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EPA Seeks to Eliminate Critical PFAS Drinking Water Protections

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Re: EPA Seeks to Eliminate Critical PFAS Drinking Water Protections

#201

Post by vixen99 »

Implicated wrote: post #120
Insanity wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In EU we by and large don’t eat what America produces though. The same products like Doritos etc will have different ingredients in EU compared to US. US typically gets the cheaper and worse option (less safe). Same for American coke w/ Cane Sugar instead of actual sugar. Americans will regularly consume chemicals that are potentially carcinogenic and banned in EU. EDIT: I meant high fructose corn syrup, not cane sug…

> Same for American coke w/ Cane Sugar instead of actual sugar. I think you meant high fructose corn syrup instead of cane sugar (which is real sugar)

Exactly. To remind us - it's the fructose which is a metabolic problem in amounts over a certain value - worth checking out why. Cane sugar and beet sugar both contain sucrose which is one glucose linked to one fructose molecule so you get half the fructose.

Re: EPA Seeks to Eliminate Critical PFAS Drinking Water Protections

#202

Post by avazhi »

cluckindan wrote: post #134
avazhi wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did cover it up. But there was no evidence that they used PFAS in order to make people sick, which is what the original commenter said. There's a massive difference.

You’re debating the difference between criminal intent to negligently harm and criminal intent to harm. There is not really much difference from the perspective of those harmed, is there?

What does their perspective have to do with whether the distinction is real or not?

It's a matter of logic and also a matter of what is most likely to be true. The language used is obviously in relation to the rather important legal dichotomy between those two things; victims of PFAS toxicity and their opinions are irrelevant. What does matter is what the executives and people making the decisions at the corporations knew, thought, and intended by doing certain things, like covering up studies that demonstrated the harms, continuing to ship products they suspected were harmful, or suing whistleblowers to keep them quiet about putative harms. The original commenter was insinuating (I've quoted it throughout this thread) that the corporations were intentionally poisoning people, as if making them sick was itself a motive for shipping these products. Whether that is true or not is to be determined from the mental state of the executives I just talked about. There is no evidence I've ever seen that any of the corporations, like Dupont or Marlboro, ever intended to poison people and give them diseases for some underlying profit motive. To suggest they had was, as I said, lazy thinking and a caricature.

That certainly doesn't mean those corporations weren't negligent. But, as has been my point this entire time, intention is everything - intention is literally the entire difference between a murder charge and a manslaughter charge. It's not trivial at all. And imputing intention to cause harm (ie., the opposite of using Occam's Razor) because you dislike a corporation or person is just sloppy thinking.

Re: EPA Seeks to Eliminate Critical PFAS Drinking Water Protections

#203

Post by californical »

avazhi wrote: post #151
magicalist wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But there was no evidence that they used PFAS in order to make people sick, which is what the original commenter said No, the said > If companies can freely poison everyone, profits go up Which has played out again and again in history. It's a lot cheaper to dump industrial solvents out the back door than pay for proper disposal, and if there's no legal repercussions stopping it, someone can just do it and watch pr…

> or they want people to get sick and die. Actually this is what he said, and what I was referring to.

Isn’t “doing something that causes people to get sick and die for your own small financial gain” exactly that?

Re: EPA Seeks to Eliminate Critical PFAS Drinking Water Protections

#204

Post by RoseRadecki »

clscott wrote: post #189
spankalee wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our system is not set up to be able to resist things like this. Once one party has control over all three branches of the federal government, all we can do at the federal level is wait for elections. States can try to do some things in some cases, but the Supreme Court will get in the way and now the National Guard and Marines.

The last time you voted in The United States of America may be the last time you get a vote in The United States of America. All three branches of The United States of America has been captured by a tyrannical government. Rights are being eroded for inhabitants of The United States of America, including its citizens. You have no right to: safe medicine, safe food, safe water, vote. The sooner the people recognize thi…

[dead]

Re: EPA Seeks to Eliminate Critical PFAS Drinking Water Protections

#205

Post by tyleo »

estearum wrote: post #194
tyleo wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A visible example is the ACLU questionnaire which covers support for transgender medical care with state resources for detained immigrants. Harris’s written support was turned into an ad campaign for Trump. You can agree or disagree with the policy but it isn’t a great hill to die on if you want to win elections. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/harris-gender-surgeries-ja...

You can agree or disagree with inmates having a right to medical care? That would require going to SCOTUS, at the very least. This right is well-established in the US. One can agree or disagree on the question of whether transgender care is medical care, but I think the sensible position for any political party (on virtually any such question) is to defer to the scientists and medical experts who spend all day workin…

Yes, politicians can agree or disagree with policy. That is their job. E.g., “here is a good policy we don’t have which we should enact,” and “here is a bad policy we should get rid of.”

I’m not saying I agree or disagree with this policy but the point of politicians is to advance policy one way or the other which requires agreeing/disagreeing.

Re: EPA Seeks to Eliminate Critical PFAS Drinking Water Protections

#206

Post by estearum »

somenameforme wrote: post #156
CaptArmchair wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the posted article: > EPA Seeks to Eliminate Critical PFAS Drinking Water Protections > The move continues to expose communities across the country to toxic forever chemicals in tap water If this really were a "team sport", one half of the team wouldn't be set on undermining the health of the other half of the team.

Rolling back PFAS protections would not simply affect "the other half of the team", it would affect everybody. If there isn't some context missing here, this is an action that would be ubiquitously unpopular, let alone when contrasted against the goals of MAHA.

The beauty of gerrymandering is that the gerrymanderers don't need to be popular.

Also the baseline GOP today exists in a different reality (e.g. where Trump won the 2020 election and Democrats did the COVID lockdowns)

Re: EPA Seeks to Eliminate Critical PFAS Drinking Water Protections

#207

Post by thrance »

avazhi wrote: post #84
thrance wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your reasonable explanation, then? A whole lot of words for saying nothing.

Whether I have a reasonable explanation for this change or not doesn't change the fact that that comment was a simplistic caricature. I never claimed to know the full answer. But I am nearly certain it doesn't begin with those evil corporations literally trying to make people sick. Merchants of Doubt, which is a great book related to this subject, is full of stories about how cigarette and PFAS corporations like Dupo…

You clearly misunderstood what "if companies can freely poison everyone, profits go up" meant. It's not that the rich are poisoning people for its own sake and laughing manically to themselves. It's that removing regulations and lowering safety standards allows companies to recoup the money they were legally required to spend on upholding them, hence increasing their profits at the cost of public health. Which, I hope you'll concede, is a morally terrible thing to do.

Re: EPA Seeks to Eliminate Critical PFAS Drinking Water Protections

#208

Post by teddyh »

yndoendo wrote: post #178
throwaway173738 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the companies selling cigarettes. The only positive is that cigarettes alleviate the stress caused by being addicted to cigarettes.

There is also a social water cooler like aspect. Historically brakes were only provided to those that smoke so people took up smoking so they could get a brake. Some companies still follow this asinine ideology and do not provide brakes to non-smokers.

(You mean “break”, not “brake”.)

Re: EPA Seeks to Eliminate Critical PFAS Drinking Water Protections

#209

Post by hackyhacky »

thomasmg wrote: post #179
spankalee wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our system is not set up to be able to resist things like this. Once one party has control over all three branches of the federal government, all we can do at the federal level is wait for elections. States can try to do some things in some cases, but the Supreme Court will get in the way and now the National Guard and Marines.

Right. My fear is that the rules of the elections will be significantly changed as well soon, by this party.

Already happening. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Texas_redistricting

Re: EPA Seeks to Eliminate Critical PFAS Drinking Water Protections

#210

Post by nickysielicki »

staminade wrote: post #176
he0001 wrote: post #4

Does anyone know why this is done? What is the reasoning here? Is this defendable in any way?

Any new regulation the EPA introduces results in litigation. Some of the previously introduced PFAS regulations weren't done in accordance with how the Safe Drinking Water Act says they should be (regulations were introduced without the necessary public consultation), so they're applying to partially vacate the previous ruling. Notably, they're _not_ applying to vacate the regulation of PFAS chemicals where they say…

Thanks for this balanced take. This makes more sense.
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