The Trump administration took a big step Tuesday towards repealing former President Barack Obama’s restrictions on opening a gold mine in Alaska.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a proposal to nix Obama’s plan to block the Pebble Mine to protect the state’s water quality and the area’s salmon population. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt wants to give developers time to request mining permits from the Army Corps of Engineers without being blocked.
“A withdrawal of the proposed determination would remove any uncertainty, real or perceived, about [the developer’s] ability to submit a permit application and have that permit application reviewed,” the proposal noted.
Obama’s decision turned the mine into a political football. Environmentalists rallied around the blockage and Republicans railed against the move because they feared the president was overstepping his authority.
Activists believed that the mine would pollute streams running into nearby Bristol Bay, Alaska — the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery. Obama’s EPA agreed and worked to block the mine.
The EPA prevented the Pebble Mine from even applying for a Clean Water Act Section 404 permit after the urging of environmental groups and some Alaskan tribes, some of which were wary of more development in Bristol Bay.
An agency report in 2014 signaled to investors that the project had a slim chance at acquiring a federal permit. Mining company Rio Tinto pulled out of the project shortly after the EPA’s report was issued. Other companies shortly followed suit.
Republican lawmakers in the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology launched investigations into Obama’s decision and found that EPA ecologist Phil North worked with mine opponents to block Pebble Mine from being built.
Pruitt’s plan will be published in the Federal Register shortly, kicking off a three-month period for activists and shareholders to submit comments about the proposal. Obama initially blocked the mine in 2014.
Read more at Daily Caller
Brainwashed by the greens just look at the lies they spread in liberal written text books plus the mindless babbling of airheads like DiCaorio,David(Luarie),Gore,Nye,Suzuki,Obama and the leaders of these various eco-wacko groups like Greenpeace,EDF,NRDC, and Gores mindless poem
I would like to take all these eco-wackos and back to nature freaks are maroon them in the wilderness far far away from civilization where the animals doont like to be hugged
ONCE AGAIN…..ALWAYS SPURNING PLOVER is back with demonizing and name calling expressions of his inner ugliness.
…
Now that we have a TEA PARTY lobotomized Senate & House, and a tottering old demented Don in the White House,
we can all BREATH more deeply because past Congresses with brains thought about what they were doing…..
*
Why do we have an EPA, anyway?
1. Air
Before the government began to rein in pollution from smokestacks and tailpipe, dense, dark and even choking smog was a frequent occurrence in American cities and towns.
.
In 1948,
spectators at a football game in Donora, Pennsylvania couldn’t see the players or the ball because of smog from a nearby coal-fired zinc smelter; 20 people died.
.
In Los Angeles in the 1960s, smog often hid the mountains.
.
The Clean Air Act of 1970 gave EPA the authority to regulate harmful air pollutants.
.
One of the most dramatic success stories was lead, which was widely used in paint but also in gasoline to improve engine performance.
.
EPA estimated that more than 5,000 Americans were dying every year from heart disease linked to lead poisoning; many children were growing up with diminished IQ.
.
** By 1974, the EPA began a phase out of lead from gasoline. The gradual effort took until 1995 to completely end the practice, but the result has been a measurable 75 percent drop in blood lead levels in the public.
.
Thanks to Clean Air Act rules,
the levels of many other toxic substances in our air, such as mercury, benzene, and arsenic, have also dropped substantially.
.
A major update to the law in 1990 allowed EPA to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions from power plants, the main cause of acid rain. Life has begun to come back in acidified lakes in the Adirondacks.
Complying with EPA’s air pollution rules has been costly
—they’re the biggest burden the agency imposes on the economy.
But the federal Office of Management and Budget, analyzing data collected from 2004 to 2014, estimates that the health and other benefits of the rules exceeded the costs
**
The Cuyahoga River
was once one of the most polluted rivers in the United States as represented by the multitude of times it has caught fire, a recorded number of thirteen starting in 1868.
.
The most potent blaze occurred in 1952 which caused over $1.3 million in damages however,
the most fatal fire happened in 1912 with a documented five deaths. The 1969 fire, which did not incur maximum damages or fatally wound any citizen, was the most covered incident occuring on the river.
This was in part because of the developing precedence that sanitation held over industrial actions; the United States was becoming more eco-aware.
.
Also, due to the shift from industry to technology, waste dumping to recycling Time Magazine produced an article about the incident. This brought mass amount of attention to the Cleveland area
and added pressure for hygienic regulation.
Inspired by the 1969 river fire,
Congress was determined to resolve the issue of land pollution, not just in Cleveland, but throughout the United States.
.
The legislature passed the National Environment Protection Act (NEPA) which was signed into law on January 1, 1970. This act helped establish the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which would be given the duties to manage environmental risks and regulate various sanitary-specific policies.
.
One of the first legislations that the EPA put-forth was the Clean Water Act (1972), which mandated that all rivers throughout the United States be hygienic enough to safely allow mass amounts of swimmers and fish within the water by 1983. Since the 1969 Cuyahoga River fire the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District has invested over $3.5 billion towards the purification of the river and the development of new sewer systems. There is a projection that over the next thirty years the city of Cleveland will further endow over $5 billion to the upkeep of the wastewater system.
The river is now home to about sixty different species of fish, there has not been another river fire since 1969, and yearly new waste management programs develop to ensure the sanitation of Cleveland’s waterways….”
SAVE THIS BEAUTIFUL PLANET….for our sakes, our fresh air, our animal diversity, the circle of life WE ARE DEPENDENT UPON !
Save the planet from yourself please.
You really do not understand what has been going on, you have been brainwashed by the greens.
Darn enviromaniacs trying to put senior citizens like Willie DeVane out of work.