Heartland Institute wants to abolish EPA for 50-state committee
What could go wrong?
NEXUS MEDIA JUN 29, 2018, 1:16 PM
By Phil Newell
Yesterday, the Heartland Institute’s environment page — on which materials are typically ordered chronologically with new posts at the top — re-posted a policy brief from 2014. The proposal? Replacing the EPA with a “Committee of the Whole of the 50 state environmental protection agencies.”
Eight years ago, this idea was a pipe dream. No policymaker in Washington would have seriously considered a plan to slash the EPA’s budget by 80 percent, shrink the staff from 15,000 to just 300 employees, and move the headquarters from Washington, DC to Topeka, Kansas. And while the idea is unlikely to gain traction in Congress, it’s reappearance suggests that Heartland believes this administration will look favorably on efforts to further decentralize the EPA.
The brief, written by Heartland’s science director Jay Lehr, argues that “today, EPA is all but a wholly owned subsidiary of liberal activist groups.” This sentiment was wrong in 2014, but it’s particularly ironic today, when there are so many EPA political staff who previously worked for industry or for public officials who deny climate change.
Given Pruitt’s deference to polluters, there’s is a possibility that Heartland has serious hopes of turning this proposal into public policy. Pruitt has strong ties with the think tank. Emails show Pruitt asked Heartland for names of people who could challenge scientists in a proposed debate about climate change. Pruitt also recorded a video for a Heartland event. For its part, Heartland has defended Pruitt’s scandal-ridden tenure and supplied the EPA with materials that, contrary to the scientific consensus, “support the conclusion that human activity is not the largest factor driving global climate change.”
In the brief, Lehr claims that state agencies are “less vulnerable to lobbying” than the national EPA office. In fact, it is easier for state-based businesses to exert political power over a state regulatory body than for them to do the same at the national level. Earlier this month, ThinkProgress reported on fourteen states where state environmental agencies are being run by someone who previously worked for an industry that the agency regulates. Examples include a former coal lobbyist running the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection and a career coal employee leading the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet.
https://thinkprogress.org/heartland-institute-wants-to-abolish-epa-for-50-state-committee-b0c23b59db76/
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"The brief, written by Heartland’s science director Jay Lehr, argues that “today, EPA is all but a wholly owned subsidiary of liberal activist groups.” This sentiment was wrong in 2014, but it’s particularly ironic today, when there are so many EPA political staff who previously worked for industry or for public officials who deny climate change."
So this jerk that works for the Koch's and the same right wing group that has been lobbying the asshole from Oklahoma by the name of Scott Pruitt ( that has over 10 investigations of criminality) that has built a $43,000 lead box in his office because he is paranoid and can make phone calls to the Heartland Institute to babbling of his fear of fucking the taxpayers and getting caught of rehashed 2014 papers, and has spent close to 3 million on first class rides in planes............private ones at that......................thinks that "liberals" are the problem........................you couldn't even submit a current paper you had to go back to 2014, did you check for spelling or grammatical errors..............and you are charging the taxpayers for this paper?
Did you charge for inflation costs.........for 2014 or 2018.......just asking?
After all, somewhere I and millions of others are footing this "bill".....................
November 2018 cannot get here fast enough........................vote
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We need to get out and vote.......................we beat these assholes in the last election we can beat them again...............this time there will be no "electoral college".....................we can do this..................
https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown/election?p0=263&iso=20181106T12&msg=2018%20Midterm%20Elections
