Winter's Bane

Lisa Jackson's EPA is on the warpath again, this time providing for even stricter limits on ground level ozone.

I wonder if my chronic bronchitis, which I get every winter, is aggravated by pollutants, particularly from mobile sources as I ride the bike along Franklin Blvd all year long.

I would be willing to pay a nickel more for a box of Triscuits and a nickel more per kWh to see these limits enforced. But perhaps I'm only willing because in my particular case I have bronchitis that is likely aggravated by smog. Perhaps if I didn't, and if my job security depended on fewer regulations on the burning of fossil fuels I might feel otherwise.

I don't find the American Petroleum Institute's argument very compelling...that we will kill jobs, the economy, and energy security with such regulation. Wrong. We've done that on our own with unregulated financial products, cheap credit, the evisceration of our manufacturing base and the American mantra of consume, consume, consume while deferring payment for all of it. Reduce energy security? What fucking planet are these people on? That somehow moving from a .075 to a .06 PPM limit means we'll be less secure in a nation full of over-consumptive energy hogs? Please.

The quality of my life is measurably diminished due to this chronic bronchitis. Headaches every afternoon between December and April from persistent, non-stop coughing. The wife's quality of life is diminished, too, because I'll cough just as the crime-drama on TV reveals the killer... If I can't consume as much power or gasoline but I am granted relief from this condition, that is a wholly acceptable trade off. I'm sure there are thousands of others in the same boat.