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Tag:

EPA

BlogFrom the Desk of Bob Barr

“Animasgate” Highlights EPA Double Standard

by lgadmin August 12, 2015
written by lgadmin

President Ronald Reagan was known as the “Great Communicator” for his remarkable ability to distill complex political and philosophical principles into one-liners that virtually any audience or political leader could understand. For example, when speaking to representatives of the Future Farmers of America on what happens when the government becomes involved in agriculture, Reagan famously quipped, “The 10 most dangerous words in the English language are, ‘Hi, I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.’”

Today, as orange water saturated with toxic contaminants flows down the Animas River from Colorado towards the farmlands of the Southwest — because of a blunder by federal workers — the words of the “Gipper” ring louder than ever.

The environmental disaster unfolding in Colorado is one of the worst since the 2010 “BP Oil Spill” in the Gulf of Mexico. This time, however, it is the federal government — more specifically, the Environmental Protection Agency – that is responsible for the mess. While poking around the old Gold King Mine in Colorado as part of a “clean up program,” EPA crews broke through a retaining barrier. The breach released some three million gallons of heavy metal-laden water into the river, which flows into New Mexico and from there into the vast San Juan River Basin.

Compounding the problem of the spill itself is the EPA’s slowness in admitting to and detailing the scope of the disaster, including how much toxic sludge was actually released and the extent of the risk to citizens and lands downstream in both the short-term and, more importantly, the long-term hazards. Without a private sector company or citizen to blame, the EPA is loath to hold itself accountable, or to practice the transparency it so often demands of the private sector.

The EPA downplays its environmental blunder that has become “Animasgate” as merely “trigger[ing] a large release of mine wastewater.” The Agency presents itself as a victim in a “tragedy” with which we should sympathize because it is, after all, so “hard being on the other side.” Well, boo hoo!

Compare this “woe is me” scenario to the vitriolic attacks by the federal government against BP following the Gulf Oil Leak five years ago, when no mercy was shown to the corporation that was responsible for the accidental spill. The Department of Justice blasted BP’s “culture of . . . profit over prudence” and accused it of “gross negligence”; the Securities and Exchange Commission charged BP with “hid[ing] critical information simply because it fears the backlash”; and, the EPA temporarily banned BP from new government contracts, citing the company’s “lack of business integrity.”

The double standard so blatantly on display in this instance by the feds, is made worse by the fact that the government can not only levy huge fines against companies (or individuals) who violate environmental regulations and laws, but can pound them with criminal charges as well. However, when the shoe is on the other foot, and it is Uncle Sam’s bureaucrats who are at fault, how are they to be held to account? What incentive does EPA have to do what it demanded of BP – to spare no cost in rectifying the problem to the government’s satisfaction; and to do so with absolute transparency and repeated admissions of guilt.

Even our judicial system offers little hope to the victims of the Animas River Spill; because it is so institutionally rigged in favor of the government.

At least when corporations are the agents of environmental disasters, those adversely affected have recourse in the courts. Not so with government agencies, which largely are shielded from being subject to lawsuits through doctrines such as sovereign immunity. There is, in effect, an inverse relationship between giving government agencies, including EPA, more power, and making it accountable for the use (or abuse) of those powers.

The far Left may claim a moral monopoly on protecting the environment, but none of its pro-regulation, anti-business “solutions” to environmental woes have done anything more than empower government to punish those who defy its demands, while insulating itself from culpability when it cannot live up to those same standards.

While neither the mainstream media nor the political arms of the Left would ever admit, it is conservatives who possess a far more legitimate claim to being leaders in the fight to protect the environment. From the tens of millions of hunters, farmers, outdoorsmen, and others who have a personal stake in conserving and protecting America’s natural resources, to entrepreneurs like Tesla’s Elon Musk who are pioneering the future of renewable energy — it will be the free market that delivers the tools, technology, and ideas used to improve our world. And, as Reagan stated so eloquently decades ago, the private sector’s potential for good is limited only by the government’s desire to “help” it along.

With “help” such as provided by EPA last week in Colorado, the country – and the environment — would be far better off if Uncle Sam just stayed home.

Originally published here via townhall.com

August 12, 2015 0 comment
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From the Desk of Bob Barr

The Emperor’s New Climate

by Liberty Guard Author September 24, 2014
written by Liberty Guard Author

Last weekend, an estimated 300,000 “climate change” evangelists flooded the streets of New York City, creating traffic jams and leaving the streets littered withtrash and waste. Their publicly-stated goal? — to raise awareness about “climate change,” as if decades of yelling, bullying, and name-calling has not left the public well-aware of the movement’s agenda. As expected, the march attracted its usual suspects clothed in their standard green hypocrisy. Al Gore left the march in an SUV. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an environmental lawyer, got testy with a reporterwhen asked if he was going to “lead by example” and give up his cell phone.

Even employing its self-avowed standards of calculating the “environmental impact” of actions, the march itself, with hundreds of thousands of people from across the globe descending upon the city, was an environmental disaster.

Of course, facts, history and logic are not elements readily apparent within this crowd, especially among those who dare not question the fanatical claims about the consequences if immediate action is not taken to put a stop to what used to be known as “global warming,” but now is referred to more vaguely as “climate change.” Furthermore, the “immediate action” for which these environmental zealots clamor is well known as liberal-speak for “government regulation;” their panacea for everything under the sun.

The fact is, “environmental conservation” is not a social good owned exclusively by liberals. Every hunter and sportsman appreciates the importance of protecting Earth’s natural resources. It is also one of the many important lessons taught over the past century by the Boy Scouts. “Appreciation for our natural environment and a knowledge of the interrelationships of nature bolster our respect and reverence toward the environment and nature,” say the Scouts.

The common-sense notion of personal environmental stewardship as practiced for generations by the Scouts reflects a community effort to keep our environment clean, and leaving the world better than when we found it. Unfortunately, true concern for the environment is not the objective of today’s environmental warriors, like those who marched in the Big Apple last weekend.

Radical environmentalism, not unlike many of the Left’s other crusades, is a thinly veiled cover for a brand of forced living standards and mandated anti-capitalism not at all unlike traditional Communism. Today, “environmentalism” is less about taking common sense, personal steps toward environmental stewardship, than it is throwing a monkey wrench into the industrial world and bringing technological progress to a grinding stop, regardless of the impact on humanity.

This anti-corporate, anti-freedom “progressive” movement is made effective not by rational argument, but by acid rhetoric, propaganda, and both academic and monetary fraud. Its proponents use these tools purposefully to create a false dichotomy in which the only “moral” position is to agree with them, lest one be labeled a climate change “denier” or “skeptic” – environmentalist jargon used by the Mainstream Media to insinuate that global warming critics are Neanderthals who reject “proven science.”

It is a modern day version of the old tale of the Emperor’s New Clothes.

Of course, even when significant, and damning, progress is made by critics atdebunking the junk science used by global warming alarmists to justify all manner of social re-engineering, the goalposts are simply moved, and the script is altered to keep their game alive. It does not matter that the Earth has been cooling over the last decade — they simply change the nomenclature of the debate from “global warming” to “climate change,” according to which you will always be right because the climate always will change, even if not known in what direction. In this environmental Bizarro World manipulation is condoned because the laudable goal of these “scientists” is to save the planet.

Periodically, Hollywood A-Listers will step forward to hold fund-raisers, bloviate about how they love Planet Earth, and spend millions making another sci-fi spectacular about how political and corporate bad guys have destroyed Earth. Man-made global warming may be a myth, but the agenda of these enviro-socialists is very real.

In the short term, the goal of these anti-capitalist crusaders is a global initiative, marked most recently by Obama’s visit on Tuesday with U.N. leaders to address a “global framework” for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. President Obama has shown little restraint in using costly, job-killing environmental regulations (or, in the case of the Keystone Pipeline, taking no action at all) to appease his liberal base. In an election year in which Democrats are struggling to paper over the vast failures of this Administration, it is virtually certain American businesses and taxpayers will be hit with even more of this costly and counter-productive environmental chicanery.

September 24, 2014 0 comment
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