Endangerment

Today the Trump administration decided to pretend that the "endangerment" finding, a ruling that allowed the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate CO2, methane, and other greenhouse gases, didn't exist and wasn't necessary because global warming is a hoax. Overwhelming scientific consensus says otherwise, of course.

The New York Times has a good story on this decision, here. It describes how this destructive move will have all sorts of health fallout, and it reports the real science versus the made-up lies of the Trump administration. But it also does something else. It includes the voices of fossil fuel advocates. I found one particularly interesting:

“This repeal will have a transformational impact on my home state of West Virginia, as these efforts reverse the harmful Democrat attacks on affordable, gas-powered vehicles that West Virginians have endured for far too long.”

That was Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican senator for West Virginia. She's lying.

The first commercial coal mine in West Virginia started up in 1810 near Wheeling. The state has been poor ever since. This morning, on the very day Trump wiped out the endangerment rule, an editorial in the Wheeling Intelligencer began this way:

"As a few attempts to address West Virginia’s woeful health indicators and perpetually bottom-of-the-barrel quality of life rankings have made their way into public policy over the past year, lawmakers have continued to look for new ways to address the matter....

"'We all know the numbers … West Virginia leads the nation in chronic disease, disability, preventable illness,” said House Health and Human Resources Committee Chairman Evan Worrell, R-Cabell.'"

The table above, from the CDC, shows life expectancy by state (and the District of Columbia). I've cut out the bottom group. The 51 by West Virginia means it has the lowest life expectancy in the nation. You may also note which party controls most of these bottom states.

Also in this morning's Intelligencer, there this: "WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration on Wednesday took a step toward rolling back a rule that limits smokestack emissions that burden downwind areas in neighboring states.

The so-called 'good neighbor' rule is one of dozens of regulations that Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin has targeted for reconsideration or repeal."

Capito wants to protect coal mining, though there aren't many coal miners left in West Virginia, which really means she wants to protect coal mine owners. Here's why:

Coal plants are old and dying, and they should die because they help kill people. But coal mine owners want all sorts of socialism to protect their revenue, like this order that requires the military to dump taxpayer dollars into coal plants.

Gas and oil drillers get the same treatment. See the photo at the top of this post? That's the exterior of Austin Master Services, a business that was situated in an old steel mill in Martin's Ferry, Ohio, across the Ohio river from Wheeling. The owner got tax breaks to put his operation there. I took this photo as a guy in the office was dialing security to chase me away, though I was breaking no law and not trespassing.

He was a little sensitive because Austin Master Services handled waste from fracking operations in the region, and it was breaking the law by not only having tons more waste that it was permitted to have, but by "storing" the waste so sloppily, that a toxic stew of sand and liquid and chemicals could flow out into the street in front, yards away from Martin's Ferry's drinking water well field, and the banks of the Ohio River.

This is what fossil fuel extraction looks like in poor and working class places. Far from making West Virginia and other victimized regions rich and healthy, it makes them poor and unhealthy.

That's Donald Trump's "populism."