Not that the Republicans will admit it. Via Thinkprogress:
If rhetoric from the Republican Presidential candidates is to be believed, the Environmental Protection Agency is “a tool to crush the private enterprise system” (Mitt Romney), “a cemetery for jobs” (Rick Perry), and “should be re-named the job-killing organization of America” (Michele Bachmann). But it’s a safe bet the tens of thousands of people who may soon find jobs implementing EPA regulations aimed at cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay would disagree with those assertions.
Uh oh, I think I feel a collosal
Fact Fail coming on for the Republicans.
Unfortunately for Mitt, Rick and Michelle - as Ice T would say - "Shit aint like Dat".
A new report released today by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation highlights the job creation numbers — 240,000 full-time jobs — expected to come from achieving new pollution goals set by the EPA’s “Total Maximum Daily Load” restrictions. Finalized in December 2010, these rules require a 25 percent reduction of pollution flowing into the Bay by 2025 and have already spurred state and federal investment in stormwater mitigation projects, upgrades at sewage treatment facilities, addition of power plant smokestack scrubbers, and improvements to management of agricultural runoff and livestock waste management.
It's really simple. When the EPA promulgates a regulation, companies have to hire contractors and suppliers to help them meet that regulation. It's creates a
demand in their precious mystical magical market.
As Thom Hartmann would say, the only way that a company can lose jobs thanks to the EPA is if the EPA has put them out of business. And if the EPA has to do that, chances are fairly high they shouldn't be in business in the first place.
Over the last few years we've had outbreaks of E-Coli from sprouts supplied by a German farm that killed 18 people. We've had "Natural" health Supplements tainted by banned prescription drugs. Tainted Pet Food and Toys contaminated with Lead Paint.
Then again you have the situation of Pink Slime being mixed into 70% of the Ground Beef in the nation.
Although many fast-food chains, including McDonald's, have said they are pulling the infamous "pink slime" from their hamburgers, school districts across the country are still serving it to kids. McDonald's and other fast-food chains had been using scrape and waste -- muscle and connective tissue normally used in dog food, in their hamburgers.
Pink slime is bits of meat and muscle salvaged from slaughterhouse floors that are treated with a pink chemical to kill any dangerous pathogens. According to an earlier report by msnbc.com, the unappetizing pink goo is widely used in the food industry as an anti-microbial agent in meats and as a leavener in bread and cake products. It's regulated by the U.S. Agriculture Department, which classifies it as "generally recognized as safe."
The problem is that "Pink Slime" isn't meat. It's shavings and flesh that fits between the muscle and bone of a cow that is highly susceptible to bacteria like e-Coli, to prevent this risk the material is treated with ammonium-hydroxide and that's what supposedly makes it "Safe".
Even McDonald's doesn't believe that one anymore.
Banning this wouldn't put these companies out of business, but it would lower their profit margin because their "meat" would have to have mostly - Meat in IT.
Oh Heaven forfend.
But if Republicans have their way, our food would be less healthy, our water will be less drinkable, our air will be dirtier, the planet will be warmer - meanwhile Wall Street and the 1% will be a little bit richer.
It's time they stopped flogging the EPA with Lies. They won't stop, but it's time.
Vyan