An alternative vision for protecting the public?

The excellent Newsday series "Erasing the Rules" concludes today with a look at Senator Kerry's legislative record and campaign platform and inquires whether they represent an alternative to current regulatory policy: In the mid-1990s when Republicans in Congress were pushing to make regulations harder to enact, consumer, labor and environmental groups sought an ally committed to government oversight and capable of grasping the complexity of the rules.

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Of foxes, henhouses, and unbreathable air

The excellent Newsday series, "Erasing the Rules," continues today with a focus on EPA. There have been some exceptions to the pattern, such as the EPA's adoption earlier this year of tough new emissions standards for diesel engines. But critics and many analysts say the common thread that ties together almost all of the administration's other environmental initiatives is to cushion the impact of regulations on business.

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Foxes in the henhouse, blood on the floor

Don't miss "Erasing the Rules," the excellent series in Newsday on the Bush administration regulatory record.

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Meme Watch: "Cross-ridge mining"

Mountaintop removal mining -- blasting off the tops of mountains in order to remove the coal underneath, and then dumping the mountaintops into the valleys and waterways below -- has been called "[o]ne of the greatest environmental and human rights catastrophes in American history." As the public has become aware of the ecological devastation happening in the ancient Appalachian mountains, the mining companies have wised up and applied the art of PR spin.

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FDA Squelches Findings of Own Scientist.... Again.

Though studies dating as far back as 2000 pointed to increased risk of cardiovascular disease and stroke for users of Vioxx, FDA has stood quietly on the sidelines while more than 27,000 users of the drug experienced serious side effects. In fact, a top FDA scientist in the Office of Drug Safety alleged yesterday that higher-ups at FDA attempted to suppress his conclusions about the dangers of Vioxx. According to the Washington Post,

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From politicizing science to politicizing history

The Los Angeles Times is reporting a doozy: VP wife Lynne Cheney has long opposed the National History Standards because they contain too much actual history and haven't been politically slanted in favor of her more "positive" vision of America's past. When she realized that the Department of Education was circulating a 10-year-old guidebook for parents, "Helping Your Child Learn History," that mentioned the national standards, her staff communicated its displeasure to the Education Department.

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Danger on the store shelves

Consumer Reports has released two reports on the failures of federal government agencies to ensure that unsafe products are removed from the market.
  • Products subject to recall aren't being returned to the manufacturer:

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Immunity for factory farm polluters?

In These Times magazine has a great article today about a stealth effort at EPA to slow down needed regulation of factory farm pollution and shield the industry from accountability.

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22-year-old Wildlife Protection Standard Waived

U.S. Forest Service posted a temporary final rule in the Federal Register last week that will rollback regulation to protect endangered fish and wildlife from logging and development in national forests. The new rule gives U.S. Forest Service officials flexibility in how they calculate the risk to fish and wildlife populations when reviewing road-building, logging or other proposals. The rule allows officials to waive the 22-year-old Reagan-era standard that requires that forests maintain "viable populations" of fish and wildlife.

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So much for hours-of-service win...

Remember the public interest victory in the hours-of-service case? A Department of Transportation agency proposed new rules governing the maximum number of hours in a stretch that trucking companies can force their workers to drive without rest or days off -- but the rule change would have permitted trucking companies to game the system and force their workers to drive much longer than even the old rules. Public Citizen won a court victory we described here.

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