Carl Pope: The Work Begins

Washington, D.C -- What's a poor agency administrator to do? I doubt EPA head Lisa Jackson feels that way most of the time, but lately her plate is a tad overfull. As the New York Times pointed out in an editorial, she has inherited a virtually clean slate in terms of Clean Air Act regulations, since almost everything the Bush administration tried over eight years -- mostly both illegal and bad -- was thrown out by the courts. But that's a huge regulatory chasm to fill. Then there's the mess left behind by FEMA toxic trailers and Katrina. The Bush administration evaded the obvious need to provide public-health standards relating to formaldehyde in mobile homes and trailers, and the EPA is only now holding the hearings at which the victims of the toxic trailers can make their case why this should never happen again. Becky Gillette, who led the Sierra Club effort that exposed the threat, has urged the EPA to adopt California's standards. Those standards are projected to cut formaldehyde ... (link)