Congress Just Doesn't Have Chemistry

In a 229 to 191 vote, mostly led by Republicans, the House of Representative quietly passed the EPA Science Advisory Board Reform Act on November 18^th, 2014. Currently, the EPA’s Science Advisory Board (SAB) ensures that the most pertinent and up to date research is used for all decision making. The bill states that the EPA will not be allowed to exclude individuals from sitting on the SAB board. There are specific qualifications that one must have to hold a position on the SAB board, such as being a well educated and established scientist.

If this bill passes the Senate it would prevent qualified independent scientist from advising the EPA and would allow for those with financial links to corporations to then sit on the advisory panel. Their claim for passing this bill is to gain a wider group of expertise by improving the selection process for the panel however we know that’s not the motive behind this bill. The Union of Concerned Scientists released a statement stating “This proposal will make it nearly impossible for the [SAB] to do the crucial independent evaluations of EPA scientific analyses that enable the agency to protect public health,” the letter added. “This bill opens the door for more corporate influence on the Board, because the bill directly stipulates that experts with financial ties to corporations affected by SAB assessments are ‘not excluded”. President Obama has already stated that he plans to veto the legislation if it reaches the oval office due to the foolish amount of harmful power that it would give to the oil and gas industry.

Although it sounds like this bill has good intentions by “expanding expertise” (or at least the Republicans think so) there’s an ulterior motive here. This is yet another asinine attempt for the powerful to gain more power and increase their bank account at the expense of the public’s health. There’s clearly a conflict of interest and the Senate should think twice before passing this bill. Corporate influenced, money-grubbing business men are not who the EPA needs on the board to ensure the safety of the environment and the public’s health. 

Related Article:

Environmentalists Scientists fret over Republican bills targeting EPA science

It's Your Choice - Not Mine.

Abortions and Planned Parenthood have been a strong topic for sometime now. After reading this article  " Tax Payer Funded Abortions" and the facts listed within, I would have to disagree with the writer. A low income woman should have some sort of assistance for an abortion if needed but also some of the information that is provided to support this article was not correctly expressed.

In this article Margaret Sanger, who is the founder of Planned Parenthood and was awarded Humanists of the year in 1957, was portrayed as a racist. Margaret was a traveling nurse who was working with immigrants in the slums in the early 1900’s. She saw several women die because of self-induced abortions and couldn't fathom the thought of one more, so she sought to change that. 

Margaret contributed to many judicial cases (Griswold v. Connecticut) to legalize contraception in the United States as well as opened the first birth control clinic. She fought long and hard for contraception and safe abortions for women of all races, not just African-Americans. She traveled all over the world to educate women of many nationalities and ethnic backgrounds. 

This statement quoted in the author’s article “Even fewer know that she consistently pushed racist beliefs and is responsible for the intentional placement of many Planned Parenthood facilities in low-income, predominately African-American communities. On a statistical scale she radically lowered the African-American population by making abortions so easily accessible to those communities.”  is somewhat exaggerated . She initially opened clinics in predominantly white neighborhoods. However, shortly after she was asked by leaders within the African American community to collaborate and extend her services to predominantly black neighborhoods. Clinics were then opened to assist with safe abortions and the use of contraceptives just as she first did in the predominantly white neighborhoods. Later the Margaret Sanger Award was established to honor champions of human rights.  In fact, Martin Luther King Jr. was the first recipient of the award in 1966.

Lower income women should have access to assistance if requested. If these low income women don't have the financial means to subsidize an abortion on their own, then they likely don't have the financial capability to support that child after it is born.  This could lead to much greater government assistance down the line if welfare is required to support that child. The Government assisting with 50% of abortion cost, approximately $250.00 (half the cost), is less of a financial impact than supporting that family for 18 years with welfare assistance. However, if women were allowed assistance it should not be treated like an open bar where you just keep going back for more because you can. It would need to be regulated to prevent frequent use and should be utilized as an emergency intervention, as opposed to a frequent measure. If assistance is not available we might as well forget everything that Margaret Sanger fought for. Lower income women will look for unsafe alternatives or “back-alley abortions” because it’s unaffordable, or perhaps even worse, they will bring a child into this world that they are unable to support and care for.

Fortunately, everyone has the right to chose for themselves if they support abortion and it seems obvious that less children in lower income families means less tax payer money going to welfare. It would be different if lower income women were being forced to have an abortion to control welfare spending but they are doing so at their own will. They are deciding to have an abortion, so why not assist them to benefit the system and encourage safe abortion practices. 

What the frack are you thinking?

The Department of Energy and the government have been working together to find a cleaner natural energy source to displace the use of coal. In President Obama’s 2012 State of the Union address he acknowledged the amount of natural gas that the United States has access to and how he will take every measure to safely develop this energy. Natural gas is being considered as a “bridge” to cleaner energy but, just how clean and safe is it? To obtain natural gas a process known as fracking (also known as hydraulic fracking) is used. Fracking is the process of extracting natural gas from shale rock layers deep within the earth. During this dangerous process more than 40,000 gallons of chemicals such as formaldehyde are used to complete the process. It takes almost 2 million gallons of water per frack. The chemicals are then stored within that water in underground water wells. The chemcials are also exposed into the air through the vapors coming off of the fracking process.

What has the government done to protect our health and to protect the environment? The answer is that the government has done very little to protect us due to lack of regulation. Until 2011, when a study was given to the US Congress, all of the chemicals used during the fracking process were kept from the public due to “commercial reasons”. The regulations on fracking are different from state to state. Some states will disclose what chemicals are being used but other states do not disclose the information. The Washington Post published an article in 2012 called  "How states are regulating fracking" and the maps show how this “cleaner” alternative is not so clean due to the lack of regulation. In 2012, 13 States were not required to disclose what chemicals were being used for the fracking process. Some states that are required to disclose what chemicals are being used are exempt due to “trade secrets”. The disclosure regulations are mostly the same as of today and have changed very little. 

The US news published an article on October 30, 2014,  "Toxic Chemicals, Carcinogens Skyrocket Near Fracking Sites" showing chemical research on fracking sites and it was published in the Journal of Environmental Health. The research shows that eight poisonous chemicals were found near fracking sites in several states that far surpassed the recommended federal limits.  

What’s more disconcerting is that due to the 2005 Energy Policy Act and the help of former Vice President Cheney’s Energy Task Force, known as the Halliburton loophole, Congress amended the definition of underground injection. This means that oil and gas companies are allowed to inject anything other than diesel while fracking without having to abide by rules put in place with the Safe Water Drinking Act which is an act intended to keep our drinking water safe. Clearly this is a federal law and loop hole under the Safe Water Drinking Act, where fracking is exempt from disclosure rules to benefit the already powerful oil and gas companies. 

The lack of proper federal regulation for fracking and the loop holes involved are allowing the rich to become richer at the expense of the public’s health and the expense of the environment. All of the information on fracking and its harmful chemicals used for each individual frack makes you want to look at our government and say " What the frack are you thinking ? "

Related Links:

The Fracking Song
"Fraccidents" in Texas

Regulation of Hydraulic Fracturing Under the Safe Drinking Water Act

The CDC...what exactly should they be doing about Ebola?

 On October 15, 2014, Ed Kilgore, who is a contributing writer for the Washington Monthly and also the managing editor for The Democratic Strategist, wrote about the CDC and the Ebola outbreak in the article "Hating on the Feds, Until..." .The recent death of Ebola patient Tim Duncan and the spread of Ebola to the health care workers is raising questions about the CDC and the government’s control of infectious diseases. Why wasn't Ebola handled differently?  Why didn't the CDC step in for such a serious illness and one that is easily spread if proper protocol is not taken?

Some are blaming the CDC and budget cuts, but if that were the case then why did they spend millions on payroll and bonuses ?  If they are getting paid more then they should do more. For life threatening diseases it should be mandatory that the CDC step in to take over the problem regardless of the hospital. The hospital should not be allowed to handle infection control on something as deadly as Ebola. There isn't room for error in cases such as this one, where it’s been seen firsthand that it could kill thousands if not properly handled. It was a mistake and huge mistake that shouldn't have happened. Yes, only one person has died in the United States from Ebola, but what’s going to change so that is does not happen again? The government needs to take action and put a law or policy in place so that this does not happen again. Hospitals should not be allowed to solely handle an illness as serious as Ebola. We can’t hate the government until we need it and then say “what took you so long”? The CDC should have automatically stepped in so that there was not a possibility of a breach in proper protocol when handling a virus as deadly as Ebola. 

Is the Affordable Health Care Act really working?

Obamacare, also known as the Affordable Care Act, continues to be a prominent political topic. The Conservative party tends be skeptical of the impact that the healthcare marketplace will have on insurance provided in the traditional free market setting. Paul Waldman, author of Being Right is Not Enough: What Progressives Must Learn From Conservative Success, recently wrote an article "Some good news about Obamacare that even conservatives should love" in the Washington Post on September 24th, 2014 highlighting this issue. Waldman is reaching out to democrats, but also to the conservatives, arguing that the free market for health insurance has embraced the Affordable Care Act. 

Conservatives anticipated that a government supplemented system would lack the healthy subscribers needed to form a stable and profitable base. Without this, they feared that all consumers would be left with higher health insurance premiums to support a system burdened with demand. However, recent data has suggested that this is not the case. Healthy people are signing up for insurance and the data collected by the Department of Health and Human Services show that the free market has embraced the Affordable Care Act. The number of insurers is set to increase by almost by 25 percent within the next year, suggesting that the free market and the affordable care act exist in harmony. The evidence shows that people are continuing to enroll, allowing for lower premiums in a competitive market place. Rival companies will keep premiums low in an effort to stay profitable in a market controlled by supply and demand. Data listed on table 3, page 11, from the Department of Health and Human Services shows that the healthy age group of 18 to 34 grew faster than any other age group. 

The Affordable Health Care Act should be welcomed instead of ostracized by conservatives because data is showing that it’s successful and should continue to be successful. As author Paul Waldman is saying “c’mon, conservatives — look to your free market principles, and give Obamacare at least a little credit” because it's working.

Get Out and Vote!

Immigration reform is an important, yet a multifaceted topic in today’s politics. This complex issue involves border control, housing of immigrants, and deportation. On Friday, September 12, 2014, CBS published an article "No Immigration Action Yet, but Deportations are Down" discussing President Obama's decision to delay the implementation of the immigration reform until after the election in November. This delay is a clear example of the crippling inaction associated with partisan politics. The deportation process is taking up to several years and deportation is down nearly 20 percent from last year. Temporary holding facilities for immigrants are overcrowded and the Homeland Security Department is releasing many of the immigrants into the United States with instructions to report back to authorities at a later date. With the increasing amount of illegal immigrants crossing the border every day, these numbers will continue to increase exponentially. This article is significant given the rapidly approaching mid-term election in November. It is important to keep the current immigration issue in mind when voting. The United States needs to promptly address the immigration reform without allowing partisan politics to block progress on this critical issue.