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HunterCA -> RE: Scientists not welcome... (5/15/2015 7:39:07 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: epiphiny43
http://www.lung.org/about-us/financials/
ALA total most recent yearly funding: $52,000,000. Average for each of the past 10 years of total EPA $20,000,000 grants, $2 Million/yr. Claiming any BBB audited and passed charity is owned by a roughly 1/20th-of-funding contributor over a decade is hardly persuasive propaganda or showing those arguers in a favorable light.
More reasonable is a govt. bureaucracy is helping fund certain education outreach and science research Because that is now being done better in the private sector already and often at both lower cost and better outreach. NGOs are private sector, whether multi-nationals like being lumped in with groups that may actually be working for all people or the whole planet, or not. The US and Great Britain have historically been the birth place for the very concept of NGOs and the origin for many. That US 'Conservatives' find these so often odious as they don't have corporate financial agendas says maybe too much about underlying motives in US politics at variance with the ideals the country supposedly was founded on.
'Follow the money'? Much of ALAs funding comes from citizens with lung issues or their families, HMOs who see huge expenses in untreated lung diseases and pollution associated future cases, and medical charities trying to spread contributions where the needs are greatest and the results most promising for the dollar invested. The attacks on the ALA and EPA preponderantly are funded by wealthy individuals and industries currently making big profits on goods producing directly or as unavoidable by products things that unbiased evidence based medicine and epidemiology points at as direct risks to the general population and specific segments from those products and pollution. (Generally, the most vulnerable and damaged are the very young.) That these businesses have managed to co-opt a segment of the political spectrum in service of their financial goals in conflict with the health and overall economic competitiveness of the country is simply astounding.
The very same groups and people who managed to profit heavily and even establish a small industry to slow cigarette research and regulation for 2 generations after the evidence was conclusive are doing exactly the same with climate change and industrial pollution, as well as industrial agricultural chemicals and pesticides. When political attacks work better than good research, the country's basic ability to respond to challenges of any sort are compromised, a clear contradiction to the frequent assertion of many on the Right that they are the only true patriots??
I was mostly with you there until the last sentence. So, I'm going to ignore that one jab and respond to some of the reasonable points you made.
Yes, grants to NGO's may be a good thing. But, as far as I have knowledge of, I don't see it in the constitution and I don't remember it being discussed on the floor of either the house or the Senate. Granted that it's obviously been funded. But, what wasn't in this article, which I could find if I were interested in looking now, because I've seen it reported before, is that the EPA tends to grant this organization money. Then this organization turns around and uses the money to sue the EPA. Usually the suit is to force the EPA to comply with something Congress has said no to. The EPA doesn't fight the suit strenuously. (For which I have to take previous authors word as I am not a lawyer. Fair reporting here). The NGO wins the lawsuit and is awarded damages. The EPA is the judicially forced to do something specifically not authorized by Congress and the NGO gets all its money back plus some for an award. This NGO then begins the cycle again. You'll notice I didn't say all NGO's. I said this NGO. It's a scam they run with the EPA. I'm sure if you wish to test my veracity on this, you could use google as well as I.
Having proposed the above, I have no heartburn with wealthy people or organizations trying to stop the shit. Keep in mind, the preceding link was titled how the Green Lobby has a back door into the EPA. This article and statement is showing a pattern. You have not addressed the pattern.
Frankly, the biggest elephant under the rug here is that Congress passes a law, the President signs it into law, and then it's sent to the mammoth regulatory agency to write the regulations. I've never been a party to those regulations going back to Congressnto ensure they meet the intent of Congress. I have been party to a shit load of regulation writing that comes from whacked out zealots who get jobs in places like the EPA just so they can affect the regulations in order to meet teir intent instead of Congressional intent. Personally, I'd like to have a nickel for every time I've heard a whacked out regulator report to the Water Board in the State of California that his/her regulations meet the criteria of social justice as compared to reading the law passed with no intention for social justice being mentioned.
And that's just the Water Quality Control Board or the Boards for the various Regions thereof.
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