would complain about it being a vicious caricature.
Are they even attempting to justify this, or is it just a natural process of theirs, like defecation?
December 1st, 2008 at 6:13 pm
We get some sediment in our water. I recommend using vinegar to unclog clogged showerheads.
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