Posted on 02/28/2024 9:21:22 AM PST by Twotone
Without so much as a whisper of pushback from Congress, the White House is bulldozing forward with a regulatory proposal that could cost the average household up to $10,000 extra in water costs. But it’s not only President Joe Biden‘s campaign that is scared of this latest forefront of the president’s green agenda — Biden’s own Pentagon is panicking over the proposal.
The World Health Organization now recommends that governments limit polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as PFAS or “forever plastics” that are resistant to breaking down in either the environment or the human body, at a level of 100 parts per trillion. This is the same level limited by the European Commission. Japan set a temporary PFAS limit of 50 ppt in 2020, and Sweden limits most PFAS at an average of 90 ppt. As far as more restrictive measures go, Canada is trying to lower its limit to 30 ppt, while Denmark is trying to ban PFAS in specific, isolated sectors such as in paper food packaging.
And then, there is America’s Environmental Protection Agency, which is trying to reduce its advisory limit of 70 ppt to a hard limit of 4 ppt for two prevalent types of PFAS, PFOA and PFOS, for all drinking water.
In other words, Biden would decrease the Obama administration’s suggested PFAS limit to a legal maximum by 94.3%. The new standard would be 4% of the WHO’s recommendation and less than one-tenth of 1% of that of Australia and New Zealand.
According to a Black & Veatch consulting report commissioned by the American Water Works Association, the EPA’s proposed standards would increase water costs by anywhere from $80 to $11,150 per year for each household. Contrary to the EPA’s estimate of $1 billion extra in annual costs added to water utilities, the AWWA argues the new standards would amount to $3.8 billion in new annual costs.
But according to the Pentagon, it’s not just household budgets that are at risk if this proposal succeeds — it’s also our national security.
“[The Department of Defense] is reliant on the critically important chemical and physical properties of PFAS to provide required performance for the technologies and consumable items and articles which enable military readiness and sustainment,” read a Pentagon report sent to Congress in August. “Losing access to PFAS due to overly broad regulations or severe market contractions would greatly impact national security and DoD’s ability to fulfill its mission.”
According to the DoD, PFAS are found in its infrastructure related to “information technology, critical manufacturing, health care, renewable energy, and transportation,” including within batteries, semiconductors, and most weaponry. Even before the EPA’s new standards come into effect, the Pentagon estimated it would require $39 billion to clean up PFAS contamination past the Obama-era recommendation. In total, nearly 3,000 private wells by 63 military bases are considered contaminated, with some combined levels of PFOS and PFOA at 10,000 ppt — or 2,500 times higher than what the EPA would allow under these new standards.
For reference regarding how uniquely stringent the proposed PFAS standards are, the EPA limits arsenic in water at 10 parts per billion and cyanide at 200 parts per billion. Thus the EPA is asking that taxpayers pay tens of billions of dollars to bring the prevalence of some plastics to a level less than a fraction of a percent of what we allow for literal poisons.
The White House Office of Regulatory Affairs is now reviewing the final rule. If it pushes the standards through prior to the Congressional Review Act deadline of May 22, this baseless standard will become law without so much as a peep from our so-called lawmakers.
>>the quicker we will find out if the average citizen has a spine and a brain.<<
We already have. Still any doubt?
I’m beginning to sense they are starting to give up a bit on climate change and are switching to “forever plastics.”
“Does this affect households that get their water from a their own well?”
It really depends on where you are. If you share an aquifer with a military base it probably does. The same government that gave you the EPA also runs the bases that for years have been dumping all manner of solvents, lubricants, firefighting foam etc. into the groundwater. Many of the wells in Moose Creek and North Pole in interior Alaska have been contaminated by effluent from Eielson AFB and
Fort Wainwright. If you are only going to be there for a couple of years you really don’t care what you leave behind.
The arrest you for collecting rain water.
I’m beginning to sense they are starting to give up a bit on climate change and are switching to “forever plastics.”
—
Well since they can make up their own facts they can be very flexible.
yes, its a never ending rules & regs...
after i read somethong like this
I have to say “ what’s next??
this admin is criminal with a criminal
pos Prez. He will eat the ice cream
cone and discuss something a bit
about the vety little foreign policy
he understands. He knows he is on
easy street, he is not responsible
for anything . Through his abusive
speech
and even physically getting in
people’s faces,he is a bully
and comes across as a my way or the
highway person.
He has no respect for Americans, anyone.
Its only his “ record” and the very
saddest part he turned to criminal
acts to enrich himself, all the while
stating he was the “ poorest member”
in Wash DC.
“If this is passed, what will be the benefit”?
Nothing at all. Except for the Cronie Capitalists who will make $ billions.
‘They would try to outlaw private wells. Good luck with that.”
Before the city annexed my neighborhood we were on a well and septic. A few jerks in the city government drew a line around my place and indeed forced my on city water and city sewer. They slammed a $50,000 lien against the property to pay for it upon sale. BUT, to insult me further they seized my property for a park and I got basically nothing after they made me pay the lien from the pathetic check they cut for my land.
HENCE my most potent medicine for my hatred of all things government.
“Is it just me or has this been the longest most depressing 4 years ever.
I used to think for four decades the Carter years could never be matched, boy was I wrong.
Local municipal regs.
lots of dead people do try to keep up
You nailed it! Back when the nation was sensible, it was the way John Adams so eloquently put it...
But no longer.
If stuff like doesn’t scare the general public, I don’t know what will.
When we finally had rural water plumbed into our house, there was an entire page of restrictions we had to follow so that there was no possibility of our well water backing up into their water system. My well water tests better than theirs does.
“If this is passed, what will be the benefit?”
The US middle class will be financially destroyed even faster than the Marxists initially planned on? (just a guess)
I looked some of the environmental reports for Quantico.
As late as 1983, their preferred method of disposal for vehicle batteries (lead-acid like those used in cars and trucks) was to pour the acid out into a hole in the ground, and bury the rest.
I’m guessing that’s not how the local Firestone disposed of car batteries back then!
Look at the costs. The clear benefit is the destruction of the middle class. The .1% furthering their goals.
“I used to think for four decades the Carter years could never be matched, boy was I wrong.”
And some of us only thought that the eight years of the Obamanation couldn’t get much worse. How naive of us.
The alternative energy companies owned by leftists could make money selling water purifiers for households that collect their own urine and distill it into pure water!
The Hunter Biden business plans are likely already in place !
That way Biden and his green new deal extremists can force MAGA Americans to drink their own pish! ANd make money doing it !
Wonderful?
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