-Caveat Lector-
Subject: Senate Obstruction
> CONGRESS ACTION: May 6, 2001
>
> =================
>
> SENATE OBSTRUCTION: Unknown to most Americans, the last election brought
> two new, yet immensely influential, members into the United States
Senate,
> who will play a decisive role in determining whether the Bush presidency
> succeeds or fails, whether the Bush presidency will mark a new beginning
> to the revitalization of our American Constitutional republic, or whether
> it will simply be a waste of four years until democrats regain control
> over the federal government. These two new Senators are democrats. Their
> names are Senator Delay and Senator Obstruct.
>
> To date, President Bush has submitted to the Senate 10 nominees for
> positions in the Justice Department. The Senate Judiciary Committee has
> held hearings on five of those nominees, and the Senate has confirmed
only
> one -- John Ashcroft as Attorney General. It appears that the democrats
on
> the Judiciary Committee intend to obstruct the confirmation process
> indefinitely, as they promised to do ever since Bush was elected ("It's
> war", proclaimed Senator Barbara Boxer), and the obstruction will only
get
> worse when Bush starts submitting judicial nominees. The democrats
> demonstrated their obstructionism by walking out of this week's committee
> hearings on the nominations of Theodore Olson for the post of Solicitor
> General and Larry Thompson for the post of Deputy Attorney General,
> leaving the committee short a quorum and unable to operate. That's what
> Majority Leader Trent Lott gets for his early gesture of bipartisanship
in
> allowing democrats equal seats on Senate committees. As the 2002 election
> nears, we will no doubt see media reports about a "do-nothing" republican
> Senate that is unfit to govern because it cannot get its work done.
>
> There is one additional influential Senator on the Judiciary Committee, a
> republican joining the new democrat Senators Delay and Obstruct in their
> agenda to undermine and destroy the Bush presidency. His name is Arlen
> Specter. In March, President Bush took the long overdue step of ending
the
> special veto power held by the left-wing American Bar Association over
the
> judicial nominating process. Specter wants the ABA's power restored.
> Specter is quoted in Roll Call as claiming that "the ABA serves a very
> useful purpose in evaluating potential demeanor" of judicial candidates.
> One would probably have to go back at least a generation to find a single
> conservative jurist whose "demeanor" the ABA approved of, or a single
> left-wing activist judge whose "demeanor" they found objectionable.
>
> ABOVE THE LAW: Try as we might, the nation simply can't seem to get
beyond
> the trash left behind by the former Clinton administration, trash far
more
> serious than the juvenile vandalism of government offices by Clinton
> staffers.
>
> When the Clinton administration turned its attention to the level of
> arsenic in drinking water, there was little scientific data on the
matter.
> At the extremes, too much arsenic causes death; at somewhat lower levels,
> it causes various types of cancers; and at some low levels, it is
actually
> beneficial to humans. The latter is known as the "Hormesis Effect", which
> says that at certain low levels, normally harmful chemicals (and perhaps
> also some types of low level radiation, although that hypothesis is
> disputed) are beneficial. The issues then become, how much do we need,
and
> how much is too much? Since 1942, the maximum level of arsenic permitted
> in drinking water in the United States has been 50 parts per billion
> (ppb). In 1988, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) studied the
risk
> of arsenic in drinking water, and arrived at several conclusions: There
is
> "…epidemiological evidence of an association between inorganic
> arsenic and internal cancers", but that "more studies are needed to
> determine if arsenic is a nutritional requirement in humans." And the
> existence of a "nutritional essentiality of trace amounts of inorganic
> arsenic would affect any interpretation of the health risks at low
> exposure levels." That is, removal of all arsenic from drinking water
> could actually be harmful since it appears that we do need some in our
> diet for good health: "…below a certain threshold, arsenic is not
> harmful but needed." Since that 1988 study, further evidence has come out
> throwing the data used in that study into doubt, and there is
> "…additional uncertainty to the sources used in the EPA report."
>
> In 1996, the EPA requested that the National Research Council (NRC) review
> the arsenic toxicity data and evaluate the scientific validity of EPA's
> 1988 risk assessment. In 1999, the NRC released its study. The first
> recommendation of the new NRC study was that "additional…
> evaluations are needed to characterize the dose-response relationship for
> arsenic-associated cancer and noncancer end points, especially at low
> doses." "Human sensitivity to the toxic effects of inorganic arsenic
> exposure is likely to vary based on genetics, metabolism, diet, health
> status, sex, and other possible factors." The NRC finally concluded that
> the current level of 50 ppb "…does not achieve EPA's goal for
> public-health protection and, therefore, requires downward revision as
> promptly as possible." But the NRC did not quantify what level of arsenic
> would not be harmful, and what level is required for human health.
>
> So, despite the vagueness of the 1999 NRC study, and despite the lack of
> any quantification of what level of arsenic is beneficial, and what level
> is harmful, in either the 1988 EPA study or the 1999 NRC study, the
> Clinton EPA under Carol Browner decided that 5 ppb would be just right.
> For some reason Bill Clinton didn't like that level, so he decided that
10
> ppb would be just right. The essential point, however, is that neither
> Browner's 5 ppb level, nor Clinton's 10 ppb level, had any basis at all
in
> scientific fact. The NRC suggested that the 50 ppb level should be lower,
> but did not say how much lower; and both studies concluded that if the
> level was set too low, it could cause more harm than good, for a variety
> of reasons. Nutritionally, we need some trace amount of arsenic. And
> beyond that nutritional need, a study by the AEI-Brookings Joint Center
> for Regulatory Studies, previously reported on this page, concluded "We
> find that the [Clinton 10 ppb] rule probably will result in a net loss of
> life" (emphasis in original), because the cost to achieve that level will
> divert money from other essential services, such as providing low income
> health care, infrastructure repair, and other public spending; in
addition
> to requiring increased local taxes to pay for the costs of upgrading
> municipal water systems, with the resulting impoverishment of individual
> taxpayers' ability to pay for other health-related costs.
>
> It therefore becomes essential to scientifically determine what level of
> arsenic in drinking water is appropriate, prior to mandating some
> arbitrary level that has no basis in science. Both the 1988 EPA study and
> the 1999 NRC study concluded that more study was needed, and by
suspending
> Clinton's last-minute mandate, President Bush simply determined to allow
> that further scientific study to proceed before mandating a reduction in
> arsenic to the level established by Bill Clinton that could, in fact,
kill
> people.
>
> It is clear that neither Carol Browner (5 ppb) nor Bill Clinton (10 ppb)
> used any scientific basis to arrive at their respective levels of
> appropriate arsenic. So the question naturally arises -- since Browner
and
> Clinton did not rely on science in setting the standard, what did they
> rely on? That is the question to which the Landmark Legal Foundation
(LLF)
> sought an answer, and the LLF made a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
> request to the EPA to find out.
>
> According to documents filed in the United States District Court for the
> District of Columbia, as represented on the LLF website, the following
> sequence of events occurred during the final months of the Clinton
> administration:
>
> On September 7, 2000, the LLF filed a FOIA request with the EPA for all
> records regarding pending rules and regulations pertaining to, among other
> things, reducing the level of arsenic permitted in drinking water; and
> seeking information regarding what people or special interest groups may
> have influenced the issuance of that new standard (since it is clear, as
> shown above, that the new standard was not based on any science -- what
> was it based on?).
>
> When the Clinton EPA followed the standard Clintonian tactic of
> stonewalling and failed to reply to the FOIA request from the LLF in a
> timely manner, on September 29, 2000, the LLF filed a lawsuit to compel
> compliance, seeking the immediate production of all information relevant
> to the FOIA request.
>
> On November 21, 2000, the EPA and the LLF reached an agreement whereby the
> EPA agreed to provide specific relevant information sought under the FOIA
> request, and to do so within 30 days. By December 21, 2000, the EPA had
> still failed to comply with its November 21 agreement. On December 28,
the
> LLF filed a request with the EPA that the EPA not remove or tamper with
> any relevant FOIA information during the presidential transition period.
>
> On January 2, 2001, the LLF filed in the U.S. District Court for the
> District of Columbia a request for a preliminary injunction, prohibiting
> the EPA from tampering with information potentially responsive to the
FOIA
> request. Over the opposition of the EPA, on January 19, 2001, Judge Royce
> Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted
> the LLF the injunction it sought, and prohibited the EPA from removing,
> transporting, or tampering with information potentially responsive to the
> FOIA request of the LLF.
>
> On March 7, 2001, the LLF specifically requested that the office of EPA
> Administrator Carol Browner respond to its FOIA request, as no documents
> from Browner's office had as yet been received by the LLF. At that time,
> the EPA represented to the Court that Browner's office had indeed been
> searched for relevant information, and that there were no records
relevant
> to the FOIA request in Browner's office. On March 28, 2001, the EPA
> admitted to the Court that its previous claim was in error, and that
> Browner's office had not, in fact, been searched for relevant
information.
>
> On April 27, 2001, the United States Attorney's Office, representing the
> EPA in court, further admitted that on January 19, 2001, on the very day
> that U.S. District Court Judge Lamberth issued his injunction to preserve
> relevant information, EPA Administrator Carol Browner had the hard drives
> of her office computer erased. And a week later, on January 26, 2001 --
> after the Bush administration took office -- Browner's Chief of Staff,
the
> Deputy EPA Administrator, and the Associate Deputy EPA Administrator,
also
> had the hard drives of their office computers erased.
>
> During the confirmation hearings of Attorney General John Ashcroft,
> numerous left-wing Senators tried to portray Ashcroft as such a
right-wing
> ideologue that he would be unable or unwilling to enforce the law if
doing
> so conflicted with his personal beliefs. In responding to those insulting
> allegations, Ashcroft pledged that he would enforce the law. What those
> left-wing Senators had in mind, of course, was that Ashcroft enforce the
> various leftist agendas enacted into law, but those Senators never
> intended that Ashcroft should actually try to enforce the law against one
> of their own darlings on the left. There is now irrefutable evidence,
> based of admissions by the EPA, that high officials of the Clinton EPA
> violated the law, violated a court order, and obstructed the
> administration of justice by destroying relevant evidence. Attorney
General
> Ashcroft has a clear duty to proceed in a timely fashion to enforce the
law
> against those arrogant Clinton administration officials. It will be of
> particular interest to see the reaction of those same left-wing
Senators --
> particularly Senators Kennedy and Biden -- when he does so.
>
>
>
>
> FOR MORE INFORMATION…
>
> ========================
>
> National Research Council, "Arsenic in Drinking Water" (1999):
> http://books.nap.edu/books/0309063337/html/index.html
>
> AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies:
> http://www.aei.brookings.org/
>
> AEI-Brookings arsenic regulation study (abstract with link to full report
> in pdf format):
> http://www.aei.brookings.org/publications/abstract.asp?pID=115
>
> Landmark Legal Foundation: http://www.landmarklegal.org/
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Mr. Kim
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] CONGRESS ACTION Newsletter can be found
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>
>
>
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> Necessarily Endorsed By The Sender ]
>
>
>
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