We Can Write the News from the EPA Without Waiting for It To Happen
Normally, the news media covers the current and recent past, since “predictions are tough to make, especially concerning the future” (Yogi Berra).
Yet the future coverage of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under whatever may remain of the Trump administration writes itself; it’s a piece of cake, simply because we know that the agency will be led by someone whose charter is in direct opposition to the EPA’s central mission.
Every couple of days until Trump goes away, expect the EPA administrator to be criticized for:
• Rolling back environmental protections of land, water, and air that have been put in place over the last half century (especially if they came from the Obama era).
• Making transportation dirtier.
• Supporting the coal industry by invoking spurious criteria like on-site fuel storage.
• Impeding the development of renewable energy with things like tariffs on solar and subsidies for fossil fuels.
• Limiting the role of science in environmental policy making.
• Hiding scientific findings that would cause alarm about public safety or serve to discredit the EPA’s current positions.
• Denying that climate change exists, and impeding attempts to mitigate it.
Note in particular that the EPA under coal lobbyist and climate denier Andy Wheeler will be far harder to stop than it was under outgoing Scott Pruitt, since the former is a savvy politician, where the latter is a buffoon whose antics would be hilariously funny if they weren’t so destructive.
Yes, this is a case in which, for a limited time at least, we’re unable to affect the future. As (U.S. folk/rock sing-songwriter) Jackson Browne put it:
And while the future’s there for anyone to change, still you know it seems
It would be easier sometimes to change the past
Craig,
You should have used a better picture to sell the message of your article.
China (PRC) is hardly a paragon of environmental virtue ! China is currently building over 600 coal fired power stations domestically, and more than 800 internationally.
From occupied Tibet to the heavily suppressed provinces of Xinjiang, Ningxia, Gansu, and Qinghai, pollution is not only rampant but condoned on a scale unimaginable in the West. No opposition, discussion or dissent is tolerated.
This sort of control is exerted, though less obviously, in all China’s outer provinces.
The relaxation and reform of some obsolete or inappropriate regulations in the US, can’t be compared to the behaviour of the Chinese government.
Wild claims like these just damage the credibility of your complaint. It might be far better if you argued with accuracy, and unemotive, verifiable, relevant, specific and pertinent information as to why the specific regulations should be maintained.