They Put The "Mental" In Environmental

I’ve spent a couple of days wondering about and spent the past day fuming about the news headlines about Senator Barbara Boxer having a public temper tantrum about the Environmental Protection Agency’s CHEERS program.

Here is one highlight:

"On Thursday, Sens. Bill Nelson (search) of Florida and Barbara Boxer (search) of California expressed their "shock and disappointment" Thursday in Johnson's failure to stop the program.

They said that until he agrees to cancel the program, they're placing a hold on Johnson's nomination, preventing him from getting a vote on the Senate floor.

"If EPA can get away with testing babies, infants, then they can get away with anything when it comes to human testing of toxics," said Boxer, who added that when she questioned Johnson about the program and whether he would agree to cancel it, Johnson flatly refused.

"This is sick, it's a sick, sick thing," she said."

Even FOX news can't resist screwing up the reporting:

"Boxer and Nelson said the EPA's Children's Environmental Exposure Research Study (search) offers to pay parents of a baby nearly $1,000 if they agree to expose their child to household pesticides over a two-year period. The study was being done in Duval County, Fla., in the Jacksonville area, a geographic location that appealed to the EPA because of its year-round use of indoor pesticides."

How many times do I have to say it? The idiot parents out there in "Anytown USA" are already spraying roach killer and Lysol and Ajax and you name it all over the place in their houses and the little rugrats are crawling through the poison residue on their way to getting a snack out of the dog's food dish. What is the matter with the EPA looking over their shoulders to see what is actually happening on a day to day basis and trying to figgure out what it might be doing to the kids?

But nooooo, that can't happen when there are political points to be scored.

You know the template--A Democratic Politician wants to keep their name in the media. Said Democratic politician from the same Democratic Party that promotes themselves as the official “Champions of all things Minority” goes out and kills a perfectly legitimate program designed to look at the effects of every day household chemicals on young children.

I had finally about cooled off on the subject, then I read what the “(dis)honorable” Ms. Boxer had to say today on her web site.

Here is what I wrote as an E-mail to “Ms.” Boxer this morning:

“Mrs. Boxer, I find your public misstatements about EPA director nominee Mr. Stephen Johnson and the EPA’s CHEERS program to be reprehensible. On your official Web site you are quoted as saying:

“I am very pleased that Mr. Johnson has recognized the gross error in judgement (sic) the EPA made when they concocted this immoral program to test pesticides on children.

The CHEERS program was a reprehensible idea that never should have made it out of the boardroom, and I am just happy that it was stopped before any children were put in harm’s way.

I will continue to oppose policies that lead to the testing of toxins on humans.”

In my opinion, the only “gross error in judgment” regarding this issue is the manner you and Florida Senator Nelson have misrepresented this program to a gullible media and the general public

The only “reprehensible idea” I find here is the disservice you and fellow Democrats are doing to your uninformed minority and immigrant constituents.

Mr. Johnson was not in fact conducting an “immoral program to test pesticides on children” as you have indicated.

As you should know, under the CHEERS program the EPA was simply requesting permission to enter a number of Florida homes to look for correlations between any potential illnesses and the chemicals the children were normally exposed to in their daily lives.

No one at the EPA, as you have suggested, was proposing that helpless toddlers be sprinkled and sprayed with toxins like DDT, cloradane, and dioxin while researchers stood by with a clipboard--watching the test subject spasm and die as a result of the study.

If anyone is placing children in harms way, it is the uninformed parents of the Duval County Florida children that either intentionally or un-intentionally use perfectly legal chemicals and pesticides like roach spray and household cleaners in their homes every day.

Perhaps the larger contributors to childhood illnesses of these types are partisan hacks like you and Senator Nelson that continue to demagogue and pander to immigrant and minority voters while intentionally harming their best interest in your deplorable efforts to score political points in the national media.

I, personally, cannot believe that you do not know the fallacy of your very public position in this matter.

If, in fact, you don’t know the truth, you are seriously misinformed and you need to hire some new staff to help you determine the facts before you again open your mouth on the public stage (not to mention hiring a Web staff that can spell the word “judgment.”)

It is truly a shame to see a US Senator conduct herself in the manner you choose.”

Can you believe that she actually came out and said what she said on her Web site? Here is a link to the EPA site telling what the CHEERS program actually was going to do.

All I know is that California Senator Barbara Boxer is a lying bitch, and I, for one, am calling her on it.

Senator Nelson got a similar letter.

Am I over reacting here? What do you think?