This is a what if. I don't need a bunch of, Aaah Romney won't do that, Never happen, Mittens will expand the power arguments, I am asking for some serious discussion on what it would take to clean the agency up of some of the Green Party assholes who are holding the country back.


The EPA has done a lot of good. But they have devolved into an agency that is more and more about the destruction and suppression of personal rights instead of bettering the enviorment. Declaring dry puddles as wet lands, sacrificing farmers in the central valley of Cali because of a minnow nobody ever heard of, and declaring dust from farming as dangerous pollution, the agency, a regulatory agency, has too much power.

Are you asking a question or trying to make a statement?

I cant tell.

Fuck trimming them back.

The only real solution is to shut them down, along with a bunch of other Fed agencies.

The States have their own EPA's. We don't need a federal one.

Asking a question. But isn't much of what goes on in GD also making a statement?

Simply cutting their budget would stop the witch hunts.  Small budgets work wonders at stopping all but the necessary.


And I don't know how Romney will govern, but he did make a living making companies profitiable.  If he couldn't make them profitable, he dismantled them and sold them off.  I hope he has that same mentality when evaluating agencies.  We all migh be surprised what he's willing to cut.  Frankly though, I don't see him disolving any agencies in their entirety.

What he said.

Doesn't matter what he wants to do.  If he can't convince the house and senate to do it, it isn't happening.

This

He knows how to make it work... Will he?

I sure hope so,  no one in this country wants to admit cheap and plentiful energy is a COMPLETE NECISSITY to making the economy work so we can generate tax revenue to work our way out of the mess we are in.  

The EPA is standing IN THE WAY of this and in my opinion has a lot to do with many many jobs and industries leaving the country.

Non competitive is well, non competitive in a world economy.

As a country in a lot of cases we are and our bloated bureaucratic agencies are working hard to reinforce their own existence as job one. These need to be dismantled or at least overhauled.

Not necessarily.

Regulations and fines for violation stay, inspection, approval and compliance processes slow to a crawl
Punitive government is punitive.

By putting someone in charge of the EPA that knows their proper role much of the problem will be solved.  They are currently overreaching their mandate to keep the air and water clean and trying to implement things like cap and trade and dust pollution, methane pollution, CO2 pollution, etc.  Congress gave them to much leeway and it needs to be taken back, starting with a big budget cut.

This.

bingo!

I'm going to enjoy EPA's forcing me to build a containment dike around my fuel tanks, after I hire an engineer to design it.  They must think that I dump the $4 a gallon fuel on the ground for fun.

You simply can't just cut their budget to try to reign them in. You do that, and they'll focus on the hardliner stuff they want done and it'll just slow them down a bit.

You have to reform them completely, because I don't think the EPA is going anywhere.

Or roll them into a new agency that encompasses the Dept of the Interior and USDA and start trimming the fat. If you look at the EPA, USDA, and DoI there are a lot of things that are pretty redundant or overlapping.

Like why can't the BLM and USFS combine and have them watch over federal environmental issues and let the USCG deal with someone polluting into the US EEZ?

Romney said one month ago...



"my best assessment of the data is that the world is getting warmer, that human activity contributes to that warming, and that policymakers should therefore consider the risk of negative consequences.”



The EPA isn't going anywhere.  We have to fight man-man climate change, and Romney will continue the fight as POTUS.

Good post.  paging Keith_J.

States and counties have their own environmental things .   Shutting down the federal end would just save billions on redundancy cuts.   The only affect would be billions in taxes saved and billions saved on the business end not having to deal with those shitheads.
 

As a guy who works at a super evil coal burning power plant (with a kick ass scrubber) I agree.

Leave it to the states.

My thoughts are, could you breath in say, 1990 or 2000? We could roll back to those dates and still be ok.

I can promise you that Romney will, for no kidding, with his team go through the entire fed budget.  The whole dam thing.  He will red line things like a boss...like the boss of a huge company that is way in the red.  He can't help himself...he's wired that way.

That's how mitt sees things.  Just like Obama sees things from a colonial viewpoint.

The biggest problem is that the regulations come from the executive interpretation of how to execute the laws written by Congress. Mostly, their interpretations are upheld in the courts. If you really want to reduce the regulatory burden, you have to change the regulations to reflect the burdens they've put on the taxpayers. Otherwise, the best you can get is that as soon as he's gone, they'll put the old regulations back.

“President Obama has repeatedly manipulated technical data to support a regulatory agenda guided by politics rather than science. For example, his ‘Utility MACT’ rule is purportedly aimed at reducing mercury pollution, yet the EPA estimates that the rule will cost $10 billion to reduce mercury pollution by only $6 million.”

“In a Romney administration, sound science will inform sound policy decisions,”

Which is why we need a large majority of Republicans in both houses of congress.

There are only few times when federal involvement should come in and if you think about it, there's already an agency (or three) that can do what needs to be done.

REALLY?



Someone tell obama he has to start enforcing immigration laws and hiring enough people to do it!



 

If the current EPA threats stand Texas is going to lose ~ 1/3 of our generating capablility by 2014. Think about that. "obama"'s EPA has declared all of of our lignite fueled plants to be poisonous abominations which must be killed. No extentions to convert to gas, just shut them the fuck down. Things are gonna get too fucking real when it's 105 F here and thousands are dying due to "obama" 's brownouts / blackouts.

Oh, I'm sure there'll be some FEMA offer of free fans and window units. But what the fuck is supposed to power 'em?  Solyndra?


FBHO

A Jerry Garcia lookalike will be on every major news channel telling us that Romney is dumping car batteries in the Potomac...

No matter what a lot want to happen, organizations like the EPA won't be going away.  Too well intrenched, and too many people like having the umbrella organization - because don't ya know we can't have one state making a decision more advantageous to it's populace/ businesses than the state next door - it's just not fair.





Cutting their budgets will not work, by itself, to reign in the rabid environmentalism and central planning BS.  The budget does need to be evaluated and adjusted downwards in conjunction with...





Cleaning house.  Starting at the top, every single bureaucrat who is an enviro-wacko, progressive, socialist, etc... needs to be terminated for cause.  The stupidity will not stop as long as those people are in positions to make decisions and implement policy.  Same goes for the Department of the Interior - it has been infected with ever increasing numbers of the same types of people.





IMHO and YMMV



 
 

Here is my opinion (based on a belief that we are still in a recession). "Trimming back" government means eliminating more government jobs than those eliminated simply via attrition. Fewer government jobs means jobs lost and unemployment numbers go up. Most federal government jobs are middle class union jobs. Union members primarily support Democrats. Unions and Democrats are in bed with the main stream media. If Romney cuts federal government jobs he will get crucified by the MSM for cutting middle class jobs in the midst of a recession. Democrats will tell Romney they will refuse to "reach across the aisle" when Romney reaches first if he cuts union jobs. Romney wants/needs Democrats to pass bi-partisan legislation so he can come across as a great unifier. Ergo, Romney won't cut many federal jobs (other than a paltry amount maybe as a token show of good faith to conservatives) because he, like every politician before him, realizes America is financially so far beyond the point of no return that trying to institute the draconian austerity measures is even pointless. Let this sink in, at current revenue rates America would need to cut 30% of its current spending JUST to break even and not add more debt.

Trim 'em back.

Maybe then we can get those fuel efficient diesel-electric cars the Europeans have.

Some states have regulations that are far more stringent than federal regulations.
California and Washington state come to mind.

EPA rules and regulations are an insane joke.
Layer upon layer of rules and rulings that have been placed upon original rulings to modify them.

Sometimes you can't even tell what the intent of the original ruling was.

The EPA's mandate needs to be stripped down to the core, protect the environment (land air water) from polluters, train and support business to prevent "bad shit" from happening.

The EPA would set federal guidelines with the states being responsible for enforcement and regulatory issues.

Yes we do.

 

Imagine America as a 400 lb, seething ball of fat, with a cholesterol north of 300, a fasting blood glucose of 220, an average BP of 180/110, and a resting heart rate of 95 bpm.  Our patient is in dire straits.  His heart has been having to over come that abnormal pressure at a rate 50% faster than it should have to.  His cardiac arteries are nearly solid with plaque, starving the muscle of oxygen.  His various blood vessels are strained, stretched, and in danger of causing a hemorrhagic stroke.

There are about 50 different ways for this patient to die, tomorrow.  The statins and the beta blockers and the calcium channel blockers and the anticoagulants and biguanides simply cannot keep up with the lifestyle of excess our patient has chosen to follow.

He might go on 10 years, with some minor improvements in any one area, and some luck.  He might wake up tomorrow morning in the CCU with some deficiencies that can never be repaired.  He might not wake up tomorrow.


What are his options?  The best is probably the least likely to succeed, because it will require commitment for a long period of time, it will require perceived suffering and hard choices about how important some of his favorite things in life are to him.  But following that path, with the human bodies resounding ability to seemingly spring back from near death, he might go on to live a happy, healthy life.

The next is some kind of drastic change, which may be necessary depending on what his physicians think about his current state.  Sacred Heart developed a diet specifically for these people, to get them into something closer to normal homeostasis prior to cardiac surgery.  It's basically beef broth with tomatoes, and it's the only caloric intake allowed for a period of days.  Some patients are able to drop 15, 20, 25 pounds in a week or two, go under the knife, clear out some arteries or maybe get a stent.  This might give them enough breathing room to go back to option A and have a chance at success.

The final option is the one most people in this situation choose.  That's to put more bandaids on the problem, and continue living the lifestyle ignoring the signs that their life is going to end prematurely.



This is our America.  Addicted to entitlements.  Addicted to bureaucracy.  It's government bloating larger and larger, to support it's growing dependent class, it's expansion constrained only by how much it can gorge in each sitting.

We need the Sacred Heart diet, followed up with Plan A.  It's our only hope.  We're at the point right now, where we could wake up with a clot in our leg, a bleed in our brain, or an infarction in our heart, any of which may or may not be fatal, but might certainly eliminate any hope of full recovery.

Is it any wonder our nation suffers from an obesity epidemic?  We mirror our countries problems with ourselves.

Get real.  Romney is to the left of George W. Bush, who didn't scale back the EPA or ATF at all in 8 years.  You don't normally have to "hold your nose" to consume something that you're going to like.
 

He needs to not only fix it for his administration but for future ones as well.

I'm going to use the analogies of a family.  You have 5 children.  One jock, one princess, one goth, one nerd, and a special ed kid...can you have ONE set of rules for all that will allow them all to thrive?  Does it work if those rules keep growing and punishments grow?

My dad works for a coal-fired plant, and they are about to start building a new scrubber thanks to obummer's EPA.  People don't realize what kind of effect 4 more years without any regulation changes will have on their monthly electric bill.

Well, stripped of hyperbole, the answers are as follows:

1.  you replace non civil service staff;

2.  you modify the CFR (Code of Federal Regulation) by issuing new Executive Orders (yeah, I know, it is easier to vent than to understand what the CFR and Executive Order concepts entail).; and,

3.  you don't spent authorized and appropriated funds (just as effective as a line item veto which is not authorized by the Constitution).