Let's do a date check: Today is Thursday, December 8, 2010. On Thursday, December 1, 2010, just seven days ago – and just 30 days before the end of the year – we were treated to this:
As recently as last Thursday, the agency said it remained committed to finalizing the new standards by the end of the year. The agency has said tightening the standard could save as many as 12,000 lives a year and yield health benefits worth as much as $100 billion annually in 2020.
OK. Sounds definitive. Sounds important. Sounds critical. Sounds necessary. These things – standards and regulations – are complex. They are written, reviewed, commented upon, rewritten, and finally released in a process that takes at least several months. One can safely conclude, then, that when the EPA tells us on December 1 that we can expect the standards and supporting regs by the end of the month that they are in the final editing process. They are dotting i's and crossing t's. They have a complete draft that is refined, and are just doing the professional thing because they know the impact regulations have on businesses, governments, and people. Printing will take time, blah, blah, blah. Thirty days, folks, one last push for patience.
But wait. Now we get this:
The Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday that it won't be prepared to decide until next July whether to tighten a national air-quality standard for ozone.
Hunh?
That would be nearly a year after the agency's original self-imposed deadline for settling the matter.
Hunh?
Here's the conversation:
"Boss, concerning those ozone standards and regs, I need several more …"
"Days? Sure. It's the holidays anyway. December 31, January 7, no big deal …"
"Um, no, ma'am, months. I need several more months."
"Help me understand."
Obama's people create the deadlines. Obama's people update us on release dates. And then they backtrack by an additional half-year at the last moment. Remarkable.
But it follows an announcement earlier this week:
On Tuesday, the EPA decided to delay another costly, controversial proposed regulation aimed at smokestack industries, saying it needed another year to finish rules aimed at reducing pollution from boilers and solid-waste incinerators.
We may as well let college students set their exam dates – the end of a semester is so fricking arbitrary anyway …
Sent from my iPhone
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