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Happy Earth Day: Proposed GOP Budget Eliminating Lead Poisoning Prevention & Cleanup

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K

kess

Member
DUTCHBOY.JPG


http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-lead-states/

A Reuters investigation found at least four city zip codes here where 40 percent of children tested from 2006 to 2014 had high lead levels, making Buffalo among the most dangerous lead hotspots in America. The rate of high lead tests in these areas was far worse – eight times greater – than that found among children across Flint, Michigan, during that city’s recent water crisis.

Federal support has helped Manzella and other families in Buffalo and beyond. This month, her family moved into a gleaming, lead-free apartment renovated by a local nonprofit with funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

This type of assistance may not last much longer. President Donald Trump is advocating deep federal budget cuts that would sap billions from programs used by state and local governments to protect children from the lifelong health impacts of lead exposure.
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At least eight of the nine federal agencies sharing responsibility for lead poisoning prevention face potential budget cuts. But the heaviest lifting falls to HUD, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Environmental Protection Agency. Trump’s budget would cut at least $4.7 billion from programs at HUD and the EPA that support healthy housing and lead pollution cleanup efforts, a Reuters analysis found. Funding for a CDC program that assists states with poisoning prevention is uncertain.

Cuts would be felt across the country. The Trump administration would eliminate a $27 million program that trains private contractors on lead removal, and a $21 million program that funds lead abatement projects in Alaska, Illinois, Ohio, Oklahoma and California. It would kill a program that provided funds to a Rhode Island nonprofit to upgrade housing, and end a $970 million affordable-housing program that has fixed up dilapidated homes in hundreds of U.S. cities, including Flint.

If the cuts clear Congress, some experts fear the fight against lead could stall out for years.

“We are dooming future generations,” said Dr. Gale Burstein, health commissioner in Erie County. “Exposure to high lead levels causes brain damage to kids, learning disabilities and behavioral challenges.”

Instead of saving money, the cost of inaction could spiral, Burstein said. More children would be afflicted by learning disabilities and other neurological problems, leaving localities to foot the bill for treatment programs.

White House officials declined to comment.

Decades of lead abatement have sharply curbed childhood lead levels across the United States. But studies have shown no level of lead in the blood is safe, and poisoning persists in thousands of locales.
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Health officials in the small city of York, Pennsylvania, two hours west of Philadelphia in Amish country, know how budget cuts like this can play out.

The city and surrounding York County, where Trump won 70 percent of the vote in November, have a serious lead poisoning problem. From 2005 through 2014, at least 30 percent of children tested in all but one of York’s census tracts had elevated lead exposure, according to CDC data. In one census tract, more than half of all tested children had high lead levels.

Trump lost the city of York, but other patches of the county hit hard by lead poisoning, including the borough of Red Lion, where 21 percent of children tested had high levels, overwhelmingly supported him.
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B

Beartruck

Member
Jesus. I jokingly suggested a month ago they'd lift the ban on lead based paint, and here they are all but doing that. There is no bottom is there?
 
O

Oersted

Member
Beartruck said:
Jesus. I jokingly suggested a month ago they'd lift the ban on lead based paint, and here they are all but doing that. There is no bottom is there?
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Friends and I had that sort of running gag, that if there is one group noone, no matter how evil, would go after is cancer kids.

They are kids, they are vulnerable... at worst you can exploit them for PR pics.

The last White House budget cut went after cancer kids.
 
S

Sianos

Member
"We are dooming future generations,” said Dr. Gale Burstein, health commissioner in Erie County. “Exposure to high lead levels causes brain damage to kids, learning disabilities and behavioral challenges.”

That's kind of their intention, considering which neighborhoods lead poisoning statistically tends to occur in. (It's poor neighborhoods with a high population of people of color)

I guess the right is on some level recognizing their beliefs aren't true and HBD is another pseudoscientific endeavor along the lines of phrenology to couch racism in technical terms.

"Better fix that in post, then!"
 
R

RCSI

Member
At a time when there is a growing urgency to increase lead testing in children across the country (Reuters: Los Angeles), many of the programs cut will shield our view of the extent of the problems in our neighbor hoods.

Flint served as a wake up call for inspection and efforts to monitor it needs to continue.
 
C

ClosingADoor

Member
This shit is going to take decades to repair. Can someone remove these people from power for treason or something against their own people.
 
F

Future

Member
So is it republican general policy to ignore all science about anything safety related? Climate, lead...whatever? Is there anything that republicans believe is actually a safety related hazard that needs some regulation?
 
B

Beartruck

Member
Worth noting though, this is Trump's budget plan which congress will probably gut. Republicans can be evil motherfuckers, but no senator wants an attack ad against them about how they are pro-lead poisening.
 
C

cameron

Member
Lead contamination in drinking water is a longstanding nationwide issue. The GOP """learned""" quite a bit from the Flint Water Crisis. Concluding that less government (funding and environmental regulations) is needed.

Everybody's favourite, Jason Chaffetz, via The Guardian: "Flint water crisis: congressman says EPA is guilty of 'flat-out incompetence'"
The EPA's role as a national regulator of water is questioned by Jason Chaffetz, the Republican chairman of the House oversight committee, who said the Flint crisis demonstrated serious flaws in the federal agency's ability to protect the public.

”There has been a catastrophic failure from top to bottom, and someone has to be held responsible," Chaffetz told the Guardian. ”We aren't going to say, ‘Oops, let's just move on.'"

”It's shocking that the EPA knew about Flint and yet never let anyone know about it. What good are they if they knew about it and didn't do anything? This is an organization that wants to control every puddle in the country but they can't handle it. This isn't solved with more money or authority, because they've been flat-out incompetent.

”It's impossible to think the federal government can monitor every situation with 300 million people and who knows how many water systems. We have national standards, but states should be warned to not rely upon the EPA. Conceptually, we need less EPA, not more. They've failed at every chance they'd had."
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And back in December, PBS News Hour: "House GOP quietly closes investigation into Flint water crisis"
”The committee found significant problems at Michigan's Department of Environmental Quality and unacceptable delays in the Environmental Protection Agency's response to the crisis," wrote Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah. ”The committee also found that the federal regulatory framework is so outdated that it sets up states to fail."
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K

kess

Member
Derwind said:
Can I get leaded gasoline again? There's not enough crazy in my life as it is.

/s
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I used to drive an older car, and I'd get morons coming up to me and telling me how "awesome" the thing would run if I put leaded gas in it. I'd explain, no, that valve seat wear on anything newer than the 40s is a myth, and besides, the compression level would render the lead additive completely useless, and they would still insist I should use it.

Atavism or a negative feedback loop of lead poisoning?
 
L

le.phat

Member
kess said:
“We are dooming future generations,” said Dr. Gale Burstein, health commissioner in Erie County. “Exposure to high lead levels causes brain damage to kids, learning disabilities and behavioral challenges.”
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Trump prepping future generations to vote R it seems.
 
S

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
I imagine the weird outlier - the increase in funding for removing lead from homes is a) A kind of olive branch - look we're doing somethign but b) related to the fact that expensive victorian and craftsman homes in lots of leafy and expensive neighbrohoods have this issue and lead abation is necessary for normal real estate turnover.
 
S

Sulik2

Member
Snowybreak said:
This is extremely dangerous. These motherfuckers have no idea what they're doing.
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They know exactly what they are doing. Cutting programs that are paid for with taxes on the aristocracy and corporations so they can give the wealthy tax breaks. If some of the dirty poors die what do they care? They are just the peasants. This is class warfare from the oval office and wealthy are winning.
 
B

BajiBoxer

Banned
Hey people who vote Republican, stop supporting the poisoning of our populace! Every time someone complains about how liberal GAF is and how unfairly you all are treated, I think of shit like this. We go easy on you morons for the amount of destruction to this country your dumb asses support. There's no middle gound, you've chosen to kill and poison your own fellow citizens (and yourselves, you fucking idiots).
 
M

More_Badass

Member
I'm listening to a podcast about Roosevelt, and his fight with Republicans over regulations and the environment

Nothing has changed. Over a hundred years, and I could be listening about events happening today
 
J

Jmanunknown

Member
Good old Republican policy destroy all protections people have while simultaneously cutting taxes for the rich and blame democrats when it all goes sideways despite republicans controlling all forms of the government. At least the republicans are so obstructionist this will probably not go through either.
 
RPGCrazied

RPGCrazied

Member
Yet Trump has the gall to post this today.

Donald J. Trump‏Verified account
@realDonaldTrump

Today on Earth Day, we celebrate our beautiful forests, lakes and land. We stand committed to preserving the natural beauty of our nation.
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K

kess

Member
More_Badass said:
I'm listening to a podcast about Roosevelt, and his fight with Republicans over regulations and the environment

Nothing has changed. Over a hundred years, and I could be listening about events happening today
Click to expand...

What was the name of the podcast?

Come to think of it, I wonder how many Fred Trump buildings were painted with lead white? Surely Trump's history as a real estate developer (and owner) is not in conflict with this policy!
 
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