Conservative fifth circuit overturns EPA’s ban prohibiting Inhance from using manufacturing process creating toxic compound
A federal appeals court in the US has killed a ban on plastic containers contaminated with highly toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” found to leach at alarming levels into food, cosmetics, household cleaners, pesticides and other products across the economy.
Houston-based Inhance manufactures an estimated 200m containers annually with a process that creates, among other chemicals, PFOA, a toxic PFAS compound. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in December prohibited Inhance from using the manufacturing process.
But the conservative fifth circuit court of appeals court overturned the ban. The judges did not deny the containers’ health risks, but said the EPA could not regulate the buckets under the statute it used.
The rule requires companies to alert the EPA if a new industrial process creates hazardous chemicals. Inhance has produced the containers for decades and argued that its process is not new, so it is not subject to the regulations. The EPA argued that it only became aware that Inhance’s process created PFOA in 2020, so it could be regulated as a new use, but the court disagreed.
Conservatives are a blight on humanity.
Louder for those in the back
CONSERVATIVES ARE A BLIGHT ON HUMANITY!!!
Conservatism as a political ideology is very attractive to psychopaths and sadists (and/or, in a word, idiots) – “the cruelty is the point” isn’t just an empty saying, it’s very often the literal truth when it comes to conservative moral judgements. Rulings like this are just an example of how devoid of any sort of empathy they can be. It’s not a political ideology so much as it is a way for people with dark tetrad personality traits to wield power; conservatives are extremely easy to manipulate due to being on average dumber than non-conservatives, so it’s a perfect combination.
Sources
In the present research (N = 675), we focus on the relationship between the dark side of human personality and political orientation and extremism, respectively, in the course of a presidential election where the two candidates represent either left-wing or right-wing political policies. Narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and everyday sadism were associated with right-wing political orientation, whereas narcissism and psychopathy were associated with political extremism. Moreover, the relationships between personality and right-wing political orientation and extremism, respectively, were relatively independent from each other.
We found eleven significant correlations between conservative [Moral Intuition Survey] judgments and the Dark Triad – all at significance level of p<.00001 – and no significant correlations between liberal [Moral Intuition Survey] judgments and the Dark Triad. We believe that these results raise provocative moral questions about the personality bases of moral judgments. In particular, we propose that because the Short-D3 measures three “dark and antisocial” personality traits, our results raise some prima facie worries about the moral justification of some conservative moral judgments
[T]here exists a solid empirical paper trail demonstrating that lower cognitive abilities (e.g., abstract-reasoning skills and verbal, nonverbal, and general intelligence) predict greater prejudice. We discuss how the effects of lower cognitive ability on prejudice are explained (i.e., mediated) by greater endorsement of right-wing socially conservative attitude. […]
Right-wing ideologies offer well-structured and ordered views about society that preserve traditional societal conventions and norms (e.g., Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003). Such ideological belief systems are particularly attractive to individuals who are strongly motivated to avoid uncertainty and ambiguity in preference for simplicity and predictability (Jost et al., 2003; Roets & Van Hiel, 2011). Theoretically, individuals with lower mental abilities should be attracted by right-wing social-cultural ideologies because they minimize complexity and increase perceived control (Heaven, Ciarrochi, & Leeson, 2011; Stankov, 2009). Conversely, individuals with greater cognitive skills are better positioned to understand changing and dynamic societal contexts, which should facilitate open-minded, relatively left-leaning attitudes (Deary et al., 2008a; Heaven et al., 2011; McCourt, Bouchard, Lykken, Tellegen, & Keyes, 1999). Lower cognitive abilities therefore draw people to strategies and ideologies that emphasize what is presently known and considered acceptable to make sense and impose order over their environment. Resistance to social change and the preservation of the status quo regarding societal traditions—key principles underpinning right-wing social-cultural ideologies—should be particularly appealing to those wishing to avoid uncertainty and threat.
Indeed, the empirical literature reveals negative relations between cognitive abilities and right-wing social-cultural attitudes, including right-wing authoritarian (e.g., Keiller, 2010; McCourt et al., 1999), socially conservative (e.g., Stankov, 2009; Van Hiel et al., 2010), and religious attitudes (e.g., Zuckerman, Silberman, & Hall, 2013).
I don’t blame this on Conservatives. This is our fucked up government doing fucked up shit because there’s a stupid rule written down somewhere, and 2,000 years of jurisprudence going back to the Roman Empire says we have to continue letting some asshole poison everyone.
There are so many ways we could be living, and we keep choosing this stupid shit.
Toxic Food Package Makers: “It’s not new”
EPA: “We only found out about it four years ago”
TFPM: “Yeah but it’s not new so you can’t regulate it.”
Judge: “Sounds old to me, you’re allowed to continue poisoning everyone.”
What a joke of a system of government. Total fucking clown show.
Right? You successfully hid a crime for years, now we must let you continue.
What the ever loving fuck?
Yes, the clown chakra is certainly open, spewing it’s poison everywhere. The yellowjack transmissions coming through, showing us who we really are, what god we really serve. Probably a bunch of fine Christians are complicit and/or approve. The old gods need to die already.
My dude Khorne will have heard you call for its death and I will not stand up for you in that fight.
Yeah but also can we just write a law for it, too?
I’d love too but it’s old…hands are tied
The law authorizing the FDA to regulate food covers this. Congress gave the FDA the power to make these regulations.
Don’t let anyone tell you we need a law for everything. There’s a reason why we don’t need new laws for everything toxic.
Anti-Delegation Doctrine adherents would lie to know your location.
I hope everyone of the judges on the 5th circuit eat from said containers. Fuck those sociopathic assholes.
If you ever read “fifth circuit court of appeals”, know that you’re about to read some bullshit. Every bad decision the current Supreme Court has made started with the fifth circuit.
The judge shopping to get this crooked court should be stopped. How long until it takes affect?
They are pretty consistently shitheads.
Fucking hell we should be banning all disposable plastic, not just the obviously super toxic stuff fml
Why do they hate humanity so much? That’s a rhetorical question, but I also don’t truly know the answer
Endnote 3: The Origins of Conservatism from The Alt-Right Playbook
Money.
It’s not exactly that they hate humanity, it’s that they hate any part of humanity they can’t get money from.
If you’re the part of humanity that has lots of money to spend, they love you. Especially if you give lots of money to them.
Poor people use this more than rich people. Sick poor people having to take care of themselves and babies with birth defects mean they will be desperate to take any job, and take all kinds of abuse just so they can get some healthcare from that job (which won’t be enough to help them more than a tiny bit, of course).
They want an uneducated and desperate underclass. Otherwise how will they get their slave labor to increase their personal profits?
Wouldn’t paper based boxes be better for the environment, and our health, anyway? Why are we still using plastic boxes for food?
It’s an oil byproduct, cheap waste made into something that can be given to the public and called useful even when we know it’s killing us.
Plastic is cheap and durable. The environmental and health concerns are rarely a factor for companies making the choice.
We could make them responsible for those things.
Plastic lobby says no.
How do they make paper impenetrable to greasy wet food? PFAS coatings…
Some food boxes are the really thick, compostable, paper boxes, that hold up pretty well to greasy foods. Another option is to place wax paper under the greasy food, between the food and the bottom of the box. Both options are better for the planet than the ones with pfas.
Pizza boxes?
Waxed paper, like they did before plastic.
Big oil has entered the chat
Making paper is a pretty nasty process and wasteful as well. Cardboard also runs the risk of being heavier to transport than plastics, when it comes to single use anyway – and that means more energy and emissions to transport them.
It is biodegradable and comes from a natural resource that can be sustainable though. Plastic is just… There. Grocery stores have switched back to paper bags awhile ago instead of plastic, so it’s able to be done.
It’s a crap situation.
Grocery stores have switched back to paper bags awhile ago instead of plastic, so it’s able to be done.
Where? God, I wish. I ask for one and the cashier’s roll their eyes.
Everyone I know in the US has been using reusable bags for like ten years now.
And?
And what? You said people roll their eyes. That hasn’t been a problem in ten years.
And reusable bags are irrelevant in a conversation about stores switching back to paper bags. Where is this happening? You don’t know either.
Why does it not surprise me that a company that is totally in love with the idea of poisoning people is based in texas?
5th circuit is where all the problems come from
By the courts logic on this asbestos should be absolutely fine to put in everything since the harmful effects of it weren’t found until decades after.
The harmful effects were known in antiquity. It’s just that everyone found it so useful (and it was mined by slaves which were less vocal). So nothing new there.
I immediately knew this would be the fifth circuit.
Houston-based Inhance manufactures wants to continue to poison its customers, and future generations so that they don’t have to try anything different.
Didn’t we use asbestos for decades too? JFC GOP.
It has been less than four years since we had a president that thinks asbestos is 100% safe and the push to remove it was a conspiracy by the mafia to get the construction contracts. We’ve conclusively known that it is toxic for over 100 years and there is some evidence that we have known for a couple thousand years.
They want to bring asbestos back too. So…yknow
Don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but the US has still been using asbestos. Just this month they finally banned chrysotile asbestos which is still in use.
I had no.idea. Wtf is wrong with us?
Yay cancer in my chicken tenders
😑 sigh
This seems safe. What could possibly go wrong?
