More lies from the EPA

It's sad when news about the manipulation of science for the sake of Bush administration policy no longer surprises you. Sadder still is that Bush and company continue to get away with it relatively unscathed:

When the Environmental Protection Agency unveiled a rule last week to limit mercury emissions from U.S. power plants, officials emphasized that the controls could not be more aggressive because the cost to industry already far exceeded the public health payoff.

What they did not reveal is that a Harvard University study paid for by the EPA, co-authored by an EPA scientist and peer-reviewed by two other EPA scientists had reached the opposite conclusion.

That analysis estimated health benefits 100 times as great as the EPA did, but top agency officials ordered the finding stripped from public documents, said a staff member who helped develop the rule. Acknowledging the Harvard study would have forced the agency to consider more stringent controls, said environmentalists and the study's author.

The fact that Republicans are willing to lie to the public in order to protect business over the needs of the unborn really speaks to the "society of life" their always talking about, doesn't it?