EPA Attacks The GOP

EPA Attacks The GOP

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

The Environmental Protection Agency has begun to feel our breath on their necks and they are lashing out. 

  

An article by Lisa P. Jackson entitled “Too Dirty too Fail -- House Republicans' assault on our environmental laws must be stopped.” appeared in the L. A. Times October 21^st, 2011.  In the article, the author says the following:  “Since the beginning of this year, Republicans in the House have averaged roughly a vote every day the chamber has been in session to undermine the Environmental Protection Agency and our nation's environmental laws. They have picked up the pace recently — just last week they voted to stop the EPA's efforts to limit mercury and other hazardous pollutants from cement plants, boilers and incinerators — and it appears their campaign will continue for the foreseeable future.”  (Ms. Jackson is the administrator of the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency.)

 To this I say: “Hallelujah!”  If America is fortunate enough to actually have a Congress and White House controlled by Republicans, after next year’s election, one of its priorities should be the abolishment of the EPA.

 The EPA is the “Vatican” of the pagan religion “Environmentalism.”  In this century, and the last, so many have turned from the worship of a supreme being, we call God, to what we used to call “paganism”… the worship of nature, or the environment, or… more specifically… Environmentalism.

 Yes, Environmentalism HAS become a religion.  Well, actually, it always was, it has just come back into favor in the past 100 years, or so.

 I do feel it is incumbent on the Republican Party to “put down” the EPA.  After all, it was the administration of a Republican President, Richard Nixon, which established the Environmental Protection Agency in the first place.  So the GOP owes it to America to put the EPA out of its misery … or rather, relieve America’s misery by abolishing the EPA.

 The EPA is the government agency from Hell.  It has grown in size and power like an insatiable beast.  Its tentacles have spread throughout America and reached into nearly every aspect of American life.  No one in America is safe from the EPA.

 And it continues to gorge and grow.  Just last November The Wall Street Journal published an editorial entitled: “The EPA Permitorium.” In the article the WSJ said: “The scale of the EPA’s current assault is unprecedented, yet it has received almost no public scrutiny. Since Mr. Obama took office, the agency has proposed or finalized 29 major regulations and 172 major policy rules.”

 Look.  It was bad enough that the EPA declared CO2 a greenhouse gas. Many in my generation learned in their elementary school science class that CO2 is absolutely necessary for everything on earth to … LIVE. 

 Then the EPA decided to look into regulating DUST … you know … DIRT tossed into the air and carried on the wind currents.

 “The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is considering a crackdown on farm dust, so 21 Senators signed a letter addressing their concerns on the possible regulations.

 The letter dated July 23 to the EPA states, "If approved, would establish the most stringent and unparalleled regulation of dust in our nation's history." It further states, "We respect efforts for a clean and healthy environment, but not at the expense of common sense. These identified levels will be extremely burdensome for farmers and livestock producers to attain. Whether its livestock kicking up dust, soybeans being combined on a dry day in the fall, or driving a car down the gravel road, dust is a naturally occurring event." (SOURCE.)

Consider this from an editorial in the Oil & Gas Journal: “EPA, acting under authority of a loopy decision in 2007 by the Supreme Court, started down this wayward path in part to press Congress into action on climate change. Lawmakers should consider that an institutional affront. In the face of last year's collapse of cap-and-trade legislation in the Senate, in fact, they should see EPA's persistence as the potential for a constitutional crisis.

This is an Executive Branch agency claiming control of a major dimension of the US economy in contradiction of the will of the people as expressed through Congress. Congress must stop it. Congress must set clear and permanent limits on the maverick agency's authority and behavior. Congress must act soon.” (SOURCE.)

 Just reining in the EPA will not do.  It is not nearly enough.  The agency needs to be permanently put out of business. No government agency should ever have the power or the reach of the current EPA.  Shut it down, lock the doors, board-up the windows and throw away the key.

J. D. Longstreet