Bad news for the environment

From the front page of Raw Story.

More environmental fun from the friends of the Earth in the Bush team

The government wants to quit forcing companies to report small releases of toxic pollutants and allow them to submit reports on their pollution less frequently

Saying it wants to ease its regulatory burden on companies, the Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday proposed adopting a "short form" that would excuse companies from disclosing spills and other releases of toxic substances if:

_They claim to release fewer than 5,000 pounds of a specific chemical. The current limit is 500 pounds.

_They store onsite but claim to release "zero" amounts of the worst pollutants, such as mercury, DDT and PCBs, that persist in the environment and work up the food chain. However, they must report if they have stored dioxin or dioxin-like compounds, even if none is released.

EPA said it also plans to ask Congress for permission to require the accounting every other year instead of annually.

That's all they have to do? Claim they aren't doing anything wrong and they're absolved? Report every other year? Are they serious? This is a joke, right? I can't even believe this might happen. Its absurd, ridiculous, outrageous. What a terrible shame this brings to the party that was once Teddy Roosevelt's.