Whistleblowers expose corruption in EPA Chemical Safety Office
theintercept.com
Whistleblowers expose corruption in EPA Chemical Safety Office
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Re: Whistleblowers expose corruption in EPA Chemical Safety Office
#2It won't be a vaccine that makes you sterile. It will be one of the chemicals that end up everywhere because of corruption at the only agency that would protect us.
This is also why those people for a unregulated free market are insane. Sure the company pedaling the dangerous chemical will eventual go out of business. But how many people will die and suffer and does anyone think that the people responsible will still around the decades later until the crime is found out?
All new chemicals should be assumed dangerous and require rigorous safety studies and we need to make absolutely sure these studies are independent.
Pumping millions of gallons of corexit into an oil spill should not be permitted if the ingredients are a trade secret. We need to know what goes where, same goes for chemicals used in fracking.
Re: Whistleblowers expose corruption in EPA Chemical Safety Office
#3My little girl was born with really rare heart disease and a genetic condition, a boy a few streets behind us developed a really rare cancer.
- https://kingsley.sh/posts/2021/staggering-cost-of-surviving-...
- https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/18/us/ben-watkins-masterchef/ind...
This comes a year or so after a ArcelorMittal spilled ammonia and cyanide into Lake Michigan, and didn't sound the alarm for a few days. My wife and I were swimming in it during those days, and not to mention we live down wind from many other steel processing plants, oil refineries, mills of other descriptions, etc. https://elpc.org/projects/suing-lake-michigan-polluter-arcel...
I think during the early pandemic, EPA reporting restrictions were lowered? Given the shoddy response from the 2019 spill, I lost hope that any future spill would be reported, unless many fish/wildlife were also killed and spotted. https://www.brookings.edu/interactives/tracking-deregulation...
I run an air quality sensor: https://millerbeach.community and hoping to upgrade the sensor to track more pollutants. I'd love to test water quality of Lake Michigan, too. It's stuff like this that make me realise I'm doing a community service running my sensor.
Re: Whistleblowers expose corruption in EPA Chemical Safety Office
#4It won't be a vaccine that makes you sterile. It will be one of the chemicals that end up everywhere because of corruption at the only agency that would protect us. This is also why those people for a unregulated free market are insane. Sure the company pedaling the dangerous chemical will eventual go out of business. But how many people will die and suffer and does anyone think that the people responsible will still…
New chemicals save lives as well, they may be safer than existing alternatives or enable safer processes to be used or they may enable some new technology that saves lives (there is almost unlimited potential here, few areas of technological advancement are as wide impacting as improvements to materials).
It sounds like you are advocating for the precautionary principle, but what do you think about the counterargument that by blocking technological improvements before actually investigating their risk you could be doing more harm than you prevent.
> Strong formulations of the precautionary principle... when applied to the principle itself as a policy decision, beats its own purpose of reducing risk. The reason suggested is that preventing innovation from coming to market means that only current technology may be used, and current technology itself may cause harm or leave needs unmet; there is a risk of causing harm by blocking innovation. As Michael Crichton wrote in his novel State of Fear: "The 'precautionary principle', properly applied, forbids the precautionary principle."
> For example, forbidding nuclear power plants based on concerns about low-probability high-impact risks means continuing to rely on power plants that burn fossil fuels, which continue to release greenhouse gases and thousands of certain deaths from air pollution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle#Intern...
Re: Whistleblowers expose corruption in EPA Chemical Safety Office
#5Why are the various 'manager' names carefully avoided in this sort of reporting? Many other names, including the whistleblowers, are prominently offered. What rule is the Intercept complying with that has them bleep out (thus we known these names are known) the name of a manager in the audio and assiduously omit any manager names in the writing?
Names would reveal relationships. Doubtless these managers are former or prospective Dow employees, or related or have some other pedigree of corruption. That's how all of this works. Failure to name names contributes to the problem.
Re: Whistleblowers expose corruption in EPA Chemical Safety Office
#6Why are the various 'manager' names carefully avoided in this sort of reporting? Many other names, including the whistleblowers, are prominently offered. What rule is the Intercept complying with that has them bleep out (thus we known these names are known) the name of a manager in the audio and assiduously omit any manager names in the writing? Names would reveal relationships. Doubtless these managers are former or…
But if you steal a tin of catfood your name will be in the newspapers for the whole world to read and google three decades later.
Re: Whistleblowers expose corruption in EPA Chemical Safety Office
#7I don’t understand what’s in it for the people pushing for these approvals. Are they getting kickbacks?
Re: Whistleblowers expose corruption in EPA Chemical Safety Office
#8I don’t understand what’s in it for the people pushing for these approvals. Are they getting kickbacks?
Jobs, google "Regulatory capture"
Re: Whistleblowers expose corruption in EPA Chemical Safety Office
#9Why are the various 'manager' names carefully avoided in this sort of reporting? Many other names, including the whistleblowers, are prominently offered. What rule is the Intercept complying with that has them bleep out (thus we known these names are known) the name of a manager in the audio and assiduously omit any manager names in the writing? Names would reveal relationships. Doubtless these managers are former or…
Probably trying to avoid libel since nothing has been proven in court.
Re: Whistleblowers expose corruption in EPA Chemical Safety Office
#10It won't be a vaccine that makes you sterile. It will be one of the chemicals that end up everywhere because of corruption at the only agency that would protect us. This is also why those people for a unregulated free market are insane. Sure the company pedaling the dangerous chemical will eventual go out of business. But how many people will die and suffer and does anyone think that the people responsible will still…
New chemicals save lives as well, they may be safer than existing alternatives or enable safer processes to be used or they may enable some new technology that saves lives (there is almost unlimited potential here, few areas of technological advancement are as wide impacting as improvements to materials). It sounds like you are advocating for the precautionary principle, but what do you think about the counterargumen…
I'd never heard of the precautionary principle before, but the way you explain it is just circular reasoning used to straw man it as nefarious. Arguing for validation is not arguing to ban innovation - we just need some actual accountability (and ideally transparency) included in the process. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, whereas the article points out we are straight-up falsifying documents in order to push sales for chemical corporations.
What's the harm in actually knowing scientific data about the chemicals we're buying?