Trump Official: We're Going To Cut The EPA In Half

[Tom Horn]

Having grown up around lakes and rivers too polluted to fish or swim in, I appreciate what the EPA has done in the past to clean up our environment. Nixon began the EPA after the Cuyahoga River caught fire....still hard to fathom but industry had always sent it's chemicals downstream for somebody else to deal with. DDT was banned after eagle chicks were born with beaks too deformed to eat. Acid rain from coal furnaces without scrubbers almost decimated New England's forests not to mention the paint jobs on cars up there. So a lot had to be done and they did it. But then they turned into something else and considered industry the enemy instead of a partner in cooperation. In the last 10 years they've operated like the IRS....to the point they now conduct armed raids. Nobody intended that to happen but leave an agency with no oversight and that's what can happen. One of their senior management said the other day they would "resist Trump". Really?

 

[Tom Horn]

....and in rides Horny Tom......

To a significant degree, the buck stops with Gov. Snyder, the state’s top elected official. And Snyder did set the tone of curbing municipal overspending.

"There was a lot of wishful thinking by which the tax cutters dreamed that they could keep on cutting taxes without having any real consequences," said Charles L. Ballard, an economist at Michigan State University. "But tax cuts of this magnitude, some of which were passed during the first year of Gov. Snyder’s administration, were bound to have real consequences."

Crucially, Snyder also appointed the emergency managers who signed off on the switch away from Detroit’s water system and the decision to use Flint River water as an interim solution.

And two state agencies he oversaw -- the Department of Environmental Quality and the Department of Health and Human Services -- contributed significantly to the problem.

Officials at those agencies were warned early and repeatedly by Miguel Del Toral, an official at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, that they were putting Flint residents at risk by not instituting anti-corrosion safeguards for Flint River water. Agency officials also initially dismissed warnings from Virginia Tech researchers and Flint pediatrician Mona Hanna-Attisha, even after being prodded on the question by a senior Snyder aide.

"As a Flint citize

You're a liar....the EPA office kept the problem secret until people started getting sick. Synder couldn't intervene before he had enough evidence to do so and then put all his agencies to work on a solution. I grew up 70 miles from Flint, Michigan and follow the news from there and what you're saying is horseshit.

 

[PoliticalChic]

hat isn't what you have at the EPA...you have left wing environmental religionists...who worship the earth......you guys believe in separation of church and state, right?

Oh the "horror".....of course we have OTHER earths if this one gets royally fucked so that we can increase the bottom line of some right wing donors.

What do you propose we do with you democrats in order to save the world?

Bronx Zoo???

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Having grown up around lakes and rivers too polluted to fish or swim in, I appreciate what the EPA has done in the past to clean up our environment. Nixon began the EPA after the Cuyahoga River caught fire....still hard to fathom but industry had always sent it's chemicals downstream for somebody else to deal with. DDT was banned after eagle chicks were born with beaks too deformed to eat. Acid rain from coal furnaces without scrubbers almost decimated New England's forests not to mention the paint jobs on cars up there. So a lot had to be done and they did it. But then they turned into something else and considered industry the enemy instead of a partner in cooperation. In the last 10 years they've operated like the IRS....to the point they now conduct armed raids. Nobody intended that to happen but leave an agency with no oversight and that's what can happen. One of their senior management said the other day they would "resist Trump". Really?

About 15 years ago or so, the EPA said they didn't like our pollution levels here in Ohio. Okay, then stay the hell out of Ohio! Nope, they had to stick their nose in our business and force us to use E-Check in some of our counties.

Ten years and tens of millions of dollars later, the EPA tested our air again, and found no change in the pollution levels. So what did they make us do? Extend the program for another ten years.

THIS is one of the many reasons to eliminate bureaucracies like the EPA. Why should they give a damn about wasting money on something that doesn't work. It isn't their money!

 

[owebo]

hat isn't what you have at the EPA...you have left wing environmental religionists...who worship the earth......you guys believe in separation of church and state, right?

Oh the "horror".....of course we have OTHER earths if this one gets royally fucked so that we can increase the bottom line of some right wing donors.

What do you propose we do with you democrats in order to save the world?

Bronx Zoo???

I think the animals would object....

 

[owebo]

The democrat Mayor and city council decided to use Fling River water instead of Lake Huron water to save money. The Flint River water didn't have the additive to prevent lead leaching out of the old city water pipes. We don't bring others' families into things here so consider yourself on report.

....and in rides Horny Tom......

To a significant degree, the buck stops with Gov. Snyder, the state’s top elected official. And Snyder did set the tone of curbing municipal overspending.

"There was a lot of wishful thinking by which the tax cutters dreamed that they could keep on cutting taxes without having any real consequences," said Charles L. Ballard, an economist at Michigan State University. "But tax cuts of this magnitude, some of which were passed during the first year of Gov. Snyder’s administration, were bound to have real consequences."

Crucially, Snyder also appointed the emergency managers who signed off on the switch away from Detroit’s water system and the decision to use Flint River water as an interim solution.

And two state agencies he oversaw -- the Department of Environmental Quality and the Department of Health and Human Services -- contributed significantly to the problem.

Officials at those agencies were warned early and repeatedly by Miguel Del Toral, an official at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, that they were putting Flint residents at risk by not instituting anti-corrosion safeguards for Flint River water. Agency officials also initially dismissed warnings from Virginia Tech researchers and Flint pediatrician Mona Hanna-Attisha, even after being prodded on the question by a senior Snyder aide.

"As a Flint citize

Ummm...no child...the EPA did that!

 

[owebo]

Which aspect of environmental regulations is least important? Soil contamination? Water pollution? Or clean breathable air?

Which part are you Conservatives most willing to sacrifice in order to get a few thousand minimum wage jobs?

And the liar steps in...the country is filled with pipelines and industry and we have the cleanest environment you can find...all because we are a rich country and we like clean things........the countries with strong central governments, have the worst environments...

So we have a pristine environment here. That must follow, using you own argument, we have a weak and ineffective federal government.

What will your logic tell you when you begun railing against our strong and overreaching federal government? That's a spiky narrow fence you're sitting on there!

The EPA is destroying our environment....,

How? The NESHAP regulations? CERCLA? Safe Work Practice guidelines? Specifically how?

Do you work for the EPA?

 

[Winston]

Your brain functions at such a low level that it's almost as if you stopped breathing out of both of yours. Let me guess - the cord got wrapped around your neck during birth?

you're "correct", Patsy......clean air and water are way overrated. LOL

Funny...the water I drink is the cleanest in the world and was long before Jimmy Carter illegals created the EPA. Any other false narratives you would like to try?

Nixon created the EPA

 

[P@triot]

Why would a governor be involved with a city or their drinking water? Oh wait..that's right....because progressives did what they always did - they ran the city into the ground. Idiot.

Well, you're "correct" there Patsy...the MAYOR of Flint decided to have Flint have lead in their water, Snyder had nothing to do with that decision.......Do you realize how truly fucked up you are...Surely your family must tell you that daily.

Why was Governor Snyder involved with the city of Flint or the city water of Flint??? You can run from this as until you collapse from exhaustion buttercup - it will never change the fact that the state had to step in and take it over because progressives ran it into the ground until it became like a third-world shit-hole (which is what progressives always do).

 

[Flash]

Am not defending the EPA, they haven't done a very good job, could we just fix it? have them do there job, not make them political, so they work for us not who ever holds the purse strings.

Isn't that what Trump is doing?

 

[ScreamingEagle]

The climate control fascists will never stop trying to control every aspect of our lives through 'climate control'.....climate of course is a great excuse that can be connected handily to every facet of our lives......

in the US the EPA is a major arm of that control.....Obama has used it extensively to implement tons of controlling regulations that negatively affect our lives and our economy without ever going through Congress....

Watch Obama go to the UN next in order to implement the so-called 'sustainable development' agenda worldwide....the UN is the arm that is attempting to govern the entire planet.....

thank God for Trump....

 

[owebo]

Your brain functions at such a low level that it's almost as if you stopped breathing out of both of yours. Let me guess - the cord got wrapped around your neck during birth?

you're "correct", Patsy......clean air and water are way overrated. LOL

Funny...the water I drink is the cleanest in the world and was long before Jimmy Carter illegals created the EPA. Any other false narratives you would like to try?

Nixon created the EPA

technically, he didn't....the EPA never made it out of congressional committee to nixons desk....so.....

 

[Tom Horn]

Your brain functions at such a low level that it's almost as if you stopped breathing out of both of yours. Let me guess - the cord got wrapped around your neck during birth?

you're "correct", Patsy......clean air and water are way overrated. LOL

Funny...the water I drink is the cleanest in the world and was long before Jimmy Carter illegals created the EPA. Any other false narratives you would like to try?

Nixon created the EPA

technically, he didn't....the EPA never made it out of congressional committee to nixons desk....so.....

Nixon did it by Executive Order.

 

[BULLDOG]

Winning

It was early in the morning, the heat burning off the fog, as I drove down a winding two lane road toward the river crossing. When I broke into the clearing before the bridge I noticed a majestic bald eagle gracefully catching the morning thermals as they rose off the rock banks of the river.

You know, when I was a kid I never saw a bald eagle. I lived where I could spend the afternoon walking along still remaining parts of Daniel Boone's path across the Blue Ridge mountains. The reason I mention that now is because one of the first actions of the EPA was the administration of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act. It is that act, and that act alone, that is responsible for the saving of the Bald Eagle. Thanks to the EPA, my grandkids can grow up seeing Bald Eagles.

Maybe you have to pay attention. But in my younger days you could see the trees dying along the ridge line. It was not disease. It was not parasites. It was acid rain. Then Congress passed amendments to the Clean Air Act in 1990, and emissions declined significantly. The forest have recovered, the streams are less acidic, and we all benefit.

I don't think people understand. The EPA works for US. It is the one safeguard we have against industries. Industries that very structure encourages them to "externalize" the cost of their activities. Weakening the EPA can't possibly be seen as a win for the American people.

Besides, that whole "Winning" meme didn't work out so well in the end the first time it made it's rounds. I don't think I would be recycling it now.

The problem is the EPA started abusing their power it needs to be reined in

The problem is all bureaucracies have.

They made a regulation against us truck drivers a few years ago. We are not allowed to talk on a cell phone while driving unless you are using blue tooth. If you get caught, it's a $2,400 fine for the first offense; $10,000 to your company if they can prove you were talking to them. And both fines increase with the amount of violations.

Eliminate all bureaucracies in my opinion.

Right. I feel so oppressed because truck drivers aren't free to talk on the phone and kill more people on the road. Nobody has the right to think truck drivers are actually paying attention to their driving.......right?

 

[P@triot]

Am not defending the EPA, they haven't done a very good job, could we just fix it? have them do there job, not make them political, so they work for us not who ever holds the purse strings.

Well let's start with this - how about we completely shut it down. Ask Congress and the American people to decide if they want the federal government responsible for the environment - and then vote on it?

If it passes, it becomes the legal responsibility of the federal government and is constitutional. If it's shot down (as I suspect it will be), we respect the fact that the American people have spoken and that they do not want their federal government overseeing the environment.

That solves all problems on all sides....

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

I want clean water, clean air &soil would be nice, cutting the EPA how will it impact those things?

It won't.

When it comes to the left, if you talk about getting rid of the EPA, they think it's going to destroy the country by getting rid of all pollution standards.

If you talk about getting CCW permits so innocent citizens can arm themselves on the street, the left will tell you it will create the wild, wild west.

If you talk about getting rid of unions in this country, the left will tell you we're heading back to child labor and unsafe work places that work you 12 hour days with no breaks.

If you talk about getting rid of Affirmative Action, the left tells you that will take us back to slavery days.

This is quite normal.....at least for leftists. They take any loss of power as threat and use scare tactics to try and empower their overlords.

 

[P@triot]

Nixon did it by Executive Order.

Exactly. And since the environment wasn't one of the 18 enumerated powers of the federal government - it was completely unconstitutional.

 

[Tom Horn]

The climate control fascists will never stop trying to control every aspect of our lives through 'climate control'.....climate of course is a great excuse that can be connected handily to every facet of our lives......

in the US the EPA is a major arm of that control.....Obama has used it extensively to implement tons of controlling regulations that negatively affect our lives and our economy without ever going through Congress....

Watch Obama go to the UN next in order to implement the so-called 'sustainable development' agenda worldwide....the UN is the arm that is attempting to govern the entire planet.....

thank God for Trump....

One of the most egregious things they've done is try to tell us what is a stream and what is a pond and then call any standing water "wetland" and curtail any activity on it they don't like.....on PRIVATE PROPERTY! It's like their mission has changed from ending harm to the environment to redefining property rights without due process. They know it costs million$ to fight them and they get away with it....no more.

 

[BULLDOG]

No one but you Dems are doing that... We are talking about men and women who built this country, and yet they have been screwed over.....

Everybody has built your country...very few haven't...

. Not the dead beats, and they ended up being in the hundreds of thousands over time. Then who was subsidizing all the illegals who were here, and working under the table while paying no taxes ?? The investigations need to go alot farther than just voter fraud in this country. Then the EPA became a political strong arm of the Democrats.

Right. I'm sure you don't have a problem with the employers who were paying those people under the table, right?

 

[P@triot]

When it comes to the left, if you talk about getting rid of the EPA, they think it's going to destroy the country by getting rid of all pollution standards.

Why do we even have "pollution standards"? No where does the U.S. Constitution grant unelected bureaucrats the power to create law. The U.S. was specifically designed to be representative government. Not representative government by proxy. Not a single member of the EPA is elected by the people - thus they are not representatives.