Who Needs the EPA? What Happens Without It?

The problem is that the EPA is an agency that refuses to follow basic transparency laws. For an example, the former EPA administrator's second email address under a different name. Another is that environmental non-profit groups are given FOIA data for free, while libertarian non-profit groups are charged for the same information.

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The regulations that cleaned it up were less than 1/10 of the regulations we have today.

 

The EPA never includes consumers in the 'stakeholder' meetings where regulations are drawn up.

Why is that, you suppose?

 

the epa does meet with stakeholder

 

In a nutshell... the EPA is just like any other govt agency... bloated and inefficient. That's not to say they don't do good work cleaning up hazardous spills or deserted mining sites or chemical facilities that leave the soil poisonous. Many adobe houses in the uranium mining belt were made with radioactive mud. Who you gonna call to clean that up?

In my opinion, that's their real value to the country. The rest of what they do probably wouldn't even be missed if it went away.

 

"the epa does meet with stakeholder"

Taxcutter says:
In EPA-speak, 'stakeholders' include the EPA, state and local agencies, environmental extremist group, and the "regulated community." But 'stakeholder' meetings never, ever include consumers or taxpayer groups.

Why is that?

 

Yes, every government agency is subject to 'mission creep' because the ONLY way any government agency gets more $$$ is by being needy. This encourages on-going ineptness and/or the creation of more agency specific 'problems' that can only be solved with more tax dollars.

The EPA has quietly gone from regulating hazardous substances to the 'protection' of the environment. This results in blunders like the gas additive M.T.B.E. that is still polluting ground water. Forest regulations that prohibit any kind of forest management in favor of wild fires which are now destroying hundreds of thousands of acres. Then there is the adopted U.N. 'Agenda 21' that attempts to take over local planning zoning ordinances with vague, open-ended 'sustainable' regulations. In Northern California they have decided to KILL Barred owls. Complete insanity.

 

You have absolutely no basis for this claim. This is just right wing delusions that even critical government functions could be cut in half without any change to effectiveness or service. The fact of the matter is that there is plenty to cut in government, but these cuts will do just that, cut. Now maybe the scientist studying fruit fly sex isn't a priority or maybe the 2nd jet engine the military doesn't even want should not be built, so cutting them is a good idea. But the claim the EPA can be cut in half without consequence is crazy. Cut the EPA in half and you will have less enforcement, less inspections, longer case reviews, and it will cease to function as well as it does now. I'm sure that is your anterior motive to cripple the EPA because you somehow think letting corporations pollute will help create jobs or something. Discussing how environmental regulation internalizes external costs and thereby makes markets work more efficiently would be another topic and probably lost on you. But the EPA is critical to making sure our free market system operates correctly and values goods and services properly. The government has lots to cut, but the EPA is not on that list.

 

Because the idiot, fanny-sitting EPA fools think THEY know best and stakeholder taxpayers are just there to PAY for their foolish 'sustainable environment' fantasies most of which are actually deleterious to the environment.

 

And you have lots to learn.

 

ITA. Govt expands to meet the budget... and the budget grows every single year. Add to that blatant nepotism, lifetime jobs for poor performers and better wages & benefits than people in the private sector for doing the same job and you've got a monster of a problem.

The EPA doesn't answer to a Cabinet Secretary, but is heavily influenced by political appointees that change with every administration. Another part of the problem.

 

They sure meet with 'potentially responsible parties' when stuff goes wrong, though! You don't want an invite to one of those tea parties!

 

you don't know what you're talking about


EPA and MDEQ to Meet with Stakeholders regarding Soil Cleanup and Land Use plans at the Picayune Wood Treating Site

http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/0/9121F841DD6431B385257B010072C5FB

 

This is 2013..

But traumatized libs like you and the wacko environmentalists at the EPA continue to act as if it is 1952.

 

you're projecting

 

"EPA and MDEQ to Meet with Stakeholders..."

Taxcutter says:
Nowhere in the link did it state that either consumers or taxpayers were included amongst the stakeholders. That's because the EPA considers those groups to be dissident.

 

if you had a clue about reality

you'd know that everyone is a consumer and anybody that spends money is a taxpayer

 

But they had no advocate at the meeting.

 

This is what happens when there is no EPA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Canal#The_Love_Canal_Disaster .....

 

There seems to be a circular argument in the OP. Ignoring the reduction in funding for actually enforcement of EPA regulation and laws (inspectors and court cases) means that you can argue the EPA doesn't accomplish that much. How the conclusion is then arrived at that ditching the EPA is a better idea than making sure it does its job properly is another matter.

Of course the free market argument is that the polluting nations have an unfair advantage (short term, anyway) over the healthier nations because the cost isn't reflected directly in that of business. Why sinking to the lowest common denominator on what is basically a long term health and biosphere preservation issue is a good idea I'll leave for the true believers to try and justify.

 

you really don't know what you're talking about

 

"you really don't know what you're talking about"

Taxcutter says:
I've been to stakeholder meetings. Have you?

We hear about the fire on the Cuyahoga and Love Canal. Those were decades ago. Why is the EPA still churning out job-killing regulations?

 

The EPA did ,past tense, do great good ending serious pollution now they are nitpicky and over regulating industry with regulations that now cost a lot to get a tiny gain.

No one disrespects the past need and need to monitor interstate and major pollution which they did and do well.

 

"...and over regulating industry with regulations that now cost a lot to get a tiny gain."

Taxcutter says:
...and driving US jobs offshore.

 

yea, i went to this one:

http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/0/9121F841DD6431B385257B010072C5FB

 

Can you name specific regulations that only "killed" jobs, while having no effect on anything else.