A couple of weeks ago, a man named Eric Schaeffer resigned from his post at the Environmental Protection Agency. Mr. Schaeffer had worked as the director of civil enforcement under EPA Administrator Christine Whitman.He was known as man who was dedicated to his job. That is to say that he thought it was important for the agency not only to have enforcement rules on the books, he thought it was important to enforce those rules. And in his opinion, the White House was making it impossible to do that.
What Schaeffer saw, indeed what a lot of people who care anything about the environment in this nation saw, was an administration that was much more concerned about the well being of the business community than the protection of the environment.
Does that, Alabama, sound familiar? It should because it sounds like President George Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and a powerful circle of industrial supporters are attempting to hand us an new EPA that will do diddly for our community, a community that has struggled with pollution for a very long time.
And that simply cannot be allowed to occur.
Yes what is going on in Washington could indeed hit closer to home than you might realize. Remember, we are in the throes of an ongoing trial that pits many of our residents against Monsanto Corporation. Settling with the plaintiffs is only part of the issue. We also have to be concerned about an overall cleanup of the entire area.
Now some of the cleanup question is being addressed in Circuit Judge Joel Laird’s court. But there are also talks going on in Washington between EPA and Monsanto and there will be maneuvering by different entities to try to bring the issue under state or the federal oversight.
The frightening part of all this is that if this falls under the control of an eviscerated EPA’s cleanup could become a sick joke. And there are, no doubt, some interests out there that would very much like to see this happen.
What could be better for a polluting industry than a federal environmental agency that goes easy on companies that are responsible for contaminating the water, dirtying the air and tainting the soil?
What we need at the state and the federal level is a balanced approach between economic development and environmental protection.
It will be a dark day for this country, this state and this county if we can no longer depend on the EPA for help, especially in the coming months.
