ot the college class most of us slept through, this page of Poly Sci is science, when filtered through politics. The Bush Administration has a long history of only using science that agrees with them, which means that they very seldom use science at all. Examples of that sort of thing are collected here, when any government chooses to do what they wanted to do in the first place, and science and facts be damned.

More recent weirdness is on top.

September 11, 2003

Today brings more on the should-be scandal of the EPA being pressured into saying the WTC air was safe after 9/11, when it clearly was toxic.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The burning ruins of the World Trade Center spewed toxic gases "like a chemical factory" for at least six weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks despite government assurances the air was safe, according to a study released on Wednesday.

Lead study author Thomas Cahill, a professor of physics and engineering, said conditions would have been "brutal" for workers at Ground Zero without respirators and slightly less so for those working or living in adjacent buildings.

"The debris pile acted like a chemical factory," Cahill said. "It cooked together the components and the buildings and their contents, including enormous numbers of computers, and gave off gases of toxic metals, acids and organics for at least six weeks."

What puzzles me is why.  What benefit was it to Bush and friends to force the EPA to sit on appropriate warnings about the cancerous danger from the air people were breathing?  It would seem like a bonus for them, something else to blame on the evil terrorists.

I guess it would have complicated the clean up efforts and taken longer to do it (what with requiring people to wear masks and respirators so they wouldn't get fatal diseases while driving bulldozers and such), and of course the several million people who live and work downwind of the smoldering ruins of the WTC would have been a problem as well. But still, why not be responsible and ensure the health of already-suffering American citizens?

I'd say that it's deeper than that. The Bush Admin is inherently pro-business in every way.  You could say they are owned by big business interests, but that's not really accurate, since they essentially are big business. It's not like there's some sort of internal struggle between the demands of business and the needs of workers; it's entirely one-sided in the White House.  And as part of their "we are industry" approach, the EPA and OSHA and other environmental protection and business regulatory agencies are unwanted, and constantly being underfunded and pushed around.  So while in the WTC case letting the EPA do a thorough study and warning about the very real dangers wouldn't have been especially damaging to industry, it would have made the EPA seem useful and valid.

I'm not saying that Bush and co. knew the WTC fires were so hazardous, and intentionally kept that information secret.  It's more their whole approach, where worker safety and rights are entirely irrelevant and unimportant, and they just wouldn't even give it a thought.  They didn't pressure the EPA to lie, they just pressured them to say nothing of any use, as a step on their path to eventually eliminating the agency entirely.

August 28, 2003

If anyone needed another clue as to where the Bush Administration's favor falls in the "public vs industry" battle, here you go.

The Bush administration on Wednesday made it easier for thousands of older power plants, refineries and factories to avoid having to install costly clean air controls when they replace aging equipment.

New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer immediately threatened to sue the Bush administration in an effort he said would include other states. Spitzer and other attorneys general have already filed suits challenging earlier changes the administration made to the program.

"If allowed to stand, this flagrantly illegal rule will ensure that, under the watch of the Bush administration, Americans will breathe dirtier air, contract more respiratory disease and suffer more environmental degradation caused by air pollution," said Spitzer, a Democrat.

Breath deeply.

August 23, 2004

The Bush Administration's habit of ignoring and denying scientific reality in favor of political favoritism (see their continual pro-business denials of global warming, pro-religion support for ineffectual "abstinence-only" sex ed, etc) has surfaced once again, and this time there may be some actual political damage from the lies.

At the White House's direction, the Environmental Protection Agency gave New Yorkers misleading assurances that there was no health risk from the debris-laden air after the World Trade Center collapse, according to an internal inquiry.

In all, the EPA issued five press releases within 10 days of the attacks and four more by the end of 2001 reassuring the public about air quality. But it wasn't until June 2002 that the EPA determined that air quality had returned to pre-Sept. 11 levels — well after respiratory ailments and other problems began to surface in hundreds of workers cleaning dusty offices and apartments.

President Bush's senior environmental adviser on Friday defended the White House involvement, saying it was justified by national security.

Of course Bush's boys have blamed everything for the last two years on 9/11 or said it was justified by National Security, so at least the excuses are consistent. And they've been quite effective, at least so far. One wonders whether there will be lawsuits forthcoming from the hundreds of people who got sick from working in and around the WTC towers after 9/11, people who were breathing very dangerous, cancerous air, and not wearing adequate protective gear due to lies from the White House?

All site content copyright "Flux" (Eric Bruce), 2002-2007.