In his biography of Tsar Peter The Great, Robert Massie, whose son is running for governor here in the Commonwealth (God Save It!), began a chapter with a recitation of the titles of the various courtiers, suckfish, and hangers-on at the court of the Ottoman Emperor. I remember vividly one dude who was the Keeper of the Royal Napkin.

Anyway, as we’ve all been amused by Scott Pruitt’s attempt to become the Sultan of Tulsa, expensive hand lotions and all, I was reminded of that passage. I also feel compelled to point out that, while all this naked profiteering and penny-ante influence peddling is going on, the fire sale of public lands and of the public health to those industries for whom Pruitt always has been a willing marionette goes merrily on. From the NYT:

Under a law passed by Congress during the final year of the Obama administration, the E.P.A. was required for the first time to evaluate hundreds of potentially toxic chemicals and determine if they should face new restrictions, or even be removed from the market. The chemicals include many in everyday use, such as dry-cleaning solvents, paint strippers and substances used in health and beauty products like shampoos and cosmetics. But as it moves forward reviewing the first batch of 10 chemicals, the E.P.A. has in most cases decided to exclude from its calculations any potential exposure caused by the substances’ presence in the air, the ground or water, according to more than 1,500 pages of documents released last week by the agency. Instead, the agency will focus on possible harm caused by direct contact with a chemical in the workplace or elsewhere. The approach means that the improper disposal of chemicals — leading to the contamination of drinking water, for instance — will often not be a factor in deciding whether to restrict or ban them.

Getty Images

This decision, pushed by the EPA’s head of risk evaluation, who used to work at the American Chemistry Council, and encouraged by a guy who used to be a hotshot lawyer at the American Petroleum Institute, clearly is meant to defang the EPA by ridiculously narrowing the parameters under which the EPA can regulate certain dangerous chemicals. For example, asbestos, and asbestos-like products:

Other changes identified in the E.P.A. documents narrow the definitions of certain chemicals, including asbestos. Some asbestos-like fibers will not be included in the risk assessments, one agency staff member said, nor will the 8.8 million pounds a year of asbestos deposited in hazardous landfills or the 13.1 million pounds discarded in routine dump sites.

Apparently, under Pruitt’s EPA, unless your boss gets caught forcing you to eat asbestos in the company cafeteria, nobody’s responsible for the fact that it is killing you, one alveolus at a time. Then, there’s drinking water.

Under the approach, the E.P.A. will examine what harm can be caused, for example, to anyone directly exposed to perchloroethylene — a dry-cleaning solvent and metal degreaser designated by the E.P.A. as a likely carcinogen — during manufacturing or when using it in dry cleaning, carpet cleaning or handling certain ink-removal products. But the agency will not focus on exposures that occur from traces of the chemical found in drinking water in 44 states as a result of improper disposal over decades, the E.P.A. documents say. The decision conflicts with a risk assessment plan detailed by the agency a year ago, which included drinking water. And the change came after the American Chemistry Council argued in February last year that “the E.P.A. has discretion to select the conditions of use that it will consider.” The agency will also not consider the hazards of perchloroethylene discharged into streams or lakes, landfills or the air from dry-cleaning stores or manufacturing or processing plants, the documents say.

This chemical in drinking water is no longer the EPA’s concern, but keeping Scott Pruitt’s hands soft and moist is? Anyone else feel things going a bit sideways here?

Getty Images

Let’s jump into the Wayback Machine, set the dials for 2009, and visit Crestwood, a town in Illinois, to see what the folks there have to say. From The Chicago Tribune:

At more than two dozen of these sites, state records show, the dry cleaning solvent threatens nearby water wells and residential areas. The most infamous example is in south suburban Crestwood, where village officials secretly drew water from a contaminated well for more than two decades. Although none of the others appears to be as severe as Crestwood, the potential risks are great enough that the sites have been moved to the top of a state cleanup list. To help clean up the contamination, the dry cleaning industry persuaded state lawmakers a decade ago to create an insurance fund financed by annual licenses and fees on the amount of perc used. The fund is expected to spend $2.75 million this year to help scour pollution from about 100 sites. More money could have been earmarked, but last fall former Gov. Rod Blagojevich and legislative leaders took $2 million out of the fund to help balance the state budget.

Ultimately, 350 residents of Crestwood sued the hell out of the village and, in 2015, those suits were settled at a cost of $15 million. People who enter into lawsuits like this one used to do so with some confidence that the federal EPA was at the very least a neutral arbiter. That is no longer the case in our new business-friendly economy.

Interestingly, one of the chemicals deregulated in this manner by the EPA is a possible carcinogen called 1,4-Dioxene. It is a byproduct used in the cosmetics industry in products like shampoos and…hand lotions. And, once again, karma gets paged at the bar.

Respond to this post on the Esquire Politics Facebook page here.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io