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A little arsenic with that drink? They Know the DrillBy Rick Horowitz
"It's Blank-Check Super-Value Days at Georgie Dub's! If you can cut it down or pump it up or dig it out, you've got a pal in the Oval Office! Do whatever you want to do, wherever you want to do it! At Georgie Dub's, 'extraction' is our middle name!" The arsenic was a nice touch, don't you think? Environmentally speaking-wise, I mean; it's hard to do better than arsenic. And the hits just keep on coming. What's next? Clear-cutting the White House lawn? Most politicians, you give them the choice between coming out in favor of arsenic or against arsenic, they'll pick against arsenic every time. Not our Georgie, though. Not our Chief Exec. He wants to mull it over some more. Most politicians, they hear "arsenic" and "drinking water" in the same sentence, they get nervous. They figure any voter who thinks about arsenic even a little bit thinks it's poison, doesn't want to come within a mile of the stuff, let alone have it spilling out of the kitchen faucet. The voters may not have heard about the links between arsenic and various kinds of cancers and other horribles. But they know it's arsenic -- arsenic! -- and that's all they need to know. So if scientists spend a decade or so working with the Environmental Protection Agency and coming up with new, stricter standards for arsenic levels in drinking water to replace the standards somebody set up back in 1942(!), most voters would think that's a good thing, and most politicians would be right there with them, standing up for public health and safety and all that. But not our Georgie. The research is "unclear," his people say. There's no "consensus." Let's deep-six the new standards and take another look. And the miners smile, just like they smiled when the prez flip-flopped on his campaign promise to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions from power plants. Just like the loggers smiled when the Bushies said they might try to roll back restrictions on cutting down trees in national forests. Just like the oilers smiled when the Bushies came out in favor of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Just like -- Can you say "Theodore Roosevelt"? I'm thinking the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania, macho mini-Texan that he is, is probably a big, big fan of Teddy on horseback. Trust-busting Teddy? Not so big a fan. Campaign-finance-reforming Teddy? Not so big a fan. And friend-of-the-environment Teddy? It is to laugh. Unless, of course, you feel like having a nice cool glass of water. Then the joke's on you. Anybody remember when protecting the environment used to be a Republican issue? Not any more. Not with an oil-state man in the big chair and a coal-state man right behind him, pulling the strings. The first President Roosevelt may have been a Republican, but he's not their kind of Republican, that's for sure -- and I'm guessing the feeling would be mutual. If Teddy's got any spin left in him, he's doing 360s 24/7. The extractors and the polluters, meanwhile, aren't spinning so much as they're jumping for joy, and can you blame them? They've got friends in high places. Arsenic in the water? No problem. Carbon dioxide heating up the atmosphere? No problem. They want to cut? They want to drill? They want to mine? No problem. It's all cool with Georgie. Can you dig it? You can dig it. Posted 3/22/01. Fill
your environment with plenty of laughs -- "Rick's" is the place to be!
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Rick Horowitz
