Posted on 03/30/2014 7:42:36 AM PDT by Hoodat
Environmental Protection Agency and FBI agents raided the ammunition company USA Brass over alleged “environmental violations” early Thursday morning.
NBC Montana was tipped off by witnesses that federal investigators were there until at least 4 a.m. on Thursday. Federal agents could be seen going through the company’s building and taking items to a truck parked outside. EPA lead criminal investigator Bert Marsden said that the agency was looking into alleged “environmental violations” by USA Brass.
“We are investigating alleged violations of environmental law,” Marsden said on Thursday. “An investigation takes as long as it takes, and I can’t provide any details as it relates to that.”
“I can make a statement that there is no immediate threat to the public or the community at this time,” said Marsden.
It’s unclear exactly what the environmental violations were, but USA Brass has come under fire from federal agencies before for lead exposure. USA Brass cleans and resells used ammunition casings, and NBC Montana reports that local health officials found elevated levels of lead in the blood of 22 current and former employees.
Last September, the company was fined more than $45,000 by the U.S. Labor Department for 10 serious violations. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) also found that USA Brass has overexposed workers to lead and failed to “provide basic safeguards to reduce lead exposure, including breathing protection and protective clothing,” reports NBC Montana. . .
being anti lead is as emotional a religion as being anti co2. The lead police congregate at the EPA
OSHA is not sufficiently radical and pure of heart
To me it sounds like the company failed to take proper safeguards against lead exposure.....
I worked in the automation industry supervising installations. If lead was found in existing paint, we had to call in the guys in the spacesuits, very expensive..
if 20 plus employees had elevated levels of lead in their blood, then the company is, in my mind, criminally neglegent and completely responsible for both the health damage and all medical expenses.
the officers of this company should be in prison
“When are people going to start shooting back at these goons?”
In the long run we have to clean out the universities which are the breeding ground for this Marxist bullsh*t. It’s where their policy makers go to hide when they’re out of power and need to make some easy money.
Tyranny is already quite protected by Fed State and Local gov'ts.
We need a Liberty and Constitution Protection Agency.
Why are automotive batteries not yet banned?
The question is how much?
I'm an ancient "survivor" of leaded gasoline and doing just fine thanks.
USA Brass will simply load their brass and jobs onto a mostly empty return boat and reopen as China Brass.
Also, I believe that both workers in the work place and the environment need to be legislatively protected. But until the Constitution is appropriately amended, such protection must come from the states and not from the federal government.
As a consequence the parents of the owners of USA Brass not making sure that their children were taught about the federal government's constitutionally limited powers, the owners of USA Brass were evidently not able to argue the following concerning the EPA raid. (Note that this same argument also applies to OSHA where intrastate private property is concerned.)
With the exception of the federal entities indicated in the Constitution's Clauses 16 & 17 of Section 8 of Article I as examples, entities under the exclusive legislative control of Congress, the States have never amended the Constitution to grant Congress the specific powers to legislatively protect either the environment or workers in the workplace where intrastate property is concerned.
In fact, the Founding States had made the 10th Amendment to clarify that the Constitution's silence about such issues means that they are automatically and uniquely state power issues.
Again, the only reason, imo, that owners of USA Brass have reluctantly replied "How high?" when the constitutionally undefined EPA shouted "JUMP!" is because the owners are evidently clueless about the federal government's constitutionally limited powers.
Also, as I've mentioned in related threads, even if the states had delegated to Congress, via the Constitution, the specific powers to regulate workplace conditions and the environment, the Founding States had made the first numbered clauses in the Constitution, Sections 1-3 of Article I, evidently a good place to hide them from citizens, to clarify that all federal legislative powers are vested in the elected members of Congress. So Congress has a constitutional monopoly on federal legislative powers whether it wants it or not.
So by unconstitutionally delegating legislative powers to the non-elected bureaucrats running the EPA and OSHA, powers in this case that the States have never constitutionally delegated to Congress, Congress is wrongly protecting nonexistent federal legislative powers from the wrath of the voters in blatant defiance of the Sections 1-3 indicated above.
Finally, remember that your constitutionally powerful state lawmakers aren't lifting a finger to protect citizens from a corrupt federal government that likes to ignore its constitutionally limited powers because your state lawmakers are undoubtedly as constitutionally clueless as the voters who elected them are.
Are we having fun yet? =^O
Finally, with all due respect to the family and friends of the late President Nixon, he was constitutionally negligent, imo, to sign the bill which established the EPA, and also the bill which established OSHA.
What a mess! :^(
i am probably older than you...
there is a difference between nominal contact and repeated high level of exposure...
hell, i have made sinkers out of lead....
i do not have elevated levels of lead in my body...
failure to take proper safeguards for your employees is criminal, and these guys put cash in their pockets at the expense of their employees very right to live..
they belong in prison, or they should be forced to perform the work the way they had their employees perform the work for a period of 5 years...
take away from them what they took away from those that worked for them...
(Most Freepers seem to be Seasoned Citizenz....)
I don't eat the paint chips, but do vacuum them up during Spring Cleaning occasionally.
None of the fam has had any high Pb levels.
A little ventilation helps a lot. I've also done some plumbing with liquid lead for joint sealing without picking up a significant load.
More specifics would help in analysis.
Peeling?
USA Brass will simply load their brass and jobs onto a mostly empty return boat and reopen as China Brass.
That deserves repeating...
Four?
“Lead exposure in the workplace is an OSHA issue. Not sure why the EPA and FBI decided to get involved. “
It is a common practice to enter a business for one reason to search the premises for the real reason.
Actually, not “departments” as such, but there were four members of the President’s original Cabinet:
Secretary of War
Secretary of State
Secretary of Treasury
Attorney General
Ah, I follow you now.
Thanks for the info.
“If you don’t vote Republican in the mid-terms and in 2016, you can expect lots more of this. Get it folks?”
FR tells us that there was no difference between Obama and Romney. What good does it do voting Republican?
First thought on reading the headline as well. It's about time, Claire.
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