Saturday, February 16, 2019

Trump Quietly Put a Koch Official in Charge of America’s Drinking Water

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/02/trump-put-a-koch-official-in-charge-of-americas-drinking-water?fbclid=IwAR3enfxq2KW81sm3GZfYO3uNWm34-pYpvXI8wMl8PMLdOVEZBTEiQ367ZYU
"Currently, Koch subsidiary Georgia-Pacific, a paper and pulp conglomerate, is facing at least one class-action suit related to chemicals now under Dunlap’s purview. Koch’s various environmental crimes against humanity are laid out in several high-profile lawsuits over the past 20 years. According to Bloomberg, “Koch Industries was assessed more than $400 million in fines, penalties, and judgments” between 1999 and 2003, such as for dumping hundreds of thousands of gallons of aviation fuel into a Minnesota wetland. “You want an independent, hardheaded scientific review of these issues; you don’t want somebody who is already taking the industry party line,” Erik Olson, who heads up the Natural Resources Defense Council’s public health work, told Politico. “There’s a legitimate threat there and, from my perspective, the conflicts of interest that [Dunlap] has having worked as a regulatory compliance director at Georgia-Pacific raises questions about whether he can make those objective decisions or should be recused.” Dunlap, of course, is unlikely to be replaced by someone without a host of conflicts of interest given that the guy currently running the E.P.A., Andrew Wheeler, is a walking, talking conflict of interest, having served as a coal-lobbyist prior to taking over the top job from departed Grift King Scott Pruitt. It is, in other words, par for the course."

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