In July, the EPA instituted something called the Cross State Air Pollution Rule, which significantly cuts certain kinds of air pollution based on their tendency to cross state lines and cause health problems in those on the far side of said lines (because killing people in your own state is alright). Naturally, the Republican House would not stand for this, so they passed a bill that would overrule the...um, rule.
The bill got to the Senate today, sponsored by one Rand Paul, where it was trounced, relatively speaking, 56-41. President Obama, of course, had already promised to veto it even if it had made it through the Senate.
There's something to be said for passing a bill you know won't survive for purely philosophical reasons - I don't mean to suggest that that can never be something worth doing. But while Democrats might do that with, say, certain aspects of Obama's jobs package (the veteran tax credit passed today, for example), it's crazy to me that the Republicans are not only supportive of pollution on paper, in an abstract sense, they're actually willing to go to the mat to make strictly symbolic gestures to show just how much they support it.
Yay pollution!
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