Amber waves of smog.
Amber waves of smog. Phonix_a Pk.sarote

Go ahead and take a deep breath, ahhhh, in and out. Feels good, doesn't it? YOU COMMUNIST.

House Republicans hassled the EPA at a hearing this week, at one point accusing the agency of being "un-American" for requiring that industries not literally choke us all to death with poison fumes.

Regarding clean energy policies, Ohio Rep. Bill Johnson said, "I think it’s absurd, I think it’s irresponsible, I think honestly it’s un-American. Your department doesn’t have a concern for the very people who create jobs in this country."

Yeah, can you imagine? It's as though the EPA is only concerned with the people who are trying to live in this country.

Johnson also said that the EPA is "draining the lifeblood out of our businesses," which is a funny way of putting it since some of the businesses he's talking about are literally putting poison into our blood.

At the same time that Republicans were harassing the EPA, other House officials were scrambling to coordinate blood testing for their own staffers, who were subjected to lead-tainted water. Curse you, EPA, for your un-American standards for clean drinking water.

I'm writing this article on a short trip to Los Angeles, and being here has reminded me of just how lucky we are to have clean-ish air in Seattle. (Only about 1,100 people die every year from air pollution in Washington, compared California where it's over 9,000!)

The day I landed at LAX, I got a sore throat; and I got a beautiful birds-eye view of the brown air filling everyone's lungs during a scenic drive through the Hollywood Hills.

And despite LA being a fairly liberal, Democrat-friendly city, being here has been a reminder that when it comes to the environment, many otherwise-reasonable people just don't seem to see it as a priority.

An article in the LA Times last weekend complained of downtown traffic, and mentioned public transit only to describe it as being an even more unpleasant mode of transportation than being trapped in a car.

But obviously, all the driving that LA requires involves a heavier toll than just sitting in traffic — the friends I'm visiting in LA have an elevated chance of dying from a heart attack or stroke or lung cancer, and their kids are more likely to have asthma. Every man, woman, and child in Los Angeles breathes poison gas every day, more than any other city in the country. But nobody seems to be worried about it, or God forbid, interested in changing their habits.

After all, that would be un-American.