White House Makes An Environmental Justice Pledge

nytimes.com:

During a meeting this morning at the White House, the heads of U.S. EPA, the Interior Department, the Transportation Department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development agreed to update their environmental justice plans by next fall and to restart a long-dormant panel that was created to address that issue.

Read the whole story: nytimes.com

Comments

[MacHuffP]

08:47 PM on 10/09/2010

Environmental Justice is a good thing, if not blown out of proportion.
Hundreds of scientists, including the scientists-for-hire still argue, even though the Gore's theory proven bogus.
All this will create major economic burdens for the country, but make some special interest groups happy and some people rich.

I have many pages of articles, links, etc. proving that the Earth climate has very little to do with the human activity.
Just one link. Sorry, the guy is a comedian and normally any serious info must not be trusted, but...
The late George Carlin has some good points, he did his homework for this performance, not just used the f-words.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eScDfYzMEEw George Carlin - Saving the Planet.

[lulu2010]

08:31 AM on 09/28/2010

environmental justice = climate change = fake science

[luckyone77]

10:02 PM on 09/27/2010

The original inspiration for "Avatar" here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNiwIQLa7dU

[maxfax]

07:29 PM on 09/25/2010

Next fall?  LOL

[The last sane American]

08:17 AM on 09/25/2010

Do we have to inject class warfare into every aspect of Government?

It appears that this current Administration is bent on it.

""This country was built on the promise of equal opportunity for all of us, yet low-income families and minority communities shoulder a disproportionate amount of pollution and environmental degradation," Sutley said in a statement. "We cannot and will not ignore these disparities."

Why not just focus on the environmental degradation, wherever it is?

[riverdivine]

05:53 PM on 09/25/2010

Fanned and Faved.

"We ALL live downstream"....

I momentarily had my hopes up when I saw the caption for this article....Alas, it is much ado about nothing.. environmental; its all political.
True "environmental justice" would require us to, at last, RESPECT Nature, respect the Earth we live on, thee air we breathe, the water we drink, the flora- which supports us with oxygen, beauty, food;and medicine; and fauna- animals, both wildlife and domestic, who gift us, and keep us humble, and remind us of our roles as caretakers for this planet.
A true Dept of Environmental Justice would be about coming together to solve the problems and imbalances in our country that take us away from our true nature, endanger our planet, and threaten our health (such as outlawing "frakking", a means of extracting natural gas that pollutes our environment/our earth's core, and our waterways, and endangers our life); it would be about creating and maintaining laws to afford protections to our environment which support our very essence, our health, and the continuation of our species.
Alas...no such luck here...

What keeps us, as a country, from examining these issues.? Is it lack of intellect or lack of soul.....?

[snowballinhell]

11:45 AM on 09/26/2010

Follow the money. That is the answer to what keeps us from examining these issues.

[mudshark12]

02:05 AM on 09/25/2010

They are reactivating a panel (committee), dormant since the Clinton administration, of people from various government agencies to discuss the environment. The amount of hot air this will generate MIGHT be enough to out us past "the point of no return" in co2 emissions. Blah, blah, blah... ad nauseum.

As you can tell I don't really believe anything will get accomplished except wasting more of our tax dollars. There are too many different agencies with diverse viewpoints and opinions for them to get together and do anything positive.

[aligatorhardt]

10:09 PM on 09/24/2010

I hope to see the result of increased accountability for polluters. We all pay for degradation of the environment instead of those that are responsible. The amount of poisons in our lives is unacceptable and we must work to prevent pollution before it occurs instead of just reacting to it when the damage has been done. It is not possible to actually clean up spills and discharges into the waters, soils and air. Prevention is necessary.

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

09:34 PM on 09/24/2010

Environmental Justice? What the heck is that? Isn;t that the job of prosecutors? We have enough laws on the books for this, just enforce them. THis sounds like some soft rational to justify more regulation so these people have something to do besides suck our tax dollars dry and impede business and economic development.

[lipps]

11:14 AM on 09/25/2010

It is totally unconstitutional.... Waste of taxpayer money... EPA and this policy needs to be abandoned.

[John Mainstream]

06:24 PM on 09/24/2010

How's about working on a real issue, like equal pay for women for equal work.

[Lpeter]

06:01 PM on 09/24/2010

Wow, pledging to do their job in protecting the public and punishing criminals. Big stuff but I will beleive it when people start getting prosecuted.

What's next the SEC is going to write tickets to hedge fund managers for insider trading?

[lightningbolt]

04:04 PM on 09/24/2010

Will this environmental justice include arresting BP executives for their criminal negligence that caused the largest oil spill in U.S. history and the murder of 11 workers?