WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration is considering doing away with health standards that cut lead from gasoline, widely regarded as one of the nation's biggest clean-air accomplishments.
The Environmental Protection Agency said this week that revoking those standards might be justified "given the significantly changed circumstances since lead was listed in 1976" as an air pollutant, claiming that concentrations of lead in the air have dropped more than 90 percent in the past 2 1/2 decades. Battery makers, lead smelters, refiners all have lobbied the administration to do away with the Clean Air Act limits.
But Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., the incoming chairman of the House Committee on Government Reform, called on the agency to "renounce this dangerous proposal immediately," because lead, a highly toxic element, can cause severe nerve damage, especially in children.
The Bush administration wants to bring back lead in gasoline, simply because the concentrations of lead have dropped for the past 25 years? Who in this administration has thought up this boondoggle for more pollution? Even better yet, who is paying the Bush White House for promoting this insane idea?
How about the corporate interests building batteries, smelting lead, and energy refiners? I wonder how much they paid into President Bush's campaign coffers?
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