In the wake of the news that our Federal Aviation Administration (or FAA) never actually independently looked at the cause of two deadly Boeing crashes, but rather let Boeing tell them what they found out on their own, Penn PIRG helps you tell our FAA to stop outsourcing its regulatory duties to the private corporations it nominally oversees. It's a simple principle, really -- make corporations follow the law and do the right thing, rather than ask them if they're following the law and doing the right thing and just take their word for it -- but it has too often seemed a difficult task for the last six Presidential Administrations. Of course too many Americans (though not a majority) still regard regulations as a "burden" upon corporations. They don't regard laws against burglary as a "burden" on burglars, and they tend to change their tune when regulatory failure directly affects them, but we can't wait for their wisdom to catch up with ours.
Meanwhile, Pennsylvania residents, take note: our legislature is trying, yet again, to pass bills that would hamstring our state's ability to keep big oil and gas drilling corporations from polluting. HB 1106 would give our Department of Environmental Protection (or DEP) a mere 30 days to review gas and oil drilling permits, which wouldn't allow time for legally-mandated public comments, while HB 1107 would terminate all DEP employees currently involved in permit evaluations and would replace them with a five-member Commission appointed, of course, by the legislature. Again, it sure seems like politicians' anti-regulatory fervor only seems to affect good regulations. Might we call HB 1106/HB 1107 supporters objectively pro-pollution? Hey, civility is their shield and sword, not mine; mine is truth. The Center for Coalfield Justice helps you tell your PA state legislator to protect us from pollution by rejecting HB 1106 and HB 1107.
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