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**Willinois** · 09-05-2011, 11:20 AM

If anyone would like to let EPA and Obama know that they want smog regulation to happen sooner rather than later, this is one way to do it.

Here's text from the email they sent.

Quote:Just hours ago, President Obama asked EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to withdraw the proposed new national ozone standards, delaying until at least 2013 a safeguard that would protect our families from dangerous smog pollution.

I am appalled -- this delay will literally cost lives.

Send a message to the Obama Administration. Tell them to protect our health and stand up against air pollution!

This issue couldn't be more urgent: Half of U.S. families live in communities where the air is literally unsafe to breathe -- and President Obama is looking the other way.

A new standard for smog would prevent up to 12,000 premature deaths, 5,300 heart attacks and tens of thousands of asthma attacks and other serious respiratory illnesses each year -- yet the President has simply kicked the can down the road.

The White House's decision is shocking and disappointing to all of us who value breathing clean air. Let the President know that we urge him to stand strong against Big Oil and Coal companies and to protect our communities from pollution.

Despite a year of intense grassroots pressure by Sierra Club volunteers and our allies, President Obama has caved to corporate special interests who put profit above all else, including the health of our families.

Tell the President that a healthy economy requires clean air and healthy people. These protections from smog would have improved our communities and saved billions of dollars in health costs. Letting the polluters off the hook won't save lives, won't create jobs and won't fuel innovation. It will just keep thousands of people sick and kill others prematurely from the pollution in our air.

Contact the White House and tell President Obama that cleaner air is not something we can afford to delay any further.

Thank you for all you do for our environment.

Sincerely,

Sarah Hodgdon Signature
Sarah Hodgdon
Sierra Club, Conservation Director

**Joan Ruaiz** · 09-05-2011, 03:41 PM

The petition should also be forwarded to every member of Congress, and then Obama could get those rules rewrite done pronto in the meantime. I understand why the delay, but it doesn't make it right.......

**nofurylike** · 09-06-2011, 02:20 AM

when we got that same line - taken straight out of M$M and from the PL - from MoveOn, yesterday, we finally broke with them, sending them a link to this thread:

http://democratsforprogress.com/forum/sh...d=9045#top

PLEASE read it thoroughly, and please, if you can and have a chance, write to the Sierra Club, asking them to please read that thread, too. and to stop getting their information about PBO's decisions from M$M, OR from the PL.

please.

thank you.

**Willinois** · 09-07-2011, 11:37 AM

(09-06-2011 02:20 AM)nofurylike Wrote: when we got that same line - taken straight out of M$M and from the PL - from MoveOn, yesterday, we finally broke with them, sending them a link to this thread:

http://democratsforprogress.com/forum/sh...d=9045#top

PLEASE read it thoroughly, and please, if you can and have a chance, write to the Sierra Club, asking them to please read that thread, too. and to stop getting their information about PBO's decisions from M$M, OR from the PL.

please.

thank you.

There's really nothing in the thread that excuses this bad decision made for political reasons.

**nofurylike** · 09-08-2011, 05:38 AM

(09-07-2011 11:37 AM)Willinois Wrote:
(09-06-2011 02:20 AM)nofurylike Wrote: when we got that same line - taken straight out of M$M and from the PL - from MoveOn, yesterday, we finally broke with them, sending them a link to this thread:

http://democratsforprogress.com/forum/sh...d=9045#top

PLEASE read it thoroughly, and please, if you can and have a chance, write to the Sierra Club, asking them to please read that thread, too. and to stop getting their information about PBO's decisions from M$M, OR from the PL.

please.

thank you.

There's really nothing in the thread that excuses this bad decision made for political reasons.

it was a necessary decision, with minimal impact - it returns an action to its original schedule - made for the sake of facilitating other vital choices.
i can only ask that you read it again very thoroughly, with an open mind, especially the letter posted on that thread.
it demonstrates what the decision really was, versus the way it is being misinterpreted by M$M, then that disinformation parroted by many including the PL.

i am very on edge on this, because it keeps underlining how ready the PL is to take M$M as gospel, while being knee-jerk skeptical of EVERYTHING President Obama does, says, decides, wear, eats, likes ....

backward enough?

thank you, Willinois.

**Willinois** · 09-08-2011, 07:48 AM

(09-08-2011 05:38 AM)nofurylike Wrote: it was a necessary decision, with minimal impact - it returns an action to its original schedule - made for the sake of facilitating other vital choices.
i can only ask that you read it again very thoroughly, with an open mind, especially the letter posted on that thread.
it demonstrates what the decision really was, versus the way it is being misinterpreted by M$M, then that disinformation parroted by many including the PL.

The letter clearly states that the decision was not based on science or what's best for the environment. It's based on the false conservative claim that less regulation is better for the economy. Yes, there are other important regulations moving forward, but that doesn't make it a good decision. Yes, attacks from the PL are unfair and stupid, but that still doesn't make this a good decision.

What I've read elsewhere suggests he took bad advice from Bill Daley and other advisers who are spending too much time with lobbyists from the chamber of commerce and fossil fuel industry. I hope the reaction is embarrassing enough that he doesn't repeat this mistake.

**nofurylike** · 09-13-2011, 05:28 AM

(09-08-2011 07:48 AM)Willinois Wrote:
(09-08-2011 05:38 AM)nofurylike Wrote: it was a necessary decision, with minimal impact - it returns an action to its original schedule - made for the sake of facilitating other vital choices.
i can only ask that you read it again very thoroughly, with an open mind, especially the letter posted on that thread.
it demonstrates what the decision really was, versus the way it is being misinterpreted by M$M, then that disinformation parroted by many including the PL.

The letter clearly states that the decision was not based on science or what's best for the environment. It's based on the false conservative claim that less regulation is better for the economy. Yes, there are other important regulations moving forward, but that doesn't make it a good decision. Yes, attacks from the PL are unfair and stupid, but that still doesn't make this a good decision.

What I've read elsewhere suggests he took bad advice from Bill Daley and other advisers who are spending too much time with lobbyists from the chamber of commerce and fossil fuel industry. I hope the reaction is embarrassing enough that he doesn't repeat this mistake.

i said necessary, not good, decision.

the letter, and the action were saying that there is no benefit to speeding up that one regulation bundle when compared to its economic impact, since it is to be acted upon both by other regulations, and itself in a matter of months.

will you please post a link to your reference to taking "bad advice from ... "? thank you.

thank you, Willinois.

(more when i have a chance. missed this thread until heading off.)

**Willinois** · 09-13-2011, 09:10 AM

(09-13-2011 05:28 AM)nofurylike Wrote: will you please post a link to your reference to taking "bad advice from ... "? thank you.

It's a discussion board so there's nothing wrong with posting your disagreement with me.

There are too many unnamed sources and rumors in this blog post for me to feel totally confident about it, but it's from a credible person who has a history of giving Obama credit when it's due.

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/jwalke...clean.html

**nofurylike** · 09-13-2011, 11:50 PM

(09-13-2011 09:10 AM)Willinois Wrote:
(09-13-2011 05:28 AM)nofurylike Wrote: will you please post a link to your reference to taking "bad advice from ... "? thank you.

It's a discussion board so there's nothing wrong with posting your disagreement with me.

There are too many unnamed sources and rumors in this blog post for me to feel totally confident about it, but it's from a credible person who has a history of giving Obama credit when it's due.

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/jwalke...clean.html

thank you, Willinois, on both matters.

i'm going to read that, soon. to be continued!

**nofurylike** · 09-15-2011, 02:05 AM

(09-13-2011 09:10 AM)Willinois Wrote:
(09-13-2011 05:28 AM)nofurylike Wrote: will you please post a link to your reference to taking "bad advice from ... "? thank you.

It's a discussion board so there's nothing wrong with posting your disagreement with me.

There are too many unnamed sources and rumors in this blog post for me to feel totally confident about it, but it's from a credible person who has a history of giving Obama credit when it's due.

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/jwalke...clean.html

Willinois, i hope to post something more exact on this, but not on this thread. thank you for posing the questions you have.

details in the letter from the President do explain very clearly what is happening. the rules just delayed were not to be applied until 2016, three years after this is already scheduled to be revisited. meanwhile, science questions which have arisen will be worked out in these two years, for better success on all levels.
to implement change that will have no effect whatsoever for five more years, at enormous cost (minimum 90 billion, and as much a a trillion, a year) when the economic board is looking for any excuse to trigger automatic cuts ....

well, you know ....

more when i've managed to compose it.

thank you for discussing, Willinois.

**RoyGBiv** · 09-08-2011, 08:13 AM

(09-08-2011 05:38 AM)nofurylike Wrote: it was a necessary decision, with minimal impact - it returns an action to its original schedule - made for the sake of facilitating other vital choices.

What vital choices would those be?

Quote:i can only ask that you read it again very thoroughly, with an open mind, especially the letter posted on that thread.

What do you imagine is in that thread that is different from anything the members of the Sierra Club (or Willinois or me, both of whom posted in it at some length) don't already know?

The letter is an informational policy statement written for political purposes, like thousands of other letters of the same variety. This doesn't necessarily mean there is anything wrong with it, but it is certainly not going to advertise the problems with the decision it is itself conveying.

Pardon me for saying so, but I can't hold this back any longer. I see examples of it almost every day and hold my tongue in the interest of solidarity, but it's time this was said.

This is the reason some on the left complain about us. It gives them actual ammunition. This decision is ripe for criticism and should receive criticism. Groups dedicated to monitoring the issues affected by this decision have aligned themselves, and on the one side we have groups like the Sierra Club while on the other we have the chamber of commerce and the oil industry. The latter are the groups that think this is a good decision, and I'm supposed to side with them and the same tortured, wrong, logic they've been trying to sell us for decades? Why? Some among us seem to perceive that any criticism of the President whatsoever just can't be allowed to happen. It's not about the policy. The policy is being ignored. It's about who made it.

I have investigated the details of this decision to the extent I am able, and I am convinced it is a bad one made for the wrong reasons, and it will give genuine ammunition to Obama's detractors on the left while gaining nothing in return from moderates and certainly not the right. I have in the past let slide some decisions I thought were bad on the surface because there was some underlying motive that could yield positive results.

I don't see that here.

None of this means I think Obama is a bad person. It doesn't mean I don't still support him. It doesn't mean I won't vote for him or that I won't campaign hard for him. It doesn't mean anything except that he has made a decision that i strongly disagree with and am saying so. Part of what Obama charged us, his supporters, with in the beginning was to help him get things done, and part of that is letting our voices be heard when we think he has taken the wrong step.

This is not about the PL or the media. It's about a decision Obama made that I and others believe is worthy of criticism.

**nofurylike** · 09-13-2011, 05:23 AM

(09-08-2011 08:13 AM)RoyGBiv Wrote: This is not about the PL or the media. It's about a decision Obama made that I and others believe is worthy of criticism.

i saw this as i was going offline, so will have to reply offline and post tonight.

briefly, some of us - who happen to know something of what we are talking about - feel it is not worthy of the particular criticisms it is receiving, including here.

"some among us seem to perceive .... "? Facepalm

"The policy is being ignored. It's about who made it"? are you calling me a cheerleader, Roy?

thank you.

**RoyGBiv** · 09-13-2011, 07:47 AM

(09-13-2011 05:23 AM)nofurylike Wrote: briefly, some of us - who happen to know something of what we are talking about - feel it is not worthy of the particular criticisms it is receiving, including here.

Yes, and some of us who know something of what we are talking about do believe it is worthy of criticism, yet the position you have left us with is that anyone who offers criticism of this policy is being duped by the media or the so-called professional left.

Quote:"The policy is being ignored. It's about who made it"? are you calling me a cheerleader, Roy?

Do you really want to play this game?

If you want to get into who is insulting who, let's go back a bit. You advised a person who has posted at length and in detail in a thread about this policy decision that he should go back and read that thread. The only thing in that thread of substance other than what he said is the policy letter from the Obama administration, which had already been addressed. In the same breath you suggested that the criticism about the policy was based on nonsense being spewed by the media and the PL.

So let me turn the question around. Are you calling me and Willinois members of the "PL" who get all their information from a biased media and are incapable of doing their own research and coming to conclusions on their own?

I'm not calling you a cheerleader. I am saying that the defense of the policy in this forum has been based on 1) Republican and industry defenses of the energy industry 2) defenses of Obama's character, and 3) nothing of substance at all except that it is a decision Obama made and must therefore be correct.

Number 3 is an indefensible position. Number 2 is irrelevant to this policy decision; no one here is questioning Obama's character. And, if we're reduced to defending administration policy by regurgitating Republican talking points, we really are doomed.

Quote:thank you.

No, thank you.

**nofurylike** · 09-13-2011, 11:46 PM

(09-13-2011 07:47 AM)RoyGBiv Wrote: Do you really want to play this game?

you wrote:
This is the reason some on the left complain about us. It gives them actual ammunition. This decision is ripe for criticism and should receive criticism. Groups dedicated to monitoring the issues affected by this decision have aligned themselves, and on the one side we have groups like the Sierra Club while on the other we have the chamber of commerce and the oil industry. The latter are the groups that think this is a good decision, and I'm supposed to side with them and the same tortured, wrong, logic they've been trying to sell us for decades? Why? Some among us seem to perceive that any criticism of the President whatsoever just can't be allowed to happen. It's not about the policy. The policy is being ignored. It's about who made it.

that is YOU starting that game of casting aspersions. at least i put my reply lightheartedly, when i might have been more offended, and see now maybe should have been.

RoyGBiv Wrote:If you want to get into who is insulting who, let's go back a bit. You advised a person who has posted at length and in detail in a thread about this policy decision that he should go back and read that thread. The only thing in that thread of substance other than what he said is the policy letter from the Obama administration, which had already been addressed. In the same breath you suggested that the criticism about the policy was based on nonsense being spewed by the media and the PL.

i did not advise him to read it, i asked him to re-read it. many refutations of the Sierra Club's email are in that thread. i did not have time to repeat those on this thread, at that time. nor did i know, at that moment, if Willinois had participated in that thread. i was offering him a source of more information on the subject, on that thread that i knew clarified a lot. i did not criticize his accepting Sierra Club as a source, and felt it was important, and helpful, to point out that the Sierra Club is parroting disinformation - as it often has over the years.

RoyGBiv Wrote:So let me turn the question around. Are you calling me and Willinois members of the "PL" who get all their information from a biased media and are incapable of doing their own research and coming to conclusions on their own?

in the first exchange, Willinois simply pointed out where people could express their views on this issue to the President. i recognize that the sources of the criticisms are sources many of us normally trust, and i recognize that those sources are convincing, but i stated, knowledgeably, that THEY have gotten THEIR information from disinformation coming from M$M and the PL.

RoyGBiv Wrote:I'm not calling you a cheerleader. I am saying that the defense of the policy in this forum has been based on 1) Republican and industry defenses of the energy industry 2) defenses of Obama's character, and 3) nothing of substance at all except that it is a decision Obama made and must therefore be correct.

Number 3 is an indefensible position. Number 2 is irrelevant to this policy decision; no one here is questioning Obama's character. And, if we're reduced to defending administration policy by regurgitating Republican talking points, we really are doomed.

i agree with much of that, except your saying that the only defenses here have been based on only those three possiblilities. you leave out factual information from your list of defenses.

i did state some of that, above.

thank you, again.

RoyGBiv Wrote:No, thank you.

**RoyGBiv** · 09-14-2011, 05:36 PM

(09-13-2011 11:46 PM)nofurylike Wrote: that is YOU starting that game of casting aspersions. at least i put my reply lightheartedly, when i might have been more offended, and see now maybe should have been.

That bit of mine you quoted and your interpretation of it is an object lesson in the problem with this whole issue. It is not an "aspersion." It is a criticism supportable by evidence. My criticisms of the Obama administration on this policy decision is also not an insult, but a criticism supportable by evidence. In both cases you are reacting as though I have offered personal offense.

If you want to say I started whatever this is, you go right ahead. The fact of the matter is that I was criticizing the inability or unwillingness of some at some times to distinguish between reasonable criticism and insult, which sort of undermines your point. And I stand firmly by that. On the other hand, if I wanted to be insulted, I could point to the fact you've repeatedly told me to go read a thread I've already read without offering me any elucidation of what I might find there that is different from what has already been discussed. The implication is that I either cannot read or cannot comprehend what I do read.

But I know you didn't mean that. Therefore I am not, in fact, insulted.

So let me make this clear. I read the thread and all the articles linked in it. None of it in any way changes my opinion that this is a bad decision made for the wrong reasons. I appreciate the background that suggests reasons the decision was made. I agree with others who have said that pressure should be placed on Congress as well as President Obama. However, I do not agree with the implication that any of this absolves the Obama administration for making a poor decision. The rationalization that the standards would be reconsidered two years down the road or that other regulations remain or whatever you want to pull out of that are not impressive. They come across as excuses and, as was said early in this thread, that will play bad politically, which is bad for all of us.

Now you are certainly free to disagree with any of that, but if you're going to do so, please attempt to say something other than directing me to go read a thread I've already read that provides information already addressed.

Quote:i did not advise him to read it, i asked him to re-read it

That is the most finely split hair I believe I have ever seen.

So when you asked him to read it, you were not giving a suggestion that you believed was worth following. Okay.

Quote:i agree with much of that, except your saying that the only defenses here have been based on only those three possiblilities. you leave out factual information from your list of defenses.

If you would provide some of this factual information and weave it into your own argument, it would be helpful. I would also appreciate it if you would revisit the question I asked of you earlier that you failed to answer regarding what vital choices were facilitated by this decision.

I am critical of your argument and your method of advancing it. A logically consistent, intellectually honest exchange of such criticisms is how we learn things.

**nofurylike** · 09-15-2011, 12:02 AM

i do expect people here to research M$M and PL propaganda, even if it is circulated by supposedly reliable sources. isn't that what we came here for?

i will not reply further on this thread. i hope to soon post clarifying some of the misunderstandings on this subject.

thank you.

**nofurylike** · 09-13-2011, 05:55 AM

one bit of apology, Willinois.
you had not posted asking our reactions to Obama's actions on this. because i arrived that day already agitated by MoveOn's email saying pretty much the very same thing, i reacted to something other than what you had posted about. i apologize for that.

i will post another thread to comment any further on background issues on this subject. if you would like, i will edit my posts from this thread.

then we can take up the other aspects of the discussion elsewhere. or not, as you choose, of course.

thank you for posting, either way.

Wave

**Treestar** · 09-13-2011, 06:00 AM

I don't understand enough about this to know what I really think of it, so I'm not going to sign any petitions or jump on any bandwagons. There could be good reasons for it and I suspect that the claim it will cost lives is an exaggeration - guess the sources have done too much exaggerating in my view in the past.

There are things we trust the Administration on day to day that we never hear about in the media - I suspect strongly this is one of those things to leave to their judgment.