Even The Letter Of The Law Doesn't Matter To The W, Rove And Co

Excuse me, but I thought it was impingent upon the Executive Branch of the United States government to uphold the law, not violate it on a regular basis. Certainly, the legal thicket one must navigate to make things happen is a tangled web. But isn't there an army of lawyers working for the W, Rove and Co to make sure their branch of our government stays away from prosecutable action?

In today's political environment, one in which a culture of corruption is deeply evident, one would expect the W, Rove and Co to keep their noses squeaky clean. But no. Here's another example where they do treble damages (for which, no doubt, they will deploy their brand of activist judges to ward off any justice) - effectively killing our environment and smearing the both the letter and spirit of the laws under which they are expected to operate:

The U.S. EPA devoted substantial resources to making discretionary rules, many of which are "more congenial to industry,'' instead of fulfilling its legal obligation to curtail toxic air contaminants, a federal judge has ruled...

...The EPA has set emission standards for only 15 of the 70 industries that must be regulated under the Clean Air Act of 1990, the judge said in the opinion, which gives his reasons for ordering tougher deadlines.

Some of those unregulated industries include the manufacturing of plastics, paints, pesticides and chemicals. Others include businesses that strip paint, distribute gasoline, refurbish cars, preserve wood, and forge iron and steel. Dozens of different hazardous air pollutants come under regulation.

The EPA also has missed deadlines to control sufficient amounts of smog-forming emissions from consumer and commercial products, the judge said. Products such as spray paints and solvents, for example, can emit compounds that contribute to smog.

The opinion comes a week after the Government Accountability Office released a report saying that the EPA hadn't given top priority to regulating air contaminants, and had failed to protect the public...

...In the opinion, the judge said he supported the Sierra Club's argument that "it is inappropriate for an agency to divert to purely discretionary rule-making resources that conceivably could go toward fulfilling obligations clearly mandated by Congress.''

The EPA, including its Office of Air and Radiation, "currently devotes substantial resources to discretionary rule-makings, many of which make existing regulations more congenial to industry, and several which since have been found unlawful,'' the judge said.

"EPA has been grossly delinquent in making serious efforts to comply'' with congressional direction in the Clean Air Act, he wrote.

One wonders: Did this happen because the W, Rove and Co has pals working in said industries that stood to gain by favorable treatment, or is this just another case where the W, Rove and Co demonstrates a blatant disregard for the American people and their well being? You decide.