DEC 2019 |
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Frank Bernheisel: The View From Here |
![]() ![]() ![]() Frank Bernheisel |
Posted
12.17.20 Just Outside Washington FRANK BERNHEISEL
WHY
ENVIRONMENTAL REGS ARE NEEDED
Over the last almost four years, Trump with the help of his
anti-government cronies, has kept one of his 2016 campaign promises.
That was his promise to roll back regulations, particularly
environmental regulations.
The recent Brookings blog post this morning had the summary of
this activity(more like the tip of the iceberg). The internal links in
this discussion lead to a lot of supporting detail, which adds depth to
the summary.
Of particular interest to me, is the link to Regulatory Policy and its
Tracking deregulation in the Trump era, which has a comprehensive list
of individual regulatory action with their status.
licking on the expansion button provides a summary of each policy and
where it is in the process.
We all benefit by environmental regulations, as illustrated by the
recent crisis in Flint, Michigan.
The city of Flint, in April 2014, changed its water source from treated
Detroit Water and Sewerage Department to the Flint River in an effort to
save money. They violated a number of environmental regulations
resulting in eroding of old pipes and elevated levels of lead in the
drinking water.
As many as 12,000 children were exposed to drinking water with high
levels of lead, which cause long-term health problems. The water supply
change also caused an outbreak of Legionnaires' disease that killed 12
people.
As a result, four government officials -- one from the city of Flint,
two from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ), and
one from the EPA -- resigned over their roles in the crisis, and one
additional MDEQ staff member was fired.
The Flint residents impacted sued and were awarded $641 million, with 80
percent going to the families with children. A major result has been the
replacement of about 10,000 lead pipes by the city, at a cost of about
$60 million.
Further upgrades to the Flint water system to bring it up to the
environmental standards are estimated at $110 million. In 2017, Flint
received an EPA grant of $100 million to help pay for water
infrastructure repairs.
So Trump did keep a little bit of his campaign promise to "invest $1
trillion on infrastructure" to bail out Flint. Flint would have saved
lives and a ton of money, if it had replaced the lead pipes and brought
their system into environmental compliance.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/12/15/the-trump-
administrations-major-environmental-deregulations/?utm_campaign=
Brookings%20Brief&utm_medium=email&utm_content=103152261&utm_source=
hs_email |
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