Trump’s Corporate-friendly Agenda Takes Aim at Our Children
Here’s a piece of good news for everyone who is totally indifferent to the health and safety of American children: yesterday’s announcement from the Environmental Protection Agency that it is dissolving a program that funds studies on the effects of pollution and chemical exposure on America’s children.Gone is the National Center for Environmental Research (NCER), which provided millions of dollars in grants per year to researchers studying the effects of chemicals on children’s health.
As American journalist, author, and documentary filmmaker Kevin Gosztola put it: “Scott Pruitt’s EPA is shutting down the (National Center for Environmental Research). Truly wicked.”
Wicked yes, irrational no. If your work were methodically destroying the health of everyone living in the U.S., young or old, I doubt you’d want it studied either.
Craig,
Why continue parroting articles from such leftist publications as “Common Dreams” without at least checking out the accuracy ?
What is the grandly titled National Center for Environmental Research (NCER)? What does it do for children’s health ?
Well, in the real world, away from the fantasy of “Common Dreams”, very little !
In the real world, the NCER is one of a number of duplicated EPA grant agencies each employing bureaucrats doing virtually the same tasks. The emotive issue of ” children’s health’ seems to be an invention of Kevin Gosztola’s over active imagination, but hey, it makes for a good headline,eh ?!
Shutting down separate grant offices doesn’t mean the grants are shut down, just the duplication of bureaucracy. In fact, by this means the amount of the grants can be increased since the amount deducted for administrative purposes will be reduced.
Under the proposed consolidation, the grants, contracts and administrative functions of the National Center for Environmental Research, a department of the EPA’s Office of Research and Development (ORD) and two other offices performing the same functions and administering similar grants would be combined.
The new department will be named the Office of Resource Management, and will be responsible for some NCER functions, while other duties will be transferred to the Offices of Administration and Research Support and Program Accountability and Resource Management. Freedom of Information Act requests, records management and budget formulation functions from other organizations would also be moved into the planned “one stop” resource management shop.
The consolidation will allow specialist staff to transfer back to the labs and offices where their expertise is most effective. The management of research grants will continue more efficiently by reducing the time and expense of unnecessary administration.
The plan is still in its preliminary phase, and part of an overall efficiency drive to reduce bureaucracy and the cost of over administration in Washington.
What exactly a plan to consolidate duplicated government departments, thereby reducing the need to rent expensive office space instead of operating from the EPA’s own enormous facility, has to do with “Trump attacking children’s health” , escapes me ……
Perhaps you could explain ?
I’m sure you’re aware that I quote a variety of sources, some leftist, others not. Here’s essentially the same article in Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericmack/2018/02/27/epa-ending-national-center-environmental-research-scott-pruitt-chemical-health/#f979c44328a2. and here it is in The Hill: http://thehill.com/regulation/energy-environment/375725-major-epa-reorganization-will-end-science-research-program.
It’s fairly cut and cried:
“A federal environmental office that works to test the effects of chemical exposure on adults and children, “The National Center for Environmental Research (NCER), will no longer exist as a standalone entity.”
“President Trump’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2019 would have dramatically slashed funding for NCER by more than 90 percent.”
It’s not an editorial; it’s a set of facts.
Craig,
Fact’s ? WTF ?
Firstly, one thing you are not doing is publishing any “facts” ! The two articles you cite are repetitions of an original article published in the ” Hill” with added speculative “opinion”.
Your selective use of quotes present a deliberately distorted impression. It’s the stand alone agency (NCER) which is merging, not the grants themselves,that requires an act of Congress and is a completely different issue.
That was made clear in the original article which now carries the correction following : ” The story was updated on Feb. 27 to make clear that the research programs under The National Center for Environmental Research will continue under the reorganization plan” .
As usual, you have added some speculation, distorted fact and opinion together to form an accusation, which you then call “fact”. ( It’s an example of the old “cats eat meat, dogs eat meat, therefore cats are dogs” conclusion).
The administration calls the merger a long overdue reduction in duplicated agencies and will not effect the actual work of the NCER just reduce bureaucratic overhead.
Critics say this is an indication of the administration’s intention to ask Congress to reduce the grants themselves. The administration denies this is the case.
Until the administration actually applies to congress to end the grants (without replacement funding) that’s not “fact” just speculation !
Craig, I do enjoy your description of the wide spectrum of journalism you read .
The “Hill” while an excellent publication, and certainly strives to be objective, is no friend of the administration and has a bias toward the Democrats. Bloomberg was a huge supporter of Clinton and also displays a level of bias in it’s reportage.
So, it would appear the spectrum of journalism on which you rely to form opinion ranges from rabid left to centre-left ! 🙂