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Does anyone know why this is done? What is the reasoning here? Is this defendable in any way?
by he0001 1y ago
Does anyone know why this is done? What is the reasoning here? Is this defendable in any way?
- jfengel 1y ago[flagged]
- Apreche 1y ago[flagged]
- da_chicken 1y agoAlso known as the, "I got mine. F*** you." philosophy. Maximize exploitation in the short run because by the time the long run comes around, they'll already be dead. It doesn't speak well of their feelings about their own children, but, well, there isn't a lot speaking that well of them in general.
- throw0101a 1y ago> As for people getting sick and dying, they either don’t care, or they want people to get sick and die. Healthcare providers and insurance companies are corporations too: you can get rich by treating more people.
- catlifeonmars 1y agoWrt to insurance companies: You can get rich by insuring more people. Treatment is not profitable.
- throwawaygmbno 1y agoAn insurance company CEO was famously shot in broad day light just before he went into a meeting to celebrate his accomplishment of denying people healthcare for his company's profits. Nobody felt bad except other CEOs and the people they directly pay because everyone has a story of the insurance company putting profit over people. They did not get rich by treating more people.
- yndoendo 1y agoUSA HealthCare insurance companies are the _Death Panels_, run by CEO, accounts, and investors, that work to maximize profit over keeping people health. They pay _specialist_ to contradict the actual practicing doctors on why some procedure or medicine is needed. A firm's sole responsibility is to increase profit and a maximize returns for shareholders. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_doctrine
- AHatLikeThat 1y agoI'd argue the insurance companies prefer to collect premiums and not treat people.
- zdragnar 1y agoThen you'd be wrong. Insurance companies are limited to the amount they can collect without paying back out. It's a fixed percentage. That means the more expensive treatment gets, the higher they can raise rates, and the more revenue they get from that fixed percentage.
- vel0city 1y ago> Then you'd be wrong. Insurance companies are limited to the amount they can collect without paying back out. So they go buy the providers and clinics and pharmacies so they can raise the prices and juice that percentage.
- chung8123 1y agoThis debate style is pretty frustrating to me. Use a talking point for the other side and act like it is why the reason it the decision is made. It really does not lend itself to getting to the root of issues and finding what compromise is. In my opinion this added nothing to the conversation when in theory the op asked for a real answer.
- SSchick 1y agoOk, what is your counter argument?
- Daishiman 1y agoIm sorry if you’re naive about life but the Republican Party has shown nothing but contempt for life in general. Ideological coherency is not something they have cared about, hence debating them as if their arguments has any weight whatsoever is not useful. Whenever they propose something, just ask yourself which lobbyist stands something to gain. That will be a sufficient explanation.
- thegrim33 1y ago[flagged]
- thrance 1y agoWhat's up to debate here? It's crystal clear: they removed important health regulations so that a few companies could make slightly more money not having to clean up after themselves. What's not to hate there?
- suby 1y agoIt is frustrating. Rolling back forever chemical regulations is analogous to reintroducing leaded gasoline. Should we be expected to debate and weigh the pros and cons of leaded gasoline? Some things require nuance, but some things are clearly and unambiguously bad. PFAS have well known health risks, they're persistent, bio-accumulative, and linked to cancers and endocrine disruption. We should err on the side of caution. An angry reaction against this is justified. It's insanity.
- emddudley 1y agoIronically, PFAS levels have been found to be higher in wealthy people. People with money own more furniture and clothing with stain resistant treatments, for example.
- supportengineer 1y agoAlso brand new items versus used items. When you buy a used item, someone else has already absorbed the PFAS, and the depreciation for that matter.
- avazhi 1y ago[flagged]
- thrance 1y agoWhat's your reasonable explanation, then? A whole lot of words for saying nothing.
- avazhi 1y agoWhether I have a reasonable explanation for this change or not doesn't change the fact that that comment was a simplistic caricature. I never claimed to know the full answer. But I am nearly certain it doesn't begin with those evil corporations literally trying to make people sick. Merchants of Doubt, which is a great book related to this subject, is full of stories about how cigarette and PFAS corporations like Dupont pulled all sorts of shady shit to cover up the harms their products caused consumers. At no point has it ever been suggested, either in that book or anywhere else that I'm aware of, that corporations did it on purpose to make people ill so they could what, make money through the healthcare industry? Touch grass.
- cluckindan 1y agoDuPont pulled shady shit because executives were heavily incentivized to maximize profits in the short term.
- avazhi 1y agoOk? No shit? That's not the same thing as literally trying to make people sick, as the original commenter said and as I was replying to initially. Being negligent is not the same thing as being malicious; intent matters. Even if I try to cover up a harm, that doesn't mean the harm itself was my intention. If you guys can't understand the nuance there then I dunno what to tell you.
- cluckindan 1y ago
- e2le 1y agoI'm not convinced that this is the correct answer. These policies also affect wealthy individuals and wealthy individuals want to be healthy (I assume). An examination of the individuals in the EPA pushing this change might reveal something. Perhaps it's ideological? I don't know, I'm at a complete loss.
- shigawire 1y ago>These policies also affect wealthy individuals and wealthy individuals want to be healthy (I assume). They get to move to whatever enclave they want and buy expensive RO filters. Or, they don't believe in science broadly and believe they won't be impacted. If scientists are so smart, why aren't they rich like me and exploiting everyone and everything to the maximum potential profit??
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 1y agoI don't get the environmental poison stuff. These rich people and their families breathe the same air and drink the same water as everyone else. Why would they poison themselves and their families with environmental pollution?
- ndsipa_pomu 1y agoAlso, there's likely to be a few years between the policy being enacted and people having health issues, so the chances are that the people pushing for this won't be around to catch the blame.
- btreecat 1y ago[flagged]
- amanaplanacanal 1y agoThis is probably a big part of it. Environmentalists are not their voters. Basically attacking everything "leftists" are for, whether it's a good idea or not. It used to be that environmental conservation was a part of conservative ideology, but MAGA isn't anything like what conservatism used to be in the US.
- tombert 1y agoWasn't the EPA started by Nixon? Why are they so against it? It doesn't seem like some hyper-woke thing to me, but I guess I'm a dumb lefty.
- cogman10 1y agoBecause big oil money juices right wing media and guess what industry finds keeping water and air clean to be a negative in their bottom line? Get enough money and you can buy a party position.
- tombert 1y agoAre PFAS's a by-product of stuff like teflon and plastic production and the like? I know big oil is evil but I'm not sure that they're the boogieman in this case.
- cogman10 1y agoIn this specific case, no they aren't the main villain. They are more the catalyst that turned the republican party into the anti-environment party (and thus anti-clean water). The EPA regulating PFAS means it can also regulate the effects of fracking. That's the context to understand how Republicans went from the Nixon party who created the EPA to today's party that hates all parts of the EPA.
- Larrikin 1y ago[flagged]
- turnsout 1y ago[flagged]
- coliveira 1y ago[flagged]
- sunsetSamurai 1y agoMany european, asian and african countries benefited handsomely from exploiting other human beings and many of these countries have better environmental protection laws. So I don't think this is the reason.
- tyleo 1y agoI would guess normal corruption. Companies making a profit here simply fund the politicians in power and are getting their kickbacks.
- OutOfHere 1y agoCorruption is normally illegal. There is nothing normal about this legalized form of corruption. It is a core structural failure.
- yaroslavvb 1y agoBalancing protection against water bills - https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-announces-it-will-keep-maximum-contaminant-levels-pfoa-pfos https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-announces-it-will-keep-...
- sgnelson 1y agoWell shit, we can really lower water bills by getting rid of all clean water regulations and simply stop water treatment. Think of the cost savings!
- yaroslavvb 1y agoStricter (but not looser) standards can be imposed on state level. Canada has no binding national drinking water law, they leave it to territories/provinces to decide how to implement guidelines.
- sgnelson 1y agoWatersheds don't follow political boundaries.
- 8note 1y agosometimes they do. the Alberta/British Columbia border is defined by which direction water drains off the mountains
- BobaFloutist 1y agoThat sounds like the political boundary follows the watershed. It also doesn't actually refute the actual point they were making.
- stouset 1y agoWhat if instead we could all collectively agree that access to some amounts of fresh, running water is a fundamental human need? We figure a number, and the first N units are free. Additional units cost money, and perhaps you have two or three usage tiers where heavy users are disincentivized through additional cost. You calculate the figures such that the higher usage tiers subsidize the costs of the basic needs users. Or would that be socialism?
- groby_b 1y agoWhile the reason is not stated, Occam's razor demands we look for the simplest explanation that ties together all actions of this administration. And that seems to be dismantling the US as a military and technological superpower - a self-inflicted Morgenthau plan, if you will. We are left to speculate why a US government would want to dismantle the US, and who would benefit.
- Filligree 1y agoIf you want to know, just look at the list of nations exempt from the current tariffs.
- SpicyLemonZest 1y agoThe reason is stated! The source article links to the request they sent to the court, explaining in detail why the EPA is doing this. Perhaps you think they’re not being honest, but Occam’s Razor doesn’t demand that we should spin grand unifying theories of government behavior in preference to evaluating the stated motivations of individual actions.
- kranke155 1y ago[flagged]
- sedawkgrep 1y agoIf you view all this through the lens of the goal of administration being to weaken the US both internally and as a world power, it all comes much more clearly into focus. Then it can be seen as no longer a disparate collection of seemingly random political, social, and economic moves, but rather as a directed, intentional movement.
- DaSHacka 1y ago> If you view all this through the lens of the goal of administration being to weaken the US both internally and as a world power, it all comes much more clearly into focus. And why would they want to do that? Bonus challenge: Without relying on antisemetic tropes
- sillyfluke 1y agojust purely as a thought experiment and devil's advocacy: to create new avenues of growth and control for the oligarchy. The fall of the Soviet Union, for example, turned out to be a boon for them and they were able to replace the politburo with their own fiefdoms. By destroying the US goverment functions they will be able to privatize the profits (for their companies) and socialize the costs (pollution and shitty water) for the rest of the population. The price of clean water will go up and the people that can afford it will buy whatever anti-PFAS tech they're selling (providing growth for their companies), and the poor well...who cares. They will obtain greater leverage with the US government because they will be seen as saviors since the government will have no competent agencies left, including the military. And the government will helplessly cede more and more power over to them.
- Teever 1y agoI think it's a combination of things. Some people are genuine psychopaths who derive satisfaction from destroying things or by hurting people who don't want them to destroy things. Others are driven to destroy because they believe that there's some sort of higher purpose to this destruction, either religious or political in nature.
- sedawkgrep 1y ago
- whatever1 1y ago[flagged]
- wood_spirit 1y agoThe buyer doesn’t know which company is responsible and which company’s suppliers are responsible etc. This is why we need legislation and enforcement. Imagine another scenario. You are my neighbour. I spill some poison on the ground. Your child gets ill. Am I at fault?
- whatever1 1y agoThe companies who care will fund 3rd party certification orgs that will check whether the standards are met. They do it already for car safety, responsible raw materials sourcing, recycled content etc. If it is a feature the customers care about they will market it. But frankly customers just want a better price today.
- mindslight 1y agoNo, you're falling for the efficiency market fallacy. Demand does not always create supply. Markets are not some type of super-classical computer, they are bound by the same stickiness as any NP-hard problem.
- cogman10 1y agoThis only works in competitive markets. A number of markets have few competitors which means it's beyond easy for all the companies to externalize everything. Further, some products have deep supply chains that are easy to mix. Consider copper as an example. A responsible company will want to use recycled copper as much as possible because it's cheaper. However, can anyone realistically validate that none of that copper came from stolen cables or bad mining practices?
- hobs 1y agoThe market isn't free, so it cannot decide - even Adam Smith was pretty freaking clear about this. And I don't mean we need less regulation, I mean companies have complete control over laws, whether or not there's an even playing field, and about their transparency to customers - there's no market at all.
- Atlas667 1y ago[flagged]
- Arubis 1y agoMost elected representatives are too old for this to affect them personally, and nobody else is a real person.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- purple_turtle 1y agoAs EU and it's love of regulation demonstrated - you can regulate too much, with harmful effects. Strangling economic growth also kills, as indirectly as PFAS in drinking water. Neither "regulate everything" nor "allow everything" is a good idea. (no opinion about this specific one, I had no motive nor opportunity to build informed opinion on this specific one)
- prasadjoglekar 1y agoLook to a better source for some nuance. You may still disagree, and the court might as well, but there is more complexity here than "Trump bad, Zeldin worse, poison everyone". https://news.bloomberglaw.com/environment-and-energy/us-seeks-pause-in-pfas-superfund-case-as-epa-weighs-rules-fate https://news.bloomberglaw.com/environment-and-energy/us-seek...
- staminade 1y agoAny new regulation the EPA introduces results in litigation. Some of the previously introduced PFAS regulations weren't done in accordance with how the Safe Drinking Water Act says they should be (regulations were introduced without the necessary public consultation), so they're applying to partially vacate the previous ruling. Notably, they're _not_ applying to vacate the regulation of PFAS chemicals where they say the process was followed correctly. So, the legal reasoning might be to cut their losses litigating to defend rulings they think they'll lose due to the administrative error. I also suspect that being seen to roll back some regulations likely gives Lee Zeldin (the EPA admin) some political room to maneuver. He's historically be associated with anti-PFAS efforts (in Congress he represented a district with contamination problems and he voted for anti-PFAS legislation), but he's also part of an administration with a strong anti-regulation agenda, so he needs to walk a fine line.
- nickysielicki 1y agoThanks for this balanced take. This makes more sense.
- franktankbank 1y agoThere's a lot of outrage inducing judicial rulings that boil down to poor rule following. The main question winds up being: do we get to a good end point eventually or do these rulings look like steps backwards?
- bigbadfeline 1y ago> So, the legal reasoning might be to cut their losses litigating to defend rulings they think they'll lose due to the administrative error. But they didn't start proper administrative procedures to reestablish the regulations, proving that these regulations are being removed on principle, whatever that is, while the "administrative error" is just an excuse.
- trimethylpurine 1y agoIt's a response to municipality associations' requests. People appear to have forgotten that Trump's EPA created these rules in his first term. Here is a summary directly from the organization pushing for this. https://www.awwa.org/AWWA-Articles/epa-announces-changes-to-pfas-drinking-water-standard/ https://www.awwa.org/AWWA-Articles/epa-announces-changes-to-...
- DaSHacka 1y agoTrump's EPA introduces new rules: i sleep Trump's EPA pulls back the rules they themselves introduced: "This is proof Donald Trump is trying to weaken this country"
- trimethylpurine 1y agoYeah. LOL. They aren't even pulling them back, they are delaying them to allow time for municipalities to get funding and come into compliance.
- bell-cot 1y ago[flagged]
- Workaccount2 1y agoThe answer is likely that the treatment is expensive, and most people aren't drinking tap water anyway. My town completed it's pfas filtering system and water bill costs increased about 25% to cover it. I don't know one person in this town though who doesn't drink filtered water. That being said, I do still support the filtering.
- wk_end 1y agoIs this a regional thing? AFAIK everywhere I’ve lived most people drink tap water. Certainly they cook or make coffee/tea with it. But I’ve been lucky enough to live in places with pretty good tap water.
- Workaccount2 1y agoOnly about 25% of Americans drink straight tap water. https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news-release/2022/05/ewg-finds-over-half-people-surveyed-think-tap-water-unsafe https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news-release/2022/05/ewg-f...
- wk_end 1y agoThat's from a non-representative online poll for people already searching the internet for information about whether or not their tap water was safe to drink. > Those are findings from a recent survey of 2,800 visitors to EWG’s landmark Tap Water Database, updated in late 2021 [...] Although EWG ran the survey for only a few days, responses came from 2,800 people in about 1,580 unique ZIP codes in all 50 states and D.C., and even some from Canada and Mexico. Here's an article, also from 2021, based on an academic study which suggests "Nearly 60 million Americans don't drink their tap water", which (US population being 331.9M in 2021) would still leave over 80% who do. [0] https://theconversation.com/nearly-60-million-americans-dont-drink-their-tap-water-research-suggests-heres-why-thats-a-public-health-problem-158483 https://theconversation.com/nearly-60-million-americans-dont...
- smegger001 1y agoMost people low and middle class people I have met my whole life drink unfiltered tap water unless there is a reason not to (safety or particularly foul taste). you might be in a bit of bubble. Not that it matter though as most bottled water is just bottled tap water anyway.
- FranzFerdiNaN 1y agoEnvironmental protection is woke. Real American men drink plastic straight from the bottle.