Saturday, September 03, 2011

Selling Out Our Lungs

Here’s the thing. When President Obama decided to relax the stringent air pollution standards, he didn’t do that because he thought the Republican congress wouldn’t support the standards with their votes. The Republican congress has no say in what the EPA can and cannot do. The EPA is in the Executive Branch.

No, this is all on the President.

And Republicans are doing handstands. They love that my president just sold out my lungs, your lungs and our children’s lungs to corporate polluters.

And Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee loves it too for some reason.

Here’s the thing. Nothing will come of this. Republicans will not produce a quid pro quo just because President Obama totally caved to corporate America. They’ll simply want more.

Now I admit, I have no insight into the President’s brain. I have no idea why he did what he did. I have questioned his actions before and then saw the wisdom of them further down the road. But at the present time I cannot see any good to come out of this. Having clean, unpolluted air is a right just as much as a right of free speech, or a right to bear arms (if you participate in a militia, that is). Just because the founding fathers did not know about industrial air pollution, that doesn’t make a right to breathe clean air unconstitutional.

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