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EPA considers dropping landmark lead restrictions
Battery makers and lead smelters have been lobbying the Bush administration to roll back standards that keep lead out of gasoline—and their efforts may prove successful—for industry, that is.
According to a statement released by the EPA earlier this week, the agency is considering dropping the lead limits in light of " the significantly changed circumstances since lead was listed in 1976" as an air pollutant. Yes, the success of the lead regulations--which according to the EPA have cut airborne lead levels by 90% in two in a half decades—may be the excuse for their termination.
California Rep. Henry Waxman has spoken out against this measure, demanding that the agency scrap the proposal immediately. Lead, which causes nerve damage and neurotic disorders, particularly in children, is one of six air pollutants the EPA must review every year to ensure stringent enough health protections. The others are ozone, soot, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide and nitrous oxides.
Link to the Wall Street Journal article (subscription only)
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Comments
Were he still alive, my dad (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clair_Cameron_Patterson) would not stand silent for this and neither should you. To abandon a federal standard for this most pernicious environmental toxin would send a message to the captains of industry that the gatekeeper is truly gone. The recognition of lead as a global threat to human health, and the callous response of corporate leaders and compromised "scientists" who valued money more than the health of their own children and posterity, should stand as a clarion warning to those who would respond to the success of my father's work to reduce global lead pollution by eliminating emmision standards.
Posted by: cameron Patterson | January 9, 2007 1:48 PM