Slashdot Mirror
Trump Administration Prepares a Major Weakening of Mercury Emissions Rules (nytimes.com)
The Trump administration has completed a detailed legal proposal to dramatically weaken a major environmental regulation covering mercury, a toxic chemical emitted from coal-burning power plants, The New York Times reports, citing a person familiar with the matter. From the report: The proposal would not eliminate the mercury regulation entirely, but it is designed to put in place the legal justification for the Trump administration to weaken it and several other pollution rules, while setting the stage for a possible full repeal of the rule. Andrew Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist who is now the acting administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, is expected in the coming days to send the proposal to the White House for approval. The move is the latest, and one of the most significant, in the Trump administration's steady march of rollbacks of Obama-era health and environmental regulations on polluting industries, particularly coal. The weakening of the mercury rule -- which the E.P.A. considers the most expensive clean air regulation ever put forth in terms of annual cost to industry -- would represent a major victory for the coal industry. Mercury is known to damage the nervous systems of children and fetuses.
From Wikipedia:
Arendt's subtitle famously introduced the phrase "the banality of evil," which also serves as the final words of the book. In part, at least, the phrase refers to Eichmann's deportment at the trial as the man displayed neither guilt for his actions nor hatred for those trying him, claiming he bore no responsibility because he was simply "doing his job" ("He did his duty...; he not only obeyed orders, he also obeyed the law." p. 135).
"What further need have we of witnesses?"
I strongly suspect that he won't be a footnote.
Trump's presidency represents a turning point for western democracy. Do we reject amoral crony capitalism and move back towards the social compact that first brought us to prosperity, or do we embrace the post-truth, post-compassion world and descend into a new age of feudalism?
Agreed this is a turning point. We're at that question mark
Mercury travels a long way, for example you can see in this infographic that a lot of Chinese mercury emissions end up in the USA.
Come to think of it, that's probably what's yanking Trump's chain here - can't have American babies being poisoned by Chinese mercury when they could have good old-fashioned American mercury instead! America first, right?
Oh no... it's the future.
or is this man truly evil?
Trump is easily the worst person (competence, morals, decency, empathy, etc - pick your measure) to get to the office of president in my lifetime and I'm old enough to have lived during Nixon's administration. He surrounds himself with people who are somehow if anything worse in a lot of ways. There are prominent republicans who I respect and think could be good presidents even if I don't necessarily agree with their policy positions on a given topic. Trump is not even close to among them. I thought Bush Jr was a terrible president but I'd take him in a heartbeat over Trump. Reagan or Bush Sr would be a huge upgrade. Heck I'd happily take McCain (even with Palin) or Romney who I think were both competent and fundamentally decent people. No I'm not arguing the Democrats were notably better (they weren't) but literally every other president or candidate for either party in the last half centry would be an improvement over Trump.
Trump is honestly the first President in my lifetime who I do not think is actually doing what they think is best for the country. The Bushes, Clinton, Obama, hell even the losing candidates like McCain, Gore, Kerry, Bill's scarier half, while I didn't agree with all of their policies, I did believe that for the most part they were doing what they thought was good for the country. That's really about all you can ask of a leader. Trump on the other hand, only cares about what's good for Trump, anyone named Trump, and anyone who supports him so long as they continue to support him and their support benefits Trump. It's "Trump, the whole Trump, and nothing but the Trump, so help you Trump."
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
This must be part of a twenty year plan to grow a new batch of Trump-style electors: people who confuse their tribe—and the size of its roar—with their political interests.
I tend to see the recent political era as the ascendancy of people who can't explain anything.
Trump has actually admitted an error or two. But he's still never explained a single physical or political mechanism with more than two moving parts.
This is why Bannon was on Maher the other day suggesting that Bernie would have been more effective if his style was more like Michael Avenatti (which pot/kettle was this suggestion most intended to blacken by association?), and then immediately followed up on this by suggesting that maybe Oprah was the kind of person who could carry the Democratic nomination in the near future.
Yeah, great: another person in bright glare of the media business, who's consistently light on explanation as a matter of personal style.
Indeed. If you think the orange guy is merely a fluke, just remember how close Mrs. Palin came to being in power, considering McCain's uncertain health.
As I mentioned before on slashdot, roughly 40% of the country are Yosemite Sams who put fellow Sams in office. If enough voters sit out an election over email drama or the like, then the Sams rule.
I'd rather have somebody in power who screws up emails than who screws up everything because they personally enjoy chaos (T) and/or hate civilization (Palin).
Table-ized A.I.