The following information comes from The Amicus Journal (Summer 1995),
published by the Natural Resources Defense Council. Congress has so
many bills in the works to undo the environmental improvement gains of
the past 20 years, that it is difficult to keep track of them. It is
often stated that, when polled, 80% of Americans favor keeping these
environmental gains, and even improving on them. However, industry now
has the ear of Congress, and they are writing new laws for our 
legislature to enact. Here is where their war on the environment stands:

Risk Assessment: puts a price tag on health and environment, limiting
government's ability to issue new (or enforce existing) safeguards:
  *  H.R. 9 passed February 28
 ->  S. 343 (Dole-KS) comes to a floor vote in June.

Regulatory moratorium: prohibits issuance of new health or environmental
safeguards:
  *  H.R. 450 (DeLay-TX) passed February 24
  *  S. 219 (Nickles-OK) passed March 29
 ->  In conference.

Takings: requires government to pay polluters not to pollute
  *  H.R. 925 (Canady-FL) passed March 3
 ->  S. 605 (Dole-KS) being considered in Judiciary Committee
 
Endangered Species: cuts $1.5 million for species listing and
habitat designation.
  *  H.R. 889 passed House and Senate
  *  President signed into law April 10
 ->  S. 768 (Gorton-WA) rolls back existing protections; in Committee

Clean Water Act: severely weakens every key water protection program
  *  H.R. (Shuster-PA) passed May 16
 ->  Referred to Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee
 ->  President has threatened to veto

Sale of Federal lands: recommends sale of public lands - including
national parks, wildlife refuges, and forests - to balance the budget
  *  House Cong. Res. 67 passed House and Senate
 ->  In conference

Clean Air Act: more than 20 bills have been introduced in Congress
to repeal the existing law protecting air quality, battling urban
smog, ozone layer depletion, toxic air emissions, and acid rain

  *  H.R. 1158 passed House and Senate; cuts EPA funding to enforce
  clean air protections, including vehicle inspections and
  maintenance programs
  X  President vetoed on June 7th
 ->  H.R. 4798 (DeLay-TX) repeals entire 1990 Amendments to CLean Air
  Act and is now in Committee

Safe Drinking Water Act:  rescinds $1.3 billion for upgrading water
treatment plants.
  *  H.R. 1158 passed House and Senate
  X  President vetoed on June 7th
 ->  New legislation severely weakening the existing law will be
  introduced this summer in both houses.

Ancient Forests: exempts logging on federal lands - even in healthy
forests - from any environmental safeguards and public review, also
called the timber "salvage" bill
  *  H.R. 1158 passed House and Senate
  X  President vetoed on June 7th

Oil drilling: opens Arctive National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling
with proceeds going to balance the budget
  *  House Cong. Res. 67 pased House and Senate
 ->  In conference

Unfunded mandates: curbs regulations on states and cites without federal
dollars to pay for them
  *  H.R. 5 passed in January
  *  S. 1 passed in January
  *  President signed into law March 22

43 responses total.

It has been asked: where is the Press now? They played a significant
role in helping focus public opinion on each of these issues when
environmental regulations were being developed. They have been much
less attentive to the multitudinous threats to the past gains.

Corporate greed trumps common sense.  Welcome to America.

Corporate greed has always been there, but moderated by legislative
bodies that considered and promoted principles of democratic
government and the welfare of the people (to a goodly extent, with
detours along the way). We are now in a major detour, however, where
corporations are *writing* the legislation that is being put forward
to remove the impediments to the exercise of corporate greed. 

The press has always been somewhat subject to corporate greed.  After
all, that's where the majority of their revenue comes from.  Things have
really changed in the past 20 years however.  There is far less
competition in the press today than in the past.  That means fewer
opportunities for independent whistle blowers - and less incentive to be
a whistle blower to get a competitive edge over the (now non-existant)
competition.  Newspapers are now also increasingly controlled by a small
number of large corporate conglomerations, so it's not just a matter of
lost advertising revenue, but a question of corporate priorities and
loyalty.  This is a process that has been happening for some time, but
it's really accellerated in the past decade.

The president will veto most of or be burned on election day. My best
guess is that most of this legislation is smoke and mirrors, to be traded
off for some greater good (read no capital gains tax). It is real scarey
stuff.

Americans voted to repeal all these regulations in massive numbers
over the last 15 years.  I think it's time to give Americans what
they've been voting for when they voted for Reagan, Reagan, Bush, 
and the 1994 GOP Congress.  Maybe we can even bring back leaded gas.

 << every now and then even +I+ can spot sarcasm ..... >>
  

Did you see any here?

ummmm, yes - #6 ............

Naww.  You're kidding right? :)

yeh, prolly ....oh, well.

So.. what was this about originally?

This was about arguing about where to put the deck chairs so that
they might look good in the underwater photos in 50 years.

I missed the details, but caught a news item in the paper that
apparently *Dole* got filibustered, when he tried to bring the bill
to dump most environmental regulations to a vote, and he had to pull
the bill. The paper said he was very angry about this. 8^}

I was told by a guy who was trying to sell me a whole house water purifier
that these things were required by law in 3 states.  Does anyone have any Idea
which three states would have such a law?

Sounds like a question you need to ask him!  Sounds like snake oil to me.

On the face of it, the claim in #15 cannot be true: every state has
large cities with fully treated municipal water systems. Also, in
every state, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of different water
sources (rivers, lakes, and wells among them). Here is q quote from
the 1995 Consumers Reports Buying Guide: "Public supplies are either
comparatively clean to start with, or are purified to bring them to par,
but you wouldn't know that from the frightening picture painted by some
unscrupulous vendors of water filters and other water-treatment equipment."
You might be interested in reading the complete report on water
treatment - consult your public library for the Buying Guide.

Of course, Ann Arbor water is good, and so is a number of cities... But in
smaller places (where I have customers) like Athens, AL, or Salem, IN, the
tap water oftens tastes like it comes out of a swimming pool.  I would
definetly have a filter if I lived in those areas.

I liked the tap water in Salem IN. Had much more character than the
insipid local stuff.

I think it might vary with the season.  I didn't notice anything until one
time, when it tasted very chlorinated the whole time.

Did you just drop thru or did you stay in Salem?  If you stayed at the Lanning
house, then you've been to the place where I stay when there.

A friend of mine used to describe his water as:
  "A full bodied water with a taste and texture all it's own."

 Marlene brought back some NYC tapwater. Nothing special.

It was fairly recently that Ann Arbor water started tasting less like a
swimming pool than it used to.  I remember several years ago, when my mom
wanted to show me what was in tap water, she boiled a test tube full of tap
water until it all evaporated.  What was left was a rather large amout of
greenish blue powder.

NYC water comes off the granites of the Adirondacks, and is naturally
quite soft. They don't do anything to it except chlorinate it. Ann Arbor
water is taken from the river and from wells (depending on the season),
is softened with lime (and then lightly carbonated to remove excess lime),
filtered through charcoal, and chloramined. Imbalances happen along the
way. 

Greenish blue? Large amount? Are you both still allright? 

Here in Memphis we have the best water in the nation... not just my opinion,
but national tests have proved it. Has the least amounts of "suspended matter"
and all that. No one here bothers with bottled water since tap is perfect.
Nashville, however, has water that tastes like dirt. And in certain places
in Arkansas are required by law to print a disclaimer on utility bills about
the levels of crud (for lack of a better word) in the tap water.

There ain't mothing like the fresh well water from a 250 ft. deep well located
just east of Clayton, Mich.

The water from a hand pumpped well in Piegon River country has fond memories
for me.

ref #25: I have a friend in Fairview. She pays over $100. per month for water,
and says it tastes awful, but is much better than the stuff in Nashville.

Suggest that she aerate her water - fill a quart bottle with it leaving
some air space, shake it up, and store it in the 'fridge for use.

Spring water from a Capon Bridge, West Virginia is the best water I've ever
tasted.

Where is Capon Bridge WV? Not in my atlas. However, beware of "pure
spring water" from *limestone springs*. That water flows from the
surface to the spring in caves, and does not get purified by
filtration or just a long hold-time. The fine flavor of limestone
spring water comes from the delicious mix of flora eaten by the cows
above.

Re #31:  Oh, gosh, Rane, you're putting me on the spot.  I went to camp at a
place in West Virginia when I was a youngun', and the nearest town was Capon
Bridge, but I don't think it was much of a metropolis so I'm not too surprised
it's not on your map.  I wish I had a good atlas, I'd look it up; all I can
remember for sure is that we went through Winchester, VA to get there (coming
from Washington).

My AAA Road Atlas lists Capon Bridge, WV (pop 192) as a town in the WV
panhandle along US 50 near the VA border.  It appears to lie on or near the
Lost River.

Found it on my map - name just wasn't in the WV list. Yup, its a limestone
area, there is a cave there into which water flows and then reappears
two miles away. Yup, "pure spring water", well seasoned by cows. Its
an acquired taste.

Tasted awful good to us!
(Thanks for the placement info, guys.)

Mark Twain (probably in "Tom Sawyer") wrote about how people who lived on the
Missisipi preferred the muddy Missisipi water because of all the nutrients
in it.  :)

Re #34:
    Yuck! yuck! Icky poo! Ptooey! I think I'll stick with distilled.

distilled? bletch! no flavor whatsoever.

        Not to interupt your drift, but what's gonig with these bills?

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