Que Pasa Con La Environmental Protection Agency?
What are we to make of what’s going on in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)? Is it coincidence that we’ve seen the appointment of Scott Pruitt, career-long EPA enemy as its administrator, the removal/burying of references to climate change from the EPA website, the discharge of five top scientists and the probable replacement with top executives in the industries that the EPA supposedly regulates?
Or is this part of what some call the Trump administration’s “war on the environment?” Linked above is the Google search on the subject, which, at the time I’m writing this, turns up 32.4 million results.
Scottish empiricist (philosopher) David Hume told us, “We always disbelieve the greater miracle,” meaning that we always choose the explanation that appears most probable. I’ll let readers determine for themselves which of the two suggestions above seems most likely.
Craig,
It’s equally possible that Scott Pruitt and the administration are simply trying to steer the EPA back to it’s original objectives.
Scott Pruitt is trimming the EPA’s overblown budget. He wants to re-focus it’s direction away from ideological/politically partisan agendas, and once again make a taxpayer funded Federal government agency accountable to the elected representatives of the American people.
It may well be that some darker agenda exists, but so far there is no evidence of any such agenda.
Your claims concerning the website have been proven false. Even President Obama’s outgoing staff agreed changing the website is standard procedure for every incoming administration.
It’s also normal for a change of guard to take place when a new a new administrations occurs. Senior staff often take the opportunity to leave for less restrictive appointments.
Often the best qualified experts have worked for industries regulated by the EPA. Why should they automatically be considered sinister and possess negative agenda’s ? At least, why do you believe they are more likely to act from bias than committed environmentalists or academics with an anti-capitalist agenda?
Oh, that’s right, I was forgetting,..virtue is in the eye of the beholder !
I can understand your opposition to reforming the EPA, since the pendulum has swung against the political/ideological position you support.
The EPA is a government regulatory agency. It’s not an extension of the left wing of the Democrat Party.
Yes, it’s possible. Virtually anything’s possible. The live question, of course, it’s what makes the most sense to an impartial and reasonably intelligent observer.
Re: what the EPA is, it’s an agency whose purpose is to protect the environment. That’s pretty noncontroversial, isn’t it? Now is it behaving accordingly? It’s hard (for anyone but you) to argue in the affirmative.
Craig,
“it’s an agency whose purpose is to protect the environment”
Not quite. The act creating the EPA states it’s purpose is;
” protecting human health and the environment by writing and enforcing regulations based on laws passed by Congress “.
“laws passed by Congress”. That’s the bit you don’t grasp !
You must be the only person who believes the EPA has, until the election of the current administration, functioned without controversy !
Like all Federal Government Agencies, the EPA must be accountable to elected representatives. The EPA is a regulatory body, not a legislature capable of creating law.
Is the EPA still functioning ? Of course it’s still functioning !
Several times I have answered your fanciful accusations with real instances of waste and excess spending by the EPA, which you choose to ignore.
The administration’s order for spending cuts contains the safeguard such saving are not to be at the expense of the operational efficiency of the EPA to fulfill it’s mandate.
In recent years the Agency has grown to nearly 16,000 government employees. Many of these employees duplicate the work of other government agencies.
Could an Agency with only 12,000 employees fulfill the same function ? The Administration argues a ‘slimmed down’ EPA will be more effective, efficient and less bureaucratic.
One fact you have overlooked in your obsessive hatred of President Trump, is that the EPA has grown over the decades to be an instrument of executive power, wielded by Presidents.
Trump’s reform goes along way to restoring the EPA’s accountability back to Congress, allowing the EPA to become less of a plaything of the Executive.
So far nothing very drastic has occurred at the EPA. If Congress makes changes to the law, for instance amending the Regulation of Greenhouse Gases Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA must conform with the legislation.
However, so far, the new administration has done nothing to hinder the EPA from fulfilling it’s mission.
Requiring accountability and obedience to the law by federal employees, should be no cause for alarm. Both the President and Scott Pruitt have pledged to justify any budget and staff cuts to the Congress.