“It is the international system of currency which determines the quality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today.” – Arthur Jensen, in the movie Network (1976)

In today’s Washington Post, another in a series of examples whereby corporate lobbyists have written regulations that end up applying to their clients. We’ve seen this countless times before under Bush Inc.:

After a series of telephone calls, e-mails, letters and meetings with representatives of the laundry industry, the EPA had provided industrial-laundry lobbyists with an advance copy of a portion of the proposed rule, which the lobbyists edited and the agency adopted.

That same opportunity was not given to the rule's opponents -- environmental groups, a labor union, hazardous-waste landfill operators and paper towel manufacturers who argue their product should be treated as environmentally equal to laundered towels. The opponents say industrial laundries send tens of thousands of tons of hazardous chemicals to municipal sewage treatment plants and landfills where toxics can get into groundwater, streams and rivers. Labor unions contend that the towels expose workers to cancer-causing fumes.