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EPA “accidentally” issues press release slamming Trump

EPA “accidentally” issues press release slamming Trump

Quote mis-attributed to Republican senator slammed Trump for gutting Obama-era climate-change laws.

I had to check the date of this Washington Times article by Ben Wolfgang, just to make sure it wasn’t already April 1.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday sent out a press release touting praise for President Trump’s rollback of Obama-era climate-change regulations this week — but the agency accidentally led the email with a blistering quote from a Democratic critic.

The press release includes a quote from Sen. Tom Carper, Delaware Democrat and ranking member on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, wrongly attributed to Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a West Virginia Republican.

The email, titled “What They Are Saying About President Trump’s Executive Order on Energy Independence,” opens with a complete and total takedown of that order.

“With this executive order, President Trump has chosen to recklessly bury his head in the sand. Walking away from the Clean Power Plan and other climate initiatives, including critical resiliency projects is not just irresponsible — it’s irrational,” reads the quote by Mr. Carper but listed as coming from Ms. Capito.

Accident? That certainly is one explanation. However, I like this one:

A simple proof-reading would have caught the error-filled opener…in a more professional environment, that is.

…There were three apparent problems with the quote, which was featured prominently atop the E.P.A.’s press release. First, it wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement of Trump’s executive order. Second, the release misspelled the senator’s first name. And third, Capito never actually said any of that. The E.P.A. accidentally attributed the quote to Capito, when it had actually come from Democratic senator Tom Carper of Delaware, the Democrat leading the Environment and Public Works Committee. Oops.

In reality, Capito’s statement praised Trump for signing the executive order: “If fully implemented, the Clean Power Plan would have completely decimated West Virginia’s vital coal industry while having no meaningful climate impact,” Moore said. “I was honored to join the president for the signing of this Executive Order, and I look forward to continuing working with the Trump administration to advance environmentally responsible policies that grow the economy—not kill jobs.”

The misattribution, the E.P.A. said, was the result of human error.

During the 8-years of Obama’s administration, perhaps the only problems in EPA press releases were the misspelling of words conveying the ex-President’s awesome awesomeness.

The EPA next press release is likely to target the U.S.Congress, which has just issued legislation to restrain its misuse of science.

The Honest and Open New EPA Science Treatment Act, or HONEST Act, passed 228-194. It would prohibit the EPA from writing any regulation that uses science that is not publicly available.

It’s the latest push by House Republicans to clamp down on what they say has turned into an out-of-control administrative state that enforces expensive, unworkable regulations that are not scientifically sound.

I am sure the EPA employees will respond to the new rules with professionalism and decorum.

April Fool’s!

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Comments

UnCivilServant | March 31, 2017 at 11:50 am

Dissolve the agency completely. Leave nothing behind. Whatever legitimate purpose they once served has long been fulfilled. Be done with the lot.

    notamemberofanyorganizedpolicital in reply to UnCivilServant. | March 31, 2017 at 1:50 pm

    Agreed 100%.

    Buh-bye EPA.

    Hated knowing ya……..

    Milhouse in reply to UnCivilServant. | March 31, 2017 at 3:31 pm

    The EPA never served any legitimate purpose in the first place. From its very inception it has acted as if its mission were to destroy the US economy.

    One often hears about this or that destructive organisation, that once upon a time it did good work, but has now outlived its usefulness. Sometimes that’s even true: I remember when Amnesty International was a bulwark in the moral struggle against the USSR. And the ACLU, while it was originally founded as a communist front, changed into a genuine defender of civil liberties regardless of party or ideology. But was SPLC ever on the side of the angels? Was the trade union movement ever an honest and nonviolent institution? I doubt it.

    In any event the EPA was established by a big-government liberal, Richard Milhous “Everyone’s a Keynesian now” Nixon, and has been a malign force from its very beginning, going after DDT, dioxins, and innocent companies with deep pockets that had disposed of their waste responsibly and properly.

Moron or saboteur? You make the call!

Maybe all government bureaus should have sunset clauses. If they can’t convincingly justify their continued existence every five or ten years—on some reasonable cost/benefit basis—then ship their paperwork off to the National Archives and let them die.

    notamemberofanyorganizedpolicital in reply to tom swift. | March 31, 2017 at 2:26 pm

    Great Idea. RE: “sunset clauses”

    And term limits for government employees……..

I trust that Pruitt is building a list of employees to be terminated at the first opportunity. Being federal, he’s got to build a case, can’t just do the obvious “you’re fired you disloyal hack!” which we all wish he could do.

    redc1c4 in reply to Tom Servo. | March 31, 2017 at 12:49 pm

    you don’t have to “fire” people… just zero out funding for their department, and declare them “excess”.

    if they can’t find another position, it sucks to be them, and they can go get a real j*b.

    amatuerwrangler in reply to Tom Servo. | March 31, 2017 at 1:33 pm

    Not that long ago the government was “shut down” when when funding legislation did not happen. That lack of funding caused many services to be deemed “Non-essential” and those supposedly providing them were told to stay home, making them also essentially non-essential.

    Dig that list out of the file drawer and you have a target rich environment for shrinking this pocket of government.

    The very existence of non-essential jobs/employees in the government is hazardous to the financial viability of the taxpayer.

Every employee at (notice I did not use the word “working”) EPA, right now is exhaling a greenhouse gas CO2. When will this stop? How can we hope to save the world if the people who are suppose to save the world keep producing CO2?

A simple proof-reading would have caught the error-filled opener…in a more professional environment, that is.

Layers and layers of editorial oversight.

    Chicklet in reply to Archer. | March 31, 2017 at 1:59 pm

    They read it. They passed it around amongst themselves (all the holdovers, all the embedded partisan far-left democrats and their brothers-in-law. They got a good chuckle when it hit the wires.

    Maybe they’ll be fired/demoted/warned, maybe not. But they sure had a good time with this one. I’d de-fund the whole office, in a week. Bah!

Sure, an accident…. whatever.