While Obama’s jobs speech is being framed as a turning point for his tenure as President, there is another job I would respectively suggest he concentrate on: his own.
Here’s a quick video ad that I think gets right to point:
Late last week the President blocked reforms to the Environmental Protection Agency’s plans to improve pollution measures to protect Americans against the harmful effects of toxic ozone smog. The President chose to side with big corporate polluters instead of with the 12,000 Americans that, according to the EPA, would have been saved by these proposed updates to pollution controls. Obama also chose to side with the big polluting industries instead of with the estimated 24 million men, women, and children suffering from asthma in this country who are forced to suffer even more because of heightened smog levels.
The decision outraged his biggest backers in the Democratic Party. Barbara Boxer, Chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said that environmentalists should sue the Obama administration over the decision: “I hope they’ll be sued in court and I hope the court can stand by the Clean Air Act.”
On Friday, when the Obama announcement was made, top Democrat Congressman Ed Markey who sits on the House Energy and Commerce Committee said, “I am disappointed that the President chose to further delay important clean air protections that would have helped to prevent respiratory and cardiac disease in thousands of Americans.”
Obama needs to be reminded that come November, he will be counting on people who care about the environment and the health of their families and loved ones, not just for votes, but for volunteer hours and everything else that he needs from them to win his campaign.
This decision is all about politics, and that’s just sickening. There is still hope. The President just needs to do his job and start protecting us from ozone pollution — much of which comes from coal-fired power plants — and stop doing the dirty work of the big corporate polluters.
