Donald Trump is a piece of work and downright evil.
He is impulsive, believes he makes no mistakes, and he takes serious risks with our lives and never has a regret doing so.
So it is no surprise that this monster will put chemical and fossil fuel interests ahead of the deadly health risks to the American people, but it is jaw-dropping none the less.
It continues a pattern of cruelty and proclivities towards fascism - where there are no rules or regulations to interfere with corporate greed no matter what the costs to the people of this country.
Lisa Friedman of the NY Times writes:
WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency plans to change the way it calculates the health risks of air pollution, a shift that would make it easier to roll back a key climate change rule because it would result in far fewer predicted deaths from pollution, according to five people with knowledge of the agency’s plans.
The E.P.A. had originally forecast that eliminating the Obama-era rule, the Clean Power Plan, and replacing it with a new measure would have resulted in an additional 1,400 premature deaths per year. The new analytical model would significantly reduce that number and would most likely be used by the Trump administration to defend further rollbacks of air pollution rules if it is formally adopted.
The proposed shift is the latest example of the Trump administration downgrading the estimates of environmental harm from pollution in regulations. In this case, the proposed methodology would assume there is little or no health benefit to making the air any cleaner than what the law requires. Many experts said that approach was not scientifically sound and that, in the real world, there are no safe levels of the fine particulate pollution associated with the burning of fossil fuels.
The estimated premature deaths are really not accurate when you think about it. Because deaths from climate change are not in the calculations. Death certificates will not mention climate change. They will state heat stroke or drowning or old age and illness, instead of heat waves or failure of the electrical grid from powerful storms as we saw in Puerto Rico, South Florida, and New Orleans.
The five people familiar with the plan, all current or former E.P.A. officials, said the new modeling method would appear in the agency’s analysis of the final version of the replacement regulation, known as the Affordable Clean Energy rule, which is expected to be made public in June.
snip
The Trump administration has moved to repeal the Obama-era plan and replace it with the Affordable Clean Energy rule, which would slightly improve the efficiency of coal plants. It would also allow older coal plants to remain in operation longer and result in an increase of particulate matter.
The NY Times piece has much more. It’s well worth the read if you haven’t already done so.