{"id":212684928,"date":"2011-09-28T15:08:48","date_gmt":"2011-09-28T15:08:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=212684928"},"modified":"2011-09-28T15:08:48","modified_gmt":"2011-09-28T15:08:48","slug":"when-it-comes-to-clean-air-must-we-choose-jobs-over-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=212684928","title":{"rendered":"When It Comes to Clean Air, Must We Choose Jobs Over Health?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Environmental Commentary by Karen Hosler<br \/>\nWhy are power plants worth more than the health of 140,000 Maryland children afflicted with asthma? What about pregnant women eating mercury-tainted fish from the Chesapeake Bay? How could their risk be scored so low compared to a utility plant\u2019s profit?<br \/>\nAnd what of the boaters, watermen, crab house owners and all the others whose livelihoods depend on a healthy Chesapeake? Why should their interests come behind the mostly out-of-state industries that don\u2019t want to meet tougher federal clean air regulations?<br \/>\nThe answer we are given is jobs, jobs, jobs: good-paying, steady employment that has become the Holy Grail of our recession-ridden times.<br \/>\nCongress says the economy is so weak and the climate for such jobs so poor that clean air and clean water regulations are simply not affordable.<br \/>\n\u201cAs much as we want clean air, we would like jobs,\u201d Rep. John Shimkus, a Republican from Illinois, told the House last week. \u201cWe have the cleanest environment that anyone has seen in decades in this country\u2026The debate now is: How clean is clean? What is the cost benefit analysis and what is the effect on jobs if we get to a limit that you don\u2019t find naturally?\u201d<br \/>\nA few hours after he spoke, the House voted 249 to 169, led mostly by Mr. Shimkus\u2019 fellow Republicans, to effectively block two Environmental Protection Agency rules: one that would reduce power plant emissions generally, and a second that would protect downwind states in the East from pollution blowing in from their Midwest neighbors\u2014like Rep. Shimkus\u2019 Illinois.<br \/>\n&#8230;<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.somd.com\/news\/headlines\/2011\/14370.shtml\">https:\/\/www.somd.com\/news\/headlines\/2011\/14370.shtml<\/a>oldId.2011092815084834<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Environmental Commentary by Karen Hosler Why are power plants worth more than the health of 140,000 Maryland children afflicted with asthma? What about pregnant women eating mercury-tainted fish from the Chesapeake Bay? How could their risk be scored so low compared to a utility plant\u2019s profit? And what of the boaters, watermen, crab house owners &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=212684928\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;When It Comes to Clean Air, Must We Choose Jobs Over Health?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-212684928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-environment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212684928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=212684928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212684928\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=212684928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=212684928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=212684928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}