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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTeam Trump Is Launching a Frontal Assault on the EPA
By Ed Kilgore
Anyone laboring under the impression that the new Trump administration will be all bark and no bite when it comes to overturning long-established bipartisan policies should watch Team Trumps assault on the Environmental Protection Agency closely. Aside from appointing Scott Pruitt, who is mainly familiar with EPA as a hated adversary in court, to be in charge of that agency, plans for an initial regulatory wave and budgetary policies amount to a 180-degree turn in environmental enforcement, as reported today by Axios. They include the complete elimination of climate-change programs; a half-billion-dollars in funding cuts for EPA grants to state and local governments; an immediate halt to Clean Air Act regulations affecting new and existing power plants; an about-face on auto emissions standards; and a general defanging of EPAs crucial ability to overrule federal and state regulations that pose environmental dangers.
Thats probably just the beginning, because these plans were formulated by Trumps EPA transition director, Myron Ebell, mostly famous as a climate-change skeptic, but more generally active as a policy wonk at a very prominent libertarian-ish think tank called the Competitive Enterprise Institute, financed mostly by a rogues gallery of fossil-fuel industries and right-wing foundations.
more
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/01/team-trump-is-launching-a-frontal-assault-on-the-epa.html
underpants
(182,947 posts)The cake was fake. Not just a stolen design. The cake wasn't made to be eaten
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=8522004
Doreen
(11,686 posts)Get ready to welcome back "the aroma of Tacoma" because those are about to come back with dictator Trump.
JudyM
(29,293 posts)geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Regs that have gone through the notice and comment process before being finalized can't just be dumped "because we say so." Especially if there's a long record of science indicating the need for such measures.
Bush didn't keep much of Clinton's work out of the goodness of his heart.