shoveling coal: is it good for the kids?

John Shiffman and John Sullivan report Sunday in The Philadelphia Inquirer piece, "Smoke and Mirrors: The Subversion of the EPA" on the pervasive, devil grip that Bush Administration has used to choke the life out of the agency charged with protecting our environment. EPA Chief Administrator and Cheney lap-dog, Steven Johnson, has actively participated in his agency's decline, overseeing budget declines of more than 25 percent during his term and cutting funds for such "market-driven" programs as sewer repairs.

The most disturbing part of the piece wasn't that Chief Administrator Johnson held prayer meetings in his government office (we don't a have a problem with the prayers, just don't think holding them in government offices is the right place) was a program called CHEERS. CHEERS tested the toxic effects of pesticides on children, i.e. why use mice when there's all these kids with nothing to do?.

One of the new human tests was the Children's Health Environmental Exposure Research Study (CHEERS). Funded with $2 million from the chemical industry, CHEERS proposed to record the effects of household pesticides on low-income children in Florida. EPA gave participating families $970, a video camera to record exposure, and a CHEERS T-shirt, calendar and baby bib. EPA scientists would collect urine samples and the children would wear a watch-size sensor one week each month.

It's not clear why we need to tell the US EPA that this is immoral but apparently we do.

We would not have been surprised to learn that those same children were forced to shovel coal into clean-burning plants, their tuppence garnished by the Dept. of Education, and the funds used to buy books and bibles for their schools.

The Bush Administration has 40 days left to destroy our planet and they plan on using every hour of the day in order to accomplish this mission.

inquiring minds on the bush's epa