Insane Excuse For Gutting the E.P.A.

[Fellow Aspirant]

Who needs clean air and clean water? THE RICH! Republican Dave Brat puts his faith in environmental protection into the hands of the rich, as in corporations. The rich, he maintains (quotation below) will look after the planet because it is in their own best interests. The problem is, however, that they will only look after the environment AFTER they have made themselves richer.

"Rep. Dave Brat (R-VA) faced outrage from his constituents Tuesday when he told them that he would oppose environmental regulations because doing so would improve the environment. He explained that allowing companies to pollute for their own financial gain would actually make America’s air and waters cleaner because rich people like clean air and clean water.

When a constituent asked Brat what he would do to defend the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from President Donald Trump’s promises to gut the entire agency, Brat replied,

“I worked at the World Bank, and they’re very interested and they have departments that do clean air and clean water. And guess what the No. 1 thing you can do to have clean air and clean water is? Increase your economic growth. Rich people, it turns out, like clean air and clean water.”


Sure they do. But weren't the regulations he wants to obliterate deemed necessary in the first place because of the environmental destruction caused by the corporations?

This is an environmental version of the disastrous "trickle down" economic plan.

B.

link to article: http://occupydemocrats.com/2017/02/2...defanging-epa/

[johnf]

This is a rebranding of the trickle down economic theory.
That style of thinking lead us to the crash of 2008.
It has been debunked numerous times, and the basic principles of supply
and demand are completely ignored by that type of thinking.
The law of supply and demand ensures that all buyers keep on buying at a healthy rate,
as well as helps ensure safe useful products.
The scary success of Monsanto shows the results of trying to bypass the feedback coming from average citizens.
Expect similar results in the environment from this environmental version of the trickle down lie.

John

[A Voice from the Mountains]

You should look back to times in American history when we actually had more economic prosperity than any other country on Earth, like back in the middle of the 20th century, and look at what economic policies we had at that time.

The EPA is part of the problem destroying our economy. Believing that the EPA actually cares about the environment is like believing that the FDA actually cares about your health or that the Department of Education actually cares about making your children smarter. It is a very naive belief.

8 ridiculous EPA rules polluting your life

#1 That companies who blend gas use a fuel that doesn’t exist.

The EPA attempted to create an industry from thin air by mandating that gas blenders use cellulosic biofuel, which doesn’t exist on any kind of commercial level. Then they mandated these blenders use the non-existent fuel at a level 60% higher than in 2012. There is no scientific basis for this determination and no sound data. The outcome: refiners ultimately pay a hefty fine on a non-existent product. Source

What will this cost me? The refiners are forced to pay a fine for not using the non-existent product, which makes fuel more expensive for everyone who has to buy it. Look for prices on energy to go up.

#2 That carbon dioxide is a pollutant and therefore everything it touches needs to be regulated.

This specific rule, called the endangerment finding, is based on faulty science. The EPA determined that CO2 was a pollutant not because it was harmful to humans but because it is linked to rising sea levels, wildfires and other results of global warming – all of which have zero consensus in the scientific community. Source

What will this cost me? Unless Congress prohibits the EPA’s regulatory assault on fossil fuels, Americans will suffer from dramatically higher energy costs and a slower economy—all for no noticeable change in the Earth’s temperature.

#3 That ambulances buy new diesel engines that would shut the engine down if it wasn’t allowed to “regenerate”, even if it was on the way to the hospital.

When the D.C. fire department began buying these diesel engine ambulances a few years ago, officials knew they would have to manage them with a new emission control system that would automatically shut the engine down if it wasn’t allowed to do what’s called “regenerate.” They were transporting a gunshot victim to the hospital when the engine shut down in their ambulance and they had to wait several minutes for another to arrive. The victim died.Sources here and here

What will this cost me? Possibly your life if you have an emergency and are stuck with an EPA-regulated diesel engine ambulance that does not regenerate.

#4 That 15% of fuel can be ethanol, ultimately ruining engines.

The ethanol-gasoline blend E15 was approved by the EPA for vehicles manufactured after 2001, but a new report finds the 15% allowance of ethanol into the fuel might be gumming up engines. The report by the Coordinating Research Council ultimately found that some fuel pumps and level senders in car models made between 2001 and 2007 — representing 29 million cars — failed or showed negative effects due to the use of E15. Source

What will this cost me? The regulation could really mess up the engine of your car. You could well see hefty bills from the mechanic or may have to consider buying a new car.

#5 That the coal industry comply with several burdensome regulations, resulting in loss of jobs and higher electricity prices.

The EPA and other agencies have introduced a host of new rules that will increase the costs of mining coal, building new plants, and operating existing plants. EPA regulations could take an additional 75 GWs of coal generation offline, which would significantly raise electricity bills for American consumers and threaten reliability of the electricity grid. Sources here and here

What will this cost me? These regulations are a doozy. They will destroy more than 500,000 jobs, cause of a family of four to lose more than $1,000 in annual income and increase electricity prices by 20%.

#6 That ozone rules be tightened so much so that even pristine locations like Yellowstone National Park would not be in compliance.

The logic behind these new rules is that tightening restrictions on ozone levels will increase public health but the restrictions are so rigid and illogical that even some of the nation’s cleanest and purest parks, like Yellowstone, will not comply, forcing them to close down. The EPA tried to update this rule in 2010 but it was rejected by President Obama because he said “that the rule could constitute a regulatory burden for the still-struggling economy.” But the EPA is scheduled to review the rule this year and propose standards that will be impossible to meet, with little to show for it. Sources here, here and here

What will this cost me? The EPA estimates this could go upwards of $90 billion a year, which would severely hinder the sluggish economy. Costs to consumers could be a loss of jobs, higher utility costs, and higher fees for local communities, governments and small businesses as the burden to comply will be shifted to them. And, possibly cancelling your visit to Yellowstone and other beautiful parks.

#7 That new emission and fuel standards (aka Tier 3) be met by automobiles, hiking gas prices.

Taking rules from the California Air Resources Board, the EPA has proposed across-the-board sweeping regulations on fuel and emissions that will hike gas prices and raise the price on cars. In California, drivers have seen an increase already of 40 cents per gallon and because the new rules impose upwards of $10 billion on refiners, even higher gas prices are expected. The rules are meant to lower sulfur content in gasoline but studies have shown this will have few, if any, positive impacts on the environment. Sources here, here and here

What will this cost me? At least 9 cents more per gallon and if the EPA adds in a vapor requirement to the regulation, gas prices could rise 25 cents per gallon.

#8 That 2025 model year cars and light-duty trucks have an average fuel economy of 54.5 miles per gallon (mpg), making new cars under $15K virtually extinct.

New fuel-efficiency standards mandated in October 2012 will add hundreds of dollars onto the sticker price of vehicles. While the federal government acknowledges the regulations will drive up the sticker price of vehicles, “consumers will likely realize only a fraction of the fuel savings that the government claims.” Source

What will this cost me? The average cost of new car will increase $3,000 and new cars under $15,000 will likely no longer exist. This can also force consumers into smaller, less-safe cars, causing needless injuries and deaths more per year.

http://rare.us/rare-politics/issues/...ing-your-life/

[boutreality]

Under Obama I believe the third or fourth ex-Monsanto exec took a high up position in the EPA, under Bush II the same thing happened. Corporate interests in positions of public service is the problem here, as it is elsewhere in the bureaucracy.

These corporate interests block emerging technological answers to EPA minded issues. Patents on machines that clean water and set it to ph neutral for example aren't held by corporations in power, so the EPA sticks with allowing Chlorine to be added to drinking water to set it to ph neutral (drinking water has to be ph 7- EPA).

Insistence that old ways of seeing the issues before us will lead us to improving anything is asinine.

[johnf]

Pointing at the trend of corrupt regulation as an excuse for getting rid of all regulation is a fairly recent
idea, and it is one that has taken some work to convince people of.
Ethical, balanced regulation does work, and has existed at various times.
I remember being in grade school in the sixties and watching rivers catch fire on the news.
Putting in regulations have cleaned rivers up before, and can do so again.

But another trend that has occurred since the sixties is the defunding, over/under regulation of education, to the point where all we have now is a propaganda machine that keeps people at each others throats, instead of improving life.
The "Powers that Be" saw an entire generation of well educated people go out into the world and threaten the military industrial complex.
My friend used the words "went ape****" and those words really do describe what happened in the sixties on one level.
However a lot of things were changed for the better and that was a threat to certain groups at the top.

John

[Fellow Aspirant]

WRT: "You should look back to times in American history when we actually had more economic prosperity than any other country on Earth, like back in the middle of the 20th century, and look at what economic policies we had at that time."

Uh, yeah. Know what I see? I see tremendous despoiling of your country and every other place on the planet where industry was carried out with no regard for its effects on mother earth. The profit taking was made possible because the environmental costs were never factored in. The resources were all but given to them. Many of the most egregious polluters and pillagers, once the recources were depleted or the plants were closed because the product was no longer selling, simply moved on or went bankrupt, leaving the public to pay for the cleanup. Brownfields and toxic waste dumps are everywhere in your country. People are being poisoned while the profit takers have long since disappeared into their gated communities; they are never held accountable and are able to continue their irresponsible indefensible laying waste to the planet.

So yeah, I've looked at American history. And, tragically, it's a model for profit taking that continues yet, and is now being given free rein again.

I'd suggest you if you want to take a break from the right wing sites that publish and republish and republish this propanda (it's been splashed around for three years now) you could try a place like this ...

http://www.cbf.org/document.doc?id=1023

It puts the lie to the myth of how unregulated industry is great for living standards. Going green is, on the other hand, better at creating jobs and better at keeping us and our planet healthy.

The hard luck impositions that you agree to live with are just stop gaps to the ravaging of the planet. If you want to avoid all the expense of mitigating the damage, you could drive a much smaller vehicle or, better yet, try a hybrid or even electric option. Humans have no god given right to drive Canyonaros.

B.

[boutreality]

The "EPA is destroying our economy" stance is an example of what I call "rigged system analytics".
Our problems are too well pronounced to expect economic arguments founded on current (fed-run) economic models to fix anything and BOTH parties are complicit.

Reagan opened up the trickle down economy whose unpublished expectation was that the ones at the top would, without having to, ensure opportunities for prosperity reach those at the bottom.

My father and I'm sure many my age have watched their parents realize that company-provided pensions and retirement plans were getting pulled and converted, the mid-20th century ideal of "taking care of those that take care of you" vanished and now we have the overburdened welfare state. -A development (welfare) that should have never started (Democrats).

With NAFTA, Clinton ensured nation state-to-nation state financial interdependence that led to our recent/current global meltdown(s), and democrat-led applications of Reaganomics like " everyone has the right to and therefore should qualify for a loan to own a house" coupled with a continual refusal to raise the minimum wage ensured that banks, already overextended into real estate, would face their "too big to fail" peril.

Rigged Market Analytics:

Our nation's economy runs on macroscopic algorithms and equations used by the fed and the treasury department that DO NOT account for debt and financial services markets. Line of reasoning given is "in a perfect system these issues would not exist" -except there's no evidence that this economy was ever meant to run perfectly or that, if governed and set by these sorts of equations that it even could.

-The above is most easily referenced to the "Inside Job" documentary. It does not mention Clinton, the Democrats and their complicity nearly enough, though that last bit is real useful knowledge.

The 16-20 yrs between Reagan and Clinton, with just the above instances taken alone, stipulate that debt and financial services markets will grow exponentially but the models which run the economy deny they exist!

The answer isn't easy and it starts with ending the Federal Reserve, giving the power to print currency to the Treasury, and forcing our economy-governing macro-system equations to account for the obvious (ie. Debt and Financial Services). Our nation-state-nation-state reliance when it comes to the globalized economy nearly certifies that such a transition will not be had without extreme "labor pains."

It isn't a direction oriented by right or left "one's right the other's wrong" solution that's needed; it's a new direction.

Even within our existing system, if corporations that held sway through lobbies and with their ex-execs acquiring high up positions in the EPA (since this thread is about them) owned patents to clean up water more efficiently than adding chlorine to it then you bet they'd be funding legislative initiatives to award their companies contracts to put those systems in place. -Same with fuel efficiency technology, which will always threaten big oil. Are they likely to invest in R&D to make fuel efficiency affordable when they sell us the fuel? Probably not, but they sure dictate plenty of legislation through SuperPACS and other Special Interest Groups.

[Rocky_Shorz]

Rick Perry took a $1.1 Million Bribe as governor to allow a corporation to build a nuclear waste dump 14 feel from the underground water table, knowing seepage would pollute it at a time 75% of the cattle in Texas were being killed because there was no water...

https://www.texasobserver.org/examin...mental-record/

I get almost as pissed about this friggen clown as head of EPA as I do pedoviles.

I've stopped eating pizza...

[A Voice from the Mountains]

If you read the article I posted above, if the EPA had its way, not even Yellowstone National Park would be sufficiently environmentally friendly. What exactly do you think Yellowstone National Park doing to destroy the environment? It's not exactly the image of an industrial wasteland, is it?

Unless you have specific regulations in mind, I would avoid over-dramatically criticizing any effort to deregulate as if it is some chaotic raping and pillaging of the entire Earth. The EPA is already allowing plenty of pollution while passing so many stupid and completely useless regulations that they are wasting billions of dollars every year for no purpose whatsoever, not to mention putting people out of work and making it very hard on poor people to get by.

And nobody ever said that we're going to eliminate all regulations. This kind of rhetoric is on the same level as people claiming we're going to have a Holocaust just because Trump wants to actually enforce our already-existing immigration laws.


Btw, Justin Trudeau is still very much in favor of regulating the hell out of everything in Canada. So just try to be happy with the stifling regulation of your own nation while the United States moves to begin outproducing the rest of the world once again. I don't think any major US waterways flow into Canadian waters anyway, and if you want to complain about global pollution in general then please go talk to Communist China. You can complain to them about slave labor too while you're there.

[Andyvaz]

Mr Brat is talking out of his arse. I have come across this type of mentality before, back to front , self-serving logic, do what suits me and everything else will probably fall into place I hope. In the mean time, the rich like clean air, yes. With all their bucks they have options. They can just jet into the filthy urban centres for the odd meeting then retire to a more exclusive environment. The selfishness of these people really hurts me. At the end of the day, another illustration of the corrupting influence of money and power. The main pollution is psychological. Attitudes need to be cleaned up.

[TargeT]

Posted by Fellow Aspirant (here)
Going green is, on the other hand, better at creating jobs and better at keeping us and our planet healthy.

Saving our planet from what?


Keeping us healthy? like banning incandescent and forcing everyone to buy CFL's with mercury vapor in them?

what ARE you talking about?

use logic and facts, not platitudes and "feels".

please show me one good thing the EPA has done, ever.

just one.

[Ted]

Where I live here in California, an environmental impact report is required even before repaving a street. This significantly increases the cost and hassle for vital infrastructure maintenance and repair. I'm all for a clean and healthy environment, but the red tape and ridiculous regulations that well meaning environmentalists have burdened us with needs to be cleaned up. There is plenty of room for reform in the EPA without gutting it.

[Fellow Aspirant]

Ted:
Reforms are a necessary part of "getting it right", as no legislation is ever perfectly written for the real world. Excesses like what you refer to are wrong and should be addressed.
However, when complaints about excesses are used to justify throwing out the rules altogether, or defunding an agency, tremendous damage is done, sometimes irreparably.
The changes being pushed by the right wing neo-cons are enormous.

B.

[Fellow Aspirant]

Posted by TargeT (here)

Posted by Fellow Aspirant (here)
Going green is, on the other hand, better at creating jobs and better at keeping us and our planet healthy.

Saving our planet from what?


Keeping us healthy? like banning incandescent and forcing everyone to buy CFL's with mercury vapor in them?

what ARE you talking about?

use logic and facts, not platitudes and "feels".

please show me one good thing the EPA has done, ever.

just one.

Okay, challenge accepted. Here are ten. You're free to choose any one you like as my refutation of your stance:


1. banning the widespread use of the pesticide DDT, which was decimating bald eagles and other birds and threatening public health;

2. achieving significant reductions in sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions that were polluting water sources via acid rain;

3. changing public perceptions of waste, leading to innovations that make use of waste for energy creation and making new products;

4. getting lead out of gasoline;

5. classifying secondhand smoke as a known cause of cancer, leading to smoking bans in indoor public places;

6. establishing stringent emission standards for pollutants emitted by cars and trucks;


7. regulating toxic chemicals and encouraging the development of more benign chemicals;

8. establishing a national commitment to restore and maintain the safety of fresh water, via the Clean Water Act;

9. promoting equitable environmental protection for minority and low-income citizens;

and 10. increasing public information and communities’ “right to know” what chemicals and/or pollutants they may be exposed to in their daily lives.

CONTACTS: EPA, www.epa.gov; Aspen Institute, http://www.aspeninstitute.org/sites/...0_Brochure.pdf.


You're welcome.

B.

[boutreality]

Policies that render the EPA a nuisance in terms of free commerce and serving the citizens (ie. EI studies to pave) are likely put in place by industry representatives that serve to make policy in the EPA.

Past Monsanto executives, once appointed to EPA by Bush II (and they have a SSJ- Sotomayor), imposed inane procedural hurdles that organic farms had to overcome in order to stay alive.
(Bush II appointed one of them to head and another wound up co-chair, and I still believe Obama put another in place, which was contemporaneous to above actions and their enforcement.)

-Policies meant to favor select sectors in the marketplace and stamp out competition are often ridiculous red-tape measures put in place to weaken the EPA's actual role in protecting the environment, and again, they are often instituted by parties loyal to corporate market shares.

[A Voice from the Mountains]

Posted by Fellow Aspirant (here)

Posted by TargeT (here)
please show me one good thing the EPA has done, ever.

Okay, challenge accepted. Here are ten. You're free to choose any one you like as my refutation of your stance:


1. banning the widespread use of the pesticide DDT, which was decimating bald eagles and other birds and threatening public health;

2. achieving significant reductions in sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions that were polluting water sources via acid rain;

3. changing public perceptions of waste, leading to innovations that make use of waste for energy creation and making new products;

4. getting lead out of gasoline;

5. classifying secondhand smoke as a known cause of cancer, leading to smoking bans in indoor public places;

6. establishing stringent emission standards for pollutants emitted by cars and trucks;


7. regulating toxic chemicals and encouraging the development of more benign chemicals;

8. establishing a national commitment to restore and maintain the safety of fresh water, via the Clean Water Act;

9. promoting equitable environmental protection for minority and low-income citizens;

and 10. increasing public information and communities’ “right to know” what chemicals and/or pollutants they may be exposed to in their daily lives.

More to the point, can you show that any of those specific regulations are under threat of being repealed?

I have to agree with TargeT that this all just looks like a heavy case of the "feels."

[TargeT]

Posted by Fellow Aspirant (here)

Posted by TargeT
please show me one good thing the EPA has done, ever.

just one.

Okay, challenge accepted. Here are ten. You're free to choose any one you like as my refutation of your stance:


1. banning the widespread use of the pesticide DDT, which was decimating bald eagles and other birds and threatening public health;

While I think DDT is probably not at all what we think it is.. That was the Dept of Agricutlure in 1972 that banned it.

Posted by Fellow Aspirant (here)
2. achieving significant reductions in sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions that were polluting water sources via acid rain;

so they "stopped acid rain"? how exactly does one prove that? Which act was it that did that?

Posted by Fellow Aspirant (here)
3. changing public perceptions of waste, leading to innovations that make use of waste for energy creation and making new products;

Ok, I'll give you this one though not soley the EPA, they certainly were a part of raising awareness.

Posted by Fellow Aspirant (here)
4. getting lead out of gasoline;

This started in the 1963 with the passing of the Clean Air act, I'd say that was Congress, not the EPA (EPA is really just an enforcement arm, they do very little "major" changes on their own).

Posted by Fellow Aspirant (here)
5. classifying secondhand smoke as a known cause of cancer, leading to smoking bans in indoor public places;

Well, since there's never been a study that's shown it's a cause of cancer.. I don't know how this did anything good at all.

Posted by Fellow Aspirant (here)
6. establishing stringent emission standards for pollutants emitted by cars and trucks;

This started in the 1963 with the passing of the Clean Air act, Congress, not EPA did that.

Posted by Fellow Aspirant (here)
7. regulating toxic chemicals and encouraging the development of more benign chemicals;

EPA doesn't pass regulations, it might give input on them. That's congress again.

Posted by Fellow Aspirant (here)
8. establishing a national commitment to restore and maintain the safety of fresh water, via the Clean Water Act;

Congress again (EPA does not pass laws, acts or regulations) The Clean Water Act was passed in 1948 originally.

Posted by Fellow Aspirant (here)
9. promoting equitable environmental protection for minority and low-income citizens;

That's a new one on me, minority and low income citizens?? why split it out, don't we all live on the planet? Sounds like CRAZY virtue signalling to me.

Posted by Fellow Aspirant (here)
and 10. increasing public information and communities’ “right to know” what chemicals and/or pollutants they may be exposed to in their daily lives.

That's a nice service I suppose, certainly attributes to healthiness when you know whats there.
.
.
.
.
So Congress did most the good things the EPA is known for (and apparently claims as their own??), and there's a couple of beneficial things they've done (though, a lot of it seems to be done by other entities as well, especially the info & raising awareness parts).


I'm still not seeing how they are worth the trouble they cause.

I'm still not convinced they are not just another tool of regulation that keeps big business IN business and new up-and-coming competition OUT of business.... because that's exactly what they actually do.

[A Voice from the Mountains]

Posted by TargeT (here)

Posted by Fellow Aspirant (here)
9. promoting equitable environmental protection for minority and low-income citizens;

That's a new one on me, minority and low income citizens?? why split it out, don't we all live on the planet? Sounds like CRAZY virtue signalling to me.

Maybe this is what they mean:








Look what those damned right-wingers did!



...Oops, that's actually Detroit, a leftist stronghold which has been utterly destroyed by their failed socialist policies.

Maybe this is what they mean by "promoting equitable environmental protection for minority and low-income citizens."

[Fellow Aspirant]

Wow. I've never seen anyone spend so much time & effort trying to disprove the obvious.

I quit.

B.

¤=[Post Update]=¤

I can't believe that I'm having an argument with someone who thinks that wrecking the environment is okay. What planet do you currently inhabit?

B.

[A Voice from the Mountains]

You are putting words in peoples' mouths. I never saw anyone on this thread defend destroying the environment. I want clean air and water too.

I also want to eat healthy and avoid harmful drugs, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let the FDA dictate what that means for me.

Misrepresenting what other people say is a dishonest tactic. This is why no one likes trying to reason with people on the left, and then you are all shocked and upset when election time comes around.