The Environmental Deception Agency

The Environmental Deception Protection Agency is a federal agency that is charged with the responsibility of writing and enforcing legislation to protect human health and the environment.  Established under Nixon in 1970, the EPA is another one of those agencies that sounds like a good idea, until you peel off the shiny friendly top layer to discover the stench of corruption underneath.

The Tainted Leadership

Much like the leadership of the FDA, the most recent administrators have some very questionable ties.

Present: Lisa Jackson

If people are judged by the company they keep, then it’s very unfortunate for Lisa Jackson that she was most recently Governor Jon Corzine’s Chief of Staff. (I’m sure we all recall that nasty little scandal in which 1.2 BILLION dollars of other people’s money vanished out of Corzine’s sweaty little hands).

Since taking the reins of the EPA, Jackson’s handling of the Gulf Oil spill has triggered numerous petitions for her removal from the office. Jackson allowed BP to use a toxic dispersal chemical in the contaminated waters, sparking local outrage.

According to one petition, “Lisa Jackson failed to alert, or to seek approval from, the communities and people who would be most impacted by the dispersant. As has been noted in an open letter by leading scientists, the people of the Gulf are unwitting participants in scientific experimentation of a massive scale. This is unethical, immoral, illegal and goes against every scientific principle that Lisa Jackson would have learned in her training. … She was hired to enforce the environmental laws of our country but instead has knowingly and willfully violated them.”

We’ll discuss Jackson’s disappointing handling of the Fukushima disaster a little further down the page.

2005: Stephen L. Johnson

Johnson’s leadership of the EPA was punctuated by several moves so controversial that even the ethically questionable member of the US Congress called for his resignation.

During his confirmation hearing, he cancelled a study he had previously supported – the Children’s Environmental Exposure Research Study – which, horrifyingly, studied the effect of household chemicals and pesticides on small children, and even worse, was partially sponsored by a lobbying group that worked for the large chemical companies.  (Don’t worry – the families were compensated up to $1000 AND a t-shirt for promising to expose their kids to potential toxins for three years.)

With that nasty study out of the way, Johnson continued to wreak environmental havoc by (illegally) hampering 17 states from making their own regulations regarding automotive emissions, bringing him before the Congress again amidst a cry for his resignation. Under Johnson, the EPA made flawed pro-industry regulations that were later overthrown in court.

After his tenure at the EPA, Johnson has been added to the boards of Miracle-Gro and FlexEnergy.

2003: Mike Leavitt

Leavitt has no background in science whatsoever.  He earned a BS in economics and business. He worked on numerous political campaigns before he became the governor of Utah.  He became extremely wealthy by starting a large insurance company and also served on the board of directors for Utah Power and Light. Somehow, despite his lack of education or experience in environmental subjects, he was appointed to the EPA in 2003. Environmentalists protested his nomination, citing that he had allowed polluting industries to develop millions of acres of Utah wilderness.

While in charge of the EPA, Leavitt drew fire for using memos written by coal industry lobbyists when issuing a proposed plan to regulate mercury emissions from coal-burning power plants (a plan that critics said was far too lax to have positive effect). Leavitt’s lethargic record for regulating the use of toxic chemicals for fracking was cause for a congressional hearing.

Leavitt subsequently became the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and is now the owner of a consulting group, Leavitt Partners, which assists states in implementing Obamacare.

The EPA and Industry

The EPA has been accused of covering up crimes committed by public health enemy #1, Monsanto, as well as Dow Chemicals.  The EPA’s investigation proved that Monsanto knowingly tainted Lysol (used by moms everywhere to sanitize babies’ toys) with dioxin.  However, no criminal charges have been forthcoming as of this publication.

The EPA also quietly closed an investigation of Monsanto’s twisted cover-up in the Nitro, West Virginia herbicide plant accident that exposed hundreds of workers to deadly carcinogen dioxin, which can still be found in nearby streams and lakes. Despite the fact that this investigation simply disappeared, Monsanto agreed in February to pay $93 million dollars to residents of Nitro in order to settle a class action lawsuit.

The EPA has refused to ban a pesticide made by Dow Chemicals, the controversial 2,4-D, the same substance used in Agent Orange. This pesticide will be used on corn crops that have been genetically engineered to be resistant to the toxin.  Agent Orange causes cancer, hormone disruption, genetic mutations and neurotoxicity and will be soon be coming to a corn field near you.

The EPA has refused a petition to ban BPA in industry, citing a lack of scientific evidence of the negative effects of the chemical. BPA is commonly found tainting canned goods, especially soup, and bottled water that has been exposed to heat. (Author’s note:  It would probably be very expensive for industry to have to replace all those containers with BPA-free cans and bottles.)

The EPA and Radiation Sleight-of-Hand

Our country is currently being inundated with radiation from the Fukushima disaster.  The EPA is right on top of things with their response, of course. First, they promptly closed down 8 of 18 radiation measuring stations in the hardest hit area, California.  Then, to further calm the good people of the nation, the EPA magically changed the numbers.  They’ve raised the amount of radiation that we can safely absorb and ingest.  It wouldn’t do for the large factory farms to be unable to sell their tainted produce or for the huge dairies to be stuck with all that radioactive milk.

The radiation in our food supply is of so little concern to the EPA that they’ve actually begun to tell us that a little bit of radiation is good for us. According to a report citing the EPA, a bit of radiation can prevent cancer, instead of causing it.

Since our minds can be at ease now, the EPA has decided that they are no longer planning to monitor the radiation levels in our food supply.  They will return to their previous practice of only monitoring random samples every three months.  Yep.  Really.  The Environmental Protection Agency of the United States is no longer monitoring radiation levels in our food and water supplies as of April 14th.  That will definitely keep them from getting those inconveniently high readings that might affect Big Agri’s prosperity.

“I really am horrified,” said Daniel Hirsch, a nuclear policy lecturer at the University of California, Santa Cruz. “It’s quite staggering and it seems to be part of the pattern of the EPA trying to make sure that there are no measurements that could cause people to be concerned.”

In a very clear case of the wolves watching the baby lambs, the EPA is turning over monitoring decisions and responsibility to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The EPA: Just another instrument of government deceit

One controversy after another can be attributed to the EPA, an agency charged with protecting the air we breathe, the soil in which we grow our food and the water that we drink.  At the bottom of each of those controversies can be found ties to the conspiracies of the big businesses that really run the country.  Decisions are being auctioned off to industry lobbyists with the most money and influence.

Environmental protection is only the rule of thumb if it goes along with Agenda 21 – the EPA is all over the green agenda in cases that benefit the redistribution of wealth, but the agency completely ignores blatant crimes against the earth if it involves fracking for the benefit of a natural gas company.

I used to content myself in believing that if something wasn’t safe, it wouldn’t be used in America, that forward-thinking, technically brilliant land that supported life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  Sadly, in the case of yet another federal agency, safety is in the eye of the highest bidder.