Trump Puts a Deep Freeze on the EPA
Shock and Awe continues.
I asserted that the most rogue agency under the Obama Administration was the Environmental Protection Agency.
I think President Trump, who is focused on reducing America’s regulatory burden, agrees. Not even a week into his presidency, it appears that Trump has put a freeze on spending for that agency.
President Donald Trump’s administration has ordered ordered a freeze on some Environmental Protection Agency grants and contracts to states, as the department braces for more dramatic changes going forward.
…The EPA under a Donald Trump presidency will be everything he promised, according to a EPA action plan drafted by, Myron Ebell, a member of Trump’s transition team who’s also a director at the libertarian think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute.
A “wish list” for the EPA targets regulations such as those carbon emission rules that limit the amount of greenhouse gases allowed from power plants, and chopping $193 million in climate programs. The plan further calls for a change in how the EPA uses science, and calls for the agency to stop funding scientific research, over conflicts-of-interest concerns that the regulator should not also be involved with funding the science behind the regulations.
But the freeze isn’t applicable only to funding. The Trump Administration has also banned members of that agency and the U.S. Department of Agriculture from giving social media updates and speaking with reporters.
The president has banned EPA employees from “providing updates on social media or to reporters,” according to interagency emails first obtained by the Associated Press, and barred them from awarding new contracts or grants as well. Trump is reportedly planning massive cuts and rollbacks for the agency.
This follows similar guidance to USDA employees, who were instructed in an internal memo obtained by Buzzfeed not to release “any public-facing documents” including “news releases, photos, fact sheets, news feeds, and social media content” until further notice. Specifically the request was made to employees of the Agricultural Research Service, the USDA’s primary research wing, which is heavily involved in research regarding climate change.
One bureaucrat responded to the situation with the dignity and decorum we have come to anticipate from some federal employees.
The South Dakota park posted tweets Tuesday that accurately quoted climate science data, including the current record-setting high concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. President Donald Trump has called climate change a hoax.
The tweets were shared thousands of times, and the Democratic National Committee circulated the message by email with the subject line “Resist.”
The original tweets have disappeared.
USDA = 0
President Trump = 1
I can’t wait to see what Shock and Awe happens tomorrow.
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Comments
I’m stealing another poster’s line:
BEST.ELECTION.EVER.
(Oh, and much like Mr. Finkelstein, you too, Ms. Eastman are having FAR too much fun writing about this! 🙂 )
I can’t express how joyful this week has been for me. Legal Insurrection authors have niche topics, and mine include Egypt and climate change. To see such swift action to enhance our damaged relations with Egypt and to see the EPA contained and controlled is more than I dared dream…and I might have been the biggest “Trump-ster” on our team.
In my day job, I have a set of clients who are poised to receive immediate regulatory relief from an impending order on FDA rules. I get to roll into them today, and inform them that the rules that threaten to cost so much to implement that they may have to close, will likely not exist in a couple of weeks. Needless to say, I will mention who is signing those orders.
After four years of job-saving, regulatory containment, this is how Trump will end up with a 50-state landslide in 2020.
Oh my gosh it’s only Wednesday! By Friday the left will be reduced to mindless hate speech attacking anything and anyone!
We have waited 8 years for this and boy is it sweet!
What do you mean, “by Friday?” The Left is already there.
I think that the Professor also enjoys picking out the video of the day. Today is “I don’t care anymore” by Phil Collins. Some key phrases from the song…
“I don’t care what you say
We never played by the same rules anyway” and…
“‘Cause I remember all the times I tried so hard
And you laughed in my face ’cause you held all the cards
I don’t care anymore”
http://www.lyrics.com/lyric/2760192
A few days ago (Friday?), I think it was a Joe Jackson song “Stepping Out” – I played that one several times during the day.
Still not tired of all the winning . . . .
You don’t tug on Superman’s cape
You don’t spit into the wind
You don’t pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger
And you don’t mess around with Slim
Trump should just tell the EPA that the ‘freeze’ will be in place until Global Warming™ thaws it out.
Totally and shamelessly stealing this line to drive some batsh** libs on another site even farther into the doom and gloom of their hate for President Trump.
It should be enjoyable to watch their heads explode.
Hey, we can all watch Rags demonstrate here.
You’ve just become a stupid troll.
As demonstrated, chew toy.
A few points on the EPA gag order…
It must be an internal memo or order since it was not posted on the White House site under presidential memo section. But, it is interesting to note that all the reports listed in the article have people leaking the memo. I wonder if someone violates the order, will they lose their job?
Check out this post from W. Eschenbach who also posted it on WWUT. He wrote that this gag order is standard operating procedures for a business & I agree.
https://rosebyanyothernameblog.wordpress.com/2017/01/24/gagged-not-hardly/
This is an interesting post on Watts Up With That which gives a few ideas on how the EPA can be reduced in size and then closed as a department.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/01/25/the-beginning-of-the-end-of-epa/
I read that the USDA memo is similar to one put in by Obama during his first term and regime change.
This was on WSJ
The watermelons at the EPA are getting a taste of their own medicine. We’ve been told, repeatedly, to stop doing this or that piece of your property is really a wetland. Let’s see how they like it.
The EPA was a good idea, when it was formed in 1970. In the 1960s, man-made pollution was a growing problem, in this country. Urban pollution was becoming a real hazard. The Cuyahoga river fire occurred in 1969. So, some centralized agency was really necessary to coordinate pollution control efforts. Unfortunately the EPA was never effectively monitored and controlled and was almost immediately co-opted by radical environmental interests.
It desperately needs to be brought under control and its powers restricted by law.
” The Cuyahoga river fire occurred in 1969. “
That river fire was the last recorded in the United States. Local governments had figured out that river fires were a bad thing and taken steps to prevent them in the future. The picture often used by the press to go with that story is from New York City in the 1940s.
The river fire problem was solved before the EPA was officially started.
Rouge River in Michigan also caught fire in 1969, but it was not as well publicized.
No, it was not a good idea. In the ’60s man-made pollution was not a growing problem, it was a shrinking one. The only significant thing about the ’69 fire on the Cuyahoga was that river fires had become so rare that such a tiny fire, which was put out so swiftly that nobody managed to even take a picture of it, was newsworthy. Ten years earlier nobody would have thought it worth reporting. The famous picture that appeared on the cover of TIME was taken in ’52. Pollution was being reduced because people had become prosperous enough that they could afford to care about such things and to pay to reduce it. The EPA did not speed this process up; all the progress made since it was founded would have been made anyway.
Sorry, but man-made pollution was a significant problem into the 1970s. Early attempts, at the federal level, to control environmental pollution started with the Clean Air Act of 1963 and the Clean Water Act of 1965. But, the problems continued. After all, even in areas where state and local regulations had been addressing man-made pollution since 1900, such pollution was still an issue; largely due to lax enforcement because of political influence and outright bribery. So, a federal oversight agency [the EPA] was started in 1971 to coordinate controlling legislation and enforcement. However, the agency received little control from the WH or Congress and rapidly became little more than an enforcement arm of the radical environmental interests. This also allowed it to grow its power and size, in the federal bureaucracy. As it progressed, it assumed functions and powers that it was never supposed to have, which ultimately led to disaster. In 1977, the Clean Air Act was amended to restrict the power of the EPA and set realistic pollution standards. In 1990, the Clean Air Act Reauthorization bill significantly increased air quality standards, increased emission standards. expansion of the list of pollutants, guidelines for the reduction of ozone depletion and increased enforcement powers for the EPA. This went far beyond the original concept for the agency.
One has to recognize the distinction between what the agency was supposed to do and what it eventually became.
Yes, man-made pollution was a significant problem into the 1970s. It’s still a significant problem. That’s irrelevant to your claim that it was a growing problem. It wasn’t. It was a shrinking problem. It was a smaller problem in the ’50s than in the ’40s, smaller still in the ’60s, and even smaller today. And all the vast improvement that happened before the ’70s owed nothing to the EPA. The fact that that tiny little fire was newsworthy shows how great that EPA-less improvement was, and there’s no reason to suppose it would not have continued.
The fact that it was still a problem in 1971 was not due to lack of federal oversight, any more than the fact that it’s still a problem today is due to such a lack; both are due simply to the fact that we’re not yet rich enough to afford to eliminate it. One day we will be, and we will decide whether we still want to.
I can not agree with this.
There is no evidence that man-made air and water pollution was any better in the 90s than it was in the 50s. In fact, records from the late 60s show that it was considerable and was the cause of the Cuyahoga river fire. Also, it can be inferred that it was significantly less by 1977, as Congress placed restrictions on the enforcement power of the EPA at that time. Now, it is not demonstrable that the actions of the EPA, between 1971 and 1988 had any effect on the reduction in man-made pollution, there is no evidence that it did not.
What happened was that the EPA allied itself with radical environmentalists around 1988. Beginning around 1990, the Congress took a significant left turn, in the area of environmental protection, and expanded the role of the EPA in the Clean Air Amendments Act of 1990 as well as expanding its jurisdiction into other areas, such as ozone depletion. From there, the agency became more and more radicalized. In the 21st century, it became so engrossed in attempting to expand into the area of global warming, that it ignored its traditional responsibilities and allowed such things as the Gold King Mine spill and the Flint Michigan drinking water pollution problem to develop.
The Agency is only a disaster because it has been allowed to become one. It was never supposed to do what it currently does. The EPA is supposed to provide an additional layer of protection for consumers, along with local and state protections. All of these actors failed miserably in Flint Michigan, however.
There is no evidence that man-made air and water pollution was any better in the 90s than it was in the 50s. In fact, records from the late 60s show that it was considerable and was the cause of the Cuyahoga river fire.
You’re full of ****. I’ve already pointed out to you several times that the fact that such a tiny insignificant fire was newsworthy proves how much things had improved by then. If the problem was growing rather than shrinking, as you claim, then why were there no significant river fires that entire decade? Why did anyone pay any attention to a piddling little fire that was put out so fast there is no photographic record that it ever happened? 20 years earlier it would have got as little attention as a common house fire. That proves beyond doubt that the rivers had been cleaned up so thoroughly that river fires were thought to no longer happen, so that when one did, however small, they bothered reporting it.
Also, it can be inferred that it was significantly less by 1977, as Congress placed restrictions on the enforcement power of the EPA at that time.
More BS. The only thing that can be inferred from this is that the agency had from its beginning been pursuing an agenda so radical that even the heavily D-controlled Congress decided it needed to be restrained.
The EPA does a very poor job with cost benefit analysis and a horrifically bad job with marginal cost/marginial benefit analysis.
In the early to mid 1990’s, the EPA issued the VOC regulations for the purpose of reducing ground level ozone. Oil base paints had the VOCs reduced from approx 360 down to 280. As a result, the hardness, adhesion and durability of the paints was reduced. Therefore the lifespan of the paint job was less, requiring more frequent painting. Therefore more voc’s, not less, plus the additional solid waste polution.
Just a simple example of the Environment Pollution Agency’s handiwork.
The EPA does a very poor job with cost benefit analysis and a horrifically bad job with marginal cost/marginial benefit analysis.
No, it simply doesn’t care about costs at all. It only does such analyses because it has to, and often neglects to do them until prodded by a court order. If it had its way (and it usually does) costs simply would not be a factor in the calculation, because no cost is too high for any improvement, even if, as in the case you mentioned, the real-life result is more pollution. d
Cost Benefit Analysis from the EPA = “YOU WANT TO KILL INNOCENT CHILDREN WITH YOUR LYING NUMBERS!!!!”
“Trump Puts a Deep Freeze on the EPA”
I’ve looked at your stuff, Leslie, and I can’t find any support for that hyperbole.
“President Donald Trump’s administration has ordered ordered [sic] a freeze on some Environmental Protection Agency grants and contracts to states, as the department braces for more dramatic changes going forward.”
OK. Good, as far as that goes. But “deep freeze”…??? Naw.
“This follows similar **guidance** to USDA employees, who were instructed in an internal memo obtained by Buzzfeed not to release “any public-facing documents” including “news releases, photos, fact sheets, news feeds, and social media content” until further notice. Specifically the **request**
was made…”
So, were they “banned”, or was there a “request”…???
I think both the EPA and USDA should have been abolished years ago, but I don’t see anything that would auger in that direction here. A “freeze” here or there is subject to a “thaw” and business as usual.
Mr. Ebell’s plan is a nice piece of dream-works, but at this point, that’s all it is.
Rags: You will never be able to put a dent in my joy with your rants. #SoMuchWinning
To paraphrase a famous song: “All I am saying is, give Trump a chance”.
And you, Leslie, will never put a dent in my valid points by terming them “rants”.
You can’t deal with them. Obviously.
Sad…
Oh, look. The nasty little man has shown up to whine again.
Pathetic.
(But also highly amusing. 😉 )
Oh, look, the nasty old witch has chosen to stick ad hominem in instead of dealing with the points raised.
Note that you opened the ball here, honeeeee.
You do realise that a “request” from your boss to not do something regarding your job is in fact a ban on doing it, don’t you? A request and a demand to not do something both mean that you are not supposed to do something.
So really your whole post is regarding the word “deep” in front of “freeze”. As there is no time limit on the “request”, it can be characterized either way. It could “thaw” tomorrow or last until Trump is no longer president.
I frankly took “deep” freeze as a play on climate alarmism that the EPA pushes.
Wow. No, in fact. I’ve never worked for anyone who uses language so carelessly, including in the military, where an order is one thing and a request is quite another.
But I’m not cowed by people, so they might understand that if they intend for me to NOT do something, they have to state that intelligibly and without equivocation.
Well, bless your heart.
Hmm, you missed out in your workplace education, or maybe you never had a boss from the south. One of my first professional bosses was widely known for saying softly “first I’ll ask you, then I’ll tell you”.
It’s a way to say “There’s an easy way to do this, or a hard way. You pick which way you want.”
And someone who picked the hard way all the time usually wasn’t around for long.
Exactly.
I can’t wait for the EPA to rule Co2 ISNT solution! That will be the last straw for our catastrophiliac Mann Made Global Warming ™ friends 🙂
” … Mann Made Global Warming Bravo Zulu!! LOL!!
POLLUTION dag nang it!!!!
If Mr. Trump really wants to make a positive change in the world, have the EPA lift their ban on DDT. White people used DDT to clear the United States and Europe of DDT and left others to die.
Arguments made in Silent Spring have been refuted. A federal judge heard testimony for months and declared DDT safe. William Ruckelshaus, the first EPA head, attended none of those hearings and didn’t read the report when he banned DDT.
Yepo.
I’d just add that we cleared the US and Europe of malaria.
And a few other things, as well, via DDT.
A true example of “Better Living Through Chemistry”.
There is still malaria in other parts of the world and there are many mosquito-borne diseases which are making their way into the United States, such as zika and dengue fever. Can yellow fever be next?
With air travel, diseases can easily travel between continents before we are aware of the problem. When I traveled to Africa, I took the required shots and drugs. I took precautions with nets and clothing. I came back ok, A fellow worker came back with a case of malaria which didn’t show up for a few weeks. So, could he have reintroduce the disease into my city? Don’t know, but there is that chance that we have to be concerned about.
Our worker’s comp carrier was always amused when I called in another “injury” since it was always related to a bug – dengue fever, malaria, brown recluse spider.
The EPA is a Federal bureaucracy that met its goals (reduction of pollution in the US to a given set of levels) and then turned to finding ways to justify its continued existence.
Instead of behaving in a productive fashion, which might have included setting procedures in place to readily determine whether a project is environmentally Unobjectionable, and engaging in periodic, automatic monitoring of known pollutants, it chose to neglect the basics and find new “pollutants” to regulate, preferably something essential to ensure the permanency of its mission.
Hence, the declaration that carbon dioxide, a minor component of the atmosphere essential to the cycle of life, is a pollutant.
They have been running amok for at least the last two administrations.
They need direction.
Direction, firm direction, at the absolute minimum. Me? I would like to see them completely zeroed out, shut down, the buildings torn down, the ground salted, and the offspring killed mercilessly. If the EPA had anything good going on, then we can allow the states to pick up some of that.
Grounds salted? That could be considered to be a pollutant because of the use. Heck, I have a spot in my yard that I can’t grow anything because the building crew spilled “something”.
There will always be some form of pollution to combat and it will cross over state lines. I think that a much reduced form of the EPA perhaps as a commission with all states involved could be the remaining structure. See this article on WWUT.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/01/25/the-beginning-of-the-end-of-epa/
The Oklahoma Energy Resources Board collects a fee from energy producers and royalty owners to deal with the past mistakes of wildcatters who left sites. I worry about the current producers of wind and solar power and whether we are collecting fees to cover the cleanup of their damage?
DDT may have impacted the eagle egg shell strength, but what about the “allowed” bird kill from wind turbines and solar panels? If you are dissing the use of DDT to combat mosquito born diseases, then you need to diss the use of wind and solar power on its impact on wildlife.
Greenies can’t have it both ways.
You still need some cooperation between states since there will be some issues – I remember something about chicken farms, the chickensh*t, and water quality going across state lines, but I think it was finally resolved and people are still tubing down the river. I think alcohol level in the people floating down the river is the major issue not some chicken disease.
sorry Liz but the greenies do have it both ways, you pointed out one thing, what about the pollution that will occur when the Prius batteries and tesla batteries hit the land fill.
It is actually against the law to dispose of such batteries in a landfill. It is also a violation of law to dispose of mercury vapor lamps, including the current replacements for incandescent light bulbs, in a landfill. They are all supposed to be disposed of through a hazardous materials program.
Happily, ronk, the batteries from coal-powered cars will never “hit the landfills” in capitalist nations, at least.
The market will provide for the efficient harvesting of materials used in those batteries (if allowed to).
It’s what markets do, and do by far the best.
Back when I taught my graduate level toxicology course, I often used examples of work performed by the EPA on how NOT to perform research and data analysis. Examples of improper analysis at the EPA are legion, but, because they are the EPA and government, few feel qualified to argue their methods.