EPA Puts ‘Environmental Justice’ Front and Center in Its Rulemaking Process

Justice is suppose to be blind right? The environment affects everyone does it not? To every color, sexual preference, etc.....except for you social status.  “Achieving environmental justice is an Agency priority and should be factored into every decision,” the 55-page document reads.  From CNS:

The EPA defines environmental justice as the “fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people, particularly minority, low-income, and indigenous populations, and tribes, in the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies.”

The guide states that from now on -- in the process of developing rules, policy statements, risk assessments, and other regulatory actions -- EPA managers and staffers must first ask themselves, “Does this action involve a topic that is likely to be of particular interest to or have particular impact upon minority, low-income, or indigenous populations, or tribes?”
If the answer is yes, the rule-writers must reach out to the affected minority and/or low-income communities. One section of the guide explains how EPA rule-writers may have to make “special efforts” to connect with people who may be uneducated or non-English-speaking.
“It will likely be necessary to tailor outreach materials to be concise, understandable, and readily accessible to the communities you are trying to reach,” the guide says.

My opinion:  Why even consider this?  The entire notion of "social justice" smacks in the face of your rights as a person.  Worrying about the social ramifications of particular groups only hinders the system with bureaucratic red tape, by always making sure that every individual is just as equally affected as another.  Progression in the name of social justice, must take a back seat to the progression of common sense.

FBI to access our Internet data w/o probable cause?

The new rule wouldn’t reach the content of e-mail messages, but it would let them find out whom you’re e-mailing, when you’re e-mailing, and, er, “possibly” which websites you’re looking at and which Google searches you’re running.

Senior administration officials said the proposal was prompted by a desire to overcome concerns and resistance from Internet and other companies that the existing statute did not allow them to provide such data without a court-approved order. “The statute as written causes confusion and the potential for unnecessary litigation,” Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said. “This clarification will not allow the government to obtain or collect new categories of information, but it seeks to clarify what Congress intended when the statute was amended in 1993.”…

Administration officials noted that the act specifies in one clause that Internet and other companies have a duty to provide electronic communication transactional records to the FBI in response to a national security letter.
But the next clause specifies only four categories of basic subscriber data that the FBI may seek: name, address, length of service and toll billing records. There is no reference to electronic communication transactional records.
The officials said the transactional information at issue, which does not include Internet search queries, is the functional equivalent of telephone toll billing records, which the FBI can obtain without court authorization. Learning the e-mail addresses to which an Internet user sends messages, they said, is no different than obtaining a list of numbers called by a telephone user.

They can be more revealing, of course: A call made to a pay phone won’t identify who’s on the other end of the line whereas an e-mail sent to an address that contains someone’s name tells you right away whom it’s meant for. But of course, the opposite scenario’s also possible: A call made to someone’s home phone or cell phone points to the identity of the recipient whereas a message sent to an e-mail address with no identifying info in the address reveals little at first glance about who owns it. Exit question: Should e-mail identifiers be given greater protection? And if so, is that simply in order to draw a line on the slope before the feds slip any further downward?

Must read from CBO Director's blog: cboblog.cbo.gov/?p=1249

Couple of Links to Check Out

• Chevy Volt...is it worth it?
• By this time last year 64 banks had been taken over by the FDIC...this year so far, it's 103
• After today's ruling for Arizona, you wouldn't expect this.  Feds to enforce a fingerprint database for Mortage Brokers.  Priorities I guess.
• Sign of the times...a teacher in Philly is fired for doing the right thing
• The Securities and Exchange Commission is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act thanks to the Financial Regulation Bill.  So much for transparency]
• Thanks to nature, the oil slick in the Gulf is "disappearing" rapidly.  We can stop the hysterics now.