Many of you got the franked mailing from Raul Labrador announcing tonight’s first public town meeting in Coeur d’Alene since being elected to Congress last fall. The meeting comes just as the U.S. House of Representatives, under new GOP leadership, passed a contentious version of a continuing resolution to keep funding the government.
We’re looking forward to the meeting, because we think there’s some explanation that Raul owes his Northern Idaho constituents. We certainly understand the need to cut the budget, and we understand the mood of the electorate last fall signaled that direction for Congress. What we don’t understand is the collateral attacks on environmental protection that have very little to do with the budget deficit.
For example, how is the budget deficit served by refusing to enforce the Clean Air Act for mercury pollution from cement kilns? Most of Idaho’s waterways have a mercury pollution problem severe enough that deserve fish consumption advisories are probably warranted. With Idaho leadership, we recently took a step forward by regulating mercury emissions in gold-processing facilities, now, nationally, we take two steps back.
More broadly, how is the budget deficit served by not enforcing the Clean Water Act in the Chesapeake Bay? Or in Florida? Or allowing coal burning power plants to dump into waterways? Or allowing arctic drilling without any environmental oversight? Or prohibiting enforcement of the Travel Management Rule in National Forests? Blocking stream buffer rules in the Office of Surface Mining? Applying the Clean Water Act in mining permits?
Like we said, we get the need to cut the budget. We don’t get the need to deregulate industry by budget votes in the middle of the night. We wonder if Congressman Labrador will provide an explanation.
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