Keeping promises

EPA media relations informs us:

SYCAMORE, Pa. – U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt visited the Harvey Mine in Sycamore, Pa., today, to meet with coal miners and announce EPA’s Back-to-Basics agenda. The agenda reinforces Administrator Pruitt’s commitment to refocusing EPA on its intended mission, returning power to the states, and creating an environment where jobs can grow.

“What better way to launch EPA’s Back-to-Basics agenda than visiting the hard-working coal miners who help power America. The coal industry was nearly devastated by years of regulatory overreach, but with new direction from President Trump, we are helping to turn things around for these miners and for many other hard working Americans,” said Administrator Pruitt. “Back-to-Basics means returning EPA to its core mission: protecting the environment by engaging with state, local, and tribal partners to create sensible regulations that enhance economic growth.”

Administrator Pruitt spoke with coal miners about the President’s recent Energy Independence Executive Order, which directs EPA and other federal agencies to review the Clean Power Plan and revise regulatory barriers that impede energy independence, including unnecessary burdens on coal miners and coal-fired electric utilities.

Read more here.

Senate confirms Scott Pruitt as head of EPA

Sundance reports,

Yes, today the Senate finally confirmed Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency; a rogue agency completely out of sync with any semblance of normal environmental protection. Between bites of their sustainable algae cakes, drum circle activists throw themselves into apoplectic fits….

The vote was 52-46. Senators Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), and Joe Manchin (D-WV) voted for Pruitt. Republican Susan Collins of Maine voted against him.

The Senate now takes a week off allowing professional activists to regroup before returning on February 27th to vote on: • Commerce nominee Wilbur Ross, • Interior nominee Ryan Zinke, • Housing and Urban Development nominee Dr. Ben Carson, and • Energy nominee Rick Perry.

Read more here.

Food, water, and firewood

John DanielDavidson writes at The Federalist,

In Alaska’s interior, where it can reach -50 degrees Fahrenheit in winter, the EPA wants people to stop burning wood.

...The problem is, there’s no replacement for wood-burning stoves in Alaska’s interior. Heating oil is too expensive for a lot of people, and natural gas isn’t available. So they’ve got to burn something. The average low temperature in Fairbanks in December is 13 degrees below zero. In January, it’s 17 below. During the coldest days of winter, the high temperature averages -2 degrees, and it can get as cold as -60. This is not a place where you play games with the cold. If you don’t keep the fire lit, you die. For people of modest means, and especially for the poor, that means you burn wood in a stove—and you keep that fire lit around the clock.

Growing up in Alaska, I learned this from an early age. (My father, in fact, was a chechaquo. As a white kid growing up in Alaska native villages in the 1950s, the native kids would call him and his siblings chechaquos as a kind of juvenile epithet.) Like many families in Alaska, then and now, we weren’t wealthy and had no other means of staying warm besides burning wood. As kids, my brothers and I would spend long hours stacking cords of wood and, when we were older, felling trees, cutting them into logs, and hauling them back to the house. It wasn’t romantic, it was simply part of life in the far north: firewood was as natural and necessary as food and water.

...Burning wood when it’s -20 degrees outside will indeed cause the smoke to descend, and breathing such air is admittedly not very healthy. What the EPA doesn’t accept, or even grasp, is man’s place in the universe: in the face of Alaska’s deadly cold interior, there’s only so much we can do. So we build a fire.

Read more here.

"The wages of eight years of liberal overreach"

Doug Ross has this quote from Charles Krauthammer,

"[Scott] Pruitt’s is the most important nomination because it is a direct attack on the insidious growth of the administrative state. We have reached the point where EPA bureaucrats interpret the Waters of the United States rule — meant to protect American waterways — to mean that when a hard rain leaves behind a pond on your property, the feds may take over and tell you what you can and cannot do with it. (The final rule excluded puddles — magnanimity from the Leviathan.)

On a larger scale, Obama’s Clean Power Plan essentially federalizes power generation and regulation, not coincidentally killing coal along the way. This is the administration’s end run around Congress’ rejection of Obama’s proposed 2009-2010 cap-and-trade legislation. And that was a Democratic Congress, mind you.

Pruitt’s nomination is a dramatic test of the proposition that agencies administer the law, they don’t create it. That the legislative power resides exclusively with Congress and not with a metastasizing administrative bureaucracy... For some, this reassertion of basic constitutionalism seems extreme. If so, the Obama administration has only itself to blame. Such are the wages of eight years of liberal overreach." --Charles Krauthammer

Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt for EPA administrator

Ed Straker writes at American Thinker,

Donald Trump made another excellent nomination, of Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt for EPA administrator. But you wouldn't know it by reading the mainstream media, who criticized Pruitt for being "too friendly" to fossil fuel producers in his fight against Obama energy regulations.

Mr. Pruitt didn't just ally himself with oil and gas companies; he allied himself with every consumer who uses oil and gas and wants to continue to do so at affordable prices

"Big oil" not only gives us a high standard of living, but powers machines and devices that manufacture medicines and keep us alive.

Read more here.

Top climate change skeptic to lead Trump's EPA transition team

E and E News reports,

Trump has picked a top climate change skeptic to lead his EPA transition team — Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute — and has promised sweeping reforms in the agency that's long been a target for industry groups and Republicans who say its rules overreach.

Read more here.

EPA armed to the teeth

Gene J. Koprowski writes at American Spectator,

According to a report released last week by a watchdog group called Open the Books, the EPA has spent millions of dollars recently on guns, ammo, body armor, camouflage equipment, and even night-vision goggles to arm its agents in the war on polluters.

...How far will EPA agents go to enforce the law as they interpret it? The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday issued a temporary stay on the Environmental Protection Agency’s new Clean Water Rule that regulates “waters of the U.S.” The court decided the EPA'’s Rule that originally became effective on August 28, 2015 requires “further judicial analysis.” The new Clean Water Rule defined navigable waters to include tributaries and wetlands, and even puddles caused by rainstorms. The rule defines which waterways would be protected by the Clean Water Act of 1972. A total of 18 states are challenging the new rule. Perhaps the new water rules will be enforced at gunpoint by armed agents if President Obama and EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy decide that “environmental justice” requires it.

Read more here.

h/t Bird Dog

Rampant environmental destruction by fellow preaching a Sermon on the Mount

The Roman Departments of Environmental Protection and Homeland Security have taken action today against a fellow named Jesus, who was preaching a Sermon on the Mount. Get all the details here.

Stupid, dangerous, and negligent

Paul Driessen writes at Watt's Up With That,

On August 5, an Environmental Restoration company crew, supervised by US Environmental Protection Agency officials, used an excavator to dig away tons of rock and debris that were blocking the entrance portal of Colorado’s Gold King Mine, which had been largely abandoned since 1923. Water had been seeping into the mine and out of its portal for decades, and the officials knew (or could and should have known) the water was acidic (pH 4.0-4.5), backed up far into the mine, and laced with heavy metals.

But they kept digging – until the greatly weakened dam burst open, unleashing a 3-million-gallon (or more) toxic flood that soon contaminated the Animas and San Juan Rivers, all the way to Lake Powell in Utah. To compound the disaster, EPA then waited an entire day before notifying downstream mayors, health officials, families, farmers, ranchers, fishermen and kayakers that the water they were drinking, using for crops and livestock, or paddling in was contaminated by lead, cadmium, mercury and arsenic.

...Anyone who follows mining, oil spill and power plant accidents knows the EPA, Obama White House and Big Green environmentalist rhetoric: There is no safe threshold for chemicals. They are toxic and carcinogenic at parts per billion. The water will be unsafe for years or even decades. Wildlife will die. Corporate polluters are criminals and must pay huge fines. We will keep our boots on their necks.

This time the White House was silent, and Democrats and eco-activists rushed to defend EPA and shift the blame to mining and mining companies. EPA officials made statements they would never use if a private company had caused the blowout: EPA had simply “miscalculated” how much water had backed up. It was just trying to stick a pipe into the top of the mine to safely pump liquid out for treatment. We were “very careful.” Contaminants “are flowing too fast to be an immediate health threat.” The river is already “restoring itself” back to pre-spill levels, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy insisted.

The evidence strongly suggests that EPA never studied or calculated anything, had no operations plan vetted and approved by state officials or mining experts, was not trying to install a pipe – and was grossly careless and negligent. Toxic sludge was carried and deposited along hundreds of miles, contaminating water and riverbeds, where it will be stirred up for years during every heavy rainfall and snowmelt.

Mining engineers told me the prudent approach would have been to push or drill a 4-inch pipe through the rubble into the mine, to determine the water pressure, toxicity and extent of water backup in the mine – and then build a strong cofferdam below the portal – before proceeding. Simply removing the debris was stupid, dangerous and negligent, they said. It will take years now to correct the damage and assess costs.

...EPA says it will pay for testing, property damage, human injuries and hauling safe drinking water. But will it pay to truck in safe water for livestock and irrigation, and pay for crops and livestock lost because there is no water in the meantime, and cover millions in lost incomes for outfitters and hotel operators during what would have been their peak tourist seasons? Exxon paid such costs after the Valdez spill in Alaska; BP did likewise after its Macondo spill in the Gulf of Mexico; so have coal companies.

Shouldn’t EPA do likewise, instead of asserting “sovereign immunity” despite its gross negligence? Shouldn’t it cover these costs out of the millions of dollars it uses for employee bonuses and to payenvironmental activists and public relations firms to promote its image and agenda – instead of sticking taxpayers with the tab via special appropriations? Will EPA reimburse state and local governments and private charities for assistance they have already rendered? Will it fire the irresponsible officials, or at least demote and discipline them? Will Environmental Restoration pay its fair share?

...The Gold King blowout was predictable and preventable. The mine was leaking slightly polluted water, but the problem was not serious and was being addressed, and the former mining town of Silverton, CO had repeatedly asked EPA not to intervene or make Gold King a Superfund site. Mining engineers and other experts were available, and some had offered their insights and expertise. EPA ignored them.

read more here.

Personal note: I worked for several years as Director of Human Services of both the La Plata (Durango) and San Juan (Silverton) County Departments of Human Services. I love this beautiful area, and feel very emotional about the damage caused by the Obama EPA.

Temporary injunction stops Obama's water grab in 13 states

A federal judge in North Dakota ruled against the Obama EPA in their effort to take over the waterways of America. Thirteen states filed for the injunction. So the new rule takes effect tomorrow in all but the thirteen states who filed for the injunction in North Dakota. The thirteen states temporarily protected against the EPA are Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming.
Read more here.

Bureaucratic negligence

Victor Davis Hanson writes,

...The Environmental Protection Agency spilled 3 million gallons of toxic sludge into a tributary of the Animas River in Colorado. The stinky yellow flume of old mine waste — rife with cancer-causing mercury and arsenic — threatens to pollute the drinking and recreational water of three states.

Had a private oil company acted so incompetently and negligently, it would have been fined billions of dollars by the same EPA. The company’s top executives might have been subject to criminal prosecutions. The business’s reputation would have been tarnished for years. Just ask BP officials what the Obama administration did to the corporation after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico.

But who will police the green police at the EPA?

When EPA administrator Gina McCarthy promises that the agency will take “full responsibility,” what does that tired banality mean? Will she resign? Will bureaucrats responsible for the toxic spill face fines and jail sentences? Will residents be able to sue McCarthy and her subordinates for diminishing their quality of life? Will the Sierra Club and the Environmental Defense Fund rush to federal court to file briefs?

Consider the vast bureaucracy of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Is it culpable for knowingly not enforcing immigration law and thus allowing some undocumented immigrants to commit violent crimes?

In cases where innocent Americans are killed by undocumented immigrants with long histories of felonies and deportations — such as the recent killing of Kate Steinle in San Francisco — can the victims’ families sue ICE or sanctuary cities for either releasing or hosting criminals who were residing in the U.S. illegally?

In our litigious society in which plaintiffs sue fast-food franchises for serving excessively hot coffee, why do government bureaucrats escape culpability when the innocent die or are injured as a result of bureaucratic negligence?

When the IRS hounds citizens about their taxes, can Americans inform the agency that they are invoking the Fifth Amendment and refusing to answer out of fear of self-incrimination — and expect to face no criminal consequences?

No? Why, then, was high-ranking IRS official Lois Lerner able to sign off on the excessive scrutiny of some conservative nonprofit groups, lie about it, and then invoke the Fifth — without any legal consequences?

Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton likely broke a number of federal laws while secretary of state in using a private e-mail server at her home to conduct both private and public business. One, she kept documents containing classified information at an unauthorized location. Two, she either destroyed or removed official communications entrusted to her as a public servant. Three, she was legally responsible for the loss of information involving national defense. Four, she likely destroyed documents to block federal agencies’ examination of them.

So far, Clinton has escaped any consequences.

What is the common denominator in these government scandals — as well as the recent scandals involving the needless deaths of veterans waiting for care at Veterans’ Health Administration facilities, the sex and booze escapades of Secret Service agents, the Las Vegas junketing at the General Services Administration, the snooping at the National Security Agency, and the lack of cyber-security at Office of Personnel Management?

The bigger that government gets, the more employees who are hired, and the more unaccountable power that accrues to bureaucracies, the more government takes on a life of its own. Public grandees resemble Hollywood’s out-of-control androids or Frankenstein monsters that turn on their creators — in these cases, us, the taxpayers.

...Under the Obama administration, there is also a more disturbing trend: the equation of big government with social justice and hostility to private enterprise. If the EPA and other federal agencies are felt to be on the “right side” of fairness and equality, then why object when their means to supposedly noble ends violate or neglect the law?

Big government has become the new Terminator, at war with those who created it, who fund it — and who must obey it.

Read more here.

It's not the first time

Tori Richards reports at Watchdog.org,

The EPA has a record of releasing toxic runoff from mines in two tiny Colorado towns that dates to 2005, a local mine owner claims.

The 3-million-gallon heavy-metal spill two weeks ago in Silverton polluted three states and touched off national outrage. But the EPA escaped public wrath in 2005 when it secretly dumped up to 15,000 tons of poisonous waste into another mine 124 miles away. That dump – containing arsenic, lead and other materials – materialized in runoff in the town of Leadville, said Todd Hennis, who owns both mines along with numerous others.

“If a private company had done this, they would’ve been fined out of existence,” Hennis said. “I have been battling the EPA for 10 years and they have done nothing but create pollution.

Photo from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

EPA DISASTER: An estimated three million gallons of pollutants spilled into the Animas River after an EPA reclamation project was botched.

Richards continues her report,

“I said, ‘No, I don’t want you on my land out of fear that you will create additional pollution like you did in Leadville,’” Hennis said. The official request turned into a threat, Hennis said: “They said, ‘If you don’t give us access within four days, we will fine you $35,000 a day.’”

...When the EPA hit Hennis with $300,000 in fines, he said, he “waved the white flag” and allowed the agency on his property.

Read more here.

EPA misconduct

It isn't just what they did to the Animas River in Colorado. At Breitbart Michael Patrick Leahy takes a look at many similar instances of EPA misconduct.

Was it EPA incompetence, or done on purpose?

Tyler Durden reports at Zero Hedge,

A week before The EPA disastrously leaked millions of gallons of toxic waste into The Animas River in Colorado, this letter to the editor was published in The Silverton Standard & The Miner local newspaper, authored by a retired geologist detailing verbatim, how EPA would foul the Animas River on purpose in order to secure superfund money...

Read the letter from the retired geologist here.

Define "held responsible"

A retired Colonel, who is a friend of mine, writes a letter to his Congressman:

Congressman Buck, You say the EPA will be "held accountable." I will ask you, sir," to define "held accountable." As with Lois Lerner (IRS)? Hillary Clinton (Benghazi)? That phrase has become an euphemism for kicking the can down the road (another horribly overworked phrase). Exactly what does that accountability entail? Getting somebody fired? Somebody going to prison? If you mean you'll try to fine the EPA, that may be a real problem for you in Congress, as they are authorized to do their own investigation, determination and adjudication on themselves as an Agency. That's the power Congress gave them. Correct me if I'm wrong. The EPA first determines if the EPA needs to be investigated. Then the EPA does the investigation of the EPA. Then the EPA decides if the EPA is innocent (not at fault) or guilty (at fault). If the EPA finds the EPA guilty (at fault) then the EPA decides on the punishment. If that punishment entails the EPA fining he EPA, the he EPA pays the fine to the EPA. Now, that SHOULD be just a matter of the EPA transferring money to the EPA. But, it will come to the EPA being reimbursed by WE TAXPAYERS for the fine the EPA had to pay to the EPA. Just how wrong am I in this description, Congressman? Oh, and if the EPA has to pay Colorado, in this instance, do not we taxpayers across the nation pick up the tab for whatever the EPA pays to Colorado.

Exxon Valdea and British Petroleum didn't get reimbursed by the taxpayers when they had the oil spills. But the EPA will not suffer one whit for it's big blunder. See, even I use "its" instead of "their" when referring to an agency. When accountability is called for, there are suddenly no "persons" to point to. Only buildings and spokespersons for the suddenly invisible agency leadership.

We've got one pretty screwed up system since Congress turned it's responsibilities over to the EPA, the NSA, and all the other "A's" and the Directors and Czars who run them with virtual impunity.
Colonel Curtis D. Dale, PhD, USAF (Ret)

Imposing rules they don't live by

Mark Steyn on government bureaucrats:

The lesson of the IRS is that if you said to the IRS what they say to their congressional investigators, you'd go to jail. In other words, if you were to say to them, "Well sorry, I lost all the paperwork and accidentally deleted it and the server's broken and there's no way I can get it back", you'd go to jail if you were to say to the IRS what the IRS said to congressional investigators... Now we learn it's exactly the same thing with the EPA: what happened to British Petroleum is not gonna happen to the guys who run the EPA. And that's the way it is with every government bureaucracy. They impose rules on you that they don't live by...

Read more here.

Changing the subject

"Protecting" our precious resources

Of course I liked this Ghostbusters video Ace linked to today, in light of the actions taken by the EPA spilling 300 million gallons of toxic waste into the beautiful rivers flowing from the San Juan mountains in Colorado this week.

Media covers up EPA's responsibility for pollution of beautiful Animas River

Tom Blumer notes at Bizzy Blog that the press has ignored or downplayed the fact that the EPA was responsible for the toxic waste dumped into the Animas River in Southwest Colorado. The media slants every story on every subject.

Will the EPA now sue itself?

One of the most spectacularly beautiful rivers in America is the Animas, which flows from above Silverton, Colorado all the way down through Durango, Colorado and then south into New Mexico.

Now look at it!

How did this happen? The Environmental Protection Agency caused it! This afternoon the EPA issued this statement:

On August 5, 2015, EPA was conducting an investigation of the Gold King Mine. The intent of the investigation was to assess the on-going water releases from the mine and to treat mine water and to assess the feasibility of further mine remediation. The plan was to excavate the loose material that had collapsed into the cave entry back to the timbering. During the excavation, the loose material gave way, opening the adit (mine tunnel) and spilling the water stored behind the collapsed material into Cement Creek, a tributary of the Animas River.

Will the EPA now sue itself?
Read more here.