OMB Watch
Published on 12/01/2005

OMB Watch released a report entitled: "Dismantling the Public's Right to Know: EPA's Systematic Weakening of the Toxic Release Inventory." The report details how under the Bush administration, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is slowly dismantling its flagship environmental information tool: the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI).

The program has been protected and improved for over the last 15 years, since it was put in place during the Reagan administration. The TRI database enables the public to learn about the environmental risks in our workplaces and communities by providing information about hundreds of toxic chemicals released into the environment. Moreover, the TRI program has served as a constant example of the vital role information plays in a democracy, and the importance of the public's right to know. Unfortunately, the program's success has made it a target for those that seek to reduce corporate oversight and accountability. [...] Read it all at: http://www.ombwatch.org/article/articleview/3199/1/1


© Virginia Metze

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: December 9, 2005
Op-Ed columnist
The New York Times

Sometimes reconstruction delayed is reconstruction denied.

A few months after the invasion of Iraq, President Bush promised to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure and economy. He - or, at any rate, his speechwriters - understood that reconstruction was important not just for its own sake, but as a way to deprive the growing insurgency of support. In October 2003 he declared that "the more electricity is available, the more jobs are available, the more kids that are going to school, the more desperate these killers become."

But for a long time, Iraqi reconstruction was more of a public relations exercise than a real effort. Remember when visiting congressmen were taken on tours of newly painted schools?

Both supporters and opponents of the war now argue that by moving so slowly on reconstruction, the Bush administration missed a crucial window of opportunity. By the time reconstruction spending began in earnest, it was in a losing race with a deteriorating security situation.

As a result, the electricity and jobs that were supposed to make the killers desperate never arrived. Iraq produced less electricity last month than in October 2003. The Iraqi government estimates the unemployment rate at 27 percent, but the real number is probably much higher.

Now we're losing another window of opportunity for reconstruction. But this time it's at home. [...] Read the rest at the New York Times: http://tinyurl.com/dp5bn or at http://guerillawomentn.blogspot.com/2005/12/krugman-promiser-in-chief.html or http://tinyurl.com/9kcs8


© Virginia Metze

Article by Sydney Blumenthal
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11245.htm


Informant: Lew Rockwell

What the regime has done to American standing in the world. Article by Paul Craig Roberts.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts135.html

Bill Walker on the myth of world energy shortages.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/walker/walker16.html

http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/3757/


Informant: jensenmk

From ufpj-news

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47840


Informant: ireland