Global indicators

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is a joke, and a bad one at that Feds blow smoke up states' tailpipes," Times, Editorial, Dec. 23 and "State will join suit challenging emission ruling," Local News, Dec. 21]. It has become an insidious oxymoron. It is no more protecting our environment than it is protecting our children from lead in their toys, or our animals from poison in their food, nor is it giving us clean water to drink or clear air to breathe. Big money wins over all of the above.

This bothers me not a little, as I work in the medical industry. I wonder how else the EPA might be compromising every man, woman and child in this country with its menacing practices that can be so easily influenced by large, unscrupulous corporations whose ultimate goal is to make money.

The great states of Washington and California and the other states that had the gumption to stand up and do the right thing can just as easily ignore the EPA as the EPA ignores us. We can set the rules for what we allow to be driven on our roads. If the federal government wants to create a schism between itself and the states, so be it.

What really bothers me is how partisan this pivotal agency has become. If it were run as well and with as much conscience as the Natural Resources Defense Council, it might actually be doing the job it was appointed to do.

Better yet, why don't we throw out the EPA and give this nonprofit organization the job? I would feel a lot safer and this country might actually get what it needs so badly: protection of our natural resources, which includes the three basic needs for life: uncontaminated water, untainted food and unpolluted air.—Maura Callahan, Snoqualmie

The Seattle Times – December 30, 2007?