US air force avoids PFAS water cleanup, citing supreme court’s Chevron ruling
EPA says Tucson’s drinking water is contaminated but air force claims agency lacks authority to order cleanup
The US air force is refusing to comply with an order to clean drinking water it polluted in Tucson, Arizona, claiming federal regulators lack authority after the conservative-dominated US supreme court overturned the “Chevron doctrine”. Air force bases contaminated the water with toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” and other dangerous compounds.
Though former US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials and legal experts who reviewed the air force’s claim say the Chevron doctrine ruling probably would not apply to the order, the military’s claim that it would represents an early indication of how polluters will wield the controversial court decision to evade responsibility.
It appears the air force is essentially attempting to expand the scope of the court’s ruling to thwart regulatory orders not covered by the decision, said Deborah Ann Sivas, director of the Stanford University Environmental Law Clinic.
“It’s very odd,” she added. “It feels almost like an intimidation tactic, but it will be interesting to see if others take this approach and it bleeds over.”
there are also humans at the top of the 'air force' that made this decision not to clean up. its two sets of irresponsible...no... negligent humans at play.
That would be the Secretary of the Air Force, Frank Kendall.
Also, he is appointed by, and reports directly to, the president. Biden could easily call this guy up and tell him to unfuck himself.
That’s exactly what I was thinking
"Do you know the chain of command? It's the chain I use to beat you if you don't cleanup the gorram PFAS."
Biden is commander in chief. He can just order them to clean it up.
Playing by the rules and showing those that made them their flaws, is also a legitimate strategy to force corrections.
exactly, lets purposefully poison lots of people so we can force those regulations written in blood!
And playing with lives over to respond or not with unclear rules over the next 50 years is better? Folks will get sick either way. I'd prefer to force a decision sooner rather than later.
Well... Just poison the right watering holes that the people who have the power to act care about, and suddenly they'll care about the EPA and water quality regulations.
You think the drinking water of Supreme Court justices is going to be contaminated as a result of this? They're not being punished for making a mistake, a bunch of innocent powerless plebs will be.
I'm sure Clarence Thomas's RVs have a water filter.
So you're saying contaminate their water. I like the idea.
I can't tell if this is a genuine attempt to dodge cleanup or an attempt to test a Supreme Court ruling before companies can get out of hand during the next administration.
But maybe I'm reading too much into the context.
They also made the decision to pollute in the first place. Let's not divert the attention off the cause of the pollution.
To be fair, much of this pollution was done decades ago. The people responsible for the bulk of it are retired by now.