How Sue and Settle is Rewriting American Laws

[JimBowie1958]

John Beale: The EPA fraudster you?ve never heard but whose work is destroying America | Communities Digital News - New

While an employee of the EPA, Beale created the EPA playbook, a guide to not only exaggerating the benefits of regulations versus their costs, it also created the insidious tactic of “sue and settle” or what is often called “friendly lawsuits.”

They work like this: An environmental group, often leaning pretty far left, sues the EPA over some agenda item they want. Instead of being truly antagonistic opponents, the EPA and these groups are in fact colluding. “Sue and settle agreements allow EPA to convert a state Regional Haze program into a major new set of federal mandates, with no recourse for those affected until it’s too late,” said Bill Kovacs, the Chamber’s senior vice president for Environment, Technology & Regulatory Affairs. “The report outlines the potentially disastrous effects of this regulatory tool being used by the EPA to disregard states sovereignty and take over what Congress clearly determined to be a state environmental responsibility. These federal haze requirements offer only high costs for states, utilities and consumers, with no benefit.” (US Chamber of Commerce)

Eventually they would settle the lawsuit with what is known as a “consent decree.” The “consent decree” is forever binding. And it is a scam. A scam against the American public.

The 2011 GAO Report shows that millions of dollars were awarded to environmental groups that sued the EPA with the majority of those awards going to just three groups:
•Earthjustice $4,644,425
•The Sierra Club $966,687
•Natural Resources Defense Council $252,004

Forbes.com writer Larry Bell characterizes that “Most of this was paid to environmental attorneys in connection to lawsuits filed under the Clean Air Act, followed next by the Clean Water Act.” Bell also reports that the DOJ ran up bills in excess of “$43 million defending the EPA in court between 1998 and 2010,” not including legal costs and/or attorney’s fees. Reviewing the GAO report, just one of many legal groups, Earthjustice, received attorney fees in amounts of:
• $ 11,019.57 in Sierra Club v. EPA
• $198,700.00 in Resources Defense Council v. EPA
• $198,997.00 in Florida Wildlife Federation v. EPA
• $209,867.00 in American Farm Bureau Federation v. EPA
• $ 65,587.00 in Environmental Integrity Project v. EPA
• $163,500.00 in Natural Resources Defense Council v. EPA

Which are just a few of dozens of legal fees paid, many five to six figures, to Earthjustice from 2005 through 2010 for actions in regard to the Clean Air Act....


The reported costs to states impacted by the Regional Haze regulations, of which the states had no stakeholder input into, include:
•Arizona: EPA’s Regional Haze regulation threatens to increase the cost of water [and] would force the state to spend an additional $90.2 million per year to implement the federal regulation.
•Montana: EPA’s proposed Regional Haze controls are almost 250% more expensive than what the agency’s standing rules presume to be “cost effective” for Regional Haze compliance.
•In 2011, the EPA disregarded New Mexico’s submitted Regional Haze plan and imposed a federal plan that requires nearly $840 million more in capital costs. According to the operators of the San Juan Generating Station, EPA’s plan would raise utility bills for each household in New Mexico by $120 annually.
•Although North Dakota is one of only 12 states that achieves all of EPA’s air quality standards for public health, it would not be able to achieve EPA’s Regional Haze goals for visibility improvement even if all industry in the state shut down. In addition, EPA’s proposed plan would cost North Dakota nearly $13 million per year.
•Refusing to approve Oklahoma’s Regional Haze plan, the EPA’s plan would cost the state $282 million per year.
•In Wyoming, the EPA proposed a federal implementation plan that would cost almost $96 million more per year than the state’s plan.
•Minnesota is subject to back-to-back Regional Haze regulations, where EPA is claiming authority to regulate regional haze twice in succession at the Sherburne County Generating Plant.
•EPA’s proposed plan would cost Nebraska almost $24 million per year to achieve “benefits” that are invisible.

Beale’s EPA playbook gets around the fact that Government agencies, like the EPA, do not have the inherent power to regulate. Congress gives that to them. With every major piece of agency legislation that passes, included is something that is known as “enabling language.” That language authorizes the Secretary of that department to promulgate regulations to achieve the goals of the legislation.

Obamacare is a class example of regulatory legislation. While the bill itself ran 906 pages, there are now over 20,000 pages of regulations. The legislation that created the EPA along with other laws, such as the Clean Air Act, also gives the EPA the power to create regulations.

Earthjustice - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is a leftwing extortion racket and the people getting extorted are US citizens. The yupy bastards who head these types of outfits should be executed for treason, sedition and crippling the US economy.

 

[Silhouette]

Gotta keep those lawyers fat and sassy.

If I was emperor, there would be reform in the legal system. Put it that way.