OPEN LETTER TO POLLUTERS AND THEIR EPA ENABLERS

by Ruth A. Sheets

Dear Men,

Throughout our history, companies, then corporations have destroyed, polluted, then left the mess they made for someone else to clean up, usually the American taxpayers who only as an aside benefited from whatever that company/corporation was up to.  Clear cut whole mountainsides, leaving the bare earth open to the elements, causing landslides, floods, and an ugly landscape.  Once you have seen the results, you can’t forget.

Mining entities dug into the ground for coal and minerals for profit, but often left the torn-up land and poorly maintained areas to do further damage after the original miners left:  floods, pollution from slag heaps, broken dams, and more. 

Sometimes the miners and loggers were paid well, but there was an enormous cost to future generations from their work because they were allowed to  destroy nearly unchecked with no provision for that future.

Plants of all sorts churned out the products we needed and were taught to need while our air became unbreathable and our water burned.  By 1970 most people had had enough.  They were able to force Richard Nixon to go along with anti-pollution legislation and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  What brought the economy down in the 1970s was not the new move toward real regulation.  It was our over dependence on oil from the Middle East and the limiting of that oil.  We worked through that problem by driving smaller cars that got better gas mileage.  Work hours were changed, many people tried to use less electricity, and people began working together to get through.  And, a lot of work began on Solar energy.  I can’t help but wonder what our planet would be like now if that effort had continued at the same or greater rate.  We’d be the world’s leader in all areas of renewable energy. 

Well, then came Ronald Reagan. Saint Ronnie was being pushed by you polluters to go back to more polluting.  He encouraged car makers to go back to even bigger, heavier automobiles than before and gave all kinds of tax incentives to buy trucks for work when a car would have done better.  He removed the solar panels from the roof of the white house, a perfect symbol of his approval of polluters.  “Morning in America” turned out to be our path back into the world of pollution, or at least as much as the EPA would allow.  That agency saved us a little from what could have been an even bigger and sooner disaster than we are now, and will be facing in the near future.

Finally, we have Donald Trump.  Mr. Trump is certainly not bright when it comes to business (bankrupted 6 times) or government (He had no clue what was going on with COVID19 and still doesn’t).  I believe Mr. Trump was advised to select ignorant people for all appointed positions in our government and did so with full compliance of Republicans and some Democrats in the Senate.  They agreed to approve former lobbyists for positions in agencies that oversee the corporations they previously served.  That includes you at the EPA.  The appointees have all stepped up to get rid of or lessen regulations in the areas they are supervising, for their old buddies, of course, and you polluters are thrilled!  More pollution, no problem.  Besides, you guys will not have to breathe or drink it.  That’s for Black people, other people of color, and poor people in whose neighborhoods you polluters do your work.  The intense ignorance of you all in charge at the EPA permits polluters to pretend you don’t know the earth is a single entity and that what happens in one place impacts the rest too. 

What does it say about you directors of regulating agencies that you are not bothered by the fact that it is poor folks and people of color who are most harmed by your pollution?  Does it mean a major hiring criterion for lobbyists in your corporation  is lack of empathy?  It is clearly the most important factor for positions in Trump’s administration.  No empathy, perfect Trump man!  Do you ever think about the oath you appointees swore to protect and defend the Constitution?  How much does an oath mean to someone without empathy?  What about religious conviction?  This administration plays to the evangelical right, who claim to be so holy.  How is harming the least able to defend themselves a holy act?

So, polluters and EPA enablers, here's an example of what you are agreeing to.  Every year, exposure to PM 2.5 causes tens of thousands of premature deaths in America. In 2017 alone, it was attributed to 85,000 deaths.  Are you OK with that or will you try to blame those deaths on something else as nearly all Republicans and conservatives do?  EPA has proposed to retain the outdated standard for particulate pollution, set nearly a decade ago, despite the fact that the agency’s updated policy assessment demonstrates that this standard is inadequate to protect public health.  Will the updated standard be put into place, not on Trump’s watch, despite consistent scientific evidence that particulate pollution is linked to hospital admissions, emergency room visits, as well as early death due to lung disease, heart attacks, strokes, asthma and cancer.  And having air pollution related heart and lung disease increases the  risk of death from COVID19.   

Oh! That word "scientific!"  It really does get in the way doesn’t it!  You guys don’t like “science” do you, that is unless it is making more money for you?  In this case, you won’t be paying for the hospitals and medical procedures, so those costs don’t impact your bottom line, so they aren’t your problem, right?

You polluters clearly believe none of the  pollution your corporations produce will affect you.  You won’t get the virus or if you do, it won’t be so bad because you haven’t been exposed to your own pollution too much, and of course, you are privileged white guys who have mostly had the best of everything, unlike those living under the pall of your air and water pollution.  Lucky you!

We the people are fed up with your smug superiority that is only a product of your race, money, and your threat that you’ll take away the “good jobs.”  First of all, a job that leads to black lung disease and other severe lung conditions is not a good job.  A job that causes lead poisoning in children is not a good job.  A job that creates automobiles that will pollute and dump more greenhouse gasses into an already overloaded atmosphere is not a good job.  And, a man who works to increase pollution in neighborhoods he will never see to protect corporations who care nothing for the people, negatively impacted by its industry is not doing a good job.