Bush Rapes Clean Air Act
The Bush administration’s Environmental Protection Agency, in a bid to unprotect the environment, is considering rolling back limits on lead being pumped into our ecosphere.
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Contaminated Air Act |
That’s right…the Bush administration thinks it’s a good idea to put lead back in gasoline.
Lead Lowers IQ
Before 1900, the lead level in humans was near zero. Now, you and I eat and breathe more lead than our bodies can get rid of. The extra lead is stored in our blood, organs, bones, and teeth. It damages our kidneys, brain, spinal cord, reproductive system, and causes high blood pressure.
Lead is especially harmful to the developing brains of children, even before birth.
Although the EPA has designated a “safe” level of lead in the blood, multiple international studies comparing blood lead levels to IQ in over 1,300 children, have found no lower safety threshold. There is no safe level of lead in your body.
In the United States, leaded gasoline—a major source of lead, from engine exhaust—was phased out between 1975 and 1986. Since then, blood lead levels have dropped by 90%. Why would anyone want to reverse this trend?
The Incentive to Deregulate Lead Pollution
For years, refineries have lobbied the Bush administration to dump regulations on lead pollution.
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Contrary to popular belief, lead doesn’t have to be removed from gasoline to make unleaded fuel.
No, the refineries want to ADD lead to gasoline, because lead boosts the octane rating. So, if the refineries are allowed to bring back leaded fuel, they can make your 87-octane from a much cheaper grade of gasoline, and probably charge you the same price. |
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With Exxon reporting a paltry $10.5 billion in profits last quarter, it’s crystal clear they need more profit (NOT!)
Corporations Talk, Voters Walk
As with most of the Bush administration’s actions, the motives are well-defined once you peel your eyes from the welfare of middle-class citizens and follow the cash being stuffed into pockets in highly-elected places: When rich corporations talk, the voters walk.
Now that it’s clear how fast Bush will dump our children’s health in order to make the oil industry an even larger windfall, let’s hope Big Oil doesn’t discover how to profit from straight-out mutilation and murder, though some would argue that this, too, has already come to pass…
From The Los Angeles Times: It’s still about oil in Iraq.
Further, the Iraq Study Group would commit U.S. troops to Iraq for several more years to, among other duties, provide security for Iraq’s oil infrastructure…All told, the Iraq Study Group has simply made the case for extending the war until foreign oil companies — presumably American ones — have guaranteed legal access to all of Iraq’s oil fields and until they are assured the best legal and financial terms possible.
Screw children. Screw the troops. Screw the voters. The USA has become about making money for oil corporations. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you and your President will get along.
Read More: EPA, lead, pollution, Bush, Iraq, war, oil, Clean Air Act
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Lead means car engines can be built with soft valve seats, allowing quicker valve activation and more horsepower. I’m all for it.
There are bacteria which specialize in removing lead in the environment. They take Pb in as a 2+ cation which through unknown functions will spontaneously form a Lead Nitrate Compound (Pb2(PO4)3), this compound is 100% soluable in water, and is the most commmon way we are exposed to lead.
However, these bacterium, (Caulobacter, E. Coli, Vibrio Harvi, etc) will bring lead into their cell bodies which is normally a deadly function, and somehow perciptate out the lead in a Lead Apatite compound (Pb9(PO4)6) which is insoluable in water, or ethanol/gas for that matter.
Research has shown that this is a DNA mutation, and in theory can be shuttled out of the bacteria and could one day help us filter lead out of our bodies, and in our water supply.
However, the tie in with your post is this, if the lead levels get too high, we will start having severe issues with lead contamination, and inversely, will kill off various fish and wild game/cattled game.
Unfortunately, there isn’t a big enough push to remove lead in the environment, since “we have managed to regulate a safe ammount we are exposed to, and also removed lead from our paints.”
This is a crushing blow, hopefully research will be completed by the time Lead is added back to automobiles (we’ll all have to buy converters btw, our cars can no longer handle lead based fuel, hence why the big warning UNLEADED FUEL ONLY on cars.) I doubt much will happen, but if it does, expect to be hearing more about this research.
Wonderful post by the way.
Chip: Thanks for the info about better engine function/more horsepower. But is more horsepower really worth pumping lead back into the atmosphere that everybody breathes? I hate how I sound like I’m an owl-saving granola person when I mention the atmosphere…so let me put it another way: Would you eat a handful of lead paint to get more horsepower out of your ride? And would you think it’s selfish to make everybody else eat a handful of lead paint to get more horsepower from your car? Just curious…
Lab Techie: Thanks for the props, and the bacteria info…fascinating stuff. I wonder if making leaded gasoline available again is a grand scheme to revive the US car companies by getting everybody to scramble for NEW Lead-burning Autos! :-)
You buy horsepower, you drive torque.
Audi won every race it entered this year with it’s DIESEL race car. Diesel power is the way to go!
But if you are hung up on spark plugs, then why need lead? So all those 400 horsepower cars out there are too guttless for you? Hell, I can go over 200mph on a motorcycle that REQUIRES PREMIUM UNLEADED - and 0 to 100 faster than I can even hang on. What the hell do we need lead for? We can’t even handle the horsepower we have in cars now, let alone need more…