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Feds’ Routine Tyranny Suggests They Aren’t as Afraid of the American People as They Should Be

BY: J.B. SHURK | AUGUST 16, 2022

The exterior of the Internal Revenue Service Building

J.B. SHURK

Alan Moore, author and social critic, asserts in “V for Vendetta” that “People shouldn’t be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people.” When a young director in Karachi, Pakistan, adapted “Vendetta” for a live theatrical performance 10 years ago, he repeated the line during the play’s curtain call to raucous applause from the audience. Moore’s simple words reflect poignantly the human desire to be free from government tyranny.

Moore’s statement is widely embraced in the United States, where “the people” are constitutionally vested with power over government. It is doubtful, however, that today’s permanent bureaucracy in Washington, D.C., would concur.

This philosophical divide between the American people and their government is an important one. Should the American people be afraid of the U.S. government? Of course not. Yet a new army of IRS agents that will be used to audit middle-class Americans and a partisan DOJ and FBI that routinely ignore leftist violence while throwing the book at MAGA voters strongly suggest otherwise.

Does the federal government still work for American citizens, or have American citizens become nothing more than subjects expected to obey Washington’s bureaucratic regime? For many Americans, the answer to that question is glaringly obvious.

After Chris Wray’s FBI launched an unprecedented raid of President Trump’s private residence at Mar-a-Lago on Aug. 8, the director’s immediate concern was not his agency’s appearance of impropriety but the denouncement of his lackeys’ behavior by the American public.

“I’m always concerned about threats to law enforcement,” Wray declared while saying nothing of threats to Americans from federal law enforcement. Who is more of a threat to American liberty: citizens using their constitutionally protected free speech to criticize the FBI or wayward FBI agents acting under the color of law?

Clearly, those with great power represent the greatest threat to freedom. For those such as Wray, who believe the FBI is the real victim, it is the citizen expressing himself who must be held accountable.

Wray’s decision to shield his agents from criticism while obliquely intimidating citizens is hardly a departure from the federal government’s standard operating procedure. Before the Democrats’ recent addition of 87,000 new prying IRS agents to hound American taxpayers, including the hiring of agents who will “carry a firearm and be willing to use deadly force,” Barack Obama’s IRS was already targeting and harassing conservative organizations.

Why should Americans expect a greatly expanded and well-armed IRS to behave any differently this time?

A similar abuse of power during Obama’s presidency occurred when his Environmental Protection Agency released “sensitive, private, and personal materials on more than 100,000 farmers and ranchers” to outside environmental groups in what was seen as an intentional effort to promote “eco-activist tyranny.” It was not enough for the EPA to harass America’s farmers with endless agricultural, livestock, and water regulations; the agency decided to permit outside “help” to further its interests in enforcing “green” regulations.

Now that congressional Democrats have succeeded in finding a path for greatly expanding the Green New Deal “climate change” agenda, it is likely that the EPA’s harassment of farmers will continue in the future.

The FBI, the IRS, and the EPA are but three agencies with tremendous powers that can be used to intimidate or imperil Americans. There are more than 400 departments, agencies, and sub-agencies within the federal government, and “no one knows definitively how many agencies, components, and commissions exist.”

Each of these authorities is constantly issuing rules, regulations, and guidelines that affect Americans’ rights and liberties without their knowledge. Each of those bodies exercises jurisdiction over the American people in ways that most don’t even realize. Does this sound like a government afraid of its citizens or tyranny?

J.B. Shurk is a freedom-minded, anti-establishment, sometimes unorthodox, committed generalist and a proud American from Daniel Boone country.

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Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Liberty Wins Again!

A.F. BRANCO | on July 1, 2022 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-liberty-wins-again/

The Supreme Court rules against the tyrannical EPA administration inflicting its unconstitutional policies against America.

SCOTUS EPA Ruling — **Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2022.**

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A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.

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Trump EPA finalizes rule to gut Obama coal plant regulations

Written by Josh Siegel | June 19, 2019 12:00 AM | Updated Jun 19, 2019, 10:23 AM

URL of the original posting site: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/energy/trump-epa-finalizing-rule-to-gut-obama-coal-plant-regulations

The Trump administration finalized Wednesday its much-anticipated rule gutting President Barack Obama’s signature plan for reducing carbon emissions from coal plants to combat climate change. The Environmental Protection Agency released its replacement of Obama’s Clean Power Plan with a modest rule intended to encourage efficiency upgrades at coal plants to help them exist longer and emit less pollution.

“ACE will continue our nation’s environmental progress and will do so legally and with respect for the states,” EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said at a press conference Wednesday, where he was joined by White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, other administration officials, and Republican members of Congress from coal states. “The ACE rule will incentivize new technologies so coal plants can be part of our energy future.”

The Trump administration plan, known as the Affordable Clean Energy or ACE rule, encourages states to allow utilities to make heat rate improvements in power plants, enabling them to run more efficiently by burning less coal to produce the same amount of electricity. Under current rules, power plants must undergo new pollution reviews when they upgrade facilities, making it prohibitively expensive.

The rule is not projected to meaningfully reduce emissions, and is expected to have little effect on the actions of electric utilities that are already switching away from expensive coal to cheaper natural gas and renewables without a federal regulation.

The focus on regulating power plants individually is a rejection of the Clean Power Plan, which allowed for efficiency upgrades, but also sought to push the overall power sector to switch away from coal to natural gas and renewables.

The Clean Power Plan required states to reduce carbon dioxide emissions 32% below 2005 levels by 2030.

The Trump administration rule, unlike the Clean Power Plan, does not set a specific target for the power sector to reduce carbon emissions, giving states the authority to write their own plans for reducing pollution at individual plants.

In choosing to replace the Clean Power Plan, rather than repeal it outright, the EPA is acknowledging the federal government is legally obligated to regulate carbon emissions that cause climate change. Environmentalists and Democratic states, however, plan to sue the Trump administration, arguing the rule does not meaningfully fulfill the bare-bones requirement of the Clean Air Act since it would not significantly cut carbon emissions by keeping alive coal plants with efficiency improvements that would otherwise retire.

Carbon emissions rose in 2018 for the first time in eight years.

“What a responsible administration would do is strengthen the Clean Power Plan, not kill it,” said David Doniger, senior strategic director of the Climate and Clean Energy Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, which will be among the groups suing the EPA. “We will attack this because it attempts to cripple the Clean Air Act as a tool to tackle climate change.”

Courts never ruled on the legality of the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan — even though the Supreme Court stayed the rule.

Trump’s EPA, and conservative state attorneys general who filed suit, argued that Obama’s approach was expansive and illegal.

The relevant section of the Clean Air Act, section 111(D), says carbon pollution regulations must reflect “the best system of emission reduction” — without defining what that means. The Trump administration, critics say, is seeking to have the federal courts enshrine its narrow view of law.

“They are looking to define the limits of EPA’s regulatory authority,” said Jeff Holmstead, a former deputy administrator of the EPA in the George W. Bush administration and energy industry attorney who agrees with the Trump administration’s approach. “The ACE rule can establish what EPA can do when it comes to regulating emissions from the power sector.”

EPA says the new rule will reduce carbon emissions by as much as 35% below 2005 levels in 2030 — similar to projections for the Clean Power Plan — but most of that would occur from market forces absent any regulation. EPA, in a fact sheet accompanying the rule, projects ACE will cut carbon emissions 11 million tons by 2030, but that’s only about a 0.84% reduction compared to what would occur with no regulation.

A senior EPA official, briefing reporters Wednesday, acknowledged some coal plants will increase emissions over their lifetime if they apply efficiency improvements and operate longer, rather than retire.

“It will yield virtually no reductions in C02 emissions,” said Joseph Goffman, an environmental law professor at Harvard University who was a chief architect of the Clean Power Plan, speaking on a phone call with reporters. The EPA is looking to “simply be a grudging cheerleader for what the utility sector is doing anyway, not for climate change reasons, but simply for business reasons,” he added.

Large utilities that are transitioning off coal have said EPA’s effort to encourage efficiency upgrades at coal plants will not inspire them to alter plans to switch to cleaner energy.

“We are on our path. We are going to stay on our path,” Dominion CEO Thomas Farrell told the Washington Examiner this month at a utility industry conference.

Coal has fallen from 55% of power produced by Dominion to 11%, he said, helping the company stay on track for its goal of reducing emissions 50% by 2030 and 80% by 2050.

Ohio-based American Electric Power, one of the nation’s largest utilities, has similar views on the Trump pitch, even though it opposed the Clean Power Plan. It aims to reduce coal use from nearly half its electricity mix to 27% by 2030, while cutting its carbon emissions 80% by 2050.

“AEP’s long-term strategy remains focused on modernizing the power grid, expanding renewable energy resources and delivering cost-effective, reliable energy to our customers,” Tammy Ridout, an AEP spokeswoman, told the Washington Examiner.

Indeed, many coal plants across the industry are too old to make upgrades worth investing in. Others have already done the efficiency work EPA outlines in its proposal, utility industry analysts say.

Trump EPA’s coal plan could be most beneficial for smaller utilities, like co-ops that provide energy to rural consumers. These utilities aim to keep rates as low as possible because many of their users are low-income, and it would cost less to upgrade an existing coal plant than to invest in a new facility.

“The final ACE rule gives electric cooperatives the ability to adopt evolving technology and respond to market and consumer demands while continuing to serve as engines of economic development for one in eight Americans,” said Jim Matheson, CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative, a trade group representing more than 900 co-ops in 47 states.

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MORE Politically INCORRECT Cartoons for April 10, 2018

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How Trump Maintains Anti-Regulatory Momentum

Authored by Luke Popovich | Updated 28 Feb 2017 at 7:36 AM

One of the themes emerging from the new Trump administration is a focus on overturning onerous regulations currently smothering American industries. It’s a laudable goal, since government rules bear so heavily on middle-class job creation.

On Feb. 24, the president signed an executive order tasking officials with peeling back excess regulation. The president still faces a fairly big problem, however, since behind each regulatory door he opens, there are two more doors.

Essentially, the Obama administration spent its second term cooking up a wide array of environmental measures that were both ideologically conceived and bureaucratically cumbersome. And nowhere was such red tape stretched more aggressively than in the quest to keep coal and minerals in the ground.

Already, President Trump has followed through on some of his campaign pledges. For example, he signed a congressional resolution overturning the Obama-era “stream rule.” This massive rule simply duplicated existing measures to monitor coal mining and land reclamation. Thus, canceling the rule will not meaningfully impact environmental standards already in place. But it will lift the hefty costs intended to punish mining firms simply for extracting a carbon-based source of energy.

That’s merely step one for the Trump administration, though. There’s more to do.

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First off, there’s the leasing moratorium imposed on coal reserves on federal lands. Even though federal coal accounts for 42 percent of total U.S. coal production — while being responsible for 40 percent of total coal-generated electricity in 2014 — the Interior Department decided last year to shut down new coal leases for three years.

This smacks of political payoffs to activists since taxpayers receive 39 cents from every dollar earned from federal lease sales while the net global “carbon contribution” from federal coal is negligible. The moratorium solved a problem no one had. The good news is that this moratorium can be lifted by the new Interior Department secretary as easily as it was imposed by his predecessor. Thus, after Ryan Zinke is confirmed for his post at the Interior Department, he could move quickly to end the moratorium.

Also in the administration’s purview is the Obama administration’s “Clean Power Plan” (CPP), the carbon reduction rule currently tied up in the D.C. Circuit Court. In essence, the CPP represents the zenith of regulatory ambition — a total transformation of the nation’s energy grid, engineered by an environmental agency hoping to impose the very cap-and-trade regime that Congress repeatedly rejected. The CPP is still breathing, but barely; it isn’t legally binding until the D.C. Circuit decides its dubious legality. But Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt has reiterated his intention to scrap the plan — an encouraging prospect for the millions of Americans living in states that depend heavily on electricity from reliable and affordable coal-based power.

And finally, there’s the blundering excess of the financial assurance requirement that Obama’s EPA hoped to impose on hard-rock mining companies. It is already standard practice for mining firms in the United States to post financial assurances for the reclamation, closure, and post-closure costs of any mining site. But the EPA simply decided to duplicate these requirements, even though the process is already being managed successfully by state regulators as well as by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service.

Why would the EPA want to increase the financial burden on mining companies by requiring them to lay out additional capital for the same costs they’ve already covered? Because green activists have waged an ideological campaign opposed to mining, and the EPA simply acquiesced to their agenda. Ignored by these same environmentalists is their reliance on the very metals and minerals they would keep in the ground.

Trump Should End Obama Coal Lease Moratorium New energy production on federal lands will generate affordable electricity for the entire country Smartphones, for example, contain more than 40 metals and minerals extracted from state-of-the-art mining operations. And solar panels and wind turbines require copious amounts of bauxite, boron, cadmium, copper, cobalt, iron, molybdenum, etc. The new financial assurance requirement is another example of an environmental agenda lacking any real-world practicality.

Mining matters greatly to the future security of the United States, however. And it’s not just the reliable, affordable energy that coal provides. Or the critical minerals needed for 21st century technologies. There’s also the thousands upon thousands of good-paying, middle-class jobs on the line, and the economic impacts for industry and manufacturing.

This is why the Trump administration must continue to root out regulations that were conceived in an ideological vacuum — with little to justify their massive impact. Dismantling an anti-coal regulatory edifice, and ending the blanket hostility to mining, will do much to secure affordable energy and a stronger industrial base for America.

Luke Popovich is vice president for external communications at the National Mining Association (NMA).

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Trump Freezes EPA Grants to Liberal Pet Projects

Officials at the Environmental Protection Agency have reportedly been instructed to freeze all of the agency’s contracts and grant programs until officials in the new administration can conduct a top-to-bottom review.

“Right now we are in a holding pattern. The new EPA administration has asked that all contract and grant awards be temporarily suspended, effective immediately. Until we receive further clarification, this includes task orders and work assignments,” an internal email originally obtained by Pro Publica said.

In 2013, the EPA gave $84,000 to a researcher at the University of Michigan to study the effectiveness of using churches to promote environmental causes.

“The EPA awards more than $4 billion in funding for government grants and contracts each year,” Fox News reported on Tuesday.

A brief look at how some of that money was being spent under the Obama administration paints a clear picture as to why the new administration may be looking at an overhaul: In some cases, the Obama EPA has offered textbook case studies in how to waste taxpayer money on ideologically motivated projects.

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> Also in 2014, the EPA awarded $15,000 to the University of Tulsa to create a system that monitored how much water hotel guests used while showering. The proposal made the rather Orwellian promise that the “technology will … assist hotel guests in modifying their behavior.”

> As creepy and ideologically motivated as that grant may have been, at the very least it attempted to address domestic water waste. The agency gave $1.5 million to the University of Colorado and the National Center for Atmospheric Research to study pollution caused by residential cooking — in Africa.

> In 2013, the EPA gave $84,000 to a researcher at the University of Michigan to study the effectiveness of using churches to promote environmental causes.

“Climate change — which affects traditional faith-based efforts to improve human health, mitigate poverty and redress social inequity — is inspiring religious organizations to advocate for clean air and water, restore ecosystems, and conserve resources,” the grant stated. “This project seeks to understand the empirical experiences of faith-based environmental efforts within communities.”

> The EPA seems to really like the idea of using churches as political propaganda centers. In 2015, the Washington Free Beacon reported that the EPA gave a $30,000 “environmental justice grant” to a Unitarian church that has preached against “white privilege” and called America “structurally racist.”

While not spending money in foreign countries and encouraging pastors to promote radical environmentalism, the EPA also seems to have spent considerable funds trying to answer questions to which the collective wisdom of the human experience already knows the answer.

> In 2014, the EPA gave a post-grad student at the University of Oregon $84,000 to study the link between plants and people, and whether or not living in densely populated urban areas with little to no vegetation is unhealthy (it is).

While it is not yet known if current contracts will also be affected by the grant freeze, militant environmentalists across the country are undoubtedly pulling out their hair in fury at the news that no longer will the EPA spend money on liberal pet projects. Responsible Americans who wish their tax money be spent prudently, however, are likely to support the freeze.

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Obama’s EPA Spending MILLIONS Overseas

Authored by Ethan Barton, 11/23/2015

URL of the original posting site: http://dailycaller.com/2015/11/23/obamas-epa-spending-millions-overseas

U.S. President Barack Obama nominates air quality expert Gina McCarthy to lead the Environmental Protection Agency in the East Room of the White House in Washington. REUTERS/Larry

President Barack Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency has doled out nearly $25 million to foreign nations and entities — including many countries with terrible environmental track records through 135 separate grants. Officials at the EPA defend the awards to international organizations and foreign governments since 2009.

“Our limited international investments are focused where we can have the biggest environmental protection return,” EPA spokeswoman Melissa Harrison tells The Daily Caller News Foundation. “International grants allow the U.S. to engage internationally and address serious trans-boundary and global environmental problems affecting the public health and environmental quality of the US and its citizens.”

International grants represent less than one percent of the agency’s annual grant-making total, she says.

“The Obama administration views climate change with such religious fervor they are turning EPA bureaucrats into global climate change missionaries armed with foreign aid grants,” Open The Books founder Adam Andrzejewski tells TheDCNF.

“It matters how EPA is spending taxpayer dollars and our oversight of the agency’s grants and grant management is ongoing,” House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton

Upton’s committee discovered in 2011 the EPA was sending millions of tax dollars overseas and also prompted a 2015 investigation into the agency’s grant oversight.

“A September report from the nonpartisan watchdog Government Accountability Office (GAO) sounded the alarm that EPA lacks an effective strategy to address grant management,” the Michigan Republican says. “As we move forward, EPA must address the problems identified in the GAO report and follow their recommendations.”

Russia and China are the largest recipients of EPA grants when excluding international groups, such as the United Nations Environmental Programme and the World Health Organization (WHO), according to TheDCNF analysis of more than 100,000 grants. grants

Tied for the largest foreign grant is a $1 million award to a Washington state-based Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) to reduce black carbon emissions from diesel sources in the Russian Arctic. Russia is nearly finished building a large military base in the region, but a laboratory spokeswoman says the project didn’t examine military vehicles, TheDCNF previously reported.

The other $1 million grant was awarded to the Nordic Environment Finance Corporation (NEFCO) to manage a program that finances “Arctic Council projects addressing mitigation of black carbon emissions from diesel combustion,” according to the EPA.

“NEFCO finances green growth investments and projects primarily in Russia, Ukraine, Pelarus, Georgia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland as well as climate projects across the world,” according to the institution’s website.

maps

Those $1 million grants tie PNNL and NEFCO as the third biggest EPA recipients among international organizations. Those two grants alone also equate to almost half the foreign grant spending by EPA under Obama’s predecessor, President George W Bush.

The U.N.’s Environmental Programme and WHO are the top recipients, collecting $2.1 million and $1.5 million, respectively, according to TheDCNF analysis.

When international organizations are included, Switzerland rakes in the most EPA grant dollars with $1.8 million.

Of the 13 EPA grants to the country, 12 went to either WHO or a U.N. program. The remaining grant – worth $190,000 – was awarded to the Ministry of Environmental Protection of the People’s Republic of China to “strengthen China’s capacity to improve performance in five areas of environmental management,” including air and water. Delusional Mental Illness Gibberish

It’s unclear why the grant listed Switzerland as the “recipient country.”

A Collection In God We Trust freedom combo 2

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Why Did the Environmental Protection Agency Spend $1.4 Million on Guns?

Reported by Ed Feulner / @EdFeulner / October 30, 2015

URL of the original posting site: http://dailysignal.com/2015/10/30/why-did-the-environmental-protection-agency-spend-1-4-million-on-guns/?utm_source=heritagefoundation&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=morningbell&mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRouvajNZKXonjHpfsX74%2BokW6S2hYkz2EFye%2BLIHETpodcMTcFiPL3YDBceEJhqyQJxPr3NLtQN191pRhLiDA%3D%3D

Open the Books found that the agency has spent millions of dollars over the last decade on guns, ammo, body armor, camouflage equipment, unmanned aircraft, amphibious assault ships, radar and night-vision gear, and other military-style weaponry and surveillance activities.(Photo: Skyhobo/iStock)

Even those of us who have worked in Washington for many years and become accustomed to the inner workings of government can still be amazed by what lurks behind the curtain sometimes. Case in point: the Environmental Protection Agency. Most Americans have at least heard of the EPA, even if they have only a dim notion of what the agency actually does. It tends to skate along under the radar, unless something unusual happens, such as the toxic spill that turned the Colorado’s Animas River orange last August. Of course, what really made the spill unusual is that the EPA itself caused it.

Otherwise, Americans don’t hear much about the agency. So many of them would probably be as unpleasantly surprised as I was by a new report by Open the Books, a nonprofit group that promotes government transparency. Its look into the EPA’s spending habits is alarming, to put it mildly.

The first thing that strikes you is the EPA’s spendthrift ways. Even if times were flush and government coffers were overflowing (which is far from the case), the agency spends money like it’s expecting the Second Coming next week. The Open the Books audit covered tens of thousands of checks the EPA wrote from 2000 to 2014, with hundreds of millions going toward such things as luxury furnishings, sports equipment, and “environmental justice” grants to raise awareness of global warming.

The second thing that hits you is where the rest of the money goes. The headline of an op-ed by economist Stephen Moore in Investor’s Business Daily sums it up well: “Why Does the EPA Need Guns, Ammo, and Armor to Protect the Environment?” And not just a few weapons. Open the Books found that the agency has spent millions of dollars over the last decade on guns, ammo, body armor, camouflage equipment, unmanned aircraft, amphibious assault ships, radar and night-vision gear, and other military-style weaponry and surveillance activities.

“We were shocked ourselves to find these kinds of pervasive expenditures at an agency that is supposed to be involved in clean air and clean water,” said Open the Books founder Adam Andrzejewski. “Some of these weapons are for full-scale military operations.”

Among the EPA’s purchases:

$1.4 million for “guns up to 300mm.”
$380,000 for “ammunition.”
$210,000 for “camouflage and other deceptive equipment.”
$208,000 for “radar and night-vision equipment.”
$31,000 for “armament training devices.”

The list goes on. It’s filled with the kind of equipment you’d expect to be purchased by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, not an agency ostensibly designed to protect the environment.

But as it turns out, armed, commando-style raids by the EPA are not unheard of. One such raid occurred in 2013, in a small Alaskan town where armed agents in full body armor reportedly confronted local miners accused of polluting local waters. Perhaps the agency is gearing up for more operations like that one?

If so, the EPA wouldn’t be all that unique. According to the Justice Department, there are now 40 federal agencies with more than 100,000 officers authorized to carry guns and make arrests. They include the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The EPA audit underscores the need for serious budget cuts at the agency. In July, before the Colorado spill and the Open the Books report, environmental policy expert Nicolas Loris called on Congress to shrink the EPA’s budget, outlining several specific cuts that could be done immediately and with no detrimental effect on the environment.

“The proposed cuts outlined here merely scratch the surface of a rogue agency that has wildly spent and regulated outside its purview,” Loris concluded. After reviewing the Open the Books report, who can disagree?

Originally published in The Washington Times.

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Did the EPA try to create its own militia?

Posted by Convention of States Project on October 22, 2015

URL of the original posting site: http://www.conventionofstates.com/did_the_epa_try_to_create_its_own_militia/?recruiter_id=11724

A congressional committee will investigate reports that the Environmental Protection Agency wasted billions of dollars, including an effort to create its own militia with a prosecution arm to mirror the FBI’s.

Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, told Watchdog.org that a House committee will dig into allegations the EPA bought designer furniture and sporting goods equipment, and handed out hefty employee bonuses and grants to foreign countries – including China.

The charges are outlined in a recent report by Open the Books, a non-profit dedicated to transparency and oversight of government spending. The group analyzed agency spending beginning in 2000.

Despite budget sequestration, which mandated cutbacks and no raises, the EPA has thrived with its $8.13-billion budget, up $500 million from 2009. In fact, every president has increased the budget since Ronald Reagan in 1981.

“How can the EPA justify spending taxpayer dollars on questionable items like luxury furnishings and sports equipment?” asked Smith. “The agency also appears to have funneled millions of dollars to organizations outside the U.S. The EPA needs to remember they are accountable to the American taxpayer and should justify every dollar they spend.”

Smith, who heads the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, reviewed a copy of the Open the Books report provided by Watchdog, and said the committee “intends to investigate the possible misuse of public funds.”

The EPA is already on Smith’s bad side for withholding requested documents pertaining to the Animas River spill in Colorado as the committee prepared for a Sept. 9 hearing. During the hearing, an EPA official told the committee the Gold King Mine was walled off as a result of a cave-in. In fact, the EPA created the barricade, which allowed water to collect behind it — bursting when a hole was drilled, mine owner Todd Hennis told Watchdog.

Lawmakers in that hearing and another committee from the Senate blasted the EPA for its heavy-handed military-style treatment of citizens and companies who inadvertently create spills by “running them out of business” and “forcing them to go bankrupt.”

Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, said the EPA should be contacting the FBI for heavy-duty law enforcement action if any is needed.

Regardless, some-200 EPA “special agents” have the “latest state-of-the-art ‘policing’ gear such as ‘guns and ammunition up to 300MM,’ ‘camouflage and other deceptive equipment,’ ‘night vision,’ ‘unmanned aircraft,’ ‘radar,’ ‘body armor,’ ‘surveillance equipment,’ ‘mobile GPS monitors,’ and (they) train and investigate frequently alongside joint projects with Homeland Security,” the report said.

Click here to read more from Watchdog.org.

The EPA and other federal agencies are out of control, constitutionally and otherwise. It’s time to bring them back in line. An Article V Convention of States can restore the Founders’ vision of a limited federal government and curb the power of this and other overreaching federal agencies.

Click here to get involved!

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President Obama Orders EPA to Poison the Citizens of Crested Butte Colorado with Cancer Causing Cadmium

That would have been the Headline if President Bush were still in office. Here is the REAL Headline.

Jerry Broussard of WhatDidYouSay.org.

EPA crew at Standard Mine above Crested Butte triggers waste spill

Republican critics pounce on agency but locals still praise EPA willingness to step up and tackle toxic mines

By Bruce Finley, The Denver Post

URL of the original posting site: http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_28940776/epa-crew-at-standard-mine-above-crested-butte

An Environmental Protection Agency crew working at the Standard Mine above Crested Butte triggered a wastewater spill into a creek that flows into the town water supply — a small-scale repeat of the Gold King incident this year.

Only an estimated 2,000 gallons spilled Tuesday, amid efforts to open a collapsed portal. The impact on town water is expected to be minimal.

Critics pounced.

U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton said the spill — while not a disaster like the EPA-triggered 3 million-gallon Gold King deluge that turned the Animas River mustard-yellow — raises questions about EPA procedures.

“They told us things were going to be different. Now we have a spill. … We’ve apparently got a real challenge with the EPA, not only with notification but their accountability and their ability to adequately execute these types of cleanup projects,” Tipton said. “They’ve got resources. They’re the ones in charge of the program. And they’ve had two spills in my district alone. Is there a better way to approach this?”

The Standard Mine, five miles west of Crested Butte and abandoned, has been designated an environmental disaster since 2005 and targeted for a superfund cleanup. It is one of an estimated 230 inactive mines in Colorado that state officials know to be leaking toxic heavy metals into headwaters of the nation’s rivers.

EPA work at the Standard Mine was halted after the Aug. 5 Gold King blowout above Silverton — pending an EPA review of procedures at old mines. The Standard Mine work resumed Sept. 5.

Tuesday spill

The spill happened at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, and the EPA said it immediately informed public works officials. Residents weren’t notified. Crested Butte Mayor Aaron Huckstep said he wasn’t notified until Thursday.

EPA officials on Wednesday, responding to Denver Post queries about the mine, didn’t reveal the spill. On Thursday afternoon, the agency issued a prepared statement saying that, based on neutral acidity and creek flow levels, Crested Butte didn’t close its water intakes. “Subsequent investigation found no visible plume or signs of significant impacts in downstream locations,” the EPA said.

At the cleanup site, acidic wastewater laced with cancer-causing cadmium and other toxic heavy metals leaches out of the mine into Elk Creek, which flows into Coal Creek — a primary source of water for Crested Butte. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment has determined that the levels of arsenic, cadmium and zinc in Coal Creek exceed state standards. Huckstep requested EPA help testing water in Elk Creek, Coal Creek and in town.

“I want to make sure that the EPA’s work is being done in a diligent manner and that their contractors are following the right procedures. We’d like to see these types of events not happen,” Huckstep said.

“Obviously, after Gold King, there’s a high level of public concern and attention — rightfully so. … The EPA is willing to come in and do the work. We support that. But we want to make sure that these types of circumstances don’t happen.”

The local Coal Creek Watershed Coalition began additional water sampling along the waterways “to determine what the impact of the spill was,” director Zach Vaughter said.

“While this event is unfortunate, we have a great cooperation and partnership with the EPA working on our watershed. … From what I understand, they’ve kept town staff and the coalition in the loop.”

The EPA has been working toward installation of a long-planned bulkhead plug inside the mine, an effort to reduce the flow of acidic wastewater leaching cadmium, arsenic, lead and manganese from tailings and tunnels.

How it happened

EPA crew members were drilling a new opening at the mine, parallel to a portal that is partially collapsed. They were using a vacuum truck to siphon water from a waste pond, but the truck “dipped too low,” the EPA’s statement said, causing grey-colored water from inside the mine and sediment to spill into Elk Creek.

Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman, who threatened legal action after the Gold King disaster, said she’ll do all she can to protect state resources and hold the EPA responsible. “Once again the Environmental Protection Agency has apparently endangered Colorado’s waterways while drilling at an abandoned mine,” Coffman said. “I continue to be concerned that the EPA wants to zealously regulate Colorado’s resources but refuses to be accountable for their own activities when they negatively impact our state.”

Bruce Finley: 303-954-1700303-954-1700, bfinley@denverpost.com or @finleybruce

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Judge blocks new federal rule on jurisdiction of waterways

Published August 28, 2015; FoxNews.com

URL of the original posting site: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/08/28/judge-blocks-new-federal-rule-on-jurisdiction-waterways/?intcmp=hpbt1

A federal judge in North Dakota on Thursday blocked a new Obama administration rule that would give the federal government jurisdiction over some state waterways. U.S. District Judge Ralph Erickson of North Dakota issued a temporary injunction against the rule, which gives the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers authority to protect some streams, tributaries and wetlands under the Clean Water Act. The rule was scheduled to take effect Friday. “The risk of irreparable harm to the states is both imminent and likely,” Erickson said in blocking the rule from taking effect.

Thirteen states led by North Dakota asked Erickson to suspend guidelines that they say are unnecessary and infringe on state sovereignty. The federal government says the new rule clarifies ambiguity in the law and actually makes it easier for the states to manage some waterways. It wasn’t immediately clear if the injunction applied to states other than the 13 led by North Dakota.”

The other states involved in the lawsuit are Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Nevada, South Dakota and Wyoming.

State officials in North Dakota said the new rule will cost the state millions of dollars and take away from more important programs. State Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring said there’s “confusion and anxiety” among farmers and other landowners over the initiative.

North Dakota congressman Kevin Cramer called the judge’s ruling a “victory:” “North Dakota landowners and energy workers and their peers around the country will be temporarily spared the devastating consequences of an onerous rule. This is appropriate, given the judicial history of this issue and its impact on states and property rights. The injunction provides time for Congress to continue working toward a fix and for a complete judicial review of the legal merits of the rule.”

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At the very least, state officials argued, more time was needed to study the rule, which was finalized on May 27.

The government lawyers said during a hearing in Fargo last week that North Dakota’s objection wrongly assumes some bodies of water will be affected. They also argued the state is already going through some of the permitting procedures they’re complaining about.

North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem — along with attorneys general and officials from 30 other states — sent a letter last month to the EPA and the Army Corps asking that the law be postponed at least nine months. Lawyers for the states say they heard nothing back from the government, so they filed a request for a preliminary injunction.

The federal government said the request for an injunction was better suited to be heard by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rather than a federal judge, but Erickson rejected that notion.

“The Waters of the United States rule is unlawful and an abuse of executive power,” said Julia Slingsby, press secretary of the Natural Resources committee in a statement to Fox News. “The judge’s decision to block the rule— which was challenged by 13 states – is encouraging, especially as EPA’s credibility has been questioned in the past month. The EPA needs to be stopped before it does more harm to our nation’s precious water resources.”

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Wyoming man files suit over massive EPA fines for building pond

By Eric Boehm; Published August 28, 2015

URL of the original posting site: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/08/28/wyoming-man-challenges-outrageous-epa-fines/?intcmp=hpbt2

A rancher is taking the Environmental Protection Agency to federal court, asking a judge to stop the agency from fining him more than $16 million because he built a small pond on his property. Andy Johnson of Fort Bridger, Wyoming says he made sure to get the proper permits from his state government before building the pond. After all, this is America in the 21st century, and nothing done on your own property — certainly when it involves the use of water — is beyond government concern.

Johnson is facing millions in fines from the federal government after the EPA determined his small pond — technically a “stock pond” to provide better access to water for animals on his ranch — is somehow violating the federal Clean Water Act. “We went through all the hoops that the state of Wyoming required, and I’m proud of what we built,” Johnson said. “The EPA ignored all that.”

In a compliance order, the EPA told Johnson he had to return his property — under federal oversight — to conditions before the stock pond was built. When he refused to comply, the EPA tagged Johnson with a fines of $37,000 per day.

Dismantling the pond within the 30-day window the EPA originally gave him was “physically impossible,” Johnson said.

That was in 2012. Today, Johnson owes the federal government more than $16 million, and the amount is growing as he tries to fight back. In a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court on Thursday, lawyers representing Johnson argue the EPA overstepped its authority by fining the rancher.

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Obama accuses Kochs of un-American campaign to undermine green energy

By Ben Wolfgang and Dave Boyer – The Washington Times – Monday, August 24, 2015

URL of the original posting site: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/aug/24/obama-accuses-koch-brothers-of-un-american-campaig

President Obama is promoting a platform of executive actions and private sector commitments to accelerate America’s transition to cleaner sources of energy. Republicans, however, say his plan will ultimately bring Americans higher power costs. (Associated Press)

LAS VEGAS, Nevada — President Obama accused conservative opponents of his climate change agenda Monday night of carrying out an un-American campaign to protect their fossil fuel interests at the expense of the country. “They’re trying to undermine competition in the marketplace and choke off consumer choice and threaten an industry that’s turning out new jobs at a fast pace,” Mr. Obama said at a clean here.

The president took aim particularly at the Koch brothers, saying they represent a faction in the U.S. opposed to investment in alternative energies such as solar power. “When you start seeing massive lobbying efforts backed by fossil fuel interests or conservative thinks tanks, or the Koch brothers pushing for new laws to roll back renewable energy standards or prevent new clean energy businesses from succeeding, that’s a problem,” Mr. Obama said. “That’s not the American way. That’s not progress. That’s not innovation. That’s rent-seeking, and trying to protect old ways of doing business and standing in the way of the future,” he said.

But a top House Republican said Mr. Obama is trying to fool the public with an agenda that will actually raise energy prices.

“Raising utility prices by as much as $1,000 per family, which will reduce GDP by as much half a percentage point a year, is not powering progress, but instead [is] a recipe for America’s decline and continued energy dependency,” said Rep. Rob Bishop, Utah Republican and chairman of the Committee on Natural Resources. “Instead of spending another $1 billion of taxpayer money to prop up noncompetitive sources of energy, the president should cut barriers to energy development on federal land and offshore,” Mr. Bishop said.

The president chided congressional Republicans for fighting higher spending on his clean energy agenda and instead “chasing mindless austerity.” He also said his push for clean energy has created “strange bedfellows” in political circles. “In some states we’ve got the Green Party and the tea party teaming up to protect our freedom to choose clean energy,” Mr. Obama said. “It is rare that the tea party leaders and I are on the same side of an issue. I agree with them here. This is not, and should not be, a Republican-versus-Democratic issue.”

The president said solar and wind energy are now more cost-effective than traditional ways of generating electricity, such as coal-burning power plants.

“Solar has helped a lot of construction workers find work, while Congress was dragging its feet on funding infrastructure projects,” he said. “Now is not the time to pull back on those investments.”

Mr. Obama said big companies such as Google and Costco are purchasing solar power because it makes sense for their bottom lines. “They’re not doing this out of altruism,” Mr. Obama said. “They’re doing this because it means big cost savings. The private sector is increasingly all in. I’m all for consumers saving money. Solar isn’t just for the green crowd anymore. It’s for the green eye-shade crowd, too.”

Mr. Obama’s speech comes amid the administration’s continued push for more renewable energy, which the president hopes will fully replace fossil fuels before the end of the century. The White House on Monday also rolled out a host of new executive actions designed to spur more clean power projects across the country. The administration is guaranteeing an additional $1 billion in loans for distributed energy projects, launching a new federal program to educate homeowners on how to increase energy efficiency, handing out $24 million in taxpayer money for 11 solar projects across seven states and taking other steps.

Phasing out fossil fuels — especially coal — and replacing them with renewable power is a cornerstone of Mr. Obama’s broader plan to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change. The president has pledged to the international community that the U.S. will cut its emissions by at least 26 percent by 2025 — a goal that’s only achievable with a significant increase in the amount of power generated by renewable sources. Specific pieces of the president’s climate agenda, such as the Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to dramatically cut carbon emissions from power plants, are only possible through major new investments in renewable energy. Critics say that proposal, along with other steps in the president’s climate agenda, will kill jobs and slow economic growth. Federal data also show that the EPA power plant rules in particular will raise electric bills for most American families, at least temporarily.

Beyond domestic steps, Mr. Obama also is eyeing an unprecedented international deal on global warming. In December he’ll travel to Paris for a key United Nations summit on climate change in the hopes of emerging with a landmark agreement reining in the world’s worst greenhouse gas emitters, including China.

• Dave Boyer reported from Washington.

California solar power station burning, killing birds in mid-air

By Nicole Mortillaro Science and Weather Reporter Global News

URL of the original posting site: http://globalnews.ca/news/1513420/california-solar-power-station-burning-killing-birds-in-mid-air

TORONTO – A solar-power generating station in central California is killing birds as they catch fire in the reflection of light from its massive array of mirrors, and now there are concerns that initial estimates of bird losses are too low. Workers at the $2.2 billion Ivanpah solar plant, which opened in December 2013, have a name for the birds unfortunate enough to be caught up in the mirrors’ light: streamers. This is due to the puff of smoke as the birds ignite in mid-air and fall to the ground. Instead of an estimated one thousand birds dying annually, that number could be as high as 28,000 a year, according to The Associated Press. And of particular concern to environmental groups is the planned project in another part of the state.

&amp;lt;img class=”story-img” src=”http://vipmedia.globalnews.ca/2014/08/bird-fried-solar-panels.jpg?quality=70&amp;#038;strip=all&amp;#038;w=512&amp;#038;h=288&amp;#038;crop=1″ alt=”This October 2013 photo provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows a burned MacGillivray&amp;#8217;s Warbler that was found at the Ivanpah solar plant in the California Mojave Desert.”&gt;

This October 2013 photo provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows a burned MacGillivray’s Warbler that was found at the Ivanpah solar plant in the California Mojave Desert.

BrightSource, NRG Power and Google are all investors in the massive generating station.

The solar plant doesn’t produce energy the way traditional solar cells do. Instead 300,000 mirrors are spread across 3,500 acres at the Ivanpah Dry Lake where they reflect sunlight to boilers that sit on top of three 459-foot tall towers. There they fluid in the boilers’ pipes, creating super-heated steam. That steam is then piped from the boiler to a turbine that generates power, providing electricity to 140,000 California homes.

In April the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service produced a report that chronicled their findings from three solar energy facilities in California, including Ivanpah.

“Ivanpah…produces solar flux, which is intense radiant energy focused by the mirror array on the power-generating station,” the report reads. “Objects that pass through this flux, including insects and birds, encounter extreme heat, although the extent of heating depends on many variables, including the duration of exposure and the precise location in the flux beam.”

A total of 141 dead birds were collected by officials over one year and five months, which included the construction phase. Of those, 47 died due to solar flux injury. The birds’ feathers were curled, charred, melted or broken.

The second most common cause of death at Ivanpah was impact trauma, believed to be caused when many of them collided with the mirrors. It could be because the mirrors reflected the blue sky which birds may have mistaken for water in the desert area.

A truck drives through an array of mirrors at the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System near Primm, Nev. The site uses over 300,000 mirrors to focus sunlight on boilers’ tubes atop 450 foot towers heating water into steam which in turn drives turbines to create electricity.

According to The Associated Press, with the new concerns raised, California’s energy commission attempting to determine whether pushing the limits of solar technology is worth the added damage to wildlife from the novel form of solar energy.

Brightsource has plans to build another plant in Palen, California, that would be twice as big as Ivanpah. “We need more data before any more of these projects get approved,” said Lisa Belenky, senior attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity. “We need to understand more about how many birds will be killed and we need to understand more about potential ways to stop that, if it’s possible.”

The proposed tower would produce a flux area that would be more than three times as large as the existing towers at Ivanpah, Belenky explained. And that could possibly pose more danger to migratory birds that travel from the Colorado River and Salton Sea.

The Palen Solar Power Project is currently in front of the California Energy Commission.

There are no projects like this in Canada.

–with files from The Associated Press

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EPA Knew of ‘Blowout’ Risk For Tainted Water at Gold Mine

Posted By Michael Biesecker | AP On August 22, 2015

Article printed from Infowars: http://www.infowars.com

URL to article: http://www.infowars.com/epa-knew-of-blowout-risk-for-tainted-water-at-gold-mine

Internal documents released late Friday show managers at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency were aware of the potential for a catastrophic “blowout” at an abandoned mine that could release “large volumes” of wastewater laced with toxic heavy metals.

EPA released the documents following weeks of prodding from The Associated Press and other media organizations. EPA and contract workers accidentally unleashed 3 million gallons of contaminated wastewater on Aug. 5 as they inspected the idled Gold King Mine near Silverton, Colorado. Among the documents is a June 2014 work order for a planned cleanup that noted that the old mine had not been accessible since 1995, when the entrance partially collapsed. The plan appears to have been produced by Environmental Restoration, a private contractor working for EPA.

“This condition has likely caused impounding of water behind the collapse,” the report says. “ln addition, other collapses within the workings may have occurred creating additional water impounding conditions. Conditions may exist that could result in a blowout of the blockages and cause a release of large volumes of contaminated mine waters and sediment from inside the mine, which contain concentrated heavy metals.”

A subsequent May 2015 action plan for the mine also notes the potential for a blowout.

There are at least three ongoing investigations into exactly how EPA triggered the disaster, which tainted rivers in Colorado, New Mexico and Utah with lead, arsenic and other contaminates. EPA says its water testing has shown contamination levels have since fallen back to pre-spill levels, though experts warn the heavy metals have likely sunk and mixed with bottom sediments that could someday be stirred back up.

The documents, which the agency released about 10:30 p.m. eastern time, do not include any account of what happened immediately before or after the spill. The wastewater flowed into a tributary of the Animas and San Juan rivers, turning them a sickly yellow.

Elected officials in affected states and elsewhere have been highly critical of the EPA’s initial response. Among the unanswered questions is why it took the agency nearly a day to inform local officials in downstream communities that rely on the rivers for drinking water. Much of the text in the documents released Friday was redacted by EPA officials. Among the items blacked out is the line in a 2013 safety plan for the Gold King job that specifies whether workers were required to have phones that could work at the remote site, which is more than 11,000 feet up a mountain.

EPA did not immediately respond Friday night to questions from the AP. In the wake of the spill, it has typically taken days to get any detailed response from the agency, if at all. On its website, contractor Environmental Restoration posted a brief statement last week confirming its employees were present at the mine when the spill occurred. The company declined to provide more detail, saying that to do so would violate “contractual confidentiality obligations.”

The EPA has not yet provided a copy of its contact with the firm. On the March 2015 cost estimate for the work released Friday, the agency blacked out all the dollar figures.

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Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon

O Well

August 20, 2015

URL of the original posting site: http://conservativebyte.com/2015/08/o-well

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Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon

EPA Runs Through It

August 15, 2015

URL 0of the original posting site: http://conservativebyte.com/2015/08/epa-runs-through-it

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EPA accident causes more water pollution than fracking does

Posted by Leslie Eastman Sunday, August 9, 2015 at 5:00pm | 8/9/2015 – 5:00pm

“1 million gallons of acidic wastewater spills, creating environmental and PR catastrophe”

When the history of the Obama administration is written, few agencies will top the Environmental Protection Agency for the thuggish misuse of regulatory power to work the President’s will.

It’s just too bad that in the quest to shut down America’s coal industry, it failed to actually do the job it was initially mandated to do: Protect the nation’s environment.

The Environmental Protection Agency, the federal agency committed to protecting “human health and the environment,” jeopardized both Wednesday by accidentally releasing one million gallons of wastewater into Colorado’s Animas River.

EPA bureaucrats were using heavy machinery to nose around the Gold King Mine near Durango, Colorado, when they triggered the release of wastewater containing heavy metals like zinc, iron, and copper.

The Denver Post reported that residents of Durango “gathered along the Animas River to watch as the blue waters turned a thick, radiant orange and yellow just after 8 p.m., nearly 34 hours after the spill started.”

The wastewater dumped was an acidic solution loaded with heavy metals (e.g., lead, arsenic), which created a harmful environment for aquatic life and an intriguing video opportunity for witnesses. The Cortez Journal offers this clip, as well as additional details on the spill:

The accident occurred about 10:30 a.m. Wednesday at the Gold King Mine in San Juan County. A mining and safety team working on behalf of the Environmental Protection Agency triggered the discharge, according to a news release issued by the EPA.

The EPA’s team was working with heavy equipment to secure and consolidate a safe way to enter the mine and access contaminated water, said Richard Mylott, a spokesman for the EPA in Denver. The project was intended to pump and treat the water and reduce metal pollution flowing out of the mine into Cement Creek, he said.

The agency’s initial response was to downplay the contamination. . . indicating the area was already polluted, implying there were basically no fish to kill.

…Due to current and longstanding water quality impairment associated with heavy metals there are no fish populations in the Cement Creek watershed and populations in the Animas River have historically been impaired for several miles downstream of Silverton.

Subsequently, EPA regional administrator Shaun McGrath had to walk back that initial response by saying, “Some of our earlier comments may have sounded cavalier about the public health concern and the concern for wildlife. I want to assure you that the EPA absolutely is concerned.”

Wildlife experts are not mollified, calling the EPA’s response deeply inadequate:

“Endangered species downstream of this spill are already afflicted by same toxic compounds like mercury and selenium that may be in this waste,” Taylor McKinnon, of the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement Thursday. “These species are hanging by a thread, and every new bit of toxic exposure makes a bad situation worse. EPA’s downplaying of potential impacts is troubling and raises deeper questions about the thoroughness of its mine-reclamation efforts.”

As an added bonus, the released wastewater will be streaming into Native American lands:

“This is an all too familiar story on the lax oversight responsibility of the US government,” said Russell Begaye, president of the Navajo Nation in a statement. “It is unfortunate that we have to once again tell our people to stay away from the river due to the release of dangerous chemicals into our water.” Begaye also called on the EPA to immediately release details of the water’s contaminants.

The city of Durango stopped pumping water out of the Animas River to prevent contaminating the city reservoir, out of concern for contamination of the drinking water.

This contrasts with fracking operations, often the target of environmental activists who claim it is a source of water pollution. In June, we noted that a report, released after years of study, indicated that fracking isn’t causing widespread damage to the nation’s drinking water.

So, the next time an eco-activist derides fracking, you can honestly point out the current EPA has been more toxic to the environment.

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Climate Scientists Rip Apart EPA’s Global Warming Rule

Posted by Michael Bastasch 08/04/2015

The Obama administration recently unveiled regulations further limiting carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, and some climate scientists are criticizing the rules for doing virtually nothing to reduce global temperature rises — the whole point of reducing CO2. “Well the one thing you don’t hear President [Barack] Obama mention is how much his proposed emissions reductions will reduce global warming,” wrote Dr. Judith Curry, a climatologist at Georgia Tech. “It has been estimated that the U.S. [climate plan] of 28% emissions reduction by 2025 will prevent 0.03 [degrees Celsius] in warming by 2100.” “And these estimates assume that climate model projections are correct,” Curry wrote, “if the climate models are over-sensitive to CO2, the amount of warming prevented will be even smaller.”

The EPA’s so-called Clean Power Plan aims to reduce emissions 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. The EPA has touted billions of dollars in public health and nebulous “climate benefits,” but avoids mention of the rule’s impact on global temperatures. Curry wasn’t alone in her criticism of the Obama administration’s global warming agenda, scientists with the libertarian Cato Institute criticized the plan for doing little for global temperature while increasing energy prices.

The EPA, however, argues the Clean Power Plan alone is not meant to address global warming, but instead they say rule will galvanize global support for an international agreement to cut CO2 emissions. The Obama administration has gotten tentative agreements from China and Brazil to curb their greenhouse gas emissions, but they won’t make any immediate cuts.

The agency also justified the Clean Power Plan by claiming it would reduce asthma rates, which they say will be exacerbated by global warming. A White House fact sheet claims the rule will “avoid up to 3,600 premature deaths, lead to 90,000 fewer asthma attacks in children, and prevent 300,000 missed work and school days.” But claims linking global warming and asthma rates are dicey. So far, there’s no strong link between increasing temperatures and asthma attacks. Cato scientists slammed EPA for making such claims.

“The public health arguments are even weaker,” Curry wrote. “CO2 has absolutely nothing to do with asthma. Extreme weather events are not increasing with increased CO2; extreme weather events are dominated by natural climate variability. Particularly in the U.S., extreme weather was substantially worse in the 1930’s and 1950’s.”

“Trying to sell this plan as economic and public health issue is a ploy to develop political will for President Obama’s preferred energy policies,” Curry wrote.

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Who Loses Under EPA’s Clean Power Plan?

Posted by Michael Bastasch; 08/04/2015

The Obama administration unveiled the linchpin of its global warming agenda Monday: a 1560-page regulation called the “Clean Power Plan.” The goal of the Clean Power Plan is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants 32 percent below 2005 levels by the year 2030. The EPA claims the plan will benefit the economy and the environment by reducing asthma attacks, creating jobs in the green energy sector and showing the world the U.S. is committed to fighting global warming. All of this ahead of a major United Nations climate summit this winter.

Put simply, the new agenda is a massive undertaking, and one that’s already facing legal challenges from a coalition of states and the coal industry. There are going to be clear winners and losers with this rule. Red states, fossil fuel companies and even blue dog Democrats stand to lose out — not to mention all the families who will be hit with higher energy bills.

Is EPA Punishing Red States?

The EPA’s cuts to CO2 emissions could cost states billions of dollars in the coming decades. States are forced to find ways to cut emissions based on certain building blocks set forth by EPA. But this could be costly for energy-intensive states, like North Dakota, with grids and economies that rely on lots of coal power, and oil and natural gas production.

There’s another interesting dynamic underlying the EPA’s rules. The Daily Caller News Foundation examined the data and found that red states were among those hit with the biggest, and likely costliest, emissions reduction mandates.

Of the ten states with the biggest CO2 reduction mandates, eight are dominated by Republicans and only two are Democratic. On the flip side, the states with the lowest CO2 reduction mandates are overwhelmingly liberal — six are Democrat and only four are Republican.

TheDCNF looked at which party controlled each chamber of the state legislature and the governorship to determine control. For example, Republicans control both chambers of the South Dakota legislature and there’s a Republican governor. We considered that state Republican. On the other hand, Montana has a Democratic governor but a Republican-controlled legislature. We’d also consider that state Republican since two of the three groups looked at were GOP-controlled.

Republican states were among those that saw the highest increases in their CO2 mandates from the EPA’s proposal to the final rule, according to Politico Pro. Some 16 states had their emissions targets increased by the EPA, but the agency also loosened targets for 31 states.

Politico reported that while North Dakota “enjoyed the lowest emission reduction goal in the proposed rule,” the state “saw that goal more than quadruple in the final rule to 44.9 percent.”

“Other states saw significant increases in their goals as well. Montana’s goal increased by 26.3 percentage points to 47.4 percent. Iowa’s went up 25.4 points, to a 41.5 percent reduction. And Wyoming’s goal went up 25.3 points to a 44.3 percent reduction,” according to Politico.

“On the other hand, 24 states saw their goals reduced. Washington’s declined the most, down 34.6 percentage points to 37.2 percent,” Politico reported. “Oregon dropped 28.1 points to 20 percent, and New York went down 24.7 points to 19.5 percent.”

Before drawing too many conclusions, it’s worth noting that red states are likely being hurt the most because they rely more heavily on coal for their energy needs. These states also tend to be major energy producing states, like North Dakota, Wyoming and West Virginia.

States that rely too much on coal will have the toughest time complying with the Clean Power Plan because burning coal emits much more CO2 than burning natural gas. The EPA says it bases its reduction targets on what’s “achievable.” The agency sees coal-reliant states as having much more work to do when it comes to reducing emissions than states relying more on natural gas and green energy, as many Democrat-controlled states do.

The fact is that far more states saw their emissions targets reduced from the EPA’s proposal last year. Even so, states are still going to have a tough time complying with their targets no matter what since the Clean Power Plan essentially forces them to restructure their electricity markets and regulations.

Is This An Attack On Fracking?

The Clean Power Plan has also been seen as an attack on natural gas-fired power, which has been made economical due to hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, of shale. The oil and gas industry is worried the EPA’s rule ignores the role natural gas can play in reducing carbon dioxide emissions — when burned for electricity, natural gas emits less CO2 than coal. The Financial Times reported that the “US shale gas is the unexpected loser from President Barack Obama’s climate plan, as the White House abandons its previous enthusiasm for natural gas as a cleaner alternative to coal.”

In recent years, the U.S. has become the world’s largest producer of natural gas thanks to hydraulic fracturing, which involves injecting water, sand and some chemicals deep underground to unlock hydrocarbons trapped in shale formations. But industry leaders fear EPA could harm the industry. “With the reported shift in the plan, we believe the White House is perpetuating the false choice between renewables and gas,” Martin Durbin, president of America’s Natural Gas Alliance, told Oil and Gas Journal. “We don’t have to slow the trend toward gas in order to effectively and economically use renewables.”

Reports have come out, mainly with support from environmentalists and green energy backers, declaring the Clean Power Plan downplays natural gas’ role in reducing U.S. emissions. Instead, reports indicate the EPA is focusing on boosting green energy instead of gas. “With or without new regulations, gas will continue to grow as a critical source of clean energy, but EPA’s rule does more harm than good,” Howard Feldman with the American Petroleum Institute told OGJ.

Major natural gas producing states have also been hit with steep emissions targets mandated by the EPA. Texas, the country’s largest oil and gas producer, must reduce power plant emissions 33.5 percent below 2012 levels by 2030. The state gets twice as much energy from natural gas as it does from coal.

Democratic-led Pennsylvania is also being hit with tough emissions reductions mandates from EPA. The state must reduce emissions 34.9 percent by 2030. Pennsylvania is now the country’s second-largest natural gas producer thanks to fracking in the Marcellus Shale. The state even gets 37 percent of its electricity from nuclear, while coal and natural gas each provide slightly less.

Blue Dog Dems Backstabbed By Obama

What’s probably most interesting about energy states being hit hard by the Clean Power Plan, is that many of them also sport Democratic lawmakers who are now put in a tough position.

North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp called the rule a “slap in the face,” according to Politico Pro. West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin criticized the rule for being “utterly unrealistic.” Both of these lawmakers opposed the rule since its proposal, but now their states are some of the hardest hit.

North Dakota and West Virginia were initially given some of the smallest state emissions reductions targets by the EPA. In June 2014, the EPA said North Dakota would only have to reduce emissions 10.6 percent and West Virginia 19.8 percent by 2030. Now these states have to make much deeper cuts than the EPA initially told them. “Our President and his Administration think our country can do without coal, and they are dead wrong. They are in denial,” Manchin said in a statement condemning the rule.

Montana Democrats, who originally supported the rule, are now reeling after the EPA announced the state would have to reduce emissions even more than was initially proposed by the agency last year. Montana now has one of the highest CO2 emissions reduction mandates of any state. Montana’s Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock complained that the EPA “moved the goal post on us,” saying that while “we need to address climate change” but added that “how we do so has to work for Montana.” The Montana’s AFL-CIO branch actually planned a press call in support of the rule, according to the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, but it was cancelled after the union found out the EPA had increased the “reduction requirement.” The group called it a “gut punch.”

Even Democratic Sen. Jon Tester was cautious in his statement on the Clean Power Plan’s release, not condemning it but also not celebrating it being finalized. Tester told the Chronicle he needed “more time to review it to ensure it works for Montana and creates healthier communities and a stronger economy.”

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Yes really: Obama is about to END the 4th of July as we know it

Written by Michele Hickford, Editor-in-Chief on July 3, 2015

URL of the Original Posting Site: http://allenbwest.com/2015/07/yes-really-obama-is-about-to-end-the-4th-of-july-as-we-know-it

We’ve written here previously about the draconian restrictions the EPA is quietly implementing in our nation. In fact WE were skewered by the liberal media for mentioning barbecue grills. Well, hate to say we told you so, but it’s about to get even more absurd. And once again, it goes right the heart of something most Americans treasure.

Per the Daily Caller, enjoy Independence Day while you still can. If President Obama gets his way, this could be the last Fourth of July worth celebrating.

New ground-level ozone standards being pushed by Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency would result in widespread bans on fireworks shows, backyard grilling and other Independence Day traditions. Because the proposed ozone rule is set so low, things as harmless as a few backyard chefs grilling burgers in the same area at the same time, or even festive fireworks being launched during an Independence Day celebration, could cause an area to violate federal ozone standard thresholds. Such a violation of the EPA’s unreasonably low ozone limit would result in fines and other penalties for local governments from federal regulators.

In an attempt to steer clear of punishment, local lawmakers will have to respond to the new EPA rules by enacting municipal grilling bans and canceling fireworks shows from sea to shining sea.

Yep, another one of those great ideas that will increase prices of goods sold, eliminate jobs and once again, assault one of our most cherished traditions.

Recent studies by the National Association of Manufacturers and other groups have shown that the EPA’s new directive would be the most expensive regulation ever enacted, costing the economy $140 billion annually. Even the EPA’s own cost estimates acknowledge the economic hit from the proposed regulation would be well into the tens of billions of dollars a year

Oh, and here’s the best part of all. Despite the damage this will do to our economy and American way of life, it will do almost NOTHING to improve air quality, reducing ozone to a level barely above naturally occurring levels.

Excuse me for a moment. HAHAHAHAHAHA.

Okay. I’m better now.

Even the EPA doesn’t really understand why the rule is needed. While testifying before Congress earlier this year, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy indicated that ozone levels would go down without this rule in place.

My friends, we are frogs in that pot of water and the temperature is ever so slowly being turned up, almost imperceptibly. As the Daily Caller says, this new guideline will make it so difficult to comply, whole regions of the country will have to pay fines and face other penalties, without any realistic hope of meeting the standard short of banning cars and forcing businesses to close.

Enjoy your smoke-belching pick-up with the gun rack and the American flag waving off the railing while you can folks, because don’t think for a second they’re not ALL in Obama’s sights.

I am personally astonished by the speed in which he is destroying this nation and our deeply-held fundamental beliefs and traditions. It is the now the final act in the tragic drama of the Obama presidency and we haven’t even seen the grande finale.

[Note: this article was written by Michele Hickford, Editor-in-Chief]

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Energy Quest

June 29, 2015

URL of the Original Posting Site: http://conservativebyte.com/2015/06/energy-quest

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Harvard, Syracuse Researchers Caught Lying to Boost Obama Climate Rules

by Steve Milloy; 4 Jun 2015

URL of the Original Posting Site: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/06/04/harvard-syracuse-researchers-caught-lying-to-boost-obama-climate-rules

AP Photo/Martin Meissner

E-mails obtained from the Environmental Protection Agency show that Harvard University, Syracuse University and two of their researchers appear to have falsely claimed a study supporting EPA’s upcoming global warming rules was conducted “independent(ly)” of the agency.

In early May, a study published in the journal Nature Climate Change purported to support a key EPA claim about its forthcoming global warming rules aimed at coal-fired power plants. The New York Times’ headline, “EPA Emissions Plan Will Save Thousands of Lives, Study Finds,” typified the media coverage. Across the media, the authors were innocuously described as simply university-affiliated “researchers.” After all, the researchers had declared they had “no competing financial interests” in their study. Both universities had issued media releases heralding the study as the “first independent, peer-reviewed paper of its kind.”

Study co-author Charles Driscoll of Syracuse University told the Buffalo News, “I’m an academic, not a politician. I don’t have a dog in this fight.” The claim of independence was also emphatically asserted by study co-author Jonathan Buonocore of Harvard University. “The EPA, which did not participate in the study or interact with its authors, Buonocore says, roundly welcomed its findings.” [Emphasis added].

But a closer look at these claims of independence raises serious doubts.

An online search of EPA’s web site revealed that;

Syracuse’s Driscoll has previously involved as a principal investigator in studies that received over $3.6 million in research grants from EPA.
Co-author Dallas Burtraw, a researcher at the think tank Resources for the Future, had been involved in previous EPA grants totaling almost $2 million.
Harvard co-author Jonathan I. Levy had been involved in over $9.5 million worth of grants.
Co-author Joel Schwartz, also of Harvard, had been previously involved in over $31 million worth of grants from EPA.

Are we to believe that a group of researchers who had previously received some $45 million in grants from EPA, no doubt hoping for more in the future, could possibly not have any dog in this fight? It’s probably not necessary to ask how this slipped past the incurious mainstream media.

Intrigued by Bounocore’s odd assertion of absolutely no involvement with EPA, I submitted a request to EPA under the Freedom of Information Act for email between the study authors and EPA staff. Although subsequent wrangling with agency staff gave me doubt that I would ever get anything, I received, much to my surprise, 99 pages of emails after mere weeks. The emails reveal that study co-authors Driscoll, Buonocore, Schwartz and Harvard’s Kathy Lambert were definitely in contact with key EPA staff regarding this research.

A July 8, 2014 email shows Lambert arranging a conference call with EPA staff to get EPA’s input on the study. One of the EPA staff involved was the contact person for agency’s Clean Power Plan cost-benefit analysis. A subsequent e-mail shows that the top EPA staffer on the Clean Power Plan cost-benefit analysis was added to the call.
A July 15, 2014 email from Driscoll to an EPA staffer boasts of “considerable interest” in their analysis from unnamed outside “groups.” One sentence after buttering up the EPA staffer, Driscoll asks her if they could have a phone call to discuss fundraising for a conference Driscoll is organizing. No appearance of attempted financial conflict there?
A November 7, 2014 e-mail from Lambert to EPA about the study reads, “We would like to follow back up with you by phone to discuss possible next steps in this analysis and what role you might be able to play.”

This issue goes deeper than mere truth-telling. The EPA’s controversial Clean Power Plan hinges on the notion that shuttering coal plants will save lives. The EPA’s proposed global warming plan ostensibly focuses on reducing carbon dioxide emissions from coal plants. But the bulk of the alleged benefits of the plan actually arise from collateral projections of lives supposedly saved by reducing coal plant emissions related to particulate matter and ozone.

As EPA values each life “saved” at about $10 million, the claim that the rules will save 6,600 lives per year puts the rules’ alleged benefits on the order of $66 billion per year, far in excess of industry projections of the rules’ costs. These EPA claims, however, are controversial to say the least. A compelling alternate view is that no lives will be saved because, for one reason, EPA’s own extensive clinical research shows that particulate matter and ozone in outdoor air do not kill anyone. The only casualty in this case is our confidence in the independence of EPA-funded researchers.

Steve Milloy publishes JunkScience.com (@JunkScience).

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EPA Chief: Just Trust Us On Climate Science

Posted by Michael Bastasch, 06/03/2015

URL of the Original Posting Site: http://dailycaller.com/2015/06/03/epa-chief-just-trust-us-on-climate-science/#ixzz3c8GhPmRc

: Gina McCarthy, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, speaks at the Center for American Progress // (REUTERS/Gary Cameron)

Americans are just going to have to trust the EPA’s 44 years of experience dealing with environmental issues when it comes to figuring out ways to cope with man-made global warming, says the agency’s chief. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy told Big Think in an interview that while there are limits to how much the federal government can do for issues like global warming, the public needs to trust how the EPA translates the “complicated” science into real-life actions.

“Well I think we all have to recognize the strengths and limitations of government action,” McCarthy said. “But here’s what I think we can do at the federal level more effectively. We can speak to the science because it’s complicated and we do a lot of research and we do a lot of translation of the science into what it means for people so that the decisions can be made on the basis of real science and on the basis of a real technical understanding.”

“That’s how it has worked in EPA’s career for 44 years at EPA is we’ve listened to the science and the law and we have let solutions take off in the marketplace which is where the cheapest, most effective always win,” McCarthy said. “That’s why EPA can move environmental standards forward so effectively and grow jobs at the same time.”

The EPA is on the verge of finalizing rules limiting CO2 emissions from power plants as part of President Barack Obama’s climate agenda. Republicans and industrial lobbies have opposed the rules, saying they will be costly and do nothing to stem warming. McCarthy, however, has continually argued the EPA’s so-called “Clean Power Plan” will send a signal to the world the U.S. is serious about dealing with global warming and spur innovation in green technology.

“Now what you really want to do at the national level is send long-term signals,” McCarthy said. “And those signals go to people in markets because the best thing EPA and other regulatory agencies need to do is set standards based on what we think the science tells us, the law tells us and what’s achievable.”

“It’s like being in a race and the federal government, you know, says what direction to run and they shoot the starting gun, but the ones in the race become the businesses, the entrepreneurs, the people who are driving new technologies,” she said.

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The Battle Over Coal. And the War on State Rights.

Posted by Rita Dunaway on June 04, 2015

URL of the Original Posting Site: http://www.conventionofstates.com/the_battle_over_coal_and_the_war_on_state_rights/?recruiter_id=11724

The Environmental Protection Agency’s “War on Coal” is a war that the states literally cannot afford to lose. With coal providing almost 40 percent of U.S. electricity and around a half-million American jobs, we all stand to suffer from proposed federal regulations that would force plants to close, drive our electricity bills up, and hinder the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturers in the global market.

But this recent bureaucratic power grab is more appropriately described as a “battle” than a “war.” It is just one fight—albeit an important one—in the larger War on Federalism being waged day after day by a formidable national government in Washington, D.C. The specific power play being made by the EPA in this instance is handily representative of the processes that have steadily expanded federal power over the years. Just like President Barack Obama’s executive fiat on immigration policy, it involves actions that do not quite ignore constitutional boundaries, but simply lawyer around them.

Here, the EPA wants to order the states to apply the same crippling carbon dioxide emission standards to existing energy plants—already regulated under a separate section of the Clean Air Act—as the federal standards designed for new plants.

For decades, the EPA has been administering the federal law according to a common-sense reading of the language, whereby exiting sources of air pollution are regulated under one section and new sources or otherwise unregulated sources are governed by another.

Then came a failed attempt by the Obama administration to shepherd new climate change legislation through Congress. Voilà! Now, citing a dubious ambiguity in the wording of one provision of the decades-old Clean Air Act, the EPA claims that Congress actually authorized it to apply the more stringent standards to existing plants anyway.

The EPA’s attempt to steamroll what most see as a clear, congressionally-constructed boundary on its regulatory authority is made possible by a landmark Supreme Court precedent, a 1984 case called Chevron U.S.A. v. National Resources Defense Council. That case gave us the “Chevron Test” for evaluating the extent of agency authority by reviewing Congress’ statutory instructions to the agency. Essentially, if Congress’ direction to the agency is clear, that direction simply must be followed. If, however, there is silence or ambiguity in the language, then courts will uphold the agency’s action as long as it is based on a permissible interpretation of the law. In other words, an interpretive “tie” goes to the bureaucrats.

This judicial policy puts power tools in the hands of bureaucracies that, just by virtue of their consisting of human beings, are already predisposed to chip away at the limitations of their authority. It invites every administrative agency to expand its power at every turn by inventing creative statutory interpretations that can pass the low bar of being considered by some federal judge to be “permissible.” As it turns out, federal bureaucrats are creative geniuses when it comes to “interpreting” their statutory authority. Their creativity mirrors that of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches in interpreting the Constitution itself.

Invariably, all this interpretive creativity comes at the expense of the states. In fact, this very Battle over Coal is an example of how much the states have already lost, for this battle is a tug-of-war between federal agencies and the federal legislature over an area of policy that rightfully belong to the states.

Strategies for winning this Battle over Coal in the short-term—including the usual expensive lawsuits—must not be mistaken for the needed long-term solution to the epidemic erosion of our constitutional federal system. We cannot allow our national government to continue distracting us with countless and repeated skirmishes over the practical and procedural terms of their abuses of power. Instead, we must engage in the larger war over fundamental constitutional principles that the feds are actually waging.

The states are well-equipped to win this War on Federalism decisively, but victory requires them to use the one effectual constitutional tool at their disposal that, until now, they have entirely neglected.

By invoking Article Five’s state-controlled process to propose constitutional amendments, the states can foreclose the feds’ opportunity to lawyer around limitations on their authority. The states can definitively end not only the EPA’s attempt to hijack legislative prerogatives, but also hundreds of other instances of overreaching by bureaucrats, the president, Congress, and even the Supreme Court.

A constitutional amendment could overrule the Chevron case’s “tie goes to the agency” framework and replace it with a rule that where Congress’ intent is unclear, the agency may not act. But more importantly, a constitutional amendment could limit the power of Congress to interfere with policies that the Constitution reserved to the states. For example, an amendment could overturn the current, overbroad interpretation of the Commerce Clause, which was originally intended to merely allow Congress to regulate economic activity that crosses state lines.

Americans must recognize that what is ultimately at stake here is our self-governance. Will the vast majority of our laws be created in the state and local governments that are most responsive to the people, as intended by the Constitution? Or will we instead allow ourselves to be ruled by an elite ruling class in a distant capitol, which hands down high-minded orders and cracks the whip on the backs of the states to carry them out?

Federalism is a defining characteristic of our exceptional Constitution, and it is under siege. But the War on Federalism is one that the states can win if they use the appropriate constitutional defense.

To learn more about the Article Five Convention of States process, read my five-part series.

Rita Martin Dunaway serves as Staff Counsel for The Convention of States Project and is passionate about restoring constitutional governance in the U.S. Follow her on Facebook (Rita Martin Dunaway) or e-mail her at rita.dunaway@gmail.com.

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Backyard Police with Barry Fife

May 29, 2015

URL of the Original Posting Site: http://conservativebyte.com/2015/05/backyard-police-with-barry-fife/

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Lawmaker calls for a rebellion against EPA pollution emissions for backyard barbecues

Published March 17, 2015, FoxNews.com

URL of the Original Posting Site: http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2015/03/17/lawmaker-calls-for-rebellion-against-epa-pollution-emissions-for-backyard/

A Missouri state legislator wants the Environmental Protection Agency to back off of people’s backyard barbecues. On Monday, State Senator Eric Schmitt (R) from St. Louis kicked off a #porksteakrebellion after he discovered the EPA is funding a study on propane grill emissions that suggest pit masters use a special tray to catch grease drippings and a “catalytic” filtration system to reduce air pollution, reports Fox News KTVI. “The idea that the EPA wants to find their way into our back yards, where we’re congregating with our neighbors, having a good time, on the 4^th of July, barbecuing pork steak or hamburgers, is ridiculous and it’s emblematic of agency that’s sort of out of control,” Schmitt said.

The EPA is funding a $15,000 University of California-Riverside study to look at the particulate emissions you breathe when grilling over an open flame. Along with the drip tray, the emission removal system includes the use of a “secondary air filtration system is composed of a single pipe duct system which contains a specialized metal filter, a metal fan blade, a drive shaft, and an accompanying power system with either a motorized or manual method,” according to study.

Those opposed to the study met Monday night at St. Louis’ LeGrand’s Market & Catering sandwiches shop after Schmitt launched the rebellion via Twitter. “Personally, I think being able to barbecue in your back yard extends your life,” customer Pat Schommer told Fox. “It’s part of pleasure – backyard barbecuing and I love it.”

The EPA said that it doesn’t regulate people’s backyard barbecues and that the grant is part of the EPA’s “National Student Design Competition for Sustainability Focusing on People, Prosperity and the Planet (2014)”, which is a student-designed competition for sustainability.

Schmitt called on people to grill in their backyards this week as a sort of “peaceful protest”.

SEE THE FOX NEWS CHANNEL REPORT BELOW:

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Pure Torture: EPA Tyranny… At least the CIA isn’t torturing Americans

Posted on December 13, 2014

URL of the Original Posting Site: http://conservativebyte.com/2014/12/pure-torture-epa-tyranny-least-cia-isnt-torturing-americans/

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Job Killer in Chief

Posted on August 16, 2014

Obama Administration to Cause Power Bills to Rise by 40%

http://lastresistance.com/6007/obama-administration-cause-power-bills-rise-40/#VVUxJ74CHq9gGDCJ.99

Posted By Onan Coca on Jun 5, 2014

The policies of the Obama administration continue to wreak havoc on the average American’s life.

Whether it’s the administration’s unruly and destructive healthcare policies under Obamacare, or the NSA’s attempts to watch every one of us at all times, or Michelle Obama’s push to make every high school lunch taste like cardboard. It sometimes seems that the Obama administration is out to get us.

After this latest news about the EPA’s draconian new regulations… maybe it’s time everyone realize that Obama and his minions really are out to get us.

By Michael Bastasch

President Obama said electricity bills would “necessarily skyrocket” as a result of his energy policies. Rural Americans are about to find out how much.

At least six electric cooperative utilities across the U.S. mid-and-southwest could raise electricity rates up to 40 percent if the Environmental Protection Agency imposes new permitting regulations coal-fired power plants.

The regulations would cost Deseret Power Electric Cooperative (DPEC) $200 million to install advanced equipment to qualify for a Clean Air Act Title V permit.

DPEC is made up of six rural electrical cooperatives that serve more than 45,000 customers in Utah, Nevada, Wyoming and Colorado. Rural cooperatives have been heavily opposed to excessive EPA regulations targeting coal plants, which they say raise rates for their customers.

“This could be true if EPA requires us to implement new regulations to meet Title V regulations,” Yankton Johnson, spokesman for Moon Lake Electric Association, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. Moon Lake is one of the six rural power cooperatives belonging to DPEC.

The EPA is currently deciding whether to apply Title V permitting requirements to DPEC’s Bonanza Power Plant, which is on Native American tribal lands in Utah.

“This will cost Deseret power approximately 200 million dollars in advanced equipment,” Johnson said. “Should this pass EPA it could cost 6 cooperatives up to a 40 percent rate increase to cover the cost.”

“Did you read that too fast? “$200 Million Dollars – up to 40% rate increase.” With the unemployment problem in America because of the Obama Whitehouse failed policies, and all poor getting poorer because of his failed policies, this kind of move make no sense at all, unless this is deliberate, like many economic experts believe. Following the directive of President Obama’s mentor, Saul Alinsky, such a plan will help to destroy the American economic format based on market place dynamics. Then Premier Obama, along with his Leftist/Marxist/Socialist followers can replace our market based economy with their desired Socialist economy patterned after all the failed economies of Europe. That is why we have to get rid of the Leftist/Marxist/Socialist this November.” JB

DPEC’s Bonanza Power Plant is a coal-fired power plant located on the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation in the state of Utah. Environmentalists sued the EPA last in order to force the plant to upgrade to recieve a Title V permit.

In May 2014, environmentalists won a victory against the plant. The EPA proposed putting a Title V permit on the plant — which is open for public comment until June 16th.

“This is a big step forward in holding coal accountable to clean air,” said Jeremy Nichols, climate and energy director as WildEarth Guardian — which sued the EPA.

“That’s BULL S–T and everyone knows it. It’s all about destroying our economy so they can establish Socialism.” JB

“The Bonanza power plant has for too long put the cost of its air pollution on the shoulders of westerners,” Nichols said.

Environmentalists argue that since the coal plant’s generating capacity was increased in the early 2000s, it needed to get another Title V permit from the EPA to allow it to emit certain air pollutants, like sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides.

WildEarth Guardians hopes to have the EPA force the power plant to install costly emissions control technology, which would force the Deseret to pass the costs onto its customers.

But DPEC is not the only rural electric cooperative feeling the heat from EPA regulations, utilities have long been worried that federal carbon dioxide emissions regulations for existing power plants would increase rates.

“If they were to establish this rule for existing plants, essentially we’d have to cut our energy production in half, and go out and replace that with something new, and that new would be expensive,” LaDel Laub, CEO of the rural electric cooperative of Dixie Power, told the Spectrum back in April.

“Our other options are gas plants, renewables, other sources, and the wholesale costs are more than double. Plus, you’ve got to keep paying for the old plant,” said Laub, whose utility is part of DPEC.

The EPA proposed rules for existing power plants earlier this week, mandating they cut carbon dioxide emissions 30 percent by 2030. Each state would be responsible for coming up with its own emissions reduction plans.

“Although we limit pollutants like mercury, sulfur, and arsenic, currently, there are no limits on carbon pollution from power plants, our nation’s largest source,” said EPA administrator Gina McCarthy. “For the sake of our families’ health and our kids’ future, we have a moral obligation to act on climate.”

This would be a huge burden on coal-fired power plants, especially in rural areas where costs must be spread over fewer ratepayers. DPEC currently gets about 80 percent of its power from the Bonanza Plant, which means pending rules on existing power plants could add more cost burdens to its ratepayers.

By Michael Bastasch from the Daily Caller News Foundation

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Coal Killer

Posted on June 5, 2014

http://conservativebyte.com/2014/06/coal-killer/#kBSpEi9ilurpB8Bw.99

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More Evidence of the Growing Socialist Police State President Obama is Developing

EPA Decree Shrinks Size of Wyoming by a Million Acres

http://www.cnsnews.com/mrctv-blog/matt-vespa/epa-decree-shrinks-size-wyoming-million-acres#sthash.mWKbrvjC.dpuf

January 21, 2014 – 9:13 AM

By Matt Vespa

Why is the EPA altering state boundaries in Wyoming – and reversing over 100 years of established law? Well, apparently the city of Riverton now falls under the jurisdiction of the Wind River Indian Reservation. This, obviously, isn’t sitting well with the governor’s office – which is urging the EPA to reconsider its ruling and respect the rule of law.

Reacting to the decision to reduce the size of Wyoming by about a million acres, Wyoming Governor Matt Mead warned of the dangers to all Americans of this type of unilateral land redistribution by the EPA:

“I understand that the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone Tribes have a different opinion about the Wind River Reservation Boundary. My deep concern is about an administrative agency of the federal government altering a state’s boundary and going against over 100 years of history and law.

“This should be a concern to all citizens because, if the EPA can unilaterally take land away from a state, where will it stop?” Governor Matt Mead said in a press release on January 6.

Gov. Mead added, “The Attorney General’s petition shows that, in conjunction with the Tribes, Congress diminished the Wind River Reservation in 1905. Given the fundamentally flawed process and decision and the likelihood of irreparable harm, the EPA should put a hold on its decision and reopen its process to incorporate all of the available evidence, give interested parties an opportunity to respond to the facts and arguments and complete its review in a transparent manner. The State has also asked the EPA to stay its decision until a final judicial decision has been issued.”

When Wyoming received the EPA’s unpublished decision granting the Tribes “Treatment As State” status on December 9, 2013, Gov. Mead called on the state’s attorney general to challenge the decision:

“It is outrageous to me that a regulatory agency has proposed changing jurisdictional boundaries established by history and the Courts. I have asked the Attorney General to challenge this decision and defend the existing boundaries of the reservation.

The business and economic reporting of CNSNews.com is funded in part with a gift made in memory of Dr. Keith C. Wold.

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‘Climate change expert bilks EPA out of $1 million

HUMAN EVENTS

POWERFUL CONSERVATIVE VOICES

http://www.humanevents.com/2013/12/17/derp-government-climate-change-expert-bilks-epa-out-of-1-million-over-a-decade/

'Climate change expert bilks EPA out of $1 million

By: John Hayward

We have truly entered the age of “Derp”(1) Government, in which the colossus in Washington has grown institutionally fat, drunk, and stupid on trillions of dollars in madcap spending. The bigger government gets, and the more power it claims, the more unaccountable it becomes, and the less anyone gives a damn about their jobs.

Exhibit A, of course, is HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and the historic disaster of the ObamaCare rollout, whose aftermath has given us so many wonderful congressional hearings filled with mighty six-figure bureaucrats claiming that nobody had any idea what was going on, during the three and a half years they were blowing a billion dollars on web infrastructure, training, and marketing. There was no oversight… so the overseers cannot be held responsible for the ensuing disaster. There was no management… so the managers must be allowed to keep their jobs, every single one of them. It really is like watching a gang of drunken frat boys claim nobody was at the wheel when their party van slammed into a tree.

ObamaCare is the paramount example of Derp Government, but it’s far from the only one. Last week, we had the spectacle of the Obama Administration’s top Afghanistan specialists rolling into a congressional hearing without the foggiest notion of how many casualties there have been this year, or how much the war effort cost. Hey, man, nobody told us there was going to be a test, or we would have done some homework instead of partying all night.

No better prepared was the hapless clown currently serving as Secretary of State, onetime Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, who apparently didn’t know that North Korea already has nuclear weapons when he moaned, “To have a nuclear weapon, potentially, in the hands of somebody like Kim Jong In… Jun… just becomes even more unacceptable.” That’s Kim Jong Un, Mr. Secretary. And he does indeed have nuclear weapons in his pudgy hands, as did his father. But in the crazy who-gives-a-damn degeneracy of the Obama Administration, where trillion-dollar industry takeovers are made up on the fly, no one expects the Secretary of State to have the geopolitical knowledge of the average college freshman. He says he’s real smart, and that’s good enough for the media.

Then there’s the bizarre spectacle of Fake Sign Language Guy, a paranoid schizophrenic with a history of crime and violent behavior, coupled with a blissful lack of knowledge about sign language, who somehow managed to get on stage with the President of the United States at the Mandela memorial in South Africa. It turns out that Fake Sign Language Guy, Thamsanqa Jantjie, participated in a mob action that killed two men by “necklacing” them with tires full of burning gasoline.

“Questions have been raised over the screening of the man who has been the subject of complaints from the deaf community before, and who said he had hallucinations and saw angels while interpreting at the stadium in Soweto,” writes the UK Independent. Why, yes, I think there are a few questions to be asked about that, especially since the President is pleased to bill taxpayers for a titanic entourage of security personnel and aides, every time he travels. But nobody in this vast royal procession bothered to apply even the most elementary scrutiny to the interpreter that would wind up standing next to the President? It’s not the first time the vaunted Secret Service has been caught metaphorically flat on its back during the Obama years, either. Wait, make that literally flat on its back.

The combination of unlimited money, total power, and absolutely zero accountability is intoxicating. It’s hardly a new feature of this Administration – it’s been building for decades in the depths of imperial agencies, completely insulated from both fiscal reality and the voting public. No degree of failure means extinction for any big government program. The good times will never stop rolling. Careless disregard for taxpayer money has given us infuriating carnivals of excess, from the lavish conference parties of the General Services Administration, to the goofy training videos of the Internal Revenue Service. A common thread running through these scandals is how silly they are. Nobody with a shred of common sense or responsibility would approve them. But Uncle Sam is living like the Great Gatsby these days, and few of his bureaucratic nephews see themselves as the careful stewards of scarce and sacred taxpayer dollars.

Which brings us to the Environmental Protection Agency’s latest scandal, and this one’s a doozy. NBC News tells the tale of John C. Beale, a “climate change” expert who cheated the government out of a few million dollars in outrageously lavish salary and benefits over the course of a decade… by never showing up for work… because he claimed he was working as a CIA spy in Pakistan.

John C. Beale, who pled guilty in September to bilking the government out of nearly $1 million in salary and other benefits over a decade, will be sentenced in a Washington, D.C., federal court on Wednesday. In a newly filed sentencing memo, prosecutors said that his lies were a “crime of massive proportion” that were “offensive” to those who actually do dangerous work for the CIA.

Beale’s lawyer, while acknowledging his guilt, has asked for leniency and offered a psychological explanation for the climate expert’s bizarre tales.

“With the help of his therapist,” wrote attorney John Kern, “Mr. Beale has come to recognize that, beyond the motive of greed, his theft and deception were animated by a highly self-destructive and dysfunctional need to engage in excessively reckless, risky behavior.” Kern also said Beale was driven “to manipulate those around him through the fabrication of grandiose narratives … that are fueled by his insecurities.”

Well, that actually sounds plausible, given that “climate change” is the biggest, most delusional fraud ever perpetrated. A lot of the people who marinate in that atmosphere of self-righteous quackery lose touch with reality.

It’s long past time for the Church of Global Warming to start paying for its own clergy, because they’re not cheap dates:

Beyond Beale’s individual fate, his case raises larger questions about how he was able to get away with his admitted fraud for so long, according to federal and congressional investigators. Two new reports by the EPA inspector general’s office conclude that top officials at the agency “enabled” Beale by failing to verify any of his phony cover stories about CIA work, and failing to check on hundreds of thousands of dollars paid him in undeserved bonuses and travel expenses — including first-class trips to London where he stayed at five-star hotels and racked up thousands in bills for limos and taxis.

Until he retired in April after learning he was under federal investigation, Beale, an NYU grad with a masters from Princeton, was earning a salary and bonuses of $206,000 a year, making him the highest paid official at the EPA. He earned more money than Gina McCarthy, the agency’s administrator and, for years, his immediate boss, according to agency documents.

In September, Beale, who served as a “senior policy adviser” in the agency’s Office of Air and Radiation, pled guilty to defrauding the U.S. government out of nearly $900,000 since 2000. Beale perpetrated his fraud largely by failing to show up at the EPA for months at a time, including one 18-month stretch starting in June 2011 when he did “absolutely no work,” as Kern, Beale’s lawyer, acknowledged in his court filing.

And who would miss him? Dogs don’t notice when their ticks take the day off. At this point, the machinery of the “climate change” fraud runs itself. Billions of dollars are flogged out of the private sector with automated whips. Sign a couple of reports, write a few op-eds inveighing against “deniers,” announce that every hurricane and typhoon is the wrath of the Angry Sky Gods, declare that cold winters are proof of global warming, declare that hot winters are proof of global warming, work with radical greens to target the next bit of the Industrial Revolution you can bully the populace into renouncing… most of it can be done by underlings, and one imagines the highest-paid official at the EPA has a lot of those.

Quite a bit of Derp Government is running on autopilot. It’s filled with redundant and obsolete agencies, whose primary objective is demonstrating they are too under-funded to accomplish anything. The most outrageous, and yet comically awesome, example is a scam artist who gets away with bilking the government out of a $200k salary, limo service, first-class air fare, and five-star hotels for a decade while telling anyone who asks what he actually does that he’s too busy to answer, because he, Jack Ryan, James Bond, and Jason Bourne are getting ready to take out a terror cell in Pakistan. At least Beale had a sense of humor about it:

To explain his long absences, Beale told agency officials — including McCarthy — that he was engaged in intelligence work for the CIA, either at agency headquarters or in Pakistan. At one point he claimed to be urgently needed in Pakistan because the Taliban was torturing his CIA replacement, according to Sullivan.

“Due to recent events that you have probably read about, I am in Pakistan,” he wrote McCarthy in a Dec. 18, 2010 email. “Got the call Thurs and left Fri. Hope to be back for Christmas ….Ho, ho, ho.”

But he didn’t work for the CIA, ever, and didn’t even have a security clearance. He spent the decade living large at his Northern Virginia house and Cape Cod vacation home, when he wasn’t jet-setting at taxpayer expense. He was constantly zipping off to conferences and violating the official per diem expense limit by 100 percent, and his expense vouchers were routinely approved by his colleagues. For ten damn years.

Nor was that Beale’s only deception, according to court documents. In 2008, Beale didn’t show up at the EPA for six months, telling his boss that he was part of a special multi-agency election-year project relating to “candidate security.” He billed the government $57,000 for five trips to California that were made purely “for personal reasons,” his lawyer acknowledged. (His parents lived there.) He also claimed to be suffering from malaria that he got while serving in Vietnam. According to his lawyer’s filing, he didn’t have malaria and never served in Vietnam. He told the story to EPA officials so he could get special handicap parking at a garage near EPA headquarters.

I wonder if he got a magic hat while he was non-serving in Vietnam. No doubt the experience is seared into his memory. And he used that story to scam a handicapped parking space!

How did Derp Government finally catch this legendary grifter? Well, he had a big, splashy retirement aboard a yacht, attended by top EPA officials… and then he kept collecting paychecks. For another year and a half. And then someone at the EPA finally decided something was amiss.

This blood-boiling outrage is casually written off by EPA Assistant Inspector General Patrick Sullivan as a product of agency culture. He doesn’t seem to realize he’s describing a culture of mind-blowing, reform-proof arrogance and irresponsibility:

Sullivan said he doubted Beale’s fraud could occur at any federal agency other than the EPA. “There’s a certain culture here at the EPA where the mission is the most important thing,” he said. “They don’t think like criminal investigators. They tend to be very trusting and accepting.”

In a statement to NBC News, Alisha Johnson, McCarthy’s press secretary, said that Beale’s fraud was “uncovered” by McCarthy while she was head of the Office of Air and Radiation. “[Beale] is a convicted felon who went to great lengths to deceive and defraud the U.S. government over the span of more than a decade,” said Johnson. “EPA has worked in coordination with its inspector general and the U.S. Attorney’s office. The Agency has [put] in place additional safeguards to help protect against fraud and abuse related to employee time and attendance, including strengthening supervisory controls of time and attendance, improved review of employee travel and a tightened retention incentive processes.”

But he didn’t go to “great lengths.” This was easy. He gamed a system that was institutionally incapable of seeing through the flimsiest story ever concocted, a story that could have been shredded with a couple of phone calls. And he did it from the very pinnacle of privilege and power, not the dark and faceless recesses of a cubicle farm. Our titanic super-government, staffed with the best and brightest, claims it can run every industry in America better than its owners… but nobody noticed that the highest-paid “expert” at one of the most powerful Washington agencies spent ten years goofing off at home. There’s really nothing all that surprising about the failure of ObamaCare, is there? This entire system has passed the point of caring what happens after it wins the latest political victory and expands further. It thinks always about its frontiers, never about the careless rot at its core.

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Q: What is derps?

A:Derps is Australian abbreviation of underpants. Thanks for asking ChaCha! Have a great day! Read More »

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Political

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President Obama Has Found Another Way to Take Away the Second Amendment

http://freedomoutpost.com/2013/11/epa-second-amendment-lead-bullets/#ixzz2l3OCAsyA

by The Common Constitutionalist

Getting the Lead Out – Obama’s EPA Goes after Second Amendment by Aiming at Bullets

It seems virtually every federal government agency, at least under this president, is a rogue agency.

That’s not quite accurate. You see, when one hears the word rogue, it conjures up thoughts of abandoning one’s directive. “Oh him – he went rogue. We can no longer control him.” That type of thing.

So that’s not really accurate, for it appears that this administration’s prime directive is to allow these agencies to go rogue, from our point of view. Just look at the evidence of department after departments’ involvement in one scandal after another.

Yet, there is one agency that is head and shoulders above all in the “rogue” department, the Environmental Protection Agency. This is the agency that, if left unchecked, can literally mean the end of our country.

Not that the IRS, or Homeland Security, or other federal departments aren’t also dangerous; they are, but none more than the EPA. It’s not even close.

What other single entity is capable of shutting down entire industries. They are in charge of the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the land on which we walk. That’s pretty much everything.

The latest industry to be quite literally driven into extinction by the EPA is the lead refining industry. The last lead refiner in America will close its doors forever on December 31, 2013. All do to stricter and stricter “regulation”. And gee, what is lead used in? Why bullets, of course. Is this the administration’s way around legislation to disarm the people? Yeah it is! Without bullets, are guns pretty much useless? Yeah they are! Get it?

See, that’s what the EPA does. It tells industries that they are welcome to stay in business if they just adhere to these new standards. These standards are for our own good, you know.

“What do you mean adherence will bankrupt your company? What do you mean the new standards are ridiculous, unnecessary and can’t be met? Oh well, I guess you’ll just have to close down.” That’s how it works, every time, and the consequences to this country will continue to mount as more and more industries are driven into extinction, or at least out of the country.

Now, if the EPA were really concerned with curbing pollution in the air and water, shouldn’t it take a more worldly view? After all, we do share the air and water with the rest of the earth. It’s not just ours. And isn’t that the left’s mantra, to “save the planet”, not just save our country?

Knowing this, why wouldn’t EPA prefer to keep industries in this country where they can be reasonably regulated, rather than driving them to China or some third world hole with little to no air or water quality standards?

Well silly, that’s not the EPA’s job. The EPA is an agency full of looney environmentalist wackos and Communists whose mission is to rid us of the evil capitalist free market system. It’s that simple.

America’s industries are cleaner than they’ve ever been and certainly cleaner than the rest of the world, yet still, that’s not good enough. And why? Because they still exist in this country.

The leftists at the EPA won’t be satisfied until all the “dirty” industries have been driven out and replaced with windmills and unicorns.

Only then can they rest.

About The Common Constitutionalist

Brent, aka The Common Constitutionalist, is a Constitutional Conservative, and advocates for first principles, founders original intent and enemy of progressives. As well as publisher of the Common Constitutional blog, he also is a contributing writer for Political Outcast, Godfather Politics, Minute Men News (Liberty Alliance) and Free Republic

View all posts by The Common Constitutionalist →

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Perspectives; Thoughts; Comments; Opinions; Discussions

Posts tagged ‘epa’

BY: J.B. SHURK | AUGUST 16, 2022

Why should Americans expect a greatly expanded and well-armed IRS to behave any differently this time?

J.B. Shurk is a freedom-minded, anti-establishment, sometimes unorthodox, committed generalist and a proud American from Daniel Boone country.

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A.F. Branco Cartoon – Liberty Wins Again!

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Written by Josh Siegel | June 19, 2019 12:00 AM | Updated Jun 19, 2019, 10:23 AM

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Authored by Luke Popovich | Updated 28 Feb 2017 at 7:36 AM

One of the themes emerging from the new Trump administration is a focus on overturning onerous regulations currently smothering American industries. It’s a laudable goal, since government rules bear so heavily on middle-class job creation.

That’s merely step one for the Trump administration, though. There’s more to do.

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Authored by Edmund Kozak | Updated 25 Jan 2017 at 7:25 AM

Officials at the Environmental Protection Agency have reportedly been instructed to freeze all of the agency’s contracts and grant programs until officials in the new administration can conduct a top-to-bottom review.

In 2013, the EPA gave $84,000 to a researcher at the University of Michigan to study the effectiveness of using churches to promote environmental causes.

> In 2014, the EPA gave a post-grad student at the University of Oregon $84,000 to study the link between plants and people, and whether or not living in densely populated urban areas with little to no vegetation is unhealthy (it is).

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Authored by Ethan Barton, 11/23/2015

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Reported by Ed Feulner / @EdFeulner / October 30, 2015

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Posted by Convention of States Project on October 22, 2015

Lawmakers in that hearing and another committee from the Senate blasted the EPA for its heavy-handed military-style treatment of citizens and companies who inadvertently create spills by “running them out of business” and “forcing them to go bankrupt.”

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That would have been the Headline if President Bush were still in office. Here is the REAL Headline.

EPA crew at Standard Mine above Crested Butte triggers waste spill

Republican critics pounce on agency but locals still praise EPA willingness to step up and tackle toxic mines

Critics pounced.

Tuesday spill

How it happened

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Published August 28, 2015; FoxNews.com

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By Eric Boehm; Published August 28, 2015

SEE THE FOX NEWS CHANNEL REPORT BELOW:

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By Ben Wolfgang and Dave Boyer – The Washington Times – Monday, August 24, 2015

California solar power station burning, killing birds in mid-air

By Nicole Mortillaro Science and Weather Reporter Global News

A total of 141 dead birds were collected by officials over one year and five months, which included the construction phase. Of those, 47 died due to solar flux injury. The birds’ feathers were curled, charred, melted or broken.

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Posted By Michael Biesecker | AP On August 22, 2015

Internal documents released late Friday show managers at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency were aware of the potential for a catastrophic “blowout” at an abandoned mine that could release “large volumes” of wastewater laced with toxic heavy metals.

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O Well

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EPA Runs Through It

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Posted by Leslie Eastman Sunday, August 9, 2015 at 5:00pm | 8/9/2015 – 5:00pm

“1 million gallons of acidic wastewater spills, creating environmental and PR catastrophe”

It’s just too bad that in the quest to shut down America’s coal industry, it failed to actually do the job it was initially mandated to do: Protect the nation’s environment.

The Environmental Protection Agency, the federal agency committed to protecting “human health and the environment,” jeopardized both Wednesday by accidentally releasing one million gallons of wastewater into Colorado’s Animas River.

This contrasts with fracking operations, often the target of environmental activists who claim it is a source of water pollution. In June, we noted that a report, released after years of study, indicated that fracking isn’t causing widespread damage to the nation’s drinking water.

So, the next time an eco-activist derides fracking, you can honestly point out the current EPA has been more toxic to the environment.

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Posted by Michael Bastasch 08/04/2015

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Posted by Michael Bastasch; 08/04/2015

Is EPA Punishing Red States?