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The fines are low. The regulations are not well enforced. The organizations that are supposed to enforce the regulations keep having their funding cut. And cer
by JohnTHaller 11y ago
The fines are low. The regulations are not well enforced. The organizations that are supposed to enforce the regulations keep having their funding cut. And certain political groups are trying to strip the regulations and the funding further.
- lobster_johnson 11y agoThis recent article [1] is a great example of all four facts. DuPont knew for half a century that their chemical, PFOA, was poisonous to people and to drinking water, yet kept exposing their own workers and dumping it in places where it killed livestock, leeched into the soil and contaminated water supplies. DuPont is still fighting regulations, and fighting thousands of personal injury lawsuits in court, one by one. It settled with the EPA for $16.5m — essentially nothing. The EPA's role is to regulate, but it is basically powerless to do so. Meanwhile, PFOA and related fluorochemicals are now apparently present in the bloodstream of almost all animals and people on Earth — including everyone on HN — as well as much of our drinking water. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/magazine/the-lawyer-who-became-duponts-worst-nightmare.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/magazine/the-lawyer-who-be...
- JohnTHaller 11y agoIt won't matter how many facts you quote here, you'll still be downvoted for stating it for some reason. There are quite a few paid downvoters on reddit that engage in this sort of behavior. Based on what I've seen on HN, the same applies here.