Idaho Congresscritter Will Fight For Your Right To Have A Nice Glass Of Arsenic

You guys, we feel let down by Dok Zoom. He informed us that one of his Congresscritters, Mike Simpson (R-Sorry You Live In Idaho, Dok) was a boring dude. Sure, Dok told us all about how Mike Simpson loves some guns, but what god-fearing Republican doesn't? What Dok Zoom neglected to inform us all about was the part where Mike Simpson wants to make sure that the good citizens of rural Idaho are free to have as much goddamn arsenic in their drinking water as they want. That is many things, including blindingly stupid, but it is not boring.

So of course this story starts, as it always does, with the jackbooted thugs of the EPA trying to keep the good people of Idaho -- and the rest of the USA -- down by saying that maybe, just maybe, there should be a cap on how much arsenic is in drinking water. Weird, huh? Idaho has more arsenic in its water than some other places, because of some scientific explanation we didn't really pay attention to, but suffice to say we believe it. You'd think that would make Mike Simpson more, not less, vigilant about protecting his constituents from delicious arsenic water, but you would be wrong.

Simpson for years has objected to EPA rules on arsenic in drinking water, arguing that it creates a burden on rural communities that are ill equipped to upgrade their water-filtering systems.

You know what is a burden on rural communities? Hot piping bowls of arsenic soup! Real lemonade made with just a touch of arsenic! Arsenic cocktails! No one wants these things, even if they do live in rural Idaho. We think.

Simpson isn't content to inflict the possibility of heavy metal poisoning on his own constituents. He'd like to roll out this cool "more arsenic for everyone" initiative nationwide.

This week, Simpson was in the spotlight after a Center for Public Integrity report concluded he was the representative who stalled a scientific review of arsenic at the EPA. The review was necessary for the EPA to ban herbicides containing arsenic.

Thanks, Mike, you shouldn't have. No, really, you shouldn't have.

Look, we get that improving your rural water supply costs lots of money, but this, in a nutshell, is why we are filthy liberals: we'd happily pay good cash money American dollars taxes to have water that is a little less arsenic-y. Call us crazy, but that's just how we roll.

[ Daily Beast ]