EPA permits Mining Companies to Ruin Appalachian Streams

The Bush administration is doing its darnedest to make a final impression on this country, and since it's so bad already, he's decided to go whole hog to go down in history as the

Worst President EVER!

For example, I just received this news from the Sierra Club:

Breaking News: Mining through Streams, Permission Granted

The U.S. EPA signed off today on the Bush administration’s last minute repeal of the stream buffer zone rule, which prohibits mining within 100 feet of streams. The repeal clears the way for an increase in devastating mountaintop removal mining, where coal companies blast the tops off mountains to reach thin seams of coal below and then simply dump the waste into nearby valleys and streams. Today's decision will finalize the repeal, despite the objections of EPA scientists, top decision makers in Kentucky and Tennessee, and 2 out of 3 American people. (italics mine.)

Here is another article about this: Can it really get worse? Yes. from a blog called Stop Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining. I have also written several entries here on Mountaintop Removal and so-called "Clean Coal".

An article recently in the New York Times: Bush Aides Rush to Enact a Rule Obama Opposes tells how

The Labor Department is racing to complete a new rule, strenuously opposed by President-elect Barack Obama, that would make it much harder for the government to regulate toxic substances and hazardous chemicals to which workers are exposed on the job.

It also mentions a few more issues they're working on:

Another, issued last week by the Health and Human Services Department, gives states sweeping authority to charge higher co-payments for doctor’s visits, hospital care and prescription drugs provided to low-income people under Medicaid.

The department is working on another rule to protect health care workers who refuse to perform abortions or other procedures on religious or moral grounds. (Apparently they've already gotten this one through as well.)

According to the article, they are making these changes to rules in a way that will require Congressional permission to change them back, taking valuable time from other very important issues. Hopefully Obama's staff is already working with Congressional leaders to prepare the legislation needed to repeal these cases of sabotage by the Bush Administration. I assume that grassroots organizations will be preparing law suits and lobbying to save the country from these attrocities, all of which takes time and money away from pressing needs.

My husband has a little tool on his desktop telling how many days are left of this devastating administration. Today they have still have

49 more days to wreak havoc.

Let us hope that the spirit of the season will remind our "Christian" President of what he seems to have forgotten, that this is a time for "Peace on Earth, Goodwill to All!"