Trump’s EPA team locks in smog limits ahead of Biden transition
Biden’s potential picks for key positions include proponent of “environmental racism” and former EPA-head during Animas River disaster.
The Environmental Protection Agency is locking in the air pollution limits at their current levels ahead of the Biden administration’s takeover, looking to preserve business- and climate-saving choices made during Donald Trump’s presidency.
It is the second such move the Trump administration has taken in recent weeks. Earlier this month, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced a decision to retain current standards for industrial soot pollution, despite calls from public health advocates and the agency’s scientists to tighten them.
“This decision comes after careful review of the most current scientific evidence, risk, and exposure information, and after consultation with the agency’s independent science advisers,” Wheeler told reporters Wednesday of the decision to keep national air quality limits for ozone at their current levels. The Obama administration last tightened the ozone standards in 2015, from 75 parts per billion to 70 parts per billion, over objections from industry groups.
Ground-level ozone is the primary contributor to smog, and it can cause trouble breathing, increase the frequency of asthma attacks, and damage lungs, according to the EPA.
The actions to keep the air quality limits stagnant likely locks in the current levels for at least many months, if not several years, even if the Biden administration attempts to reverse course. The EPA is required to review national air quality limits for ozone, fine particle pollution, and other air pollutants every five years
This is a great decision that will benefit Americans. It appears that Biden’s pick to head the EPA believes that “environmental racism” is real.
President-elect Joe Biden will nominate Michael S. Regan, who heads the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, as the next Environmental Protection Agency administrator, according to two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the decision has not yet been formally announced.
Regan, 44, would be the first Black man to run the EPA.
He would play a central role in realizing Biden’s promises to combat climate change, embrace green energy and address environmental racism. He also would be responsible for crafting fuel-efficiency standards for the nation’s cars and trucks, overseeing emissions from power plants and oil and gas facilities, and cleaning up the country’s most polluted sites.
Legal Insurrection readers may recall that a 2015 report detailing the cause of the Animas River environmental disaster resulting in the release of millions of gallons of heavy-metal containing wastewater into a scenic Colorado river blamed the EPA for the incident. The head of the agency at that time was environmental activist Gina McCarthy.
President-elect Joe Biden will name former EPA head Gina McCarthy as his domestic climate policy chief, placing one of the architects of Barack Obama’s climate regulatory efforts at the helm of his strategy to put the country on a path to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions, people familiar with the decision said.
McCarthy, who will lead a new White House office of domestic climate policy, served as EPA’s air chief in Obama’s first term and as EPA administrator in his second. While there, she oversaw development of a suite of climate regulations — targeting greenhouse gases from cars and trucks, power plants, oil and gas producers and even landfills — that have been dismantled under the Trump administration.
Americans should probably prepare for more environmental disasters . . . at the hands of race-activists and green justice warriors.
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Comments
Thank goodness. Unfortunately, car makers will still bend their knee to California and follow their guidelines.
But it’s a huge step in the right direction.
CA CA Land has bigger problems now of which having lost all status as leading any thing – except the Communist Democrats into Hell.
Thought crimes are racist now. I guess Orwell is racist now. I am so racist my racism is racist I guess. Every purchase I make from now on will be predicated on how large I can make my carbon footprint. Then I can be like Al Gore, but without the blessing of the Left.
So do you really think Biden will follow Trumps freeze on emissions? Not bloody likely.
He won’t have a choice, at first. There’s a reason it took Trump so long to do this. It will likely take Biden just as long to undo it.
Thanks to TDS, anyone who thinks that January 20 is going to usher in an era of sunshine, happiness, a thriving economy, and a sudden end to the WuFlu are in for a rude awakening. Unfortunately, plenty of those people exist, and they’ll be shocked to soon discover an economy rapidly descending into the toilet, rising unemployment rates, higher taxes, higher prices on everything from gasoline to candy bars, and businesses that are already struggling being regulated out of existence.
Oh, and an administration willing to forget the Constitution in slapping Wuflu-related orders on the American populace. National mask mandate, anyone? These people are not going to have any qualms in telling you what to do with the might of the federal government to coerce you to do it.
Forgot to add that government-supported and mandated wokeness is going to go wild.
The funny thing about Biden is that he NEVER lies about bad things.
Biden Warns of ‘Very Dark Winter’:
https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2020-11-09/biden-warns-of-very-dark-winter-as-us-approaches-10-million-coronavirus-cases
We either begin the divorce discussions, or we will in short time be absorbed into hell.
No problem P. The Democrats and media (same) will
just blame all the problems on Trump . Took care of that .
They already figured out how to get around any impediments to changing the rules. It’s called sue and settle. An environmental group sues the EPA when they have the right person in charge, and then the EPA settles with the group by enacting the desired changes. No need for that pesky comment period, and then the EPA is bound by a court with the new rules so it can’t be modified by a future administration.
I have to admit confusion over the article. It seems like it’s trying to argue implicitly that Trump was acting in some capacity as good for the environment when many if his policies were well not. Following this then arguing that Bidens pick is not good for the Environment based on one f**k up, generally my understanding is that the individual in question is looking to cut emissions which is a good thing surely? I’m scratching my head on how to read the articles intent?