Once again, Rep. "Smokey" Joe Barton is blocking a bill that has overwhelming support in the House of Representatives, so he can protect his polluting corporate donors. This time, it's a bill that would dedicate millions of dollars to research the causes of breast cancer.
Last week we learned that Barton is blocking a bill to provide money to research the causes of autism. Both the autism bill and the breast cancer bill have enough co-sponsors in the House of Representatives to assure easy passage if they get to the House floor. But before the bills can reach the House floor, they must be voted out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Barton is the chairman of this committee and is blocking both bills.
Why would he do this? Both of these bills provide for money to research possible causes of the two conditions, including possible enviornmental causes. This scares the hell out of Barton's rich polluter buddies, who are afraid the research will find their pollution is a root cause of one or both of the conditions. So Barton steps up to protect them, just as he has done so many times in the past.
Elizabeth Emken, a board member of Cure Autism Now, said of Barton, "Why would he do this? Why would he throw his body in front of this train? Autism is a national emergency and needs immediate attention."
Fran Visco, president of the National Breast Cancer Coalition, was even more critical. She said, "Here's a group that did everything right, had an overwhelming majority of support in the Senate and the House. All the research and analysis gets shut out by Joe Barton. It's absolutely infuriating. What a horrible civics lesson to give to the public."
Fortunately, Barton does have a viable opponent in the November 7th election - Democrat David Harris. Mr. Harris said, "It just doesn't sit well with me, [that] you don't want enviornmental considerations in the bill because people that support your campaign are major polluters of the enviornment." Harris also said that Barton is "trying to push more coal power plants into the district, create more pollution and more mercury. It's just one big vicious circle."
It is time to show Joe Barton that he cannot throw sick Americans under the bus, just to protect his polluting donors. It's bad enough that Barton is responsible for the failure to control pollution, but to deny funding for medical research is way over the line. Obviously, his campaign donations are more important to him than the people he represents. Vote for David Harris, and send Barton home so he can breath the polluted air he helped to create.
" While Mr. Barton has frequently clashed with environmentalists over topics ranging from air pollution to global warming, he said his opposition has nothing to do with those environmental components. Such decisions should be left to scientists, he said."
ReplyDeleteOf course, the problem is he doesn't specify what it *does have to do with, beyond saying 'business the old-fashioned way, where whichever group can create the most pressure is the group that's taken care of'.
Barton is tired of having the squeaky wheel get the grease? That seems to me to be a fairly-important piece of the democracy puzzle...