Obama caves in to the polluters

In case you haven't heard about this, since it came down at the start of a holiday weekend: Last Friday, President Obama gave in to the corporate polluters and rejected new standards for air quality.

In a staff blog post for the National Resources Defense Council, John Walke points out that

"[Obama's] own rationale for interference defies the Clean Air Act and a unanimous Supreme Court decision, elevating unlawful considerations above public health, science and the law."

The New Jersey Star-Ledger editorial board had this to say about it:

"Tens of thousands of people are dying prematurely each year from breathing dirty air. Many more fall ill with asthma, bronchitis or heart attacks. But major polluters don’t want to talk about the smog that’s killing them.

"They’d rather spin this into an economic threat. Dirty industries know they can exploit unemployment anxiety by howling that stronger standards under the Clean Air Act would lead to job losses."

And Obama fell for it.

He apparently doesn't care about the quality of the air that his two young daughters will have to breathe in the future.

And apparently he doesn't care about the fact that pursuing clean energy alternatives could more than make up for any job losses from reduced pollution.

All he apparently cares about is appeasing the Republicans and their corporate overlords.