The Hill:
Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt’s nomination for administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency is as clear a signal as the incoming administration can send with regard to its environmental policies.
It is also a sign that the administration is far more meticulous, internally consistent and thorough than its detractors have thought, and that it is on a clear mission not just to stop, but to reverse many of the actions of Obama’s EPA.
It is noteworthy that global warming was the second action item mentioned in President Obama’s 2009 inaugural, and that a mere 90 days later, the administration had issued a “preliminary finding of endangerment” from carbon dioxide and other greenhouse emissions.
Under their interpretation of the Supreme Court’s landmark 2007 climate change ruling, Massachusetts vs. Environmental Protection Agency, such a finding not only permitted the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1992, it compelled the agency to do so.
Seven years ago, on Pearl Harbor Day 2009, the administration announced its final Endangerment Finding. By March, Pruitt and 15 other state AG’s joined in a combined suit against it, which was ultimately not successful.
As long as the Endangerment Finding stands, any EPA, including one headed by Pruitt, will be in court defending against any subsidiary attempt to halt or reverse any regulation of carbon dioxide.
It may very well be held that the EPA remains responsible for regulation under the Supreme Court’s 2007 decision unless there is a specific act of Congress reversing its progeny policies, such as the Clean Power Plan. So the Endangerment Finding must be reversed.
But how to do it? For years, federal agencies have thrown massive support at scientists who, as human beings, serve their best interests (and their employer-universities) by generating horror-show results that also generate more support and professional advancement.
The Trump administration is going to have to stock up on scientists and administrators who are savvy to this game, and they are going to be very hard to find, as there’s very little incentive to not play along.
There’s going to have to be a massive effort to pick apart failing climate models and questionably-adjusted data. They’re going to have to find people willing to expose the current regime’s blatant abuse of logic in generating inflated “costs” of global warming, while largely ignoring the co-benefits of fossil fuel power, like doubled life expectancy and undreamt-of wealth.
Wait for the junk mail from GREENPEACE,EARTH JUSTICE,SIERRA CLUB Etc and the various other eco-freaks wait for Leonardo Delerious Robert Kennedy Jr(Who thinks Global Warming skeptics need tried as War Crinimals wait to hear from idiots like Al Gore,David Suzuki and the Cliamte Fairy wait for the usial idiots t march through the streets like they did during the Peoples(Useful Idiots) Climate March back in Sept of 2014
Climate change isn’t about Obama, you frickin’ moron.
@Greg:
Obama made man made climate change about Obama. It is fake science. You whack-a-doodles who believe we are, can or could alter the natural path of climate change are, well, mentally retarded….
@Greg: Creationists like July 4 don’t have much use for science.
Global warming a lot of hogwash after all back in the 1970’s that same liberal rag TIME was blabbering about Global Cooling as much as their blabbering about Global Warming today Its all the Hot Air from Gore,Suzuki,DiCaprio and the various eco-freaks and granola munchers/tree huggers/gaia worshipers
The EPA is a prime example of non-elected bureaucrats controlling a major part of our economy. The clean water act was never intended to regulate a puddle on a farm. The EPA is a government agency. They are funded by the Congress with tax dollars. They are required to defend their regulations with studies and acts. Currently the EPA will not justify or show their justification for new regulations to Congress. The EPA is about to be reigned back into reality.
Most people on the right don’t know science from scientology, and seem to be under the impression that making governmental decisions in the context of a global economic environment is no more complex than running a lemonade stand. They also don’t seem to recognize a bait-and-switch scam when they see one.
The meme about the EPA regulating puddles and ditches on farms comes courtesy of Ted Cruz. It’s typical right-wing hyperbole and bullshit. The facts are different, but you never go looking for the facts, and never fact-check anything you like the sound of. I mean, why bother? If it reinforces what you want to believe, that’s good enough. Right?
Clean Water Rule Fact Check
You’re never going to change, but reality is never going to change to accommodate you. Populace snake oil salesmen may tell you they’ll do that, but they just want your votes so they can make things even more to their liking. Republican politics has involved a lot of bait and switch for years, but you’ve now elected a real Master of the Deal. Who do you think he’s trying to get the better part of the deal with, exactly?
@Randy:
The EPA, not unlike any other bureaucratic entity is on its face unconstitutional.
When an agency passes regulations that have the force of law with consequences of fines and/or imprisonment, that is a violation of the separation of powers. The administrative state as bestowed upon us by Woodrow Wilson and exponentially expanded by Roosevelt will be difficult to eliminate but not impossible.
@July 4th American, #8:
That didn’t seem to bother anyone when the power to schedule drugs, and to enforce their non-legislative decisions about them using guns, imprisonment, and property confiscation without trials was turned over by Congress to the DEA. They turned over a few powers that they didn’t even legitimately have themselves.
@Greg:
So now you do not advocate the bureaucratic administrative state? Some may have cheered the abusive behavior of the liberal entrenched bureaucracies.
Those who revere the Constitution have never supported the fourth estate, regardless of who politically controls those tentacles……
http://moonbattery.com/graphics/newsweek-cover-global-warming-is-a-hoax.jpg
@Greg: Actually Greg, that is true. Start talking to farmers and the couple in ID who fought the EPA and won after years of litigation. What is your education and experience in science? You always generalize and stereotype inside of providing proof. The difficulty is that AGW proponents do not follow scientific principles and cite theory and hypotheses as fact. You are a prime example of this. The EPA has implemented many regulations based on hypothesis rather than factual studies. That is why the EA needs to be reigned in by elected officials.
The problem with the EPA is that they are so entwined with the radical activist community that the administrators encourage the activists to sue the government then EPA lawyers settle the suit. This gives the bureaucrats the ability to force compliance with environmental demands by radicals which go beyond the scope of legislation. The radical left fox is guarding the hen house.
@DaNang67: That is exactly the issue.
Basically, corporate industrial-scale pork, beef, and poultry production operations don’t want the EPA telling them that millions of gallons of toxic run-off shouldn’t be finding its way into the nation’s streams, rivers, lakes, and groundwater. It’s not about a contaminated puddle somewhere on the family farm.
That’s just the way the issue is packaged by big special interests to get public opinion over on their side of the argument. Otherwise, the average American tends to object to big business increasing profit margins at the expense of the environment.
@Greg: Actually it is Greg. I happen to know of two situations personally. Your definition of toxic is what? Do you know what is generated on farms that EPA want to control. Likely not since your knowledge is again very limited. You only parrot what the left tells you to say. The Clean Water Act was passed by Congress for navigable waters only. Non-elected EPA bureaucrats took it too far.
@Greg: sources please.
@Greg: Climate change is about control and Obama is about control. The EPA, if it is going to continue to exist, should be going about the business of cleaning the environment and not lining the pockets of liberal carnival barkers like Gore.
Plus, perhaps the Trump administration will hold someone accountable for poisoning the Anamas River. No liberals seem to give a damn about it.
They have no EPA in China:
Thousands head to pollution-free regions as haze descends on the country’s northern industrial heartland
@Greg: We have an EPA that declares carbon dioxide a harmful element, wants to control every puddle of water but can ruin a river and suffer no consequences.
China is welcome to use ours.
@Bill- Deplorable Me:
The EPA should be defunded and dissolved completely. This is a state issue and should be in the control of the various states.
There is no provision in the Constitution for the EPA, period…..
China’s smog is so bad right now, masks and filters are starting to sell out
I remember how things were in the United States in the late 1960s, before Nixon created the EPA. Our lakes, rivers, and streams in many cases had literally turned poisonous and become incapable of supporting normal aquatic life. Some large rivers in metropolitan areas were so contaminated with pathogenic bacteria and toxic chemicals that falling into the water would necessitate medical treatment. Lake Erie was dead. Some rivers could catch fire, and occasionally did, because they had so much volatile crap in them. In the Indiana town where I grew up, I clearly remember watching and smelling the chemical discharge pouring out of a pipe from a local dry cleaner into a stream leading directly to the river. I remember one summer seeing dead fish washed up along the river banks for blocks.
Then there was the air. I recall driving into Chicago from northwest Indiana during the full light of day, and not being able to see stop lights half-a-block ahead for the pollution in the air from the steel mills and coke ovens. It hurt just to breathe.
Maybe you lived out in some rural area and never saw how bad things were. Maybe you have no basis for comparison. Those who do have no desire whatsoever to see the EPA defunded or dissolved. They know how bad things were, and how easily and quickly they could become that way again. What China now has is what you get when there’s no serious environmental protection and regulation. People will cut corners and rationalize to pad their profits. Some will knowingly do things most people wouldn’t even believe, if they can escape detection or go unpunished.
@Greg:
The EPA is unconstitutional. The powers not enumerated in the Constitution are left to the states. The states should control the aspects of the environ within their state boundaries….
Rivers and air cross state lines, and so does any crap that irresponsible people dump into them. This clearly makes the protection of our common environment the proper regulatory business of the Federal Government.
Most regulatory intrusion into my own life comes from the local, state, and county level. Those jackasses will attempt to regulate things like how many cats can legally live in your house. If you want intrusive, you can always count on the local pissants to come through. In truth, the Federal Government doesn’t bother me all that much. Often they’ve kept state and local governments from imposing rules that are unconstitutional.
@Greg:
The EPA is unconstitutional, it should be defunded and dissolved, period.
@Greg: Environment helped under Bush
https://www.heartland.org/news-opinion/news/editorial-good-news-swept-under-rug-on-earth-day
Every harmful element in the air was drastically reduced under Bush and he didn’t have to kill industry to do it. If the EPA is to exist, it should do its job of protecting the environment, not helping carry out the liberal jihad against capitalism.
After telling Trump not to use Executive Orders too much, Obama uses Executive Order to stop energy exploration in oceans
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/12/20/obama-bars-future-oil-leases-in-swaths-atlantic-arctic-oceans.html
This is nothing but scorched earth from Obama to do what he can to see to it that Trump’s economy is as lethargic and weak as he made his. But, like most of Obama’s “accomplishments”, this will be quickly and easily overturned.
@Greg:
The EPA hasn’t killed industry. Corporate America has moved it to where more money can be made by poisoning the environment with impunity. What they’re doing is dodging the costs of environmentally responsible behavior. They’ll export your job to do that. They don’t really care about the long-term consequences to the American economy, either. They’re making their fortunes in the short term.
There’s no present shortage of energy that requires environmentally risky offshore drilling. This is just another case of corporate America looking for bucks to line already well-padded pockets. They’d deplete our own domestic supplies to sell for quick profits on the global market, not caring a fig for the environmental risks or possible future needs.
@Bill… Deplorable Me, #25:
That’s utter nonsense. We’ve had 80 continuous months of job growth under Obama. The stock market has continued to rise throughout most of that same period, while inflation has remained very low. That’s where we’re at, after he inherited the epic economic disaster of 2007-2008.
The right seems to exist in a propaganda-induced fantasy world. I don’t remember any other time when people have been out of touch with reality to such an extreme degree.
@Greg: Of course you want to celebrate anything above zero… such as .5%… as “growth”. It isn’t. Normally, an economy coming out of a recession grows at enormous rates. Not Obama’s.
And, yes, the EPA is killing the coal industry, an energy source vital to many communities. There is no doubt… NONE… that if they had their way, they would kill off the entire petroleum industry, viable alternative or not.
Yes, inherited from Carter and Clinton, the champions of the Community Reinvestment Act and the collapse of the housing and finance industries.
@Greg: #28
Job creation has been at or below economic replacement criteria based on annual population growth.. 80 months of continuous job growth is a meaningless statement.
Another statement of economic ignorance.
The stock market has been infused with printed debt via quantitative easing and interest rates purposely kept at extreme low levels.
Inflation remained low because the method of calculating was manipulated.
Greg, you remain stuck on stupid, good luck getting your brain back now that the democrats are no longer a national party.
Oh, and the EPA does not instill economic job growth. Quite the contrary, it punishes the job market with its unconstitutional regulations. There is no basis in law for this rogue agency to put in place regulations that have the force of law.
The EPA is unconstitutional, its regulations should be ignored, it should be defunded and dissolved returning the process of environment oversight and control back to the states where it belongs……
@July 4th American, #30:
You might want to read what Zero Hedge says about Trump’s choice of Gary Cohn as Chief Economics Adviser , and about Goldman Banker Steven Mnuchin As Treasury Secretary.
@Greg: #31
The rise of the stock market was the result of debt monetization. The obama created more national debt than any other president in American History.
If it was “unpatriotic” to raise debt under Bush 43, was it “unpatriotic” to double the nations debt under the obama?
@Greg: #27
http://www.moonbattery.com/archives/al-gore-prophet-of-doom.jpg
First Scott Pruitt, and then Andrew Wheeler…anti-science, dollar-driven corporate tools, both given free rein because of Donald Trump. Many of the damages will likely be irreversible.
August 6, 2019 – Insect ‘apocalypse’ in U.S. driven by 50x increase in toxic pesticides
@Greg: If you had any intelligence or knowledge of science or even read the documents you refer to us, you would know your post is BS. YOur documents say, “Habitat loss by conversion to intensive agriculture is the main driver of the declines. Pesticides also contributes”. More fake news from Greg!
@Randy: That’s funny; some of those same concerns were in the El Paso shooter’s manifesto. Looks like someone better raid Greg’s home and make sure he’s not locking, loading and writing a manifesto.
@Greg: What’s your home address? I need to make a call…
Trump just now “My base depends on me to tell them what
is really going on.”
If true, that’s a very scary thought for a majority of Americans
Within, you will find an explanation for each necessary component that has made the Trump phenomenon possible: The five universal laws of human stupidity
@Randy, #36:
That, sir, is not someone’s opinion. It’s a literal, unambiguous, irrefutable truth.
The course that humanity is presently on is leading to a disaster that humanity itself is creating. Refusing to acknowledge that is part of the reason it is happening.
@Greg: Your references list no vetted papers. Putting ethanol in gas has caused millions of acres to be put under cultivation that was not for many decades. That removed marginal land that supported the insects you describe. The Monarch is one since the mild weed is not as common as before.
The National Geographic article provides a link to the paper it references, which was published in PLOS One, a peer-reviewed scientific journal. The journal’s publication standards are there for anyone to examine. The serious danger neonic pesticides pose to pollinating insects and the fact that they persist in the environment are well known issues. Most people are at least vaguely aware of the ongoing collapse of honeybee populations. Conservative estimates are that at least 35 percent of our food supply relies upon pollination by bees. Other estimates are much higher than that.
Your Trump appointee-led EPA at work… Why don’t we hear about things like this? Because there’s so much of it going on now across the board that it’s hard to keep up with it.
08-08-2019 – Six states seek reversal of EPA chlorpyrifos decision
In other words, the EPA now holds that opponents must clearly establish that the neurotoxin—thought to adversely affect the neurological development of infants and children at low levels of exposure—is in fact dangerous at allowed levels, rather than requiring its manufacturers to demonstrate that it is safe.
And then we’ve got this crap, in defiance of all scientific studies and recommendations:
August 9, 2019 – EPA dropped salmon protection after Trump met with Alaska governor
Trump simply bypassed the recommendation of EPA scientists altogether, essentially turning the EPA into a rubber stamp process.
A recall petition circulating in Alaska to recall Governor Dunleavy has collected over 18,000 signatures in less than a week.
Do you not see a pattern? Because you’d have to be blind not to.
@Greg: I remember when the EPA ruined an entire river. A WHOLE river. No one was punished and no liberals showed outrage because the EPA did it and the EPA is above criticism.
So, like everything else you selectively defend and support, spare us. Credibility is lacking.
Anyone who isn’t selective about what they defend and support is an idiot.
@Greg: No, when what you support is wrong, you DON’T support it, not simply when the political benefit is maximized. The EPA, totally unelected, has been oppressive and excessive in its actions for far too long. They need to be regulated and answerable to authorities. And, as noted, NO ONE batted an eye when they destroyed the Animas River.
The EPA has not acted on real scientific findings for a very long time. Calling CO2 a pollutant is not science, it is activism. Even the UN has noted that CO2 has “greened” up the Earth. The EPA and activists have colluded for a long time. The activist file suit against the EPA and the EPA fails to fight it. Then the EPA hires the activists to implement the activist program. On our family farm, there is a spring at an old farm house site. It trickles a small stream of water into a farm pond my brother had built. Under the Obama EPA, they wanted to control the water in that small stream even though the EPA original mandate was and is by law “navigable waters” . One of the major issues is that congress passes the laws in vague format and leaves the implementation up to the agency and un-elected people. These un-elected people then develop policy which they determine who is compliant or not. They use the full force of the government to cower individual people like farmers and home owners. The EPA gets away with this because most of the people in this country lack a knowledge of real science and can not tell the difference between activism and science.
Un-elected people in agencies like the equal right agency in Colorado have continued to harass the cake baker in Colorado even after the Supreme Court had ruled in the Cake baker’s favor costing the cake baker and the people of Colorado money.
Sound scientific analysis and the mission to protect the environment have always been central to the EPA’s regulatory decisions. Here’s a short list of agency accomplishments. If if had been left to the money grubbers, children would still be suffering neurological damage from lead paint, many of our lakes and rivers would be open sewers, our cities would look like Beijing on a bad day, and dangerously toxic industrial wastes would still be dumped wherever the hell people could get away with dumping it. In China, over a million early deaths per year are presently attributed to air pollution. This is what happens when industrial activities are unregulated.
The problem with the EPA is that it gets in the way of profits, which defective people like Donald Trump place ahead of all other things. He has appointed like-minded toadies as the heads of as many regulatory agencies as he could get away with. They’ve been busy little reptiles, by-passing science whenever possible, or actually gutting agencies of their scientific expertise by way of administrative maneuvers. (As recently occurred in the Department of Agriculture, where they gave hundreds of agency scientists the choice between relocating to Kansas City, where the EPA doesn’t even have facilities for them to work, or being summarily fired.)
The end run the Trump administration is doing around the EPA on behalf of the Pebble Mine project is about as corrupt as it gets. It’s nothing less than a few well-connected good ol’ boys getting together and saying “Screw the environment and screw competing industries. We’re going to destroy the place to get our dirty paws on the gold.” That’s about as swampy as anything in Trump’s swamp preservation and enlargement plan gets, and few such things are more obvious to anyone who takes the trouble to look. The photo of Trump and Mike Dunleavy grinning smugly like a couple of cats that just killed and ate the canary pretty much says it all. That is precisely what they did. Time for another thumbs up! Every other cat knows that as the secret victory sign. They’ve just stuck it to somebody else and gotten away with it.
@Greg: The EPA was useful and necessary at its inception. Like most things, the Democrats figured out how to misuse it to enact policies no one wants. For the EPA to survive, it needs to get back to its original mission; protecting the environment. Promoting the liberal agenda, socialism and redistribution of wealth was NEVER in its mission statement.
Their pursuit of anthropological global warming requires the twisting and tweaking of the knobs of their climate models to make their efforts necessary. They aren’t. The climate is cyclic and has been for hundreds of thousands of years.