The GOP War on Regulations
On the eve of Public Citizen’s 40th anniversary — the fight for the public interest is still on. Big Business and its supporters in Congress are feverishly working at stripping away a century’s worth progress on public safeguards (next Tuesday the House Judiciary Committee will be conducting a hearing on the “Regulatory Accountability Act” as well as voting on sending the “REINS Act” to the House floor for a full vote.
There are in fact, more than a couple of dozen pending bills in Congress right now, all aimed at rolling back the regulations that keep our air and water clean, our food and workplaces safe, our financial system fair and sound. It can be dizzying.
Thankfully, Public Citizen President Robert Weissman provides a big picture glimpse of the GOP’s obsession with deregulation in the latest edition of the Nation.
It’s hard to imagine a worse time for big business to conduct a full-blown attack on regulatory protections. The country continues to suffer from a deep recession caused in large part by financial deregulation and underenforcement of existing rules. A string of corporate disasters—the BP oil gusher, the Massey coal mine explosion, unintended acceleration in Toyota cars, leaded toys, killer cantaloupes—all tied directly to inadequate regulatory protections, are fresh in the public mind.
For the US Chamber of Commerce, however, the facts shouldn’t get in the way of a stupendous power grab. The Chamber and its allies on Capitol Hill have launched an unprecedented antiregulation campaign, with the goal of blocking new safeguards against corporate wrongdoing and rolling back environmental, health, financial and other regulatory protections.
If you want to get a good grasp at the evil forces that are trying to destroy or air and water (not to mention a few other aspects of out life on this planet), than you really gotta read the whole article!
When I was a kid, I always wondered why the Cuyahoga River in Ohio always caught on fire. Thanks to Stephen Colbert, now I know….
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/400166/october-19-2011/indecision-2012—job-killing-epa—carol-browner?xrs=share_copy
