Posted on 10/03/2013 10:59:29 AM PDT by reaganaut1
It is far from clear how badly the country’s environment will be damaged by the government shutdown. But the immediate prospects are not promising.
Republicans who detest the Environmental Protection Agency were not bothered in the least by the fact that the agency furloughed more than 90 percent of its 16,000-plus full and part-time employees. But people living near toxic waste sites will be bothered. Forced to perform what amounts to emergency triage, agency officials said they had no choice but to stop work on about 500 of the nation’s Superfund sites, more than 60 percent of the total, with work proceeding only at those sites where industrial residues could get into the drinking water supply or present other immediate threats to human health. Work at sites presenting longer-term dangers will be set aside until funding is restored.
Other important if less visible programs will also be affected. Because key personnel have to stay home, work on the E.P.A. rules governing greenhouse gas emissions from power plants will slow down. The agency’s Energy Star program — a voluntary program that helps businesses and individuals clean the air and protect the climate through energy-efficient appliances and buildings – is closed down, for lack of people and computers. Similarly, farmers and ranchers who want technical advice and financial credits for participating in vital land and soil conservation programs are finding phones unanswered, websites inoperative and doors closed at local Agriculture Department offices.
The shutdown has also thrown sand in the legal machinery necessary to enforce environmental rules. Lawsuits filed by the Natural Resource Defense Council and other groups to close down polluting cement kilns, for instance, have been put on hold.
(Excerpt) Read more at takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com ...
What shut down?
So critters won’t receive their government checks?
Over 93% of EPA Employees Considered ‘Non-Essential’
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/10/01/Over-93-of-EPA-Employees-Considered-Non-Essential
what “essential employees”?
EPA is one of the biggest problem-makers we've got!
The dimbulbs are actually WORRIED that the EPA won't be able to keep an eye on a nonexistent problem?
Onion caption: “Area Government Agency in Trouble”
Over 99.999% of EPA Employees Considered ‘Non-Essential’
The author’s last name should be Simple.
Woman, children, and minorities hurt the most.
I saw a line of hungry snail darters trying to get in a closed national park.
It almost broke my heart...
Would you expect anything different from the New York Slimes?
LOLOL!
Isn’t it amazing that our world spins where it does?
Do you think that whatever entity, started it spinning is concerned about not being able to control its temperature.
I wonder if the EPA could get by with only 8,000 non-essential employees.
I am sure they were working 7/24 on these, taking no weekends off. Could you imagine how bad it would be if they took off two straight day? Wow, taking a third day off would be the end of the world.
Polar Bears and Whales are dying by the thousands.
Pray America is Waking Up
Que lastima.
America the greenbanana republic.
Terrorists and world cults will want to rule us like a french colony.
Mugabe Obama ping.
Well then, all the LIV's out there should contact their Dem Senator and demand that they pass the House CR bills and get things back up and running!!
Personally, I say keep it shut down for at least a few weeks.....
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