What Would Our Country Look Like Without the EPA?

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/environment/what-would-our-country-look-without-epa



It’s September, and if you’re like me, you and your family are getting out on the water, and plunging from a high rope swing as often as possible, before cold weather arrives. For us, the highlights of Indian summer include my kids, joined by friends, floating a couple miles down the Potomac while another dad and I paddle nearby in canoes.

For kids, it’s just another fun day on the river. For me—and other adult paddlers, swimmers, and anglers—it’s a miracle. We remember when the Potomac, the Great Lakes, and most U.S. waterways were so polluted that as Sen. Robert Kennedy said of the Hudson River, “You didn’t drown in it; you decayed.”

The backdrop of our good times on the river this fall is the current drive by some in Congress to drastically restrict—or abolish—the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which enforces the laws Congress enacts to protect water, air, and public health.

Imagine that. Imagine an America without the environmental protections that have improved our lives over the last 43 years.

[madokie]

1. Look to any of the so called third world countries for your answer

Most of us would be dead by now would be my guess.