March 8, 2011

Upton's attack on EPA and our health

Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) has introduced legislation with Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) to block the Environmental Protection Agency from implementing Clean Air Act protections against global warming pollution, rejecting the counsel of America's public health advocates.  A boon to Koch Industries and the other polluters who supported his campaign, Upton's legislation would nullify the EPA's Supreme Court-mandated scientific finding that greenhouse gasses affect climate change. 

Upton and Inhofe are proposing to pass a federal law that would repeal a scientific law.  Under this proposed legislation, Inhofe and Upton would determine that ''Water vapor, Carbon dioxide, Methane, Nitrous oxide, Sulfur hexafluoride, Hydrofluorocarbons, and Perfluorocarbons" do not affect climate change. 

By rejecting the clean energy economy, the only job Upton seems interested in saving is his own. Moreover, Upton's denial of reality comes just days after the American Medical Association and the American Public Health Association warned policymakers of the grave threat global warming poses to the health our families and communities. Based on scientific studies, experts agree that the following are key health risks from carbon pollution:
  • More than doubled asthma rates and lengthened asthma season
  • Threatened access to clean drinking water
  • Increases in airborne and insect borne illnesses
  • Increases in morbidity and mortality due to heat waves and other extreme weather
  • Increases in diarrheal, respiratory, and heart disease
  • Increased risk of salmonella spread as average temperatures rise
The health risks of climate pollution are particularly severe among low-income communities, children, and the elderly. With this attempt to rewrite the Clean Air Act, Upton is protecting polluter profits at the expense of our health. 
Perhaps next is a law declaring that cigarettes don't cause cancer, mercury is not poisonous and radiation isn't harmful. 
http://climateprogress.org/2011/03/06/fred-upton-public-health-threat-carbon-pollution-myth/

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