[PAA-Discuss] Alert of the Week: EPA Considers Weakening Fumigant Regulations

[A. Artemis]

The EPA:   a regulatory agency which stands for . . . Environmental Protection Agency.  You'd THINK that means it would be hard at work, protecting our environment. 
 
Yet the alert below underscores the ultimate problem with all regulatory agencies:  They exist to create loopholes by which a guilty entity (Big Corporaate Fumigator manufacturers, in the example below) can get away with biolating the law (laws concerning environmental protections, in the case below - and which affect absolutely everyone.)
 
This is yet another example of why we need to go back to the Fair Trade Practices Act, rather than regulatory agencies.   Per this act, a company may not go around killing people.  Or harming them less mildly than death.  That would raise all kinds of product liability issues.
 
Interestingly enough, a couple judges running for the bench in the current election view liability cases as "frivolous."   So if you haven't voted yet, take note.


--- On Wed, 10/29/08, Laura Borst <rebelljb at aol.com> wrote:


Hello,
I came across this alert and thought you might be interested. It's from the Organic Consumers Association.
-------------------

Alert of the Week: EPA Considers Weakening Fumigant Regulations

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is under pressure to weaken proposed regulations that protect farm workers and rural communities from fumigant exposure. A public comment period is open until October 30. Please take action now, and let the EPA know these regulations should not be weakened. Fumigants are among the most toxic pesticides in use today, drifting into schools and homes in rural communities and threatening the health of farm workers. Exposure has been linked to birth defects, cancer, Parkinson's disease and acute poisonings. Fumigants are used in large quantities to sterilize soils before planting -- an archaic tool of chemical-intensive industrial agriculture, and the polar opposite of soil-nurturing sustainable farming. Tell EPA we want the highest safety precautions for fumigant pesticide use and a time-line to phase out fumigants.

Learn more and take action: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_15381.cfm 


      
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://paa-tx.org/pipermail/discuss_paa-tx.org/attachments/20081031/5a9fcd98/attachment.htm>