In Ukraine, locals stoned buses carrying evacuees from Wuhan to a health spa in Novi Sanzhary. The violence was blamed partly on the fact that Ukrainians don’t trust the info they get from their government. Can you imagine such a thing?
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Back in Boston, could they be taking this time of low ridership to disinfect the MBTA cars of coronavirus? Perhaps employing the many people left jobless by the pandemic. Not as guinea pigs, mind you, like the worst criminals once thought to be suitable for jobs in melting down nuclear plants. But safe and now patriotic jobs.
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Some of my younger cousins got together via Zoom for a family catch-up. I remarked that the grid reminded me of Hollywood Squares … a too-dated reference that got some of the same blank reactions I can’t get used to among NEBHE colleagues. If I were an investor-type, I would have wished to have jumped the Zoom train.
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I received two suspicious emails on March 26. One from the EPA was headlined: EPA Announces Enforcement Discretion Policy for COVID-19 Pandemic. It noted: “EPA is committed to protecting human health and the environment, but recognizes challenges resulting from efforts to protect workers and the public from COVID-19 may directly impact the ability of regulated facilities to meet all federal regulatory requirements,” said EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler. “This temporary policy is designed to provide enforcement discretion under the current, extraordinary conditions, while ensuring facility operations continue to protect human health and the environment.” Evidence of a new convenient opportunity to sell watering down of regulations.
The other came from the righty American Policy Center, warning: “We must not back away from this fight. Once the current threat passes the Sustainable forces are going to rush into the void in a drive to keep much of these emergency powers in place./That’s just what totalitarians do./If you doubt that, take a good look at what we have just witnessed as the Pelosi/Schumer-led Democrats blatantly took advantage of this Corona crisis by packing the stimulus bill with Green New Deal policies that had nothing to do with the crisis.” Evidence of a new convenient opportunity to push nutjob politics.
On March 31, the EPA issued a sort of retraction: “We strongly encourage the press to actually read EPA’s Temporary Policy before repeating reckless propaganda about it. Instead of including factual information about the policy, outlets such as E&E News, The Hill , the AP, and the New York Times are relying on sources who falsely claim that the policy provides a blanket waiver of environmental requirements or creates a presumption that the pandemic is the cause of noncompliance.” Interestingly, the same day, news broke that the EPA would relax emissions and fuel economy requirements set by the Obama administration to fight climate change.
