Meager Expectations [a pro-BP Whiting IN Refinery piece]

We've long become accustomed to typical behavior from given groups. For example, when it comes to bureaucracies like the EPA, no one would be shocked to find it infested with anal-retentive types so focused on what they perceive as the crucial details of their job they long-ago lost sight of the big picture.

With the EPA, there's at least a potential upside. The environment is far cleaner now than back when Richard Nixon signed it into existence. In the decades since, it has made major gains over pollution and have been proven at times to be a pyrrhic organization; quick to sacrifice small industry to achieve questionable "goals."

But the EPA has met these goals, regardless of the cost to local economies, and it is just that record that makes the latest BP Whiting Refinery "uproar" so much more frightening and potentially damaging nonsense.

As a government group with the power to severely penalize and even shut down businesses, an ever-growing group that has lived off the taxpayers for decades, the EPA does work many a politician, eager for the green vote and the green that comes along with it, look up to and applaud.

So what did BP do wrong? Nothing. The EPA, faithful to its "environment at all costs" charge, understood BP was playing by its rules. Low-level bureaucrats could figure that out; supposed public servants voted into office couldn't.

Instead, spurred on by media clowns begging for attention, some local politicians assumed the EPA was less stringent than reporters willing to say anything for a chance to push Lindsey Lohan off the front page and get their own name above the fold.

These politicians climbed in the anti-BP - and therefore anti-EPA - bandwagon, and didn't care if it rolled right over the truth. Since these men supposedly give the EPA direction, they need to at least act as if they have a clue.

People, with a seemingly infinite number of good reasons, expect little of our politicians. Few are naive enough to assume they are actually "leaders." More often than not, the elected simply follow whatever they see as the popular thought at the moment and jump on it.

True political leaders come around so seldom that, when discovered, they tend to earn themselves some statuary and/or face time on currency. Still, at the very least, we would rather our politicians did not get in the way, slowing up, complicating and burdening our lives.

The response of so many local politicians to the fabricated BP Refinery "issue" is an embarrassment. By taking their "science" leads from the Gores&Moores of the world, Senators Richard Durbin and Barack Obama, and U.S. Congressmen Mark Kirk and Rahm Emanuel, along with the DuPage County Board, have failed us all.

By cashing in on what they perceive as an acceptable prejudice, they endanger us all, and subject us to undue hardship. Their limo drivers probably don't mind what gas costs; the poor people struggling to get to work might have a different attitude.

The embarrassment is of course not to them - for foolish, uninformed behavior is not something they ever mange to see in their mirrors - but rather to us, for tolerating their harmful stupidity. At some point, their detrimental behavior needs to be checked.

In this case, we implore our readers to contact these sheep disguised as men at http://www.petitiononline.com/ex71124d/petition.html and let them know that although we may not expect these men to think for themselves, they should at least follow the advice of some better-informed, reality-based grown-ups. Or maybe even their own EPA.

For those of you following the BP Whiting Refinery wastewater treatment nonsense, here is one suburban newspaper's take.

I’ve just seen a few headlines. Could you please give a short synopsis of the issue? IIRC it is about BP needing to dispense with a few ounces of mercury diluted in many million gallons of water. How does this level compare with other waste water (or tap) sources.

2 posted on 08/30/2007 7:16:08 AM PDT by posterchild (If you don't look ahead nobody will, there's no time to kill - Clint Black)

I think the mercury is two pounds a year, compared to about 800 pounds from other sources, including that which falls from the air. The Chicago Tribune’s “science” writer, some dude named Hawthorne, kept stressing the increases in ammonia and what the paper called “toxic sludge” discharges. In true Inquirer fashion, he ignored that the ammonia is a natural by product from fish, and the sludge in question was actually an increase in solids solids from something like 0.003% of the plants discharge to 0.004% Everything met drinking water standards, but that didn’t matter much....

You gotta love these politicians. They stand in front of an AFL-CIO convention and bemoan all the manufacturing jobs that the government ALLOWS to be exported overseas. Then they go out and attempt to destroy other manufacturing jobs as well as prevent new ones from being created.

Any union member who votes for one of these clowns is getting exactly what he/she deserves.

Amen - I wish more people saw the Grand Canyon of Disparity between their pro-union talk and constant anti-union action.

Wonder how much of their money set aside for the planned refurbishing of the refinery will be spend on lawyers fighting this issue...

6 posted on 08/30/2007 8:24:00 AM PDT by posterchild (If you don't look ahead nobody will, there's no time to kill - Clint Black)

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