The Iraq War is consuming our attention these days, but a growing menace is being ignored: the environment is a commodity that can be bought and sold. According to a recent article by the Associated Press,

The Bush administration is considering doing away with health standards that cut lead from gasoline, widely regarded as one of the nation's biggest clean-air accomplishments.

Battery makers, lead smelters, refiners all have lobbied the administration to do away with the Clean Air Act limits.

A preliminary staff review released by the Environmental Protection Agency this week acknowledged the possibility of dropping the health standards for lead air pollution. The agency says revoking those standards might be justified "given the significantly changed circumstances since lead was listed in 1976" as an air pollutant.

The EPA says concentrations of lead in the air have dropped more than 90 percent in the past 2 1/2 decades.

. . .

Soon after lead was listed as an air pollutant 30 years ago, the Carter administration began removing lead from gasoline. Other big sources of lead in the atmosphere are from solid waste, coal, oil, iron and steel production, lead smelters and tobacco smoke.

Exposure to lead can also come from food and soil. Lead is one of six air pollutants the EPA is required to review every five years to make sure the health limits are protective enough. The others are ozone, soot, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide and nitrous oxides.

The EPA has repeatedly missed the deadlines set under the Clean Air Act, incurring the legal wrath of environmental groups.

. . .

The health standards for air pollutants are intended to protect children, elderly and other "sensitive" populations, keep up visibility and limit damage to animals, crops, vegetation and buildings.

. . .

In July, a Washington-based trade group for all U.S. lead battery makers wrote a top EPA air quality official to urge that the agency remove lead from its list of air pollutants.

"That is not to say that air emissions of lead should be uncontrolled, or that no steps should be taken to address public health concerns arising from lead use," the Battery Council International said. "But many other regulatory vehicles exist for meeting these concerns."

Lead is not good for children and other living things. In 1996, the Environmental Protection Agency concluded a lengthy lead clean-up program. According to the EPA, "Adverse health effects from elevated levels of lead in blood range from behavior disorders and anemia to mental retardation and permanent nerve damage. Fetuses and children are especially susceptible to low doses of lead, often suffering central nervous system damage or slowed growth."

People are upset about this environmental rollback, which speaks for itself. The environment really is a commodity. Strict environmental regulations affect corporate profits, and the reverse is also true.

I saw this coming. I didn't exactly expect Bush to ease up on the lead regulations, but this is something the President can do without Congressional approval. When Bush got re-elected in 2004, I thought about the changes that a Presidential administion can undertake without oversight from the other branches of government. That's why, even if the Democratic Congress next year starts to reign in the Bush administration, certain policy changes such as new environmental regulations will have already wreaked havoc on public health. Even as the Bush administration crashes and burns under the weight of the Iraq War, it can still drag us all through the shitpile with bad environmental regulations.