Background, overview and recap articles:

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Meltdown at the EPA.  In his recently released and timely book, Scare Pollution:  Why and How to Fix the EPA, author Steve Milloy says this about the Environmental Protection Agency:  ["]The EPA has over the course of the last 20 years marshaled its vast and virtually unchallenged power into an echo chamber of deceptive science, runaway regulations and fatally flawed research derived from unethical human experiments.  The EPA's conduct runs the gamut from subtle statistical shenanigans to withholding key scientific data, from seeking to rubberstamp baseless research data to illegally spraying diesel exhaust up the noses of unsuspecting children and other vulnerable populations.["]  Milloy, who runs the website JunkScience.com, has chronicled the scientific and bureaucratic abuse at the EPA for two decades, and he is thrilled by President Trump's plans to finally reform the EPA.  "I can think of no agency that has done more pointless harm to the U.S. economy than the EPA — all based on junk science, if not out-and-out science fraud," Milloy told me.  "I am looking forward to President Trump's dramatically shrinking the EPA by entirely overhauling how the remaining federal EPA uses science."

The EPA: The Worst Of Many Rogue Federal Agencies.  In the Age of Obama, there are many viable candidates for the official title of Washington's "Private Sector Enemy Number One."  You could make a strong case for the National Labor Relations Board, the Department of Homeland Security, the Transportation Security Administration, and others, but my choice would be the Environmental Protection Agency.  For over 20 years, I have gathered stories about ways in which the EPA has perpetrated misfeasance and malfeasance, misdeed, and mischief.

Another overview:
The Rogue EPA's Shocking Disregard For The Law.  The list of EPA infamy is a long one.  The EPA is a rogue agency, operating outside all control, seemingly immune to the laws that the rest of us must follow or suffer the consequences.  Given both the growing number of academic and think-tank studies that show the EPA's costs far outweigh its benefits and the agency's repeated acts of criminality, it's time to shut it down.

The Editor says...
There is not the slightest chance that the EPA will ever be shut down, regardless of the rational and logical arguments to do so, because one political party uses the EPA as a weapon, and the other party doesn't have the courage to take that weapon away.

The Case for Scott Pruitt to Serve as EPA Administrator.  Of all the agencies that need to be reined in, the EPA is one of the more urgent cases.  Founded in 1970, the EPA is relatively young but has already become one of the most burdensome agencies.  In recent days, the EPA has lost cases in court and even turned the Animas River orange in a completely preventable incident where acid mine waste contaminated the water.  The regulations the EPA places on American businesses means that companies are made to comply with esoteric, everchanging law.  To stay afloat, companies need to spend money on lawyers who can help them navigate through the thicket of regulations.  Combine this with a corporate tax and it becomes clear that America is not the most compelling place to have a flourishing business.  Confronted with this fact, American businesses have a choice.  They can stay and hemorrhage money in order to stay abreast the regulations; productivity will decrease as workers will be laid off so lawyers can be afforded.  Or they can take the more rational approach and relocate their operations to other countries with little to no regulations of this sort.

The EPA Shows Again That It's an Affront to Common Sense.  For decades, in administrations Democratic and Republican alike, the Environmental Protection Agency has been a paragon of waste, fraud, and abuse, a corrupt taxpayer-funded Evil Empire.  "Science" there is just a tool to be manipulated in order to advance radical anti-technology and anti-industry agendas, even if it means distorting the intent of statutes and affronting common sense.  The EPA is the prototype of agencies that, driven largely by politics, spend more and more to address smaller and smaller risks.  In one analysis by the Office of Management and Budget, of the 30 least cost-effective regulations throughout the government, the EPA had imposed no fewer than 17.  For example, the agency's restrictions on the disposal of land that contains certain wastes prevent 0.59 cancer cases per year — about three cases every five years — and avoid $20 million in property damage, at an annual cost of $194 to $219 million.

Gina Mccarthy Attempts to Prove the Value of the EPA — Big Job.  The EPA attempt to grab control of the drip from your downspouts as a part of the "navigable waters of the United States" has been halted by the courts, but 'overreach' is in their blood.  The pictures that accompany the news from the agency usually feature smokestacks which are belching (probably water vapor) but give the impression of noxious pollutants.  Carbon Dioxide remains a pollutant to the EPA, but for the rest of us (excluding Barack Obama and John Kerry) it remains plant food, one of the basic necessities for almost all life on Earth. [...] I don't believe that the EPA has saved a single life from pollution, nor kept a single child from contracting asthma (doctors don't know the cause).  Their overreach is not only excessive, but damaging to the people and the economy.  I don't believe that the agency needs a SWAT team of their very own.  They need to produce the science that they use to promulgate their rules and regulations, and establish that they are actually a needed bureaucracy, rather than an agency out for self-serving power grabs.

Report: Environmental Protection Agency Is Well-Armed and Anti-Business.  "The first thing you see in our report is that the EPA is a massive federal agency," said Adam Andrzejewski, founder of Openthebooks.com.  EPA's fiscal year 2015 budget totaled $8.13 billion.  If EPA became its own state, its budget would rank 42nd among all state budgets, Andrzejewski says.  EPA employs more than 1,000 attorneys, which means if EPA were a law firm, it would rank as the 14th largest domestic law firm in the United States, even though EPA lawyers don't defend the agency in court, Andrzejewski notes.  The Department of Justice has this responsibility, and between 1998 and 2010, it spent $43 million in additional legal fees defending EPA.  "The EPA was established under an executive order by Richard M. Nixon, a Republican president," Andrzejewski said.  "It's interesting that its first leader was an attorney:  William D. Ruckelshaus.  He immediately made it clear the new federal agency was in an adversarial position with American business."

Federal judge blocks Obama's water rule.  A federal judge in North Dakota acted late Thursday [8/27/2015] to block the Obama administration's controversial water pollution rule, hours before it was due to take effect.  Judge Ralph Erickson of the District Court for the District of North Dakota found that the 13 states suing to block the rule met the conditions necessary for a preliminary injunction, including that they would likely be harmed if courts didn't act and that they are likely to succeed when their underlying lawsuit against the rule is decided.

Green Terrorists are Sabotaging the U.S. Economy.  Environmentalist extremists are controlling our policies at all levels of local, state and federal government.  The environmental terrorists are consuming land in the name of frogs and assorted creatures and putting cost prohibitive regulations on farmers and ranchers, raising the price of essential services and goods such as food and transportation.  They are lowering our standard of living in the name of non-essential wildflowers and prairie chickens.  They have infiltrated the government at every level so that you now see the DOD tweeting their latest green initiative as ISIS, Al-Qaida, and Iran compete for hegemony in the Middle East and do so without resistance.  Americans are afraid to resist the lies on which they build their power.  The majority have been silenced into blindness though truth is hiding in plain sight.  The EPA is a group of unelected bureaucrats — tyrants — who now act as an arm of extremists, pushing regulations on individuals, on every household, and every business without our permission.

Another overview:
Replacing the Environmental Protection Agency.  Beginning around 1981, liberal activist groups recognized EPA could be used to advance their political agenda by regulating virtually all human activities regardless of their impact on the environment.  Politicians recognized they could win votes by posing as protectors of the public health and wildlife.  Industries saw a way to use regulations to handicap competitors or help themselves to public subsidies.  Since that time, not a single environmental law or regulation has been passed that benefitted either the environment or society.

How to replace the EPA.  Of all the regulatory deadweight on the economy, the Environmental Protection Agency is almost certainly the heaviest of the federal government's intrusions.  If voters should hand control of the White House and Congress to the GOP in 2016, structural reform ought to be the heart of the program to rescue America from the disasters Obama and the Democrats have wrought.  Part of that structural reform should be replacement of the EPA with a more effective and economical institutional arrangement.  The Heartland Institute has put forth a plan to do exactly that.

The EPA's original work is finished.
Tier 3 Tyranny.  [Scroll down]  The latest example involves a third layer (or tier) of rules the agency says will clean the nation's air and save lives by forcing refineries to remove more sulfur and other impurities from gasoline.  EPA and refiners call the proposal Tier 3 rulemaking.  Tier 3 tyranny is more accurate, as the rules would cost billions of dollars while bringing infinitesimal benefits, and will likely be imposed regardless.  Since 1970, automakers have eliminated some 99 percent of pollutants that once came out of the tailpipes of the nation's cars.  "Today's cars are essentially zero-emission vehicles, compared to 1970 models," says air pollution expert Joel Schwartz, coauthor of the book Air Quality in America.

The EPA's current work is futile.
The Obama EPA's War on America.  Greenhouse gas emissions are primarily carbon dioxide (CO2), a gas vital to all life on Earth, the "food" that vegetation depends upon.  It plays no role whatever in a "global warming" that is not occurring.  It is emitted by the Earth's many active volcanoes and hot springs.  It is exhaled by humans and land animals.  It is the product of the combustion of hydrocarbons.  As it increased in the atmosphere, the Earth has entered a cooling — not a warming — spell since the late 1990s.  Its atmospheric concentration is a very tiny 0.039 percent by volume.  It is, however, the justification on which much of the EPA's enforcement activities are based.

Never Cleaner.  By any demonstrable measure, the environment in the U.S. has never been cleaner in our lifetimes than now. [...] As a measure of the quality of air in our country, the EPA maintains data and statistics that quantify air quality from 1980 to the present.  Based on the EPA's own data, the national ambient air quality standards for certain target pollutants have all steadily and dramatically reduced.  As a national average:
  •   Carbon monoxide has been reduced 82%
  •   Ozone has been reduced 28%
  •   Lead has been reduced 89%
  •   Nitrogen oxides have been reduced 52%
  •   Particulate matter as PM10 has been reduced 38%, and fine particulate matter as PM2.5 has been reduced 27%
  •   Sulfur dioxide has been reduced 83%

The EPA can no longer justify its existence.
EPA: Hiding One's Light Under a Bushel.  In 1970 [when the EPA was created,] 31 million tons of sulphur dioxide, a prime contributor to smog, was emitted into the atmosphere.  In 2008 it was 11 million tons.  In 1970 34 million tons of volatile organic compounds were emitted.  In 2008 it was 16 million.  In 1970 204 million tons of carbon monoxide; in 2008 it was 72 million.  The EPA recently declared carbon dioxide a pollutant (which means we pollute the atmosphere every time we exhale).  And the only major country in the world where carbon dioxide emissions are declining?  The United States.  We emitted less CO2 in 2012 than in 1992.  Water pollution has similarly abated.  Unhealthy air days in major U.S. cities these days are a rarity.  Even Los Angeles had only 18 in all of 2011.  Manhattan had exactly none.

The cleaner the enviroment, the more desperate enviros become to tackle the Next Big Scare.
Obsessive-Compulsive Environmentalism.  [Scroll down]  The fact remains that because American industry is greatly improving its environmental practices and is proactively addressing all the "big problems," there's only one way for the EPA to stay relevant:  find little "problems" — even tiny, infinitesimal ones — and inflate them into issues of tremendous importance.  Combine the poorly understood concept of risk, a technically ignorant mainstream media, and a public that has been conditioned to equate the word "chemical" with "deadly poison" and you have the ideal conditions to do just that.

Washington Wants To Regulate ... Everything.  Both the EPA, which has launched the Obama administration's war on coal, and the Army Corps of Engineers want to expand the definition of waters that would be under their regulatory boot.  It looks like a scheme that will give them dominion over anything that's already wet — and anything that might become so.  We don't exaggerate the plan's potential intrusiveness.  "The EPA is proposing that puddles, ponds, ditches, ephemerals and isolated wetlands fall under the Clean Water Act and expand the regulatory authority to the EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers," the Journal Gazette & Times Courier, which serves an agricultural community in Illinois, reported last week.

EPA Continues Imposing Costly and Unnecessary New Restrictions.  President Obama's Environmental Protection Agency has already promulgated a tsunami of 1,920 regulations, many of which will bring few health or environmental benefits but will impose high economic and unemployment costs, often to advance the administration's decidedly anti-hydrocarbon agenda.  The Heritage Foundation calculates EPA's 20 "major" rulemaking decisions alone could cost the United States more than $36 billion per year.

The EPA's Latest Regulation Could Devastate The Trucking Industry.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized a rule Tuesday that will impose stricter nitrogen dioxide emissions standards on new heavy-duty trucks, a move that will substantially hike operating costs for truckers, experts and industry representatives told the Daily Caller News Foundation.  The EPA's rule, which is more than 80% stricter than the previous regulation, will require large trucks, delivery vans and buses manufactured after 2027 to cut nitrogen dioxide emissions by nearly 50% by 2045, according to an agency press release.  The agency's rule is intended to push truckers to phase out diesel-powered vehicles and use electric vehicles (EV) instead; however, the compliance costs associated with such rules could suffocate an industry that is not ready to transition to EVs, experts told the DCNF.

Timely news and commentary:

Major court decision could invalidate many federal environmental regulations.  In what could be a major legal ruling, a two-judge decision this week in the DC Circuit Court ruled that the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), which has for years imposed environmental rules on other federal agencies based on the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), does not have the statutory authority to do so, thus invalidating every regulation so imposed. [...] The case is complicated, partly because the Byzantine nature of the federal bureaucracy and the many agencies involved.  (It is almost as if these agencies created that complexity to confuse and protect themselves.)  The heart of the decision is that CEQ was apparently first created as an "advisory" body to help other federal agencies follow the intent of NEPA in their own rule-making, but instead soon became a "regulatory" body whose rulings other agencies were required to follow.  As that authority was never given it by Congress, CEQ exceeded its authority by making its rulings mandatory.

Trump's Next EPA Administrator Is a Lawyer, Not an Environmentalist.  President-elect Donald Trump is picking former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) to lead the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in his next administration.  The pick came as a surprise to many who expected Andrew Wheeler, Trump's former EPA administrator, to lead the agency again, according to the Washington Examiner.  While not considered an energy and environmental policy wonk, Zeldin could bring a fresh perspective to the EPA and reduce the scope of an agency that has become a behemoth that regularly oversteps its statutory authority.  In June, the Supreme Court struck down the Chevron doctrine.  This decades-old precedent forced courts to defer to an agency's interpretation of ambiguous laws, which empowered agencies to implement broad, overreaching regulations.

Court Vaporizes 50 Years of Environmental Law Leaving Trump's EPA to Build on the Ashes.  The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit summarily vaporized 46 years of Federal environmental regulations.  Writing in a case called Marin Audubon Society, et al v. FAA, et al, the majority of a three-judge panel ruled that the Council on Environmental Quality, a cabal inside the Executive Office of the President charged with ensuring that National Environmental Protection Act requirements are interpreted uniformly across the federal government, had illegally used the Federal Register to publish that guidance thereby giving citizens, agencies, and even the courts the impression that their internal guidance had the authority of law.

The Case of the Florida Scrub Jay Challenges the ESA's Tyranny.  As the name suggests, the Florida scrub jay lives exclusively in the scrublands of the Sunshine State.  A medium-sized, long-tailed, blue-and-gray songbird, its call when perched on scrubs is a screechy scold that sends its tail up like a Roman catapult launching a rock.  One of 15 bird species native to the continental U.S. — and allegedly threatened by loss of habitat — it is protected under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 1973.  But should protecting the bird take precedence over a citizen's property rights when his land isn't habitat suited to the bird?  And doesn't the arbitrary development fee that Florida counties imposed — a scrub jay fee, supposedly for offsetting the environmental impact of building on a property — amount to an exorbitant ransom?  These are among the questions raised in a federal lawsuit filed by Michael Colosi, a tech entrepreneur who hopes to build a house on a five-acre plot he recently bought in Punta Gorda, Charlotte County, Florida.

EPA's Power Plant Rule Is Inflicting Irreparable Harm.  Last week, the Supreme Court issued an order that left many in disbelief.  The Court denied several motions for stay (a legal pause) regarding the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) Clean Power Plan (CPP) 2.0 rule after granting a stay of the original CPP in 2016 and elaborating on the Major Questions Doctrine in overturning the CPP on its merits in West Virginia v. EPA in 2022.  The EPA rule, which we call CPP 2.0 because it's the second attempt at a CPP under section 111 of the Clean Air Act, hurts the reliability and affordability of electricity when both are already at risk.  The EPA now requires existing coal and new natural gas power plants to significantly change their operations or shut them down entirely.  CPP 2.0 is a costly and unlawful mandate for the unproven technology of carbon capture and sequestration/storage (CCS).  The fate of CPP 2.0 will be the same when the Supreme Court reviews it on the merits — it will be overturned because it plainly violates the statute it cites as authority from Congress.  But it will hurt many more Americans than it needs to because the Supreme Court took a narrow view of "irreparable harm."

Two Lawsuits Challenge Swampbuster and the Regulatory Labyrinth of the Administrative State.  In Sackett v. Environment Protection Agency (EPA), the court limited the authority of federal agencies over private property.  It also limited the types of waterways that the EPA can regulate.  The Sacketts had waged a 16-year battle to build a home on property they had purchased.  The EPA had erroneously declared the area a protected wetland, threatening them with fines if they built on it.  The court said landowners have the right to seek judicial review of agency determinations before facing action such as fines.

Electric grid operators warn U.S. Supreme Court that new EPA rules will cause widespread blackouts.  Organizations that manage, coordinate and monitor electricity service for 156 million Americans across 30 states are warning that the Biden-Harris administration's power plant rule will be catastrophic for the nation's grid.  Four regional trade organizations (RTO), as they're called, recently filed an amicus brief, also known as a friend of the court brief, in support of a multi-state lawsuit against the EPA over the rule.  The EPA released the rules in April.  They require coal-fired power plants that will be operating past 2039 to begin implementing carbon-capture technologies in just eight years. [...] The researchers say they found a number of problems.  The EPA grossly overestimated the ability of intermittent wind and solar to deliver reliable electricity during peak demand periods, according to the analysis, and it also found the agency didn't perform any reliability analysis on the rules.  The result would be blackouts lasting days in some cases.

US Supreme Court blocks EPA's 'Good Neighbor' air pollution plan.  The U.S. Supreme Court blocked an Environmental Protection Agency regulation aimed at reducing ozone emissions that may worsen air pollution in neighboring states, handing a victory on Thursday to three Republican-led states and the steel and fossil-fuel industries that had challenged the rule.  The 5-4 decision granted requests by Ohio, Indiana and West Virginia, as well as U.S. Steel Corp, opens new tab, pipeline operator Kinder Morgan, opens new tab and industry groups, to halt enforcement of the EPA's "Good Neighbor" plan restricting ozone pollution from upwind states, while they contest the rule's legality in a lower court.

New EPA Rule Is a Death Sentence for American Energy.  The Environmental Protection Agency plays judge, jury, and executioner — and its newest-issued rule is a death sentence to American energy and energy-producing states.  Meanwhile, states like Pennsylvania, which will be disproportionately harmed by the rule because of our abundant natural gas production, hold the key to America's increasing energy needs, generating immense economic development and reducing the very emissions targeted by this heavy-handed agency.  The EPA unilaterally issued a final rule establishing draconian emission standards that target existing coal and new natural gas power plants nationwide.  It requires 90% carbon capture for power-generating facilities by 2032.

Captain Biden and His Economics Crew are Tempting Fate.  First off, President Biden's disastrous energy-related executive orders to stop the Keystone XL pipeline construction dead in its tracks as well as suspending oil/gas permitting and leasing on federal properties was a true gaffe for a fossil fuel economy such as the U.S.  When these pronouncements went into effect, prices for future deliveries of gas and oil shot up immediately.  According to the Washington Post, average gasoline prices at one point in President Trump's last year in office reached a low of $1.85 gallon; during President Biden's era, average prices jumped to $4.93/ gallon before falling back to the $3.45-$3.25 gallon currently.  To further compound the energy cost increases at the producer level, Biden also suspended additional global exports of liquified natural gas (LNG), claiming that it contributed to the "[...] existential (climate) threat of our time."  However, scientists agree that LNG produces much less carbon dioxide relative to oil (-30%) and coal (-40%), making it the cleanest of all fossil fuels.  Existential threat?  Not in the U.S.; according to the EPA, the U.S. has cut air pollution by nearly 80% in the last 50 years.

The Editor says...
[#1] Climate change is not the "existential (climate) threat of our time," nor is it any threat at all.  The climate always changes, from night to day, from summer to winter, and we all deal with those changes as they happen.  [#2] The "cleanest of all fossil fuels" is not the fuel that results in the least production of carbon dioxide, because carbon dioxide is not dirty.  Carbon dioxide is plant food.  If the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere doubled overnight, you would never notice the difference, except that the grass in your yard would grow a lot faster.  [#3] The EPA says "the U.S. has cut air pollution by nearly 80% in the last 50 years."  Yes but that is because unleaded gasoline was introduced 50 years ago, and lead in the atmosphere has been almost completely eliminated as a result.  The EPA could be eliminated now, and nobody would notice the difference, because every state has its own EPA.  California has several.

Biden EPA Rules Will Cause Blackouts for Millions of Americans, Study Warns.  President Joe Biden's aggressive climate regulations targeting fossil-fuel-fired power plants will create widespread electric grid instability and lead to mass blackouts impacting millions of Americans, according to a recent study commissioned by North Dakota's state government.  The research, conducted in May by the firm Always On Energy Research, concluded that the Environmental Protection Agency's recently finalized regulations are not technologically feasible and will foreseeably lead to the retirement of coal power generation units.  Intermittent and weather-dependent green energy sources, such as wind and solar, will replace such retired generators, leading to unreliable conditions, the study found.  The study largely echoes concerns that have been voiced by the U.S. grid watchdog, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation; regional grid operators; and power utility companies.  Four regional grid operators that oversee the infrastructure supplying power for 154 million Americans warned after the EPA regulations were first proposed last year that grid reliability would "dwindle to concerning levels" under the regulations.

The Cost of EPA's Senseless CO₂ Capture.  In April 24, 2024, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency passed a new rule that would require coal power plants that plan to continue operating after January 1, 2039, and new natural gas power plants that plan to begin operation on or after 2035 to capture at least 90% of their CO₂ emissions.  How much would this cost?  And is it worth it?  Well, as they say, we ran the numbers.  Thankfully, researchers from the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) have provided the cost and performance estimates for retrofitting an existing coal power plant with Shell's CANSOLV CO₂ capture system.  For the performance and cost estimates, I will use the NETL estimates for 90% carbon capture.  (Here, I am using the term "carbon capture," rather than "CO₂ capture," because NETL uses the mass of carbon, rather than the mass of CO₂, in its calculations.)  Before the retrofit, NETL's baseline coal power plant had a net output of 650 megawatts (MW).  But after retrofitting it with the CO₂ capture system, the power output was reduced by 24% to 495 MW.  In terms of money, the retrofit cost is about $988 million, or about $2 million/MW of net power output.

More about carbon dioxide.

How EPA's power plant rule will destroy our grid.  [Scroll down]  EPA's rule will shut down almost all our coal plants and prevent new natural gas replacement plants[.]  By mandating that existing coal plants and new natural gas plants meet impossible standards, the EPA is destroying 1/6 of our reliable power and preventing it from being replaced.  The EPA couldn't get away with saying: "Our response to today's growing electricity crisis is to order all coal plants to shut down and prohibit new natural gas plants from replacing them."  But EPA is doing exactly this by mandating that these plants do the impossible.  EPA's new rule says that by 2032, existing coal power plants plus new natural gas power plants used >40% of the time must commit to retiring pre-2039 or capture 90% of their CO2 emissions — something that exactly zero power plants do today.  EPA claims that fossil fueled power plants will be able to capture 90% of their CO2 emissions by 2032 via carbon capture and sequestration/storage (CCS).  But even with massive government support, no CCS facility is cost-effectively capturing anywhere close to 90% CO2 emissions.

The EPA has given $50,000,000 to a radical leftist, pro-Hamas organization.  I've just caught up with a video of Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R. WV) explaining how $50 million from the $40 billion that Congress allocated to the chimera of climate change remediation ended up in the hands of radical activists.  This isn't necessarily the EPA's fault.  It's simply how the system operates...and that needs to change.  The grossly misnamed Inflation Reduction Act included handing $40 billion to the Environmental Protection Agency for it to allocate to organizations that promise to help save the environment from climate change.  That allocation ostensibly reflects the belief that we puny humans have control over a climate that has been fluctuating, often according to well-established cycles interrupted with periodic massive disasters, for tens of millions of years without our help.  However, as Sen. Capito's video reveals, mostly what the money allocated does is to enrich hardcore progressive Democrat groups.

EPA's Lead Pipe Fix Sent $3B to States Based on Unverified Data.  The Environmental Protection Agency distributed about $3 billion to states last year to replace harmful lead pipes based on unverified data, according to an agency inspector general's memo, likely meaning some states got too much money and others got too little.  Investigators found two states had submitted inaccurate data, the memo released Wednesday said.  It didn't name the states.  The EPA has since made changes, but the inspector general said the agency could do more. "Insufficient internal controls for verifying data led to allotments that did not represent the needs of each state, and if left unaddressed, the Agency runs the risk of using unreliable data for future" infrastructure spending, said EPA Inspector General Sean W. O'Donnell.

The Cost of EPA's Senseless CO2 Capture.  In April 24, 2024, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) passed a new rule that would require coal power plants that plan to continue operating after January 1, 2039, and new natural gas power plants that plan to begin operation on or after 2035 to capture at least 90% of their CO2 emissions.  How much would this cost?  And is it worth it?  Well, as they say, we ran the numbers.  Thankfully, researchers from the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) have provided the cost and performance estimates for retrofitting an existing coal power plant with Shell's CANSOLV CO2 capture system.  For the performance and cost estimates, I will use the NETL estimates for 90% carbon capture.  (Here, I am using the term "carbon capture," rather than "CO2 capture," because NETL uses the mass of carbon, rather than the mass of CO2, in its calculations.)  Before the retrofit, NETL's baseline coal power plant had a net output of 650 megawatts (MW).  But after retrofitting it with the CO2 capture system, the power output was reduced by 24% to 495 MW.  In terms of money, the retrofit cost is about $988 million, or about $2 million/MW of net power output.

EPA's Electric Rationing Madness Short Circuits Any Benefit.  There was a time when the EPA provided vitally important services to clean up and protect America's air, land, and water from truly toxic substances[.]  That was before climate madness ensued and essential plant-nourishing CO2 was deemed a "pollutant" to be eliminated by replacing reliable hydrocarbons that provide more than 80 percent of our energy with anemic and intermittent wind and solar pipedreams.  Just as you might have imagined they couldn't get crazier, consider EPA's latest plan to force closures of coal and natural gas plants that keep lights on, homes comfortable and businesses open when those friendly breezes and sunbeams aren't available.  This, also at a time when the Biden administration is trying to push millions of electric vehicles on overtaxed grids, and AI is also poised to gobble up all the extra juice it can manage to squeeze.

Electrical Grid Operators Are 'Sounding Alarm' over EPA Rules.  Electrical grid operators have been "sounding alarm bells" that they will not be able to "meet the demand" of the amount of electricity needed under the Biden administration's Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) most recent regulations, Dave Walsh, former President and CEO of Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems Americas, Inc. (MHPSA) said during an interview on Breitbart News Saturday.  The EPA released four final rules Thursday that would help to reduce the amount of pollution being produced from "fossil fuel-fired power plants."  The EPA's final regulations for coal-fired and natural gas-fired power plants "limit the amount of carbon pollution covered sources can emit."  "We've got the regional grid coordinators across the grids, PJM 13 states, MISO 15 states, CAISO, which is California, ERCOT, which is Texas, and now added North Carolina and Tennessee, 32 states now impacted by grid operators telling us that they're running out of electricity," Walsh said, adding that we are not "generating enough baseload constant duty electricity to support demand."

EPA Rule Could Put Small Meat Processors Out of Business — and Leave Consumers Out in the Cold.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing new limits on how much nitrogen, phosphate and other pollutants meat processing facilities can discharge into surface waters.  The EPA said the proposed rule change will "improve water quality and protect human health and the environment."  But some critics argue it also will hurt small processing facilities that won't be able to afford the upgrades required to comply with the new rule.  Small facilities will either shut down, resulting in fewer local meat sources for consumers.  Or they'll sell out larger corporations, contributing to even greater consolidation in the meat industry.  Describing it as "a direct attack on the buy local foods movement" and local meat producers, American Stewards of Liberty, the Kansas Natural Resource Coalition and other organizations submitted comments opposing the proposed rule.

Wyoming governor, secretary of state say EPA rules will hurt state's coal industry.  Wyoming officials are not happy with the federal government's latest rules involving coal-fired power plants.  The Environmental Protection Agency's new rules finalized this week will require existing coal-fired plants and new natural gas plants to "control 90% of their carbon pollution" and will make mercury emissions standards stricter.  The stated purpose from EPA is to help combat climate change, but Gov. Mark Gordon isn't buying.  "It is clear the only goal envisioned by these rules released by the Environmental Protection Agency today is the end of coal communities in Wyoming," Gordon said in a press release.  "EPA has weaponized the fear of climate change into a crushing set of rules that will result in an unreliable electric grid, unaffordable electricity, and thousands of lost jobs."  According to the Energy Information Administration, which is part of the Department of Energy, Wyoming accounts for two-fifths of all domestic coal mined.

Biden's Power Plant Crackdown Raises More Questions Than Answers.  The Biden administration's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued final regulations to cut power plant greenhouse gas emissions and pollutants Thursday that could raise more questions than answers in a time of rising demand and diminishing reliability on America's power grid.  Assuming it is upheld by the courts, the regulation will require both coal and natural gas power plants to invest millions in carbon capture and storage and other technology between now and 2032, or face being removed from the grid.  Much has been written in recent months about the electricity-gobbling nature of hundreds of new data centers and crypto-mining operations being installed around the country, along with the power needs of government-subsidized renewable energy and electric vehicle industrial plants.  The North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) stated in its current assessment that new demands on the grid during 2023 were more than triple those of 2022, and the pace only seems destined to accelerate in the years to come.

Biden's EPA Says Sweeping Power Plant Regs Won't Harm America's Grid — Experts Are Saying The Exact Opposite.  The Biden administration says that its new rules for fossil fuel-fired power plants will not cause grid reliability problems, but power grid experts are warning that the exact opposite could end up being the case.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced final rules for fossil fuel-fired power plants Thursday, marking one of the most aggressive moves that President Joe Biden has made in an effort to fight climate change.  While the EPA says that the rules will not make the electricity that powers the economy less reliable, power grid experts are concerned that the rules will constrain the amount of affordable and reliable power available to meet expected increases in demand over the coming years.  Under the new regulations, America's existing coal plants will have to use carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology to control 90% of their carbon emissions by 2032 if they want to stay running past 2039, and certain new natural gas plants will also have to cut their emissions by 90% by 2032, according to the agency.

When did we vote on this?
Biden EPA Threatens to Shut Down Coal Plants Amid Energy Crisis.  Just last month, it was determined that the cost of electricity in the United States was still rising at a rate faster than the national average for inflation.  In other words, even if you are somehow managing to pay your rent or your mortgage in this economy and maintain a place to live, you might not be able to afford to heat it or keep the lights on.  So what has Joe Biden done in response?  He has ordered the EPA to issue new rules that will either make electricity more expensive or remove some of it from the power grid.  (Possibly both.)  Under the new rules, coal and natural gas power plants will be forced to capture nearly all smokestack emissions or... (wait for it) shut down.  What could possibly go wrong?

Biden Admin Finalizes New Rules to Restrain Fossil Fuel Power Plant Carbon Emissions.  The Biden administration has finalized an array of new regulations on fossil-fuel-fired power plants, including a rule requiring many power plants to prevent the release of 90 percent of their carbon emissions.  "The Biden-Harris Administration is announcing key actions to build on this momentum and deliver clean electricity to more homes and businesses, helping lower energy costs for American families and power the U.S. manufacturing renaissance driven by President Biden's Investing in America agenda, while providing cleaner air and water to communities long overburdened by pollution from fossil fuel power plants," the White House said on April 25.  The new carbon emission regulations, announced by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), specifically call for fossil fuel plants to cut their carbon emissions and reduce other air and water pollutants.

The Editor says...
Carbon dioxide is not carbon, nor is it a pollutant.

When did anyone vote on this?
If Biden's EPA Really Cares about Pollution...  A proposed EPA rule mandating more stringent effluent limitations for nitrogen, and adding phosphorus for the first time, would impose high costs on approximately 850 of the nation's meat and poultry processing (MPP) facilities.  Some processors will be compelled to close due to prohibitive costs. [...] The new EPA rules are presented as an innocuous effort to reduce nitrogen and phosphorus discharges in waterways, but upon inspection, they are sweeping in their aggressive impact.  Extending EPA jurisdiction to all things climate is the new Biden norm, and these rules similarly saddle private industry with daunting costs to retrofit facilities.  The EPA is once again exceeding its congressionally authorized mission (shifting from ecological protection to global warming cultism) and also its jurisdiction — these rules extend to an estimated 3,879 MPP facilities not previously regulated and encroach on states' rights by governing non-navigable waterways historically left to local oversight.

Behind EV Push, a Wealth Transfer From Red to Blue Regions.  President Joe Biden's new EV mandates will likely prove to be a sizable wealth transfer from rural red regions of America to urban blue sections, and to wealthy Democrats who reside in them, according to reports.  On March 20, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized its tailpipe emissions rules for the auto industry starting in 2027.  These rules are the strictest in history and will effectively force carmakers to have one-third of new car sales be plug-in electric vehicles (EVs) by 2027 and more than two-thirds by 2032.  This represents a dramatic increase from current EV sales, which were about 8 percent of the new car market in 2023.  Climate activists cheered the EPA's move, with the Environmental Defense Fund calling it "a day to celebrate American achievement."  But critics say that the measures will be particularly punitive for huge segments of the U.S. population who don't want, can't use, or can't afford EVs.  If carmakers go along with President Biden's plan to shift their fleets to EVs, the cost of remaining gas-fired cars and trucks will likely escalate as demand dwarfs supply.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles ... and Trucks.  The Biden administration has announced in recent weeks new stringent emissions requirements for virtually the entire American transportation system.  The Environmental Protection Agency will mandate by the year 2035 that virtually every car made and sold in America must be an EV.  No more gas cars.  The New York Times comically declared that motorists don't have to worry because this "is not a ban on gasoline-powered vehicles."  Sure it isn't.  Today less than 2% of cars use the electric power grid for fuel.  So soon we will see 50 times more demand for electricity from autos.  Then the EPA announced new rules for trains in California to go electric — even as the Association of American Railroads has declared the mandate infeasible.  But wait.  The climate change lobby is just getting started.  There is now a new scheme to mandate that the long-haul trucking industry convert to electric battery operation from diesel fuel.  This is a technological and financial nightmare for our trucking industry.

Corruption Is Treason.  It's not the issue of electric vehicles or batteries or wind turbines that is at question here, it's the ability of a government to get behind the ridiculous endeavor and mandate it based on previously passed laws concerning the environment and legislation to prevent pollution.  That's exactly what Biden has done, using the EPA, designating CO2 as a pollutant, which is the same as designating nitrogen as a pollutant, even though the EPA cannot show CO2 is a pollutant, they just designate it as such from information produced by bought-off scientists who can only obtain grants by the government, i.e. the EPA, if they support their claim.  It doesn't matter, the question is, how to legally obtain it, not whether it should be obtained.

Biden's Next EV Mandate Is Out and It's Going to Break America.  Say goodbye to the trucking industry as we know it, and goodbye to the American economy, too.  You might have missed it on Good Friday — which you can be sure was no accident — when the Biden EPA released its new tailpipe rules for semi-trucks, but the new rules will destroy how we move goods around the country.  It seems like only two weeks ago that I told you about Presidentish Biden's new EPA regulations, coming into effect starting in 2027, that will force two-thirds of new car buyers into electric vehicles whether they want one or not.  The tailpipe rules will effectively outlaw most gas and diesel engines by requiring a near-impossible 52% reduction in emissions.  On the Good Friday News Dump, the EPA announced similar restrictions on semi-trucks, again starting in just three years, and the changes will require one of those "fundamental transformations" the Left is so fond of.

Bureaucrats Control the Show.  Bureaus and agencies administer the laws and regulations passed by Congress.  They also administer executive orders issued by the President.  They were created out of necessity.  No one man or woman can effectively oversee the daily control necessary to ensure the laws and rules are carried out.  The people that manage these departments are not elected.  They have been hired based on experience or favoritism.  They have been appointed based on nepotism or party affiliation.  In most cases the actual controlling management have been on the job for a long period of time.  They are skilled at managing and manipulating the established system as well as maintaining a protective shield against political climate change.  They know which way the wind blows.  As a result of the embedded bureaucratic structure, elected officials such as congressmen, governors, mayors, and even presidents are at the mercy of those who run and control these bureaus and agencies.

The EPA Is About to Outlaw Your Car.  "Outlaw your car" sounds like such an outrageous phrase, and technically speaking, it isn't true — but only barely.  What practical difference is there between outlawing something, and regulating it out of existence?  That's exactly what the EPA intends to do this week with strict new rules going forward against gas- and diesel-powered cars and light trucks.  Expected as soon as Wednesday, the Biden EPA "is poised to finalize emissions rules that will effectively require a certain percentage — as much as two-thirds by 2032 — of new cars to be all-electric," according to Inside EVs.  Politico sells the expected rule as one that would "tackle the nation's biggest source of planet-warming pollution and accelerate the transition to electric vehicles."  The rule would require carmakers to cut their average emissions of carbon dioxide by 52% between 2027 and 2032. EPA projects that the standard would push the car industry to ensure that electric cars and light trucks make up about 67% of new vehicles by model year 2032.

Mandate for Leadership.  [Scroll down to page 417]  Not surprisingly, the EPA under the Biden Administration has returned to the same top-down, coercive approach that defined the Obama Administration.  There has been a reinstitution of unachievable standards designed to aid in the "transition" away from politically disfavored industries and technologies and toward the Biden Administration's preferred alternatives.  This approach is most obvious in the Biden Administration's assault on the energy sector as the Administration uses its regulatory might to make coal, oil, and natural gas operations very expensive and increasingly inaccessible while forcing the economy to build out and rely on unreliable renewables.  This approach has also been applied to pesticides and chemicals as the Biden Administration pushes the "greening" of agriculture and manufacturing among other industrial activities.  As a consequence of this approach, we see the return of costly, job-killing regulations that serve to depress the economy and grow the bureaucracy but do little to address, much less resolve, complex environmental problems.  In some instances, these actions even work to undermine environmental efforts as they push industries overseas to countries whose enforcement of pollution-control requirements is seriously deficient — if indeed they have any meaningful requirements at all.

EPA finalizes air pollution standards that critics say will cost jobs and hurt the economy.  The EPA finalized air pollution standards that create more stringent limits for soot exposure, as it is called.  This despite a 42% decrease in the national average over the last 22 years, according to the agency's own data.  "It's going to hurt economies.  It's going to hurt manufacturing.  It's a real problem," Daren Bakst, senior fellow with the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), told Just The News.  The Clean Air Act requires the EPA every five years to do a complete review of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for six common pollutants, which includes particulate matter.  The NAAQS for particulate matter, sometimes referred to as PM 2.5, deal with solid particles and liquid droplets that are a fraction of the width of a human hair and are suspended in the air.  These particles are emitted from construction sites, unpaved roads, agriculture fields, smokestacks and fires.

The Editor says...
Dust from unpaved roads and wide-open pastures never hurt anybody.  Every smokestack in the U.S. has been closely monitored for at least 40 years.  Fires happen, but they are sporadic and mostly accidental — not something to be outlawed.  In other words, the EPA is solving problems that don't exist, to perpetuate its own existence.

Time to Get Rid of the Chevron Ruling.  The burden of overregulation weighs heavily upon American industry.  It saddles the business world with burdens that stifle initiative and diminish profits.  One Supreme Court decision that reinforces and codifies this government regulation is Chevron U.S.A. v. National Resources Defense Council.  The 1984 ruling over a Clean Air Act regulation held that when confronted with ambiguous provisions of federal statutory law, judges must defer to the reasonable interpretations of agency officials over any others.  This blank-check approach to the law made it difficult to challenge oppressive regulation and further empowered an already top-heavy bureaucracy.  Soon, Chevron became the rule to make all rules.  Now, Chevron is being challenged, and it is about time.

If Anyone Needs to Explain Why They Need Guns, It's the EPA.  The Environmental Protection Agency isn't traditionally associated with ranged weaponry, but the federal government has spent almost $620,000 since 2018 to buy guns, ammunition, and more for EPA employees.  Auditors at OpenTheBooks.com found that between 2018 and 2022, the EPA spent close to $400,000 of federal funds just on ammunition.  That came after the EPA purchased 500,000 rounds of ammo and 600 guns from 2010-2017.  Over $100,000 went to buying armor for EPA employees.  Funds were also used for "optical sighting and ranging equipment," for "night vision equipment" and "security vehicles."

Biden's EPA [is] Planning to Ban Methylene Chloride, an Industry-Essential Chemical.  The EPA is now planning to ban an industry-essential chemical, methylene chloride, with serious ramifications on the economy and national security.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed on Thursday to ban most uses of a toxic chemical used in paint removal.  The proposal would ban most industrial and commercial uses of methylene chloride, which, in addition to paint removal, is used as a solvent in making pharmaceuticals and in electronics.  One study found that methylene-chloride exposure killed 85 people between 1980 and 2018.  The substance has also been linked to certain cancers.  The new proposal, from the Biden administration, goes further than a Trump administration rule that banned the sale to consumers of paint strippers using methylene chloride but did not address its industrial uses.

We Need to Take Control Of Our Land and Water Back from the EPA.  Going back to 2017, there was a Senate Bill (SB121) that created a Study Commission, chaired by Senator Jeb Bradley, to look at having NH assume responsibility for portions of the federal Clean Water Act.  If it had occurred, this would have removed regulatory authority from EPA Region I and bestowed it to NH DES Staff in Concord. [...] From that SB 121 Report, there was another effort, SB450 — that created a Study Commission on the topic.  And while that made some headway, nothing ever came to fruition as it had a fiscal impact of $350,000 for funding — and the effort waned.  On 1/8/2024 a new bill was presented to start the conversation on the EPAs role in NH — HB1294[.]  The bill sponsor, Michael Granger of Milton, admits the bill will need study and an amendment, but with all the recent overreach from the EPA, it is necessary for NH to revisit.  This bill with put our own NHDES in charge and not the EPA.

The EPA arms up to protect "our democracy".  Under the Mummified Meat Puppet Administration (MMPA), our military is prepared to fight the trans/pronoun wars, not the real thing.  But the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is getting ready to go to actual war.  It appears the environment needed more protection than anyone could have imagined: [...] The EPA has long been a severe pain in American's collective backsides.  It is a law unto itself, issuing, without accountability, rules and mandates with the force of law.  When Americans complain because the EPA declares a mudpuddle on their farms a wetland and imposes millions in fines, the EPA judges the complaint and invariably finds itself entirely correct as it imposes even greater fines.  Occasionally, a brave judges reins in the EPA, but not nearly often enough.  The EPA has no jurisdiction outside America, which means the only target for its growing arsenal is Americans, and while the EPA has gone after major polluters, they seem to pursue the little guy — farmers, ranchers, and everyday Americans — with gleeful arrogance.

EPA Is Buying Millions of Dollars Worth of Military-Grade Weapons.  Why is the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) purchasing millions of dollars worth of military-grade equipment, including night vision goggles and serious weapons, as if they are preparing for war?  Every agency has been arming up to some degree since at least Barack Obama's presidency.  When we look at the FBI and DOJ, who are heavily armed, we might think of them as a national police force.  If you combine them with all these heavily armed agencies, the US has numerous national police forces.  That's one way to look at it.  The weapons could be used against Americans.

Let sleeping dogs lie, I say..
Biden EPA moves to require replacement of every lead pipe within a decade.  The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) proposed a new rule Thursday that would effectively mandate the replacement of every lead water pipe in the country.  The agency's proposal would bolster the "Lead and Copper Rule" to require water systems nationwide to remove and replace every lead pipe within ten years if finalized in its current shape.  The proposal is a key advancement of President Joe Biden's long-term goal to get rid of every lead pipe in the U.S.  The EPA estimates that the proposal could cost as much as $30 billion for utility companies across the country to execute over 10 years, costs which the utilities are likely to pass on to ratepayers.  The bipartisan infrastructure law allocates $15 billion to help cover those expenses, but the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies, a trade and policy group for urban water suppliers, says it has "repeatedly" highlighted several issues that could complicate the EPA's ambitious proposal, such as elevated costs, supply chain problems, labor shortages and inadequate building records.

The Editor says...
It would be far more beneficial to shut down and eradicate the EPA over the next ten years.

The EPA's War Against Cars.  Americans justly love cars, for necessity, for pleasure, and everything in between.  In all we drive more than three trillion miles per year, in 290 million registered cars, of which some 287 million are internal combustion engines.  Today's cars are without doubt among the most highly evolved, reliable, innovative and efficient forms of production ever witnessed.  Exactly the prime target you would expect from the Biden administration.  The EPA has announced planned emission regulations that will end the U.S. automotive industry as we know it, while simultaneously forcing Americans into EV cars they manifestly do not want.  The proposed regulations are being called "the single most important regulatory initiative by the Biden administration."  That claim alone should strike fear into every American household.

How the Inflation Reduction Act Bankrolls EPA Overreach.  The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) offers a master class in implementing expensive, counterproductive, and highly partisan energy policy.  In previous posts, I discussed 1) how the electricity generation subsidies in the IRA could cost taxpayers $2.5 or $3 trillion and 2) why policymakers should remove those subsidies before expanding the high-voltage transmission system.  As we count the reasons why repealing the energy subsidies in the IRA is a good idea, let's also consider their interaction with the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) proposed power plant rule.  It is technically true that, as Senator Joe Manchin has said, "[n]either the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law nor the IRA gave new authority to regulate power plant emission standards."  However, the IRA did provide the foundation upon which the EPA has built its power plant regulation by subsidizing the technologies that enable the new standards.  Consequently, lawmakers who oppose the EPA's overreach should consider repealing the energy subsidies in the IRA.

The Disastrous Potential of The EPA's Proposed Rule for Model Year 2027.  The benefit/cost analysis published by the Environmental Protection Agency in its proposed rule "Multi-Pollutant Emissions Standards for Model Year 2027 and Later Light-Duty and Medium-Duty Vehicles" is fatally flawed; accordingly, the proposed rule should not be finalized.  EPA claims that the fuel savings attendant upon implementation of the proposed rule would yield benefits in present value terms of $380-$770 billion (net of EVSE port costs), depending on the choice of discount rate.  But fuel savings are an illegitimate dimension of any such benefit/cost analysis because the value of fuel savings measured as a function of market prices represents no divergence per se between market prices and true resource costs in standard externality analysis.  If "fuel savings" are to be considered relevant for purposes of benefit/cost analysis, then the adverse effects or costs of a (forced) reduction in fuel consumption in terms of the quality of transportation services must be included in the analysis also.

Will New EPA Regulations Starve Millions Of People?  Two distinguished climate scientists have filed with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) a 45-page comment on the proposed regulation the EPA announced on May 11, 2023, setting emission standards that would require nearly all of coal- and gas-powered plants in the U.S.to capture almost all — 90 percent — of their carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 2038 or shut down.  In their comment, William Happer, professor of physics, emeritus, Princeton University, and Richard Lindzen, professor of Earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences, emeritus, make both a legal and a scientific case that the EPA's proposed new rule is based on ideologically driven polices with no basis in legitimate climate science.  In a document that appears to be the prelude to filing a lawsuit to block the EPA from implementing the proposed regulation, Happer and Lindzen lay out a science-based case arguing that the new EPA rules designed to limit the use of hydrocarbon fuels in the nation's power plants could end up reducing the world's food supply so dramatically that billions of people worldwide would be at risk of death by starvation.

EPA Tries to Destroy the Grid.  The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing a new rule limiting CO2 emissions from fossil fuel-fired (coal and natural gas) power plants.  As you might expect, given the ideological bent of EPA, the rule is a Trojan horse, the real purpose of which is to induce the nation's coal plants and some natural gas power generation to shut down under the increasing weight of federal regulations.  Center of the American Experiment is sounding the alarm on EPA's rule. [...] EPA's power plant regulations will devastate ordinary people — those who rely on electricity and want affordable transportation — while enriching a handful of well-connected industries that have curried the favor of the current administration.

EPA vs. the Grid, Part 2.  I wrote here about the EPA's proposed new CO2 regulations on power plants that would devastate the electrical grid.  This public comment, drafted by American Experiment's Isaac Orr and Mitch Rolling and filed on Tuesday, explains why the rule is so destructive.  It will mandate a grid that is heavily dependent on solar and wind installations, and therefore subject to devastating blackouts.  If the EPA set out to disrupt our economy and make our lives miserable, and sometimes dangerous — if the rule goes into effect, people will die — it could hardly do a better job.  It is remarkable that the EPA seeks to enact its wide-ranging regulations without ever having conducted the reliability analysis that was carried out by Orr and Rolling.  This is a classic case of a vast government bureaucracy and highly-paid consultants on one side, doing the bidding of "green" lobbyists by obfuscating the facts.  While on the other side, there are two guys.  But two guys with expertise and the honesty to evaluate the consequences of a proposal based on science, not financial gain.  The public comment that Orr and Rolling drafted at the request of the State of North Dakota is likely to play a major role in litigation challenging the proposed rule, which may end up in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Sen. Cramer, Colleagues Call on EPA to Withdraw Harmful Proposed Power Plant Regulations.  U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND), member of the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, joined nearly 40 of his Senate colleagues in a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) asking for the withdrawal of the "Clean Power Plan 2.0," a proposed rule which will force the closure of coal and gas-fire power plants.  The senators said the proposal would require generation shifting from fossil-fuel power to other types of energy, which is in direct conflict with West Virginia v. EPA.  They also argued the rule reflects rushed decision-making that is arbitrary and capricious, subverts public participation, and negatively impacts electric reliability across the country.

EPA Admits Proposal to Ban Essential Dry Cleaning Chemical Won't Help The Environment.  The Environmental Protection Agency says its own rule proposal to ban a chemical used by many dry cleaners would have little impact on the environment, but its effects "could be devastating" for small businesses across the country, according to industry experts.  The agency says perchloroethylene, or PCE, "does not present an unreasonable risk to the environment," but aims to ban the chemical because it causes health problems.  Cleaning industry experts say that the EPA is overestimating the chemical's health hazards, and placing an unnecessary burden on 6,000 dry cleaners across the country that use it, many of which are small businesses.  "This proposed rule is not likely to have significant effects on the environment because PCE does not present an unreasonable risk to the environment," reads the text of the proposed rule.  The agency says it was unable to determine "the number of dry cleaning facility closures that may be associated."

This One Tool Helped Delay Biden's Attack on Women's Sports, and You Can Use It to Fight His War on Gas Cars.  Newly-proposed EPA rules will mandate fewer emissions of carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and other greenhouse gases for model years beginning in 2027 and stretching to 2032.  By that year, carmakers will have to cut emissions from cars, pickup trucks, vans, and SUVs by 56%.  These rules will make cars more expensive, encourage Americans to buy electric — even though electric vehicles have a shorter range — and encourage more investment in Communist China.  (Fifty-six percent or more of EV batteries are produced by six Chinese corporations.)  Americans don't have to take all this sitting down, however.  The Biden administration is required by law to listen to the American people when it implements a major new rule or regulation.

SCOTUS unanimously yanks chain on EPA in Sackett.  Anyone want to take bets on the life expectancy of the Chevron doctrine after today's unanimous decision on Sackett v EPA?  The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the EPA had grossly overstepped its congressional mandate in defining "Waters of the United States," vastly limiting its authority to declare jurisdiction over what it claims to be "wetlands" on private property.  It's the second such loss in as many years for the EPA's attempt to aggrandize its jurisdiction, CBS News notes: [...] In both instances, the EPA had tried to extend its authority without involving Congress.  In this case, which has been percolating for years, the Obama-era EPA had defined the term "wetland" in the Clean Water Act and Waters of the US rule (WOTUS) as basically any land where water naturally pooled on occasion.  That led the EPA in 2004 to block Mike and Chantell Sackett from completing a home on their residential-zoned Idaho lot of less than an acre and socking them with massive per-day fines until they dismantled what had already been built — even though their land was nowhere near a navigable body of water, as the WOTUS rule required.

Schumer rips 'MAGA' Supreme Court after 9-0 vote on EPA waters rule.  Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., slammed the Supreme Court's ruling Thursday that limited the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to regulate bodies of water, calling it a "MAGA" court even though the decision was 9-0.  On Thursday, the high court issued an opinion that narrowed the EPA's broad definition of Waters of the United States (WOTUS).  The court said the federal government must define WOTUS as a water source with a "continuous surface connection" to major bodies of water.  The decision upended an attempt by the Biden administration to regulate wetlands, lakes, ponds, streams and other "relatively permanent" waterways, which had relied on a broad reading of the EPA's authority under the Clean Water Act (CWA).

Supreme Court delivers blow to wetlands protections in win for Idaho landowners.  The Supreme Court on Thursday significantly weakened a landmark water pollution law by ruling that an Idaho couple's property does not include wetlands subject to federal oversight under the law.  The ruling, in which all the justices agreed in the outcome but differed on the legal reasoning, concluded that Mike and Chantell Sackett's land does not fall under jurisdiction of the 1972 Clean Water Act, so they do not require a federal permit to build on the property.  The decision ends a years-long battle between the Sacketts and the federal government and is a victory for conservative groups and business interests opposed to the broad application of the water pollution law.

House Votes Against EPA Truck Emissions Rule, Setting Up Biden Veto.  The House voted on May 23 to overturn the Biden administration's rule on heavy-duty vehicles' tailpipe emissions, the latest knock against the president's environmental agenda in a closely divided Congress and the forerunner to an expected Biden veto.  The short piece of legislation would roll back a rule submitted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for trucks in December 2022.  The rule, which can be read here, "sets stronger emissions standards to further reduce air pollution, including pollutants that create ozone and particulate matter, from heavy-duty vehicles and engines starting in model year 2027," according to the EPA.  Heavy-duty vehicles are those with a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) above 8,500 pounds.  Heavier light-duty pickup trucks such as the Ford F-250 and the Chevy Silverado 2500 have GVWRs that top out above that, as do even heavier pickups like the Ford F-350.

The EPA Threatens to Turn Out the Lights.  Imagine flipping a light switch and not knowing if the lights will come on.  Normally unthinkable.  But the Environmental Protection Agency's proposed power-plant rules would destabilize the energy grid, resulting in less-reliable electric service.  The EPA's aggressive standards require all coal-fired power plants to use a new and still-tricky technology called carbon capture and storage, or CCS, to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions 90% by 2035, or begin co-firing with natural gas.  In addition, natural-gas-fired plants must capture 90% of emissions by 2035 using CCS or switch almost entirely to hydrogen by 2038.  The only other option for both:  shut down.

Biden Wages Terrifying, Suicidal War on Energy Security.  The Biden administration's new 681-page EPA-proposed regulatory rule limiting greenhouse gas emissions for coal-and gas-fired power plants.  This is but the latest attempt to eliminate America's fossil-fueled energy independence, prosperity, and global security.  Although last year the Supreme Court blocked the implementation of the Obama "Clean Power Plan," which would have forced a power shift to renewables from coal, the EPA now wants to include natural gas in their kill list.  According to Section 111 of the Clean Air Act (CAA), the EPA can regulate "pollutants" from stationary power sources through the "best system of emission reduction" that is "adequately demonstrated."

The EPA's death warrant for fossil fuel plants.  The Environmental Protection Agency has just released its most aggressive emissions rules to date.  The rules demand that coal and gas plants capture almost all of their emissions.  In essence, fossil fuel plants will have to cut their emissions by 90 percent between 2035 and 2040 or shut down.  Unless, of course, they can afford to run carbon capture systems or swap out natural gas for hydrogen.  But is that even realistic?

EPA v. The Grid.  On May 4, members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission delivered stark warnings to the members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.  The agency's acting chairman, Willie Phillips, told the senators, "We face unprecedented challenges to the reliability of our nation's electric system."  FERC Commissioner Mark Christie echoed Phillips' warning, saying the U.S. electric grid is "heading for a very catastrophic situation in terms of reliability."  His colleague, Commissioner James Danly, averred that there is a "looming reliability crisis in our electricity markets."  The commissioners pointed to several factors for the reliability crisis, including numerous coal plants that are being retired prematurely, insufficient pipeline capacity to assure natural gas can be delivered to power plants, insufficient high-voltage transmission capacity, and distortions in the electricity market caused by massive federal subsidies for weather-dependent renewables.

New EPA climate rules drive a stake through the heart of natural gas & coal power plants.  Why do we even have a Constitution?  Has anyone asked a Democrat that lately?  The general mode of operation with them in power has been to have a great, transformative idea no one in the country but them wants, sidestep every legal and constitutional avenue for implementing — or against — said great idea, wave a magic departmental edict wand and voilà!  Make it so.  As if that's all it took and that squawking in the background is just so much peasant babble to be ignored. [...] By executive fiat, they are taking aim at the source of the electricity that lights your house, maybe heats it as well.  The EPA, frustrated as the pace of the adoption of solar, wind, EVs and whatever other unicorn-ish fart schemes are floating out in the ether doesn't match their fever dreams, wants to cut the knees out from under electrical power plants run by natural gas and coal.

Joe Manchin threatens to oppose Biden nominees over upcoming power plant crackdown.  Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., is threatening to oppose all of President Biden's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) nominees over an expected regulation targeting power plant emissions.  Manchin, who chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, blasted the Biden administration for aiming to shut down fossil fuel-fired power plants regardless of the impacts on the nation's power grid.  The Democratic lawmaker argued that neither the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law or Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), both of which he supported, gave the EPA authority to regulate power plant emissions.  "Neither the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law or the IRA gave new authority to regulate power plant emission standards," Manchin said in a statement to Fox News Digital on Wednesday [5/10/2023].

To Save America, Abolish the Regulatory Agencies.  On Nixon's watch [...] the regulatory agencies were summoned into being, dark golems bent on destroying the Constitution in the guise of trying to Save the Earth.  One of the first up was the Environmental Protection Agency, the demon spawn of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1970, which mandated (what an ugly word for a democracy to employ) "environmental impact" statements for future federal projects.  Nixon put teeth in the law with the creation by executive order of the Environmental Protection Agency at the end of that same year.  Then the unelected bureaucrats took over, and turned what had been sold as benign into a ravenous, uncontrollable, punitive beast.

Biden's EPA Targets Power Plant Emissions in Proposal Likely to Bring Electricity Shortages.  The Biden administration is reportedly finalizing a proposal set to substantially reduce emissions from fossil fuel-fired power plants or require them to use costly carbon capture technology.  Expected to be released by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) soon, the proposal mandates coal- and natural gas-fired power plants to cut or capture the majority of their carbon dioxide emissions by 2040, marking the first-ever federal action to curb power plant emissions.  Despite the EPA declining to comment, spokesperson Maria Michalos reiterated the agency's commitment to addressing air pollution and protecting future generations.

The Editor says...
There is no air pollution problem in most of the United States.  Certainly not the kind of air pollution we saw 60 years ago.  (My parents and I drove through New York City in 1967, gawking like the Beverly Hillbillies, and I remember the air was like tear gas.)  Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant.  Leave the power plants alone!

Biden admin preparing major crackdown on power plants that fuel nation's grid.  The Biden administration is reportedly finalizing a proposal that would force fossil fuel-fired power plants to substantially curb emissions or utilize costly carbon capture technology.  The proposal — which will soon be released by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) — is expected to require coal- and natural gas-fired power plants to cut or capture the vast majority of their carbon dioxide emissions by 2040, The New York Times reported on Saturday, citing officials briefed on a draft of the plan.  The regulation, if finalized, would represent the first-ever federal action curbing power plant emissions.  "EPA cannot comment because the proposals are currently under interagency review," EPA spokesperson Maria Michalos told Fox News Digital in a statement.

Government Fiat Will Not Make Electric Cars Viable.  The unelected bureaucrats in the Biden administration's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have announced a plan to wave their magic regulatory wand.  These obviously "woke" EPA global-warming ideologues aim to mandate new tailgate emission standards that require two-thirds of all new passenger vehicles sold in the United States by 2032 to be electric.  On April 8, 2023, the New York Times, in a story that appeared to be an obvious trial balloon, published the news that the EPA was planning to implement "the most stringent auto pollution limits in the world, designed to ensure that all-electric cars make up as much as 67 percent of the passenger vehicles sold in the country by 2032."  The source for the story was the typical unnamed "according to two people familiar with the matter."  Clearly, the Biden administration and the newspaper expected push-back, given that the New York Times article announcing the news also cited industry statistics indicating electric vehicle (EV) sales still languish under 6 percent of total passenger vehicles sold in the United States.

America's Coming Energy Crisis.  In 2021, Biden signed an executive order that decreed that all federal contracts for goods and services to be carbon-neutral by 2050. Some states and businesses are following Biden's lead.  California and six other states intend to ban the sale of gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035.  California also wants to ban the sale of gas-powered water heaters and furnaces by 2030.  Now the Environmental Protection Agency has piled on.  The agency is proposing vehicle pollution limits for 2032 that are so strict that they will force roughly two thirds of new vehicles sold to be electric.  This may sound glorious to climate warriors, but they have no idea what they are getting us into.  Transitioning to net zero involves decarbonizing electrical generation, industry, and transportation all at the same time.  It also involves creating net-zero carbon buildings, even though none presently exists.

Can a Discriminatory View of Legal Standing Stand?  In 2009 the EPA found that CO2 and other "greenhouse gases" endanger human health and welfare because they potentially warm the atmosphere.  Many scientists have taken issue with this finding, which has provided the justification for reducing conventional energy sources, raised the cost of energy to consumers, and unrolled massive federal and state spending for manifestly unreliable alternative sources.  The Biden administration has pressed this autocracy-enabling finding to its bosom, using it to justify regulating everything, — including gas stoves, electric vehicles, air conditioners, home appliances — indeed, anything that makes a good life affordable and efficient.  How well-substantiated was this EPA decision which has so upended our lives and wasted trillions of taxpayer and consumer resources?  Not very. [...] If the concept of "standing" means anything, some courts seem to have stood it on its head.

Say Hello To The EPA Motor Company, Say Goodbye To Freedom.  History may someday record today as the beginning of the end of the internal combustion engine — and of individual liberty in the U.S.  According to news reports, the EPA is scheduled to release proposed auto emissions standards today on new car sales so stringent that the only way for automakers to meet them would be to shift two-thirds of their fleet to electric.  But wait.  How can a regulatory agency do that?  Consumers aren't demanding electric cars.  Lawmakers didn't vote to force them on the public.  The Environmental Protection Agency knows better, though, and, unless it's neutered, plans to force EVs on you — for your own good.

The EPA Plays Along With California's Attempts to Ruin the Supply Chain.  You've got to hand it to California.  Even though the luster has dulled on the Golden State, the leftists there are going to stick to their principles.  You name a left-wing dogma, and California has most likely devoted itself to it.  This, of course, includes the radical climate agenda, which California has now even extended to the nation's already struggling supply chain.  California has declared war on diesel vehicles, from pickups to buses to tractor-trailers, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has greenlit the state's plan to limit the sale of diesel vehicles.

Biden EPA Cracks Down On Midwestern Factories, Power Plants.  The Biden administration on Wednesday introduced stringent rules to limit emissions by power plants and factories located primarily in the Midwest, which often blow smog to other states.  The "Good Neighbor Plan" will impact 23 states and obligate a 50% cut in nitrogen oxide emissions by 2027, compared to 2021 levels, and beef up an existing emissions allowance trading program with more regular updates, according to an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) press release.  The finalized rule would generate $13 billion in annual economic benefits, protect sensitive environments and prevent roughly 1,3000 [sic] premature deaths, while companies are expected to pay roughly $910 million per year in compliance costs, according to the EPA.

The Editor says...
May I please see a picture of some smog that blew in from another midwestern state?  May I please see the names of the people who died prematurely due to nitrogen oxide emissions?

Lawsuit Launched Against EPA Over Toxic Ohio Train Derailment.  The EPA faces litigation over its response to the toxic train derailment in Ohio.  Rachel Acenas spoke with East Palestine resident Courtney Miller, one of the plaintiffs of that lawsuit.  [Video clip]

Biden EPA Won't Test For Chemical Compounds After Toxic Train Derailment.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will not test for dioxins as part of their work monitoring an eastern Ohio town after a train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed and cast a large chemical plume into the air, WKBN reported.  A Norfolk Southern train carrying chemicals including vinyl chloride derailed on Feb. 3 in East Palestine, Ohio, and a controlled burn was conducted on Feb. 6 to prevent an explosion which released the chemicals into the air and water.  EPA Region 5 administrator Debra Shore said Monday that the agency would not test for dioxins, which are groups of toxic chemical compounds, at the current time, according to WKBN.  Dioxins take a long time to break down and could cause serious health concerns including cancer, reproductive and developmental problems and can be formed through combustion or burning fuels, according to the EPA's website.

The EPA Has No Credibility.  Just as the CDC's COVID guidelines and the EPA's claims that the air was safe following 9/11 both defied logic, so too does the latest EPA claim that the air and water are safe in East Palestine, Ohio defy logic; not only logic, but experience.  The streams and creeks in East Palestine are visibly contaminated.  Residents have experienced illness and seen dead fish, pets, fowl, and livestock in the aftermath.  But the EPA says everything is okay.  Officials mock residents expressing hesitation about drinking the tap water.  The government has minimized the tragedy.  Neither organization — the EPA nor the CDC — has a shred of credibility. [...] The EPA's very best is a history of lies — lies which have gotten Americans killed.  And their knowledge isn't knowledge at all; it's ignorance.  Why should anyone trust the EPA?

Over this weekend, a lot of very important legal happenings have occurred.  [Thread reader]  Last term, a case came before the US Supreme Court, where West Virginia sued the EPA for egregious changes to the clean air act that essentially rewrote the law with much tougher restrictions.  This was done at the Biden admin's direction to directly target the WV Coal industry.  In West Virginia v EPA, the crux of the matter was Exec Branch Agencies abusing Chevron Deference legal standard to exceed their regulatory authority to essentially rewrite laws for political reasons, by changing their regulatory definitions & rules.  In deciding WV v EPA, SCOTUS ruled that EPA exceeded its authority & that chevron deference DOES NOT permit an agency to make rule changes that effectly modifies existing laws or would create new law.  The Supreme Court ruled that in drastically changing the clean air act standards to punish coal & oil industries, the EPA was rewriting the law, which only congress can do.

EPA cracks down on trucking industry to push an all-electric fleet.  You read that right:  in a world where cold weather prevents EVs from charging, water exposure leads to spontaneous combustion, and inefficient technology leaves people stranded, comrades in the bureaucracy want to force the entire diesel trucking industry to comply with the Green agenda measures.  For reference, a trucking industry website stated that there are "more than 15 million commercial vehicles" in the U.S., and "76% are powered by diesel engines."  Simple math would therefore show that the EPA set its sights on 11,400,000 commercial trucking vehicles that make our world go round.  An overwhelming majority of us are utterly dependent upon truckers and their diesel engines; they are the lifeblood of our First World (although rapidly deteriorating) economy... and the big government elites know this.  Forced compliance with the latest "regulations" from the EPA would see the entire fleet of the trucking industry switch to electric, and with that, the government would have unfettered control.

Biden's EPA Prepares To Crack Down On Home Appliances.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed new rules on Friday that would restrict the use of refrigerators, air conditioning equipment and heat pumps that utilize hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs).  The EPA's proposed rule would crack down on the manufacturing and importing of goods containing HFCs, which would restrict the use of HFCs in refrigeration units, air conditioning systems and heat pump equipment starting in 2025, according to an agency press release.  In accordance with the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, a global climate treaty that the Senate ratified in September, the agency intends to reduce the production and consumption of HFCs by 85% by 2036.

Soros-backed group advises Biden admin that Clean Air Act could be used to 'control or prohibit' gasoline.  Governing for Impact, a group funded by George Soros, recently issued a memo to lawmakers advising the Biden administration that the Clean Air Act grants the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to "control or prohibit" the manufacturing and sale of gasoline, Fox News Digital reported.  "The Clean Air Act provides the Environmental Protection Agency with a number of tools to reduce air pollution," the memo read. "One powerful provision is Section 211(c), which authorizes the EPA to 'control or prohibit' the manufacture and sale of any motor vehicle fuel (or fuel additive) if resulting emissions will endanger public health or welfare (or impair emissions control devices)."  The memo, written by GFI and the climate group Evergreen Collaborative, argued that the EPA could force gas stations to establish electric vehicle charging stations on their properties.  "Under this authority, more stringent regulations on vehicle fuels — for example, requiring certain gas stations or national brands to install electric vehicle charging infrastructure — could both reduce deadly air pollution (such as nitrogen oxides and particulate matter) and incentivize the use of zero emissions transportation," the memo added.

The Editor says...
The rash pronouncement that nitrogen oxides and particulates are "deadly air pollution" assumes a lot of things that are not necessarily true.  Nobody is opposed to clean air, but surely the sponsors of the Clean Air Act didn't tell everyone that the law was intended as a weapon against gasoline.

The EPA vs. the grid.  A reliable grid is foundational to our quality of life.  Our lives depend on ultra-reliable electricity for the refrigerators that preserve our food, the water treatment plants that keep our water drinkable, the air conditioning that keeps us cool, the factories that produce our goods, etc.  Ominously, America's grid is in its most fragile state in decades.  Not only have we witnessed ruinous blackouts in California and Texas, electricity shortages are now routine throughout the US.  The root cause of the reliability crisis is simple:  America is shutting down too many reliable power plants — plants that can be controlled to produce electricity when needed in the exact quantity needed.  And it is attempting to replace them with unreliable solar and wind.  Since at any given time solar and wind can go near zero, using them as replacements for reliable power plants doesn't work.  For example, Texas' February 2021 disaster was caused by solar/wind disappearing and inadequate investment in reliable power plants and their weatherization.

Biden EPA Holds Up Major Oil Refinery Despite Looming Fuel Crisis.  On Thursday, the Biden Administration's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it would not reopen a key U.S. oil refinery in the Virgin Islands, despite a coming national shortage in diesel fuel that could prove catastrophic to the country.  According to the Daily Caller, the St. Croix refinery was first shut down in June of 2021 after the administration demanded a "Prevention of Significant Deterioration" permit, required by the Clean Air Act, that would prove the refinery's capabilities of reducing air pollution if reopened.  The refinery is owned by West Indies Petroleum Limited and Port Hamilton Refining and Transportation, LLLC.

The Democrat War on Fossil Fuels.  The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA) makes the business of refining oil difficult.  The law provides broad powers to the EPA.  It "directs the EPA Administrator to revise regulations to ensure that domestic transportation fuel sold or introduced into commerce, on an annual average basis, contains a specified volume of renewable fuel."  The George W. Bush Administration and a bipartisan majority in Congress enacted the EISA providing authority to the EPA to dictate terms for the blending of renewable fuels in refineries.  In 2021, 13.9 billion gallons of ethanol were blended into gasoline.  Unfortunately for refiners, they were mandated by the EPA to blend 20.17 billion gallons.  Since there was a shortfall in EPA mandated ethanol consumption in 2021, refiners had to purchase Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs) credits to make up the difference.  Each gallon of ethanol produced as a biofuel for blending comes with a D6 RIN.  Each refiner/blender has a quota imposed by the EPA based on its annual mandate and the production capacity of the refinery.  If the refinery blends more than its quota, the surplus RINS may be sold as credits on the market.  If the refinery blends less than its quota, it must purchase RINS to make up the difference.  If no RIN credits are available on the market, they may be bought from ethanol producers.  In 2021 refiners had to purchase RIN credits for 6.27 billion gallons of ethanol and other biofuels they did not consume.

Democrats want to expand DOJ's power to fight for 'environmental justice'.  House and Senate Democrats proposed legislation this week that would establish a more robust environmental justice office and a new section focused on tackling environmental crimes within the Department of Justice.  The Biden administration defines "environmental justice" as the "fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development of environmental laws, regulations and policies."  The Justice Department already has an Office of Environmental Justice that seeks to "protect overburdened and underserved communities from the harm caused by environmental crimes."  However, Rep. Nanette Diaz Barragán, D-Calif., said her bill is needed to give the Justice Department the full range of tools it needs to hold companies accountable to "low-income communities and communities of color burdened by pollution."

The Editor says...
[#1[ What "environmental crimes" addressed by this proposal have never been outlawed before?  [#2] If a neighborhood in a big city is affected by air pollution, one might reasonably ask, Do they not share the same atmosphere with the rest of the city?  [#3] What does "environmental justice" mean, how much does it cost, and who gets the money?  And when does it end?

EPA Withdraws Interim Decision on Glyphosate, After Court Says Agency Violated Law.  U.S. regulators on Sept. 23 said they would withdraw all remaining portions of the interim registration review decision for the weedkiller glyphosate.  The move comes after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion saying the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had violated the law in its assessment of glyphosate, which is the world's most widely used weedkiller and the active ingredient in Roundup and numerous other herbicide products.  The court found that the EPA had ignored important studies in its human health safety assessment of the chemical and had also violated the Endangered Species Act.  The EPA's withdrawal comes before an Oct. 1 deadline under which the agency was supposed to have completed its assessment.

Biden administration launches environmental justice office.  President Joe Biden's top environment official visited what is widely considered the birthplace of the environmental justice movement Saturday to unveil a national office that will distribute $3 billion in block grants to underserved communities burdened by pollution.  Forty years after a predominantly Black community in Warren County, North Carolina, rallied against hosting a hazardous waste landfill, Michael Regan, the first Black man to serve as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, announced he is dedicating a new senior level of leadership to the environmental justice movement they ignited.

U.S. EPA to consider tougher emissions rules for heavy trucks.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will consider adopting more stringent greenhouse gas emissions rules for heavy trucks after Congress passed new incentives to speed the adoption of zero-emission vehicles, the agency told Reuters.  In March, the EPA proposed new rules to cut smog-forming and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from heavy duty vehicles.  The agency said it will reopen the proposed GHG rules after passage in August of the climate and spending Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

What is it with leftists and the horrible damage they do to nature?  For all that leftists identify themselves as the saviors of the natural world, it seems that they are just as likely to wreak incredible havoc, whether it's the EPA polluting rivers, Anthony Fauci authorizing beagle torture or, most recently, UC Davis's research facility killing 21,000 fish.  When one considers the manmade drought in California's Central Valley, where a natural drought is also affecting the region, all to save the Delta smelt, you begin to suspect that leftists, rather than protecting nature, are just toying with both it and us. [...] With these narratives in mind, it's easy to start believing that the leftist obsession with nature has less to do with being a steward for nature and more to do with controlling people with nature as the cudgel.

EPA Agents Are Flying Helicopters Over Texas Oil Fields To Crack Down On Methane Emissions From Drilling.  The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Region 6 department is conducting helicopter flyovers over the Permian Basin to identify "super-emitters" of methane gas among oil and gas operations, according to an Aug. 1 news release.  The flyovers will use infrared cameras to inspect hundreds of oil and gas activities in the Permian Basin region of West Texas and southeast New Mexico until Aug. 15, according to the press release.  The agency hopes to use aerial surveillance to identify large emitters of methane and excessive volatile organic compound (VOC), emitted as gases from certain solids or liquids which may cause adverse health effects, as well as address any noncompliance indicated by the flyovers through EPA administrative enforcement actions and referrals to the Department of Justice (DOJ).  "It's just a way to intimidate the oil and gas industry," Steve Milloy, member of former President Donald Trump's EPA transition team, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.  "The EPA's conduct is outrageous."

Biden EPA Announces 'Flyovers' of Key US Oil- and Gas-Producing Region.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said it will conduct "flyovers" of the Permian Basin region in Texas and New Mexico to "survey oil and gas operations to identify large emitters of methane" amid the Biden administration's climate policy initiative.  "The flyovers are vital to identifying which facilities are responsible for the bulk of these emissions and therefore where reductions are most urgently needed," said Earthea Nance, an EPA official, in an Aug. 1 news release.  The flyovers, which will use infrared cameras, will be conducted until Aug. 15, the agency said.  With the announcement, it means the administration will continue to target the oil and gas industry, coming after President Joe Biden sent letters to the heads of major oil companies in June and threatened to take action to increase supply.  The move drew pushback from the CEOs of ExxonMobil and Chevron, who both accused Biden of taking an increasingly hostile approach to the industry.  The Permian Basin accounts for 43 percent of the nation's oil supply, meaning any federal regulation or rules may impact gas prices nationwide.

The Editor says...
[#1] How will the aerial samples distinguish between natural and industrial sources of methane?  With so much oil in the ground in the Permian Basin, wouldn't there have been a lot of methane seeping out of the ground 200 years ago?  [#2] What is the estimated mass of the escaping methane, and how does it compare to the mass of the atmosphere?  [#3] The value of the energy produced by products from the Permian Basin outweighs the incidental leaks of methane and other gases.  Oil production is a messy business.  Get over it.

The Administrative State Moves to Show Who's Boss on Energy Policy.  Last Thursday, June 30, the Supreme Court issued its decision in West Virginia v. EPA, holding that, absent a further explicit statute from the Congress, the EPA did not have the authority to orchestrate its planned fundamental restructuring of the electric power generation sector of the economy.  More generally, the Supreme Court stated that in cases involving "major questions," including regulations that affect large portions of the economy, the government must demonstrate "clear congressional authorization" to support a sweeping effort to regulate.  Do you think that such a Supreme Court decision might cause the various regulatory bureaucracies to slow down and reconsider a little before plowing ahead with other dubious plans for fundamental economic restructurings?  That's not how these bureaucracies work.

EPA's loss is major win for democracy.  If the federal government wants to restructure an entire sector of the economy, it needs explicit authority from Congress, the Supreme Court held Thursday.  Its ruling in EPA v. West Virginia will save consumers billions of dollars in energy costs.  More importantly, it takes power away from unelected bureaucrats and returns it to the people's elected leaders.  A number of states with large coal economies had challenged an Obama-era regulation from the Environmental Protection Agency that essentially capped the carbon emissions that could be emitted by existing coal power plants.  The Obama EPA regulation came after Congress had specifically debated and rejected an economy-wide cap-and-trade policy in 2010.  After winning reelection in 2012, however, President Barack Obama famously told his Cabinet, "I've got a pen, and I've got a phone," meaning he would use his pen to sign executive actions bypassing Congress wherever possible.  The EPA's subsequent 2015 Clean Power Plan was part of Obama's "pen and phone" strategy.

A SCOTUS Guide for the Perplexed.  [Scroll down]  The Biden administration, without congressional action, is using the chimera of climate change to completely transform the economy.  It is churning out pages of rules and regulations designed to hamper domestic energy production, not only through the EPA, but as well the SEC and Department of Interior.  The rising prices of fuel, food, and shelter are occasioned by such rules and regulations, which make scarce that of which we have plenty — sources of energy.  The cost is being born by millions of Americans, and it's clear to me that Kagan's view of morality and theirs' is in growing conflict.  Are you onboard with a country and its economy ruled by unelected bureaucrats given the green light to do so by unelected judges?  I didn't think you were.

'Burning America to the ground': Liberals can't get over SCOTUS EPA decision.  Liberals lambasted the Supreme Court after the justices ruled the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) exceeded its authority Thursday.  The high court issued a 6-3 decision in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency Thursday that limits the power of government agencies.  Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the EPA exceeded its authority when it sought to impose caps on power plant emissions.

The Mighty Gorsuch vs. the Administrative State:  Quotes from West Virginia vs.  EPA.  Dealing with this problem absolutely requires that we get back to fundamentals on what kind of society we want and what is the role of government.  These issues are newly alive, and have come up with a Supreme Court decision in West Virginia vs. Environmental Protection Agency.  The EPA had long imposed an expansive view of its discretion under the Clean Air Act.  The court said no:  the EPA has been acting illegally all along.  This decision echoes a similar federal court decision in Florida concerning the CDC's mask mandate.  The court said the CDC is acting illegally.  Just because the EPA is tasked with certain acts of administration doesn't mean it can do whatever it wants in service of the goal.  "We would not expect the Department of Homeland Security to make trade or foreign policy even though doing so could decrease illegal immigration," said the main opinion.  Clearly we have a problem that cries out for a mighty rethinking of everything.  Just such a statement has been made in the concurring opinion of Justice Neil Gorsuch.

Supreme Court curbs EPA's climate powers.  The Supreme Court on Thursday [6/30/2022] curbed the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) ability to regulate climate change, setting limits on how the agency can deal with power plants.  In a 6-3 decision, the majority ruled that Congress did not authorize the EPA to induce a shift to cleaner energy sources using the approach that an Obama-era regulation sought to.  "Congress did not grant EPA... the authority to devise emissions caps based on the generation shifting approach the Agency took in the Clean Power Plan," the majority wrote, referring to an Obama-era power plant regulation.  The ruling was split along ideological lines, with its conservative justices opting to restrict the EPA's power while the liberal justices disagreed.

Supreme Court Strikes Down EPA Plan for 'Transition' Away From Coal Power.  The Supreme Court on Thursday [6/30/2022] handed down a 6-3 decision in West Virginia v. EPA that denied the EPA's authority to enact sweeping regulations for greenhouse gases that would "decarbonize" American energy under the Clean Air Act.  In a blow to Democrats and climate alarmists, the opinion said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and its unelected bureaucrats could not use portions of the Clean Air Act to make rules limiting how the United States generates electricity and uses energy — such as ending the use of coal-fired power generation.  The legal mess decided by SCOTUS Thursday arose from the Obama administration's attempt to wage war on reliable energy sources that, according to leftists and Democrats, are killing the planet.

High court's blow to EPA rattles Democrats, climate change activists.  The Supreme Court ruling Thursday that the Environmental Protection Agency does not have the authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate climate change was a win for conservatives who have long sought to shrink the "administrative state," a power federal agencies wield over large swaths of the U.S. economy and everyday life.  The ruling put the brakes on President Biden's climate agenda by shifting the rule-making power back to Congress, where most climate change policy has stalled.  Republicans heralded the ruling as a reprieve from onerous government intrusion.

Supreme Court Delivers a Great Win Curtailing the Power of Government in EPA Case.  This term of the Supreme Court has been a big one for based decisions and here's another big one.  The Supreme Court sharply curtailed the power of the EPA to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions that cause climate change.  In a 6-3 ruling written by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court sided with conservative states and fossil-fuel companies in adopting a narrow reading of the Clean Air Act.  The Court found that Congress had not authorized the EPA to induce a shift toward cleaner energy sources. [...] Justice Kagan in her dissent acted as though it was the Court's responsibility to address climate change, rather than interpret the law and the Constitution.

One more blockbuster Supreme Court decision could still be coming.  West Virginia vs. the EPA asks whether important policies that impact the lives of all Americans should be made by unelected D.C. bureaucrats or by Congress.  This SCOTUS could well decide that ruling by executive agency fiat is no longer acceptable.  The case involves the Clean Power Plan, which was adopted under President Barack Obama to fight climate change; the program was estimated to cost as much as $33 billion per year and would have completely reordered our nation's power grid.  The state of West Virginia, joined by two coal companies and others, sued the EPA, arguing the plan was an abuse of power.

EPA spends millions from Biden's COVID bill on climate change programs, EV Rideshares, 'pruning workshops'.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) spent $4.3 million in funds from President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package on environmental justice and climate change programs promoting activities like tree planting, "pruning workshops," and achieving "greater acceptance of trees" in cities.  Last April, the EPA announced it was awarding $200,000 each to dozens of projects "focusing on COVID-19 impacts, as well as climate and disaster resiliency" in "underserved communities" through its Environmental Justice Collaborative Problem-Solving (EJCPS) Cooperative Agreement Program.  The program awarded a total of 34 organizations using $4.3 million in funds from Biden's American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act, as well as $2.5 million from the EPA's annual appropriation for environmental justice.

Biden administration EPA nominee supports 'climate reparations'.  The Biden administration has nominated Howard University Environmental Law Professor Carlton Waterhouse to become assistant administrator of the EPA's Office of Land and Emergency Management.  Waterhouse is a truly far-left radical and supporter of so-called "climate reparations."  He believes that the United States needs to be punished for having an advanced economy, as it must have become wealthy only at the expense of other countries.  At the American Climate Leadership Summit in 2020, Waterhouse, who also believes in reparations for Black people, stated:  "Climate reparations is really just calling for the equitable redress for the harm that has been caused historically.  That's what it's about — making amends."

A decision bigger than guns and abortion looms.  The Supreme Court case that matters the most this year is West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency.  Republican state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey challenged the EPA's authority to regulate carbon dioxide, which is a nutrient not a pollutant.  The decision will make Poca, West Virginia, the center of the universe for one news cycle because the John Amos Power Plant (named for a local politician, not the actor) serves as a backdrop to the Home of the Poca Dots.  The plant runs on coal.  Morrisey is protecting the right of West Virginians to mine coal and burn it to make electricity.  The New Republic summed up the case through the lens of the hysterical left.  TNR said, "The justices heard oral arguments in March in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency.  At issue in that case is a phantasmal back-and-forth battle between the EPA, power plants, and red-state attorneys general over a defunct carbon emission rule drafted two presidencies ago.

Biden's climate advisor threatens airlines they better comply or 'they're gonna be outta here!'.  White House National Climate Adviser Gina McCarthy openly threatened airlines in true "Godfather" fashion on Friday during a forum at Tufts University, warning that they will no longer exist if they don't follow President Joe Biden's Green New Deal-style rules.  "Who woulda thunk that [airlines would] be all in?" McCarthy remarked.  "But they better be or they're gonna be out of here."  The White House is promoting exceedingly unrealistic policies that claim to increase sustainable jet fuel by three billion gallons and reduce aviation emissions by 20 percent by 2030.  McCarthy boasted that the Biden administration will be issuing over 100 new rules this year to regulate appliances.

EPA emissions case [is] not a slam dunk for coal interests even with a conservative court.  Coal interests and the Environmental Protection Agency just faced off before the Supreme Court in a case that could drastically choke off the agency's ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.  West Virginia led petitioners to have the court put locks on the administrative state, which court-watchers of all persuasions agree that conservative justices want to achieve.  But some are doubting after Feb. 28's oral arguments that the case is a guaranteed win for the judicially conservative view, even on a court with six justices nominated by Republicans, in large part because of the tricky procedural circumstances of the case.  Underpinning West Virginia v. EPA is a petition by a mix of coal-producing states and coal companies asking the high court to establish whether the Clean Air Act gives the agency broad authority to restrict power plant emissions, including by employing "outside the fence" regulations, or those reaching beyond an individual, existing stationary source, as the Obama-era Clean Power Plan attempted to do.

The Supreme Court Can and Should Resolve 'Waters of the United States' Issue.  For decades, there has been major confusion regarding what waters are regulated under the Clean Water Act.  The United States Supreme Court can change this by agreeing to hear a case brought by the Pacific Legal Foundation.  In its petition asking the court to hear the case, Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency, the Pacific Legal Foundation presents a simple question:  Should Rapanos v. United States be revisited to adopt the plurality opinion's standard for regulated wetlands?  In 2006, the late Justice Antonin Scalia in Rapanos provided much-needed clarity on what waters are covered under the Clean Water Act, and specifically what waters, including wetlands, should be considered "waters of the United States" (informally known as WOTUS) under the Clean Water Act.  This definition is extremely important because it clarifies what waters the EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have jurisdiction over under the law.  Unfortunately, Scalia's opinion in Rapanos was a plurality opinion, not getting the necessary five votes for a majority.  As a result, the Supreme Court wasn't able to provide the clarity it could have 15 years ago.

The Hidden Agenda Behind Biden's Insane Gas Mileage Requirements.  The Environmental Protection Agency announced Monday that all new cars that aren't electric must average 55 miles per gallon by 2026.  This amounts to a Great Leap Forward of almost 20 miles per gallon from the currently ordered 36 miles per gallon that all new cars must achieve, else their manufacturers be punished for making them via "gas guzzler" fines applied to them.  Which are then passed on to the people who buy them.  Which makes it progressively more difficult to afford them.  That being the point of the fines, you understand.  The Biden administration considers it their right and duty to punish you for buying the car you want if it doesn't do what they like.  The free market being an intolerable affront to them.

[The] EPA [is] Focused on Gender [and] Ethnic Diversity to Fill 'Purged' Advisory Posts.  After the Environmental Protection Agency dumped advisers from regulated industries, the federal agency appears to have prioritized gender and ethnic diversity to replace them, EPA documents show.  The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia heard arguments Wednesday in the case of Young vs.  EPA. The lead plaintiff in the case, Stanley Young, was ousted in March from the EPA's Science Advisory Board weeks after President Joe Biden took office.  Young's lawsuit identifies the EPA panels in question as the Science Advisory Board and the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee.

Supreme Court to hear challenge to EPA climate change rules for power plants.  The Supreme Court agreed Friday [10/29/2021] to hear a challenge to federal regulations over power plant carbon emissions, potentially resolving a years-long legal battle that has tied up two previous presidential administrations.  The appeal has its genesis in an Obama administration effort in 2015 to significantly reduce power sector emissions to address climate change.  The Supreme Court blocked those regulations from taking effect and President Donald Trump's administration repealed the rules in 2017, easing the requirements on the plants.  "Nobody contests that these issues have enormous importance," the North American Coal Corporation told the court in a brief earlier this year.  "What must be resolved as soon as possible is who has the authority to decide those issues on an industry-wide scale — Congress or the EPA."

The EPA head shows who's really in charge in America.  When our Founders drafted the Constitution, they were excessively concerned lest one branch of government gain disproportionate power, turning into a tyranny.  The Constitution, therefore, spreads out power among othe Executive, the Legislative, and the Judicial Branches, with each institution checking the power of the two others.  However, in the ensuing 240 years, America gained something the Founders never imagined:  an administrative state that, while ostensibly part of the Executive Branch, has also taken on the legislative powers of a lazy Congress that is big on showboating and small on doing the hard work of actually governing.  Most of the rules that burden Americans, whether individually or through their businesses, come from the uncontrolled, permanent, hard-left regulatory state.

Lawsuit Alleges Cronyism at Biden EPA to 'Rubber-Stamp' Green Agenda.  The Biden administration's Environmental Protection Agency is violating the law in a "purge" of advisory committees in order to "rubber-stamp" regulations, a lawsuit alleges, and in the process sweeping away a Trump administration policy against conflicts of interest.  The lead plaintiff in the case is Stanley Young, who in March was ousted from the EPA's Science Advisory Board.  Young previously worked for Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, and the National Institute of Statistical Sciences.  "In an unprecedented purge, EPA eliminated all industry representatives from two important advisory committees in order to stack those committees with academics who are financially beholden to EPA for multimillion-dollar research grants," reads Young's complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Scandals from top to bottom in Joe Biden's cabinet of horrors.  Michael Regan [...] Is being sued for "illegally" firing "dozens of independent scientific advisers from two key committees earlier this year and replaced them with academics dependent on the agency for grant money."  Statistician Stanley Young says the purge was to create "committees [that] will rubber-stamp the new administration's regulations" without the inconvenience of an objecting voice from the very industries targeted by those regulations and bearing the cost of those regulations, to the tune of billions of dollars a year.

Lawsuit claims Biden EPA chief's purge violated federal law.  Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan illegally fired dozens of independent scientific advisers from two key committees earlier this year and replaced them with academics dependent on the agency for grant money, a new lawsuit claims.  Stanley Young, a statistician who has worked on pharmaceutical research and is a former member of the EPA's Science Advisory Board (SAB), alleged in a complaint filed in Washington, DC federal court Thursday that the March 31 purge by Regan showed that the agency "has a problem with dissent."

EPA rule sharply limits HFCs, gases used as refrigerants.  In what officials call a key step to combat climate change, the Environmental Protection Agency is sharply limiting domestic production and use of hydrofluorocarbons, highly potent greenhouse gases commonly used in refrigerators and air conditioners.  The new rule announced Thursday follows through on a law Congress passed last year and is intended to decrease U.S. production and use of HFCs by 85% over the next 15 years, part of a global phaseout designed to slow global warming.  The administration also is taking steps to crack down on imports of HFCs, greenhouse gases that are thousands of times more powerful than carbon dioxide.  They often leak through pipes or appliances that use compressed refrigerants and are considered a major driver of global warming.

The Editor says...
Water vapor is by far the most abundant "greenhouse gas" in the atmosphere.  It is far more influential than carbon dioxide, methane, or leaked refrigerant gases.  Refrigeration is essential to modern civilization, not only for the preservation of food, but for continued survival in hot climates.  You can rest assured that the EPA offices all over the country are very well air conditioned.

EPA is falsifying risk assessments for dangerous chemicals, say whistleblowers.  Whistleblowers say the US Environmental Protection Agency has been falsifying dangerous new chemicals' risk assessments in an effort to make the compounds appear safe and quickly approve them for commercial use.  Over the past five years, the EPA has not rejected any new chemicals submitted by industry despite agency scientists flagging dozens of compounds for high toxicity.  Four EPA whistleblowers and industry watchdogs say a revolving door between the agency and chemical companies is to blame, and that the program's management has been "captured by industry".  The charges are supported by emails, documents and additional records that were provided to the Guardian.  "The depth of it is pretty horrifying," said Kyla Bennett, New England director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), a non-profit whose attorneys are representing the four scientists.  "I don't sleep at night knowing what I know from the whistleblowers."

Biden to unveil stricter emissions standards for vehicles, exceeding Obama-era regulations.  President Biden will unveil sweeping new regulations on cars and trucks on Thursday, returning America over the next five years to the strict standards that the Obama administration had imposed but former President Trump walked back.  The proposed rules drafted by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation would tighten emissions standards to be more in line with aggressive measures established by California in 2019, but which Mr. Trump had blocked.  On mileage rules, automakers also will be required to raise their average miles-per-gallon score of their fleets by 3.7% starting with the model year 2023, which would include cars sold next year.  That standard also had been proposed by California.

EPA armed agents' raids on car shops would be curtailed under Hill proposal.  Following the EPA's December National Compliance Initiative, which focuses on manufacture, sale, and installation of emissions "defeat devices," the agency targeted the high-performance auto industry, sometimes deploying armed agents to slap heavy fines on violators.  Street vehicles — cars, trucks, and motorcycles — can't be converted into race cars, according to the EPA.  In December, during the waning weeks of former President Donald Trump's administration, the agency announced it was making a priority of enforcement against high-performance parts in conversion to race cars, including superchargers, tuners, and exhaust systems.  That's continued six months into President Joe Biden's term.  [John] Lund's shop is hardly the only dealer targeted by the EPA.  Last month, Bradenton, Florida's JH Diesel and Fort Lupton, Colorado's PFI Speed were hit with heavy fines by the EPA.

EPA puts inconvenient data on 1930s drought and heat wave down the memory hole.  Scaring the public into supporting the economy-wrecking Green Bad Deal is easier if we hide the data on previous periods of rising temperatures.  And that is what has been done by our very own EPA, as Larry Hamlin documents at Watts Up With That: [...] If  global warming  climate change is not a scam, why do they keep behaving as if they have so much to hide?

19 States Ask Supreme Court to Rein In EPA Powers Over Coal Plants.  West Virginia and 18 other states are asking the Supreme Court to review the scope of the Environmental Protection Agency's regulatory authority over greenhouse gases after an appeals court struck down a Trump-era rule months ago on carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants.  "The case, if granted, would be the biggest climate question to reach the Supreme Court in more than a decade," according to Bloomberg Law.  In Massachusetts v. EPA (2007), the Supreme Court gave the agency the power to regulate greenhouse gases.  The Jan. 19 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit was a victory for left-wing environmentalists that helped clear the way for the then-incoming Biden administration to impose new restrictions on the energy sector.

Did they give up on carbon dioxide and water vapor?
EPA to propose phasing-out greenhouse gases used in refrigeration and air conditioning.  The Environmental Protection Agency is set to issue wide-reaching regulations on Monday to curb the use and production of greenhouse gases from the refrigeration and air conditioning industries.  The new regulations will target the production and importation of hydrofluorocarbons — commonly known as HFCs.  The chemical compound was first developed in the 1980s to replace more harmful greenhouse gasses that depleted the earth's ozone layer.  EPA Administrator Michael Regan will propose that U.S. will curb HFCs emissions 85% by 2035.

The Editor says...
Is this really about "saving the earth," or is it just a way to make us all equally miserable and punish those who make money?

Welcome to the EPA's star chamber.  In its assault on fossil fuels, the Biden administration's EPA has moved rapidly to make sure that the scientific basis for EPA regulations is no longer subject to independent review and outside verification.  The first such move allows EPA to rely upon secret science:  evidence that nobody other than EPA's chosen experts will ever get to see.  The second such move is to return to a practice, adopted during the Obama administration and then ended by the Trump administration, of appointing mostly EPA-funded scientists to serve on the science advisory panels (such as the Clean Air Act Scientific Advisory Committee) that review the evidence said to support EPA regulations.  With these two changes, the "science" supporting EPA regulations requiring further reductions in the emissions of air pollutants such as ozone and fine particulates (dust particles less than 2.5 microns in diameter) will come from a production process whereby EPA funds research that uses secret data to generate conclusions.  Conclusions, that is, of which the validity will be reviewed by boards composed almost entirely of the very same EPA-funded researchers who generated the conclusions.

Interior secretary tells staff to avoid Trump environmental regulations.  Interior Secretary Deb Haaland issued an order April 16 to forbid the bureaus and offices of the Interior Department from applying some of the current guidelines under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), whenever those guidelines differ from rules that predated the Trump administration.  The Trump administration completed its revamp of NEPA guidelines in July, and they took effect Sept. 14.  President Biden has instructed the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) to review those changes, possibly a prelude to revoking them.

EPA spent $52 million in violation of law Congress passed to curb wasteful spending.  This week, our [Golden Horseshoe] award is going to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for spending more than $52 million in taxpayer funds without approval from the chief information officer of the agency — a direct breach of a requirement under the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act.  The EPA had a 10-year, $83 million contract with a consulting firm called CGI Federal to provide the web-based application the agency used as its financial system, i.e., the program that dealt with the outfit's accounting functions, budget report, transaction tables, and the like.  In 2015, the agency had started the bidding process for a subsequent contract, meaning the agency was supposedly assessing the open market in search of a new firm that might offer a better product, better rate, or just might be a better fit for the job that the American taxpayers were paying for.  But, two years later, EPA had come up with zilch, prompting the agency to extend its contract with CGI Federal for one year.

Sen. Blackburn Says Biden EPA Appointee Broke Law.  Environmental Protection Agency principal deputy general counsel Melissa Hoffer may have violated federal law by asking the Department of Justice to put a hold on all litigation involving the EPA, according to Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.).  In a Jan. 25 letter made public on Jan. 28, Blackburn asked EPA Inspector General Sean O'Donnell and Comptroller General Gene Dodaro to "open an investigation into potential violations of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998 (FVRA) and other potential violations of ethics rules."  Dodaro heads the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress.  Hoffer, a political appointee, is one of the first 16 officials dispatched to EPA by the White House on Jan. 20 to carry out President Joe Biden's plan to make combating climate change one of his administration's top economic and national security policy priorities.

EPA chief to Newsom:  You don't have the power to ban gas-powered vehicles.  EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler rebuked California governor Gavin Newsom yesterday [9/28/2020] for his executive order barring sales of gas-powered vehicles in the state by 2035.  California no longer has the authority to impose such regulations, Wheeler reminded Newsom, and it also lacks the power, literally:

EPA Chief Threatens to Pull Offices Out of NYC Over 'Unwarranted, Violent Activity'.  On the heels of the Department of Justice deeming New York City and two other U.S. locations "anarchist jurisdictions," Environmental Protections Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler is threatening to pull its offices out of Lower Manhattan over concerns about the safety of its employees.  "If you cannot demonstrate that EPA employees will be safe accessing our City offices, then I will begin the process of looking for a new location for our headquarters outside of the City that can maintain order," Wheeler wrote in a blistering letter to Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio.  The EPA administrator blasted the Democrats for failing to act during the July "Occupy City Hall" protests that not only made the building inaccessible to employees but damaged the office and other buildings.

Forgetting History and Misrepresenting History is America's Real Pandemic.  [Scroll down]  As a result, none of what's happening now should surprise us, except for one thing:  We finally have a President that sees the problem as it is, and not as the media and ruling classes attempt to present it.  Having had to deal with the EPA, environmentalists and other misfits for many years representing my industry, I knew the bureaucracy was corrupt, and that corruption was created by elected representatives from both parties, especially starting with -- again -- Nixon, who created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), passed the Endangered Species Act (ESA), and a host of other "green" laws.  All of which have been out of control for years.  All of which are anti-capitalist.  All of which are anti-American.  All of which impose fundamentally unconstitutional regulations.  All of which the nation is struggling with today.

Yes, Let's Defund The Police ... At The EPA.  Democrats have met the enemy, and it is the police.  Well, not all police.  They love the heavily armed federal police at agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency. [...] What's the excuse for federal agencies such as the EPA, Food and Drug Administration, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Education, and National Institute of Standards and Technology to be purchasing military-grade equipment?  A 2016 study by Open the Books found that from 2006 to 2014, more than 60 federal agencies spent a total of $1.5 billion on guns, ammunition and military-style equipment.  The EPA alone spent more than $3 million on such weaponry.

The Scientific Case for Vacating the EPA's Carbon Dioxide Endangerment Finding.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) 2009 "Endangerment Finding" from carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases grants the agency a legal mandate that can have profound and far-reaching effects.  The Finding is based largely on a Technical Support Document that relies heavily upon other mandated reports, the so-called National Assessments of global climate change impacts on the United States.  The extant Assessments at the time of the Endangerment Finding suffered from serious flaws.  We document that using the climate models for the first Assessment, from 2000, provided less quantitative guidance than tables of random numbers — and that the chief scientist for that work knew of this problem.  All prospective climate impacts in the Endangerment Finding are generated by computer models that, with one exception, made systematic and dramatic errors over the climatically critical tropics.  Best scientific practice would be to emphasize the working model, which has less warming in it than all of the others.  Instead, the EPA relied upon a community of wrong models.

This EPA Regulation Is Literally Making People Sick.  As the deadly coronavirus takes its toll on countless families, healthcare workers are doing their best to get patients the medicine and equipment they desperately need.  But medical devices can do more harm than good unless properly sterilized and disinfected by applying agents such as Ethylene Oxide (EtO) gas.  And, because of deeply flawed federal studies and subsequent state and local actions based on this shoddy science, production of sterilizing agents such as EtO has been put on the back burner.

'Stop putting out socialist-aligned policies': New EPA chief of staff plans to attack Democrats.  A former top official of President Trump's Environmental Protection Agency is returning to the EPA as chief of staff with a vengeance on Monday, vowing to use the post to promote the president's deregulatory agenda aggressively ahead of the 2020 election while pushing back against Democrats' "socialist-aligned policies."  Mandy Gunasekara is waving off Democratic critics who question whether she will politicize a typically low-key job working as the right-hand woman of administrator Andrew Wheeler.  She comes back to the EPA after spending the past year running a nonprofit organization called Energy 45 out of her home state of Mississippi to promote Trump's fossil fuel-first energy agenda and counter the principles of the liberal "Green New Deal."

EPA Chief Andrew Wheeler Pulls Back His Agency's Overreach.  Andrew Wheeler recently completed his first year as the official administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and what a busy year it was.  The EPA now accounts for $6.5 billion in deregulatory savings achieved over the course of President Donald Trump's administration.  A little more than a year ago, The Daily Signal published a piece by one of us about Wheeler's pending confirmation by the Senate.  It noted that the vote would occur as the country was being introduced to the left's radical Green New Deal proposal.  Well, you don't hear as much about the Green New Deal anymore.  While a lot of that has to do with the absurdity of the proposal itself, from gassy cows to transoceanic trains, a good deal of credit is due to the practical success of the Trump administration's environmental agenda.

Turning the Aircraft Carrier on Obama's 'Waters of the US' Rule.  Even a president with a business background, accustomed to employees doing what they're told at the risk of being fired, is often disappointed when government employees ignore (or even undermine) his direction.  When Donald Trump ran for president in 2016, among other commitments, he vowed to repeal the unpopular Obama-era "Waters of the U.S." (WOTUS) rule.  Shortly after his inauguration, he ordered officials at the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers (the two agencies responsible for WOTUS enforcement) to rewrite the regulation, returning its original interpretation.  Two years later, they are just now releasing the language of the new rule.  It is disappointing, clearly stopping short of what the president wanted.

EPA accused of snubbing Trump with Presidents' Day message.  The Environmental Protection Agency forgot a crucial word in its well wishes on Washington's Birthday, appearing to snub Donald Trump by celebrating presidents "past and future" and not the one presently sitting in the White House.

Cry Me a River.  In May 2015, the Environmental Protection Agency unilaterally announced its intention to expand its capacity to regulate navigable waterways and their tributaries.  This new rule allowed the agency to block the development of privately owned lands with a "significant nexus" to a waterway, a definition so expansive it included streams that ran only seasonally or underground, bone-dry 100-year floodplains, any parcel within 1,500 feet of a highwater mark, or even topographical features that could "in combination" impact a water source. [...] Landowners understandably feared that this permissive new definition of what constitutes a waterway could apply to almost any soggy plot.  And if affected landowners wanted special dispensation, they would have to appeal to the EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for permits, which were to be considered only on an individual basis.

California Farmer Fights Government Claim That Dirt Is a Pollutant.  No one told Jack LaPant that he could be in violation of the Clean Water Act for farming his own land.  That's mostly because the federal law includes a clear exemption for "normal" farming activities.  But it's also because the government officials LaPant consulted didn't view overturned dirt that has been tilled and plowed as pollution.  In 2016, the Army Corps of Engineers, which administers the Clean Water Act with the Environmental Protection Agency, began legal action against LaPant for plowing he did in 2011 to plant wheat on a ranch property he owned in Northern California.

Bipartisan Politicization of EPA.  Environmental organizations have been unrelenting in their criticism of the Trump EPA. Most of the criticism is because agency biases that favored their positions are being corrected.  Politicizing EPA didn't begin in 2017 and it won't end anytime soon unless Congress acts responsibly, which is not likely.  The most recent criticism is EPA's decision to allow 15% ethanol in gasoline year-round is an exception.  There is no environmental justification for increasing the ethanol percentage in gasoline.  Indeed, there is no justification for requiring ethanol.  It has always been a payoff to the farm lobby.  In the case of the 15% mandate, EPA is attempting in part to offset the damage of the President's wrong-headed tariffs and trade war with China.  The major reason is pure 2020 politics.

Court declares Obama's EPA "Waters of the United States Rule" unlawful.  U.S. District Judge Lisa Godbey Wood has handed a victory to the state of Georgia and nine other states that sued the federal government (and to the rest of the nation) by declaring that the WOTUS Rule is unlawful. [...] Legal Insurrection readers may recall that implementation of the rule led to a Wyoming farmer being fined $37,500 a day for constructing a stock pond on his own property.  The American Farm Bureau Federation, which earlier this year won a decision in Texas that also found the rule legally wanting, praised Wood's decision.

EPA inspector general recommends recouping $124K from former administrator Scott Pruitt for 'excessive' travel costs.  The Environmental Protection Agency's internal watchdog recommended Thursday that the agency should consider recovering nearly $124,000 in "excessive" costs from former administrator Scott Pruitt for his first-class travel.  The $123,942 identified by EPA's inspector general represents taxpayer money spent on flying Pruitt and a security officer in first or business class, instead of coach.

Getting to the Bottom of EPA Climate Fraud.  In December 2009, the Obama Environmental Protection Agency issued its Endangerment Finding (EF) — decreeing that carbon dioxide (CO2) and other "greenhouse gases" (GHGs) endanger the health and welfare of Americans.  In the process, EPA ignored the incredible economic, health and welfare benefits of fossil fuels — and the fact that (even at just 0.04% of the atmosphere) carbon dioxide is the miracle molecule that enables plants to grow and makes nearly all live on Earth possible.  EPA turned CO2 into a "dangerous pollutant" and ruled that fossil fuels must be eradicated.  The agency subsequently used its EF to justify tens of billions of dollars in climate research, anti-fossil fuel regulations, and wind and solar subsidies; President Obama's signing of the Paris climate treaty; and proposals to spend trillions of dollars a year on Green New Deal (GND) programs.  And yet, despite multiple demands that this be done, there has never been any formal, public review of the EF conclusion or of the secretive process EPA employed to ensure the result of its "analysis" could only be "endangerment" — and no awkward questions or public hearings would get in the way.

Why Trump should call off the EPA's latest assault on NYC.  No matter who is mayor, New York jealously guards the reservoirs and pipes that bring us water.  Today the city spends $200 million a year employing 2,600 people to protect the water and sewer system, including guarding and monitoring upstate reservoirs.  Now, though, in a lawsuit filed this month, the US Department of Justice, with EPA support, calls our water system "a serious public-health problem."  The supposed risk:  Birds can poop in uncovered Hillview Reservoir in Yonkers, the last stop for a billion gallons of already chlorinated and ultraviolet-treated water as it flows into local pipes.  So we have to cover it, likely with concrete.  Rather than fight, the city immediately settled, entering into a "consent decree."

Inside the EPA's 'resistance room,' where Trump was never president and climate change is real.  No such thing.  That was the verdict delivered by the security guard inside the Ronald Reagan Building on the question of whether there existed a museum of the Environmental Protection Agency and, more to the point, whether that museum was somewhere within this airy warren of federal offices in downtown Washington.  In fact, she appeared to regard the question as downright insane.  Actually, there was — and is, as of this writing at least — such a thing as an EPA museum.  The security guard looked on with annoyed concession as this reporter produced on his phone seemingly incontrovertible evidence that not only did an EPA museum exist in the reality-based community, it existed inside the Reagan Building, which is adjacent to the EPA's headquarters (and just a few hundred feet from the Trump International Hotel).

How Government Researchers Hijack Science for Political Purposes.  [Scroll down]  "In the last 15 years, EPA has invented three bogus human carcinogens (chemicals that cause cancer), all for political reasons or with a political not a scientific basis.  The Carcinogens invented were, dioxin, because of the anti-Vietnam War crusade, formaldehyde because of the hysterical reaction to the 'toxic' trailer homes for the refugees of Katrina, and the last one, trichloroethylene, because of the noise about the contamination of water at Camp Lejeune."  None of these three chemicals passed any real scientific tests for proof of carcinogenicity, but politics is more important than science at the EPA.  The complaints and scares were typical of these enviro-scares and the wheelchair brigades that form, encouraged by lawyers and enviro-advocates.

Media FOIA Requests to EPA Spiked After Trump Election, Data Reveal.  The number of Freedom of Information Act requests the Environmental Protection Agency received from mainstream outlets such as the New York Times and Washington Post spiked immediately after Republican President Donald Trump took office, according to a Free Beacon analysis of FOIA requests by the media from 2013 to the present.  The figures, obtained through the government's FOIA online database, reveal a clear increase in requests for information from the agency once Trump was elected president.  The New York Times, for example, made just 13 FOIA requests during the four years of Obama's second term, sending 3 in 2013, 1 in 2014, 7 in 2015, and 2 in 2016.  The number of FOIA requests the Times sent for Obama's entire second term was nearly quadrupled in the first year of Trump's presidency alone, when the Times sent 59 FOIA requests to the EPA.

DC District Court sides with Trump's EPA in a major victory over environmentalists.  The District of Columbia District Court granted the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) petition to dismiss legal action against a policy to prohibit scientists from receiving agency funding while sitting on advisory boards.  EPA issued the policy directive in 2017 under former Administrator Scott Pruitt.  A coalition of environmental groups promptly filed suit, alleging it lacked the authority to make changes to advisory board policies and violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA).  Judge Trevor McFadden ruled against environmental groups, led by Physicians for Social Responsibility, and agreed to dismiss all four counts leveled against EPA's ethics policy.  President Donald Trump appointed McFadden to the D.C. District Court in 2017.

CEI Report Calls for Elimination of EPA's Flawed Integrated Risk Information System.  A new report released today [2/12/2019] by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) shows EPA's Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) has significant problems with methodology, relies on sloppy research and has been criticized for a lack of transparency.  The report, authored by CEI senior fellow Angela Logomasini and titled "EPA's Flawed IRIS Program is Not the Gold Standard," calls for IRIS to be shut down and its functions shifted into program offices at EPA.  Logomasini points out that information produced by IRIS does not undergo a full risk assessment, it only performs two of the EPA-identified four steps, and has made numerous controversial assessments with little basis in reality.

EPA IG: Two Pruitt Probes Closed Due To Resignation Getting In Way Of Interview.  The internal watchdog at the Environmental Protection Agency has closed two probes into the conduct of former Administrator Scott Pruitt as inconclusive because investigators were unable to interview him before he resigned.

Trump EPA readies new clean water rule to roll back Obama regulation.  The Trump administration is moving forward with a significant rollback of an Obama-era clean water regulation that has become a rallying cry for farmers and property-rights activists opposed to federal overreach.  The new proposal, unveiled Tuesday morning [12/11/2018] by Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler and other administration officials, would ease Washington's oversight of small bodies of water, undoing a regulation President Donald Trump has called "a massive power grab."

Trump dumps Obamath.  President Trump is ending Obamath at the EPA by challenging regulations that cost $7.4 billion to $9.6 billion annually, but provide only $4 million to $6 million annually in health benefits.  Naturally, liberals are upset because they just use the environment as an excuse to kneecap American industry and our economy.

EPA lost more than 1,500 workers in first 18 months of Trump administration: report.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reportedly lost 8 percent of its staff in the first 18 months of President Trump's administration due to high numbers of departing staffers and a low number of new hires.  The Washington Post reported Saturday [9/8/2018] that nearly 1,600 workers left the EPA during that time, while fewer than 400 were hired.  The agency's employment has shrunk to its lowest levels since the Reagan administration, the Post noted.

EPA Reverses Obama Era Last Minute Uranium Mining Regulations.  The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on Friday that it is withdrawing the pending rulemaking for uranium mining and thorium mill tailings.  The regulations were put in place on Jan. 19, 2017, just hours before Barack Obama left office and President Donald Trump's inauguration.  "In a rush to regulate during the waning hours of the previous administration, the agency proposed a regulation that would have imposed significant burdens on uranium miners and the communities they support," Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in the press release announcing the decision.

EPA: Trump's easing of coal rules could kill 1,400 people per year.  The Trump administration announced plans on Tuesday [8/21/2018] to ease Obama-era restrictions on coal-fired power plants, but an Environmental Protection Agency analysis of the new rules said they would increase carbon emissions and could cause up to 1,400 premature deaths each year.

The Editor says...
[#1] Carbon dioxide is not carbon.  [#2] Show me the death certificate of any person whose death was caused by carbon dioxide emissions from a power plant.  It doesn't happen.

EPA sheds 1,600 employees as Trump cleans house.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) shed approximately 1,200 jobs as roughly 1,600 employees departed and fewer than 400 new employees were hired during President Donald Trump's first year and a half in office.  Departing employees included "at least 260 scientists, 185 'environmental protection specialists' and 106 engineers," according to the Washington Post.  The EPA's workforce is now down 8 percent to a size it has not been since former president Ronald Reagan was in office, reported the WaPo.

The EPA's work is finished.
Why they demonize carbon dioxide:  The Environmental Protection Agency reported that pollution is down 73% since EPA's founding in 1970.  "Through federal and state implementation of the Clean Air Act and technological advances in the private sector, America has achieved one of the great public-private successes of our time — dramatically improving air quality and public health while simultaneously growing the nation's population and economy," said Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler.  "This report details a remarkable achievement that should be recognized, celebrated, and replicated around the world.  A 73 percent reduction in any other social ill, such as crime, disease, or drug addiction, would lead the evening news."  The numbers are astounding:
  •   Sulfur dioxide (1-hour)  ↓  88 percent
  •   Lead (3-month average)  ↓  80 percent
  •   Carbon monoxide (8-hour)  ↓  77 percent
  •   Nitrogen dioxide (annual)  ↓  56 percent
  •   Fine Particulate Matter (24-hour)  ↓  40 percent
  •   Coarse Particulate Matter (24-hour)  ↓  34 percent and
  •   Ground-level ozone (8-hour)  ↓  22 percent
And the numbers explain why the EPA treats a nutrient, carbon dioxide, as a pollutant.  Having reduced real pollution, the Captain Planets at the EPA need a new villain to battle.

Obama's third term: 13 times courts said Trump must continue Obama's lawless policies.  [#11] Trump must regulate drainage ditches:  In 2015, Obama declared that seasonal runoffs and ponds in your backyard are now "navigable" waters subject to federal water regulations.  Trump merely restored the commonsense policy in place since 1980, defining navigable waters as, you know, waters that transport commercial ships, not breeding grounds for mosquitos.  But Judge David Norton, a George W. Bush appointee, ruled that Trump must continue Obama's policy, despite a Georgia judge finding the policy itself to be unconstitutional.

EPA's acting head is as much a foe of Obama's regulations as Pruitt was.  The last time we visited the Environmental Protection Agency, its regulation-slaying head Scott Pruitt had resigned over "the unrelenting attacks" on him and his family, which "are unprecedented and have taken a sizable toll on all of" them.  As I suspected, the left's victory over Pruitt was hollow.  Acting EPA Chief Andrew Wheeler has directed the agency to ease Obama-era standards on the disposal of coal ash, a move expected to be the agency's first revision of the standards.

EPA: Key Air Pollutants Drop 73 Percent Since 1970.  Americans who value clean air and robust economic growth do not need to make an either-or choice, according to the Environmental Protection Agency's new annual report on air quality.  The EPA report released Tuesday [7/31/2018] finds that between 1970 and 2017, the combined emissions of six main kinds of pollutants decreased by 73 percent even as the U.S. economy grew substantially over the 47 years.

EPA decides to keep and defend Obama's strict smog rules.  The Trump administration said Wednesday that it will maintain and defend in court the Obama administration's 2015 national air quality standards for smog-forming ozone.  Justice Department attorneys working for the Environmental Protection Agency told a federal court that the agency could not justify rejecting the Obama-era ozone standard, because of past court rulings and its aversion to a drawn-out legal battle that would bring uncertainty to states needing to comply.

A religious litmus test:
Elizabeth Warren:  EPA Administrator Must Believe in Climate Change.  Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said on Thursday [7/5/2018] following President Donald Trump's tweet announcing that Scott Pruitt was stepping down as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that anyone who doesn't believe in climate change should not head the agency.

Cummings Slams Politically Charged Trump EPA Program.  Turns Out To Be Obama EPA Program.  On Friday evening [7/13/2018] there was a story at Politico which didn't seem to gain much traction, what with all of the Trump activity going on.  Congressman Elija Cummings (D-Md) is the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee and he's demanding that committee chair Trey Gowdy issue a subpoena to the EPA over their handling of both FOIA submissions and requests from Congress for documents, saying that Scott Pruitt's administration was "screening" requests based on political sensitivity.  These were all part of a skyrocketing number of such requests the EPA has received under the Trump administration, [...] So this is the program that Cummings has "discovered" and determined to be involved in assigning special handling to requests deemed "complex or politically sensitive."  Turns out that's exactly why the program was set up by Barack Obama's EPA.

Scott Pruitt resigns as EPA administrator.  Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt resigned Thursday [7/5/2018] amid ethics investigations of outsized security spending, first-class flights and a sweetheart condo lease.

Scott Pruitt resigns as EPA chief, Trump announces.  Scott Pruitt has resigned as head of the Environmental Protection Agency after a string of controversies involving his leadership, President Trump announced Thursday [7/5/2018] on Twitter.

Why EPA's Scott Pruitt had to go.  [Scroll down]  Similar concerns had helped push a previous EPA administrator out the door in 2012.  Lisa Jackson, President Obama's first choice to head the EPA, had been expected to continue serving into his second term.  But on December 13, 2012 the EPA's assistant inspector general announced he would conduct an audit into Jackson's use of private email accounts under the alias "Richard Windsor" to conduct official government business.  Chris Horner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute had brought a lawsuit to make 12,000 of Jackson's "alias" emails public.  Before that could happen, Jackson announced she would be leaving office on December 27, 2012 — apparently with the strong private encouragement of the White House.  It took three more years of litigation to get all of Jackson's private emails released.  We now know that her alias email accounts were her prime method of doing business.

Scott Pruitt becomes latest Trump official to be harassed at a restaurant.  Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt became the most recent Trump administration figure to get an earful while trying to get a mouthful at a DC restaurant, according to a Facebook posting Monday [7/2/2018].  Teacher Kristin Mink was shown approaching Pruitt as he chowed down with a pal at the Teaism restaurant Monday, four blocks from his office at the EPA's headquarters.  "I just wanted to urge you to resign, because of what you're doing to the environment in our country," Mink said, holding her two-year-old son and a notepad, as her husband recorded the encounter.

44 Obama Era EPA Scandals the Media Ignored:  [For example,]
  •   The EPA illegally used social media to push for new EPA regulations
  •   A subpoena was issued after McCarthy deleted nearly 6,000 text messages
  •   Articles of impeachment were introduced against [Gina] McCarthy after she was caught repeatedly lying to Congress
  •   The EPA inspector general said McCarthy was lying when she said Michigan deserved blame for the Flint crisis
  •   After the Colorado mine disaster, the EPA covered up incriminating evidence to shield its agents from prosecution
  •   The EPA knew risk of a "blowout" before the Colorado mine disaster, and then later covered up this evidence
  •   The EPA allowed a known, convicted child molester to remain on the payroll for years, putting him in a position to interact with the public
  •   McCarthy was accused of permitting a workplace hostile to women, including letting workers download porn (even child porn)
  •   Gina McCarthy spent $630,000 on international travel from 2013-2016
  •   Obama's EPA hid experimental data debunking the 2015 ozone rule

NY Times issues major correction in hit piece targeting EPA Pruitt's daughter.  The long knives (and brass knuckles) are clearly out for EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt.  We wrote weeks ago about the organized Left's attacks on President Trump's most effective and influential cabinet secretary.  His efforts in rolling back job-killing regulations have been a prime force in driving the Trump economy and the media and Democrats can't stand it. [...] But Pruitt won't go.  He has work to do and he's going to do it.  So now, they're going after his family.

The Press Will Stop at Nothing to Get Scott Pruitt.  When reporters work too hard to earn a Pulitzer Prize for orchestrating the political assassination of one of the president's most effective cabinet members, sometimes, in their zeal, they can make a big mistake.  That is exactly what happened over the weekend when the New York Times was forced to post a lengthy correction to its latest hit piece on Scott Pruitt, President Trump's EPA administrator.  While the correction itself reveals a major blunder, it obfuscates the real outrage about the original story:  The reporters went after Pruitt's daughter.

Chuck Schumer calls on EPA to lower gas prices.  Sen. Chuck Schumer called on the Environmental Protection Agency on Sunday not to follow through with plans to rollback mile-per-gallon standards to lessen the pain at the pump for motorists as gas prices hit their highest rates in four years.  "If prices stay as high as they are, this summer the average motorist will pay $200 to $300 more out of their pockets than they would have otherwise," the New York Democrat said during a news conference at a Mobil gas station in Manhattan where the price is $4.15 a gallon.  "Now with the price the way it is, the better mileage the motorist gets, the better everyone does."  The EPA announced last week that it has submitted plans to weaken an Obama administration rule for automakers to increase their cars' fuel economy by 50 mpg by 2025.

Trump ends EPA harrassment of farmers.  American farmers feed the world.  We export food.  Socialists rule by starvation.  (Ukraine, China, North Korea...)  And so in the name of preserving wetlands, the bureaucracy is controlling water.  Unconstitutionally.  The Constitution allows Congress to regulate navigable rivers.  By definition, this excludes wetlands.  "The controversial Waters of the U.S. rule, implemented in 2015 by the Environmental Protection Agency, received another setback when a U.S. District Court in Georgia issued a preliminary injunction that prevents the rule from being implemented in 13 states," Burt Rutherford reported on Wednesday [6/13/2018].  "The Georgia injunction is the second time a federal court has ruled against WOTUS.  The first decision came shortly after WOTUS came into effect.  A North Dakota court issued an injunction in 2015 that prevented the rule from being implemented in 11 states.  With those two court rulings in place, nearly half the country — 24 states — are protected from WOTUS.

DOT Repeals Enviro Rule Mandating States Comply With Greenhouse Gas Policy.  President Donald Trump's administration repealed a rule forcing states to comply with a policy monitoring greenhouse gas levels from tailpipes of American automobiles.  The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) signed a final rule May 22 that eliminates a mandate requiring state agencies to establish emission targets, calculate their progress toward those targets, and determine a plan of action if they failed to make progress during a performance period.  The rule repealed the performance management measure assessing the percent change in tailpipe carbon dioxide emissions on the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) measure.

Former NASA scientist says Trump's climate change policy fills agency with 'fear and anxiety'.  One former NASA scientist is claiming that the agency's employees are crippled by the "fear and anxiety" brought on by the Trump administration and its adamant denial of climate change.  "Nasa's talking point is that it's business as usual, but that's not true," former NASA science communicator, Laura Tenenbaum, told The Guardian.  People inside the agency are concerned Trump will cut climate science funding.  There is a fear and anxiety there and the outcome has been chaos."  The climate change data and research meant for general public knowledge has come to a near halt under President Trump's administration, Tenenbaum claimed, noting she received a warning to stay away from phrases like "global warming" when posting on social media or speaking with the press.  She said drafts of blog posts on coal plants becoming solar plants and other "reasons to be positive about NASA" were thrown out by other officials who feared retribution from the new President.

EPA Head Says Vehicle Emissions Standards Set by Obama Should Be Revised Downward.  A news release posted on the EPA website on April 2 said that the agency's administrator, Scott Pruitt, announced the completion of the Midterm Evaluation (MTE) process for the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions standards for cars and light trucks for model years 2022-2025.  Pruitt's final determination is that, in light of recent data, the current standards are not appropriate and should be revised.  The current standards were set by the Obama administration.  "The Obama Administration's determination was wrong," said Pruitt.  "Obama's EPA cut the Midterm Evaluation process short with politically charged expediency, made assumptions about the standards that didn't comport with reality, and set the standards too high."

Many mocked this Scott Pruitt proposal.  They should have read it first.  When Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt proposed a rule last month to improve transparency in science used to make policy decisions, he was roundly criticized by interest groups and academics.  Several researchers asserted that the policy would be used to undermine a litany of existing environmental protections.  Former Obama administration EPA officials co-wrote a New York Times op-ed in which they said the proposal "would undermine the nation's scientific credibility."  The Economist derided the policy as "swamp science."  But there is a lot to cheer about in the rule that opponents have missed.  A careful reading suggests it could promote precisely the kind of evidence-based policy most scientists and the public should support.

Upheaval at Pruitt's EPA as departures mount.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) appears to be in a state of massive upheaval following the departure of several aides and new allegations against the agency's embattled administrator, Scott Pruitt.  Four officials at the agency have stepped down in the past week, an exodus that has deprived Pruitt of some of his closest aides.  Meanwhile, several new controversies have exploded around Pruitt regarding his travel and his ties to lobbyists.  People with knowledge of the departures at EPA likened them to getting out of Dodge, either due to impending investigations or simply a desire to escape a tumultuous work environment.

The Editor says...
Or maybe the swamp is starting to drain itself.

EPA Will End Obama's New Coal Plant Ban.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) plans on repealing an Obama-era requirement effectively mandating all new coal-fired power plants be outfitted with unproven emissions technology, The Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.  EPA will modify the New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) for power plants as part of its effort to repeal the Clean Power Plan (CPP) — the centerpiece of the Obama administration's climate agenda.  EPA will drop the de facto requirement that new coal plants install carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology Obama administration critics said would make it nearly impossible to build new coal plants.

'Secret Science At EPA Is Coming To an End': Scott Pruitt Signs Data Transparency Rule.  Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt signed a proposed rule on Tuesday to prevent the agency from relying on scientific studies that don't publish the underlying data.  "The era of secret science at EPA is coming to an end," Pruitt said in a statement.  "The ability to test, authenticate, and reproduce scientific findings is vital for the integrity of rulemaking process."  Pruitt first announced his initiative to rid EPA of "secret science" in an exclusive interview with The Daily Caller News Foundation in March.  The Obama administration relied on so-called "secret science" to justify billions of dollars worth of regulations.

Obama Amnesia and the EPA.  The Obama Amnesia afflicting our friends on the Left is particularly acute when it comes to the Environmental Protection Agency. [...] Notoriously profligate Democratic lawmakers who are now suffering from Obama Amnesia are suddenly distraught over allegedly inappropriate expenditures at the EPA. [...] Despite a number of scandals, there were no calls by the New York Times editorial board for Obama EPA chief Gina McCarthy to resign, even after her agency caused the Gold King Mine spill, an environmental catastrophe for which she refused to take responsibility.  When her agency was caught breaking the law for its illicit use of social media, or as Congress threatened to impeach her for perjury, no major newspaper demanded that McCarthy step down. [...] After EPA employees were caught downloading porn, including child pornography, and McCarthy ignored or excused other egregious misconduct on her watch, it was crickets from our newfound EPA watchdogs in the elite media.  No such niceties have been extended to Pruitt, however.  Quite the opposite, in fact.

Sources: Most Of What EPA's Leaker Told Dems About Scott Pruitt Is 'False'.  A former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official likely behind negative media stories about Administrator Scott Pruitt doesn't have all his facts straight, according sources familiar with EPA's inner-workings.  Former Trump campaign official Kevin Chmielewski, who's also former EPA deputy chief of staff operations, gave congressional Democrats a list of accusations against Pruitt, detailing the administrator's alleged "wasteful spending" and "disregard for ethical and legal requirements."  Chmielewski is the likely source for media reports surrounding Pruitt's spending habits and alleged ethical lapses.  Chmielewski was allegedly removed from his position at EPA for challenging Pruitt, but that hasn't been confirmed, reports said.

Crushing the Global Warming Cult at the EPA.  President Trump struck an amazing blow for science and truth by appointing Scott Pruitt to be the new head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). By all accounts, under Mr. Pruitt's leadership, morale has never been lower among the EPA's 50,000 federal bureaucrats.  This is a good thing for America, because the EPA has been a uniquely bizarre federal entity comprised almost entirely of superstitious tribesmen who belong to a strange weather cult.  The EPA has been that way since its founding in 1970, when many of its members believed earth was on the verge of an imminent Ice Age.

Now, EPA's Scott Pruitt buys a $43,000 phone booth.  President-elect Donald Trump promised the country he'd have the best Cabinet in history.  He didn't say when.  There's been considerable turnover as he sorts folks out.  David Shulkin is gone.  Rex Tillerson is gone.  Tom Price is gone.  Not to mention a battalion of White House aides.

Dozens of senators sign resolution urging ouster of EPA's Pruitt.  The White House budget office said on Wednesday it was probing whether a $43,000 soundproof phone booth installed for Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt violated the law, while dozens of Democratic senators called for him to resign over allegations of ethics lapses.

Don't Let the Left Take Scott Pruitt's Scalp.  Aside from the propitiatory human sacrifice to the gods of radical feminism known as abortion, there is no pagan totem more worshiped on the Left than the environment.  Since the original Earth Day back in 1970, the idea that Mother Gaia is under constant attack by rapacious human beings has become an article of faith, and no amount of ameliorative activity since will suffice to placate them.  Indeed, as the environment has been substantially cleaned up, their zealotry has only increased.  For the environmental Left, the Hudson is always polluted, the forests are always vanishing, and the Cuyahoga River is always on fire.  A case in point is the media-fueled targeting of "embattled" EPA chief Scott Pruitt who, in a constantly revolving cast of villains in the Trump administration, has latterly emerged as Public Enemy No. 1, always excepting the president himself.

Lost amid all the 'noise' over Scott Pruitt is the very real damage Obama's EPA did to rural communities.  The far left will stop at nothing in their efforts to derail the presidency of Donald Trump.  Still bitter about the outcome of 2016, the left claims much of their outrage toward the president is driven by his unpredictable personality, but ideological opposition to his administration's reform-minded agenda is the real root of their anger.  Nowhere is this more evident than the furor surrounding Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  Trump's opponents have seized on a number of recent unflattering news stories involving Pruitt and his agency.  While admittedly not the best public relations for Pruitt, his "real sin is that he is one of Mr. Trump's most aggressive reformers," as the Wall Street Journal editorialized last week.  President Trump expressed a similar sentiment over the weekend when he tweeted praise for his EPA chief's "bold actions" and "record clean Air & Water while saving USA Billions of Dollars."

Dems And EPA Insiders Are Freaking Out Over Trump's Refusal To Nix Pruitt.  Democratic lawmakers and career officials at the EPA are grasping at straws to understand why President Donald Trump is sticking by one of his most effective lieutenants.  There is a virtual civil war happening inside the EPA as negative reports about agency head Scott Pruitt continue stacking up, agency insiders claim.  Capitol Hill Democrats are also not sure how to proceed as Trump dismisses calls to fire the former Oklahoma attorney general.

The EPA Head Wouldn't Need Security if the Left Wasn't Violent.  The #resistance left has been especially obsessed with the EPA and the NSC.  That's why Flynn was targeted.  It's why they're going after Bolton.  Again.  And it's why Scott Pruitt has been a special target.  Obama Inc. used the EPA to put its eco-fascist agenda in place.  Any attempt to change that has been met with hysteria.  The hysteria is a product of, among other things, of a cult.  The cult has convinced a sizable numbers of leftists that the planet will be destroyed unlike everyone joins the cult.  And anyone who doesn't believe in the culture is a threat to the planet.  Eco-fascist groups told their followers that Pruitt represents the destruction of the planet and the deaths of their children.  They incited panicked hate.  And Scott Pruitt's need for security is their fault.

The media don't really care about Scott Pruitt's ethics — just his reversal of Obama policies.  The media are going after Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt for traveling first class and only paying $1,500 per month for a condo, pretending it's all a matter of ethics.  It's nonsense.  They actually are going after him because he dares reverse some of the rules the Environmental Protection Agency implemented without going through Congress.  Dissent is just not allowed from Democrat policies, and the media are the method of choice for Democrats, using it to go after any Trump administration person they don't like.

Report: EPA Head Scott Pruitt's Security Expenses Hit $3 Million.  Just over a year into his job as the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, security costs for Scott Pruitt have so far totaled about $3 million, the Associated Press reports, citing an EPA official.  Pruitt, who has been under fire recently for what critics say is lavish spending of taxpayer money, was given a 20-member full-time security detail that is more than three times the size of that of his predecessor.  Some of the millions of dollars spent on Pruitt's security detail were reportedly incurred while he was on a family vacation, with his 24-hour security coverage reportedly requiring investigators to abandon their field work duties.  EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox said late Friday [4/6/2018] that an "unprecedented" amount of death threats against Pruitt is behind the sky-high security costs.

Trump and the US need Scott Pruitt to stay at EPA.  "I do," President Trump said Thursday afternoon [4/5/2018] when asked by reporters whether he still has confidence in embattled Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt.  And well the president should.  Pruitt has been the most effective appointee in implementing the Trump agenda.  If Pruitt is forced out of his job because of charges he behaved unethically, America will suffer.  President Trump was elected as the economy was being choked and jobs were being destroyed by record-breaking, excessive and counterproductive regulations issued by the Obama administration.  The regulatory agency leading the charge against a healthy American economy and American job creation was the EPA.  Candidate Trump knew this and campaigned on it.  Millions of Americans voted for Trump precisely because he came out strongly against regulatory overreach.

Scott Pruitt Is a Hero, Unlike Some of His EPA Predecessors.  Trump has finally risen to the defense of his embattled EPA chief Scott Pruitt.  Quite right too, for Pruitt is by some margin the best Administrator the Environmental Protection Agency has had since it was founded by Richard Nixon in 1970.  This is not just because Pruitt is so good.  It's also because his predecessors were so bad.  Not merely incompetent, but in several cases actively corrupt, dishonest, and criminal.  As Steve Milloy notes here, all three past Democrat EPA administrators flagrantly violated public records laws, including the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

E.P.A. Officials Sidelined After Questioning Scott Pruitt.  At least five officials at the Environmental Protection Agency, four of them high-ranking, were reassigned or demoted, or requested new jobs in the past year after they raised concerns about the spending and management of the agency's administrator, Scott Pruitt.  The concerns included unusually large spending on office furniture and first-class travel, as well as certain demands by Mr. Pruitt for security coverage, such as requests for a bulletproof vehicle and an expanded 20-person protective detail, according to people who worked for or with the E.P.A. and have direct knowledge of the situation.  Mr. Pruitt bristled when the officials — four career E.P.A. employees and one Trump administration political appointee — confronted him, said the people, who were not authorized to speak publicly.

The New EPA And Why The Radical Left Is Losing It.  In just over a year as EPA Administrator, Scott Pruitt has worked with the president to roll back dozens of needless regulations that will save America's manufacturing and energy sectors billions annually.  Most recently the Pruitt EPA announced how his agency will take much more realistic view of how the automobile industry can work with government regulators to reduce vehicle emissions.  Liberals and green activists immediately cried foul — making chicken little claims of how the sky will immediately fall.  The truth is for many years EPA has issued regulations and mandates by bureaucrats who are completely ignorant of how real businesses and industry sectors operate or the compliance costs they already must endure.  What's even more appalling is how these bureaucrats blatantly ignored or distorted inconvenient facts in conjuring up their suffocating, anti-growth decrees.

Scott Pruitt Is Doing Great.  Trump Cannot Afford to Let the Green Blob Claim His Scalp.  What on earth did Pruitt do wrong?  Well, there's the Green Blob narrative version of events which is that Scott Pruitt has become embroiled in a number of "scandals" which render him unfit for public office.  If you really care, Google them.  To my, admittedly pro-Pruitt eyes they all seem trivial — negotiating a cheap rate for a DC condo; wangling some of his staffers a better pay deal; thinking about leasing a private jet — to the point of worthlessness.  Ever since Pruitt took the job, the EPA has been deluged with FOIA requests by activist bodies trying to bring him down.  They evidently haven't been able to come up with much.  Pruitt's critics might sound less partisan, more credible if his predecessors hadn't been about a thousand times more venal, profligate and dishonest.

Make them build cars nobody wants.  Apparently [Scott Pruitt] is the first EPA director to get death threats.  That does not stop him from doing his job — or speaking out.  "I think the focus in the past has been on making manufacturers in Detroit, making manufacturers in various parts of the country make cars that people aren't going to buy, and our focus should be on making cars that people actually purchase more efficient," Pruitt told CNS News and other news outlets.  "To have arbitrary percentages of our fleet made up of vehicles that aren't going to be purchase, that defeats the very purpose of what the CAFE standards are supposed to address."  And arbitrary the numbers are.  Marxists pluck some number out of the air for fuel mileage requirements for no reason at all.  To save oil?  We're almost swimming in domestic oil — without touching offshore oil outside the Gulf of Mexico.

Trump Dismantles Another Obama 'Achievement' — Just One More To Go.  EPA head Scott Pruitt said Tuesday that the administration would rewrite Obama's fuel economy standards starting with model year 2022.  Obama's plan was to mandate that all cars sold average 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, up from 38.3 mpg this year.  As we have repeatedly explained in this space, Obama's fuel economy mandate was little more than a thinly disguised electric car mandate, since hitting that level would have required a substantial increase in plug-in sales.  As it stands, there are only a handful of powered cars that can go more than 54 miles on a gallon of gas.  Pruitt said that, instead of trying to force consumers into more expensive cars that environmentalists like, the focus at the EPA will be "on making cars that people actually buy and that are efficient."

Scott Pruitt Is Trump's Biggest Asset.  That's Why The Left Wants Him Gone.  After Donald Trump, the individual in DC with the biggest target on his back is Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt.  When he was attorney general of Oklahoma, he sued the EPA more than a dozen times to get the powerful regulatory agency to stay within its legal authority.  His nomination was deeply concerning to radical environmentalists inside and outside the media.  As a result, he and his team have been under a microscope since even before his confirmation in early 2017.  Well-funded environmental groups, many with former EPA staffers, deluge the agency with FOIA requests to catch someone in a scandal.  Unlike how they covered Obama-era EPA administrators, media outlets constantly request information about everything Pruitt does, from his schedule to his travel particulars.  Whipped-up partisans have made unprecedented numbers of death threats against him and his family.  Powerful liberals opine against him.

Ban on "secret science" in EPA regulation makes sense.  The Environmental Protection Agency has announced it will now base new regulations only on the findings of scientific studies whose data and methodology are made public so they can be subjected to independent review.  That's a sound move in line with basic scientific transparency and professionalism.  Yet it's being treated as a sign of impending apocalypse by some on the left, which says much about the questionable validity of that group's policy prescriptions.  In an interview with The Daily Caller News Foundation, Administrator Scott Pruitt said the EPA will end its use of studies that do not publish underlying data, only conclusions.  "Otherwise, it's not transparent.  It's not objectively measured, and that's important," Pruitt said.

When the EPA Was Really Corrupt.  Gina McCarthy should share a place of ignominy in the Obama Hall of Shame, right alongside IRS commissioner John Koskinen, FBI Director James Comey, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  Despite extensive evidence of wrongdoing and subsequent attempts to cover up one scandal after another, McCarthy mostly avoided harsh news coverage during her tenure from July 2013 to January 2017.  (She barely won Senate confirmation following questions about her integrity and environmental activism.)  Chaffetz led a series of hearings in 2015 and 2016 detailing outrageous — and occasionally unlawful — behavior by EPA bureaucrats, and McCarthy's failure to reprimand wayward employees.  McCarthy was a masterful blame-shifter who skillfully conned a gullible media into buying her excuses, an approach that started before Obama promoted her to EPA chief.

Why is the Media Suddenly So Interested in the EPA?  For eight years, President Obama's two EPA administrators — Lisa Jackson and Gina McCarthy — received very little scrutiny from major news organizations.  Reporters and opinion writers overlooked their misconduct at the EPA:  excessive travel costs; blatant disregard of congressional oversight and lying to Congress; deleted texts and phony email accounts; colluding with activists who sought to use the agency to impose their costly, ideological agenda.

The Democrats' Long History of Making Incriminating Documents Disappear.  One EPA regional administrator was forced to resign after being caught conducting government business through an email account with an environmentalist group; another apparently used a fake email account.  Lisa Jackson, the agency's top official, used the account of "Richard Windsor," named after her dog and her hometown.  Windsor, despite never existing, was awarded six EPA certifications in cyber-security and ethics.  Jackson's successor, Gina McCarthy, simply deleted every one of thousands of text messages she sent on her EPA phone, claiming they were all personal.  That includes the ones she could be seen sending while seated at congressional hearings.

Scott Pruitt Will End EPA's Use Of 'Secret Science' To Justify Regulations.  Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt will soon end his agency's use of "secret science" to craft regulations.  "We need to make sure their data and methodology are published as part of the record," Pruitt said in an exclusive interview with The Daily Caller News Foundation.  "Otherwise, it's not transparent.  It's not objectively measured, and that's important."  Pruitt will reverse long-standing EPA policy allowing regulators to rely on non-public scientific data in crafting rules.  Such studies have been used to justify tens of billions of dollars worth of regulations.  EPA regulators would only be allowed to consider scientific studies that make their data available for public scrutiny under Pruitt's new policy.  Also, EPA-funded studies would need to make all their data public.

These 5 Horrible Bureaucrats Beat the Clock and Kept Their Pensions.  [#1] John Beale:  Beginning in 2000, eight years before he was eligible for retirement, Beale, a senior official at the Environmental Protection Agency, began telling his boss he was moonlighting as a secret agent to get out of work.  He would leave his job for as long as 18 months at a time — adding up to two and a half years in total — claiming to be on top-secret missions to Pakistan while actually heading off to his vacation house in Massachusetts.  When he did travel for his actual job, Beale ensured that he traveled in James Bond-esque style by claiming to have lumbar problems that required him to be seated in first class.  While Beale did time for his numerous crimes, he retired in 2011 before he could be fired and, to this day, receives a full pension for his brave service.

Congress Should Ditch Obama's 'Clean Water Rule'.  Congress last year utilized the Congressional Review Act to get rid of many federal agency rules, most of which were prime examples of agency overreach.  Congress now needs to use the "power of the purse" in the upcoming omnibus appropriations bill to continue its efforts to rein in agencies and reassert its lawmaking power.  One time-sensitive and critical issue that should be front and center: the so-called "WOTUS" rule.  Even before the Obama administration's 2015 Clean Water Rule — better known as the "Waters of the United States," or WOTUS, rule — the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had been trying to improperly expand their power under the Clean Water Act.

Beware EPA 'Social Cost of Carbon' Models.  Right at the start we should note an important distinction.  Carbon is an element; carbon dioxide a compound.  Carbon is a solid; carbon dioxide a gas.  Carbon — in the form, e.g., of fly ash, dust, fine particulate matter, can harm health; carbon dioxide is harmless except at very high concentrations (above 10,000 parts per million — versus ordinary atmospheric concentration of 400 ppm) and even then only after long, uninterrupted exposure.  Unlike carbon, carbon dioxide is odorless, colorless, and, except under conditions just described, nontoxic — indeed, indispensable to photosynthesis and so to all life.  "Carbon" makes people think of black soot, smoke, smoggy skies; "carbon dioxide" doesn't.  That's why proponents of reducing carbon dioxide emissions call them carbon emissions instead.  The term is deceptive and plays on ignorance and fear. [...] Potential positive effects of increased carbon dioxide emissions are often dismissed out of hand.

The Weaponization of the EPA Is Over:  An Exclusive Interview With Scott Pruitt.  [Quoting Mr. Pruitt:] When you think about an EPA — armed, weaponized, if you will — like a rule like WOTUS, the Waters of the United States rule, that would take a puddle and turn into a lake.  To take land use decisions away from farmers and ranchers and landowners across this country, and people think it was just farming and ranching.  It was the building of subdivisions.  It was really all land use decisions.  I was in Utah last year meeting with some folks there that were building a subdivision, and there was an Army Corps of Engineers representative that was standing outside the subdivision with me, and he pointed to an ephemeral drainage ditch and he said, "Scott, that's a water of the United States."  And I said, "Well, it's not gonna be anymore."  That's exactly the kind of attitude that drove the past administration.  It was all about power.  It wasn't about outcomes necessarily.  It was about power and picking winners and losers, and we're getting that corrected.

U.S. Supreme Court rejects challenge to EPA water regulation.  The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday [2/26/2018] turned away a challenge led by states and environmental groups to an Environmental Protection Agency regulation that lets government agencies transfer water between different bodies, such as rivers and lakes, without needing to protect against pollution.

Trump EPA Administrator:  Could Global Warming Actually Be Good for Humanity?  Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt set off a media firestorm last week when he questioned climate orthodoxy, asking if future global warming might actually be beneficial to humanity.  Pruitt told KSNV in Nevada, "We know that humans have most flourished during times of, what, warming trends," adding that "there's assumptions made that because the climate is warming, that that necessarily is a bad thing."  The response to Pruitt's remarks was swift and fierce.

Is he right?  Yes.

Is Trump's EPA chief bluffing?  Or will he gut California's tough emissions standards?  California officials and clean air advocates are increasingly concerned the Trump administration may attempt to unravel a key program to drive down greenhouse gas emissions from automobile fleets while also jeopardizing the ability of California and other states to set pollution standards stronger than federal rules.  Backed by automakers, Trump officials are in talks with their California counterparts to weaken tough vehicle tailpipe standards approved by the Obama administration.  The standards are aimed at reducing greenhouse gases, but could also help reduce emissions that cause smog and particulate pollution, and 13 other states have adopted them, including Washington, Pennsylvania and New York.

The Resist Movement in the Federal Government.  The rebellion at the EPA is a bit more muted than at other agencies.  Instead of staging public protests, hundreds of Obama-era employees have quietly resigned since Trump appointed Scott Pruitt, a man environmentalists have scathingly labeled a "climate skeptic," as the agency's administrator.  Over 700 EPA personnel have either retired, quit, or taken voluntary buyouts since he took over, some doing so in "disgust."

EPA pushes Obama-era water rule back two years.  The Environmental Protection Agency pushed back the applicable date of a 2015 rule redefining government power over small waterways by two years.  EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt issued a statement Wednesday announcing the agency filed legal documents required to suspend the "Waters of the United States" rule, developed by the Obama administration, for two years.

Trump's EPA Has Cleaned Up Seven Of The Most Toxic Sites In The US.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) partly or completely cleaned seven of the most toxic land sites, called Superfund sites, in the U.S. in 2017, according to the EPA.  Of the seven sites designated for cleanup, three were completely cleansed, while four others still require some work.  The cleanup effort is a significant improvement over the year prior when the EPA completely cleaned one Superfund site and parts of another.

Success: EPA set to reduce staff 50% in Trump's first term.  The Environmental Protection Agency, seen by President Trump as a bloated bureaucratic whale, is on schedule to fulfill his promise to reduce its staff nearly in half by the end of his first term mostly through retirements, not cuts, according to officials.  The EPA Tuesday [1/9/2018] provided to Secrets its first year staff results which show that the agency is below levels not seen since former President Reagan's administration.  And if just those slated to retire by early 2021 leave, Administrator Scott Pruitt and his team will have reduced a staff of nearly 15,000, to below 8,000, or a reduction of 47 percent.  "We're proud to report that we're reducing the size of government, protecting taxpayer dollars and staying true to our core mission of protecting the environment," Pruitt said in a statement to [The Washington Examiner].

Northeast states sue EPA over air pollution from Midwest.  Eight northeastern states said on Tuesday [12/26/2017] they sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to force it to impose more stringent controls on a group of mostly Midwestern states whose air pollution they claim is being blown in their direction.

Trump's Energy Success.  One of the president's major successes is in the area of energy policy.  Along with energy secretary Rick Perry, the president is overseeing the recovery of the American energy sector from the low point it hit under the Obama administration.  By a combination of executive orders totally restrictiong drilling on federal lands and EPA assaults on fracking and coal-mining, including a total ban on mountaintop-mining, Obama prosecuted a "war" not just on coal, but on fossil fuels generally.  Now America has become the largest producer of oil and gas and a major exporter of natural gas.  The U.S. now produces significantly more hydrocarbons than second-place Russia and twice as much as Saudi Arabia.  As coal-mining is restored, pipelines are laid, and new wells are drilled, hundreds of thousands of jobs are being created across the economy, not just in drilling and mining, but in support services.  The effect on the economy is already being felt.

Hundreds of EPA Employees Have Quit Under Trump.  Over 700 employees at the Environmental Protection Agency have quit or taken early retirement during the Trump administration so far, bringing the agency close to employment levels not seen since Reagan.  ThinkProgress, whose senior editor is scared of his plumber who he fears may have voted for Trump, is warning that the exodus will lead to "dirtier air" and "dirtier water."  "Since Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt took over the top job at the agency in March, more than 700 employees have either retired, taken voluntary buyouts, or quit, signaling the second-highest exodus of employees from the agency in nearly a decade," the liberal blog reported.

The Editor says...
As I have said numerous times since at least September 26, 2011, the EPA could disappear tomorrow and the air and water would not get dirtier, because all 50 states have their own EPA-equivalents.

Christmas Is Here, Everyone!  EPA Officials Are 'Leaving in Droves'.  As I've argued before, the EPA has always had less to do with protecting the environment — Colorado gold mine, anyone? — than it does with killing business.  Essentially, it is a communist sleeper cell introduced to the heart of the U.S. government system by Richard Nixon in the mistaken belief that paying Danegeld to your enemies will make them leave you alone.  Previous Republican presidents — such as the Bushes — were far too squishy to dare reform it.  Democrat presidents, most notably Obama, used it as a way of bypassing Congress and imposing on the U.S. a United-Nations-driven globalist agenda almost entirely inimical to the interests of American citizens.  The most egregious example of this was the EPA's Endangerment Finding, which declared carbon dioxide — and various other harmless trace gases — to be a threat to "the public health and welfare of current and future generations."  This was a political decision, not a scientific one, forced through by Obama's hatchetwoman Lisa Jackson.

EPA spent millions in taxpayer dollars to push climate change propaganda via social media.  Under the Obama administration, the Environmental Protection Agency was one of the most tyrannical, lawless institutions in the entire country, spitting out tens of thousands of unconstitutional regulations each year and compelling businesses to abide by the left's radical climate change agenda.  Mind you, these are regulations that the American people did not vote for, nor do they necessarily support; rather, the EPA's agenda under the Obama regime was wholly undemocratic and against the principles that America was founded upon.

EPA Headquarters:  Epicenter of the Draining Swamp.  The EPA, like the FBI, was once a respected and trusted institution.  The self-righteous, eco-activists that have infested the agency have hurt the nation by altering its primary mission of real pollution prevention (e.g., focusing on lead and not life-essential carbon dioxide).  The government's climate change warriors were allowed to to so because no politician dared to pull the plug and be deemed a[n] "evil polluter" ...until President Trump.

Watchdog Finds More Evidence Obama's EPA Broke Federal Law.  Former President Barack Obama's EPA used a social media platform to secretly promote the agency's policies in violation of federal law, according to a conservative watchdog group in Washington, D.C.  Judicial Watch obtained 900 pages of documents Monday showing the EPA used social media to lobby support for the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule.  The agency used Thunderclap, a platform that shares messages across Facebook and Twitter, to recruit outside groups to generate support for various environmental policies.  Federal law prohibits agencies from engaging in propaganda.  It also forbids agencies from using federal resources to conduct grassroots campaigns that prod U.S. citizens into browbeating lawmakers to act on pending legislation.

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is reining in the out of control radical environmentalists.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been Republicans least favorite agency for quite some time.  The Obama administration allowed the EPA to expand their influence far past nearly any other executive agency, imposing unprecedented regulatory burdens on the American people.  Under the leadership of EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, President Donald Trump's EPA has taken a dramatic turn to foster innovation within the private sector and remove stifling regulations from state and corporation. [...] Congress has worked with the EPA through the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to remove elements of executive overreach the Obama Administration pushed into place.

Burying "Sue And Settle".  Whether you consider yourself pro-regulation, anti-regulation or something in between, chances are you're in favor of clear, open rules.  Whatever the policy a particular government agency is following, it should be transparent to all, right?  That's why we should be grateful that Scott Pruitt, head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), recently announced the demise of "sue and settle."  It's a legal strategy that environmental groups have been using for years to impose new regulations quietly — and to enrich their allies in the process.

The Clean Power Plan's Counterfeit Benefits.  The Trump Environmental Protection Agency's proposed repeal of the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan represents an amazing and long overdue breakthrough in the history of environmental regulation.  Not only has no Republican administration ever before mustered the courage to rollback a major EPA regulation, but the Trump administration has done so by directly challenging the rule's purported health benefits.  That's unheard of.  Although the Clean Power Plan was pitched as being about reducing emissions of greenhouse gases from coal-fired power plants, the benefits of averted climate change is not how the Obama EPA justified the rule on an economic basis.  There certainly were no discernible climate change benefits to be claimed as House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) forced Obama EPA administrator Gina McCarthy to acknowledge in testimony.  [Video clip]

EPA's Scott Pruitt:  Family getting death threats, too.  Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt says the death threats against him have extended to his family.  "The level of protection is dictated by the level of threat," Pruitt told Bloomberg in an expansive interview released Wednesday night, answering questions about his recent request for almost a dozen more 24-hour security agents.  "The quantity and the volume — as well as the type — of threats are different.  What's really disappointing to me as it's not just me — it's family."  Pruitt has an 18-member security team that is charged to guard him around the clock.  It was reported earlier this week that EPA is looking to add as many as 12 new guards to the 18-member squad.

Obama "Lightworker" Columnist Returns to Defend Calls for EPA Head's Death.  Once upon a time this would have been a deranged letter to the editor.  The sort of thing that would have triggered an FBI investigation.  Now it's the new normal.  It's a column at the San Fran Chronicle's sister site.  The same left that endlessly preached about violence and claimed that Sarah Palin's map killed is completely okay with a winking defense of sending death threats to the head of the EPA.

The Great Climate Hoax Challenged by 31,000 Scientists.  First, let's address the Climate Change silliness through the lens of the U.S. Constitution.  The way the Constitution works as the law of the land is that if the federal government is to have an authority, it must be expressly enumerated in the document, either in the first seven articles, or by amendment.  The authority for the federal government to be involved in any environmental issues, much less Climate Change, does not exist on any of the pages of the document.  That makes any laws regarding Climate Change unconstitutional, as well as agencies like the EPA.

60 scientists call for EPA endangerment finding to be reversed.  This Letter from over 60 highly credentialed scientists states that:  "We the undersigned are individuals who have technical skills and knowledge relevant to climate science and the GHG Endangerment Finding.  We each are convinced that the 2009 GHG Endangerment Finding is fundamentally flawed and that an honest, unbiased reconsideration is in order."

Trump EPA to propose repealing Obama's climate regulation: document.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will propose repealing the Clean Power Plan — the Obama administration's centerpiece regulation to fight climate change — and plans to solicit input on a rule to replace it, according to an EPA document seen by Reuters.

The Editor says...
This article is accompanied by a photograph (left) which appears to be a photo of an industrial plant of some sort, with the dishonest caption, "Smoke is released into the sky at a refinery in Wilmington, California March 24, 2012."  The "smoke" being released is obviously water vapor, since it appears to be absorbed into the surrounding atmosphere within a few seconds of its release.  The contrast on the photo appears to have been enhanced to make the emission appear to be black as it leaves the vent, but smoke doesn't turn white and then disappear within a few seconds.  This appears to me to be a shamelessly dishonest attempt to make harmless vapor look like smoke.

'I Say:  We Let the Planet Die'.  [Scroll down]  The Environmental Protection Agency has been responsible for innumerable disasters thanks to its incompetence and stringent nonsensical regulations.  Google the Sacketts case, Gold King Mine disaster, and let's not forget, in Greensboro, EPA-funded contractors grading a toxic 19th-century cotton mill site struck a water main, sending the deadly sediment into a nearby creek.  It's easy to think that the Earth Day may have been inspired by hippies (albeit committed lovers of the earth) but I suspect that many others saw the dollar signs that could fatten their wallets once they recognized the crowd's gullibility. [...] There are three kinds of environmentalists, the good, the bad and the stupid.  Most of those harping about climate change fall into the last two categories.

Judges Forcing Trump to Reverse Climate "Endangerment Finding".  Nine years ago, President Obama's Environmental Protection Agency issued an "Endangerment Finding," claiming man-made global warming posed an imminent threat to Americans.  The Finding, however, was based on computerized climate models that couldn't even successfully hind-cast the weather we'd had over the past century — much less forecast earth's climate 100 years into the future.  The earth's climate has always changed, often abruptly.  EPA essentially asserted that 80 percent of our energy "warmed the earth" and represented a long-term risk.  Obama's team thus bet in 2009 that the earth's strong warming from 1976-98 would continue.  But it didn't.  Never mind all those recent "hottest year" claims from NOAA and NASA.  Satellites, our most honest indicator, say our planet's temperature has risen an insignificant 0.02 degrees C since 1998.

Book Exposes EPA Scare Tactics Behind Air Quality Rule.  Most of the American public is unaware the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), with the help of the American Lung Association and radical environmental groups, has nearly succeeded in an attempted takeover of absolutely all industry in the United States.  How could EPA accomplish such a grand scheme?  By claiming exposure to particles in the air as small as 2.5 millionths of a meter can cause death in a matter of minutes, hours, or days.  It is called the PM2.5 rule, and the best scientific research shows these particles are ubiquitous and, contrary to EPA's claims, are harmless.

Lisa Jackson, aka Richard Windsor, Criticizes Trump EPA's Transparency.  Lisa Jackson, the former Environmental Protection Agency administrator who used a fake name and private email address to conduct official business, is now criticizing the Trump administration's EPA for being "non-transparent."  Jackson, who is now the vice president of environment, policy, and social initiatives at Apple, criticized EPA administrator Scott Pruitt at a tech event on Tuesday [9/19/2017] in San Francisco.

Federal Court Overturns EPA Ban on Hydrofluorocarbons.  A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) exceeded its authority under the Clean Air Act by requiring companies to replace hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) with other substances in an effort to fight climate change.  EPA's 2015 rule effectively banned 38 different HFCs and HFC blends from use in aerosol spray cans, new automobile air conditioning systems, foam blowing machines, vending machines, and retail refrigerators, beginning in 2020.  President Barack Obama's administration enacted the HFC ban as an integral part of its plan to combat climate change.

EPA Moves To Scrap WOTUS Rule.  The Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule is closer to being removed from the Federal Register after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Department of the Army, and Army Corps of Engineers proposed a rule to rescind the 2015 regulation defining which waterways and wetlands fall under the 1972 Clean Water Act and thus under federal government control.  In February, President Donald Trump signed the executive order "Restoring the Rule of Law, Federalism, and Economic Growth by Reviewing the 'Waters of the United States' Rule," directing the agencies to review and revise what Trump called one of the worst examples of federal regulatory overreach.

Six Months Later, EPA Employees Are Still 'Crying at Their Desks' Because of Trump.  Six months after President Donald Trump's inauguration, employees at the Environmental Protection Agency are still "crying at their desks."  The latest edition of Rolling Stone, which features Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau on the cover with the question, "Why can't he be our president?" goes after EPA administrator Scott Pruitt for alleged "crimes against nature."  The article features quotes from fearful EPA employees, who are still distraught over President Trump's victory.  "It's been six months, and people are still crying at their desks," one EPA staffer said.

Judicial Watch:  Documents Reveal Obama EPA's Projection of Reduced 'Premature Deaths' by Clean Power Plan Was Misleading.  Judicial Watch today [8/23/2017] announced it received documents from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that show the agency's claim that the Obama administration's 2015 Clean Power Plan would prevent thousands of premature deaths by 2030 was, at best, misleading. [...] The documents forced out by Judicial Watch reveal that carbon dioxide reduction itself would not prevent any deaths.

How Obama's EPA Nearly Bankrupted John Duarte's Farm.  EPA Chief Scott Pruitt has set out to transform the agency he leads to a greater extent than any of Trump's other cabinet appointees, pledging to end what he dubbed the agency's "anti-energy agenda" by loosening requirements on carbon emissions and eliminating land use restrictions.

Reeling in the power of the EPA.  The former Obama administration wanted to save the environment, but rather than asking American industries for help, the administration decided they knew best and instead imposed regulations on companies.  One of the most damaging regulations, affecting nearly every American citizen, was Obama's expansion of the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, regulating auto makers on fuel efficiency but instead slowing their growth and stifling innovation.  Luckily, the Trump administration is giving the voices oppressed under Obama's system a seat at the table once again.

Obama EPA Employees Earned Overtime Pay Without Justification.  Environmental Protection Agency employees under the Obama administration earned emergency overtime pay without justification, in violation of agency policy.  The inspector general for the agency released an audit last week finding "numerous instances of noncompliance" of the emergency overtime pay system for employees in Seattle, Wash.  Employees must receive a waiver from biweekly pay caps if they are to receive extra pay for working during a natural disaster, or for conducting "mission-critical" work.  The inspector general found just a fraction of employees in the final three years of the Obama administration who received overtime pay had requested a waiver.

Someone Just Noticed That Trump Is Getting Stuff Done.  ## The EPA, meanwhile, is dismantling Obama's coal-killing, growth-choking Clean Power Plan, and draining the heavy-handed Waters of the United States rule.  When a veteran EPA official resigned this week, she complained in a letter to her former colleagues that "the new EPA Administrator already has repeals of 30 rules under consideration," which the New York Times described as "a regulatory rollback larger in scope than any other over so short a time in the agency's 47-year history."

Trump Should Drain the EPA Swamp.  Today's EPA is an agency gone-wild, filled with environmental extremists and deep state holdovers who have little accountability for their actions.  They arrogantly create rules like the "Clean Power Plan" which the Institute for Energy Research [IER] said was filled with about as much junk as the EPA and its contractors pumped into Colorado's Animas River in 2015. [...] We are expected to ignore that the Clean Power Plan will, at best, reduce global temperatures by a negligible one hundredth of a degree, Celsius, according to the Obama administration's former Assistant Secretary of Energy, Charles McConnell.  The plan offers little mercy to millions of Americans burning wood to stay warm, imposing a ban on the sale and production of 80 percent of America's wood burning stoves.

Why do we have an EPA museum?  [Scroll down]  The Trump administration is at odds with the EPA?  Half the country is!  This is the agency that destroyed the Animas River by allowing 3.5 million gallons of toxins and heavy metals to flood it while "cleaning up" an abandoned mine.  No one went to jail for that either.  But the EPA did spend more than $300,000 on this museum outside the EPA Credit Union, and opened it three days before President Trump took office.

Scientific Integrity Committee Clears Pruitt Against Sierra Club's 'Climate Denier' Charge.  The Sierra Club has failed in its attempt to label Scott Pruitt a violator of the Environmental Protection Agency's Scientific Integrity Policy.  Pruitt is off the hook for expressing an opinion about global warming, as a scientific review panel ruled that it is within EPA policy to call for rigorous debate on the issue, according to a letter obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.  "The freedom to express one's opinion about science is fundamental to EPA's Scientific Integrity Policy even (and especially) when that point of view might be controversial," wrote Dr. Thomas Sinks, the director of the EPA's Office of the Science Advisor.

EPA official won't be missed.  Elizabeth Southerland [...] spent 30 years at the EPA, most recently as director of the Office of Science and Technology for the agency's Water Office. [...] She flat-out lied when she said there is no war on coal.

EPA-funded lab faked research results on respiratory illnesses, whistleblower lawsuit claims.  Duke University has admitted that one of its lab technicians falsified or fabricated research data on respiratory illnesses that were used to get large grants from the Environmental Protection Agency.  The admission came Sunday in legal filings that respond to a federal whistleblower lawsuit, which the school tried to get dismissed, by former lab analyst Joseph Thomas, according to the Durham Herald-Sun.  Thomas claims in his lawsuit that the allegedly fake research data of Erin Potts-Kant, who worked eight years at a Duke medical school lab, was used by the prestigious university and some of its professors to fraudulently obtain federal grants.  Thomas also claims Duke tried to hide the alleged fraud.

Had Hillary Clinton Won the Election....  Had HRC won, she would be implementing thousands of new regulations on businesses to further hamstring the economy.  She would let the fascist freaks at the Environmental Protection Agency have their way with every aspect of our daily lives:  Our cars, our showerheads, our toilets, our rainwater in our yards, etc.  She would, like the EPA under Obama, privilege any species, no matter how insignificant, over humans.  Central California has been devastated by the environmentalists' reverence for the delta smelt!  Thousands of farm workers lost their jobs thanks to this lefty decision, turning a lush agricultural valley into a brown wasteland in the name of "going green."  This is the American left today.

EPA moves to kill Waters of the U.S. rule.  The Trump administration on Tuesday began the process of formally rescinding the highly controversial "Waters of the U.S." rule, an Obama-era regulation that gave Washington broad powers over streams and other small bodies of water across the country.  The rule, put forth in 2015 but subsequently stayed by the Supreme Court before going into effect, was one of EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's top targets when he took the helm at the agency.  President Trump earlier this year signed an executive order directing Mr. Pruitt to review the rule, and with Tuesday's [6/27/2017] action, the EPA says it's finalized that review and will move to permanently strike the regulation from the books.

Federal court blocks Trump EPA on air pollution.  An appeals court Monday struck down the Environmental Protection Agency's 90-day suspension of new emission standards on oil and gas wells, a decision that could set back the Trump administration's broad legal strategy for rolling back Obama-era rules.  In a 2-to-1 ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit concluded that the EPA had the right to reconsider a 2016 rule limiting methane and smog-forming pollutants emitted by oil and gas wells but could not delay the effective date while it sought to rewrite the regulation.  The agency has proposed extending the initial delay to two years; the court will hold a hearing on that suspension separately.

EPA Delays One of the Agency's Most Expensive Regulations Ever.  The Trump administration announced Tuesday evening [6/6/2017] it would delay the implementation of a smog rule that's been called one of the costliest clean air regulations ever.  Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt sent a letter to governors saying there's "insufficient information" to fully implement the 2015 rule on its current timeline.  The rule lowers the national ground-level ozone, or smog, standard from 75 to 70 parts per billion.

EPA Ends $1 Million Taxpayer-Funded Gym Membership Program.  The Environmental Protection Agency has ended a nearly $1 million program that provided gym memberships for employees.  The new administration under EPA administrator Scott Pruitt identified the gym memberships as an abuse of taxpayer dollars.  Examples of the program's misuse included $15,000 for gym memberships for 37 EPA scientists in Las Vegas last year.

Farmer Faces $2.8 Million Fine For Plowing His Own Field.  A California farmer is facing a $2.8 million fine for failing to get a permit to plow his own field.  John Duarte bought 450 acres of land near Modesto in 2012 and is now being sued by the federal government for plowing near areas the government considers to be "waters of the United States."

He plowed his field; now he faces a $2.8 million fine.  A farmer faces trial in federal court this summer and a $2.8 million fine for failing to get a permit to plow his field and plant wheat in Tehama County.  A lawyer for Duarte Nursery said the case is important because it could set a precedent requiring other farmers to obtain costly, time-consuming permits just to plow.  "The case is the first time that we're aware of that says you need to get a (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) permit to plow to grow crops," said Anthony Francois, a lawyer for the Pacific Legal Foundation.  The libertarian-leaning nonprofit fights for private property rights and limited government.

Sorry, Global Warming Hasn't Caused a Health Crisis.  [T]he Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) uses inaccurate USGCRP data on extreme heat to formulate wrong-headed regulations and provide useless advice to the American public.  This nonsense continues unabated despite independent scientific studies that show heat-related mortality going down due to adaptation, particularly among the elderly.  A study conducted by Jennifer Bobb, Roger Peng, Michelle Bell, and Francesca Dominici of Harvard University's School of Public Health shows the risk of dying from excessive heat has dramatically declined in the U.S. and Europe.

Trump Is Not Shutting Down the EPA's Data Service.  A contractor for the Environmental Protection Agency who was "devastated" by Hillary Clinton's election loss was the source for a false story stating that the agency is shutting down its climate data service.  The EPA's Open Data service, where users can look up EPA facilities in their area and view pollution graphs, will continue to operate, despite several news reports to the contrary.  Bernadette Hyland, a contractor who has access to the Open Data website, was quoted in several publications, including the Independent, which falsely claimed "Donald Trump is to completely shut down one of the government's most important data services."

Study Confirms That CO2 Is Not a Pollutant.  Possibly the most tyrannical ruling ever issued by the Supreme Court was the 2007 declaration that the emission of carbon dioxide can be regulated by the federal government under the Clean Air Act.  This decree potentially subjects literally all human and even animal activity — including breathing — to federal micromanagement through the notoriously autocratic EPA.  Joseph Stalin could not have asked for more total control.  Meanwhile, scientists remind us that the ruling was based on lies; CO2 is not a pollutant, as a new study confirms.

Scott Pruitt is ready to get the EPA back on track.  [Scott] Pruitt, like the president who appointed him, is determined to end Obama-era excesses, such as the all-pain, trivial-gain Clean Power Plan and the overreaching "Waters of the United States" rule that claimed the right to regulate even puddles.  Instead, the new administrator aims to focus the agency on actually finishing work it's been neglecting.  That includes bringing more of the nation into full attainment of clean air and clean water standards.  And also actually getting Superfund sites cleaned up — when many have been stalled for decades.

History of EPA Employee Misconduct Could Result in Layoffs.  The Environmental Protection Agency has been riddled with employee misconduct, including workers who drink, smoke marijuana, and watch porn on the job.  Inspector general reports over the past few years detailing employee misbehavior could serve as ammunition for EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, who is seeking to eliminate 25 percent of the 15,000 employees at the agency.  Only 6.5 percent of EPA employees are "essential," according to the government's own calculations when it faced a shutdown in 2013.  At the time, just 1,069 employees were deemed necessary to continue working during the 16 days the government closed.

Pruitt ends EPA gym memberships.  Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt said Thursday [4/13/2017] that the days of gym memberships being paid for by the American taxpayer are over.  Pruitt was on "Fox and Friends," where he was asked about documents released Wednesday that show EPA employees spent more than $15,000 on gym memberships outside of the free services they were already being given.  "Well, the gym memberships ended yesterday, it was quite something to hear about that," Pruitt said.  He said the agency is investigating the matter, saying "it was the previous administration that granted those gym memberships," which "were rather expensive."

EPA Staffer Uses Government Credit Card To Buy $15K Gym Membership.  A Las Vegas-based Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official used his government credit card to purchase a $14,799 in gym memberships.  A conservative advocacy group released documents purporting to show EPA contracting officer Kevin Broadnax bought 37 year-long memberships at Super Sport gym on April 11, 2017.  Broadnax used his government charge card to pay for these memberships.  The sheer amount of paperwork related to the transaction suggests that multiple EPA officials were aware of the purchase.

And then depression set in at the EPA.  Hard times have arrived at the Environmental Protection Agency.  It's not just the budget and staff cuts which have the long time staffers down in the dumps.  It seems that they feel the new boss, Scott Pruitt, as well as his boss, aren't exactly onboard with the old agenda which they've grown used to over eight years under Barack Obama.  According to this report from the LA Times, this has some of them feeling so glum and hopeless that they are thinking of leaving their plush, virtually fire-proof jobs and heading out in search of greener pastures.  The pressure is such that Jared Blumenfeld, a regional EPA administrator, says his phone is "ringing off the hook."

Swamp Diving:  The EPA's Secret Human Experiment Regime.  [Scroll down]  The authors have written about the EPA project of research that exposed human beings of all ages, even children, to that same small particle air pollution to see if they could cause some harm.  EPA sponsorship of these studies at ten domestic and six foreign medical schools was admitted under oath by an EPA official, Wayne Cascio, M.D., and it is unethical and illegal.  Senior EPA research scientist Robert Devlin, Ph.D. admitted in a sworn affidavit that the EPA epidemiology was unreliable, the reason for human experiments.  The EPA, in response to a congressional inquiry and negative inspector general report, engaged and paid the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) contract subdivision, the National Research Council (NRC), to provide a whitewash investigation.  The NAS National Research Council Investigative Committee was convened in secret without notice and without contacting Milloy and Dunn, the complaining parties, or the congressional committee that had demanded an inspector general report that had gone badly for the EPA.

Energy Star:  The EPA-Owned Purveyor of Fake News.  When Clock Boy is celebrated as a world renown inventor by Apple, Microsoft and Facebook, you know it's time for a reality check on the question of Settled Science.  It was the EPA, not the FBI, CIA or Russians that conducted the scientific research into 'energy efficiency' for ENERGY STAR, which later became the single largest component of Obama's Clean Power Plan.  Only later to be completely disappeared from the airways by pundits, politicians and professors during the 2016 election.

Judicial Watch Sues EPA for Records about Controversial Obama Environmental Justice Grants.  Judicial Watch today [3/27/2017] announced it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) seeking copies of grant awards and associated proposals for "environmental justice" grants in 2014 and 2015.  The EPA's controversial "environmental justice" programs provide taxpayer funding for environmental and other left-wing interest groups.  The EPA awards more than $4 billion annually in funding for grants and other assistance agreements.  Shortly after President Trump assumed the presidency, the Trump administration instructed officials at the EPA to freeze its grants and contracts.

EPA has been neglecting clean air to freelance on climate change.  Over the last decade, climate change has become the EPA's number one priority.  Consider the ascendancy of global warming in the agency's multi-year strategic plans for air quality, which are required by law.  In the EPA's 2001 — 2005 Strategic Plan, "Goal 1" is "Clean Air," while climate change mitigation was subsumed in "Goal 6: Reduction of Global and Cross-Border Environmental Risks."  However, in the 2006-2010 plan, climate change mitigation is incorporated into a new "Goal 1," which is titled "Clean Air and Global Climate Change."  And in the 2011-2015 plan, "Goal 1" is changed again to "Taking Action on Climate Change and Improving Air Quality" — that is, global warming is listed before improving air quality.  A look back shows that the EPA's shift in focus to climate change accelerated during the Obama administration.

Thanks to Trump, Pruitt, Gorsuch, and Goodlatte, the Constitution Is Back.  America has begun the process of reclaiming the Constitution.  This week, the Senate is taking up the confirmation Judge Neil Gorsuch, one of many Trump nominees known for his dedication to constitutional government.  This follows the Senate confirmation of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt as head of the EPA — a federal agency he has sued not once, not twice, but fourteen times.  Pruitt's appointment could not come at a better time.  During the past eight years, the Obama administration has passed well over 25,000 regulations.  These regulations cost taxpayers a whopping $890 billion, or about $15,000 a household.  And of that $890 billion, the EPA is responsible for $344 billion — more than any other agency.  This kind of power goes directly against the framers' original intent.

More Evidence EPA Uses 'Secret Science' To Manipulate Politics With Alternative Facts.  The Environmental Protection Agency and other activists have long used "secret science" — another way of saying fake science or junk science — to justify job-killing regulations, legislation, and massive tax-dollar expenditures.  Even as they lobbied against the confirmation of their new boss, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, 15,000 unionized EPA scientists, regulators, policy wonks, and attorneys have been using unverifiable, unrepeatable "scientific" studies to undermine the rights of property owners, businesses, and employees.  Just ask coal miners or farmers with ponds on their land just how much they appreciate being "protected" by the EPA.

Trump would slash EPA 31 percent, cut 3,200 jobs.  The Environmental Protection Agency's budget would be slashed from $8.3 billion to $5.7 billion under President Trump's proposed fiscal year 2018 budget plan.  That amounts to a 31 percent cut in the agency's budget, and are much steeper than originally anticipated.  Originally, Trump was seeking to gut the agency by 24 percent to $6 billion.  The plan said the cut would eliminate about 3,200 positions at the EPA, a 20 percent reduction in staff levels.

Trump's Budget Chief Says Climate Research 'A Waste Of Your Money'.  President Donald Trump's budget director told reporters Thursday [3/16/2017] the White House was no longer spending money on climate change research because it's a "waste of your money."  "We're not spending money on that anymore," Mick Mulvaney, the Office of Management and Budget director, said at a press briefing while discussing the president's decision to dial back climate science research.  "We consider that to be a waste of your money," he added.  Trump released his congressional budget request Thursday, which contained several contentious reductions, including dramatic cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Energy.

Bureaucrat Tells Trump How to Run EPA.  [William D.] Ruckelshaus, let it never be forgotten, was the EPA administrator responsible for probably the blackest moment in the institution's history: the man who banned DDT in the U.S. with consequences which resulted in millions of unnecessary deaths around the world from malaria.  Sure Ruckelshaus didn't deliberately murder all those people.  But the fact remains that DDT was — still is — one of the most effective killers of the malarial mosquito; and that by banning it in the U.S., Ruckelshaus helped create a knock-on regulatory effect which deprived the world of one its best defences against one of its biggest health problems.

Pruitt Takes Control of EPA, Kills Global Warming Hoax, Gets Rid of "Social Justice" Dept.  New [EPA] director Scott Pruitt has come clean and admitted that he doesn't believe CO2 has anything to do with global warming, plans to dismantle the whole social justice department, and examine other money-wasting programs.  Firstly, Pruitt has recently fessed up to his beliefs and admitted that global warming is a hoax. [...] He also plans to eliminate the entire social justice department, which has very vague views of what it does, and taxpayers have had to waste money on.  The department deal with neighborhood complaints and ordinances, and looks into communities who may complain about "pollutants" in their air, food, or water, that may be coming from factories or businesses who are supporting the local economy.

Trump to visit Detroit to stop EPA's rushed auto rules.  President Trump will visit Detroit Wednesday [3/15/2017] to halt Environmental Protection Agency regulations that would force manufacturers to make cars that average more than 50 miles a gallon.  An industry executive privy to the White House plan told the Washington Examiner to expect Trump to roll back a final decision that the EPA rushed out late last year, when President Obama was heading for the exit, imposing stricter fuel economy and emissions standards for vehicles beginning this year.

EPA senior staff begin to flee amid budget fears.  A senior staffer at the Environmental Protection Agency resigned from the agency Thursday [3/9/2017] amid concerns that many of agency's programs will be shuttered under the forthcoming Trump budget.  The founder of the EPA's environmental justice office, Mustafa Ali, resigned Thursday [3/9/2017], saying he has never seen such a concerted effort to roll back programs with a track record of helping disadvantaged and low-income communities.

EPA environmental justice leader resigns, amid White House plans to dismantle program.  A key environmental justice leader at the Environmental Protection Agency has resigned, saying that a recent budget proposal to defund such work would harm the people who most rely on the EPA.  Mustafa Ali, a senior adviser and assistant associate administrator for environmental justice, has served more than two decades at the agency, working to ease the burden of air and water pollution in hundreds of poor, minority communities nationwide.  He helped found the EPA's environmental justice office during the early 1990s and became a key adviser to agency administrators under Republican and Democratic presidents.

Over at EPA, the Swamp Starts Draining Itself.  President Trump is attempting to fire-bomb the overinflated budget over at the corruption-plagued EPA.  And it looks to be having the intended effect:  draining the agency of overpaid, unnecessary Swamp Things.  Because at least one of them has elected to leave, rather than stick around and watch the agency he worships be chopped down to size.  Mustafa Ali, the founder of the EPA's "environmental justice office" has resigned from the agency.

Pruitt starts steering EPA away from climate change, more toward clean water and air.  Scott Pruitt on Thursday [3/9/2017] made clear he doesn't believe carbon dioxide is the main driver of climate change — and his declaration touched off a firestorm among critics who interpret the remark as concrete proof that the EPA administrator plans to disregard the past eight years and take the agency in a new direction.  Mr. Pruitt offered the comments during a morning interview with CNBC as President Trump was preparing to sign an executive order reversing key government regulations on carbon pollution.  The EPA chief told CNBC that it's challenging to truly measure humans' effect on the climate and that there is "tremendous disagreement" about exactly how much carbon pollution contributes to climate change.

The Editor says...
Fact check:  Carbon dioxide is not carbon.  Nor is it a pollutant.

The Environmental Protection Agency — Next Stop on a Guided Tour of the Deep State's Covert Resistance to Trump.  The EPA, of course, is right in the middle of the ongoing DC power struggle, which has spilled into open bureaucratic revolt.  On February 16, for example, The New York Times reported that EPA employees had brazenly been calling senators to urge them to vote against Scott Pruitt, President Trump's pick to head the agency.  It was, the Times' Coral Davenport observed, "a remarkable display of activism and defiance that presages turbulent times ahead for the EPA."

Axing Wasteful EPA Program that Gave Leftist Groups Millions "Racist".  The cash flowed freely through the EPA's special environmental justice office, which the Trump administration plans to get rid of as part of a broader budget cut for the famously bloated agency.  This is great news for American taxpayers who were forced to fund this nonsense.  Judicial Watch has reported extensively on the EPA's environmental justice boondoggle and exposed the atrocities that occurred under the reckless initiative.  Here are some examples of how the money was used[:]  to teach residents of public housing about recycling, seniors to reduce their "carbon footprint," inner city neighborhoods about "climate-change readiness" and middle school students with a "disparate economic and racial/ethnic composition" how to "identify and mitigate air pollution and solid waste disposal issues."

Donald Trump Orders Deconstruction of Obama-Era EPA Water Rule.  President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday effectively walking back the "Waters of the United States" rule issued by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) during the Obama administration.  "EPA's so-called waters of the United States rule is one of the worst examples of federal regulation, and it's truly run amok," Trump said during the signing ceremony in the Oval Office.  Farmers, ranchers, and agricultural businesses opposed the rule, as it allowed the EPA to regulate any water on a farmer's land.

EPA to announce reversal on fuel economy standards next week.  The Environmental Protection Agency will announce a change in automobile emissions standards next week, undoing a last minute effort by the Obama administration to lock in the rules through 2025. [...] As I noted last month, a group of 18 automakers sent the Trump administration a letter asking for a reconsideration of fuel standards.  The Obama administration had until 2018 to complete a midterm review of the progress made by automakers.  They had hoped for some relief from the standards during that review.  Instead, the administration rushed through the process and announced a final decision one week before Trump took office.

These 5 Changes at the EPA Should Be No-Brainers.  [#1] The EPA shouldn't act unethically or break the law to promote its agenda.  The EPA shouldn't behave like an activist group, and it certainly shouldn't act unethically or illegally to push its agenda.  But this is exactly what it did.  The Government Accountability Office issued a ruling concluding that the EPA violated the law when pushing its controversial "Waters of the United States" rule.

Trump wants to cut one-fourth of the EPA. Why not the whole thing?  It should first be noted that the EPA has a history of ignoring the law and getting shot down by courts for exceeding its authority.  Incidentally, it's not clear where that authority originally comes from, since the EPA is an executive branch agency not authorized, as far as I can tell, by the U.S. Constitution.  Congress is vested with the power to make laws, not the EPA.  Nevertheless, this has not prevented the agency from issuing broad regulations that, if not technically laws, serve the same function, often offering criminal penalties for violators.  The economic impact of EPA rules is not only significant, but also stifling.  It has been estimated that the EPA costs the U.S. economy more than $350 billion every year.  For a president who values economic growth and wants to make America great again, loosening those restrictions and unleashing the creative forces of the economy should be a natural move.

Obama administration neglected priorities to focus on climate change, new EPA chief says.  Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt on Saturday [2/25/2017] said the Obama administration neglected would-be department priorities to pursue a climate change agenda and hinted that a rollback of some regulations could be announced as soon as next week.  "I wanted to send a message to those at the agency — there are some very important things that the EPA does for this country," Mr. Pruitt said on the final day of the Conservative Political Action Conference.  "There are air quality issues and water quality issues that cross state line[s]."

Trump Pushes For Massive Budget, Staff Cuts At EPA.  President Donald Trump will ask Congress to cut the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) budget 24 percent, or nearly $2 billion, according to sources familiar with the budget plans.  The White House sent draft budget plans to agency heads Monday [2/27/2017], detailing billions of dollars in cuts to a wide range of federal programs.  Cuts to EPA and other agencies will fund a $54 billion increase in defense spending.  A source informed of the budget plans told E&E News Trump will push for a nearly $2 billion cut to EPA's $8.1 billion budget.  A source told Politico Trump also "proposed reducing EPA's 15,000-strong workforce to 12,000, a level not seen since the mid-1980s."

Flashback: That Time The EPA Ruined A Couple's Retirement For Wanting To Build A House.  Scott Pruitt is now heading the agency that he targeted in numerous lawsuits for regulatory overreach as Oklahoma's Attorney General:  the Environmental Protection Agency. [...] I'm sure the Sierra Cub probably had seizures when Pruitt was confirmed to be the next EPA administrator.  Besides the issue of climate change, which I don't really care about — though it keeps numerous liberals from sleeping at night — it's the regulatory aspect of this agency that has run amok.  Harvard lawyer Laurence Tribe even described its mission under the Obama administration as "constitutionally reckless."

Trump readies slew of new orders targeting EPA.  President Trump is planning to issue executive orders this week to begin rolling back the centerpiece of President Obama's climate change agenda with several other regulations.  Trump is expected to soon issue the orders targeting regulations put into place by the Environmental Protection Agency, including the Clean Power Plan, which directs states to cut greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants.  The EPA climate plan was halted a year ago by the Supreme Court until the courts can rule on litigation by 28 state attorneys general, the coal industry and hundreds of individual companies and industry groups.

Scott Pruitt's Game-Changing Call for Debate on Climate Science.  In light of charges by a former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist that agency researchers are manipulating data to support climate alarmism, Scott Pruitt — President Donald Trump's nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency — is right to call for open debate on the science.  At stake are trillions of dollars, countless jobs, and, if the climate scare is justified, the fate of the global environment.  The public needs to have confidence that this is not just a politically convenient crusade devoid of solid scientific support.

There is no fourth branch of government.  Before Scott Pruitt was confirmed as the Environmental Protection Agency's new administrator, the New York Times reported agency staff fighting against his nomination.  This is highly unusual and inappropriate.  It shows not only how difficult his new job will be but also how necessary it is that he succeed.  And it shows, too, how great a threat rogue bureaucracy can become to constitutional order.  EPA scientists, lawyers and experts participated in an influence campaign aimed at senators, urging them to vote against Pruitt as their new boss.

Pruitt narrowly confirmed to head EPA over Democratic objections.  Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt was narrowly confirmed Friday afternoon to lead the federal agency he built a career fighting.  The Senate voted 52-46 to install Pruitt as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, after a heated debate.  While Democrats have blasted the nominee for his push to roll back regulations and his past statements challenging the science behind climate change, his bid more recently was complicated by a dispute over documents.  On the eve of his confirmation, Pruitt was ordered by an Oklahoma judge to hand over thousands of emails between his office and fossil fuel companies like Koch Industries and the National Coal Council to the Center for Media and Democracy, which requested the collection of emails in 2014.  CMD is accusing Pruitt and the Oklahoma attorney general's office of ignoring multiple open records requests.

The rebellion at the EPA is far from over.  Despite an unprecedented revolt by the agency's employees, Scott Pruitt was confirmed Friday to head the Environmental Protection Agency.  But that'll hardly be the end of the rebellion.  As The New York Times reported, EPA staffers actively lobbied senators to oppose Pruitt — the kind of political activity normally off-limits for career civil servants.  Their motive:  Like Trump, Pruitt is highly skeptical of the "end all fossil-fuel use" prescription for combatting climate change, and a big doubter that renewable-energy sources can meet the nation's needs.  More, he's a fierce opponent of over-regulation.

The Beginning of the End of EPA.  At the Republican National Convention last summer, the GOP approved a platform that stated:  "We propose to shift responsibility for environmental regulation from the federal bureaucracy to the states and to transform the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] into an independent bipartisan commission, similar to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, with structural safeguards against politicized science."  It also says "We will likewise forbid the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide, something never envisioned when Congress passed the Clean Air Act."  The GOP followed the lead of President Donald Trump, who in a March debate said he would abolish EPA, and in a May speech in North Dakota condemned "the Environmental Protection Agency's use of totalitarian tactics" that has "denied millions of Americans access to the energy wealth sitting under our feet.  This is your treasure, and you — the American People — are entitled to share in the riches."

Trump transition team limits EPA at environmental forum.  The Environmental Protection Agency halved the number of staffers attending an annual Anchorage forum on issues like climate change in response to a request from President Donald Trump's transition team.

Meltdown at the EPA.  [Steve] Milloy, who runs the website JunkScience.com, has chronicled the scientific and bureaucratic abuse at the EPA for two decades, and he is thrilled by President Trump's plans to finally reform the EPA.  "I can think of no agency that has done more pointless harm to the U.S. economy than the EPA — all based on junk science, if not out-and-out science fraud," Milloy told me.  "I am looking forward to President Trump's dramatically shrinking the EPA by entirely overhauling how the remaining federal EPA uses science."  It looks like the EPA will be the agency hardest hit by the Trump sledgehammer.

The Beginning of the End of EPA.  At the Republican National Convention last summer, the GOP approved a platform that stated:  "We propose to shift responsibility for environmental regulation from the federal bureaucracy to the states and to transform the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] into an independent bipartisan commission, similar to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, with structural safeguards against politicized science."  It also says "We will likewise forbid the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide, something never envisioned when Congress passed the Clean Air Act." [...] Trump and the GOP are saying, finally, what millions of people have been thinking for a long time:  EPA has become the cause of, not the solution to, the nation's major environmental problems.  It's time to end EPA.

Trump's EPA Secretary Will Have '16,000 Employees Working Against Him'.  When likely EPA Secretary Scott Pruitt walks into his first day at the office, "He'll have 16,000 employees working against him," Sen. James Lankford told a large gathering of libertarian donors Saturday evening.  "And I expect a flood of lawsuits over everything he does."  Pruitt, who has been nominated to lead the EPA by President Donald Trump, is the attorney general of Lankford's state, Oklahoma.  He has faced fierce opposition from the environmentalist left.

EPA Employees Given 'Dealing with Change' Counseling Post-Trump Win.  Amidst employees in tears following the election of Donald Trump, the Environmental Protection Agency is offering counseling sessions on "dealing with change."  Axios obtained slides from one of the 45-minute seminars, entitled, "Feeling pressured?  Worried about change at EPA?"  Topics included "How to deal with change," "How do you keep your composure and make better decisions under pressure?" "How can you spend your energy more wisely — and have more as a result?" and "How do you recognize and eliminate harmful habits that cause you stress?"

Trump plans to cut EPA staff in half.  President Trump is seeking to slash the number of workers at the Environmental Protection Agency by at least half, leaving it significantly gutted as the administration mulls further cuts, the former head of Trump's EPA transition team said Friday.  "Let's aim for half and see how it works out, and then maybe we'll want to go further," Myron Ebell said now that he has returned to his position as director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.  Ebell left the Trump transition team a week ago.  Ebell told the Associated Press that Trump is likely to seek significant reductions in the agency's 15,000-person work force.

Trump to fire half the EPA.  The people who have cost tens of thousands of coal miners their jobs are about to lose theirs.  The Washington Examiner reported that President Trump plans to furlough 7,500 of the 15,000 people at the EPA.  America's air and water is cleaner today than we would have imagined when President Nixon founded it 47 years ago.  So why has the staff tripled?

Trump Orders EPA To Take Down Global Warming Web-Page.  The Trump administration told the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to take down its global warming webpage, an anonymous EPA staffer said.  "If the website goes dark, years of work we have done on climate change will disappear," the staffer told Reuters Tuesday.  The staffer was not authorized to speak to the media and claimed EPA employees were scrambling to save data on the website.  The EPA's global warming webpage is currently still up as of Wednesday morning.  The page contains some links to EPA's data on carbon dioxide (CO2) as well as other greenhouse gas emissions and lists the effects the agency says global warming will have.  The site doesn't host much of the data, however, and only aggregates links to it.

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.

Trump orders EPA media blackout.  President Trump on Tuesday imposed a media blackout at the Environmental Protection Agency and barred staff from awarding new contracts or grants.  Emails sent to EPA staff since his inauguration on Friday and reviewed by the Associated Press detailed the specific prohibitions banning press releases, blog updates or posts to the agency's social media accounts.  Trump — who at a meeting with automakers Tuesday insisted he was "an environmentalist" — also ordered a "temporary suspension" of all new business activities at the department, including issuing task orders or work assignments to EPA contractors.

EPA Expected To Be Hit With $800 Million In Budget Cuts.  The Environmental Protection Agency is facing a projected $800 million in budget cuts, as their facelift from the Trump administration continues.  The White House has all but issued a gag order on the EPA regarding social media posts, blogs, and press releases.  Needless to say, this seems to be the first steps in reining in the agency that has waged war on Middle America and introduced endless pages of regulations that has hurt American coal workers.

New book holds the EPA's feet to the fire.  [Steve] Milloy notes that "The key to the value of epidemiology as an investigative tool is that a researcher must be looking for a relatively high rate of a relatively rare event in a human population... Epidemiologic results are essentially correlations and, as we all learn in Statistics 101, correlations do not equate to causation."  The "devil is in the details" aphorism comes to life as Milloy exposes the EPA's use of any minute level of correlation as evidence of statistically significant correlation to justify its definition of Clean Air standards.  Milloy's latest book documents his multiple attempts in multiple formats to hold the EPA to basic standards of ethical epidemiologic theory and practice.  His book details the quixotic nature of that quest.

EPA Pardons Itself in the Animas River Pollution Case.  The EPA has pardoned itself from paying claims totaling more than $1.2 billion for economic damages from a mine waste spill the agency accidentally triggered in Colorado the summer of 2015. [...] The EPA is hiding behind the Federal Tort Claims Act, indicating that it prevents the agency from paying claims the result from "discretionary" government actions.  Congress passed the law to allow government agencies to act "without the fear of paying damages in the event something went wrong while taking the action," according to its press release.

EPA says it won't pay mine spill claims.  Federal lawmakers, tribal leaders and state and local officials presented a rare unified front today [1/13/2017] as they vehemently denounced the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's announcement that it will not pay more than $1.2 billion in claims filed against it in response to the Gold King Mine spill.  The EPA said the Federal Tort Claims Act prevents the agency from paying claims that result from "discretionary" government actions.  Congress passed the law to allow government agencies — and in this case, contractors working on their behalf — to act "without the fear of paying damages in the event something went wrong while taking the action," according to a press release from the EPA.

EPA rams through new auto emission rule a year ahead of schedule.  The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday [1/13/2017] made final its decision to move ahead with strict vehicle rules aimed at boosting fuel efficiency and reducing carbon pollution, a year ahead of schedule and despite opposition from the auto industry.  Today's final determination found that the auto industry can meet the tougher vehicle emission rules through 2025.  That will require automakers to sell more small, fuel-efficient cars that lower greenhouse gas emissions and are increasingly powered by electricity.

The Editor says...
If your car emits carbon pollution, it should be repaired.  Carbon dioxide is not carbon, nor is it a pollutant.

The Hunt for Waste, Fraud, and Abuse Should Start in the Executive Branch.  [Scroll down]  For example, Open the Books found that the Environmental Protection Agency under both President George W. Bush and President Obama (the study covered the years 2000 to 2014) spent over $15.1 million on outside public-relations consultants, despite having nearly 200 public-affairs employees in-house.  Between 2007 and 2014, the EPA spent $141.496 million on salaries for its dedicated public-affairs officers.  It surely didn't need to spend millions more on hired guns to do the same job.

EPA Asks Employees If They're Straight, Gay, or 'Something Else'.  The Environmental Protection Agency is asking all its employees whether they are straight, gay, or "something else" in an effort to create a more "inclusive" workplace.  The Washington Free Beacon obtained a copy of the agency's Sexual Orientation Gender Identity (SOGI) survey, which is part of a pilot program to voluntarily collect information on its employees.  The survey first asks the employee's pay grade, supervisory status, education, age, marital status, and race, before inquiring, "What sex were you assigned at birth?"

Scott Pruitt Applying Our Constitution Will Rein In Bureaucratic Abuses at the EPA.  Passions are exploding over Oklahoma's Attorney General, Scott Pruitt, becoming the Secretary of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  Particularly, the Sierra Club is furious and has started an Alinsky-style assault of vilifying the nominee.

Army, Navy, Air Force, EPA.  We all understand that the EPA is tasked with enforcing environmental laws.  But does it really need a fullblown military-style police force?  Congress granted the EPA police powers in 1988, but not with SWAT teams in mind.  Even now, the agency says its Criminal Enforcement Program "enforces the nation's laws by investigating cases, collecting evidence, conducting forensic analyses, and providing legal guidance to assist in the prosecution of criminal conduct that threatens people's health and the environment."  Well yes, but also by midnight raids with Swat teams and attack dogs, confiscating private property, hauling people off to jail for accidentally spilling a barrel of oil, and other "enforcement" horrors.

EPA targets key ingredient in pizza, bread in latest eleventh-hour rule.  The Environmental Protection Agency is targeting a key ingredient for making pizza and bread in its latest last-minute regulation before President Obama steps down.  The proposed regulation published Wednesday [12/28/2016] would make the emissions standards for industrial yeast makers much more strict.  The EPA said beer, champagne and wine makers, all of whom use some form of yeast, are safe for now.  The real targets are those who produce high levels of hazardous air pollutants.  It's not the bread, bagel and pizza makers who are targeted under the rules, but the less than a dozen big plants that produce the yeast needed to produce the valuable bread-based products.

EPA To Alaskans In Sub-Zero Temps:  Stop Burning Wood To Keep Warm.  [Scroll down]  But alas, now comes the federal government to tell the inhabitants of Alaska's interior that, really, they should not be building fires to keep themselves warm during the winter.  The New York Times reports the Environmental Protection Agency could soon declare the Alaskan cities of Fairbanks and North Pole, which have a combined population of about 100,000, in "serious" noncompliance of the Clean Air Act early next year.  Like most people in Alaska, the residents of those frozen cities are burning wood to keep themselves warm this winter.  Smoke from wood-burning stoves increases small-particle pollution, which settles in low-lying areas and can be breathed in.  The EPA thinks this is a big problem.  Eight years ago, the agency ruled that wide swaths of the most densely populated parts of the region were in "non-attainment" of federal air quality standards.

EPA May Crack Down on Wood Stoves in Alaska.  Many Alaskans rely on wood-burning stoves, which left-wing bureaucrats regard as offensive to environment. [...] A few weeks ago, it got down to -37°F in Fairbanks.  The high for the day was -27°F.  But never mind keeping warm.  According to liberal theory, global warming will see to that.  The important thing is to comply with the dictates of the regulatory bureaucracy.

EPA To Alaskans:  We Might Fine You For Burning Wood To Stay Warm.  Well, in the Alaskan interior, winters can be brutal.  With temperatures dropping below zero, burning wood is the only viable way for Alaskans in these rather desolate areas to stay warm.  Yet, government thinks this is a problem concerning small-particle pollution.  In fact, the Environmental Protection Agency is so concerned that they're mulling fining people who burn wood to stay warm.

Legal Loophole Lets Feds Delete Tons Of Official Records.  A loophole in federal law allows Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) employees and other federal workers get away with deleting millions of official records created using cellphone text messaging, according to government transparency experts.  The Federal Records Act (FRA) and EPA policy allow individual employees who create and receive cell phone text messages to decide whether a particular one constitutes a federal record before deleting or preserving it.  That makes it difficult to say EPA employees violated FRA when they archive only 86 out of 3.1 million text messages as official business documents sent and received in 2015.

EPA steamrolls auto industry to rush out new regs.  The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday rejected an auto industry request to extend the review period for strict new vehicle regulations, allowing them to go into effect before President Obama leaves office. [...] The auto industry requested last month that the EPA extend the review period for an agency study that determined the new rules for improving fuel efficiency and lowering carbon emissions be extended into the next year.  The agency had surprised the industry last month by saying it was planning on finalizing its determination this year, instead of doing so next year as the law requires.

Time for Trump's EPA pick to rein in the agency.  When Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt is confirmed as the next administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, he will inherit an agency that should be declaring victory in its 46-year battle for a cleaner, healthier environment.  The next administrator must focus on reining in an agency that has far exceeded its original mission.

Longtime EPA foe goes behind enemy lines on Trump 'landing team'.  For a decade, he has used open-records laws to pry loose some of the EPA's secrets.  Now Christopher Horner is on the inside, part of President-elect Donald Trump's landing team at the Environmental Protection Agency, preparing the way for the next administration.  Perhaps no issue will see a greater change Jan. 20 than energy and environmental policy, and the EPA will be the epicenter of that upheaval, moving from a leadership committed to global warming science to a band of skeptics eager to upend the past eight years.  It's the latest evidence that elections have consequences and in some cases ignite strange chain reactions — such as Mr. Horner being posted to the EPA.

EPA Employees Not 'Intentionally' Breaking Law By Deleting Official Texts, IG Claims.  Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials only archived 86 text messages out of 3.1 million agency employees sent and received in 2015, according to a federal watchdog's report made public Wednesday [12/21/2016] by House Committee on Science, Space and Technology Chairman Lamar Smith.  The EPA Office of Inspector General (IG) released the report requested by the Texas Republican, which described enormous text message retention problems within the EPA.  One unnamed senior official configured his phone to automatically delete texts after 30 days.

Pruitt to Dismantle EPA Climate Agenda.  The goal is to use climate change as a means to increase government power over every aspect of our lives, what we make, how we make it, what energy we use, what cars we drive, even what food we eat.  The scientific record, as IBD notes, shows that climate change is a scam: [...] And now the high priests of the global warming religion are demanding what other false religions have demanded — human sacrifices upon their altar.  Pruitt is the right man to expose climate fraud and end the job and freedom-killing actions of the EPA.

Mining companies scramble to fight burdensome new EPA rule.  The proposed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) changes shift the burden of financing Superfund cleanups — which are also known as National Priority List, or NPL, sites — away from the federal government to the mining facilities, a move that would cost the industry $171 million a year and save the EPA $527 million over 34 years, according to the agency's Regulatory Impact Analysis.  Companies see an added burden as much as 20 times higher from the insurance and bonds they would be required to get, and believe the change will have a devastating impact on the economy of states like Nevada, which leads the U.S. in gold production, and other metal-mining states, most of them in the western half of the country.

Trump's EPA pick will make Obama regret his environmental overreach.  Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt's nomination for administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency is as clear a signal as the incoming administration can send with regard to its environmental policies.  It is also a sign that the administration is far more meticulous, internally consistent and thorough than its detractors have thought, and that it is on a clear mission not just to stop, but to reverse many of the actions of Obama's EPA.  It is noteworthy that global warming was the second action item mentioned in President Obama's 2009 inaugural, and that a mere 90 days later, the administration had issued a "preliminary finding of endangerment" from carbon dioxide and other greenhouse emissions.

Democrats Insist EPA Staffers Can Resist Trump's Agenda.  Democrats are insisting the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) career employees could continue their work on global warming under the Trump administration.  EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy told The Christian Science Monitor (CSM) there's no going back on global warming regulations, and one Democratic lawmaker has even urged the agency's more than 15,000 employees to resist.  "This agency when this president came in really came out of the closet on climate," McCarthy told CSM in an exclusive interview last week that was published Friday.  "I have a senior team that's great and the senior career staff that are here are just extraordinary.  They are here because of this mission, and that will continue."

Trump's EPA pick is causing green heads to explode.  From E&E Legal:  "We are delighted with President-elect Trump's selection of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to head the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  Mr. Pruitt has led the charge in recent years to confront head on the enormous federal regulatory overreach proposed by the EPA as epitomized by the Clean Power Plan and Waters of the U.S. rule.  As a litigator, he also understands how environmental fringe groups like the Sierra Club and the NRDC — who are bankrolled by renewable energy tycoons like Tom Steyer and George Soros — use the state and federal court systems to essentially create new laws through such schemes as 'sue & settle.'  It is also reassuring that President-Elect Trump has chosen someone from the state ranks, particularly a state so important to energy production, since it's the states and their citizens who are suffering the most by this Administration's out-of-control EPA. [...]"

EPA: It's 'Premature' To Protect People From Gold King Mine Pollution.  Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials aren't protecting human health near the new Superfund site born out of the agency-caused Gold King Mine disaster and have refused to say whether pollution threatens nearby-residents.  EPA spokeswoman Melissa Harrison repeatedly refused to say if humans are safe, and only cited an ongoing health risk assessment as the protection the agency has provided.  "Until that assessment is complete, it is premature to speculate about potential human health risks from the 48 source areas," Harrison told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

Trump's EPA Pick Spooks Liberals and the Environmental Lobby.  Liberals and the environmental left have gone into a tizzy over the selection of Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt as Donald Trump's pick to head of the Environmental Protection Agency.  House minority leader Nancy Pelosi says the Pruitt nomination must be blocked "for the sake of the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the planet we will leave our children."  New York AG Eric Schneiderman says Pruitt is a "dangerous and an unqualified choice."  Independent socialist senator Bernie Sanders declares the Pruitt pick is not only dangerous but also "sad."  The League of Conservation Voters calls Pruitt not just a global warming skeptic but "an outright climate denier."

Reports: Oklahoma AG tapped to lead Trump EPA.  President-elect Trump has picked Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, a vocal opponent of the Obama administration's environmental policies, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, according to multiple reports.  Pruitt has opposed EPA climate rules and the Clean Power Plan for power plants, the signature policy of the president's agenda to combat global warming.  Pruitt is one of 28 attorneys general opposing the EPA plan in federal appeals court.

Donald Trump's Environment Chief Could be his Best Pick Yet.  Since Richard Nixon founded the EPA in 1970 — presumably as a cynical bid to greenwash his tarnished image at the height of the last eco-craze — the organisation has been run by a string of useless placemen and placewomen, who've done little that actually helps the environment, but plenty to burden the economy, consumers and business alike with more pointless regulation.  Typical of these was its first Administrator William Ruckelshaus.  A lawyer, by training, not a scientist, Ruckelshaus was the man responsible for instituting the America-wide ban on DDT.  He did this on no scientific basis whatsoever. [...] But the knock-on effects of the near worldwide ban that followed meant that DDT could no longer be used to control mosquito populations, which in turn led to an explosion in malaria, causing the death of millions.

U.S. Steel CEO: If Trump Eliminates Crazy EPA Regulations, We're Ready To Hire 10K in USA.  U.S. Steel CEO Mario Longhi is Ultra Bullish on the Trump Administration and bringing back new jobs to the United States.  Longhi said the steel industry is very confident and optimistic on Trump.  He said U.S. Steel could bring 10,000 jobs back to America if nonsensical environmental regulations are tweaked and scrapped.  [Video clip]

Obama focusing on regulatory footprint before end of term.  The Obama administration is introducing a last-minute barrage of costly environmental regulation pronouncements that Republicans have vowed to repeal as soon as possible after Donald Trump's January 20 presidential inauguration. [...] Case in point:  an announcement by the Environmental Protection Agency, one of the administration's most energetic rule-makers, on Wednesday [11/30/2016] that after lengthy study, it would push ahead with tougher greenhouse gas emission standards, equivalent to 54.1 miles per gallon fuel efficiency, for passenger cars and light trucks for the years 2022-2025.

New EPA rules push regulatory costs past $1 trillion, $3,080 per person.  The new implementation of EPA rules on heavy trucks has boosted the 10-year regulatory burden on America past $1 trillion, 75 percent of which have been imposed by the Obama administration.  That amounts to a one-time charge of $3,080 per person, or an annual cost of $540, according to a new analysis from American Action Forum.

EPA Will See Huge Changes Under Trump.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began operating 46 years ago after former President Richard Nixon proposed it as a way to address mounting pollution concerns across the country.  EPA celebrated its 46th anniversary Friday [12/2/2016], just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump likely takes the agency in a totally different direction compared to the last eight years under President Barack Obama, focusing on clean air and quality instead of global warming.

Donald Trump can't revive ANY industry until the left-wing anti-capitalists are driven out of the government.
Trump can't revive fossil fuel industry, EPA chief taunts: 'Train has left the station'.  EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy on Monday [11/21/2016] said President-elect Donald Trump will fail in his efforts to revitalize America's sagging coal industry and put fossil fuels back at the center of the nation's energy portfolio, taunting an incoming administration that is primed to roll back some of her agency's initiatives.  During a speech in Washington, Ms. McCarthy — who presided over President Obama's ambitious plan to phase out fossil fuels and rein in greenhouse gas emissions — said the "train has left the station" with regard to America's move toward clean energy.

Obama Says He's Had A Scandal-Free Administration.  Here Are 11 of His Scandals.  [#8] The Environmental Protection Agency poisoned a Colorado river.  The EPA breached the Gold King mine in the state and "mistakenly dug at the bottom" as well as didn't test for pressure, leading to "three million gallons of toxic mine waste" being dumped into a river, according to The Daily Caller.  The EPA has not been held accountable for this.

Trump's Head of EPA Transition Team is the Left's Worst Nightmare!  Just as Hillary Clinton promised to put coal miners out of jobs, Donald Trump promised the exact opposite.  Trump promised to scrap Obama's Clean Power Plan and reduce regulations on oil, gas and coal.  In other words, Trump promised increased growth in a bleak and dismal industry and a complete energy independent United States.  Looks like Trump's keeping to his promise as he appointed a top climate-change denier Myron Ebell, to lead the EPA transition team.  You can bet that Myron will drastically change the agencies policies left in place by President Obama and the gobal warming nutjobs.

Trump Has Repeatedly Flirted with Ending the EPA — He Absolutely Should.  The $4-trillion-per-year federal government works incessantly against the private sector.  Likely no wing is more pernicious than the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  On his way to prison for defrauding taxpayers out of more than $1 million, former high-level EPA official Jon Beale said that while at the agency he was:  "working on a 'project' examining ways to 'modify the DNA of the capitalist system.'  He argued that environmental regulation was reaching its 'limits' ... so he began working on his plan."  Thankfully that plan was eventually scrapped.  But how obnoxious is the EPA — and how much free time does it have — to even consider, let alone work on, such a plan?

Trump's Plan For Coal Country Is To Hollow Out The EPA.  President-elect Donald Trump's campaign to jump-start the coal industry is predicated on hollowing out the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), according to members of his transition team.  The EPA will be dialed back to focus solely on pollutants posing harm to public health and will cease its present extracurricular focus on agenda-centered pollutants supposedly causing man-made global warming, Kathleen Hartnett-White, a member of Trump's transition team, told reporters Monday [11/14/2016].  "He's very much for clean air and clean water," she said.  "But the better home for considering this discussion about carbon dioxide and climate is in the Department of Energy."

EPA, DOE Workers Post-Trump Election: 'Employees Were in Tears,' 'Downright Panic'.  People who work at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Energy are having a hard time coping with the election of Donald Trump as president, with many reporting depression and some being advised to take sick leave, according to an article published Friday [11/11/2016] by Environment and Energy Publishing (E&E).  "U.S. EPA employees were in tears," the article stated.  "Worried Energy Department staffers were offered counseling.  "Some federal employees were so depressed, they took time off," it stated.  "Others might retire early.  "And some employees are in downright panic mode in the aftermath of Donald Trump's victory," the article said.

Will Obama Unleash A Regulatory Tsunami On His Way Out?  When running for office, Donald Trump promised to reduce the regulatory burden on the economy.  But before he gets a chance to do so, President Obama will likely add to those burdens with a last-minute regulatory rush.  In a memo to her staff, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said that "we're running — not walking — through the finish line of President Obama's presidency."  The memo is indicative of what's come to be called "midnight regulations."

Myron Ebell Perfectly Suited for EPA.  Over the last eight years the Obama administration has abandoned this successful approach to environmental protection as envisioned by Congress.  Instead, they have turned to special interest groups to drive centralized planning.  Prime examples include the 2015 EPA Power Plan and the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule.  These rules contain illusory flexibility to states when in reality they represent a huge shift of control from states to the federal government.  Even the current administration acknowledged that the power plan was symbolic and would do little to improve air quality.  The power plan would be expensive and shut down energy plants that have not yet been paid for, thereby stranding those costs with ratepayers.  It would harm the industrial sector by significantly increasing electricity rates, which would throttle manufacturing industries that require low energy prices to compete.

Attack of the lame ducks:
EPA rushing through regulations after Trump election.  The head of the Environmental Protection Agency is telling staff to quickly finish up the last round of regulations before President-elect Donald Trump enters the Oval Office next year.  "As I've mentioned to you before, we're running — not walking — through the finish line of President Obama's presidency," EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said in a staff memo obtained by the Washington Examiner after Trump was declared the winner of Tuesday's election.  The agency is currently working on regulations for the oil and gas sector, and is finalizing new annual regulations for the nation's ethanol mandate and renewable fuel blending requirements.  The agency is also moving rules related to implementation of its landmark Clean Power Plan for cutting carbon pollution from the nation's coal utilities to combat global warming.

The Editor says...
For the (N+1)th time, carbon dioxide is not carbon, nor is it a pollutant, nor is it primarily responsible for global warming, nor can we get rid of CO2 emissions even if it does cause global warming, nor is one degree of global warming per century a catastrophe.

Trump taps climate-change skeptic to oversee EPA transition.  President-elect Donald Trump has made no secret of his disdain for the Environmental Protection Agency, saying the regulations it has put out under President Obama are "a disgrace." He has vowed to roll back Obama's signature effort to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, known as the Clean Power Plan, and to scrap a litany of other "unnecessary" rules, especially those imposed on the oil, gas and coal sectors.  The man planning how a Trump administration can obliterate Obama's environmental legacy is Myron Ebell, a Washington fixture who has long been a cheerful warrior against what he sees as an alarmist, overzealous environmental movement that has used global warming as a pretext for expanding government.

Green Energy Reforms Will Hurt the Poor.  Consider the EPA's Clean Power Plan, released about a year ago.  EPA declared the CPP to be "a historic and important step" that "takes real action on climate change" and is "fair" and "flexible."  By talking about the CPP in such grandiose terms, EPA attempts to distract people from asking questions like, "Who will pay for this?" and "By how much will the CPP reduce climate change?"  Turns out, the effect on climate change is almost negligible.  Applying the same climate model used by the EPA, Benjamin Zycher, from the American Enterprise Institute, determined that the climate benefit of the CPP amounts to a temperature reduction of 0.0015 of one degree by the year 2100.

Hillary's Two Official Favors To Morocco Resulted In $28 Million For Clinton Foundation.  Hillary Clinton did two huge favors for Morocco during her tenure as secretary of state while the Clinton Foundation accepted up to $28 million in donations from the country's ruler, King Mohammed VI, according to new information obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group.  Clinton and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief Lisa Jackson tried to shut down the Florida-based Mosaic Company in 2011, operator of America's largest phosphate mining facility.  Jackson's close ties and loyalty to the Clintons were revealed when she joined the Clinton Foundation's board of directors in 2013, just months after she left the EPA.

Report:  Hillary Tried to Shutdown U.S. Phosphate Producer After Getting $28M From Morocco.  According to a new report, Hillary Clinton may have worked with the EPA to try and shutdown an American phosphate producer after the King of Morocco, who runs a competing business, donated $28 million to the Clinton Foundation.

New climate deal could make it harder to keep cool.  The Obama administration signed onto a deal over the weekend with nearly 200 countries to combat global warming by phasing out the refrigeration chemicals used in air-conditioners, even as industry scrambles to find replacement chemicals needed to keep homes cool and food fresh.  Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy, who was key in securing the deal, said the chemicals represent potent greenhouse gas emissions, called hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, that are causing harmful man-made climate change, and are thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide.

EPA Spends $10.8 Million for Teacher Training on 'Environmental Education'.  The Environmental Protection Agency is spending over $10 million in taxpayer dollars for a five-year program to train teachers to "deliver high-quality environmental education in formal and non-formal education settings."  "Environmental educators help learners of all ages understand and value the ecosystems around them," said U.S. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy.  "The teacher training program gives educators access to the best classroom and out-of-classroom materials and professional development opportunities, focused on using the environment as a platform for learning science, technology, engineering and math skills to improve decision-making."

Watchdog says EPA delayed Flint emergency order.  The Environmental Protection Agency's internal watchdog says the EPA had the authority and enough information to issue an emergency order to protect residents of Flint, Michigan, from lead-contaminated water as early as June 2015 — seven months before it declared an emergency.

EPA issues 50-state climate warning, flood, drought, 'insect outbreaks'.  The Environmental Protection Agency Thursday unveiled its new online tool to help local officials deal with climate change, and it warns that no state in the nation is safe from disaster.  The "Climate Change Adaptation Resource Center," or "ARC-X," provides a map that break the country into eight regions and every single one comes with a threatening warning and long list of threats to human life.

Justice Department decides to pass on prosecuting EPA officials over Gold King spill.  You probably remember the disastrous spill at the Gold King mine in Colorado which was caused by EPA inspectors getting a bit too loose with their drilling equipment.  The resulting outpouring of contaminated water affected people in multiple states, particularly some Native American tribes who are still pursuing legal remedies though the courts.  In case you were wondering if anyone would be held accountable, the Inspector General's office at the EPA did conduct a full investigation to see if there was any criminal culpability and it recently drew to a close.  They turned the case over to the U.S. Attorney's Office but... surprise, surprise, surprise.  That office of the Justice Department has decided not to pursue it.

The Clean Water Act.  With the a new Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule promulgated by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers, the Obama Administration has asserted federal jurisdiction over hundreds of millions of acres of private property in the United States.  Under the rule, for example, 99 percent of Pennsylvania and Missouri may be subject to the EPA's jurisdiction.  The EPA says its authority to regulate land uses that impact wetlands stems from the 1972 Clean Water Act (CWA) but the text of the CWA is clear federal jurisdiction is limited to waters that are navigable in fact or easily made navigable.  By contrast, under WOTUS EPA and Corps assert federal jurisdiction over dry streambeds, man-made stock ponds, and nearly any wet area, even if it is wet only seasonally, or during a flood.  WOTUS is a costly rule, currently stayed in federal court under challenge by a number of states for violating both the letter and spirit of the CWA and prior Supreme Court rulings limiting the federal government's reach over non-navigable, purely intrastate, waters.

Navajo Nation Sues EPA For Its Handling of Mine Spill.  The August 5, 2015, Gold King toxic-waste spill occurred when EPA and its contractors accidently released three million gallons of wastewater behind a plug in the Gold King Mine.  The water carried heavy metals, such as cadmium and lead, and other potentially toxic elements, including arsenic and beryllium, into a tributary of the Animas River, affecting waterways in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and the Navajo Nation.  Although EPA took responsibility for the spill and promised to clean up the toxins and reimburse the states and the Navajo for the harms done, of the $29 million EPA has spent responding to the Gold King spill to date, the Navajo Nation has received just $1 million.

Emails show indications that the EPA is corrupt — kowtows to green groups.  Today [9/20/2016], after a long-delayed, nearly 500-page document production from EPA last week, the Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal) updated its report detailing the degree to which EPA worked with outside special interest groups such as the Sierra Club, Clean Air Task Force and NRDC to craft its global warming rules.  This report includes new revelations about senior EPA officials' work on what one called an "offline channel" with reporters, industry lobbyists and green groups on numerous EPA rules with the intention to circumvent federal record keeping and transparency laws.  These are included in an appendix to the report.  Even Democratic congressional aides sought to use the "offline" account to coordinate on EPA issues.

Report slams EPA civil rights compliance.  The nation's top environmental regulator has failed to meet its civil-rights obligations, forcing communities to endure extreme delays or inaction when seeking respite from polluters, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights found.  In a report released Friday [9/23/2016], the commission zeroed in on what it called the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's lackluster compliance with both the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and an executive order requiring agencies to consider environmental justice when creating rules — as well as its track record on clearing cases.

Texas AG To Take Fight Straight To Radical EPA.  InsideSources reported today [9/27/2016] on Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's effort to overturn the disastrous Clean Power Plan that overregulates existing power plants to the point where many would be forced to shut down, driving up energy prices for consumers and costing jobs for individuals that work at these plants.

The EPA Uses New Math to Justify Costly Global Warming Regulation.  In 2010, global warming alarmists in the Obama administration set out to find a way to justify the huge costs of the global warming regulations they wanted to pursue.  This effort focused on creating a "social cost of carbon," which purports to put a dollar figure on the alleged future economic harms of global warming.  The bureaucrats could then take this theoretical "cost" and use it to claim that their regulations were actually saving the economy from future damage.  To estimate future costs, the government selected three integrated assessment models which try to project the economic future.  Not surprisingly, all three tend to estimate substantial harms from global warming, even though there is still a great deal of debate over both how much warming might happen in the future and whether any such warming will be harmful (but for the purposes of this discussion that can be left aside).  When the federal government's standard 7% discount rate was applied to these theorized future harms, the present value of those costs dwindled to insignificance.  Indeed, applied to one of the models, the present "cost" is actually negative, implying that taking no action to reduce carbon dioxide could actually be economically beneficial.

EPA takes aim at abandoned dry cleaners.  The Environmental Protection Agency is setting its sights on dry cleaners as part its new list of 18 contaminated cleanup sites.  The EPA announced Wednesday [9/7/2016] that it is adding 10 waste sites under its Superfund program's National Priorities List, which is set up to deal with long-term waste issues across the country.  Mines and former chemical factories typify sites that are normally included under the program.  But the agency is also proposing to add eight hazardous waste sites to the program that aren't so typical, like the site of a former Custom Cleaners dry cleaning business in Memphis, Tenn.  Others include contamination from a variety of sources, including manufacturing, mining and battery recycling.

EPA admits never studying effects of ethanol as required by law.  When Congress passed the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 it introduced the current levels of controversial and problematic mandates for ethanol fuel blending which we've been wrestling with ever since.  But it also provided a mechanism to monitor the effects of the ethanol mandate on the environment and the economy which would be reported to Congress every three years.

EPA to Collect Employee Data on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity.  The Environmental Protection Agency will begin collecting sexual orientation and gender identity information on its employees this fall, according to an internal email.  The email sent last week by EPA Chief of Staff Matt Fritz announced a "ground-breaking" pilot program that will allow employees to answer survey questions about their sexuality.  "A professional, productive, and inclusive workplace is essential to our mission of protecting human health and the environment," Fritz wrote.  "Today EPA is taking a crucial step forward and playing a leadership role for the federal government in equal employment opportunity and diversity and inclusion by piloting the collection of voluntary, self-disclosed sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) workforce data."

Open Dumps Causing Disease in Puerto Rico; EPA Can't Be Bothered.  In 1994, the EPA turned over enforcement of hazardous waste disposal to Puerto Rico's Environmental Quality Board.  The Environmental Quality Board promptly rescinded the rules it had agreed with the EPA to enforce and turned a blind eye to violations of even its far more lax standards.  It reduced its staff from 14 in 2000 to five in 2005 to one in 2010 to zero in 2012.  The EPA threatened to revoke the island agency's permitting authority in 2002 but did not follow through.  It pretty much has ignored the issue since.  Privately owned landfills continued for the most part to meet the standards, but the publicly operated facilities did what unsupervised public agencies tend to do — failed on a massive scale.

EPA's Absurd New Fuel Standards for Trucks Will Raise Upfront Costs.  In a continued effort to address alleged man-made global warming, the Obama administration has finalized energy efficiency standards for medium and heavy-duty trucks.  While the administration is pledging to reduce fuel use and cut greenhouse gas emissions, its stringent energy mandate will do nothing to affect climate change.  What it will do, however, is take decisions away from the American individuals and businesses and consolidate more power in Washington.  The regulation requires a wide variety of vehicles — from school buses and passenger vans, to garbage and delivery trucks and long-haul tractor-trailers — to improve fuel efficiency.

1,690-Page 'Climate Change' Reg Increases Cost of Tractor-Trailer Up to $15,119.  The Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration jointly issued a new regulation last week that is meant to help protect the world from "climate change" by limiting "greenhouse gas emissions" and improving fuel efficiency in medium- and heavy-duty vehicles operated in the United States.  The 1,690-page regulation is approximately 700,000 words long.  A "regulatory impact analysis" published by EPA and NHTSA estimates the regulation will add an average of as much as $13,749 to the cost of a tractor truck and $1,370 to a trailer, making some tractor-trailer combinations $15,119 more expensive in 2027 than they would be under current regulations.

Navajo Nation sues EPA following toxic spill.  The Navajo Nation on Tuesday [8/16/2016] filed suit [complaint] against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) [official website] alleging that water flowing from a punctured mine in Colorado was toxic and "damaged the Nation's environment, people, and economy."  Specifically, the 48-page complaint alleges that the toxic wastewater contaminated the San Juan River, a river on which the Nation has a "[u]nique dependence," and the contamination negatively affected the production of crops, feeding of cattle, culture and economy of the Nation.  The complaint also alleges that the operators of the mines hired by the EPA, Gold King Mines Corporation, "continuously neglected its obligations to control the discharge of wastewater from its properties and to operate the treatment facility to protect [their] water" and that the damages were "preventable and foreseeable."

EPA sues Wildcat Mining over violations of Clean Water Act.  The EPA filed the complaint Aug. 8 in U.S. District Court against the mining operator and its Florida-based parent company Varca Ventures for discharging "dredged or fill material" into Little Deadwood Gulch, a low-flow tributary of the La Plata River, and building a wastewater pond in a wetland along the La Plata River that date back to 2008.  The EPA is seeking an injunction and civil penalties, according to the complaint.  According to court documents, Wildcat dumped "dirt, spoil, rock and sand," among other material that are defined as pollutants in the Clean Water Act, a 1972 federal law intended to ensure the health of the nation's waters.

The Editor says...
If a dry gulch is a "wetland," and if rocks and sand are "pollutants," the EPA might have a case.

EPA Watchdog Investigating Sexual Harassment Allegations.  A federal ethics watchdog announced on Friday [8/12/2016] that it has opened an investigation into allegations of serial sexual harassment and retaliation against victims at the Environmental Protection Agency.  The agency's inspector general said in a statement that it had opened the investigation at the request of the House Oversight Committee, which explored sexual harassment and retaliation allegations at EPA's Region 5 in a hearing last year.  "Senior EPA leadership systematically pursued retaliatory actions against employees involved in investigating sexual harassment cases," oversight committee staff said at the time.  "These investigators allege that Susan Hedman, the Region 5 Administrator, was personally involved in retaliation against them."

With New Navajo Nation Lawsuit, EPA Faces More Pressure Over Gold King Mine Spill.  One year has passed since the Environmental Protection Agency caused a discharge of 3 million gallons of toxic water into the Animas River, and no one has been held accountable, although private parties have been criminally prosecuted under similar circumstances in the past.  Now, three entities' actions might change the resulting narrative that there are two sets of rules, one for people in the private sector, and another for employees of the federal government.

Federal Government Says a Farmer Broke the Law by Plowing His Land.  Earlier this month a federal court in California ruled that a farmer plowing his land without a permit from the federal government is breaking the law.  In 2013, the Army Corps of Engineers, without any notice or due process, ordered the owners of Duarte Nursery to cease use of their land for allegedly violating the Clean Water Act (CWA).  The violation:  plowing.  The California court agreed with the federal government's action, despite the fact the CWA specifically exempts normal agricultural activities like plowing from regulation.  This overreaching assertion of federal power is not an isolated incident.  For decades, the EPA and the Army Corps have aggressively sought to stretch the bounds of the CWA.  When Congress passed the CWA, the federal government was given regulatory authority over "navigable waters," which the statute additionally defines as "waters of the United States."  While the word navigable may seem to have an obvious meaning to most Americans as bodies of water that can be navigated by watercraft, federal bureaucrats have identified these terms as a license for a massive regulatory land grab.

Lawsuits Are Piling Up Against Obama's EPA.  On March 3, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts declined to halt an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule regulating mercury emissions from power plants.  The rule is currently under review in the Washington, DC Court of Appeals.  In February, the Supreme Court placed a temporary stay on the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan while an appellate court considers the case.  Twenty states fighting the federal mercury emissions standards hoped the Court would grant a similar stay in their case while EPA worked to finish a cost-benefit analysis mandated by the Supreme Court in June 2015.  The Court heard oral arguments on March 30 in U.S. Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes, a case that will determine when landowners can challenge a government agency's judgment that private property contains "wetlands" subject to federal regulations.

Officials mark anniversary of Gold King Mine spill.  One year after the Gold King Mine spill released a toxic plume of mine waste into the Animas River, officials and residents say questions remain about the safety of the water and how the EPA will be held accountable for the environmental disaster.

New Mexico sues Colorado over Gold King Mine spill.  The state of New Mexico has filed a lawsuit against the state of Colorado in U.S. Supreme Court, adding to a string of legal actions in response to the Gold King Mine spill.  New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas filed the complaint on Monday [6/20/2016], alleging that Colorado's policies and practices led to the Aug. 5 incident.  In May, Balderas' office filed similar lawsuits against the U.S Environmental Protection Agency and two mining companies.  The case against Colorado focuses on the state's attitude toward the threat that abandoned mines pose to downstream communities.

EPA Tops Record for Regulatory Burden.  The Environmental Protection Agency now imposes nearly 200 million hours of paperwork to comply with its regulations, as new rules have skyrocketed under the Obama administration.  A new report released by the American Action Forum, a center-right policy institute, found complying with the agency's rules now requires 188 million paperwork hours, the equivalent of 95,000 Americans working full time for a year.  "Years of regulatory accumulation, especially under the Obama administration have pushed EPA's paperwork burden to its highest level in history," the report, written by Sam Batkins, said.  "Year after year of new regulatory costs have not only translated into shuttered power plants, but also new reporting and recordkeeping requirements.  EPA's paperwork burden now stands at 188 million hours."

Obama to sign into law new EPA power over toxic chemicals.  President Obama signed into law Wednesday [6/22/2016] sweeping new power for the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate thousands of toxic substances found in everyday products from household cleaners to toys and furniture. [...] The law sets safety standards for a host of toxic substances, including asbestos, formaldehyde and Bisphenol A, commonly known as BPA.

Feds Obstruct Media Probe By Blocking Interviews With Key Officials.  An Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) public relations official is blocking interviews sought by The Daily Caller News Foundation with employees believed to have vital information about the federal government's $1 billion Superfund program.  Agency spokeswoman Mollie Lemon acknowledged a May 16 DCNF request to interview an EPA contracting official, but the interview never happened, despite repeated requests during the ensuing four-week email exchange.  Lemon stopped acknowledging the requests two days after the original DCNF email, thus effectively denying it by default.

EPA Science Panel Stacked With Experts Paid Millions By EPA.  The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) science advisory panel tasked with reviewing ozone regulations is stacked with experts who have collectively received millions in agency funding over the years.  Of the 20 scientific advisers sitting on EPA's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) Ozone Panel, 17 have received a total of $192 million in EPA grants, according to an analysis by the blog JunkScience.com.  This news only fuels the argument that EPA's science committees aren't "independent" as required by federal law, because they are stacked with experts who rely on the very agency they are overseeing for money.

The EPA's 'Clean Power Plan'.  By its own admission, the EPA says Clean Power Plan is one of the most sweeping regulations ever enacted.  It would require electric companies to cut CO2 emissions 32% within 25 years — basically by shuttering coal plants and force feeding "renewable energy."  In pushing the Clean Power Plan, the EPA claimed it would cost industry $9 billion a year, but produce up to $54 billion in annual health benefits, including "avoiding 2,700 to 6,600 premature deaths and 140,000 to 150,000 asthma attacks in children."  Who could complain about that?  Turns out, the benefits of the Clean Power Plan will be closer to $0, while the costs would be far higher than the EPA claims.

Cleaning Up Environmental Regulation.  Environmental regulations constitute a hefty portion of America's regulatory burden, in large part because "reform" is an alien concept within the Environmental Protection Agency.  But the House GOP on Tuesday unveiled a new policy agenda that, with any luck (and political fortitude), will reverse decades of regulatory excess and abuse.  In many respects, the need for reform of regulation has never been greater.  In the past seven years, the Obama administration has increased annual regulatory costs by $108 billion annually.  Decades of command and control regimes have produced massive, ineffective, and unaccountable bureaucracies.  And the nation's primary environmental statutes are woefully outdated.

Thanks to EPA and Army Corps of Engineers, American farmers are a newly endangered species.  It is getting harder and harder, and in legal terms more dangerous, to be an American farmer these days, thanks to the aggressive behavior of the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.  I know, because I'm paid as a consultant to advise farmers in California on how best to comply with federal regulations under the Clean Water Act (CWA).  Increasingly, those regulations are changing at the arbitrary say-so of the Corps regulators who implement the EPA's regulations on the ground, even though most practices followed by American farmers have been exempted from CWA prohibitions since it was written in 1977.  In the past few years, those regulators — many of whom admit that they know very little about farming or agricultural practices — are radically reinterpreting the rules to limit what farmers do, even on land where they have done similar things for decades.

They've Lost The Reason That The Agency Exists.  Here's a long list of stuff from the Head of the EPA at various Congressional hearings.  [Video clip]

With Rand Paul's Reluctant Consent, Congress Grants EPA More Power.  "The EPA can now jail you for putting dirt on your own land," Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said in a speech before the Senate Tuesday [6/7/2016].  Paul was discussing the EPA's powers granted in the Clean Waters Act, cautioning the Senate against potential changes in the Toxic Substances Control Act.  If legislation is passed, the EPA will be allowed to personally decide how strictly it regulates the chemical industry.

JW Gets Records Showing EPA Gave Convicted Climate Expert Service, Salary Awards While He Defrauded Agency.  His name is John Beale and he's on the verge of completing a 32-month prison sentence for defrauding the government by claiming, while employed at the EPA, to be a "secret agent" for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and going on long vacations that he said were CIA missions. [...] It's not like Beale was a lowly employee at the EPA. He was a senior level official who actually worked in the agency's most powerful office, Air and Radiation (OAR), under President Obama's current EPA Administrator, Gina McCarthy.  OAR is feared by American companies because it develops polices and regulations associated with climate change air pollution that can impose huge costs to both consumers and businesses.  McCarthy headed OAR from 2008 to 2013 when Beale was a high-ranking senior policy adviser, which means the EPA Administrator directly managed him at the time.  Beale also defrauded the agency by receiving unlawful reimbursements for upscale personal travel, claiming to be away working for the CIA for 2½ years while he collected EPA paychecks and continuing to collect his full government salary years after officially retiring from the agency.

IG: EPA Still Blocking.  The Environmental Protection Agency is still blocking its inspector general from investigating wrongdoing at the agency, according to the government watchdog's semi-annual report to Congress.  More than a year after coming under scrutiny for stonewalling an investigation into a senior official accused of sexually harassing over a dozen women, the EPA is still not being cooperative with the inspector general.  "In the previous Semiannual Report to Congress, we reported theoretical progress with regard to the longstanding denial of access for the [Office of Inspector General] OIG by the EPA's Office of Homeland Security (OHS) to information sought by the OIG," the report said.  "After considerable delay, OHS provided some documents to the OIG but continued to deny access to others."

EPA Conducts Two Secret Meetings A Year To Decide How To Dole Out Billions In Slush Fund Money.  Congress appropriates about $1 billion annually for EPA's Superfund program, and the agency has accumulated nearly $6.8 billion in more than 1,300 slush fund-like accounts since 1990.  Two committees consisting entirely of EPA officials meet behind closed doors twice annually to decide how the agency spends those funds on highly polluted — and often dangerous — Superfund sites.  All reports to and from the groups, as well as the minutes of their meetings and all other details, are kept behind closed doors.

GOP proposes cutting EPA staffing to lowest level in 30 years.  The Environmental Protection Agency could see its budget reduced $164 million from last year and have its staffing level drop to the lowest point since 1989.  The Interior and Environment Appropriations Bill released Tuesday would fund the EPA at $7.98 billion, almost $300 million less than what President Obama asked for in his budget request.  That includes the agency's regulatory budget being dropped $43 million from fiscal 2016 and $187 million below what Obama asked for in his fiscal 2017 request.

GOP lawmakers:  EPA employee misconduct isn't getting better.  House Republicans grilled officials from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Wednesday [5/18/2016], saying the agency's response to employee misconduct has not improved the situation.  In the latest in a series of hearings by the House Oversight Committee, Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) and others in the GOP repeatedly slammed the EPA's deputy chief for not doing more to stop rogue employees and properly punish them.

'Stunning': EPA had to pay $55K to get child molester to retire.  The Environmental Protection Agency was forced to pay $55,000 to get an employee to retire because the EPA was unable to fire him, even though he was a convicted child molester who also imitated a police officer, officials testified Wednesday [5/18/2016].  The settlement was discussed at a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing on EPA employee misconduct Wednesday.  Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, said that was one of the most egregious cases of employee misconduct and misuse of taxpayer dollars.

13 Incompetent Failures in the Obama Administration.  [#3] Lisa Jackson led the EPA during the Deepwater Horizon spill, and became notorious for using an email address with the fictional alias "Richard Windsor."  Last March, a federal judge attacked the EPA for avoiding a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from Mark Levin's Landmark Legal Foundation, which focused on such false email accounts, which Jackson allegedly created to delay "the release dates for hot-button environmental regulations until after the Nov. 6, 2012, presidential election."  When Jackson resigned in December 2012, no charges were filed.

Obama Violates the Law to Push His Climate Obsession.  On June 26, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court set aside the Obama administration's far-reaching Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations targeting mercury and other emissions from coal-fired power plants.  When EPA initially drafted the rule early in the Obama's first term, it considered mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants as a "proxy" for limiting carbon dioxide.  After it became clear Congress would not pass cap-and-trade legislation to limit carbon dioxide emissions, the White House decided to act administratively to limit greenhouse gases through the backdoor.  The Supreme Court ruled in Michigan v.  EPA the agency should have taken into account the cost to utilities, consumers, and others before deciding to implement the regulation.  EPA's failure to conduct a cost-benefit analysis violated the Clean Air Act, the court ruled.

Mosquito Control Experts Say EPA Regs Hamper Efforts to Fight Zika-Carrying Mosquitoes.  Members of the American Mosquito Control Association (AMCA) gathered on Capitol Hill on Tuesday [5/10/2016] to request the help of Congress in combatting the Zika-carrying Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes, particularly urging Congress to ease the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) regulation of insecticides and products being developed to kill the mosquitoes.

Wyoming welder, facing $16M in fines, beats EPA in battle over stock pond.  A Wyoming man threatened with $16 million in fines over the building of a stock pond reached a settlement with the Environment Protection Agency, allowing him to keep the pond without a federal permit or hefty fine.  Andy Johnson, of Fort Bridger, Wyoming obtained a state permit before building the stock pond in 2012 on his sprawling nine-acre farm for a small herd of livestock.  Not long after contruction [sic], the EPA threatened Johnson with civil and criminal penalties — including the threat of a $37,500-a-day fine — claiming he needed the agency's permission before building the 40-by-300 foot pond, which is filled by a natural stream.

The Editor says...
This sounds like an Eighth Amendment issue:  Does the act of building a stock pond justify fines of $37,500 per day?  Does the pond do that much damage?  For that matter, can anyone beyond Mr. Johnson's fence tell if he has stock pond or not>

An Out-Of-Control EPA Loses Yet Another Court Case.  When Wyoming rancher Andy Johnson decided to create a stock pond for horses and cattle on his 8-acre property, he did what any conscientious landowner would do.  He got permits from both the state and local government before moving any dirt.  What he didn't count on was a power-mad Environmental Protection Agency, which in January 2014 said Johnson's pond violated the Clean Water Act — even though the CWA exempts stock ponds — told him to get rid of it, and threatened him with a $37,500 fine for every day he delayed.

EPA immediately yanks study showing weed killer doesn't cause cancer.  Before jumping into this rather odd story, one quick question: is the EPA really the appropriate agency to oversee a study on whether or not some product causes cancer?  I mean, if the Center for Disease Control wants to be in the business of studying gun violence instead of the Department of Justice in general or the FBI in particular, I suppose it fits in with the "logic" of the federal government, but their main mission seems to be rather far afield from medical work.  We'll leave that mystery for another day and get on to the fact that the Environmental Protection Agency recently did, in fact, release a study which shows that glyphosate — the primary ingredient in general purpose week killers like Roundup — is not carcinogenic.

Tale of Two Tribes: 'Climate Refugees' vs.  EPA Victims.  It's been almost eight months since an Environmental Protection Agency contractor recklessly knocked a hole at the long-abandoned Gold King Mine in Colorado's San Juan Mountains.  You should know that Washington has long schemed to declare it a Superfund site, which would increase its power, budget and access over the region.  A federally sponsored wrecking crew poking around in the mine last August triggered a 3 million-ton flood of bright orange gunk into the Animas River.  EPA's blithering idiots delayed notifying local residents for 24 hours and downplayed the toxic spill's effects.  Downstream, the muck seeped into the San Juan River in New Mexico, where the Navajo Nation lives and farms.  The impact on drinking water and livelihoods has been catastrophic.  But the Obama administration refused the tribe's request for disaster relief from FEMA last fall and yanked emergency water tanks the EPA had supplied for Navajo livestock.

EPA Administrator: 'We Rock' at Writing Rules.  Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy said Friday [5/6/2016] that the EPA is very good at making rules requiring individuals, businesses and state and local governments to comply with laws related to "protecting" the environment.  "If anybody knows anything about EPA and writing rules — we rock at it," McCarthy said at the Climate Action 2016 summit held last week in Washington, D.C.  "We do them legally.  We do them on the basis of sound science.  And while there is a pause, there's no pause in the action in the United States towards renewable energy and energy efficiency.  We are going in exactly the direction our rule demanded and we're doing it because the market's demanding it.  "We could not be in better shape then we are today," she said.

Two People Involved In Flint Water Investigation Found Dead.  The Flint Water Treatment Plant Foreman (an important part of the investigation) and a woman leading the Flint lead poisoning lawsuit were both found dead in less than a week.  Everything about the Flint water crisis is as toxic and disgusting as the water that is being pumped into Flint homes.  From the crass negligence that allowed such an insidious thing to happen, to the lack of will to fix it in timely fashion — not to mention the obvious attempts at covering up the truth:  The situation is poisonous.

The EPA Stashes Billions In Slush Fund-Like Accounts.  Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials have accumulated at least $6.3 billion in more than 1,300 obscure spending accounts akin to slush funds that are essentially beyond congressional, media and public scrutiny.  The accounts — which were created through EPA's Superfund program — are not technically secret because the agency officially acknowledges their existence.  But getting concrete details about deposits and expenditures is extremely difficult.  The EPA deposited more than $6.3 billion into an estimated 1,308 special accounts between 1990 and 2015, according to the agency's website, and has spent more than half of the total.  The agency doesn't publicly report individual special account balances or expenses.

Texas court blocks Houston from using tougher clean-air laws.  Houston's efforts to use local clean air laws to regulate pollution in the home of the nation's largest petrochemical complex were halted Friday [4/29/2016] by a Texas Supreme Court ruling in favor of energy and chemical companies that claimed the city had overreached.

Scientist warns of future problems from mine spill.  Northern New Mexico has only seen the "tip of the iceberg" when it comes to contamination from the Gold King Mine spill, according to the New Mexico Environment Department's chief scientist.  Scientist Dennis McQuillan shared that warning at a Citizens' Advisory Committee meeting Monday evening at San Juan College.  The committee was established to address residents' concerns after a cleanup crew working for the Environmental Protection Agency accidentally released more than three million gallons of contaminated mine waste into the Animas River near Silverton, Colo., in August.

Flint Residents File $220 Million Lawsuit Against EPA.  Flint, Michigan, residents have filed a $220 million class-action lawsuit against the U.S.  Environmental Protection Agency, claiming it was negligent in the toxic water crisis that contributed dangerous levels of lead to the city's water supply.  An administrative complaint representing 513 residents was filed Monday [4/25/2016] claiming property damage consisting of "irreparable impairment" of water service lines, plumbing and hot water tanks and "physical injury caused by ingesting water contaminated with lead, copper and other toxic materials."

EPA: 'Earth Day Is Like the Super Bowl and The Final Four Combined'.  In a blog posted on the Environmental Protection Agency's website on Thursday [4/21/2016] entitled "Water You Up To For Earth Day," the author compared environmentalists' enthusiasm for the occasion to the excitement fans feel for Super Bowl and the Final Four.

Lawsuits Piling Up Against Obama EPA.  On March 3, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts declined to halt an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule regulating mercury emissions from power plants.  The rule is currently under review in the Washington, DC Court of Appeals.  In February, the Supreme Court placed a temporary stay on the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan while an appellate court considers the case.  Twenty states fighting against the federal mercury emissions standards hoped the Court would grant a similar stay in their case while EPA worked to finish a cost-benefit analysis mandated by the Supreme Court in June 2015.

McCain wants criminal charges against EPA officials involved in toxic spill.  Senator John McCain wants to charge EPA officials with a crime for their actions that led to the disastrous release of toxic wastewater from the Gold King Mine last year.  The spill polluted 3 rivers and severely effected the lives and livelihood of several indian tribes.

Senate panel subpoenas EPA's McCarthy to force her to testify at Gold King Mine hearing.  The Senate Indian Affairs Committee acted Wednesday [4/13/2016] to subpoena EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy after the agency refused to provide witnesses to a field hearing on the EPA-caused Gold King Mine spill.  Chairman John Barrasso, Wyoming Republican, and vice chairman Jon Tester, Montana Democrat, said they agreed to issue the subpoena ordering Ms. McCarthy or Assistant Administrator Mathy Stanislaus to testify at the April 22 hearing in Phoenix.

The EPA's Scary Race Car Ban Proposal Is Dead.  The Environmental Protection Agency has chosen to "eliminate the proposed language" in a suggested regulation which appeared to prohibit the conversion of road cars to competition use.

Email:  Top radical Marxist EPA lawyer supports Obama Supreme Court pick.  The top lawyer at the Environmental Protection Agency was cheered by President Obama's nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, noting his environmental credentials after being told the news.  According to an email obtained by America Rising Advanced Research through a Freedom of Information Act request, Avi Garbow, general counsel at the EPA, reacted favorably to being told of Garland's nomination.

The EPA Is Using Private Emails to Talk to Lobbyists.  A recent report from the Daily Caller highlights how the Environmental Protection Agency frequently uses private email accounts to communicate with environmental lobbyists, ducking the transparency and record-keeping requirements that are supposed to bind the agency.  One characteristic email from a lobbyist for green advocacy groups, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), explicitly requested that EPA Senior Counsel Joe Goffman forward an email to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy's private account.

EPA rules forcing more expensive fuel on drivers.  The Environmental Protection Agency's fuel-efficiency rules are forcing drivers to buy higher-priced gasoline, despite decade-low fuel prices, the federal government said Wednesday [4/6/2016].  The Energy Department's independent analysis arm, the Energy Information Administration, revealed the trend in data showing that the use of higher-priced premium gasoline reached its highest share in a decade last year.  It turns out that the EPA is to blame.

Exclusive: EPA Dumps 880,000 Lbs Of Toxic Metal Into River, Won't Answer Any Questions.  Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials refuse to answer two questions surrounding the August 2015 Gold King Mine spill that would help resolve issues uncovered by a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation.  TheDCNF reported numerous contradictions in the EPA's explanation of how and why it intentionally breached Colorado's Gold King Mine, releasing 880,000 pounds of dangerous metals and mining waste into drinking water for three states and the Navajo Nation.  Yet, the EPA refused to clarify those contradictions and instead disregarded TheDCNF's findings and clung to its original story.

The Regulation That Drastically Infringes Landowners' Rights.  On March 30, the Supreme Court heard arguments in U.S. Army Corps of Engineers v.  Hawkes Co.  This case is one of a collection of land use cases that trickle into the Court from time to time, all representing the same problem:  The Clean Water Act drastically limits the rights of landowners to build or develop on land that constitutes "waters of the United States" (WOTUS).  Unfortunately, the term "waters of the United States" is left undefined.  This leads to what, in many cases, appears to be "interpretation via whim" by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers — the agency tasked with issuing regulations to implement the Clean Water Act.  The Corps of Engineers regulations are notoriously ambiguous, complex, and expensive to comply with.  According to one study, obtaining a permit costs an average of $270,000 and takes more than two years.

Gina McCarthy promises EPA "won't go down without a fight" if GOP wins in November.  The level of scrutiny the EPA has come under in recent years is both well deserved and a driving factor for some voters in the upcoming election.  We've watched as lawlessness and overreach in one executive branch department after another were exposed (the VA, the IRS, etc.) but few have come close to the levels of abuse on display at the EPA.  President Obama has been a staunch defender of the agency and his pick to lead it, Gina McCarthy.  But sensing a change in the wind, the EPA director is up on her hind legs defending the department and predicting that even if a Republican takes the White House this November, the EPA will march onward.

EPA Named In Blistering Report On Flint Water Crisis.  The task force appointed by Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder to investigate what happened in Flint, Michigan has released a scathing 116-page report on how a failure of government at all levels allowed the city's drinking water to become contaminated with elevated levels of lead.  In particular, the report slams the federal Environmental Protection Agency, claiming the agency was unlikely to enforce clean drinking water regulations in Flint in the absence of "widespread public outrage."  "EPA failed to properly exercise its authority prior to January 2016.  EPA's conduct casts doubt on its willingness to aggressively pursue enforcement (in the absence of widespread public outrage)," the Flint Water Advisory Task Force found.

Environmentalists v.  Obama's EPA.  There's good news for environmentalism coming out of St.  Louis, near the radioactive West Lake Landfill:  The community is safe, the EPA has a clean-up plan, and the company that owns the landfill is even paying for it.  No one could stop this kind of progress!  Except, as it turns out, for a group of environmental extremists who think that isn't good enough.  They're trying to stop the current EPA cleanup plan and restart the process by transferring the authority of the site to the Army Corps of Engineers.

Supreme Court appears skeptical about feds applying Clean Water Act to family biz properties.  For decades, the Pierce family has operated a peat-mining business that involves draining muddy bogs, scraping away the plant material, drying it, then selling it for use in golf greens and athletic fields.  The company hoped to add hundreds of acres to its operation.  But in 2011, the Army Corps of Engineers announced the Minnesota land in question was connected to the Red River, roughly 120 miles away, and would be subjected to the Clean Water Act permitting process.  The property rights dispute landed Wednesday [3/30/2016] in the Supreme Court, where Justice Anthony Kennedy called the federal act "quite vague in its reach, arguably unconstitutionally vague ... ."

EPA Putting Red Light on Amateur Car Racing.  The EPA's move to regulate emissions on non-road racing vehicles contradicted agency administrator Gina McCarthy's earlier testimony that the EPA did not have authority over non-road race cars and motorcycles.  EPA officials said they are "clarifying" emissions law, yet the Clean Air Act has long exempted non-road vehicles used in competition.  The agency has not made a similar move against NASCAR or other professional race circuits.  "The EPA cannot assume powers that Congress hasn't given," Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.), chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, said at an Oversight Subcommittee hearing Tuesday.  Smith accused the agency of "unlawful regulation (conducted) without proper notice."

EPA Director Sidesteps Question on Whether She'd Have Fired Official Who Resigned in Flint Water Crisis.  When asked whether she would have fired former EPA Regional Administrator Susan Hedman for her role in the Flint water crisis if Hedman had not resigned on her own, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Thursday [3/17/2016] "that was an issue I didn't need to face.

Obama EPA Used Secret Email Accounts to Scheme with Lobbyists and Climatards.  There is new evidence senior Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials routinely use private email accounts to conduct government business, this time to pass along information from an energy lobbyist.  Michael J. Bradley, president and founder of an energy consulting firm that represents numerous green advocacy groups, described his preference for using a private email to communicate with EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy regarding an agency regulation, according to documents obtained by the Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal) through a Freedom of Information Act request.  "Joe, Would you please send this email to Gina for me?  I would have sent it to her directly with a cc to you but I don't have a private email address for her and would prefer to not use an office email address," Bradley emailed to EPA Senior Counsel Joe Goffman.

EPA Fines Wyoming Man $16 Million for Building a Pond on His Property.  Farmers and ranchers call the EPA's new water rule the biggest land grab in the history of the world.  It is a massive land grab, especially in a country that has been built on the right to own property.  The administration is changing all that.  A new oppressive water rule gives the EPA jurisdiction over all public and private streams in the United States that are "intermittent, seasonal and rain-dependent."  It will regulate what are normal daily ranching and farming practices and take control of their land.  According to congressional budget testimony, waters of the United States would give the EPA authority over streams on private property even when the water beds have been dry, in some cases, for hundreds of years.

A word from a toxicologist who defected from the federal junk science army.  [Scroll down] I have a modest archive here at American Thinker that includes essays on EPA misconduct.  Steve Milloy, proprietor of JunkScience.com, and I have written some articles on the same subject together for AT.  We focus on EPA cheating on air pollution research but also human experimentation with air pollutants.  All of our efforts are intended to show that EPA sponsors scare-monger scientists who promote the idea that small particle and other air pollutants are deadly when they are not.  We have written a number of essays about how the EPA cheats on science and creates false scares.  Here is a guy who can confirm the nature of the deceit that we saw and understood from the outside, and he knows the how and why and even the motives.

House panel chairman: Gold King mine was breached on purpose.  The Republican chairman of a congressional panel investigating a 3-million-gallon spill of toxic wastewater from an inactive Colorado gold mine said Tuesday [3/1/2016] the mine was purposely breached by a government cleanup team.  The assertion by House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop of Utah contradicts claims by the Obama administration that the cleanup team was doing only preparatory work at the Gold King mine.  Once it was breached, wastewater loaded with lead, arsenic and other contaminants fouled downstream rivers in Colorado, New Mexico and Utah.

EPA Spends $295,507 to Track Energy and Water Use of Office Workers.  The Environmental Protection Agency is spending nearly $300,000 to develop technology that will track the energy and water use of office buildings, with a colored light bulb system that will send "visual messages" to employees when they are using too much.  Lucid Design Group, a California-based software company, received the funding from the agency with the goal to "change the habits" of Americans at work.  "Through this project, Lucid is focused on reducing energy consumption in commercial buildings by influencing people's behavior," the EPA said in a press release announcing the project.  "With this award, it will further develop, test and commercialize low-cost high-tech approaches that can reduce electricity use in commercial buildings by providing real-time feedback to office workers."

EPA's Gold King Mine Blowout Was No Accident.  Obama administration officials called the Gold King Mine disaster in Colorado an "accident," but an analysis from The Daily Caller News Foundation of government documents and public statements makes clear the disaster was anything but accidental.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) intentionally opened up the abandoned mine, which unleashed 3 million gallons of toxic waste into nearby rivers that residents of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and the Navajo Nation depend upon for drinking water.

A scheme to say how land is used.  It sounds like a bad dream — a really bad dream — but in a matter of days or at most weeks the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could become our national zoning board.  Some say that, with the passing of Justice Antonin Scalia, the chances just became much bigger.  The reason is that the Supreme Court is about to decide whether to give the environmental agency the authority to make land use decisions throughout the nation.  The court will not even have to hear arguments in American Farm Bureau Federation v. EPA to do this.  It will only have to decide not to hear the appeal of a Third Circuit decision.

Stopping a land grab.  The Supreme Court will decide Friday [2/26/2016] whether to review an appeals court decision enabling the most blatant federal land grab since the federal government broke a treaty with the Cherokee Nation to seize millions of acres of Cherokee land in Oklahoma at the end of the 19th century.  The American Farm Bureau, an association of farmers, has sued the Environmental Protection Agency to restrain the agency from assuming the authority to say whether and how a farmer can plant crops on his own property.  Further, it would prevent the EPA from using the decision as precedent to seize new authority over private property anywhere.

EPA's Disgraceful Reign.  The death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and the media circus surrounding the political primaries drowned out recent news that highlights the arrogance, incompetence and lawlessness of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  Following the unprecedented U.S. Supreme Court decision to stay the EPA's Clean Power Plan that regulates greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said she was disappointed but added the ruling will not impede "a low-carbon future."  EPA's spokesman backed her boss saying, "We're disappointed the rule has been stayed, but you can't stay climate change and you can't stay climate action."  Going beyond words, McCarthy promised continued action regarding the implementation of the Clean Power Plan.

Locals fume as EPA reveals Gold King mine spill much worse than initially stated.  The disclosure that the Environmental Protection Agency's toxic spill at an old gold mine in Colorado was far worse than previously stated has unleashed a flood of anger at the agency, which was already facing numerous lawsuits from states and individuals along the affected waterways.  On Thursday [2/11/2016], the House Committee on Natural Resources released a damning report on the EPA and its handling of the Gold King Mine disaster last August.  The report detailed how the EPA and the Department of the Interior were inaccurate and misleading in their conflicting accounts of the wastewater spill, which the EPA said last week released 880,000 pounds of toxic metals.

Six Fed-Funded Non-Profits Are 'Scandals Waiting To Happen'.  Six obscure nonprofits funded almost entirely by federal taxpayers in an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) program that recruits technically skilled seniors for cheap labor are "scandals waiting to happen," according to an expert on advocacy groups.  "The idea of government funding charitable works ought to be something conservatives and libertarians are concerned about," Capital Research Center's (CRC) Senior Vice President Matthew Vadum told The Daily Caller News Foundation.  "The government's been doing this a long time, but it rarely gets discussed."

Critics Fear The EPA Is Trying To Circumvent Major Supreme Court Ruling.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said it's respecting a recent Supreme Court ruling halting the implementation of the agency's key global warming regulation, but the agency's top official is sending a different message to states.  On the one hand, the EPA said it would support the Supreme Court's issuing of a stay on the so-called Clean Power Plan (CPP) — a rule forcing states to cut carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.  On the other hand, the agency is telling states it will offer assistance to them if they want to "voluntarily" comply with the rule.

EPA Goes After Low-Income Farmers In Land Grab.  The Supreme Court says the Clean Water Act is not a grant of federal control over every stream and depression in the nation.  The Environmental Protection Agency says otherwise.

Locals fume as EPA reveals Gold King mine spill much worse than initially stated.  The disclosure that the Environmental Protection Agency's toxic spill at an old gold mine in Colorado was far worse than previously stated has unleashed a flood of anger at the agency, which was already facing numerous lawsuits from states and individuals along the affected waterways.  On Thursday [2/11/2016], the House Committee on Natural Resources released a damning report on the EPA and its handling of the Gold King Mine disaster last August.  The report detailed how the EPA and the Department of the Interior were inaccurate and misleading in their conflicting accounts of the wastewater spill, which the EPA said last week released 880,000 pounds of toxic metals.

The EPA — Caught Red-Handed Again.  Once again, the emails gave the Environmental Protection Agency away.  An EPA official was caught red-handed with full knowledge of the danger of an environmental spill at Colorado's Gold King Mine in emails discovered by the Denver Post, but the agency downplayed any knowledge of the hazard to the public.  As 3 million gallons of lead, cadmium and other chemicals polluted the Animas River, the EPA pretty well tried to downplay the severity of that, too.  The revelation, as John Hinderaker of Power Line points out, comes as news breaks of the EPA issuing a draconian, ruinous punishment for the owner of a company that didn't have a storm plan.  At the same time, the EPA was caught knowing all about the lead-contaminated drinking water in Flint, Michigan, according to emails, but planned to just let the public keep drinking, never mind the toxin.

Supreme Court halts Obama carbon emissions rule.  The 5-4 decision by the court puts the Environmental Protection Agency's regulation on hold while a lower appeals court hears states' challenge to the rules.  More than two dozen states sued to stop the rules, which were intended to control greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants.  The EPA called the court's decision disappointing but said it won't stop the agency's determination to press forward.

The Supreme Court May Have Nuked the Paris Climate Deal.  In a late-day announcement [2/9/2016], the country's highest court said it will not enforce the Clean Power Plan — the EPA rule that forces massive cuts to coal power plants — until a lower court resolves legal challenges against the rule.  Each state gets to decide how it wants to meet the EPA's emissions goals (perhaps through stricter environmental standards, carbon taxes, or cap and trade) and has to submit its plan by June 2016.  The court's announcement doesn't necessarily shut down the Clean Power Plan.  But it could send a signal to recalcitrant states, manufacturers, and energy companies that they can keep dragging their feet on climate change.  More broadly, it weakens US assurances that it will follow global agreements to curb emissions.

State environment chief blasts EPA over cleanup.  State Environment Secretary Ryan Flynn railed against the Environmental Protection Agency during a House committee meeting Wednesday [2/10/2016], saying the federal agency has attempted to "deflect, downplay and minimize" the extent of damages to public health and the environment following the Gold King Mine spill in August.  "This is still a major problem for the state of New Mexico and the communities that rely on this water," Flynn told members of the House Agriculture, Water and Wildlife Committee.  The spill, which occurred in the Animas River near Silverton, Colo., flowed into New Mexico waterways.  Flynn said the EPA has lagged behind New Mexico's own initiative for cleanup, and he criticized the agency's proposal that calls for monitoring water quality for just one year.

EPA: Mine spill dumped 880,000 pounds of metals in Animas.  A 3 million-gallon spill from the Gold King Mine above Silverton last year may have dumped more than 880,000 pounds of metals into the Animas River, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has reported.

Obama vows to press ahead on Clean Power Plan after setback.  The administration of President Barack Obama is vowing to press ahead with efforts to curtail greenhouse gas emissions after a divided Supreme Court put his signature plan to address climate change on hold until after legal challenges are resolved.

Supreme Court freezes Obama plan to limit carbon emissions.  The Supreme Court on Tuesday [2/9/2016] blocked a key part of President Obama's ambitious proposal to limit carbon emissions and reduce global warming while the plan is challenged.  The court granted a stay request from more than two dozen states, plus utilities and coal companies, that said the Environmental Protection Agency was overstepping its powers.  The court's decision does not address the merits of the challenge but indicates justices think the states have raised serious questions.

Supreme Court blocks Obama carbon emissions plan.  The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday [2/9/2016] delivered a major blow to President Barack Obama by blocking federal regulations to curb carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, the centerpiece |of his administration's strategy to combat climate change.

EPA cleared of bias in Alaska mine controversy despite lost emails.  Despite acknowledging it could not obtain more than two years of emails from a key employee, the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Inspector General on Wednesday [1/13/2016] effectively cleared the EPA of allegations of bias in its quest to preemptively kill a proposed mine in southwest Alaska.  The troubling details of the missing emails raise charges of an EPA whitewashing, a scenario and an allegation all-too-familiar in the Obama administration.

EPA Caught Breaking Lobbying Law with 'Covert Propaganda'.  The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has determined the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) broke federal law on multiple occasions, using what GAO termed "covert propaganda," in support of a powerful, controversial regulation expanding EPA's power over isolated bodies of water and temporary, ephemeral wetlands and streams.  Numerous businesses and trade groups, farmers and agricultural interests, local, state, and federal legislators, and public officials have objected to the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule, challenging its legality in court and alleging the rule is a massive power grab by the federal government.

A Tale Of Two Rivers: Obama Condemns Flint Disaster After Ignoring Colorado Mine Spill.  President Barack Obama was quick to condemn Michigan officials for letting high levels of lead contaminate Flint's drinking water and promised millions of dollars in aid and justice for the city.  The same cannot be said for his reaction to the thousands of people who had their drinking water tainted by the Gold King Mine spill in August — a spill caused by his own Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  It's a tale of two rivers, both contaminated by government mismanagement, but only one provoked moral outrage from Obama.

Michigan official takes confrontational tone with EPA chief over Flint water crisis.  Michigan's top environmental officer was by turns cooperative and confrontational with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Friday, pledging to work together to ensure the safety of Flint's drinking water but challenging the legality and scope of some federal demands.

EPA regional director to resign over Flint water crisis; Emails show officials worried about public image.  An Environmental Protection Agency administrator responsible for overseeing a region that includes Flint, Mich., tendered her resignation on Thursday [1/21/2016] amid growing concern for the water contamination crisis.  Susan Hedman, the agency director of Region 5, also known as the Chicago Region, submitted her resignation to take effect Feb. 1 — which was accepted by agency administrator Gina McCarthy.

Michigan questions some US demands regarding Flint water.  Michigan's top environmental officer was by turns cooperative and confrontational with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in a letter pledging to work with the federal government to ensure the safety of Flint's drinking water but challenging the legality and scope of some federal demands.

Court decisions could hurt Obama's climate legacy.  The Court of Appeals will be handing down its decision any day on whether to stay the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan.  The plan is the centerpiece of Obama's climate agenda and is being challenged in the court by more than two dozen states and a growing number of trade groups, unions and fossil fuel companies.  The states and industry argue that the EPA plan goes beyond the limits of its authority under the law and is unconstitutional.

Regional EPA official resigns over Flint water crisis.  An advisory panel to Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder on Friday recommended steps the state should take to restore reliable drinking water to Flint, including hiring an unbiased third-party to declare when the system is free of lead.

Flint: The Democrats' Filthy Water.  Even once the problem had surfaced, the EPA knew and kept quiet.  It was only once the crisis broke, that the Democratic establishment attempted to redirect the blame at Michigan's efforts to fix broken Democratic cities like Flint using emergency managers.  The war against the emergency managers is not about clean water; it's about protecting the dirty Democratic politics that destroyed these cities.  Flint's dirty water had its origins in dirty politics.  The Democratic Party had badly mismanaged the city.

EPA Chief: Climate Change Is Certain But You Can't Predict the Future.  When asked Thursday [1/7/2016] about federal data showing that fossil fuels will provide about 80 percent of the world's energy needs through 2040 and that U.S. carbon emissions are at the lowest they've been in decades, the Environmental Protection Agency Administrator said that it's impossible to predict the future.

EPA Knew About Michigan Water Contamination For Months Without Telling The Public.  The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) top Midwest official knew about the Flint, Michigan drinking water crisis of 2015 months before telling the public, according to a Tuesday [1/12/2016] report by the The Detroit News.  EPA official Susan Hedman did not publicize the EPA's concern over Flint's water quality or the water's dangerous health concerns.  The federal agency instead quietly fought with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality for at least six months about what should be done.

New Mexico to sue EPA over mine spill.  New Mexico plans to sue the federal government and the owners of two Colorado mines that were the source of a massive spill last year that contaminated rivers in three Western states, officials said Thursday [1/14/2016].

Now EPA Looking to Regulate 'Light Pollution'.  For thousands of years, man has sought to ward off the dark by using light to illuminate the night.  Now, EPA chief Gina McCarthy and celebrity astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson want to take us back a few thousand years by giving the agency the ability to deal with "light pollution."  The only way to deal with light pollution is to, well, turn off the lights.  This will be a boon to astronomers like Tyson who will be able to see the stars and planets a lot better.  But for the rest of us, not so good.  Crime will rise, accidents will increase, and more people will die just so that Tyson can study the heavens.

The Editor says...
How many astronomers are there in the U.S.?  There are 12,436 Individual Members in the International Astronomical Union, worldwide, and 2,796 National Members in the U.S.  There are also backyard amateur stargazers who enjoy astronomy as a very expensive hobby.  Not all of them are affected by extraneous light, because many serious professional astronomers work at isolated observatories (for example, Fort Davis, Texas) where the locals are very careful about outdoor lighting at night.  What would be gained by shutting off all light sources in the United States, for the benefit of a few thousand members of this "special interest group" who, by and large, have only one long-term goal, and that is to disprove the first chapter of the Bible and come up with their own theories about the origin of the universe.  So-called light pollution is a problem that almost nobody cares about, but any "solution" enacted by the EPA would add huge costs to the construction and operation of every highway, office building, factory and refinery.  There is an abundance of light at night only in prosperous, productive, and free countries.  Places like North Korea and Cuba don't have such "problems," although their citizens would probably enjoy it.  Times Square in New York City is as well-illuminated as a football field, every night of the year, because of all the self-luminous advertising on the walls of the urban canyon.  There's a big crowd of tourists there every night.  That's capitalism at work -- and capitalism is what the America-hating tyrant Barack H. Obama and his heavily-politicized EPA abhor most.

EPA chief: Light pollution 'in our portfolio'.  Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy [...], who has led the EPA in its recent campaigns to put strict regulations on power plants and U.S. waterways, was asked by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson if he could suggest a new mission for the agency.  "So is there a day, is there some occasion, where I can add light pollution to your portfolio," he asked McCarthy during a segment released for Sunday's [1/3/2016] episode of "Star Talk," a weekly late-night talk show he hosts on National Geographic.  "Well, this is another thing that's been called to our attention for satellites," McCarthy answered.  "The imagery of the United States at night shows all those flares from oil and gas in places that are in the middle of nowhere.  It is startling to me, to see the change in the night sky."

EPA Sends 185 to Prison for "Environmental Crimes" as its Own Toxic Spills Go Unpunished.  Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) enforcers helped convict 185 Americans of environmental crimes this year, with each of these eco-convicts getting sentenced to eight months in prison on average for crimes ranging from biofuel fraud to illegally removing asbestos.  EPA enforcement data for 2015 shows the agency opened 213 environmental cases which resulted in 185 people convicted and sentenced to 129 years in prison.  EPA has been opening fewer cases in recent years to focus more on "high impact" cases.

EPA Targets Texas Electric Power Industry with New Haze Rules.  Texas is among more than half the states fighting various new EPA rules including 24 states that have sued to block the Obama administrations clean power plan.  Now the state's power industry faces a new threat with EPA haze rules.  The EPA's new haze rule is designed to reduce smog and sulfur dioxide emissions from seven of Texas oldest coal-fired power plants in order to improve the visibility in several national parks and wilderness areas, which EPA blames for harming their view shed.

"Climate Change" Expert Jailed for Conning EPA out of $900K.  The EPA has been hit with a veritable flood of scandals recently.  We covered the Animas River spill, caused by the EPA's rush to solve a non-problem involving a mine's wastewater, which impacted the water quality for several Western states.  In 2013, one climate change expert who posed as a CIA operative was jailed for conning the agency out of nearly $1 Million. [...] The amount of fraud and deception would normally be staggering... except for the fact that it has occurred under the Obama Administration, in which this fraud and deception appear to be "business as usual."

Congress Shockingly Fails to Address Alleged EPA Lawbreaking.  The Government Accountability Office, the federal government's arbitrator on the use of appropriated funds, issued a legal opinion finding that the Environmental Protection Agency broke the law when developing its controversial new water rule.  This rule would allow the EPA and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to regulate almost any water, including certain man-made ditches and so-called waters that are dry land most of the time.  According to the GAO, the EPA engaged in improper lobbying and covert propaganda.  The agency's activities didn't just focus on getting support for its rule.  They also sought to impact Congress and the legislative process by encouraging opposition to legislation that would undermine the rule.  Did Congress use the power of the purse in its massive new spending bill to withhold funds for implementation of the water rule after learning of these alleged illegal actions?  Nope.

EPA Now Says It's Not to Blame for Gold King Mine Spill.  On August 5, a crew from the Environmental Protection Agency caused a spill of 3 million gallons of water laden with mercury, arsenic, and other toxic metals from the Gold King mine into a river that supplies drinking water for three states.  While the EPA initially promised to hold itself accountable in the same manner that it would hold a private party, it is becoming increasingly evident that this assertion was not entirely accurate.

North Carolina uses unique tactic against new EPA rule.  Already among the two-dozen states suing to overturn new power plant emission rules, North Carolina is picking a separate fight with the Environmental Protection Agency by adopting a plan for compliance the agency is likely to reject.  State officials hope that will create a shortcut to a federal appeals court and head off any attempt by the EPA to drag out the court case while its rules get further entrenched.  North Carolina's approach is unique because it splits the difference between the handful of states that have said they won't submit any plan to the EPA, and about a dozen that are hedging their bets by developing compliance plans while they try to defeat the federal rules.

Congressional committee: mine probe glossed over negligence.  Republicans alleged a "whitewash" of a Colorado mining accident that unleashed 3 million gallons of toxic wastewater and requested a nonpartisan investigation after the Interior secretary said Wednesday [12/9/2015] there was no evidence of criminal negligence.

Jewell: No 'criminal activity' in mine spill.  Republicans alleged a "whitewash" of a Colorado mining accident that unleashed 3 million gallons of toxic wastewater and requested a nonpartisan investigation after Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said Wednesday [12/9/2015] she'd seen no evidence of criminal negligence in the case.  The spill was triggered by a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cleanup crew doing excavation work in August at the inactive Gold King mine near Silverton, Colorado.  It fouled rivers in Colorado, Utah and New Mexico with contaminants including arsenic and lead, temporarily shutting down drinking water supplies and raising concerns about long-term impacts to agriculture.  The accident prompted harsh criticism of the EPA for failing to take adequate precautions despite warnings that such a blowout could occur.  Yet Jewell said a review by her agency showed the spill was "clearly unintentional."

E.P.A. Broke the Law by Using Social Media to Push Water Rule, Auditor Finds.  The Environmental Protection Agency engaged in "covert propaganda" in violation of federal law when it blitzed social media to urge the general public to support President Obama's controversial rule intended to better protect the nation's streams and surface waters, congressional auditors have concluded.  The ruling by the Government Accountability Office, which opened its investigation after a report in The New York Times on the agency's practices, served as a cautionary tale to federal agencies about the perils of getting too active in using social media to push a cause. Federal laws prohibit agencies from engaging in lobbying and propaganda.

EPA Once Again Caught Breaking Laws To Push Green Agenda.  The rule in question would have radically expanded the definition of "navigable waters" in the Clean Water Act to include things like "ephemeral tributaries" or other areas where there's no "navigable" water in sight.  The American Farm Bureau Federation said that the rule would give the EPA an "almost unlimited reach."  The rule's goal isn't so much to ensure clean water — the nation's water has been getting steadily cleaner for decades — but to bring still more of the economy under EPA control, since activity that involves water covered by the CWA can require time-consuming and costly permits.  The rule is also fresh evidence of how the EPA will blatantly disregard the law to get its way.

EPA's Energy Power Grab.  We allot a portion of our monthly expenses to pay the energy bill without much thought, but the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) onerous Clean Power Plan (CPP) will change all of that by forcing Wisconsin utilities to shutter cheap, clean, coal-fired energy plants and switch to costly and unreliable energy sources.  With strict oversight by state regulators, the current power grid provides reliable, relatively inexpensive energy to every user as needed.  States, including Wisconsin, have spent billions of dollars building a complicated, integrated grid that generates and transmits electricity to those who need it.  Each state has a unique set of resources and needs, and no one knows the intricacies of each state's system better than each individual state.  EPA, through the CPP, is ignoring this and usurping states' regulatory authority over the power grid.

EPA Gives $9,000 Bonus For Less Than Three Months Work.  A new hire at the Environmental Protection Agency hit the jackpot when the employee's new bosses awarded her $9,000 in performance bonuses for less than three months of work.  The EPA's inspector general said the newly hired director of the environmental agency's RTP Finance Center in Raleigh was paid two separate performance bonuses of $4,500 shortly after beginning work.

The EPA is shamelessly politicking in Iowa.  Part of the job of the Environmental Protection Agency is clearly to promote their own policies and demonstrate to the American people how they are working to benefit the nation.  (That is, when they're not busy wasting massive amounts of money and polluting river systems.)  But there's a fine line to be walked between educating the public on the issues and blatant politicking to benefit the party currently controlling the White House.

Sen. Inhofe's 81st Birthday Present: Senate Votes To Repeal EPA's Global Warming Rules.  The Senate passed two resolutions under the Congressional Review Act Tuesday night [11/17/2015] repealing the key plank of the Environmental Protection Agency's global warming regulatory agenda.  Senators also happened to pass CRA resolutions against the EPA's Clean Power Plan on Oklahoma Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe's 81st birthday.  Inhofe has been a lead Republican against the EPA's climate regulations and even wrote a book calling global warming the "greatest hoax."

Town to pursue Superfund help after mine spill.  Southwestern Colorado officials will negotiate with state and federal agencies to set up a federally financed Superfund cleanup of inactive mines, including one that spewed millions of gallons of wastewater into rivers in three states in August.

Cruz Blitzes EPA Emissions Plan: "Our founders would have recognized [this] as tyranny".  Sen. Ted Cruz and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton denounced a new federal emissions regulation as illegal, expensive and pointless Thursday [11/19/2015] during an energy conference organized by the Texas Public Policy Foundation.  The Environmental Protection Agency's new regulation, known as the Clean Power Plan, was finalized last month and immediately challenged in court by 26 states and an array of companies and associations in the energy industry.  "The regulation is neither clean nor does it have anything to do with power, other than the Obama Administration's power to harm our energy production," Cruz, a Republican, said in a taped message.

Obama's EPA Spending Millions Overseas.  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.

Great news: the EPA's new smog rules will only cost 40 times as much as they said.  So we'll be sucking well over $50B a year out of the economy to achieve a reduction in ozone levels from 75 parts per billion to... 70 parts per billion.  That's a pretty steep price for what is likely barely measurable change.  Trying to determine the effectiveness of such a change, even if it's achieved is a challenge.  The EPA's own information on the subject doesn't go much further than saying that more ground level ozone is bad and less is better.

EPA's Smog Regulation Will Cost 40x More Than It Predicted.  The Environmental Protection Agency estimated its stricter smog limits would only cost Americans $1.4 billion a year, but a new report argues the total cost to the economy is likely 40 times higher than agency estimates.  The right-leaning American Action Forum says EPA's updated smog, or ground-level ozone, rule could cost $56.5 billion in lost wages based on economic losses from counties that couldn't comply with the agency's 2008 rule.

EPA Gave Paid Leave to Drug and Child Sex Offenders.  Drug and child sex offenders received paid administrative leave from the Environmental Protection Agency, according to a new audit.  The agency's inspector general found the EPA rehired a child sex offender after they were put on leave for violating probation, in one example of misuse of administrative leave that cost taxpayers over $1 million.

Navajo leaders bitter about EPA's handling of mine spill.  The leader of the nation's largest Indian tribe sat before a packed U.S. Senate hearing listening to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy testify about the Gold King Mine spill that sent 3 million gallons of mustard-colored sludge pouring into the San Juan and Animas rivers, polluting waters in three states and the Navajo Nation.

Senate votes to kill EPA's water rule.  The Senate approved a bill Wednesday to block the Obama administration's new regulation setting federal authority over small waterways.  The Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution against the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) water rule passed on a 53-44 vote.  Three Democrats joined every Republican except Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) in advancing the bill.

Gina McCarthy is coming for your air conditioners.  You're not supposed to burn any coal or oil.  You should probably avoid natural gas too, since it's composed of hydrocarbons.  Don't drive your car unless it's one of those battery powered ones that hasn't caught fire yet.  Get rid of those incandescent light bulbs all over your house.  Clean all the steak and ground beef out of your fridge because cows are too flatulent.  Have you checked all of these off your list?  Good.  Then you are finally doing your part and helping to end global warming.  Oh, we forgot one more thing... we're going to need to confiscate your air conditioning.

Sen. Russ Feingold Laid Groundwork for Controversial Obama EPA Water Rule.  An Environmental Protection Agency water regulation change heavily backed by President Barack Obama was proposed as legislation in 2009 by then-Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold (D).  After the proposal died in Congress and Feingold received the boot from voters in 2010, the Obama Administration EPA moved ahead with implementing the change anyway using the regulatory power of the federal government.  The change, now known as the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule, dramatically expands the reach of federal environmental regulators when it comes to waterways and activities that occur on or near those waterways.  Since this spring, the fight over the WOTUS rule has played out in dramatic fashion in Washington as Congressional Republicans joined by Democrats from Republican-leaning states have challenged its implementation.

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

What did the EPA need with $1.4M worth of guns?.  This comes on the heels of previous revelations, such as the discovery that the EPA had run up a $92M tab for designer furniture recently.  But this one is even more curious.  Rather than blowing moderately big dollars on designer roll away desks, the EPA has apparently been dumping more than a million dollars into equipping a small army.

EPA Vows To Lead The Global Fight Against Air Conditioners.  EPA Chief Gina McCarthy wants the world to stop using hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) in air conditioners and other consumers products as part of President Barack Obama's plan to fight global warming.  McCarthy is so determined to make this happen, she's taking the lead role at an ongoing United Nations summit to expand the current global treaty covering ozone-depleting substances.  The EPA chief hopes that her agency's recent HFC regulations will convince other countries to join the U.S. in limiting the chemicals.

Report: EPA Error Responsible for Animas River Environmental Disaster.  A report detailing the cause of the Animas River environmental disaster, which resulted in the release of millions of gallons of heavy-metal containing wastewater into a scenic Colorado river, blames the EPA for the incident[,] contrary to an internal review conducted by the agency itself.

Obama, EPA face legal challenges from 24 states over new plan to fight climate change.  Nearly half of the United States and a coal mining conglomerate filed lawsuits Friday [10/23/2015] against the federal government — to challenge a new rule by the Environmental Protection Agency that's at the center of President Barack Obama's plan to fight climate change.

EPA's litigation merry-go-round.  Property owners can rest easier these days knowing that filling a prairie pothole with sand miles away from any navigable water will probably not violate federal law under the Clean Water Act at least not for now.  Recently, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a preliminary stay delaying the implementation of new regulations that dramatically expand the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) authority to regulate private property under the Clean Water Act.  The stay remains in effect while the court determines whether it has jurisdiction to hear multiple states' challenges to the new regulations.

3 days plus 3 EPA regs equals $6 billion in new costs.  The dollar figures coming from the Environmental Protection Agency this week are staggering.
  •   Three new regulations announced in three days are estimated to cost almost $6 billion annually to implement.
  •   Settlements with private companies to clean up polluted sites totaling $73 million.
  •   Almost $850,000 in fines to polluters.

EPA's plan on clean power oversteps federal authority.  In a full-speed-ahead quest to lower carbon dioxide emissions from the nation's power plants, the administration is implementing new Environmental Protection Agency rules that raise troubling legal issues.  For starters, the EPA, which has never previously demonstrated expertise in regulating America's vast power grid, will begin to shut down coal plants under a vague authority derived from the Clean Air Act.  Essentially, coal, the most affordable and abundant fuel used to generate electricity in the U.S. — and which generates about 40 percent of the nation's power supply — will be phased out in favor of higher priced and less reliable wind and solar.

GOP: Has EPA fired anyone for toxic spill?  The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee's subcommittee on water and the environment illustrated Wednesday [10/21/2015] that the GOP is not giving up in its pursuit of EPA as a culpable party in the spill.  Lawmakers want the agency to hold someone accountable for the Aug. 5 spill that polluted the waterways of three states, even as Democrats and Republicans appear to be working together on legislation to make sure another spill doesn't occur.

EPA's Gold King Whitewash, Part III.  Before the blowout, the Gold King Mine was leaking some acidic and metals-laden, but mostly clear, water:  206 gallons per minute in 2010, 140 gpm in 2011; 13 gpm in August 2014; and 112 gpm in September 2014, just before EPA first began working at the mine portal.  (Those figures translate to between 19,000 to 297,000 gallons per day.)  On August 5, 2015, it flash-flooded more than 3,000,000 gallons of turmeric-orange, toxic-sludge-laden pollution.  The mine is now leaking 500-900 gallons per minute:  720,000 to 1,300,000 gallons per day — a massive increase in pollution into these important waterways.  Most of it is now supposedly being treated before going into Cement Creek, the Animas River, and further downstream.

What Does The EPA Buy With The Millions Of Dollars They Spend On Weaponry?  The EPA isn't content to trash river systems and destroy the American economy in an effort to prevent the emission of carbon dioxide, which is plant food and a net positive to ecology as its concentrations in the atmosphere increase.  No, the EPA must have a military wing complete with military equipment.

Armed EPA Agents? The Truth Is Way Out There.  According to a report released last week by a watchdog group called Open the Books, the EPA has spent millions of dollars recently on guns, ammo, body armor, camouflage equipment, and even night-vision goggles to arm its agents in the war on polluters.  The Illinois-based investigative group examined thousands of checks totaling more than $93 billion from 2000 to 2014 by the EPA, and its auditors indicate that about $75 million is authorized each year for "criminal enforcement" of America's clean air and water laws.  This includes cash for a cadre of 200 "special agents" that engage in SWAT-style ops.

Wow! Just What We Need! Fully Armed EPA Agents!  The Washington Times and The American Spectator have picked up an article by Open the Books, a watchdog group, that has found evidence the EPA has spent millions of dollars on guns, ammo, body armor, camouflage equipment, and even night-vision goggles to arm its agents in the war on polluters.  Why do they need this and where are we going with this?  I'll tell you where.  CBS News has an article every day on the alleged impending climate change catastrophe.  Today, for example, they reported that Miami and New Orleans could be washed away by rising seas at the end of this century.  This is according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  They can't predict the weather two hours from now, but they can predict what will happen in 85 years.

Another EPA Scourge Presents Chance for GOP to Stand for Something.  With the release of another regulation targeting ground level ozone, President Obama and his cohorts at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are once again poking a stick in the eyes of Americans.  The new ozone regulation and EPA's recent release of its Clean Power Plan rule show Obama's zealous commitment to his radical agenda at the expense of the welfare of Americans.  An even bigger tragedy than the predicable slew of left-wing environmental dictates is the unwillingness of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to block them.

Sixth Circuit blocks EPA water rule nationwide.  Several weeks ago, a federal court issued an injunction against EPA enforcement of a new rule based on the Clean Water Act, arguing that the Obama administration had exceeded its Congressional authority. The ruling only applied in the thirteen states party to the lawsuit, however, but the administration still argued that the North Dakota court did not have the jurisdiction to rule on the issue, and that only an appellate court could hear the case.  Regardless, the EPA announced shortly afterward that it would continue to enforce the new rule in all other states.

EPA spends millions on military-style weapons, watchdog group reports.  The Environmental Protection Agency has spent millions of dollars over the last decade on military-style weapons to arm its 200 "special agents" to fight environmental crime.  Among the weapons purchased are guns, body armor, camouflage equipment, unmanned aircraft, amphibious assault ships, radar and night-vision gear and other military-style weaponry and surveillance activities, according to a new report by the watchdog group Open the Books.

Congress must hold EPA responsible for its own environmental disaster.  An EPA contractor breached a wall at a long-shuttered mine and roughly three million gallons of fluid laden with arsenic, lead, mercury, and other heavy metals flowed freely into the Animas River.  Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, New Mexico Governor Susanna Martinez, and local leaders have rightly called for accountability and transparency.  The EPA's response to its own environmental disaster has been anything but honest, transparent or thorough.  The EPA released documents — only after weeks of pressure and in an effort to bury the news at the end of the week — revealing how officials knew of the potential for a spill more than a year before the debacle near Durango.

New Climate Regulations Will Save Lots of Imaginary People.  The Environmental Protection Agency, an aggressive arm of the nanny government, has just issued new air quality standards that mandate that the new "safe" level of ozone in the air we breathe shall be lowered from the current 75 parts per billion to 70 ppb.  I feel better already, perhaps.  I also feel better for all the theoretical lives that will be saved, according to EPA sponsored studies [...] However, my joy is tempered by the realization that those are not real lives saved — rather, they are "estimated deaths saved," as in "We applied health impact assessment methodology to estimate numbers of deaths and other adverse health outcomes that would have been avoided during 2005, 2006, and 2007 if the current (or lower) NAAQS ozone standards had been met.  Estimated reductions in ozone concentrations were interpolated according to geographic area and year, and concentration — response functions were obtained or derived from the epidemiological literature."

Another setback for Obama: Court halts EPA's controversial water rule.  A federal appeals court on Friday [10/9/2015] dealt the Obama administration's environmental agenda a major blow, halting a highly controversial water rule and saying more time is needed to determine whether the regulations are legal.  Critics had said the rule would give the Environmental Protection Agency control over irrigation ditches, canals and small streams, giving the federal government a say in permitting and land-use decisions over millions of acres of land surrounding those waters.

No More Affordable Diesels — Courtesy of the EPA.  VW was the only major automaker selling affordable diesel powered passenger vehicles in the United States.  You could, for instance, buy a diesel-powered Jetta sedan, Golf or Beetle for about $22k.  Not anymore.  At least, not for a while.

The EPA Just Triggered Another Waste Spill In Colorado.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proving itself to be the Environmental Destroying Agency.  Not long ago, the EPA destroyed a river through no one's fault but their own.  And now, this just happened: [...]

Volkswagen and the EPA's Dirty Little Secret.  For years, automakers have been able to exploit lax testing systems in the U.S. and Europe.  Regulators owe it to both car buyers and the environment to make these systems more rigorous.  As things work now in the U.S., carmakers test their own vehicles and send the results to the Environmental Protection Agency, whose engineers review them and, usually, apply a rubber stamp.  The EPA allows manufacturers broad latitude in determining test conditions, an invitation to hanky-panky.  The agency does some independent, random testing — but on just 10 percent to 15 percent of new models.  Only in rare cases does it test cars that have actually been driven off the lot.

EPA Ignores Science to Propose Most Expensive Regulation in History.  Next month, the Obama administration may roll out the most expensive regulation in history, ignoring scientific data that cutting ozone rates will not improve public health.  In the name of fighting asthma, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requested permission to decrease the ozone standard — the amount of ozone allowed in the atmosphere — to a level some scientists say is physically impossible to achieve.  One organization estimates the cost to implement these new rules will be $1.1 trillion.  Even worse, data shows that as ozone levels in the U.S. have decreased, asthma cases have increased.  This regulation may be the most expensive in history, and bring absolutely no health benefits.

Obama's new regs on 'everything from prairie puddles to power plants'.  [Scroll down]  Two years ago, the Johnsons wanted to build a small pond in their front yard.  They got their plan approved by the state, and used the pond to provide water for their animals.  They thought it was a beautiful addition to the dry landscape.  The pond attracts birds and other animals that make our state a special place to live.  Everything was fine until the Johnsons got a visit from the United States Environmental Protection Agency.  Even though the state of Wyoming had approved the pond, the federal government had not.  The Johnsons now face fines of more than $37,000 every day, until they remove the pond.

No More Denali Commissions.  The answer is climate change — at least if the question is "why should we keep a costly and ineffective government agency."  The Obama Administration's recent repurposing of a heretofore moribund government agency as a tool to soften the impact of climate change — a move heralded in a recent Washington Post article — is more than just a political master stroke:  It represents the logical progression of strategy for climate change warriors who won't let congressional inaction stop them in their quest to save the earth.  The Denali Commission's corrupt inception, ineffective existence, spastic death throes and eventual salvation at the hands of the president is more than just a metaphor for government run amuck:  It also happens to perfectly encapsulate what the fight over global warming has morphed into — an all-encompassing excuse for the expansion of government.

Critics: Obama Admin. Tries To Hide Land Grab From Western States.  The Obama administration has opted not to list the greater sage grouse under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), instead using land use plans which basically amount to an underhanded land grab, according to critics.  "The 15 amended federal land use plans the Interior Department is using to substitute for listing the greater sage grouse under the Endangered Species Act perpetuate a top-down, penalty-based approach that ultimately harms sage grouse conservation efforts," Brian Seasholes, director of the libertarian Reason Foundation's endangered species project, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

EPA's fondness for high-end furniture costs taxpayers $92 million.  The federal agency that has the job of protecting the environment doesn't seem to have too much concern for trees, at least the ones cut down to make furniture.  The Environmental Protection Agency over the past decade has spent a whopping $92.4 million to purchase, rent, install and store office furniture ranging from fancy hickory chairs and a hexagonal wooden table, worth thousands of dollars each, to a simple drawer to store pencils that cost $813.57.

EPA's Gold King Whitewash: Part I.  Tom Sawyer would be proud. Rarely has there been a finer whitewash than EPA's with the Gold King Mine disaster.  Let's hope that the whitewash eventually erodes, so that we can get to the truth about Gold King, learn from the disaster, and make better decisions about how to clean up thousands of abandoned mines — while still harvesting the vital raw materials that make modern life possible.

EPA's Toxic Mine Spill Could Cost Taxpayers $28 Billion To Clean Up.  Not only will the EPA wastewater spill in Colorado cause environmental damages for decades to come, but it could also end up costing taxpayers tens of billions of dollars, according to a new report.  The right-leaning American Action Forum estimates the total cost for responding to the Gold King Mine Spill could range from $338 million to $27.7 billion based on the federal government's own cost-benefit analyses for cleaning up toxic waste and oil spills.

EPA Targets Fracking With New Global Warming Rules.  The Obama administration has released new regulations on methane emissions from oil and gas drilling as part of the president's effort to show the U.S. is serious about tackling global warming ahead of the United Nations climate summit this year.  The EPA has proposed rules for oil and gas wells that will cut 340,000 to 400,000 short tons of methane emissions in 2025.  The agency is also proposing methane rules for hydraulically fractured, or fracked, wells along with gas "transmission" equipment in the downstream sector of the energy industry.

Unreasonably tightening the ambient ozone standard — yet again.  This could turn out to be EPA's most costly program; it would put most of the nation "out of compliance" and is only vaguely connected to the [Clean Power Plan].  As the WSJ explains, this fall EPA plans to take its next grand regulatory step, following the announcement of the Clean Power Plan over the summer.  EPA is likely to introduce stringent new standards for ground-level ozone, arguing that a lower allowable level of ozone, an important component of smog, will reduce asthma in the US, among other claimed health benefits.  Yet the EPA ignores decades of data and studies, some under the agency's own auspices, which reveal no detectable causal relation between past reductions in ozone and better public health, including reductions in asthma cases.  EPA's claimed health benefits are specious and not subject to independent check.  My colleague Charles Battig, MD, asks:  "Which city has the worst-looking 'dirty' air?  Shanghai, China.  What city boasts an average life-span of 82.5 years, greater than any major U.S. city?  Shanghai."

An Arrogant, Ragingly Partisan EPA.  The EPA claims that both science and economics support its global campaign to force U.S. states into halting carbon dioxide emissions.  EPA's Administrator Gina McCarthy says the EPA's Clean Power Plan authority calls for an end to debate on climate change and emissions control:  "people overwhelmingly consider climate change to be a problem — and they want action, not more debate or discussion."  Unfortunately, McCarthy's policies are at odds with economics, law, and science. [...] The EPA's unshakable confidence in its cause and the legality of its regulations collides with law in some courts and the EPA is losing.  For example, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled "that the EPA unreasonably interpreted the Clean Air Act when it decided to set limits on the emissions of toxic pollutants from power plants without first considering the costs on the industry to do so."

EPA Chief Plans Japan Trip As Congress Demands She Answer For The Toxic Mine Spill.  EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy announced she'll be traveling to Japan later this month to talk about global warming just as Congress is demanding she testify about the agency-caused toxic waste spill in Colorado that happened earlier this month.  "After spilling millions of gallons of toxic chemicals into the Animas River, the EPA has an obligation to be forthcoming about what went wrong and potential long-term impacts on local communities," Texas Republican Rep. Lamar Smith said in a release, demanding McCarthy appear before the House science committee to answer lawmakers' questions about the spill.

Inhofe: EPA's Trying To Regulate Sewers.  A top Senate Republican is worried the EPA's new Clean Water Rule gives the agency the power to regulate sewers and stormwater systems — giving EPA a much more expansive reach than the agency had previously claimed.  Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe sent a letter to Jo-Ellen Darcy, the assistant secretary of the Army for Civil Works, and Ken Kopocis, who heads up the EPA's Office of Water, asking them to clarify how the Clean Water Rule would impact city sewage systems.

The EPA's Next Big Economic Chokehold.  This fall the Environmental Protection Agency plans to take its next grand regulatory step, following the announcement of the EPA's Clean Power Plan over the summer.  The agency is likely to introduce stringent new standards for ground-level ozone, arguing that a lower allowable level of ozone — an important component of smog — will reduce asthma in the U.S., among other claimed health benefits.  Yet the EPA ignores decades of data and studies, some under the agency's auspices, that reveal no detectable causal relation between past reductions in ozone and better public health, including reductions in asthma cases.

EPA's Gina McCarthy won't appear at House hearing on agency's toxic spill.  A House committee will hold next week the first congressional hearing on the Environmental Protection Agency's Animas River spill, but administrator Gina McCarthy won't be there.  The House Science, Space and Technology Committee said in a statement it will seek answers at the 10 a.m. Wednesday [9/2/2015] hearing on "how this disaster occurred and why the warning signs that should have prevented it were dismissed."  Chairman Lamar Smith had called on Ms. McCarthy to testify, but her name was not on the list released Thursday of those slated to appear before the committee.  Instead, Mathy Stanislaus, assistant administrator of the EPA's Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, will represent the agency.  EPA spokeswoman Melissa Harrison said in an email Thursday that Mr. Stanislaus is "uniquely qualified to represent the EPA" at the hearing.

Court orders EPA to redo air-pollution limits in 13 states.  A federal appeals court on Tuesday ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to relax some limits it set on smokestack emissions that cross state lines and taint downwind areas with air pollution from power plants.

Navajo Nation preps lawsuit against EPA over mine spill.  The Navajo Nation is preparing for a legal battle against President Obama's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  The tribe contends that the EPA's Aug. 5 accident in Colorado, which made national headlines after turning portions of the Animas River bright yellow, also leaked hazardous substances into the San Juan River — one of the Navajo Nation's primary water sources.  Now, they've hired law firm Hueston Hennigan LLP to represent them in what some are predicting could be a multibillion-dollar lawsuit expected to be filed in the coming weeks, as lawmakers on Capitol Hill prepare for a round of hearings examining the issue.

Obama's 'extreme climate-change agenda' blasted.  Rep. Lamar Smith, chairman of the Science, Space and Technology Committee, threw cold water Wednesday [9/2/2015] on President Obama's Alaska climate-change tour, saying the president's proposed regulatory fixes have put him on "thin ice."  "The president is on thin ice to claim his costly plan will address climate change or benefit Americans," said the Texas Republican in a statement. [...] "The president and his EPA have become traveling salesmen, touring the world to push their extreme climate change agenda," Mr. Smith said.  "But the science doesn't support the president's exaggerated claims linking climate change to severe weather events."

In Trashing Land, The EPA Has Nothing On The Forest Service.  Americans now comprehend fully the disdain the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has for truth-telling, the rights of others, and the environment.  Forget the last six spiteful years; the Colorado mine disaster suffices.  The EPA's wanton malfeasance — experts warned of a catastrophic blowout — unleashed three million gallons of orange arsenic-, cadmium-, and lead-laden wastewater into an Animas River tributary trashing public, private, and tribal lands and waters in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and the Navajo Nation.  Even so, the EPA has nothing on the U.S. Forest Service.

EPA carries on Obama's contempt for rule of law.  Last Thursday [8/27/2015], property owners across America sighed in relief when a federal judge in North Dakota enjoined the Environmental Protection Agency from putting its new Waters of the U.S. rule into effect.  Federal District Judge Ralph Erickson wrote that a delay to the rule, which redefines the Clean Water Act to dramatically expand EPA jurisdiction, "is in the best interests of the public" because it gives the courts an opportunity to decide the issue on the merits.

Rain on EPA's Parade.  No, the "waters of the United States" subject to Clean Water Act (CWA) regulation do not include things like dry land over which water occasionally flows.  That's the conclusion of a federal judge who just put on hold the Environmental Protection Agency's latest power grab. [...] Judge Erickson's decision will not, of course, be the final word on this matter.  In other cases, EPA has argued (with some success) that district courts lack the power to decide this kind of dispute.  But Judge Erickson's decision is notable as an early preview of the way that courts are likely to look at the issues at play in challenges to the rule.

EPA Has Gone Too Far — Rein It In, Or Get Rid Of It.  Judge Ralph Erickson minced no words in condemning the EPA's attempt to control much of America's privately held land by regulating the water on it, calling the EPA regulation "inexplicable, arbitrary and devoid of a reasoning process."  Erickson issued an injunction in the 13 states that sued.  But the EPA, never one to give up a power grab, says it will impose its rule on the rest of us anyway.  Under the Clean Water Act, the EPA has regulatory power over "navigable" waters and any tributary to those waters.  The EPA has stretched that definition to the breaking point, essentially saying if a piece of land is wet, it's the EPA's to regulate as it sees fit.

States fight to stop deadline clock on EPA's mammoth Clean Power Plan.  The U.S. Court of Appeals is likely to decide soon on a bid by 15 states to slow down the timetable of the Environmental Protection Agency's sweeping plan to dramatically transform the U.S. electrical power system, which the states claim is intended to squeeze them into starting to commit themselves to vast changes before the rule that embodies the plan can be challenged in court — or has even been published.  A panel of the Appeal Court's DC Circuit has ordered both sides to submit legal arguments before the Labor Day weekend on the lawsuit to stop EPA's ticking deadline clock on what the states call "the most far-reaching energy regulation in this nation's history," and which many of them argue could destabilize huge portions of the U.S. electrical power grid.

EPA: The Cure's Usually Worse Than the 'Disease'.  Today, with more than 15,000 fulltime employees-strong and led by environmental extremists, Obama's Environmental Protection Agency is an agency gone-wild.  A report just out by the Institute for Energy Research [IER] concludes the EPA's finalized "Clean Power Plan" is filled with about as much junk as the EPA and contractors just pumped into Colorado's Animas River.  The Clean Power Plan effectually triggers the skyrocketing electricity prices Mr. Obama duly promised years back.  Nevertheless, the EPA says the plan will save thousands of lives, improving the climate and our health.  That is, barring additional EPA-caused environmental disasters.  I presume then, we should trust the EPA, naively ignoring the effect high energy prices would have on low income families.

Wyoming farmer sues after facing $16 million in fines for building stock pond.  Farmer Andy Johnson hasn't sent millions of gallons of gold-mine wastewater down any rivers, but he's facing more than $16 million in fines from the Environmental Protection Agency for running afoul the Clean Water Act.  His violation?  In 2012, Mr. Johnson built a stock pond for his horses and cattle on his 8-acre property in Fort Bridger, Wyoming.

EPA says clean water rule in effect despite court ruling.  The Environmental Protection Agency says it is going forward with a new federal rule to protect small streams, tributaries and wetlands, despite a court ruling that blocked the measure in 13 central and Western states.

EPA Politburo Takes Control of Ditches in 37 States.  U.S. District Court of North Dakota Chief Judge Ralph Erickson put a temporary hold on the EPA's new water regulations on Thursday [8/27/2015], but the EPA, an unelected and unelectable body of bureaucrats, has decided to defy the judge and move ahead on states that did not sue.  Except for the 13 states that filed the North Dakota lawsuit, The Clean Water Rule aka Waters of the U.S. rule is in effect as of August 28.  The EPA has assumed jurisdiction over ditches — ditches that flow from streams — tributaries, streams, and other small waterways.  Every farmer, rancher, land developer and land owner is now subject to federal enrichment actions under the Clean Water Act if they have small waterways on their property.  More taxes, more regulations, more bureaucracy heaped on farmers, ranchers and land developers by an enormous, incompetent government agency.  The EPA says it does not interfere with or change private property rights but that's all they do.

EPA says clean water rule in effect despite court ruling.  The Environmental Protection Agency says it is going forward with a new federal rule to protect small streams, tributaries and wetlands, despite a court ruling that blocked the measure in 13 central and Western states.

EPA, Obama administration going full speed ahead on environmental regulations.  With just 17 months left in his final term, President Obama seems more determined than ever to have the Environmental Protection Agency put in place a slew of the country's most ambitious environmental standards.  But critics from the business community say the new rules will come at a hefty cost for consumers and argue some of the regulations aren't even necessary.

Missed warning signs: Why the EPA's toxic waste spill could happen again.  U.S. officials responsible for the Aug. 5 spill of toxic mine waste in southwestern Colorado had no plan in place for dealing with a catastrophic breach of the kind that fouled a long stretch of the state's Animas River, an internal inquiry has concluded.  No one, from the local contractor to federal overseers in Washington, saw warning signs of a dangerous build-up in water pressure inside the Gold King Mine, which discharged 3 million gallons of liquid waste when an earthen wall collapsed as cleanup work was underway, investigators said in the report released Wednesday [8/26/2015].

Wyoming man files suit over massive EPA fines for building pond.  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.

EPA [was] aware of 'blowout' risk at mine that could release tainted wastewater.  Managers at the Environmental Protection Agency were aware of the possible risk for a catastrophic "blowout" at an abandoned mine that could release "large volumes" of wastewater laced with toxic metals, according to internal documents released late Friday [8/21/2015].  EPA released the documents following weeks of prodding from news organizations like The Associated Press.  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.

The details behind that EPA gold mine spill just get worse and worse.  The "unfortunate accident" that the EPA had near Silverton, Colorado recently has raised all sorts of questions, not the least of which is why it took the agency 24 hours to tell anyone about it.  (The folks who draw water off the river are particularly interested in that one.) But hey... accidents happen, right?  I mean, it's not like anyone could have seen it coming.  Except that the EPA actually did see it coming.  During a late Friday night document dump the Environmental Protection Agency lifted the mask just a bit and revealed that they knew what they were getting into.

EPA's Price Tag for Carbon Regulations: 34,000 Jobs.  EPA's Clean Power Plan isn't so much a "War on Coal," as it is a war on coal workers. [...] Because of previous EPA regulation states in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic have already witnessed thousands of coal-realted jobs cut.  "Combine coal extraction losses with coal generation declines nationwide and the coal industry has lost more than 47,500 jobs already, with the promise of more to come by 2030," [Sam] Batkins writes.  In Kentucky 37% of coal mining jobs have vanished since 2008.

Gold King Mine fiasco overview:
EPA's gross negligence at Gold King Mine includes disappearing 191 incident photos from their website.  On August 5, an Environmental Restoration company crew, supervised by US Environmental Protection Agency officials, used an excavator to dig away tons of rock and debris that were blocking the entrance portal of Colorado's Gold King Mine, which had been largely abandoned since 1923.  Water had been seeping into the mine and out of its portal for decades, and the officials knew (or could and should have known) the water was acidic (pH 4.0-4.5), backed up far into the mine, and laced with heavy metals.  But they kept digging — until the greatly weakened dam burst open, unleashing a 3-million-gallon (or more) toxic flood that soon contaminated the Animas and San Juan Rivers, all the way to Lake Powell in Utah.  To compound the disaster, EPA then waited an entire day before notifying downstream mayors, health officials, families, farmers, ranchers, fishermen and kayakers that the water they were drinking, using for crops and livestock, or paddling in was contaminated by lead, cadmium, mercury and arsenic.

Out-Of-Control Big Government Is Destroying Us.  The Environmental Protection Agency spilled 3 million gallons of toxic sludge into a tributary of the Animas River in Colorado.  The stinky yellow flume of old mine waste — rife with cancer-causing mercury and arsenic — threatens to pollute the drinking and recreational water of three states.  Had a private oil company acted so incompetently and negligently, it would have been fined billions of dollars by the same EPA.  The company's top executives might have been subject to criminal prosecutions.  The business' reputation would have been tarnished for years.  Just ask BP officials what the Obama administration did to the corporation after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico.  But who'll police the green police at the EPA?

Blame game: Colorado mine owners point fingers after EPA spill.  Rival gold mining magnates pointed fingers at each other Thursday [8/20/2015] in the wake of the catastrophic spill that is fouling waterways in the southwest.  The owner of the Gold King Mine, which the Environmental Protection Agency identified as the source of last week's spill, told the Denver Post that backed up waste water from nearby Sunnyside Mine was the real cause.  "It is our belief that, when Sunnyside [Gold Corp.] put bulkheads inside the Sunnyside Mine, they redistributed the flow of wastewater out of other mine portals," Todd Hennis told the newspaper, claiming that the two mines are among four in the area which are all connected by underground tunnels.  "It is a bad flow, very high in the nasty minerals, very acidic."

Obama's Toxic Environmental Pollution Agency Unleashes a $30 Billion Disaster.  Here in my adopted home state of Colorado, orange is the new Animas River thanks to the blithering idiots working under President Obama's Environmental Protection Agency.  It's just the latest man-caused disaster from an out-of-control bureaucracy whose primary mission is not the Earth's preservation, but self-preservation.

Mine's owner says he tried to keep out EPA but was threatened with fines.  The owner of the Colorado's Gold King Mine says he tried to stop the Environmental Protection Agency from gaining access to his property, but that he relented after the agency threatened to pound him with ruinous fines if he refused.  Mine owner Todd Hennis said that he had little choice four years ago but to allow in an EPA-led crew, which triggered the Aug. 5 blowout that sent 3 million gallons of toxic orange wastewater down the Animas River.

EPA Incompetence Could Cost Taxpayers Nearly $30 Bil.  The spill happened in early August, when an EPA contractor breached a wall holding back wastewater from a long-ago abandoned mine on a creek that feeds into the Animas.  The EPA initially claimed that 1 million gallons had been released, that water systems weren't affected, and that the spill would soon be a thing of the past.  But it later had to triple its estimate, and now it appears as though cleaning up the waterways affected by the EPA's incompetence — which include rivers in three states and several water systems — could cost taxpayers close to $30 billion.

The Gold King Mine Fiasco: What It Tells Us About the EPA.  We have written [...] about the EPA-caused spill of three million gallons of toxic liquid into the Animas River in Colorado.  Private companies that have caused environmental disasters of that magnitude (or much less) have been criminally prosecuted; in some cases, individuals have been jailed.  Will the EPA face similar accountability?  Just kidding.  At Watts Up With That?, Paul Driessen has an excellent update on the Gold King mine disaster.  This is what happened: [...]

New ozone rules would undermine economic and environmental progress.  The Environmental Protection Agency is about to impose new rules for ground-level ozone that would have little benefit to air quality, but a very significant and negative effect on economic growth and the creation of jobs we need.  Beginning Oct. 1, the EPA plans to require states and localities to have air with no more than 65-70 parts per billion of the tiny components that make ground-level ozone when they react to sunlight, heat and other conditions.  The current standard, set in 2008, is 75 ppb.  The EPA's stated goal, protecting people from adverse health effects of ozone, is laudable.  Whether the new standard would advance that goal is another matter.

EPA Chief Faces "Criminal Liability" for "False, Misleading Statements".  The EPA's toxic mega-spill of millions of gallons of heavy metal-laden wastewater into Colorado's Animas River is not EPA Chief Gina McCarthy's (shown) only problem; a congressional committee has sent her a letter posing the possibility of charging her with "criminal liability" for making "false and misleading" statements during her testimony at a committee hearing on July 9.  A key issue of the hearing, which was entitled "Examining EPA's Regulatory Overreach," was the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's use of "secret science" to further its ever-expansive, intrusive, oppressive, and enormously expensive regulatory agenda.  EPA critics have been charging for some time that the agency has been basing many of its most outrageous claims and grabs for power upon supposed "scientific studies" and data that are not available for public examination, or even for members of Congress to evaluate.

Industry braces for EPA regulatory 'tidal wave'.  The methane restrictions for oil and gas companies proposed by the Obama administration Tuesday [8/18/2015] are just the beginning of a regulatory "tidal wave" that the industry is bracing for this fall.  The new rules for oil and gas wells proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency would limit methane from fracking sites, creating new costs that the industry says are "unnecessary."  The industry says it has reduced methane voluntarily, so why bother with regulations that would only be duplicative.  The EPA estimates the cost of the proposed rule to be $170 to $180 million in 2020 and $280 to $330 million in 2025.

EPA Chief Gina McCarthy's Record Shows She's Unfit For Command.  EPA clean-up crews breached a waste storage dam that produced a torrent of heavy metal-laden toxic waste, potentially fouling an entire western river system and impacting the drinking water of tens of millions of people.  While McCarthy didn't personally bulldoze the dam, it's no surprise to those who have followed her Peter Principle-driven career that this would occur on her watch.

Giving pollution a pass to advance the climate change agenda.  Where were the global warming alarmists when people were falling victim to major pollution, the most recent one being the EPA polluted with mine waste Animas River near Durango in Colorado, that turned an entire river into a toxic orange?  On the sidelines, asleep at the switch and promoting man-made global warming/climate change.

EPA's toxic adventure.  Imagine an agency charged with protecting the environment, aptly named the Environmental Protection Agency.  Because, you see, we need to protect the environment, and we need a government cudgel with which to do it.  We need a gigantic, unaccountable, malevolent, incompetent and lawless agency with which to "save" the beauty of the world around us.  Instead, it's responsible for one of the worst environmental disasters in recent memory. [...] It's a perfect example of what we've allowed to occur with a government so big it's impossible to function properly and when it does get out of its lounge chair it makes things worse.

Prez up river without paddle on poison spill.  Is there anything unluckier than a razorback sucker?  Tough enough to be an endangered species of freshwater fish, but now Obama's EPA is drowning it in a sea of toxic poison in New Mexico.  Yes, the razorback sucker is on the ropes, along with its finny friend the Colorado pikeminnow.  But because Obama's staggeringly incompetent administration created this disaster themselves, they have little interest in organizing either a cleanup or a posse.

EPA's Toxic Mega-spill May Have Been Deliberate, Critics Suggest.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has made a major mess of the Animas River in Colorado and beyond, and now, some analysts are suggesting it may have even been a deliberate plot to bilk taxpayers and shut down mining in the region.  Critics of the EPA are pointing to a letter by geologist Dave Taylor, published a week before the toxic spill, warning residents to protect themselves from the EPA and predicting a similar disaster in the same area purposely caused by the controversial agency.  Now, almost as if on cue, the EPA is seeking more money and more power to deal with the crisis that it created.  Regardless of whether the environmental disaster was caused "accidentally" through gross negligence or on purpose, which at this point is impossible to know, critics and even some lawmakers say it is time to hold the EPA accountable — not hand it a bigger budget.

What will it take to get Superfund status in Silverton?  Three million gallons of sludge rushed out of Gold King Mine last week, flooding the Animas River with higher levels of metals than usual, causing economic and environmental damage in three states.  Yet in the wake of the disaster, many Silvertonians are redoubling their resistance to a Superfund listing the Environmental Protection Agency has long argued is necessary to deal with the town's network of draining mines.  Resident John Ferguson harbors a deep mistrust of the EPA — the government department that is responsible for accidentally triggering the massive spill — and questions the agency's ability to fix leaky mines without causing greater harm.

Mine owner: EPA record of toxic dumping dates back to 2005.  The EPA has a record of releasing toxic runoff from mines in two tiny Colorado towns that dates to 2005, a local mine owner claims.  The 3-million-gallon heavy-metal spill two weeks ago in Silverton polluted three states and touched off national outrage.  But the EPA escaped public wrath in 2005 when it secretly dumped up to 15,000 tons of poisonous waste into another mine 124 miles away.  That dump — containing arsenic, lead and other materials — materialized in runoff in the town of Leadville, said Todd Hennis, who owns both mines along with numerous others.

Geologist Who Predicted EPA Spill: 'They Just Didn't Think'.  In a July 30 letter to the editor of the Silverton Standard, [Dave] Taylor predicted that the EPA project to plug the Red and Bonita mine would fail "within 7 to 120 days," and the 500 gallons per minute flow of toxic waste from those mines which the project stopped temporarily would resume again.  Six days later, on August 5, the EPA project caused 3 million gallons of toxic waste to flow into the Animas River.

EPA's Clean Power Plan Contains Antipoverty Transfer Programs.  The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Clean Power Plan, which aims to reduce carbon pollution, contains an antipoverty transfer program to help offset the harm it does to the poor, a Wall Street Journal editorial explained. [...] "At the federal level, the EPA is creating a program that gives twice as large a subsidy for renewable and efficiency projects that are built in inner-city neighborhoods and disadvantaged rural areas," states the article.  "There will be job retraining for laid-off coal miners."

EPA's Gross Negligence at Gold King.  Anyone who follows mining, oil spill and power plant accidents knows the EPA, Obama White House and Big Green environmentalist rhetoric:  There is no safe threshold for chemicals.  They are toxic and carcinogenic at parts per billion.  The water will be unsafe for years or even decades.  Wildlife will die.  Corporate polluters are criminals and must pay major fines.  We will keep our boots on their necks.  This time the White House was silent, and Democrats and eco-activists rushed to defend EPA and shift the blame to mining and mining companies.  EPA officials made statements they would never use if a private company had caused the blowout.  EPA had simply "miscalculated" how much water had backed up.  It was just trying to stick a pipe into the top of the mine to safely pump liquid out for treatment.  We were "very careful."  Contaminants "are flowing too fast to be an immediate health threat."  The river is already "restoring itself," EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy insisted.

EPA Is "Upset" About Three Million Gallon Animas River Spill.  I don't doubt that the EPA's bureaucrats are upset, but will they actually bear responsibility for the spill as a private company would?  Yesterday we contrasted the Animas River disaster with the far smaller Elk River, West Virginia discharge that happened last year.  In that case, employees of the responsible company, Freedom Industries, were criminally prosecuted and did jail time.  Does anyone at the EPA, or the EPA's contractor that directly caused the Animas River spill, have to fear any such penalty?  I doubt it.

Months ago, Colo. town resisted allowing EPA tests that caused toxic disaster.  Five months before the Animas River toxic spill disaster, leaders from the tiny Colorado mining town of Silverton pleaded with EPA officials to not perform tests that would declare the area a Superfund site.  Yet the Environmental Protection Agency was intent on ferreting out "widespread soil contamination" from historic mines, even though the town was tested five years ago and no problems were found.

EPA Tries to Swindle Indians Affected by Gold King Mine Debacle.  At least the P.C. liberals who run the EPA are nice to Indians, right?  Wrong. [...] If any private company behaved like this, Beltway bureauweenies would punish it most righteously, and none with more sanctimonious malice than those infesting the EPA.

Colorado governor tries to calm fears by drinking directly from contaminated Animas River.  New Mexico's environment secretary is criticizing Colorado's governor for drinking water from the river contaminated by a mine spill.  Gov. John Hickenlooper put an iodine tablet in a bottle of Animas River water to kill bacteria before taking a gulp Tuesday.  He was trying to prove the river was back to normal after 3 million gallons of mine waste containing heavy metals was unleashed last week.

Democrats, green activists scrambling to provide cover for EPA in Gold King Mine spill.  The environmental left can be counted on to whip up an outcry whenever a private company despoils a gulf, stream or river — unless the polluter in question is the Environmental Protection Agency.  After days with little or no reaction to the Gold King Mine spill, some Democrats and green activists are scrambling to provide cover for the EPA by pointing fingers elsewhere and downplaying the magnitude of the blowout, which flooded the Animas River with 3 million gallons of toxic orange wastewater.

EPA Contractor Behind CO Mine Spill Got $381 Million From Taxpayers.  The EPA may have been trying to hide the identity of the contracting company responsible for causing a major wastewater spill in southern Colorado, but the Wall Street Journal has revealed the company's identity.  Environmental Restoration (ER) LLC, a Missouri-based firm, was the "contractor whose work caused a mine spill in Colorado that released an estimated 3 million gallons of toxic sludge into a major river system," the WSJ was told by a source familiar with the matter.  The paper also found government documents to corroborate what their source told them.

EPA Withholding Mine Spill Info From State AGs.  The EPA is not letting the public know the names of the government contractors responsible for spilling three million gallons of toxic wastewater from a southern Colorado mine.  The agency is holding the information close — so close, the Colorado attorney general's office doesn't have it.

Anger mounts at EPA over mining spill.  Anger was mounting Monday [8/10/2015] at the federal Environmental Protection Agency over the massive spill of millions of gallons of toxic sludge from a Colorado gold mine that has already fouled three major waterways and may be three times bigger than originally reported.  An 80-mile length of mustard-colored water, laden with arsenic, lead, copper, aluminum and cadmium, is working its way south toward New Mexico and Utah, following Wednesday's accidental release from the Gold King Mine, near Durango, on Wednesday after an EPA cleanup crew destabilized a dam of loose rock lodged in the mine.  The crew was supposed to pump out and decontaminate the sludge, but instead released into tiny Cement Creek.  From there, it flowed into the Animas River and made its way into larger tributaries, including the San Juan and Colorado rivers.

No One Needs the EPA And Here's Why.  The only living scientist who played a major role in founding the EPA, Dr. Jay Lehr, is now calling for the EPA to go and has devised a plan to make that happen.  Dr. Lehr advises those who fear we would not adequately protect the environment to consider the poor job the EPA is doing and meet some of the staff in state EPA offices.  He said people won't remain "doubters" for long.  The EPA has this past week caused a massive toxic spill in Colorado which has reached New Mexico and is heading for Utah.  The plume of contamination includes arsenic, lead, copper, mercury, aluminum and cadmium.

Damages in Colorado mine spill will take years to tabulate.  The spill of toxic wastewater from an abandoned gold mine high in Colorado's San Juan Mountains caused untold millions in economic disruptions and damages in three states — to rafting companies, Native American farmers unable to irrigate, municipal water systems and possibly water well owners.

EPA Says: Do As We Say, Not As We Do.  The EPA is sorry about the spill.  Administrator Gina McCarthy says the spill is "really a tragic and very unfortunate incident."  She added that the EPA is "taking responsibility" for the incident.  Well, sort of.  But not the kind of responsibility that Freedom Industries took when it accidentally discharged 10,000 gallons of toxic material into West Virginia's Elk River last year.  In that case, the EPA and the FBI came down on Freedom Industries like a hammer.  The company and several of its employees were criminally prosecuted.  The company was forced into bankruptcy, and several of its employees went to jail.

EPA Administrator on Toxic Spill: 'I'm Deeply Sorry That This Ever Happened'.  Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy said Tuesday [8/11/2015] that the EPA is "taking responsibility" following the inadvertent release by an EPA cleanup team of millions of gallons of toxic chemicals from an abandoned gold mine in Colorado that flooded into the Animas and San Juan River valleys.  A reporter pointed out to McCarthy that if this damage had been done by a "private polluter," a public apology would have already been issued by the CEO or other leadership speaking for the offender.

EPA Treats [its] Own Environmental Catastrophe As Ho-Hum.  On Sunday night [8/9/2015], EPA regional director Shaun McGrath told a town hall meeting in Colorado that the EPA would "hold ourselves to the same standards that we would anyone that would have created this situation."  Right.  This is an agency that will aggressively fine businesses, municipalities and anyone or anything else for even the slightest violation of its ridiculously strict standards, but that will face zero fines for its own environmental catastrophe.  It's an agency that claims that even the tiniest levels of pollutants are extremely hazardous, yet has been busy downplaying the damage after its own incompetence caused the release of millions of gallons of toxic waste.  A few hours after the spill, an official EPA statement described it as nothing more than a "pulse" that had "dissipated in about an hour."

EPA causes major environmental disaster: will it fine itself and fire those involved?  The Environmental Protection Agency often justifies its own existence by noting that corporations, who see profit as their goal rather than environmental protection, are ill-equipped (or at least, ill-prioritized) to care for America's natural resources.  It turns out that, perhaps, the EPA might also be ill-equipped to handle toxic waste when it comes to preventing large-scale pollution of our nation's waterways.  In fact, they may have caused, on its own, one of our nation's greatest environmental disasters.  EPA crews trying to collect and contain waste water in the Gold King mine in Durango, Colorado, loosed 1.1 million gallons of "acidic, yellowish" discharge, causing the pollution — which includes levels of arsenic, lead, cadmium, aluminum and copper — to flow into the Animas River (an early tributary of the Colorado) at a rate of 1200 gallons per minute.

Dem criticism forces EPA chief to visit gold mine spill.  Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy is jetting off to the site of a major gold mine spill in the western U.S., after a group of Democratic congressmen criticized the agency for not doing enough in the wake of the disaster.  Earlier Tuesday [8/11/2014], McCarthy had taken the blame for the spill that is quickly escalating into a major multi-state incident.  An EPA contractor had caused the spill of contaminated water that has now spread from Colorado to Utah.

NM Gov. Martinez: 'We Have People Preparing a Lawsuit' Against EPA.  New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez (R) says her state may sue the Environmental Protection Agency for causing an environmental disaster that will have repercussions for years to come.  "I'm not taking anything off of the table.  Right now, we have people preparing for a lawsuit if that is what we need to do, but nothing is off the table right now," Martinez told Fox News Tuesday morning [8/11/2015].

Gold King Mine spill exposes Obama hypocrisy, threatens EPA credibility, critics say.  The political fallout from last week's toxic spill at Colorado's Gold King Mine intensified Monday [8/10/2015], with critics saying the incident has exposed clear hypocrisy within the Obama administration while threatening the credibility of the Environmental Protection Agency at a crucial moment.  Rather than express outrage as it has done in the wake of previous environmental disasters, the White House would not comment on the spill and instead directed all questions to the embattled EPA.

EPA won't face fines for polluting rivers with orange muck.  Unlike BP, which was fined $5.5 billion for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, the EPA will pay nothing in fines for unleashing the Animas River spill.  "Sovereign immunity.  The government doesn't fine itself," said Thomas L. Sansonetti, former assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's division of environment and natural resources.

NM Governor declares state of emergency in San Juan County over Gold King Mine spill.  New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez Monday afternoon declared a state of emergency in San Juan County after EPA workers caused a spill that released 3 million gallons of toxic mine waste into the Animas River.  And Environmental Protection Agency officials announced that public access to the Animas and San Juan rivers would continue to be closed until at least Aug. 17, during a 30-minute media teleconference Monday afternoon [8/10/2015].

River users want EPA to be held accountable for its own toxic spill.  The EPA is known for its hard line on environmental offenders, but its own accountability is being challenged after its agents unleashed a disastrous toxic spill threatening water supplies in four Western states and two Indian reservations.  The agency revised Sunday its estimate on the spill from 1 million gallons to 3 million as regional officials came under fire for waiting 24 hours before alerting authorities that a crew at the Gold King Mine had accidentally uncorked the orange, acidic brew now spreading from Colorado to New Mexico, Arizona and Utah.

3 million, not 1 million, gallons of contaminated water rushed from mine, EPA says.  The Environmental Protection Agency on Sunday [8/9/2015] tripled its estimate of how much contaminated water gushed out of Gold King Mine and slipped into the Animas River in Wednesday's blowout — up to 3 million gallons from an initial estimate of 1 million gallons.

Media covering up EPA's responsibility for Colorado river pollution.  The Animas River in Colorado has been despoiled with million of gallons of toxic mine waste, turning the stream bright orange.  Is this the result of a heartless capitalist?  Hardly.  Our purportedly all-caring, wise, and reliable Environmental Protection Agency is at fault.  But looking at the headlines, you'd have a hard time figuring that out.  Consider one of the latest headlines, from the local Durango Herald, reporting that the disaster is 300% worse than the EPA first reported:  3 million, not 1 million, gallons of contaminated water rushed from mine, EPA says.

Press Downplays, Hides EPA's Responsibility for Western River Contamination.  On Wednesday [8/5/2015], the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency committed an act which would have likely become instant national news if a private entity had done the same thing.  On Friday, John Merline at Investors' Business Daily succinctly noted that the EPA "dumped a million gallons of mine waste into Animas River in Colorado, turning it into what looked like Tang, forcing the sheriff's office to close the river to recreational users."  Oh, and it "also failed to warn officials in downstream New Mexico about the spill."  Yet here we are four days later, and the story has gotten very little visibility outside of center-right blogs and outlets.  That's largely explained by how the wire services have handled the story.

EPA accident causes more water pollution than fracking does.  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.

Officials: EPA mishandled Silverton mine pollution discharge.  State and local officials blasted the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in a briefing in Aztec this morning [6/7/2015] over its handling of a dam that burst in southwest Colorado Wednesday [8/5/2015] and released water contaminated by a mine into the Animas River. [...] An EPA team was working at the Gold King Mine above Silverton, Colo., at about 10:40 a.m. Wednesday, and they disturbed a dam of loose rock allowing the release an estimated 1 million gallons of mustard-colored water, according to state and local officials.

N.M. governor bashes EPA for flooding Animas River with orange toxic wastewater.  New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez blasted the EPA for accidentally flooding the Animas River with toxic orange wastewater, calling on the agency to hold itself to the same standard for the disaster as it would a private entity.  "Imagine what would happen if a private company caused this waste spill," the Republican governor said in a Friday [8/7/2015] statement.

Don't invite the EPA to a pool party.  How big do you think the fine will be?  How many EPA management will face prosecution or get fired?

States, Senate Ready to Fight Obama's Clean Power Plan.  The Obama administration unveiled the Clean Power Plan on Monday, calling it "a historic step in the fight against climate change."  The Clean Power Plan establishes the first-ever national standards to limit carbon pollution from power plants.  It sets what the EPA and White House describe as "flexible and achievable standards" to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030.  Opponents argue it is yet another assault in what they describe as the Obama/EPA War On Coal.

EPA Chief Gina McCarthy Doesn't Know Percentage of CO2 in Atmosphere.  The House Committee on Science, Space and Technology held a hearing [8/6/2015] titled "Examining EPA's Regulatory Overreach" which examined the scientific justifications for EPA's rules and how they impact the lives of the American people.  One of the rules in question was the Clean Power Plan, announced on June 2, 2014, which would require that states meet requirements for limiting carbon emissions.  Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R., Calif.) asked McCarthy, "What percentage of the atmosphere is CO2?"  "What percentage of the atmosphere is CO2?  I don't have that calculation for you sir," said McCarthy.  "Maybe you could tell us what your personal guess is on what percentage CO2 is," said the congressman.  "I don't make those guesses sir," McCarthy said.

The Editor says...
Liberals often deride and castigate global warming skeptics for opposing science.  Here we see the head of the EPA doesn't even know one of the basic scientific facts about the environment — one of the fundamentals of atmospheric science — the composition of the atmosphere.  This inexcusable rank incompetence should bring her job to an immediate end.

The Inconvenient Truth About Climate Policy: It won't make any difference when it comes to global temperatures.  If the Obama administration's Climate Action Plan — a 17 percent reduction in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 — were to be implemented immediately, what temperature reduction would that yield by the year 2100?  The answer:  15 one-thousandths of a degree.

EPA's Clean Power Plan Overreach.  On June 2, 2014, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed the Clean Power Plan, President Obama's marquee climate change initiative.  In the proposal, the EPA took the unusual step of preemptively seeking Chevron deference from federal courts, even though the Clean Power Plan will not undergo judicial review until after the final rule is published in the Federal Register later this summer.  Chevron deference is a famous and oft-employed administrative law principle that federal courts should defer to reasonable agency construction of the statutes they are charged with administering, in reference to a seminal 1984 Supreme Court ruling, Chevron USA Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.  As this analysis demonstrates, the agency's request for judicial deference lacks merit.

You shouldn't have voted for Democrats if you didn't want rabid job-killing environmentalism.
In coal-mining Kentucky, shock and dismay over Clean Power Plan's new targets.  It is a tense time in Kentucky.  The Environmental Protection Agency has just come out with its final rule on reducing carbon emissions — the strongest step ever taken to counter climate change in the United States — and this coal state is reeling.  Kentucky's energy secretary was in talks with EPA officials all afternoon on Tuesday [8/4/2015], trying to figure out what the rule means — and trying to understand how it was that the agency boosted the target that it had proposed for Kentucky last year.  A target that the state was on track to meet.

Obama's Birthday Wish List: Job Losses and Increased Poverty Rates.  Next week the Obama Administration and EPA will release the final version of the Clean Power Plan (CPP).  In support of the rule, the President and EPA routinely cite to the benefits the CPP's carbon emissions regulations will have on the American public and environment.  Yet such "benefits" are tenuous at best, largely based on questionable science and seldom founded in reality.  The EPA's own projections show the rule would amount to a 0.02 degrees Celsius difference in world temperatures by 2100 and sea level reduction equivalent to the thickness of three sheets of paper.

Obama's New EPA Rules: A Green Assault On Red States.  Whether these feel-good regulations imposed on America's domestic industries will impact global carbon emissions and climate change appears highly doubtful, given the massive increase in the use of coal and other fossil fuels in nations like China and India.  Yet the costs of these new rules for highly suspect benefits are gigantic.  The Heritage Foundation, for example, estimates about 500,000 lost jobs, close to $100 billion a year in lost output (about half a percentage point of GDP), and more than $1,000 a year in higher costs to families.  In other words, all pain, no gain.  But the dirty little secret here is that these costs aren't uniform across the country.  Not even close.

Sources: EPA will ease deadlines on pollution rule to help states comply.  The Obama administration has decided to give states more time to comply with proposed regulations that will require dramatic cuts in greenhouse-gas pollution from power plants, people familiar with the plans said Tuesday [7/28/2015].  The Environmental Protection Agency will give states an additional two years — until 2022 — to begin phasing in pollution cuts, even as the agency toughens the standards that many states will ultimately have to meet.

Congressman: EPA Sexual Predator 'Fed A Steady Diet Of Interns'.  Utah Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz had some harsh words for EPA Chief Administrator Gina McCarthy during a hearing Wednesday [7/29/2015] regarding the agency's handling of an employee who repeatedly sexually harassed interns. [...] Chaffetz['s] remarks come after the EPA inspector general Arthur Elkins told Congress that Peter Jutro, an EPA employee, "engaged in offensive and inappropriate behavior toward at least 16 women, most of whom were EPA co-workers."  Elkins also said very senior EPA officials "were made aware of many of these actions and yet did nothing."

Even National Parks Can't Comply with New EPA Regulations.  The Environmental Protection Agency is set to roll out even more aggressive regulations come October.  Despite scientific reports of ozone levels declining 20 percent over the past ten years, the EPA has proposed even harsher restrictions that could cost $1.1 trillion.  The agency's new regulations could slash U.S. GDP by $270 billion per year and $3.4 trillion from 2017 to 2040 and result in 2.9 million fewer jobs or job equivalents per year on average through 2040.  This proposal comes after reports that 40% of American households live in areas unable to comply with the existing regulations.

Dispelling the deadly air pollution myth.  The Supreme Court's recent rejection of the Environmental Protection Agency's mercury emissions rule for coal-fired power plants sets up a much-needed showdown over a key health claim underpinning the agency's so-called "war on coal," and global warming and ozone initiatives.  The court acted because the EPA refused to consider the heavy costs of the rule, estimating the rule would provide $4-6 million in monetized direct health benefits at a cost of $10 billion. [...] But the EPA also claimed the rule would provide indirect health benefits worth up to $90 billion annually by preventing 11,000 premature deaths per year. [...] The EPA values each prevented death at about $10 million. [...] While this seems a slam-dunk for the EPA, the $90 billion claim is pure fantasy.  It is easily demonstrated that particulate matter doesn't kill anyone.

After Iran, Climate Change.  [Scroll down]  At the end of June, the Supreme Court struck down an EPA regulation on power plant emissions with traces of mercury (Michigan v. EPA).  The Court's majority protested that the cost of compliance to utility companies would run to some $10 billion per year, while direct benefits from limiting exposure to mercury vapors were calculated (by EPA) at $4 to $6 million per year (less than .05 percent of the cost).

EPA Said Global Warming Unproven To Obtain Legal Ruling For its Climate Regulations.  [Scroll down]  It is possible the EPA arranged for Massachusetts and a few other states to file a petition against them for failing to regulate CO2 as a harmful substance.  Of course, it was the EPA who determined it was a harmful substance.  The EPA rejected the responsibility, and that led to a series of legal actions.  The EPA wanted the case to end up before the US Supreme Court.

Looming EPA regs will pit Obama against Republican governors.  You've read it before; the Obama administration has a goal to cut greenhouse gas emission by nearly 30 percent by 2025.  Yet, overall, the entire climate change agenda the administration has signaled isn't — as you'd expect — being met with a warm reception from Republican governors.  At least five, including two presidential candidates, have signaled that they might simply refuse to implement these new federal regulations that are brewing in the regulatory pipeline[.]

16 Attorneys General Argue New EPA Water Rule Is All Wet.  The EPA swears it isn't true, but Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) claims the way Environmental Protection Agency bureaucrats define "navigable waters" under the Clean Water Act, known more officially as the "Waters of the United States" rule, means everything from ditches and dry creek beds to gullies and isolated ponds formed after a big rain could be considered a "water of the United States."  And any puddle declared to be a "water of the United States" under the new rule published June 29 could be regulated under the Clean Water Act.  The new rule would expand the EPA's authority to cover an additional two million acres of streams and 20 million acres of wetlands that are not included, or at least clearly included, under the Clean Water Act.  Texas and 15 other states filed suit to block the new "navigable waters" rule as soon as it was published.

EPA 'secret science' under the microscope as GOP lawmakers seek ban.  The Environmental Protection Agency for years has issued costly clean air rules based, in part, on two '90s-era studies linking air pollution with death.  But, critics say, the same agency has stymied efforts to access the data behind them.  The transparency concerns have Republican lawmakers on a new campaign to end the use of what they dub "secret science."  "Why would the EPA want to hide this information from the American people?" House science committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, asked EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy at a hearing last week.

States sue over EPA's unprecedented land grab.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had a rough Monday [6/29/2015].  Hours after the Supreme Court released its 5-4 ruling that struck down the EPA's rule on mercury limits, which was a major cornerstone for the Obama Administration's environmental agenda, 12 states filed a federal lawsuit against the agency and the Army Corp. of Engineers to block the controversial Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule.  Attorneys representing Wyoming, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota and South Dakota submitted requests to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals asking for the rule to be thrown out before it takes effect in August.

You Will Never Guess What The EPA Might Regulate Next.  It's obvious the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has way too much money to play with.  Following yesterday's [3/17/2015] news that the EPA was funding research to reduce air pollution emissions from cooking on propane fired barbecue grills, the latest research grant is aimed at hotel showers.  Researchers at the University of Tulsa were awarded $15,000 to develop a wireless device that will allow water use from showers to be measured and reported to both the hotel guest via a smartphone and to hotel management.  According to the grant, hotel guests waste millions of gallons of water each year and it's hoped that guests will reduce their water use when they realize the amount of water they are using.  The research on propane gas grills involves modifying the barbecue grill design to reduce particulate matter that's emitted during cooking especially when the fire hits the grease from the food.

The EPA Isn't Green, It's Red, It's Commie.  Mark Levin wasn't very happy about an article written by the New York Times and he expressed those views on his show.  "The Environmental Protection Agency is assaulting you.  It's shutting down coal mines, it's shutting down coal-fired plants, it's shutting down utilities, it is shutting down businesses and operations, it's putting people out of work, it's putting families on welfare lines, on Medicaid lines," Levin said.

Obama climate change agenda faces legal, political resistance.  The Supreme Court this week halted the administration's mercury and air toxin standards, part of Mr. Obama's broader plan to reduce pollution from U.S. power plants.  In its 5-4 decision, the court said the Environmental Protection Agency disregarded the estimated $10 billion cost to utilities to comply with the measure.  The ruling dealt a major blow to Mr. Obama's effort to ween the U.S. off of fossil fuels, and legal analysts say other pieces of the president's environmental slate also are vulnerable in court.  Among them is the EPA's Clean Power Plan, which would dramatically limit carbon emissions from power plants.

EPA Raked Over the Coals.  Consumers and businesses won big on Monday, when the Supreme Court struck down an Environmental Protection Agency regulation on coal plant emissions because the EPA failed to consider whether the costs outweighed the benefits.  Not the cost to government, mind you.  The cost to us, as consumers and business owners, to comply.  The Court's 5-4 decision in Michigan v. Environmental Protection Agency is a setback for the Obama administration but an important protection for the rest of us.

Center for Biological Diversity petitions EPA to list CO2 as a 'toxic substance'.  From the "everybody breathes out poison" department.

After mercury ruling, higher scrutiny of Obama climate rules.  Sweeping pollution limits at the center of President Barack Obama's climate change plan are facing increased scrutiny in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling that showed that the justices aren't afraid to thwart perceived overreach by Obama or his Environmental Protection Agency.

Supreme Court Rules Against Obama's Energy Regulation.  The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday [6/29/2015] delivered a significant setback to the Obama administration and its environmental plan to curb emissions from power plants.  In a 5-4 decision, the court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency must consider the financial costs of regulations to power plants.  The court's majority opinion argued that the EPA "unreasonably" deemed the cost of compliance "irrelevant."

22 states sue EPA over water rule.  Litigation against the Environmental Protection Agency's clean water rules reached a fevered pitch on Tuesday [6/30/2015].  Nine states added to a frenzy of lawsuits being leveled against the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers after the Waters of the United States rule was published in the Federal Register on Monday.  The publishing of the rule marks the day a regulation officially becomes law, and thus ripe for litigation.

White House says EPA's Supreme Court loss won't affect power plant rule.  The White House said Monday [6/29/2015] that the Supreme Court's Monday decision against an Environmental Protection Agency air pollution rule wouldn't impact a huge, pending EPA rule imposing regulations on existing power plants.  "Obviously, we're disappointed with the outcome," he said.  "I will say, based on what we have read so far, there is no reason that this court ruling should have an impact on the ability of the administration to develop and implement the clean power plant [ruling]."

EPA Gets Another Much-Needed Smackdown From The Courts.  The latest case involves an EPA rule requiring coal plants to cut back mercury emissions.  With annual compliance costs of more than $9 billion, it was one of the agency's most expensive rules.  Even though the rule would provide only about $9 million in health benefits, the EPA still ignored the cost side of the equation.  Only this agency would spend $9 billion for just $9 million in benefits.  Later, the EPA added in reductions in other pollutants — mainly fine particles — that it said would be a side benefit to cutting mercury emissions.  Voila!  The benefits suddenly shot up over $26 billion.  Further undermining the need for this rule is the fact that mercury emissions in the U.S. had already fallen by 58% between 1990 and 2005, and the levels of fine particulate matter have dropped by a third since 2000, and will continue to decline without the rule.

EPA Head Gina McCarthy is Simply Not Normal!  Yesterday [6/23/2015] the White House held the "White House Public Health and Climate Change Summit" to explain why man made climate change puts public health at risk and that more needs to be done to mitigate that threat.  Of course first they have to prove their hypothesis that there is man made climate change.  According to EPA chief Gina McCarthy anybody who disagrees or is skeptical of the climate change hypothesis is not a normal human being.

Gina McCarthy and Obama's Totalitarians.  The Soviet system had a long and cruel record of perverting psychiatry to abuse political dissidents.  Labelling many thought-criminals "insane," the communist regime institutionalized them under horrifying conditions in mental hospitals and force-fed them dangerous and mind-shattering drugs. [...] And now enter the leftist totalitarians of the Obama stripe.  While anti-Soviet ideas caused dissidents to be confined to psychiatric institutions in the Soviet Union, the soil is now being fertilized for the same process in the American leftist land of Alinskyite hope and change.

Court rules against Obama administration in EPA case.  The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday [6/29/2015] that the Obama administration failed to consider costs when deciding to regulate mercury pollution from power plants.

Black Chamber of Commerce: EPA Clean Air Plan Will Increase Black Poverty 23%, Strip 7,000,000 Black Jobs.  A study commissioned by the National Black Chamber of Commerce, which represents 2.1 million black-owned businesses in the United States, found that the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Clean Power Plan would increase black poverty by 23 percent and cause the loss of 7 million jobs for black Americans by 2035.  The study also found that the EPA' plan would increase Hispanic poverty by 26 percent and cause the loss of 12 million jobs for Hispanic Americans by 2035.

White House threatens to veto bills targetting [sic] EPA and climate rules.  The White House is strongly opposing legislation expected to pass the House Wednesday [6/24/2015] that would substantially impede the president's climate change agenda and throw off course strict emission rules for power plants.  The White House issued two Statements of Administration Policy Tuesday night, telling House lawmakers that it is advising the president to veto the measures if sent to his desk.  The first bill is H.R. 2042, the Ratepayer Protection Act, which allows states to opt out of compliance with the Environmental Protection Agency's contentious Clean Power Plan, a sweeping set of regulations meant to curb greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants.  The plan is the centerpiece of President Obama's agenda to combat the threat of global warming.

EPA Chief: 'Climate Deniers' Aren't Normal Human Beings.  EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy told an audience Tuesday gathered at a White House conference "normal people," not "climate deniers" will win the debate on global warming.  McCarthy's remarks came as she was talking about the reasons why the EPA put out a report on the negative health impacts global warming will have on public health.  She said the agency puts out such reports to educate the public, not answer critiques from global warming skeptics.

Soviet Union 2.0 — The Environmental Protection Agency.  Former President Richard Nixon is an ancestral RINO — Republican In Name Only. The wobbly GOP wing that insists on delivering us Diet Democrat policies.  So it was in 1970 when President Nixon signed an executive order creating the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

EPA Analyst Exposes Climate Science Takeover.  [Alan] Carlin refers to a "climate-industrial complex" patterned after a "military-industrial complex" term that President Eisenhower warned against in his 1961 farewell address.  As Eisenhower observed in a less well remembered threat in that speech:  "The prospect of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present — and is gravely to be regarded.  Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of scientific-technological elite."

EPA proposes tougher mileage standards for trucks.  The Environmental Protection Agency issued new rules that would lower carbon dioxide emissions from trucks and vans by 24 percent by 2027.

The Editor says...
Lower CO2 emissions and better fuel economy are two separate issues.  The two goals can be met simultaneously by reducing the horsepower of truck engines.  So the EPA will soon be causing massive traffic jams on the freeways as the rest of us get stuck behind big trucks with tiny Obama-compliant engines.

EPA to Monitor Family's Water Use in Colorado.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is looking to monitor how much water families use in Boulder, Colorado.  The agency submitted a solicitation Thursday [6/18/2015], announcing its plans to hire a contractor for the purpose of "Water Monitoring Equipment and Collection of Data" of apartments in the city.

EPA's New Fuel Regulations Will Avert 0.0026 Degrees Of Warming.  The EPA's new carbon dioxide regulations for heavy trucks is meant to help the U.S. meet its goal of reducing emissions to fight global warming.  There's just one problem:  CO2 regulations on heavy trucks will have little to no impact on global warming over the next 85 years, according to the EPA's own analysis.  The EPA says limiting carbon dioxide from heavy trucks will reduce emissions by more than 1 billion metric tons by 2050.  Cutting CO2, the agency says, will create up to $34 billion in "climate benefits" along with up to $40 billion from reducing traditional pollutants.

EPA Fails to Punish Corrupt Workers, Lets Them Keep Full Pay.  Other EPA transgressions have been reported by Judicial Watch over the years, including agency funds going to groups that help illegal immigrants.  In fact, JW uncovered documents that show a New Jersey nonprofit (Lazos America Unida) that advocates on behalf of the "Mexican immigrant community" and a Missouri farm workers' group that aims to increase awareness about the dangers of sun and heat exposure in migrant populations were among EPA grant recipients.  A few years ago the EPA gave Tijuana $93,000 to launch Mexico's green transformation.  Earlier this year the EPA served as an inspiration for a bill introduced in Congress to curb an epidemic of federal employees watching pornography on government computers during work hours.  The congressman who introduced the law disclosed that various EPA Inspector General probes have uncovered multiple cases of employees working hard at watching porn.  "One EPA employee was viewing as much as 6 hours of pornography a day in his office," the congressman said.  "The same federal employee was found to have downloaded as many as 7,000 pornographic files onto his government computer."

EPA Clean Power Plan Will Hit Blacks And Hispanics Hardest.  The Obama administration, the Environmental Protection Agency and environmental activists frequently claim that climate change will disproportionately affect poor and minority communities.  This, they argue, justifies unprecedented environmental regulations like the EPA's soon-to-be-finalized "Clean Power Plan" to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2030.  But what effect will the regulation itself have on minority communities?

Obama's EPA Regulations: 6,552x as Long as the Constitution; 46x as Long as the Bible.  Since President Barack Obama took office on Jan. 20, 2009, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued 3,373 new final regulations, equaling 29,770 pages in the Federal Register and totaling approximately 29,770,000 words, according to a count of the regulations published in the Federal Register.  The Gutenberg Bible is only 1,282 pages and 646,128 words.  This means the new EPA regulations issued by the Obama Administration contain 23 times as many pages as the Bible and 46 times as many words.

EPA Launches New Environmental Justice Screening Tool.  The Environmental Protection Agency launched a new online tool today that can show you if environmental justice in your neighborhood is out of whack. [...] The enviromapper lets you select an area by drawing on a map, entering latitude and longitude, picking a designated census area or searching by city.  Reports on the selected area include demographics and things such as ozone, lead paint, and respiratory and cancer risks.

EPA boss threatens to come knocking on doors.  Next time there is a knock at the front door, it just might be the head of the Environmental Protection Agency waiting to deliver a message.  EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy dealt a warning Wednesday to Americans who do not place environmental stewardship above everything else.

Industry on edge as EPA prepares to regulate airline emissions.  The Environmental Protection Agency will soon announce it plans to regulate airline emissions, asserting they contribute to global warming and endanger public health, according to industry and environmental groups.  Those findings will prompt a regulatory process for the EPA to determine and enforce aircraft emissions limits, following a similar effort to limit emissions by cars, trucks and power plants.  But conservatives say higher airplane efficiency standards will only force airlines to raise ticket prices or install more seats on already cramped flights.

EPA gives farmers double whammy.  The Environmental Protection Agency handed down two decisions in late May, one day after the other, that will have a negative impact on farming operations, according to Mark Watne, president of the North Dakota Farmers Union.  EPA announced the final rules that will expand jurisdiction for Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) and the agency also released lower volume target levels for the production of corn-based ethanol.  "In two days' time, EPA rendered a decision that may restrict farmers from managing their own land, and depressed ethanol markets which are important to North Dakota producers," Watne said.  "We believe EPA has overstepped their authority on both counts."

EPA Chief: Just Trust Us On Climate Science.  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.

EPA Buries Its Own Good News About Fracking.  Want to see a perfect example of spin as a Washington art form?  Read the results of the federal government's most in-depth investigation ever of fracking.  As Institute for Energy Research president Thomas Pyle pointed out, "It only took four years and 1,000 pages, but the EPA finally confirmed what we already knew — hydraulic fracturing is safe, and states have been effectively regulating the process."  Americans love good news, but President Obama's Environmental Protection Agency couldn't treat it as such.  The report's "Major Findings" didn't celebrate that your well water is safe.

Brace for [a] Massive Private-Property Land Grab.  The chutzpah of Barack Obama has no limits, and the man has no shame. [...] The small article in my local paper, the Contra Costa Times, was headlined, "With new EPA water rule, Obama again takes executive action on environment."  The fact that it was a small article on the inside of the paper is illustrative that the liberal media find nothing wrong with the president using the power of an executive order to bypass Congress and get what he wants.

EPA Looks To Increase Cost Of Airplane Tickets To Save Us From Climate Change.  [Scroll down]  Nowhere is it mentioned within the article that this will artificially drive up the cost to the consumer.  Will the definition of commercial aircraft include just passenger planes, or will it include planes used to ferry freight as well?  If the latter, not only will the cost of taking a plane trip increase, it will increase virtually everything else that comes by plane.  Shipping costs will increase, and this could mean that more packages will be sent via truck, putting more vehicles on the road.  All for a fake issue pushed by a cult.

Obama goes after the farmers.  Farmers are now the bad guys.  President Obama's administration last week claimed dominion over all of America's streams, creeks, rills, ditches, brooks, rivulets, burns, tributaries, criks, wetlands — perhaps even puddles — in a sweeping move to assert unilateral federal authority.  The New York Times had a wonderful take on the power grab, saying the move "opened up a broad new front for attacks from business interests like farmers, property developers, fertilizer and pesticide makers, oil and gas producers and golf course owners, who contend that the rule would stifle economic growth and intrude on property owners' rights."  Those, according to the Times, are the demons:  Developers, oil producers, pesticide makers.  But farmers?

Obama Admin. Deems Part of Wyoming Tribal Land, Putting Hospital in Legal Battle.  Imagine learning the town you live in suddenly becomes part of an Indian reservation, subjecting you to tribal courts and laws rather than the U.S. Constitution.  That's exactly what is happening in Riverton, Wyoming.  President Obama's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has thrown a hospital in Riverton, Wyoming (population 11,000), into an expensive and exhausting battle to extricate itself from the oversight of an American Indian tribal court.  Riverton Memorial Hospital — a non-Indian entity organized under the laws of the state of Delaware — was recently sued by a member of the Northern Arapaho Tribe for medical malpractice in the Shoshone and Arapaho Tribal Court, the court for the Wind River Indian Reservation.

The real reason the EPA wants to regulate puddles and ditches.  Liberals at the EPA are not totally unlike doomsday cultists.  They believe that the acts of man are slowly destroying the Earth.  The original mission, of protecting other property owners from proven contaminants, has been left by the wayside in pursuit of the larger, more theoretical cause of protecting the Earth.  A puddle or a ditch filled with water on a property certainly won't harm anyone outside the property.  But the EPA wants to regulate it because it feels that without guidance, a private property user will do something with it to harm the Earth.  For example, a private property owner might want to demolish a pothole, or a ditch, to build a commercial or residential building, one that could use electricity, increase consumption, and further "global warming."  By extending its control to puddles and even totally dry areas where water once flowed years ago, the EPA can prevent development and further its global warming ideology.  That's what it's all about.

America's Own FIFA: the EPA.  An unprecedented power grab.  That's the only accurate way to describe the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) new Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule, which was made final on Wednesday [5/27/2015].  It twists the plain language of the Clean Water Act, which regulates the "navigable waters" of the United States, out of all recognition, to give the Obama administration powers over any land that might at any time be occupied by water, such as seasonal pools or drainage channels.  Your use of your own property could become subject to veto by the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers — and you might not even know it until they stick you with $75,000 a day in fines.  And if the rule itself is an abuse of power, the way in which it was finalized is just as outrageous.

President Obama asserts power over small waterways.  The Obama administration on Wednesday [5/27/2015] asserted its authority over the nation's streams, wetlands and other smaller waterways, moving forward with one of the most controversial environmental regulations in recent years.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Army Corps of Engineers said they are making final their proposed waters of the United States rule, which Republicans and many businesses have long panned as a massive federal overreach that would put the EPA in charge of ditches, puddles and wet areas.

EPA Grants Itself Power To Regulate Ponds, Ditches, Puddles.  The EPA has released its Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule critics say would allow the agency to regulate waterways previously not under federal jurisdiction, including puddles, ditches and isolated wetlands.  Republicans, farmers and industrial groups have called the rule an EPA "power grab" because it extends the agency's powers to new heights.  Environmentalists and the Obama administration, however, argue the WOTUS rule is necessary for protecting water quality.

Obama Claims 'Dominion' Over All U.S. Bodies of Water... Even Puddles.  Wednesday [5/27/2015], Barack Obama signed into effect the new and improved Clean Water Rule which claims dominion over all of America's water sources.  Streams, creeks, channels, straits, ditches, brooks, beds, banks, rivulets, tributaries, wetlands... You name it, it now belongs to the EPA.

The case for conservative civil disobedience.  [Scroll down]  And worst of all, he contends, an army of federal bureaucrats and administrators has conspired with a corrupt political process to make the United States a near kleptocracy.  Murray highlights zoning regulations, employment laws, rules governing professional "best practices" and regulations restricting risky personal activities as just a few unnecessary intrusions against liberty.  Because of their economy-wide mandates, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Environmental Protection Agency and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission are the three "most visible intruders."

With new EPA water rule, Obama again takes executive action on environment.  April 1989, a Michigan developer named John Rapanos dumped fill on 54 acres of wetlands he owned to make way for a shopping center.  He did not have a permit, and when the state told him to stop, he refused.  Courts found him in violation of the federal Clean Water Act. Prosecutors wanted to send him to prison.  Rapanos took his case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which found that the wetlands on his property, about 20 miles from a river that drained into Lake Huron, did not fall under the Clean Water Act's jurisdiction over discharges into "navigable waters."  Rapanos became something of a celebrity among property rights advocates, but the ruling raised as many questions as it answered.

EPA poised to issue landmark water regulations.  The Obama administration is about to unveil an ambitious — and hotly disputed — plan to strengthen its authority over minor water bodies like wetlands, streams and ponds.  The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) "waters of the United States" regulation, expected to be issued in the coming days, has become one of the most controversial environmental regulations of the Obama presidency, with some of the strongest lobbying forces in Washington staking out positions.  The rule dubbed WOTUS in environmental and business circles could indelibly change how the federal government fights pollution and protects water for drinking, navigation, wildlife and other uses under the 1972 Clean Water Act.

States pre-emptively block EPA power plant regulation.  According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, at least 72 bills or resolutions related to the Environmental Protection Agency's plans have surfaced in 27 states, spanning Alaska to Virginia, with 10 of the measures already enacted into law.

House votes to block EPA from implementing new water-regulation plan.  The House of Representatives on Tuesday [5/12/2015] voted to block the EPA from implementing a new plan that critics say could significantly broaden the agency's ability to impose environmental regulations over America's waterways.  Many farmers and landowners across the country say rules proposed last year by the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers would give federal regulators even more say over waters.  The issue had become a hotly contested one for many who say there are already too many government regulations affecting their businesses.

The EPA Myth of "Clean Power".  There are many things I do not like about the Environmental Protection Agency, but what angers me most are the lies that stream forth from it to justify programs that have no basis in fact or science, and which threaten the economy. [...] Simply said, there is no need whatever to reduce CO2 emissions.  Carbon dioxide is not "a pollutant" as the EPA claims.  It is, along with oxygen for all living creatures, vital to the growth of all vegetation.  The more CO2 the better crops yields will occur, healthier forests, and greener lawns.  From a purely scientific point of view, it is absurd to reduce emissions.

EPA Tells Kids to Avoid Baths and Asks Them to Check Toilets for Leaks.  Parents across America who struggle to keep their young rambunctious kids clean now have a new obstacle:  the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  As part of its effort to help save the planet from the dangers of taking too many baths, the EPA's WaterSense program is trying to convince kids they should avoid bathtubs in favor of showers, which it says is a far more efficient use of water.

EPA Administrator to Appear at Broccoli Festival with Willow and Jaden Smith.  Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Gina McCarthy will attend an "environmental justice" Broccoli festival that features performances by Willow and Jaden Smith, who do not believe in school or the concept of time.  "On Saturday, April 25, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy will give remarks at the Third Annual Broccoli City Festival's Earth Day celebration," an EPA press release stated.

Senate Committee Votes In Favor of EPA Secret Science Reform Act.  Earlier this year, the House of Representatives passed the EPA Secret Science Reform Act.  The Act would limit the agency to using scientific studies whose data are publicly available in devising its regulations.  This would enable other researchers to independently evaluate the data and its interpretation. [...] Congressional Democrats and environmental activists strenuously oppose the bill arguing that it would deny the EPA access to the latest and best science when it comes to devising regulations to protect the health and safety of Americans.

Study: Fracking Doesn't Mess With Your Drinking Water.  In a new study of over 11,000 drinking wells, fracking wasn't considered the reason for water contamination through methane creeping into the wells.  At the same time, Science magazine noted that the authors of the new study are still disputing the validity of the results. [...] Regardless, the Obama administration has released new regulations on fracking, which is a method that's used to extract natural gas since 1947.  Fracking, the Keystone pipeline, and the plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 30 percent by 2025 are issues at the heart of job creation in Washington.  For construction, the impact could be steep with 45,000 jobs being lost every year if the EPA continues to push their agenda with ozone standards.

EPA ban on common coolants has lawmakers, industry worried.  Lawmakers and industry groups are worried fast-approaching Environmental Protection Agency rules banning certain gases used in commercial refrigeration and air conditioners could have a chilling effect on business.  The EPA is looking to impose the new rules starting in January 2016, restricting refrigeration coolants commonly found in grocery stores, restaurants and cars — not only in fridges and air conditioners but also vending machines and insulation.

FedGov Moves To Seize Water Rights From 100,000 Montanans: "All Surface Water And Wells".  We can see a pattern developing.  Local and state politicians use the Indian tribes as a tool to pursue a much larger agenda:  the removal of private property from the hands of citizens and the transfer of control into the hands of the federal government.  The politicians then receive federal funding to pursue their initiatives.  Now a long line of bureaucrats enters the parade:  the EPA to save the environment, the DOJ to save the legal rights of the oppressed, the Department of the Interior to manage the tribes' revenues, and the DHS as the protector-enforcer.

New EPA rules enlist wood heating police.  [T]he EPA is going after wood heater manufacturers, with the goal of reducing fine particle emissions by nearly 70 percent in the next five years.

Hotel Showers, Grills and Wood-Burning Stoves: EPA meddling in our lives reaches a zenith.  Those in business who have to oblige the Environmental Protection Agency (or the state government agencies that carry out federal laws) on a daily basis know there's an endless list of issues upon which the cabinet agency can (and does) interfere and obstruct.  But a few recent examples reveal the extent to which the government regulators are willing to extinguish our individual freedoms.

Having solved all other problems, the EPA will monitor how long you spend in the shower.  It's a good thing Uncle Sam is looking out for your best interests.  If it weren't for them, you might spend too long in the shower next time you stay at a hotel. [...] The grant language doesn't specify exactly how the government would "modify your behavior" in terms of water usage, but it's not hard to speculate.

The EPA wants to watch you in the shower.  [Scroll down]  You can bet that before too long, there will be a move by the EPA to place one of those gizmos in every single home in America.  It will eventually be connected to the home's water system, with an auto-shutdown valve to enforce their idea of how much water you should be using to get clean.  You may be washing your hair when the water is suddenly turned off, leaving you with a headfull of suds and anger management issues.

States Should Defy Unlawful EPA Carbon Dioxide Rules.  Last June, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed its Clean Power Plan as a nationwide regulation to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from electrical power plants.  Comments to the EPA have now been submitted, and it's not a surprise that a majority of state governments oppose the plan.  In the best interests of US citizens, states should refuse to comply with the proposed EPA Clean Power Plan.

EPA 'burning the Constitution' with carbon rules, Harvard scholar says.  As President Obama forges ahead in his fight against climate change, a leading Harvard Law School scholar says a central piece of the president's strategy is akin to "burning the Constitution" merely to advance an environmental agenda.  In testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Tuesday [3/17/2015], Harvard constitutional law professor Laurence H. Tribe said the Environmental Protection Agency's plan to limit greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. power plants is built on a shaky legal foundation.  The proposal, Mr. Tribe argues, far exceeds EPA's authority under federal law and strikes a blow to the 10th Amendment by essentially making states subservient to Washington on energy and environmental matters.

Obama's EPA Now Wants to Prevent You From Showering Too Long in Hotels.  On vacation?  Want to relax with a nice long shower in your expensive hotel room?  Well, if Obama's EPA has its way, the President's scolds will be there to harass you if your shower lasts longer than Obama has decreed that you are allowed to.

Obama's EPA Prepares a Crackdown on Long Hotel Showers.  The Obama administration's Environmental Protection Agency is preparing to crack down on shower sneaks.  You know who you are.  You're the type of selfish person who steps into a hotel shower and lingers too long.  Maybe you're trying to get clean.  Maybe you're shaving.  Maybe you enjoy the sensory blast of instant hot water on your skin that isn't going on a home water-heater bill.  The EPA doesn't care about such frivolous things.  Its concern is the amount of water you are "wasting."  Whatever it is, it's too much.

EPA wants to monitor how long hotel guests spend in the shower.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) wants hotels to monitor how much time its guests spend in the shower.  The agency is spending $15,000 to create a wireless system that will track how much water a hotel guest uses to get them to "modify their behavior."  "Hotels consume a significant amount of water in the U.S. and around the world," an EPA grant to the University of Tulsa reads.  "Most hotels do not monitor individual guest water usage and as a result, millions of gallons of potable water are wasted every year by hotel guests."

The Editor says...
No sane person spends any more time in a hotel shower than is absolutely necessary.  But the EPA is to blame for low-volume shower heads in hotel rooms, which cause the guests to spend more time in the shower.  This results in near-zero water savings.  The amount of water "wasted" by hotel customers cannot be determined without a gross invasion of privacy.  In any event, the hotel guest pays in advance for the privilege of a long hot shower.

The Sasquatch carbon footprints of the sanctimonious environmentalists.  While the stars of former and present-day politics and religion get to burp carbon into the environment, the little guy is about to be spied upon by EPA when in the shower.  Not only does the EPA want to monitor how long hotel guests are spending in the shower, they have a $15,000 grant to create a device to "modify" guests behavior.

The Obama Administration's Attack on the Constitution: Part 2, Environmental Protection Agency.  The Environmental Protection Agency has long been in the forefront of Obama administration lawlessness.  Don't forget:  before Hillary Clinton's secret email server came to light, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson was conducting government business off the books as "Richard Windsor," which, she explained when caught, was the name of her dog.  The EPA's current usurpation, an effort to remake America's power supply system, is much more serious.  The EPA has proposed a far-reaching regulation of power plants that would drive many of them out of business in the name of global warming.

Obama's EPA: Racing against time to pummel the private sector.  This waning Administration is in the pummel-the-private-sector business.  And there is arguably no tentacle of the federal Leviathan better equipped to do it than the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  After all — it's the EPA's sole reason for being.

Gina McCarthy has a hammer, and everything looks like a nail.
Climate change puts coffee at risk, EPA chief warns.  Americans' morning caffeine rush ultimately could be a casualty of climate change, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy said Wednesday [3/11/2015].  In a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations, Ms. McCarthy said the changing climate — which she believes is largely caused by human activity — puts economies, global security and food supplies at risk.  Coffee lovers also will eventually feel the effects, the EPA chief said.  "Climate change puts the world's coffee-growing regions at risk," Ms. McCarthy said, adding that the world must begin to weave climate-change efforts into virtually every other policy.

Backyard burger and wiener roasts targeted by EPA.  The Environmental Protection Agency has its eyes on pollution from backyard barbecues.  The agency announced that it is funding a University of California project to limit emissions resulting in grease drippings with a special tray to catch them and a "catalytic" filtration system.  The $15,000 project has the "potential for global application," said the school.  The school said that the technology they will study with the EPA grant is intended to reduce air pollution and cut the health hazards to BBQ "pit masters" from propane-fueled cookers.

Obama EPA Chief Can't Say Whether Climate Models Were False Or Not.  [Sen. Jeff] Sessions: "This is a stunning development, that the head of the Environmental Protection Agency — who should know more than anybody else in the world, who is imposing hundreds of billions of dollars in cost to prevent this climate temperature increase — doesn't know whether their projections have been right or wrong."

Ignorant: EPA Chief Gina McCarthy Can't Answer Basic Questions About the Climate.  Gina McCarthy, head of the EPA, can't answer basic questions about global temperatures, climate models or numbers of hurricanes.  She didn't know being a global warming zealot requires knowledge of math.

EPA's toxic mess on transparency.  In August 2012, the conservative watchdog group Landmark Legal Foundation made a Freedom of Information Act request for records at the Environmental Protection Agency — specifically seeking records of any efforts to slow down the issue of new regulations until after the 2012 election.  FOIA requests are supposed to be acknowledged and complied with very promptly.  In this case, EPA bureaucrats did precisely what the Freedom of Information Act is intended to prevent — they slow-walked Landmark's request past the 2012 elections, so that voters could not use the information to make their decision.

EPA Imposes Its Ban on 80% of Wood Stoves, Fireplaces Are Not Far Behind.  Last month, the EPA moved ahead with sweeping new regulations on wood stoves, wood-fired furnaces and outdoor boilers.  It is a far-reaching one-size-fits-all solution to an issue requiring less intrusiveness.  Some states say they won't abide by the rule.  The same EPA rule applies to someone living alone in the woods as someone living in a crowded housing development.  The EPA air quality models used a national-average-benefit-per-ton measurement and they even admit it does not account for local variability.  Environment and other factors alter the fine particulate matter they hope to regulate.

EPA chief races to finish climate rules before Obama leaves office.  Gina McCarthy is locked in a race against time to complete landmark climate change regulations before President Obama leaves office.  With just 22 months left in Obama's presidency, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator and her team are burning the midnight oil to enshrine emissions regulations for power plants in federal law.  McCarthy says she's "busier than [she's] ever been" as the caretaker of what Obama hopes will be a legacy-defining achievement on climate change.

King Barry.  Obama is a lawless leader, choosing to rule by memorandum, regulation and executive order — he is not a president; he is a king. [...] The EPA is now putting the finishing touches on the plan to save the world from global warming by tripling Americans' electric bills and throttling business by raising the cost of energy.  Barry does not like coal and the EPA, ever obsequious to Barry's wants, wants to shut down all coal-powered electrical generation in America.  Coal-fired plants produce almost 40% of the nation's electricity, and Barry... er, I meant the EPA, wants to shut them down.  Not to worry, the plan is to replace all that electricity with... well, nothing.  (Fracking?  The same crowd has plans for that too.)

Federal judge blasts EPA: Stop insulting me with your lies.  In a Monday ruling, Judge Royce C. Lamberth, senior judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, accused the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of lying to the court and displaying "apathy and carelessness" in carrying out the law.  In a suit filed in July 2014 by Landmark Legal Foundation, the group's president, talk radio hot Mark Levin, accused the EPA of destroying evidence requested via an earlier Freedom of Information Act request.

Obama's Little Shop of Horrors.  [Scroll down]  What about Obama's EPA?  They have been allowed to slowly take over more and more property around the United States regardless of the consequences to the American people and their livelihoods.  The most recent is 12 million acres in Alaska.  It does not matter that the people of Alaska need the land in order to survive.  The Antiquities Act of 1906 allowed the federal government to take small parcels of land for monuments and national parks.  However, the Obama administration has taken this to a whole new level, and is using the law to take over million and millions of acres of land across the United States.

Judge rules EPA lied about transparency, tells agency to halt discrimination against conservatives.  Judge Royce C. Lamberth concluded the agency may have lied to the court and showed "apathy and carelessness" in carrying out the law, though the judge was unable to determine if documents were intentionally destroyed. [...] In a scorching 25-page opinion, the judge accused the agency of "insulting" him by first claiming it had done a full search for records, then years later retracting that claim without any explanation.

Court rips EPA over FOIA dodge.  In 2012, Mark Levin's Landmark Legal Foundation filed a FOIA request with the EPA in an attempt to discover if senior agency officials were postponing the implementation of key (read: controversial and politically-damaging) regulations until after the 2012 presidential elections.  As soon as that FOIA request was received by the EPA, the agency was bound to preserve any and all documentation covered by the request.  What happened next was predictable, and not at all out of character for an Obama agency.

Regulatory agencies burden economy.  An alphabet soup of federal agencies is restricting job creation and slowing economic recovery for the rest of the United States. [...] And when it comes to issuing job-crushing regulations, no federal agency is more efficient than the Environmental Protection Agency.  The EPA has proposed regulations on emissions from power plants that the U.S. Chamber's Energy Institute estimates would cost $480 billion and eliminate 3.6 million jobs by 2030.  The rules would also cost American families an average of $200 per year in higher electrical rates — a loss that will hit the poor and elderly the hardest.  Worse yet, the EPA's recent proposal to slash the ozone standard by up to 20 percent could be the costliest regulation in U.S. history.

EPA CO2 Regs 'The Most Fundamental Transformation' Of US Power.  The head of a major U.S. utility said EPA rules to fight global warming will fundamentally transform the way America generates and delivers electricity to millions of residents.  Gerry Anderson, Chairman and CEO of the utility DTE Energy, told the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that the EPA's Clean Power Plan "is the most fundamental transformation of our bulk power system that we've ever undertaken."  FERC held a hearing Thursday on the EPA's plan to cut carbon dioxide emissions from power plants 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.  The plan is the keystone of the Obama administration's climate agenda as power plants emit one-third of the country's carbon dioxide emissions.

ATF and EPA quietly working on gun control with ammunition bans.  About a year and a half ago, we wrote a story about the closing of the Doe Run lead smelting facility, the last primary lead smelter in the U.S. and whether this was a "backdoor effort" to control guns.  After all, no lead means no ammunition, which means your gun becomes about as lethal as a ball-peen hammer.  Naturally, we were roundly attacked by leftists who said that was ridiculous, because most ammunition comes from secondary lead, and there's still plenty of that around.  Unless of course lead is banned.

Republicans warn EPA plan would give feds 'free reign' to regulate almost all waterways.  Republican lawmakers warned Wednesday [2/4/2015] that a complex EPA proposal in the works would give the federal government "free reign" to regulate virtually any waterway or wetland in the country.  In a rare joint House-Senate hearing, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy was called to explain the plan, which has prompted complaints from farmers and agriculture groups, as well as local environmental officials who worry the EPA is claiming authority that should be left to the states.

Thanks, EPA: Your New 'Navigable Waters' Rule Strengthens The Case Against Administrative Law.  When Congress passed the Clean Water Act in 1972, it was exercising its power to regulate interstate commerce by prohibiting discharges into the nation's "navigable waters."  If a body of water could be used to transport goods from one state to another, it was covered by the Act.  Like so many other statutes enacted over the last 80 years — that is, since the advent of the administrative state under FDR — the Clean Water Act (CWA) depends on bureaucratic interpretation and enforcement.

One way for Congress to halt Obama's executive overreach.  President Obama's abuse of his authority is being carried out by government bureaucrats running wild with power.  Executive branch bureaucrats represent a serious threat to our liberty, and the new Republican Congress must pass legislation such as the REINS Act to rein in the excessive power wielded by the executive branch.  Climate change regulations being advanced by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) offers a case study justifying the need for the REINS Act as a way to counter Obama's executive branch of power.

EPA Chief: 'Aspen's Climate Could Be a Lot Like That of Amarillo, TX' in 2100.  Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Gina McCarthy took to the EPA and White House blogs Wednesday [1/28/2015] to declare that "We Must Act Now to Protect Our Winters."  McCarthy was in Aspen, CO, last week, the famous ski destination and home to an X-Games venue, and she warned that without action on climate change, "Aspen's climate could be a lot like that of Amarillo, TX, by 2100."

The Editor says...
Aspen's elevation is 7890 feet.  Amarillo's elevation is 3500 feet.  The climates of the two cities are probably similar right now, except for the altitude.  I find it difficult to believe that a bureaucrat can predict the weather 85 years from now.  Most global warming alarmists are worried about a temperature change of two degrees per century, which would not be enough to kill the skiing industry in Colorado, nor would two degrees of warming turn Aspen into Amarillo.

U.S. EPA chief at the Vatican to discuss climate change with the Pope's staff.  The head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said on Friday she hoped Pope Francis' upcoming message to his flock on the environment would help galvanize concern about climate change and convince sceptics that "the science is real".  EPA administrator Gina McCarthy, visiting the Vatican to discuss climate change, said U.S. President Barack Obama shared the pope's belief that it was a moral issue because its effects would be felt most by the poorest and weakest nations.  "The pope knows his own beliefs and I want him to know that the president is aligned with him on these issues," she told reporters.

Feds To Regulate Fake Fireplaces To Stop Global Warming.  Better go out and buy a gas fireplace and stove soon before federal regulations make them more expensive.  Federal officials are looking to regulate the energy usage of fake fireplaces as part of the Obama administration's effort to fight global warming.

EPA director warns of vanishing snow due to global warming as historic blizzard approaches.  In politics, much as with a Broadway chorus line, timing is everything.  That's a lesson that current EPA Director, Gina McCarthy will probably take to heart after this one.  As the northeast braces for what is being described as a potentially historic snowstorm, Ms. McCarthy spent the beginning of her weekend huddling with environmental activists with a clear message.  These climate change deniers will ruin the ski industry because we're going to run out of snow.  The Environmental Protection Agency, Aspen Skiing Co., and a pair of Olympic snowboarders teamed up Thursday [1/22/2015] to help spread the word about climate change and the threat it poses to winter sports, tourism, and recreation in the Aspen area and beyond.

The Editor says...
The burning of fossil fuels produces carbon dioxide.  On that we can all agree.  Suppose it were true that carbon dioxide accumulated in the atmosphere permanently and caused global warming at the rate of two or three degrees per century.  (It doesn't.)  Even if this were proven to be the case, which would you rather sacrifice:  the oil industry or the recreational skiing industry?  The EPA Director seems to be more concerned about skiing.  Maybe that's because the wealthy liberal elite like to ski.

Report: EPA Fudged The Numbers To Justify Its 'Costliest Regulation Ever'.  The Environmental Protection Agency inflated the monetized benefits of a major air quality rule to justify imposing a harsher smog standard on U.S. counties, according to a new report by Energy In Depth (EID).  "EPA's ozone rule could very well be the costliest regulation in U.S. history," said Steve Everley, spokesman for the petroleum industry-backed EID.  "If a rule of this magnitude is to be imposed, then the EPA should consider providing a far more scientifically robust 'public health' basis — one that doesn't rely on inflated health benefits or a lack of appreciation for the very real economic costs."

EPA faces internal review over scrubbed text messages.  The Environmental Protection Agency, on the heels of the controversy at the IRS over missing emails, is facing a probe of its own over whether it improperly scrubbed text messages.  The EPA inspector general's office announced this week it is launching an audit into the agency's policies for keeping text messages.  The audit was prompted by a complaint from Republicans on the House science committee, worried the EPA may have "deleted thousands of text messages" that should have been preserved.

Exposed EPA Memo: Tie Fighting Global Warming To Americans' 'Personal Worries'.  An Environmental Protection Agency memo sent to top officials implored the agency to build up support for its agenda by tying its regulatory agenda to the "personal worries" of Americans.  "Polar ice caps and the polar bears have become the climate change 'mascots,' if you will, and personify the challenges we have in making this issue real for many Americans," reads a memo sent around to top agency officials in March 2009, just months after President Barack Obama took office.

The EPA Uses Children (and Adults) as Guinea Pigs.  The United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) has been involved in a scandalous, unethical, and illegal human exposure experimental research program for two decades.  The Agency has sponsored, encouraged and funded research that exposes children and adults to air pollution, which it has told the congress and announced to the public is toxic, lethal, even cancer causing.  During the 2000s, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency-funded researchers at Southern California Medical Schools sprayed high doses of diesel exhaust particles up the noses of 10-15 year old children in a 'scientific' experiment to see what would happen.  Federal and California State laws prohibit such immoral and unethical experiments with children or even adults.  Does the EPA disregard and disrespect law and ethics in a mindless crusade to regulate air?

EPA's Wood-Burning Stove Ban Has Chilling Consequences For Many Rural People.  It seems that even wood isn't green or renewable enough anymore.  The EPA has recently banned the production and sale of 80 percent of America's current wood-burning stoves, the oldest heating method known to mankind and mainstay of rural homes and many of our nation's poorest residents.  The agency's stringent one-size-fits-all rules apply equally to heavily air-polluted cities and far cleaner plus typically colder off-grid wilderness areas such as large regions of Alaska and the American West.

EPA Moves to Count Methane Emissions from Fracking.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is proposing a new rule that would require energy companies to report to the federal government all greenhouse gas emissions from oil well fracking operations and natural gas compressor stations and pipelines.  The EPA's Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program currently requires energy companies to report only those emissions from fracking operations that involve flaring — the industry's practice of burning off excess natural gas at a well site.

Obama Is Said to Be Planning New Rules on Oil and Gas Industry's Methane Emissions.  The administration's goal is to cut methane emissions from oil and gas production by up to 45 percent by 2025 from the levels recorded in 2012.  The Environmental Protection Agency will issue the proposed regulations this summer, and final regulations by 2016, according to the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the administration had asked the person not to speak about the plan.  The White House declined to comment on the effort.

5 Federal Agencies in the GOP's Crosshairs.  [#4] Environmental Protection Agency:  Senate Majority Leader-to-be Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said during his campaign this year that his top priority in 2015 is to "do whatever I can to get the EPA reined in," a reference to the numerous executive actions President Obama has announced to address climate change.  McConnell comes from Kentucky, a coal producing state and is intent on protecting Kentucky's economy.

Block EPA energy mandate.  The Obama administration is on a crusade against our state's energy policies — and Kansas is fighting back.  When the administration announced last year that it would force us to slash our greenhouse-gas emissions, our state quickly sued the federal government.  That was the right thing to do — the mandate is illegal and would harm our economy in numerous ways.  But despite numerous legal challenges, the Obama administration's Environmental Protection Agency will release the final regulation soon.  Once that happens, our state will be legally bound to implement it.  Unless our Legislature acts.

Senate environment panel to hit EPA regulations early and often.  Sen. Jim Inhofe said he plans to use a legislative maneuver that would allow rejection of environmental regulations by majority vote to take whacks at President Obama's agenda, signaling a contentious two years between the White House and Congress with the Oklahoma Republican helming the Environment and Public Works Committee.  Inhofe said he intends to use the Congressional Review Act to strike down a proposed rule limiting carbon emissions from power plants along with other regulations once they are finalized.  Any attempt to do so, however, almost certainly would be vetoed by Obama, who has said he plans to protect his environmental and climate policies.

EPA Regs Issued Under Obama Are 43 Times as Long as The Bible.  Since President Barack Obama took office on Jan. 20, 2009, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued 3,120 new final regulations, equaling 27,854 pages in the Federal Register, totaling approximately 27,854,000 words.

EPA can't regulate lead bullets, says federal court.  A federal appeals court denied a lawsuit Tuesday by environmental groups that the EPA must use the Toxic Substances Control Act regulate lead used in shells and cartridges.  "We agree with EPA that it lacks statutory authority to regulate the type of spent bullets and shot identified in the environmental groups' petition," Judge David Tatel wrote for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.  Environmental groups had sued the agency to do so, saying spent lead ammunition posed an "unreasonable risk of injury" to wildlife and humans who would eat the animals they kill.  The groups rejected the EPA's assertion that it lacked the authority to do so.

The EPA wants you to build green fires in your fireplace this winter.  The Environmental Protection Agency this week provided instructions for how people can build a fire in their home for the holidays, and more importantly for the EPA, how to build a fire that doesn't release as much pollution into the air.  "Across the country this holiday season, families and friends will gather around fires in woodstoves or fireplaces," the EPA wrote.  "But how you build that fire — and what you burn — can have a significant impact on air quality and health, both inside your home and out."

McConnell: Congress' disapproval of EPA 'will soon be very clear'.  Incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said there won't be any mistaking what Congress thinks about the Environmental Protection Agency when Republicans take control of the upper chamber in January.  The Kentucky Republican, responding to comments Secretary of State John Kerry made at a United Nations climate change conference in Lima, Peru, said the EPA would be in his crosshairs early next session.

Where will you be when the lights go out?  Make no mistake; President Obama's "Clean Power Plan" is not an environmental regulation at all.  It's a proposal to completely remake an enormous sector of our economy which underpins almost every industry and affects every consumer.  It is beyond belief EPA undertook this vast feat of social engineering without considering whether the real world engineering will even work.  We now stand on the precipice of throwing away billions of dollars and decades of time invested in building an electricity infrastructure that undeniably works.

EPA sets first national standard for coal waste.  The Obama administration on Friday [12/19/2014] set the first national standards for waste generated from coal burned for electricity, treating it more like household garbage rather than a hazardous material.

Harvard Law Professor: EPA Climate Rule Is Unconstitutional.  The Environmental Protection Agency's proposed rule to cut carbon dioxide emissions from power plants is unconstitutional because it violates the Tenth Amendment and the Fifth Amendment, according to a noted liberal Harvard law professor. [...] The Clean Power Plan "violates principles of federalism and seeks to commandeer state governments in violation of the Tenth Amendment," [Laurence] Tribe argues.  "It raises serious questions under the Fifth Amendment as well, because it retroactively abrogates the federal government's policy of promoting coal as an energy source.  Private companies — and whole communities — reasonably relied on the federal government's commitment to the support of coal."

EPA uses Jonathan Gruber tactic to impose harmful regulations.  "Lack of transparency was really critical to getting it passed," former Obamacare consultant Jonathan Gruber explained.  The Democrats cleverly exploited the American voters' "lack of economic understanding."  Now President Obama's Environmental Protection Agency is using secretive, duplicitous science, and exploiting people's lack of scientific understanding, to impose punitive regulations cleverly labeled the "clean power plan."  The agency claims the clean power plan will prevent "dangerous manmade climate change" by reducing carbon dioxide and "encouraging" greater use of renewable energy.  Its real goal is forcing coal-fired power plants to reduce operations significantly or shut down entirely.

EPA's Next Regulatory Tsunami.  Looming Environmental Protection Agency ozone regulations personify the Obama administration's secrecy, collusion, fraud, and disdain for concerns about the effects that its tsunami of regulations is having on the livelihoods, living standards, health and welfare of millions of American families.  Virtually every EPA announcement of new regulations asserts that they will improve human health.  Draconian carbon dioxide standards, for example, won't just prevent climate change, even if rapidly developing countries continue emitting vast volumes of this plant-fertilizing gas.  The rules will somehow reduce the spread of ticks and Lyme disease, and protect "our most vulnerable citizens."  It's hogwash.

EPA staffers linked to 'alleged serious misconduct,' agency reveals.  Eight Environmental Protection Agency employees who racked up a total of more than ten years' worth of paid "administrative leave" between 2011 and 2014 — valued at more than $1,096,000 — apparently did so because they were involved in "cases of alleged serious misconduct," Fox News has learned.  In a memorandum sent from EPA's acting assistant administrator, Nanci E. Gelb, to EPA's inspector general, Arthur Elkins — a draft also was given to Fox News — the agency has revealed that at least three of the affected employees have now left EPA.

EPA: New Ozone Standards Would Prevent 330 Missed School Days, 750 Premature Deaths.  The Environmental Protection Agency proposed new air quality standards within a range of 65 to 70 parts per billion, down from the current 75 ppb level, to "better protect the health" of Americans. [...] McCarthy estimates that meeting a 70 ppb level would prevent 330 missed school days, 32,000 asthma attacks and 750 premature deaths per year.  She said those benefits would increase with a 65 ppb standard. [...] The National Association of Manufacturers has estimated that a tougher national ambient air quality standard for ozone could cost the American economy up to $270 billion each year.

The Editor says...
In other words, the EPA is willing to spend almost a billion dollars of your money -- or at least remove a billion dollars from the U.S. economy -- to prevent one missed school day, or almost a million dollars to prevent one asthma attack.

Be afraid: This is the real Obama.  While Ferguson burned, the president slipped in a federal rule dubbed "the most expensive regulation ever."  On Wednesday [11/26/2014], after delaying the action for his entire presidency, waiting until there were no more elections, the Environmental Protection Agency released new tentative rules on ozone, meant to drastically cut the amount of smog produced by power plants and factories.  The move would lead to costly new requirements for air pollution permits in much of the country.  "This would be the most expensive regulation ever imposed on the American public," said the National Association of Manufacturers, in a July study calculating that an especially strict version of the rule would wipe out $3.4 trillion in economic output and 2.9 million jobs by 2040, according to Politico.

EPA's goofy green-energy rules.  The EPA's proposed Clean Power Plan regulations are the most expansive and economically disruptive rules in four decades from an agency that is notorious for its reckless disregard for the financial consequences of regulation under the Clean Air Act.  The EPA's rule aims to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions from U.S. power plants by 30 percent.  That's an enormous and costly burden on our power generating utilities.  According to Energy Ventures Analysis, an energy research firm, the annual costs for residential, commercial and industrial energy customers in America would be about $173 billion higher in 2020 — a 37 percent increase.  Average annual household gas and power bills would increase by $680 or 35 percent.

Obama's latest regulatory power grab aims at ozone.  President Obama on Wednesday checked off yet another major item on environmentalists' wish list by targeting smog, further solidifying his legacy on green issues but also angering big business and giving Republicans fresh ammunition heading into the final 24 months of this administration.  After delaying the action for nearly four years, the Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday released new tentative rules on ozone, meant to drastically cut the amount of smog produced by power plants and factories.

The EPA jumps the shark, banning — ARGON.  Its hard to imagine a more inoffensive substance than Argon.  As a noble gas, Argon is chemically inert — it participates in no chemical reactions whatsoever, except under exotic conditions — there are no known chemical compounds which can survive at room temperature which include Argon.  Argon is not a greenhouse gas.  But Argon is incredibly useful to industry — among other things, is used as a "shield" gas.  Anyone who welds Aluminium or Stainless Steel will be familiar with Argon, which is used with MIG and TIG welders, to blow oxygen away from the electric welding arc, to prevent oxidative damage to the weld joint.

EPA Proposes Its Most Expensive Regulation to Date.  The strategy of publicly releasing bad news late on a Friday afternoon in order to avoid significant media scrutiny is well established and commonly employed by a variety of institutions.  For example, corporations may elect to bury a bad earnings report or government bodies may release unflattering documents just before the weekend when people are paying the least amount of attention. [...] Although today is not a Friday, it is the day before what will be a four-day holiday weekend for many Americans.  While most people will understandably be focusing on celebrating Thanksgiving with their families, the White House plans to quietly release plans for 3,415 new regulations, 189 of which will cost more than $100 million apiece.

Report: EPA Regulations To Raise Power Costs 37 Percent By 2020.  A report by Energy Ventures Analysis found that the EPA underestimates how much its power plant regulatory regime will raise electricity and natural gas prices by imposing new regulations on power plants, most recently being the agency's rules to cut carbon dioxide emissions from new and existing power plants.  These new rules to tackle global warming, combined with other rules to reduce more traditional air pollutants, will dramatically increase Americans' utility bills by 2020, according to EVA's report which was sponsored by the coal company Peabody Energy.  "Annual power and gas costs for residential, commercial and industrial customers in America would be $284 billion higher ($173 billion in real terms) in 2020 compared to 2012 — a 60% (37%) increase," the EVA report found.

Mother of all battles over new smog rule.  Lawmakers and lobbyists are digging in for a fight over what industry groups say is the costliest environmental regulation ever.  The Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday that it wants to tighten restrictions on smog-forming ozone, to limit the legal level to a range of 65-70 parts per billion, down from the current 75.  Opponents say this stringent new restriction will add to the cost of permitting and slash manufacturing investment.  But environmental and public health pressure groups say the new rule doesn't go far enough.

EPA unveils contentious plan to tighten ozone standards.  The Obama administration unveiled an ambitious plan Wednesday [11/26/2014 - the day before Thanksgiving] that it said would improve public health by slashing the ozone pollution that causes smog.  Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy framed the update to the ground-level ozone standard as an imperative, bringing agency rules in line with the latest science to protect the nation's most vulnerable populations from a range of respiratory illnesses including asthma.

Proposed Water Rule Could Put 'Property Rights of Every American Entirely at the Mercy' of EPA.  It seems incredible, but a single missing word could turn a water law into a government land grab so horrendous even a U.S. Supreme Court justice warned it would "put the property rights of every American entirely at the mercy of Environmental Protection Agency employees."  The missing word is "navigable."  The Obama administration is proposing a rule titled "Definition of 'Waters of the United States' Under the Clean Water Act," which would strike "navigable" from American water law and redefine any piece of land that is wet at least part of the year, no matter how remote or isolated it may be from truly navigable waters, as "waters of the United States," or WOTUS.

Why Does Washington Want to Hide Science Data from the Public?  The EPA claims that the mercury air and toxics rule would produce $53 billion to $140 billion in annual health and environmental benefits.  But the agency vastly overstates the environmental benefits by including estimated benefits from reducing particulates already covered by existing regulations.  Not including these particulates lowers the projected benefit to only $6 million, at most.  In other words, these co-benefits account for 99.996 percent of the agency's estimated benefits — much of that being PM2.5 co-benefits.  Here's where the secret science comes in.  The two studies that represent the scientific foundation for 1997 ozone and PM 2.5 National Ambient Air Quality Standards are highly questionable and the data concealed, even though the studies were paid for by federal taxpayers and thus should be public property.

EPA regulations will add $700 a year to average energy bill.  An energy consulting firm predicts several new EPA regulations will go through bank accounts like a tsunami, and the storm will come from three directions.  Environmental Protection Agency policies that aim to cut carbon dioxide emissions are expected to create $284 billion in additional energy costs in 2020, according to a report by Energy Ventures Analysis Inc.  The policies, which President Obama supports, will result in a $680 increase in annual electricity and natural gas bills, says the study, commissioned by Peabody Energy, the world's largest private-sector coal company.

Holder & EPA Ding Carmaker $350 Million for Climate Change.  In sensational language, Attorney General Eric Holder today announced the biggest enforcement action ever against a greenhouse gas violator, as the federal government penalized automaker Hyundai Group up to $350 million. [...] What did they do to deserve the biggest spanking since the Supreme Court, in 2007, gave the EPA power to regulate greenhouse gases?  Hyundai Group overestimated the miles-per-gallon rating in about a quarter of their Kia and Hyundai models.

McConnell: Priority is to 'get the EPA reined in'.  Incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) says a top priority of his is "to try to do whatever I can to get the [Environmental Protection Agency] reined in."  In an interview with the Lexington Herald-Leader, McConnell said it wouldn't be easy to block the carbon pollution regulations for existing power plants, though doing just that is a promise he made to Kentucky on the campaign trail this year.

Senate GOP steeling for battle against EPA.  Senate Republicans are gearing up for a war against the Obama administration's environmental rules, identifying them as a top target when they take control in January.  The GOP sees the midterm elections as a mandate to roll back rules from the Environmental Protection Agency and other agencies, with Republicans citing regulatory costs they say cripple the economy and skepticism about the cause of climate change.

EPA chief: Public tired of debating climate change.  Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy said Friday that the public does not want more "debate or discussion" about climate change, but government action.  "First, people overwhelmingly consider climate change to be a problem — and they want action, not more debate or discussion," McCarthy said in a speech at Georgetown University. [...] "Coal as a fuel source for power plants is really not competitive in most of the United States," McCarthy said in a Q&A after her speech.

The Editor says...
Note two obvious canards:  (1) Coal is a highly competitive fuel for power plants.  Just ask the governments of India and China, where new coal-fired power plants are being built as fast as possible.  (2) The American people don't care about global warming any more (perhaps because there is no warming).

EPA can't find top official's text messages.  The EPA is poised to "do an IRS" — similar to what the tax agency had to do with dismissed top official Lois G. Lerner — and officially notify the National Archives that it may have lost key electronic records, according to a think tank that's suing to get text messages under an open-records request.  Justice Department lawyers told a federal court on Tuesday that the alert will be coming soon, in a case that's shaping up as a significant battle over whether government agencies are required to keep cellphone text messages as "official" records.

Feds have 'gone wild' with taxpayer-funded credit cards.  A congressional hearing on how federal agencies have "gone wild" with government credit cards found that personal use of taxpayer-funded cards is significant despite tighter controls passed in 2012.  Auditors revealed more than half of the $153,000 in credit-card purchases sampled at the Environmental Protection Agency were prohibited under the guidelines.  They included multi-course meals at an employee award ceremony, gift cards and family gym memberships.

19 Times the Government Withheld Documents It Didn't Want You to See.  [#17] Also this year, the Environmental Protection Agency told Congress it was having trouble finding emails relevant to a probe into the environmental impact of a proposed gold and copper mine in the Bristol Bay watershed in Alaska.  In a separate case, a federal judge found that the EPA willfully failed to keep emails and other records relevant to a Freedom of Information Act request regarding the delay of unpopular regulations until after the 2012 election.

EPA Blames Texas for Illinois Air Pollution.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is blaming power plants in Texas for Illinois air pollution and is using the accusation to justify restrictions on Texas power plants.  EPA claims its cross-state pollution rule, intended to protect communities in one state from pollution drifting from other states, justifies placing restrictions on Texas power plants EPA claims are polluting Granite City, Illinois.

EPA Fakes Regulatory Cost-Benefit Calculations.  When pressed about the staggering increases in regulatory burden under his administration, President Obama says not to worry because the benefits exceed the costs. But a new and revealing set of charts from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce highlights the shameless deception used to calculate the bulk of these purported benefits.  In Charting Federal Costs and Benefits, Chamber researchers analyzed the benefits calculations of the Environmental Protection Agency, which is responsible for the largest portion of the most costly regulations in recent years.  What they found obliterates the president's claims that sky-high regulatory costs are justified.

House passes bill to halt EPA water rule.  The House passed legislation Tuesday [9/9/2014] that would prevent the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from implementing a proposed rule to define its jurisdiction over bodies of water.  Passed 262-152, the bill would prohibit the EPA from using the proposal for any rulemaking regarding the Clean Water Act.

EPA takes step toward regulating plane emissions.  New greenhouse gas emission regulations for planes may be getting ready for take-off.  The Environmental Protection Agency this week informed the United Nations aviation program that it had begun investigating whether airplane emissions endangered public health.  While that alone doesn't amount to crafting rules, the "endangerment" finding was a necessary precursor for EPA emissions rules on power plants and cars.  The agency said it expects to roll out a notice of proposed rulemaking by April 2015.

An Out-Of-Control Agency of Zealots, Destroying Your Freedom.  [Scroll down]  Change one word officially and expand your overreach by billions.  Congress saw what they were trying to do and demanded answers.  I don't know how that one turned out, but it would seem to be this one.  A little over a week ago, the House passed legislation that would prevent the EPA from implementing a proposed rule to define its jurisdiction over bodies of water.  EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy has said the rule does not significantly expand the agency's existing authority.  Uh huh.  Republicans said the rule would go too far and subject trivial bodies of water to federal regulation.

EPA developed secret map to claim oversight of puddles, ponds, and farm runoff.  A map developed by the EPA and released to a U.S. House committee investigating controversial proposed water regulations should have citizens concerned, says U.S. Rep. Kevin Cramer. [...] "It is certainly alarming the EPA would develop these maps in secret and only release them after being confronted by members of Congress," Cramer, a Republican, said in a news release accompanying his office's release of the maps.  "The EPA has been hiding information which could upset the public and jeopardize its massive power grab of unprecedented authority over private and public water."

If only EPA stood for 'Enough Protection Already'.  The air we breathe is also cleaner than it's been for 60 years.  In a rational world, environmental bureaucrats would now say, "Mission accomplished.  We set tough standards, so we don't need to keep doing more.

EPA Fakes Regulatory Cost-Benefit Calculations.  When pressed about the staggering increases in regulatory burden under his administration, President Obama says not to worry because the benefits exceed the costs.  But a new and revealing set of charts from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce highlights the shameless deception used to calculate the bulk of these purported benefits.  In Charting Federal Costs and Benefits, Chamber researchers analyzed the benefits calculations of the Environmental Protection Agency, which is responsible for the largest portion of the most costly regulations in recent years.  What they found obliterates the president's claims that sky-high regulatory costs are justified.

Could the EPA Chief Really be 'Worse than Lois Lerner'?  A new court ruling may force more transparency out of the Environmental Protection Agency.  That's the hope of Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.  He points out the EPA has been involved with false identification in e-mail accounts, conducted agency business on private e-mail accounts and is now being held accountable for destroying thousands of public records in the form of text messages.  Horner goes so far as to say EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy is "worse than Lois Lerner," the central figure in the Internal Revenue Service targeting scandal.  "I don't think any agency can compare with this agency," Horner told TheBlaze, regarding the EPA.  "For once, the EPA has been told it cannot do whatever it wants to do under the law.  That is news."

Groups to EPA: Stop muzzling science advisers.  Journalist and scientific organizations accused the Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday [8/12/2014] of attempting to muzzle its independent scientific advisers by directing them to funnel all outside requests for information through agency officials.

EPA is declared a 'rogue agency'.  The U.S. Environmental ProtectionAgency was founded with much fanfare and good will in 1970, when green thinking and eco-mindedness was a righteous thing indeed.  Now the EPA is deemed "a rogue agency" that has outlived its purpose and "should be dismantled and replaced."  So says the Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based nonprofit that has a plan on how to do just that.

EPA tells new students: Only 1 napkin, 1 salt packet, 1 ketchup pouch at school lunches.  For many students, the unwelcome return to school is often sweetened with a shopping trip for school supplies and new clothes.  Not anymore.  As college, high school and grade school students begin returning to classes, the Environmental Protection Agency is urging students to use recycled material, even garbage, for their supplies and to shop at thrift stores for "retro fashions."  And don't even think about taking more than one napkin or salt packet in the lunch line.

Blueprint for water 'control'? Pol says EPA made secret maps for new regulatory push.  A top House Republican is charging that the Environmental Protection Agency secretly drafted highly detailed maps of U.S. waterways to set the stage for a controversial plan to expand regulatory power over streams and wetlands, a claim the EPA strongly denies.  Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, chairman of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, released those maps on Wednesday, while firing off a letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy voicing concerns over why they were created in the first place.

Feds raid S.C. home to seize Land Rover in EPA emission-control crackdown.  When it comes to environmental regulation compliance, the Department of Homeland Security isn't playing — as evidenced by a recent federal raid of a South Carolinian's home to confiscate a Land Rover that violated EPA emission rules.  Jennifer Brinkley said she saw a line of law enforcement vehicles approaching her home and wondered what was wrong, the local WBTV reported.  Homeland Security agents then went to her 1985 Land Rover Defender and lifted the hood.  "They popped up the hood and looked at the Vehicle Identification Number and compared it with a piece of paper and then took the car with them," she said, WBTV reported.

Homeland Security Seizing Cars That Violate EPA Standards.  Jennifer Brinkley of North Carolina says when saw a line of law enforcement vehicles coming up her driveway earlier this month she didn't know what to think.  "I haven't done anything wrong."  According to WBTV, the Homeland Security agents were not there to take her away, they were looking for illegally imported Land Rover Defenders.

The Environmental Corruption Agency.  The lofty motto of the Environmental Protection Agency is "protecting people and the environment."  In practice, however, EPA bureaucrats faithfully protect their own people and preserve the government's cesspool of manipulation, cover-ups and cronyism.  Just last week, Mark Levin and his vigilant Landmark Legal Foundation went to court to ask federal district judge Royce Lamberth to sanction the EPA "for destroying or failing to preserve emails and text messages that may have helped document suspected agency efforts to influence the 2012 presidential election."

EPA chief: Teach climate change in schools.  Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief Gina McCarthy said students should be taught the science behind climate change in schools.  "I think part of the challenge of explaining climate change is that it requires a level of science and a level of forward thinking and you've got to teach that to kids," McCarthy said in an interview with the magazine Irish American published Friday [8/8/2014].

Cooperation or Coercion on Climate: Is the EPA Trying to Deputize the States?  It has been argued that EPA's recently announced carbon emissions rule is just the latest attempt to draw states into the implementation of its regulations. [...] But Texas's fight to resist being drawn into implementing EPA's greenhouse gas regulations suggests that federal "encouragement" can be deeply coercive, employing penalties against the state's economy that courts have no doctrine to account for.

The EPA is America's Other Enemy.  While our attention is focused on events in the Middle East, a domestic enemy of the nation is doing everything in its power to kill the provision of electricity to the nation and, at the same time, to control every drop of water in the United States, an attack on its agricultural sector.  That enemy is the Environmental Protection Agency.  Like the rest of the Obama administration, it has no regard for real science and continues to reinterpret the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts.  It has an agenda that threatens every aspect of life in the nation.

EPA Fast Becoming The Green IRS.  The EPA authoritarian edicts include recently slapping a $75,000 a day — yes, a day — fine on Wyoming homeowner Andy Johnson for building a pond on his rural property to provide water for his cattle where the Six Mile Creek runs across his land.  The EPA, our environmental judge, jury and enforcer, declared that the Johnson family was in violation of the Clean Water Act.  The EPA charged the Johnsons with "the discharge of pollutants (i.e., dredged or fill material) into the waters of the United States" for building a dam without getting a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers.  According to the EPA, Johnson needed a permit not just from the state of Wyoming, which he had, but also from the Corps of Engineers because Six Mile Creek runs into Black Forks River, which runs into the Green River — a "navigable, interstate water of the United States."  By that definition, average Americans could be fined for washing their cars in their driveways.

It's the highest compliment any politician can receive from the EPA.
EPA to Republicans: You're making it 'very difficult' to do our job.  EPA Deputy Administrator Bob Perciasepe said he is trying to "build a bridge" with Republicans.  "I can tell you my boss [EPA Administrator] Gina McCarthy would want nothing more than to build credibility with Congress," Perciasepe said during a hearing at the House Small Business Committee.  Perciasepe plans to leave the EPA next month, but before he takes off he has been making the rounds in Congress, offering to patch things up with Republicans who are wary of the agency.  But this comes as little comfort to many Republicans, who are skeptical of the EPA's new Waters of the U.S. rule, fearing it could lead to a massive power grab over farmland.

The Editor says...
The tyrants at the EPA say the Republicans are making their jobs difficult.  They are lucky to have jobs.

Mark Levin suit says EPA destroying emails, texts to protect Obama.  Conservative talker Mark Levin's legal unit, in a battle with the Environmental Protection Agency over allegations it delayed politically damaging regulatory moves until after President Obama's reelection, is charging that agency big shots are destroying key emails and texts to hide those efforts.

EPA Chief: 'This Is Not About Pollution Control... It's an Investment Strategy'.  EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy told Congress on Wednesday [7/23/2014] that the EPA's sweeping carbon-regulation plan "really is an investment opportunity.  This is not about pollution control." Spouting warnings about "climate change" ("The science is clear.  The risks are clear... We must act."), McCarthy described and defended the EPA's plan to reduce pollution from existing power plants by setting various carbon-reduction goals for each state to meet by the year 2030.

Mark Levin Takes Obama's EPA to Task in Court.  Talk radio's Mark Levin is in a legal knife fight with Barack Obama's Environmental Protection Agency and may have the EPA by the throat in what would be a humiliation for the Obama White House.  Levin is a talk radio giant and conservative hero ("The Great One," as Sean Hannity describes him).  But he's also actually a lawyer, who served as chief of staff to a leader held in the highest reverence by conservatives, Attorney General Edwin Meese.  And Levin continues to litigate through Landmark Legal Foundation, where he is president.

Did the EPA Abuse Its Authority to Influence the 2012 presidential election?  Perhaps the better question is, is there a government agency Obama hasn't exploited for political gain?

Lawmakers move to block EPA wage-garnishing rule.  Lawmakers pushed back Tuesday against the Environmental Protection Agency's move to garnish the paychecks of accused polluters, advancing a bill that would block the new authority.  The House Committee on Appropriations approved the countermeasure as a policy rider on a $30.2 billion spending bill for natural resources agencies, including the EPA, the Interior Department and U.S. Forest Service.  The amendment by Rep. Tom Graves, Georgia Republican, passed the committee in a voice vote, signaling an absence of strong opposition, if not support for prohibiting the EPA from claiming authority to garnish wages to collect fines and penalties without a court order.

Update:
EPA pulls back from plan to garnish paychecks.  The Environmental Protection Agency bowed to fierce criticism Wednesday [7/16/2014] and announced that it had hit the breaks on a fast-tracked plan to collect fines by garnishing paychecks of accused polluters.  The agency, which has come under withering attacks from Republican lawmakers for attempting a "power grab," said it still intended to pursue the new authority to garnish wages without a court order.  But now it will follow a more typical and longer review process.

A Government Feared and Distrusted.  [Scroll down]  The proposed regulations are so onerous, they could literally make farming of some areas impossible.  But if you don't comply, the EPA could label you a "polluter" whose wages should be garnished.  Case example:  the agency has threatened fines of up to $75,000 per day on Wyoming homeowner Andy Johnson.  He built a pond on his rural property.  Think twice before you build that koi pond in your own backyard — or collect rain water on your property, like Gary Harrington, an Oregonian now serving a 30-day sentence for violating water regulations.  An encyclopedia would be required to list all the examples of executive and governmental agency overreach.  But note the theme:  the examples above are violations of Americans trust by non-elected governmental agencies.  You, Joe Average, have no say in what is decreed.  You are not represented when thousands of regulations are enacted.

Rep. Campbell: Government, IRS, EPA Are 'The Police State'.  Rep. John Campbell (R-Calif.) called the government, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) "the police state" at a Financial Services Committee hearing at the Capitol on Thursday [7/10/2014].  At the July 10 hearing, Legislation to Reform the Federal Reserve on Its 100-year Anniversary, the Federal Reserve Accountability and Transparency Act (HR 5018) was discussed, legislation which would require "the Federal Reserve to provide the Congress with a clear rule to describe the course of monetary policy."  The act would also require the Fed to conduct cost-benefit analysis, require transparency on bank stress tests and international financial regulatory negotiations, and would order the Fed to disclose the salaries of highly paid employees.

EPA Regulations Killing Family-Owned Peach Orchards.  Environmental Protection Agency regulations banning the use of the chemical methyl bromide since 2005 are threatening peach orchards in Louisiana, Watchdog reports.  Joe Mitchin's family-owned business of peach orchards in northern Louisiana is slowly dying off.  Orchard owners traditionally use methyl bromide to treat diseased peach trees, but owing to the advent of EPA regulations in 2005, Mitchin has been unable to treat his orchard, leading to a steady decline in production.  The destruction of peach trees has forced Mitchin to downsize his company, laying off 40 employees, according to Watchdog.  Business expenses are difficult to cover, and so the orchard, which was founded in 1946 as a family operation, will face no other choice than to close its doors in the next few years.

EPA has no business garnishing wages without due process.  It took Mike and Chantell Sackett five years and a unanimous Supreme Court decision just to gain a fighting chance against a thuggish Environmental Protection Agency.  Officials appeared at their Idaho property in 2007 threatening them with fines of $37,500 per day unless they immediately stopped construction on their dream home on land they owned near a lake.  The agency cited the Clean Water Act after a neighbor complained, perhaps upset at the prospect of another home being built in the well-developed neighborhood.  There are dozens of adjacent homes, multiple piers on the lake and even a well-trafficked marina close at hand.  The Sacketts' property already had a sewer hookup.  The agency not only threatened to ruin the Sacketts, but also insisted they could nothing to contest the agency's actions.

The EPA Is Drafting A Rule To Claim Control Over Local Waterways Like Ditches And Streams.  The Environmental Protection Agency is planning to expand its jurisdiction over the nation's waterways under the Clean Water Act to include ditches, small streams, ponds, and other purely local waterways.  Nearly 204,000 comments have been received since the rule was proposed on April 21, 2014, mostly from Americans opposed to it.  Ten U.S. senators also sent a letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy expressing their concerns about the proposed rule changes.  Among the examples of potential overreach the senators cite are attempts by environmentalists to ban fireworks at Lake Tahoe along the border of California and Nevada.  The senators fear the expanded EPA jurisdiction could led to similar lawsuits in other places.

Boeing fears regulatory wave amid battle over fish, water pollution.  At the heart of the fight, which could impact thousands of jobs, is a peculiar question:  How much locally caught fish do Washingtonians eat, and what are the health risks?  Green groups, alone with Washington state tribes, have sued the Environmental Protection Agency to push for increased fish consumption rates — currently set at six-and-a-half grams a day.  If the number is set higher, it would trigger tougher standards on toxins flowing into the Puget Sound.

Power grab: EPA wants to garnish wages of polluters.  The Environmental Protection Agency has quietly floated a rule claiming authority to bypass the courts and unilaterally garnish paychecks of those accused of violating its rules, a power currently used by agencies such as the Internal Revenue Service.  The EPA has been flexing its regulatory muscle under President Obama, collecting more fines each year and hitting individuals with costly penalties for violating environmental rules, including recently slapping a $75,000 fine on Wyoming homeowner Andy Johnson for building a pond on his rural property.  "The EPA has a history of overreaching its authority.  It seems like once again the EPA is trying to take power it doesn't have away from American citizens," Sen. John Barrasso, Wyoming Republican, said when he learned of the EPA's wage garnishment scheme.  Others questioned why the EPA decided to strengthen its collection muscle at this time.  Critics said the threat of garnishing wages would be a powerful incentive for people to agree to expensive settlements rather than fight EPA charges.

The Week That Was.  [I]n its questionable finding that carbon dioxide emissions endanger public health and welfare, the EPA claimed its findings are supported by science and cited three lines of evidence.  [#1] EPA claims a distinct human fingerprint — a hot spot in the atmosphere centered over the tropics at about 10 kilometers (33,000 feet).  This hot spot may not exist.  Satellites and weather balloons have failed to find it.  [#2] EPA claims late 20th century surface global warming was unprecedented and dangerous.  It was not.  A similar warming occurred in the early 20th century, which was not associated with carbon dioxide.  The late 20th century surface warming stopped over 16 years ago.  [#3] EPA claims climate models are reliable.  Climate models failed to predict that global warming would stop and greatly exaggerate the warming over the past 30 plus years.

What Is the EPA Hiding From the Public?  The EPA's regulatory process today is a closed loop.  The agency funds the scientific research it uses to support its regulations, and it picks the supposedly independent (but usually agency- funded) scientists to review it.  When the regulations are challenged, the courts defer to the agency on scientific issues.  But the agency refuses to make public the scientific research it uses.

Panning in protest: Activists mine for gold in defiance of EPA regs.  The American West was settled in part by gold miners exploring a new frontier, and now modern-day prospectors are fighting to keep that tradition alive.  A group of miners began illegally dredging for gold this week in Idaho's Salmon River to challenge what they call federal government overreach into the waterway, Reuters reported.  They are protesting regulations by the EPA that forbid suction dredging and other mining in the river in order to protect the habitat of endangered fish.

EPA spends $1.6 million on hotel for 'Environmental Justice' conference.  The Environmental Protection Agency will spend more than $1 million on hotel accommodations for an "Environmental Justice" conference this fall.  The agency posted its intention to contract with the Renaissance Arlington Local Capital View Hotel for its upcoming public meeting, for which it will need to book 195 rooms for 24 days.

Dramatic NASA satellite images show our air getting cleaner.  If Americans are breathing easier than they were a decade ago, these new NASA satellite images may help explain why.  They show — in vividly color-coded maps — that levels of nitrogen dioxide, an important air pollutant, have plummeted across the country over the last decade.

The Editor says...
That's all very nice, and it proves that the EPA's work is finished, so we can get rid of the EPA now.  But why was this a NASA project rather than a NOAA project?

Republicans: EPA Rule Could Ruin Fourth Of July.  While Americans get ready for the thousands of fireworks shows that will be occurring across the country this weekend, Republicans are warning that pending federal water regulations could ruin fireworks displays next year.  The Environmental Protection Agency is trying to expand its authority under the Clean Water Act.  Republicans warn that the agency's proposal to expand the definition of "waters of the United States" could allow the EPA to regulate bodies of water on private property.  Republicans are now warning that EPA water rules could threaten fireworks by allowing environmental activists to sue and shut down shows across the country.

The EPA has had some convenient hard drive crashes, too..  The hard drive in question was assigned to Philip North.

EPA refuses to turn over subpoenaed documents, citing hard drive failure.  According to a report, the EPA has refused to comply with a Congressional subpoena, citing hard drive failure as the reason.  Sound familiar? [...] This story should remove all doubt from every American that this administration is completely and utterly corrupt.

The EPA is America's Other Enemy.  While our attention is focused on events in the Middle East, a domestic enemy of the nation is doing everything in its power to kill the provision of electricity to the nation and, at the same time, to control every drop of water in the United States, an attack on its agricultural sector.  That enemy is the Environmental Protection Agency.  Like the rest of the Obama administration, it has no regard for real science and continues to reinterpret the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts.  It has an agenda that threatens every aspect of life in the nation.

EPA moves on green refrigerants.  The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday proposed federal approval of climate-friendly refrigerants used in household air conditioners and refrigerators, as part of President Obama's quest to counter global warming.

The Editor says...
Global warming stopped, all by itself, in 1997.  Obama's "quest" is to bring capitalism to a halt, by using unnecessary regulations as his weapons.

What Is the EPA Hiding From the Public?  The climate is changing and, yes, humans play a role.  But that does not mean, as Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy would have us believe, that the debate — over how much the climate is changing, how big a role humans play, and what can reasonably done about it — is over.  Still less does it mean that anyone who questions her agency's actions, particularly the confidential research it uses to justify multimillion and billion-dollar air rules, is a denier at war with science.

Now EPA says it can't find emails requested by Congress because of hard drive crash.  Does the federal government have any systems at all to back its email archives?  Maybe not, because the Environmental Protection Agency is now using the same excuse as the IRS is using in response to a Congressional subpoena:  the computer ate our homework.  In a hearing Wednesday [6/25/2014] before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said the agency was still trying to recover the emails from a now-retired employee who was involved in a controversial EPA evaluation of a proposed mine project in Alaska's Bristol Bay.

EPA Chief: Costly 'Clean Power Plan' Gives Americans 'More Opportunities to Reduce Waste'.  The sweeping EPA plan announced earlier this month sets carbon-reduction targets for each state, then allows states to decide how to meet those targets, either on their own or in partnership with other states.  McCarthy said many states will choose the most "cost-effective strategy," which is to reduce consumer demand for electricity:  But that means raising the cost of electricity, Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) told McCarthy:  "EPA has said the rule will not increase the cost of electricity, but under this proposed rule, the cost of electricity per kilowatt hour will actually increase.  Isn't that correct?"

EPA in Contempt for Destroying Computer Files.  According to an Associated Press report, a federal judge has held the EPA in contempt for destroying computer files sought after by a conservative group:  Landmark Legal Foundation.  It's taken more than 13 years.  U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth had ordered the EPA on Jan. 19, 2001, at the end of the Clinton administration, to preserve all documents relevant to a Freedom of Information Act request by Landmark regarding the federal agency's contact with outside groups.  That same day, EPA Administrator Carol Browner asked a technician to delete her computer files.  Browner later testified that she was unaware of the court order and simply wanted to remove some games from her work computer.  According to AP, EPA officials later admitted wiping clean the computer files from Browner and other top staff despite Lamberth's order.  In finding the EPA in contempt this week, Judge Lamberth ordered the agency to pay Landmark's legal fees.  That means that ultimately taxpayers foot the bill for the EPA's misconduct.

The EPA Overreaches Again.  Back in 1972, when Congress passed the Clean Water Act (CWA), the EPA was given jurisdiction over discharges from "point sources" like factories into the "navigable waters" of the United States.  Jurisdiction over the majority of U.S. water and land was left to state and local governments.  By the 1980s the EPA was claiming jurisdiction over any spot a migratory bird might land.  According to the EPA, a wandering goose established the needed link between actual navigable waters and waters far removed from Congress's intent.  In what was piquantly called the glancing goose test, if a goose paused during migration at any body of water, no matter how temporary, it was deemed a water of the U.S. and thus covered by the CWA.

New EPA Regs Issued Under Obama Are 38 Times as Long as Bible.  Since President Barack Obama took office on Jan. 20, 2009, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued 2,827 new final regulations, equaling 24,915 pages in the Federal Register, totaling approximately 24,915,000 words.  The Gutenberg Bible is only 1,282 pages and 646,128 words.  Thus, the new EPA regulations issued by the Obama Administration contain 19 times as many pages as the Bible and 38 times as many words.

EPA: Texas should cut emissions by 39 percent.  Texas has to cut its carbon emission by 39 percent by 2030 under new federal requirements.

Official on key EPA fracking advisory board has suspect degree.  An official on the Environmental Protection Agency's hydraulic fracturing scientific advisory board got a doctorate degree from an unaccredited, shuttered online correspondence school that congressional auditors targeted a decade ago in an investigation into diploma mills.  The advisory board member is listed as Dr. Connie Schreppel in EPA records, which highlight her doctorate from Kennedy Western University and a master's from Greenwich University.

Ethanol and MTBE — Should EPA Be Abolished?  [Scroll down]  The role of EPA in this unnecessary disaster — which polluted ground water in 49 states and placed 100 million people at risk — should be reason enough to abolish EPA and end the myth that government regulations on balance improve our environment.  MTBE has been identified as cancer-causing in rat studies that are comparable to the kind of rat studies that EPA has used to attack all sorts of food additives and agricultural chemicals, but EPA raised no alarm about this regarding MTBE.  When EPA declares industry to be the culprit in allegedly cancer-causing chemicals, it demands immediate correct action — but when EPA itself is the guilty party, it takes many years before something is done.

US sets up honey bee loss task force.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the agriculture department will lead the effort, which includes $8m (£4.7m) for new honey bee habitats.  Bee populations saw a 23% decline last winter, a trend blamed on the loss of genetic diversity, exposure to certain pesticides and other factors.  A quarter of the food Americans eat, including apples, carrots and avocados, relies on pollination.

EPA Chief Promises To Go After Republicans Who Question Agency Science.  Environmental Protection Agency administrator Gina McCarthy has issued a warning to Republicans who continue to question the integrity of the agency's scientific data:  we're coming for you.  McCarthy told an audience at the National Academy of Sciences on Monday morning the agency will go after a "small but vocal group of critics" who are arguing the EPA is using "secret science" to push costly clean air regulations.  "Those critics conjure up claims of EPA secret science — but it's not really about EPA science or secrets.  It's about challenging the credibility of world renowned scientists and institutions like Harvard University and the American Cancer Society," McCarthy said, according to Politico.

EPA Awarded Nearly $500,000 In Improper Bonuses.  Retention bonuses are payments or rewards outside of an employee's salary that are used as an incentive to keep the employee in their current position.  According to Investopedia, the bonuses have been used during mergers and acquisitions, or to decrease corporate poaching.

EPA's next target in fight against climate change: cooking stoves.  The Obama administration's war on climate change may soon be moving inside the kitchen.  Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy is set to unveil Tuesday [5/27/2014] six federal grants to universities to fund research on clean cooking-stove technology.  The announcement will put the EPA's resources squarely behind a United Nations' quest for cleaner burning stoves and an end to deadly cooking pollution.

The Editor says...
"Deadly cooking pollution" sounds like a problem that would quickly fix itself:  Those who use the fuels and the techniques that prove fatal would soon be extinct. But you can bet nothing like this happens in the United States, and clearly it is a waste of our tax dollars to remedy other countries' problems.

EPA accused of blocking independent investigations.  A unit run by President Barack Obama's political staff inside the Environmental Protection Agency operates illegally as a "rogue law enforcement agency" that has blocked independent investigations by the EPA's inspector general for years, a top investigator told Congress.

EPA Employees Not Fired For Watching Pornography, Stealing Money.  The Environmental Protection Agency has not been firing employees for watching pornography and falsifying federal documents, according to California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa.  "How much pornography would it take for an EPA employee to lose his job?" Issa asked EPA officials, including the agency's second-in-command, testifying before the House Oversight Committee.  Issa chairs the committee.  "This individual spent four consecutive hours on a site called 'sadism is beautiful,'" Issa pressed the EPA employees.  "You are running an organization from which no one can get fired."

Extreme Pornography Agency.  An Environmental Protection Agency official spent up to six hours a day on the taxpayer dime looking at pornography, according to the EPA Inspector General.  Allan Williams, the deputy assistant inspector general for investigations, told the House Oversight Committee Wednesday that his office had discovered an EPA official who habitually watched porn on a government computer.

'How much pornography would it take for an EPA employee to lose their job?'  A congressional committee grilled leaders of the Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday following reports that an agency employee confessed to spending between two and six hours per day viewing pornography on his government-issued computer during work hours.  Witnesses in the House Oversight and Government Reform committee hearing confirmed that the worker, whose name has not been disclosed, is still receiving his $120,000 salary and continues to have access to EPA computers.  When an investigator went to interview him, he was at his desk surfing sexually explicit websites.

Save the Environment — from the EPA.  Saving the Environment has become all about making money with bogus claims that man-made global warming is well on its way to destroying Mother Earth.  Saving the Environment long ago left rampant pollution behind for government-sponsored 'scientists' to chase down C02, a necessary component for healthy plant life.  All scientists using science and truth to point out that man-made global warming is a hoax are labeled "deniers" and threatened with prison.

The Editor says...
Enough of this Mother Earth nonsense.  The earth is not my mother.  I have been given dominion over the earth [Genesis 1:26].

EPA Paid Nearly $500K in Unauthorized Bonuses.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) paid out nearly $500,000 in unauthorized bonuses, according to a report released by the EPA Inspector General Friday [5/2/2014].  An Inspector General (IG) investigation found that 11 EPA employees received $481,819 in unauthorized retention bonuses between 2006 and 2013.  The bonuses are meant to incentivize employees who receive other job offers.  The bonuses are supposed to be reauthorized annually, but for 10 of those EPA officials, the IG could find no evidence that their bonuses were reviewed, as required by federal regulations and EPA policies.

Half of EPA office's passports are missing, IG finds.  Almost half of the passports issued to the Environmental Protection Agency's employees are missing, according to the EPA's inspector general.  Official and diplomatic passports issued to EPA employees, as well as other sensitive personal identifiable information, could be compromised as a result, the inspector general said in a report.  Of 417 passports issued to Office of International and Tribal Affairs employees, 199 could not be located, the report said.

EPA accused of tolerating rampant employee misconduct, obstructing probes.  The EPA was accused Wednesday [5/7/2014] of tolerating waste, fraud and "criminal conduct" in its own ranks, as a House committee hearing aired allegations of employee misconduct that have cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.  The inspector general's office — the official watchdog tasked with overseeing the agency — also claims it's being blocked from doing its job by a unit within the EPA.  "I'm very concerned that vital information regarding suspected employee misconduct is being withheld from the OIG," Patrick Sullivan, assistant inspector general, testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Massive, $1.7 billion environmental cleanup of Passaic River proposed by EPA.  In one of the largest Superfund cleanups ever proposed, federal officials yesterday called for a bank-to-bank dredging of the Passaic River that would remove more than 4 million cubic yards of toxic sediment from the river bottom — enough to fill up MetLife Stadium twice.  The 1.7 billion cleanup, under study for 25 years, would target the lower eight miles of the highly polluted waterway, from Belleville to Newark, which remains heavily contaminated with high concentrations of dioxin, PCBs and other contaminants left behind by more than a century of industrial activity.

The EPA's Science Problem.  In a stunning admission, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy revealed to House Science, Space and Technology Committee chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) that the agency neither possesses, nor can produce, all of the scientific data used to justify the rules and regulations they have imposed on Americans via the Clean Air Act.  In short, science has been trumped by the radical environmentalist agenda.  The admission follows the issuance of a subpoena by the full Committee last August.  It was engendered by two years of EPA stonewalling, apparently aimed at preventing the raw data cited by EPA as the scientific foundation for those rules and regulations from being independently verified.

Will EPA water grab tip US back into recession?  Consider the bureaucratic meaning of the term "waters of the United States," which is the rubric under which the U.S. federal government establishes jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act. [...] While Websters may only need 85 words to do the job — and even the Clean Water Act's author, Edmund Muskie, needed only 88 pages for the entire bill — EPA's definition of water runs 370 pages.  And that's leaving aside appendices, one of which is a hefty 300 pages in its own right.  The new catchphrase is "connectivity:"  Forget whether waters are navigable; what matters now for EPA's would-be rulemakers is that disparate bodies of water are connected ecologically, demonstrating a "significant nexus."  This includes "ephemeral waterways" — translation:  ditches and even potholes that sometimes collect rainwater or storm runoff will now fall under EPA authority.

GOP lawmakers push EPA to ax proposed water rule amid outcry from farmers.  More than a dozen Republican lawmakers are pushing the Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider asserting regulatory authority over streams and wetlands amid intense backlash from farm groups over the agency's proposed water rule.  In a letter Thursday [4/3/2014], the GOP senators faulted the EPA for announcing a proposed rule last week before the government's peer-reviewed scientific assessment was fully complete.  They are calling on the government to withdraw the rule or give the public six months to review it, rather than the three months being provided.

EPA's secret gas chamber experiments: A deceitful failure.  A man — we'll call him "Subject No. 1" — had a clear plastic pipe stuck into his mouth with his lips sealed around it, while the diesel exhaust from a parked truck outside the gas chamber was mixed with particulate matter and pumped straight into his lungs.  The pumped mixture level was 135 times the mean diesel truck emissions exposure in the United States.

The Mengele EPA.  The Environmental Protection Agency has been deliberately exposing people — including children — with asthma and other health issues to pollution to justify ever-more-stringent air quality standards.  'Improvements to EPA Policies and Guidance Could Enhance Protection of Human Study Subjects," released by the EPA's Office of Inspector General on March 31, confirms that the agency "exposed 81 human study subjects to concentrated airborne particles or diesel exhaust emissions in five EPA studies conducted during 2010 and 2011."  According to the report, obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation, the human subjects, said to have given their "informed consent," were exposed to levels of pollutants up to 50 times greater than the EPA itself says is safe for humans.  And there are questions as to how informed that consent was.

Obama and the EPA Know No Bounds With Regard To Climate Change.  It seems that the EPA conducted five experiments in 2010 and 2011 on people with health issues such as asthma and heart problems, and on the elderly.  The experiments exposed people to dangerously high levels of toxic pollutants, including diesel exhaust fumes.  Diesel exhaust fumes contains forty toxic air contaminants, including nineteen that are known carcinogens, and particulant matter [PM].  The EPA has publicly warned of the dangers of PM.  An EPA document from 2003 that says short-term exposure to PM can result in heart attacks and arrhythmias for people with heart disease.  It further states that long-term exposure can result in reduced lung function and even death.

Obama EPA To Regulate Bovine Emissions.  It's our lust for cheeseburgers that's dooming the planet through climate change, the Obama administration said in a Climate Action Plan released Friday [3/28/2014] that seeks to save us all from ruminant livestock.  Having already blamed the Industrial Revolution for what we used to call weather and temperatures that have flat-lined for 15 years, the White House is now targeting American agriculture abundance by slashing methane emissions from cows by 25% by 2020.

Obama is the coming Revolution.  At this stage of the Fundamental Transformation of America, the wake up call should be glaringly obvious.  The administration controls the 'news'.  They control the narrative.  They call the shots.  They do the branding and the smearing with the name-calling they intend to make stick.  While various agencies under the control of the administration paint patriots as dissidents, the EPA, their lead agency for change, has been using Americans — including children — as lab rats. [...] There are 435 congressman and 100 senators in Washington, DC but not one of them has exposed the deadly secret of the modern-day EPA.  And it is not just the EPA that Congress has been allowing to get by in the dark.  The news is managed the minute it happens — and often even before.

Obama administration faces backlash on proposed wood stove regulations.  A federal proposal requiring more efficiency from wood-burning stoves has ignited a debate between the Obama administration and lawmakers who oppose the new regulations, arguing the rules impose an unfair burden on people in remote areas.  The Environmental Protection Agency proposed a rule changes in January that would dramatically tighten emissions requirements on new wood-powered heaters, though does not impact ones already in homes.  The EPA estimates that as much as 13 percent of all soot pollution in the U.S. is a result of inefficient wood-fired stoves and boilers.

The Editor says...
When a "problem" of this sort is announced, it should be met with a unanimous cry of, "So what?"  When you stoke a fire in a pot-belly stove to keep your house (or cabin) warm, do you care if it's inefficient?  Do you care if the area around your house smells like wood smoke?  Do you care if the chimney exceeds some bureaucrat's arbitrary standard for particulate emissions?  Of course not.  That's because, for thousands of years, people have been willing to tolerate smoky air if it means they will stay warm.

EPA land grab? Agency claims expanded authority over streams, wetlands.  In what critics are describing as a government land grab, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed a change Tuesday [3/25/2014] to the Clean Water Act that would give it regulatory authority over temporary wetlands and waterways.  The proposal immediately sparked concerns that the regulatory power could extend into seasonal ponds, streams and ditches, including those on private property.

EPA Unveils 'Largest Expansion' of 'Authority to Regulate Private Property'.  The Environmental Protection Agency today unveiled its proposed rule to bring natural and man-made bodies of water big and tiny under the purview of the Clean Water Act, sparking accusations that the administration has embarked on an unprecedented breach of private property rights without scientific basis.  This launches a "robust outreach effort" to gather input in shaping a final rule over the next 90 days, the EPA said, maintaining that the rulemaking isn't groundbreaking but a clarification effort needed to clearly define streams and wetlands protection after Supreme Court decisions in 2001 and 2006.

House Republicans lay into EPA 'land grab'.  The Environmental Protection Agency says a rule it proposed this week merely clarifies its existing authority over the nation's waterways.  Republicans say it's "the biggest land grab in the history of the world," as House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers, R-Ky., called it.  There is some certainty about the EPA's rule defining the waters of the United States — the buzz it has generated is not going away any time soon.  The EPA, in conjunction with the Army Corps of Engineers, says the proposed rule would clarify which streams, rivers, wetlands and other waterways are within its regulatory jurisdiction. It would bring a majority of those waterways under EPA control, which drew backlash from conservatives and industry groups.

Reporter protests being 'detained' by Capitol police for trying to question EPA head Gina McCarthy.  U.S. Capitol police officers "detained" a journalist who was attempting to question Environmental Protection Agency administrator Gina McCarthy, according to the reporter, who was released after a background check.

The Editor says...
That doesn't do much for Obama's claim of the most open and transparent administration in history.

Anti-Science Environmentalists Ban 'Neonic' Insecticides, Imperiling Global Health.  Two recent pesticide bans in the EU — one fully in effect, the other in the process of being phased in — could create massive new disincentives for further development in this area.  Both bans were politically motivated and instituted over the objection of independent scientists, and similar bans are now being pushed by activists in the U.S.  Should the EPA cave to political pressure, the long-term effect on global public health could be devastating.

The Editor says...
The way I see it, the EPA is applying political pressure, in order to prolong its existence.  They aren't about to "cave to political pressure."

EPA Issues Preemptive Report Attacking Alaska Mining Plan.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a final assessment of the environmental impacts of a hypothetical mine in southwest Alaska, claiming mining operations 200 miles upstream from Bristol Bay would pose serious risks to salmon in the bay.  EPA's initial and final assessments regarding the site are the first time the agency has preemptively moved to discourage a potential mining operation before a mining plan was submitted.  EPA's final report also leaves little doubt the project will remain in limbo at least through the duration of the Obama administration.  Similar in tone and content to a controversial draft assessment EPA released in May 2012, the agency's final assessment focuses much of its attention on a hypothetical mine's effects on sockeye salmon in Bristol Bay.

Supreme Court says regulatory law means whatever EPA says it means, today.  On Monday, the [U.S. Supreme] Court declined to accept an appeal from Arch Coal of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's reversal of its 2007 issuance of a 2011 Clean Water Act permit for the company's Spruce Mine operation in West Virginia.  By refusing to hear the appeal, the court upheld EPA's authority to change its mind on a regulatory permit decision, even though doing so inflicts substantial financial and other losses on appellants.  The court's denial also creates a damaging new regulatory uncertainty because it casts potential doubt on the legitimacy on any federal permitting decision, not just those by EPA under the Clean Water Act.

E.P.A. Set to Reveal Tough New Sulfur Emissions Rule.  The Environmental Protection Agency plans to unveil a major new regulation on Monday [3/3/2014] that forces oil refiners to strip out sulfur, a smog-forming pollutant linked to respiratory disease, from American gasoline blends, according to people familiar with the agency's plans. [...] The E.P.A. estimates that the new rule will drastically reduce soot and smog in the United States, and thus rates of diseases associated with those pollutants, while slightly raising the price of both gasoline and cars.  The rule will require oil refiners to install expensive new equipment to clean sulfur out of gasoline and force automakers to install new, cleaner-burning engine technology.

Audit finds EPA workers used gov't-issued cards for dubious expenses.  A government audit found employees from the Environment Protection Agency used federally-issued charge cards to buy gym memberships, gift cards and other items that were either forbidden or not even documented.  The report by the office of the Inspector General faulted the agency for not keeping track of scores of transactions made by employees authorized to use so-called "SmartPay" cards.  It found more than half of $150,000 in expenditures singled out for scrutiny was not in compliance with federal regulations.

Wyoming welder faces $75,000 a day in EPA fines for building pond on his property.  All Andy Johnson wanted to do was build a stock pond on his sprawling eight-acre Wyoming farm.  He and his wife Katie spent hours constructing it, filling it with crystal-clear water, and bringing in brook and brown trout, ducks and geese.  It was a place where his horses could drink and graze, and a private playground for his three children.  But instead of enjoying the fruits of his labor, the Wyoming welder says he was harangued by the federal government, stuck in what he calls a petty power play by the Environmental Protection Agency.  He claims the agency is now threatening him with civil and criminal penalties — including the threat of a $75,000-a-day fine.

EPA Wants to Slap $75K a Day Fine on Landowner Who Built Stock Pond on Own Property.  Senators are trying to intervene on behalf of a Wyoming landowner facing $75,000 a day in Environmental Protection Agency fines for building a stock pond on his own property.  The EPA compliance order against Andrew Johnson of Unita County claims that he violated the Clean Water Act by building a dam on a creek without a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers.  Johnson says it was a stock pond, which would make it exempt from CWA permitting requirements.  The EPA is telling him to restore the creek as it was or face penalties.

EPA finalizes new gasoline sulfur limits.  The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday set new limits on the amount of sulfur permitted in gasoline, capping a lobbying battle that pitted the oil and refining industries against automakers and public health groups.  The EPA's "Tier 3" gasoline rule ratchets down sulfur content to 10 parts per million from 30.  The agency said it would bring $13 in health benefits for every dollar spent to comply with the standard, amounting to between $6.7 billion and $19 billion in annual health benefits by 2030.

The Editor says...
Of course the EPA's rationale is all nonsense.  How many people can tolerate exhaust fumes with a sulfur content of 10 parts per million, but they get sick if it's 30 ppm?  I'll answer that question:  Nobody!

EPA 'Power grab'? States fear precedent in Chesapeake Bay cleanup.  Attorneys general in 21 states are fighting to block Environmental Protection Agency pollution limits designed to improve the health of the Chesapeake Bay, fearing the Obama administration will use that authority to regulate wetlands in their states.  The attorneys general filed an amicus brief earlier this month in support of the American Farm Bureau Federation's challenge to the cleanup plan, which aims to reduce pollutants and get the bay up to federal clean-water standards by 2025, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

Culture of corruption in federal bureaucracy.  Evidence is accumulating of a corrupt bureaucratic culture in many, if not all, federal agencies.  Revelations of lavish meetings at fancy hotels, featuring stupid but expensive custom-made videos emerged in the last couple of years.  But even worse, cases of bureaucrats stealing from taxpayers by taking time off while still being paid high salaries have been reported recently, with their supervisors knowingly turning a blind eye to the taxpayer rip-off.  The EPA's highest-paid employee pretended to be a CIA agent and defrauded the taxpayers of about $900,000 in salary and travel expenses (often first class airfare and five star hotels).  But this apparently was no isolated incident.

EPA Video Contest Teaches Budding Child-Activists to Worry About 'Climate Change'.  The Environmental Protection Agency is co-sponsoring a "climate change video contest" that asks students, ages 11-14:  "Why do you care about climate change?" And:  "How are you reducing carbon pollution or preparing for the impacts of climate change?"  Students are advised to "be cool" and "be creative" in explaining "how climate change affects you, your family, friends, and community, now or in the future" — and what they are doing to "prepare for a changing climate."  The Obama administration frequently uses video contests or "challenges" to advance its liberal viewpoint on a variety of issues, and this is no exception.

Emails: Another top EPA official used private email account to aid environmentalists.  It pays to know people in charge, especially if they are federal regulators.  Emails suggest that an Environmental Protection Agency regional administrator used a private AOL email account to correspond with environmentalists.  Such email use is prohibited by agency rules and is seen as a way to skirt transparency requirements.  Emails show that EPA Region 2 Administrator Judith Enck gave advice to environmental activists, including securing government funding, getting meetings with high-level officials and attending events.

EPA Officials Obstructed Fraud Investigation.  Several Environmental Protection Agency employees obstructed an investigation into the mismanagement that allowed a senior EPA official to bilk taxpayers for nearly $900,000, the EPA Inspector General said in a letter to Sen. David Vitter (R., La.) released Wednesday [2/26/2014].  EPA employees threatened Inspector General investigators, refused to cooperate, and handed out non-disclosure agreements to other employees to keep them from being interviewed, EPA Inspector General Arthur Elkins Jr. wrote in response to a request for information by Vitter on the case.

EPA Decree Shrinks Size of Wyoming by a Million Acres.  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. [...] "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.

Idaho firm that beat EPA in court now targeted by Army Corps of Engineers?  Nearly two years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court smacked down the Environmental Protection Agency in a landmark property rights case.  The court ruled that the EPA was overstepping its bounds in going after the Sackett family of Idaho.  In 2007 the Sacketts wanted to build their dream home on their own land, but the EPA swept in and tried to stop them, arguing that their land was a "wetland."  It wasn't a wetland, the Sacketts tried to go to court to win their property rights back, but the EPA ruled that they had no right even to defend themselves in court.  The EPA staked out the position that the Sacketts could only deal with the EPA, which had already ruled against them.  The Supreme Court ultimately disagreed with the EPA, and the Sacketts won.

EPA Bans Most Wood Burning Stoves In a Corrupt Scheme, Fireplaces Next.  As of January 3rd, the EPA banned about 80% of the wood-burning stoves and fireplace inserts in the United States.  Stoves which are used to heat 12% of the homes in America and are especially needed in outlying rural areas.  Fireplaces are also being looked at.  The EPA is attempting to reduce particle pollution with new rules.  Instead of limiting fine airborne particulate emissions to 15 micrograms per cubic meter (µg/m³) of air, the change will impose a maximum 12 µg/m³ limit. [...] The draconian EPA regulations will be spread out, one will take place in March and the next in five to eight years.  Stoves currently in use will not be affected but obviously, getting them repaired will become more and more difficult.

Wyoming officials prepare for court fight after EPA ruling hands land to tribes.  Wyoming officials are gearing up for a potential court battle against the Environmental Protection Agency as they try to reverse a sweeping agency ruling that transferred more than 1 million acres of land — including an entire city of 10,000 — to Native American tribes.  The dispute started in December when the EPA ruled on a request from the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone tribes, which sought "state status" in order to administer air quality monitoring.

Ohio EPA Proposes Phosphorus, Nitrogen Restrictions.  The two main sources of phosphorus and nitrogen in Ohio waterways are farming and sewage.  Numeric nutrient restrictions will thus impose substantial new costs on farmers and municipal budgets.  When the U.S. EPA proposed similar restrictions in Florida in 2011, the state's Department of Agriculture estimated the restrictions would cost the farming sector between $800 million and $1.6 billion every year.  Other studies estimated annual costs as high as $21 billion per year.

Sessions Hammers EPA Administrator Unable to Defend Obama's Claims on Global Warming.  In a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing Thursday [1/16/29014] on climate regulation, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) pressed EPA administrator Gina McCarthy to support President Barack Obama's statements on global warming, which have been used to justify massive proposed administrative actions.  McCarthy was unable or unwilling to support the Obama's claims despite being the central figure crafting and implementing EPA regulations... [Video clip]

Sen. Inhofe on Obama's Global Warming Claims: 'The President Just Made that Up'.  Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) told a Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) committee hearing today [1/16/2014] that the president must have fabricated two oft-repeated climate claims.  "Both statements are false," Sen. Inhofe said of Obama's global warming claims, since neither the EPA nor the U.N. IPCC climate group can provide any supporting statistics.  "On multiple occasions, and most recently on May 30th of last year, President Obama has said, and this is a quote he has used several times, he said that 'the temperature around the globe is increasing faster than was predicted even ten years ago' and that 'the climate is warming faster than anybody anticipated five or ten years ago.'

EPA to Invalidate 30 Million Fuel Credits After Fraud.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said it has invalidated 33.5 million renewable-fuel credits sold by an Indiana company for biofuel it didn't produce, the fourth time the agency has alleged fraud in the program.  The filing today [12/18/2013] follows fraud charges filed against the former owners of the Indiana-based E-Biofuels LLC in September.

Bringing Abuses By EPA to a Halt.  Among President Barack Obama's first assaults in his war against the coal industry and reasonably priced electricity was an Environmental Protection Agency action that was truly outrageous by almost any measure.  During Obama's first term, the EPA overruled the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' approval of a water discharge permit for a surface mine in West Virginia.  The veto was retroactive, occurring nearly four years after the Corps approved the permit.

The Power-Mad EPA.  Recently the EPA ruled that New York City had to replace 1,300 fire hydrants because of their lead content.  The ruling was based on the Drinking Water Act passed by Congress in 2011.  As Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) pointed out while lambasting the agency, "I don't know a single New Yorker who goes out to their fire hydrants every morning, turns it on, and brushes their teeth using the water from these hydrants.  It makes no sense whatsoever."  Reportedly, the Senate is poised to consider legislation exempting fire hydrants if the EPA does not revise its ruling.  The EPA is not about making sense.  It is about over-interpreting laws passed by Congress in ways that now continually lead to cases before the Supreme Court.

EPA proposes restrictions for new wood stoves.  The federal Environmental Protection Agency has proposed new standards for wood stoves that would reduce the maximum amount of fine particulate emissions allowed for new stoves sold in 2015 and 2019.

The Editor says...
If you're burning wood to stay warm (and alive), do you care about the quality of the smoke?

EPA overrides Congress, hands over town to Indian tribes.  Have you heard the story of the residents of Riverton, Wyo.?  One day they were Wyomingans, the next they were members of the Wind River tribes — after the Environmental Protection Agency declared the town part of the Wind River Indian Reservation, undoing a 1905 law passed by Congress and angering state officials.  The surprise decision was made by officials of the EPA, the Department of Interior, and Department of Justice early last month, and has invoked the ire of Gov. Matt Mead, who has vowed not to honor the agency's decision and is preparing to fight in court.

EPA Chief: 'No More Urgent Threat to Public Health Than Climate Change'.  Ahead of her upcoming trip to China, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy told a liberal advocacy group in Washington on Monday that she has dedicated her life to protecting the environment:  "And I really see no greater issue and no more urgent threat to public health than climate change."

Backdoor gun control is here: no lead means no bullets.  The closedown [of the Doe Run Lead Smelter] is due to new extremely tight air quality restrictions placed on this specific plant.  President Obama and his EPA raised the regulations by 10 fold and it would have cost the plant $100 million to comply.  In response to the Doe Run lead smelter shutdown, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said the Doe Run Company "made a business decision" to shut down the smelter instead of installing pollution control technologies needed to reduce sulfur dioxide and lead emissions as required by the Clean Air Act.  Of course this is why we need serious regulatory reform that precludes executive agency fiat, especially regulation implementation that exceeds a certain adverse financial impact to a private sector business.

IG Report: EPA Employees Get Slaps on the Wrist for Integrity Violations.  Environmental Protection Agency employees received light punishments for "employee integrity" violations and avoided prosecution when crimes allegedly occurred, according to the agency's inspector general.  The IG revealed a list of employee integrity violations that included assault, illegal possession of a weapon, and efforts to solicit improper personal payments from agency contractors, among other violations.  Many received light punishments for the offenses, including ethics counseling, short leaves of absence, and informal discussions with supervisors.

EPA's Top Climate Change Expert Engaged in "Crime of Massive Proportions".  Surprisingly, his crime of massive proportions isn't pulling this climate change scam that has cost us billions in wasted tax dollars.

Attorneys General Join Forces to Call Into Account Illegal Obama Administration Violations.  In Oklahoma, the EPA illegally usurped Oklahoma's authority in the Clean Air Act to determine the state's own plan for addressing sources of emissions by imposing a federal implementation plan.  The federal plan goes beyond the authority granted to the EPA in the Clean Air Act and will result in a $2 billion cost to install technology needed to complete the EPA plan and a permanent increase of 15-20 percent in the cost of electricity.

EPA power grab? Pols, states claim new water reg could bring feds into your backyard.  The concern is that the move could give the feds authority over virtually any stream or ditch, and hand environmentalists another way to sue property owners.  In other words, critics say, the government might soon be able to declare jurisdiction over a seasonal stream in your backyard.

EPA 'Public Listening Session' Turns Into Sierra Club Talking Session.  Usually the speakers [at a public hearing] are an eclectic mix of industry representatives, activists, academics, students, and even religious leaders.  Although the EPA hearing yielded the same mix of speakers, this time I noticed they were all wearing green Sierra Club "Climate Action Now" shirts.  The reason for this, I would later learn, was that the Sierra Club had mobilized hundreds of activists, transported them via bus (I presume of the fossil-fuel powered kind), prepped their testimonies the night before, and completely dominated the morning speaker slots.

House bill warns of EPA threat to fire hydrants .  Reps. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio) and Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) introduced legislation this week to block an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule that would require fire hydrants to use lead-free pipes starting next year.  Johnson says that ruling would cause an immediate shortage of fire hydrants across the country, as any that are ready for installation would not meet the EPA's new requirement.

EPA Appoints Radical Activist as Head of 'Scientific Integrity'.  Environmental Protection Agency administrator Gina McCarthy yesterday [11/25/2013] appointed a top staffer with the environmental activist group Union of Concerned Scientists to serve as the agency's top objective referee on scientific integrity issues.  McCarthy's selection of Francesca Grifo raises troubling concerns about EPA rushing headlong into anti-science environmental activism.  Grifo led so-called scientific integrity efforts at the Union of Concerned Scientists.  While Grifo led such efforts, the UCS attempted to suppress scientific democracy and dissent, expressing outrage that a Congressman who is skeptical of the UCS' asserted global warming crisis was allowed to be a member of the House Science Committee.

Federal Ethanol Policy: Bad for the Planet, Good for Lobbyists.  The federal government's push for greater ethanol production, carried out in the name of saving the planet, has done great harm to the environment. [...] [W]hen EPA models indicated that the ethanol mandate would not make fuel green enough to satisfy the law, the agency was pressured into rigging the input assumptions to produce the desired results.  By assuming a huge increase in crop yields (and thus fewer new acres plowed) but a very small increase in corn prices, the EPA was able to claim that ethanol-blended gasoline would produce 21 percent fewer carbon dioxide emissions than standard gasoline, beating the law's emissions-reduction target by just one percentage point.  Those rigged assumptions turned out to be dead wrong.

EPA Stealthily Propels Toward 'Massive Power Grab of Private Property Across the U.S.'.  While the country is immersed in Obamacare headlines and a congressional tussle over delays and mandates, the Obama administration is stealthily moving toward unprecedented control over private property under a massive expansion of the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Water Act authority.  The proposed rule, obtained by the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee in advance of EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy's testimony at a Thursday [11/14/2013] oversight hearing, widely broadens the definition of waterways over which the federal government has jurisdiction to as little as a water ditch in a backyard.

Lawmakers Urge Administration to Stop EPA Takeover of Ponds, Ditches, Streams.  Lawmakers are urging Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy and the White House to put the brakes on rulemaking that would drastically expand the agency's jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act.  The redefinition of "waters of the United States" would include all ponds, lakes, wetlands and natural or manmade streams that have any effect on downstream navigable waters — whether on public lands or private property. [...] In a fast-tracking move, the EPA sent its draft rulemaking proposal to the White House for approval before the scientific study on which the changes are based was peer reviewed.

In a first, EPA cuts ethanol standard.  In a move likely to anger corn farmers and their congressional representatives, the Obama administration Friday [11/15/2013] proposed the first-ever cut in the amount of corn-based ethanol and other biofuels that must be mixed into the nation's gasoline, with the Environmental Protection Agency concluding that the mandate set by Congress just six years ago is proving difficult and perhaps impossible for gas producers to meet.  The move could spark a fight from corn growers and those who have argued the ethanol mix was key to reducing the nation's dependence on foreign oil suppliers.

EPA proposes reducing biofuel mandate.  The Obama administration on Friday [11/15/2013] proposed to reduce the amount of ethanol in the nation's fuel supply for the first time, acknowledging that the biofuel law championed by both parties in 2007 is not working as well as expected.

Sen. David Vitter Calls on DOJ to Investigate Armed EPA Raid in Alaska.  Vitter, in a letter sent Tuesday [10/22/2013] to Attorney General Eric Holder, requested the Justice Department investigate the EPA raid, which occurred at a gold mine in Chicken, Alaska earlier this year as part of an investigation into violations of the Clean Water Act.  "The EPA's use of unnecessary armed intimidation tactics against Alaska miners this summer was extreme, especially to investigate potential Clean Water Act violations from what are essentially a handful of small business owners," said Vitter, the ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

The Editor says...
Senator Vitter might as well put his complaints in a letter to Santa Claus.  Eric Holder isn't going to investigate — let alone obstruct — any action by the EPA or any other federal agency.

Mission Creep: EPA Agents Enter Drug War.  A large-scale narcotics investigation and sentencing in Montana has revealed that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has entered the enforcement of U.S. war on drugs.  The EPA has full federal law enforcement capabilities, and their charter allows them to participate in the investigation and prosecution of "criminal conduct that threatens people's health," according to the EPA's Criminal Investigation Division (EPA CID).

The EPA Gets High on Greenhouse Gases.  The key event in the Environmental Protection Agency's campaign to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant came on April 2, 2007.  It was the Supreme Court's decision in Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency.  Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for a five-member majority, held that the EPA had a duty to decide whether greenhouse gas emissions from new vehicles are contributing to "air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare."  Six years later, the apocalyptic predictions about global warming have not been borne out, notwithstanding the dire rhetoric of Justice Stevens's opinion.  The earth's temperature has remained stable in the face of increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Greens cheer EPA wetlands proposal.  Business groups and Republicans in Congress have opposed the EPA's move, which they call an unprecedented "power grab" that could give it power to interfere with private lands.  They say that the agency's scientific research has not been thorough enough to warrant a new regulation.  On Wednesday, Reps. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and Chris Stewart (R-Utah) sent a letter to the White House's budget office alleging that the EPA was "rushing forward" with its effort to issue the new regulation.  "Such unrestrained federal intrusion poses a serious threat to private property rights, state sovereignty and economic growth," they wrote.

EPA Shutting Down Last-standing U.S. Primary Lead Smelter.  The last standing primary lead smelter in the United States will be closing in December — thanks to the federal Environmental Protection Agency's continuing war on American industry.  While environmental militants may cheer the demise of the Doe Run Company smelter in Herculaneum, Missouri, as an ecological "victory," the plant's closure will have little-to-no positive environmental impact, while causing significant economic harm.  The potential implications for individual liberty and national security could prove to be even more significant.  Meanwhile, Congress continues to permit the EPA to wreak havoc on the American economy, with draconian regulations that have no basis in science and are causing incalculable harm.

The EPA's regulatory authority, coming to a stream or estuary near you?  You may recall the egregiously costly saga of the Sacketts, the Idaho couple personally persecuted by the Environmental Protection Agency for developing their half-acre of lakeside private property that the EPA belatedly and arbitrarily deemed a "protected wetland."  The Sacketts fought the EPA's demand that they either stop development and "restore" the property (with non-native plants!) or else face fines of up to $75,000 per day, but the EPA claimed that the Sacketts didn't even have the right to seek judicial review against the EPA's administrative compliance order, because the compliance order wasn't their "final enforcement action" — which is basically made-up hogwash that roughly translates as, "We're the EPA, we do what we want."

GOP accuses EPA of 'unprecedented' power grab with proposed water rule.  Two Republican lawmakers on the House Science Committee are accusing the Environmental Protection Agency of pushing through a rule that could potentially expand the agency's regulatory authority over streams, wetlands and other bodies under the Clean Water Act.  Reps. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, and Chris Stewart, R-Utah, on Friday [10/18/2013] sent a letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy expressing concern over the proposed draft rule, which they say would give the agency "unprecedented control over private property across the nation."

China smog emergency shuts city of 11 million people.  An index measuring PM2.5, or particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers (PM2.5), reached a reading of 1,000 in some parts of Harbin, the gritty capital of northeastern Heilongjiang province and home to some 11 million people.  A level above 300 is considered hazardous, while the World Health Organisation recommends a daily level of no more than 20.

The Editor says...
The EPA standard is 12 micrograms per cubic meter, and "As a practical matter, the average level of PM2.5 in U.S. air is about 10 micrograms per cubic meter," according to Steve Milloy.  The level that is "considered hazardous" is 30 times the U.S. average.  In other words, the EPA's work is finished.  The air here is as clean as it has ever been.

Wall Street Messes Up the EPA's Sandbox.  [Scroll down]  America's gasoline consumption has declined over the last six years.  Improvements in gas mileage — mostly impelled by a higher plateau for gas prices — have helped.  This year we are projected to consume only 134 billion gallons, down 6 percent from 2007.  But the ethanol mandate has remained at 13.8 billion gallons.  Consuming that much will push us over the 10 percent "blend wall" where ethanol begins to harm car engines.  Car manufacturers will not honor warrantees on cars that are fueled with more than 10 percent ethanol.  Consequently, refiners are stuck with a mandate for buying more ethanol than they use.  But never fear — the EPA had already created a mechanism for greasing the market.

EPA Foils Clean Fuel.  By slowing the conversion of vehicles to CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) fuel The Environmental Protection Agency is causing needless nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide, particulate, and mercury air pollution.  It might just as well be renamed the Environmental Destruction Agency.  The EPA has set up a system that adds thousands of dollars to the cost of converting a vehicle from gasoline or diesel oil to CNG, thus sapping a large proportion of the possible fuel cost savings (CNG costs about half as much at the pump) from those who are thinking of switching.

CEI Suit Seeks Injunction Against Ongoing EPA Record Destruction.  Beginning in April, CEI filed a series of Freedom of Information Act requests seeking text messages from the EPA-issued personal data assistants of Gina McCarthy, then head of the EPA's Air and Radiation Office and now the agency's Administrator, and her predecessor Lisa Jackson.  CEI first asked for her texts on 18 specified days when she was known to have testified before Congress and been seen sending texts.  After EPA acknowledged no such records existed, CEI obtained information relating to McCarthy's PDA bill that showed she sent 5,392 text messages over a three-year period.

An Energy Star Window Into EPA Ineptitude.  [I]n its zeal for ever greater energy efficiency, the EPA now plans to impose new standards for windows that will add significantly to their price, putting Energy Star-rated windows out of reach of most consumers.  In colder climates, the new standard would likely require expensive triple-paned windows, the industry warns.  In an early draft, the EPA admitted that it would add an average $20 to Energy Star-rated windows.

EPA may have tried to evade Freedom of Information request, judge says.  A federal judge said Wednesday that the Environmental Protection Agency may have tried to evade a Freedom of Information Act request and added that "numerous inconsistencies" in the agency's court filings "undermine confidence in their truthfulness."

Why are publicly-funded scientists allowed to keep their work secret?  Who owns taxpayer-funded science? From the way many scientists behave, it's not the taxpayers.  Many scientific studies funded by federal agencies — through grants, contracts, or cooperative agreements, particularly those used to justify the most horrendous regulations — hide the guts of the science.  What the scientists keep secret is the raw data they obtain in the real world and the methods they use to interpret it, as if those were personal possessions.

E.P.A. is the New Gestapo.  Just recently, a task force including members of 10 state and federal law enforcement agencies descended on a gold mine in the tiny town of Chicken[,] Alaska[,] with a population of 17 last month, in what locals described as a raid.  "Imagine coming up to your diggings, only to see agents swarming over it like ants, wearing full body armor, with jackets that say "POLICE" emblazoned on them, and all packing side arms," gold miner C.R. Hammond told the Alaska Dispatch. [...] According to the EPA The investigation was into possible violations of the Clean Water Act.  The officers were part of the Alaska Environmental Crimes Task Force and visited the outpost near the Canadian border during the third week of August to investigate water discharges into rivers, streams, lakes and oceans.  This is how the EPA handles an investigation, with rifles, handguns and bullet proof vests?

EPA Gets Go-Ahead for Pollution Plan.  A federal judge has made a decision on a case arguing whether actions under the Clean Water Act are the role of states of the federal government.  As American Farm Bureau attorney Ellen Steen explains, the ruling has big repercussions for the nation's farmers.

EPA regulations keep condemned homes from being demolished in Pasco County.  In June 2012, fire gutted a foreclosed home in Pasco County's Beacon Woods neighborhood.  At the time, residents were hopeful they wouldn't have to stare at the charred mess for too long.  "I just hope the bank steps up and tears it down and cleans it up," one resident remarked.  Now, 15 months later, not much has changed.

The Deeply Secret Science of the EPA.  The EPA bolsters their case with drastic claims of all the people who will die if we don't eliminate the particular kind of pollution Ms. McCarthy is pushing on any particular day.  The EPA has gotten away with improbable claims about future deaths from whatever pollutant the EPA wants to ban.  Their unfounded regulations have been one of the most effective job killers of the past five years.  Carbon is not a pollutant, but one of the building blocks of life.  We are carbon life forms.  If we were to eliminate carbon from out atmosphere, we would eliminate all life.

Imaginary optimism.  Only in Washington would it take eight months to come up with a production quota for an imaginary product.  The Environmental Protection Agency, which is all too real, announced this week the latest renewable-fuel standards, which were due in January.  Now the oil companies must produce 6 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol, down from last year's target of 11 million.  That's still 6 million gallons too many, because cellulosic ethanol exists only in the fertile imagination of green fanatics.

Ethanol industry has EPA as ally in battle against big oil.  The 2005 Republican-passed energy bill created the RFS, known as the "ethanol mandate," and the 2007 Democrat-passed energy bill expanded it.  Under the law, oil refiners must purchase a set quantity of ethanol every year.  Thanks largely to cars' improving fuel efficiency, gasoline consumption has fallen steadily over the past few years, so refiners aren't selling enough gasoline to blend with the ethanol.  Under the complicated structure of the ethanol mandate, this will drive up costs for refiners, and thus drive up the price of gasoline.

EPA Endangerment Finding:  At the time of the endangerment finding there were several dozen global climate models, now there are at least 73.  The US has 19.  One climate model is sufficient — if it has been validated.
  •   EPA offers no direct physical evidence that greenhouse gases are causing significant global warming or the dire future hazards.
  •   EPA relies heavily on global climate models for forecasts of future harm from increasing temperatures.
  •   From 1990 (first IPCC report) to the 2009 EF, the EPA and the scientific organizations upon which it relies have failed to produce a valid model.
  •   Two decades is twice the time it took the Apollo team to model how to land men on the moon and bring them back, and to successfully complete the mission.
  •   Without direct physical evidence or a valid model, the EPA cannot establish causation — that greenhouse gases are responsible for significant global warming or climate change.
  •   The failure to validate a model is recognized by the IPCC because after the 1990 report the IPCC shifted from using the scientifically proper term "model predictions" to "model projections."
  •   The term "model projections" is scientifically nebulous.
  •   All studies based on the models that have not been validated are scientifically nebulous, such as those that claim dire future weather events.
  •   Climate change has been occurring for hundreds of millions of years. The EPA has produced no evidence that it can successfully explain natural climate change.
  •   Without understanding the natural causes of climate change, the EPA cannot scientifically understand the human influence on climate.

Environmental Protection Agency Regulation Intrudes on State Rights.  In practice, cooperative federalism meant that the EPA and states worked together in order to effectively balance economic progress with environmental protection, says William Yeatman, an energy policy analyst at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.  Since 2009, however, the EPA has radically altered this balance of power.  To be precise, the agency has expanded its own prerogatives, at the expense of the states' rightful authority.

Inaccurate EPA Mileage Tests Mislead Consumers.  Are automakers designing cars for drivers — or federal bureaucrats?  It's worth asking.  Tests found that some top-rated cars performed far worse in the real world than they did in official EPA mileage tests.

Extreme irony — EPA rules shut down the mother of all weather conspiracy theories.  The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) — a subject of fascination for many hams and the target of conspiracy theorists and anti-government activists — has closed down. [... ] The proximate cause of HAARP's early May shutdown was less fiscal than environmental, Keeney said.  As he explained it, the diesel generators on site no longer pass Clean Air Act muster.  Repairing them to meet EPA standards will run $800,000.

New EPA chief promises jobs, pulls no punches in climate change fight.  In her first speech since taking over the Environmental Protection Agency, Gina McCarthy came out swinging Tuesday [7/30/2013] and promised to ramp up the aggressive climate change agenda laid out by President Obama.  The outspoken Ms. McCarthy, who two weeks ago emerged from a bruising 136-day Senate confirmation battle, also dismissed criticism that her agency is responsible for killing jobs and crushing the U.S. coal industry.  The White House's clean-energy approach and a serious effort to cut carbon emissions, she added, will produce jobs, not destroy them.

House issues subpoenas to get Benghazi documents from State Department.  As they prepared to head home for summer vacation, House Republicans fired off three subpoenas Thursday [8/1/2013] seeking more information from the State Department on the terrorist attack last year in Benghazi, Libya, and on the science the Environmental Protection Agency used to impose new clean air regulations.

EPA Strikes Out on Anti-Fracking Campaign.  The EPA has worked mightily to demonstrate that Fracking causes water contamination, yet it has struck out again.  While it has backed away from other locations where it originally claimed damage from Fracking, it was at Pavilion, Wyoming that it tried, with great fervor, to prove that Fracking caused water contamination. [...] But once again, it couldn't.

Fracking phobia fails yet again.  The EPA just dropped its study of fracking allegedly contaminating the water in Pavillion, Wyo.  The enviro left had rejoiced at the news a few years ago that the EPA had for the first time implicated fracking as a threat to groundwater.  Now, amid criticisms of its methodology, the EPA has backed down and won't issue a final report.

In Honor of Bill Clinton, EPA Pushes ATF Hero Off Building.  This Wednesday [7/17/2013], the Environmental Protection Agency will officially dedicate its office building at 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue as the William Jefferson Clinton Federal Building. [...] There's just one slight problem — the building already has a name.

The Editor says...
This is an obvious effort to put a positive light on the Clinton name, in preparation for Hillary's presidential run.

Court Mandates EPA Crack Down on New Emissions.  Should the federal government regulate emissions produced by dead trees?  A federal appeals court said yes, striking down the Environmental Protection Agency's attempt to delay regulation of biogenic carbon dioxide emissions from non-fossil fuel sources on Friday [7/12/2013].  The court affirmed the need for such emissions to be regulated under the Clean Air Act, negating the exemption made by the EPA for "biogenic carbon dioxide."

'Environmental Justice,' EPA Style.  Both [the civil rights and environmental] movements are stuck in the past, comparing issues of perceived environmental injustice to extreme events long past:  for the civil rights movement, it is always the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma; for the environmental movement, the Cuyahoga River still burns.  Christopher Foreman of the Brookings Institution, author of the best dispassionate study of the issue, notes that "the flexible locution 'environmental racism' is inherently provocative and was intended to be so."

Obama's Fundamental Transformation of a Nation He Despises.  [Scroll down]  Now, with the help of "extreme weather" coverage on every mainstream news service, he has been ginning up another crisis as the pretext for sweeping regulation of the entire economy.  And just last week, in a speech at Georgetown University, he has announced what that regulation will cover.  It will cover just about everything.  Every activity that uses energy, or that used energy in its manufacture or requires energy for its maintenance, will be regulated — not by Congress but by the president directly.  That is the strategy behind Obama's new pronouncements on the "social cost" of carbon emissions. [...] But what is the "social cost" of carbon?  It is the cost of future climate events that "might result" from increased carbon emissions.

Is Climate Change Our No. 1 Crisis, Mr. President?  At the heart of Obama's program are EPA regulations that will make it impossible to open any new coal plant and will systematically shut down existing plants.  "Politically, the White House is hesitant to say they're having a war on coal," explained one of Obama's climate advisers.  "On the other hand, a war on coal is exactly what's needed."  Net effect:  tens of thousands of jobs killed, entire states impoverished.  This at a time of chronically and crushingly high unemployment, slow growth, jittery markets and deep economic uncertainty.

EPA Wants Gov't To Control How Cold Your Beer Can Be.  In a seemingly innocuous revision of its Energy Star efficiency requirements announced June 27, the Environmental Protection Agency included an "optional" requirement for a "smart-grid" connection for customers to electronically connect their refrigerators or freezers with a utility provider.  The feature lets the utility provider regulate the appliances' power consumption, "including curtailing operations during more expensive peak-demand times."  So far, manufacturers are not required to include the feature, only "encouraged," and consumers must still give permission to turn it on.

Environmental Rules Delayed as White House Slows Reviews.  The White House has blocked several Department of Energy regulations that would require appliances, lighting and buildings to use less energy and create less global-warming pollution, as part of a broader slowdown of new antipollution rules issued by the Obama administration.

Semantics alert!
Global warming is not pollution.  Neither is global cooling.

Try as they might...
EPA fails to link fracking to water contamination for the third time.  The Environmental Protection Agency announced that it is dropping its plans to issue a report on whether hydraulic fracturing caused groundwater contamination in Wyoming.  The agency said it will no longer have outside experts review that theory.  This marks the third time that the EPA has failed to link hydraulic fracturing — more commonly known as fracking — with groundwater contamination, a major environmentalist objection to the drilling practice.

EPA Covers Up The Safety Of Fracking.  As we noted in December 2011, the Environmental Protection Agency, under pressure from environmental groups, tried to manufacture a crisis in which hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, was said to have contaminated test wells in Pavillion, Wyo.  Those claims and others made in the six-decade history of the technology's use have repeatedly proved groundless.

Report: Obama's EPA power balloons.  The authority granted to the Environmental Protection Agency has exploded under the Obama administration, regulating vast sections of the national economy, according to a new report.  A report by the libertarian American Legislative Exchange Council found that the EPA's new authority has cost taxpayers billions of dollars and the economy millions of jobs, while also usurping the authority of states to govern their own environmental affairs.

Obama officials raise 'social cost' of carbon in federal regulations.  The Obama administration has increased the "social cost" of carbon emissions in federal regulations, a move that could lay the groundwork for new rules on climate change.  The order, handed down by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) with little fanfare, bumps the so-called social cost of carbon — a monetized estimate of health, property and environmental damage — to $35 per metric ton, up from $21.  The directive requires all federal agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, to use the new figure when crafting regulations.

Secret Man Caves Found in EPA Warehouse.  A warehouse maintained by contractors for the Environmental Protection Agency contained secret rooms full of exercise equipment, televisions and couches, according to an internal audit.  EPA's inspector general found contractors used partitions, screens and piled up boxes to hide the rooms from security cameras in the 70,000 square-foot building located in Landover, Md.  The warehouse — used for inventory storage — is owned by the General Services Administration and leased to the EPA for about $750,000 per year.

Federal Kudzu Is Strangling This Great Nation.  [Scroll down]  In the past few years this bold [EPA] bureaucracy has undertaken to regulate dirt roads in remote forests and spills of cow's milk on the barn floors of Amish farmers.  What is more, the EPA has plainly embarked upon a mission to shut down the entire coal industry.  On May 24, West Virginia and Montana officials announced that their states are joining Kansas in its legal challenge to the EPA's "anti-coal" policies.  According to West Virginia's Democratic governor Earl Ray Tomblin, "The EPA's proposed limits on greenhouse gas emissions threaten the livelihood of our coal miners to the point of killing jobs and crippling our state and national economies, while also weakening our country's efforts toward energy independence."

There are four separate scandals going on at EPA right now.  Oh, that we were not flooded with scandals already, this might actually rate some coverage.  But alas, as it is, even a news junkie like myself didn't know there were four separate EPA scandals going on until Gabriel Malor laid it out for me.

Obama Revolving Door: Former EPA head Lisa Jackson to Apple.  Apple is investing big time in renewable energy, and so the company — whose historical relative aversion to politics has earned it an investigation from the Senate — is now investing more seriously in politics.  Apple CEO Tim Cook announced at a tech conference Tuesday that it was hiring President Obama's former Environmental Protection Agency director, Lisa Jackson, as a vice president for environmental initiatives.  This isn't very surprising on one level — people with top government positions in renewable energy tend to cash out to industry.

Why Did Apple Hire Lisa Jackson?  Before coming back to the federal EPA, [Lisa] Jackson ran the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection during the Corzine administration (before becoming Corzine's chief of staff).  Though Jackson seems to have steered clear of the corruption around her, the state's environmental apparatus has played an important role in Jersey's corrupt state Democratic machine, which went something like this:  miles of red tape were backed up by the use of obscure and blatantly irrelevant laws to make building a structure — home or commercial — in many cases close to impossible.  That enabled politicians and bureaucrats at various state agencies to go looking for bribes and kickbacks to cut through that tape or to change zoning laws to increase favored property values.

'Deplorable' Conditions Cited at EPA Warehouse in Maryland.  The report found that the 70,000-square-foot warehouse — one of EPA's largest — was storing large amounts of expensive, unused equipment, ranging from computers to pianos.  It also found numerous security and safety issues.  "Personally identifiable information and agency sensitive files — such as passports and legal files — were located in unsecured open boxes throughout the warehouse," the report states.  "There was a locked office inside the facility for which we could not determine a purpose."

Stricter EPA Ozone Rules Could Put 'Entire Country' Out of Business, Industry Group Warns.  American Petroleum Institute Director of Regulatory and Scientific Affairs Howard Feldman warned that new ozone regulations currently under review by the Obama administration and the Environmental Protection Agency could put "nearly the entire country" out of business.  "Such strict standards are not justified from a health perspective and are not needed to continue air quality progress," Feldman said Thursday on a conference call with reporters.

Washington bureaucrats use force to suffocate liberty.  Remember Armand Armendariz, the Environmental Protection Agency regional administrator who resigned after regaling an audience of Big Green activists with a history lesson to illustrate his agency's approach to critics of the EPA's harshest policies?  When the Romans conquered a new province, he said, they would "... find the first five guys they saw and they'd crucify them ..." to make the province "really easy to manage for the next few years."  The EPA, he continued, also makes "examples of people who are not complying with the law, you make examples out of them, use it as a deterrent method ... Find people who are not complying with the law and you hit them as hard as you can and make examples of them."

President Obama gets an 'F' for management.  For example, unable to obtain congressional approval, even among moderate Democrats, for limits on carbon dioxide emissions and other environmental goals, the Environmental Protection Agency — at his public behest — has written regulations imposing new and onerous requirements on business.  The Obama Credo of Management:  We'll do as we please, stop us if you can.

A Supreme Court EPA Decision That Could Cost Taxpayers $21 Billion Per Year.  Is the Clean Air Act so badly flawed that it will cripple environmental enforcement and economic development alike unless the EPA and its state counterparts defy clear statutory provisions or, alternatively, spend $21 billion a year to employ an additional 320,000 bureaucrats?  That is a central issue in a recent lawsuit by the Southeastern Legal Foundation, the Competitive Enterprise Institute and a host of lawmakers and several companies.  They are petitioning the Supreme Court to review an appellate court decision upholding the EPA's global warming regulations.

EPA Ammunition Ban Blocked By Federal Court.  A federal court on Thursday [5/23/2013] halted an effort by the Environmental Protection Agency to ban all ammunition containing lead, much to the dismay of gun control groups hoping to use environmentalism to "make an end run around the Second Amendment" right of access to ammunition, according to officials from several organizations representing gun owners and manufacturers.

A Bizarre New 'Rain Tax' Makes A Splash In Maryland.  The Chesapeake Bay faces a serious pollution problem.  The Environmental Protection Agency decreed in 2010 that Maryland had to stop so much stormwater runoff from draining into the Bay, a project that would cost $14.8 billion.  To pay for that, authorities decided to tax "impervious surfaces" — in the words of The Gazette, "anything that prevents rainwater from seeping into the earth (roofs, driveways, patios, sidewalks, etc.) thereby causing stormwater runoff."

The 'Rain Tax'.  In 2010 the Obama administration's Environmental Protection Agency ordered Maryland to reduce stormwater runoff into the Chesapeake Bay so that nitrogen levels fall 22 percent and phosphorus falls 15 percent from current amounts.

The Editor says...
The Chesapeake Bay has a pollution problem only because the EPA says so.  The EPA has chosen arbitrary reduction goals of 22% and 15% for chemicals that will make their way into the Chesapeake Bay eventually, even if all the storm drains are plugged up.  The EPA is apparently just making excuses for new taxes.  I've never been to the Chesapeake Bay, but I've never heard anyone say it is horribly polluted — except the EPA.

EPA's dirty secret about the environment.  The Environmental Protection Agency late last month proposed strict new "clean fuel" standards on gasoline.  The EPA said the so-called Tier 3 rule would cut emissions of smog-forming pollutants, as well as toxic emissions like benzene.  What the EPA didn't say was that levels of these pollutants have been falling steadily for years, and would continue to fall even without the new rule, which the oil industry says will cost tens of billions of dollars.

An Imaginary Dustup? The Incalculable Harm of Regulation.  [Scroll down]  If you operate a grain elevator in St. Joseph, Missouri, or a fertilizer business in my home town, what incentive do you have to grow, to expand, to invest?  You're on notice that you are dangerous, that your activities are a threat to others.  If you are that fertilizer dealer, you've also learned something else.  You've learned to be extremely cynical about the whole enterprise.

White House, Senate Democrats seething over blocked EPA vote.  Republicans on Thursday boycotted a congressional hearing for President Obama's nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, putting the nomination in doubt and enraging White House officials who dismissed the act as the most blatant case yet of GOP obstructionism.  The boycott was a major blow to Gina McCarthy's chances of winning a filibuster-proof confirmation vote in the Senate, given that, without the Republicans, progressives can't even get McCarthy through committee.

EPA Settlement: Company Must Spend $76,952 to Replace Light Bulbs.  As part of a settlement with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Collis Inc. of Clinton, Iowa has agreed to a "re-lamping" of its facility with low-mercury fixtures at a projected cost of $76,952.  The re-lamping will be a greater expense than the civil penalty to be paid.  "A re-lamping project involving the replacement of high-mercury fluorescent fixtures and bulbs with low-mercury fluorescent fixtures and bulbs at its facility with a projected eligible cost of $76,952.00," the EPA settlement says.

Secretive McCarthy not fit to head EPA.  Gina McCarthy, President Obama's nominee to succeed Lisa Jackson as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, should be rejected for a variety of reasons, but one in particular stands out.  McCarthy — who has been EPA's assistant administrator for the office of air and radiation since 2009 — too often operates behind closed doors in an agency with such immense regulatory powers that nothing less than maximum transparency is required to assure accountability.

Proposed EPA Sulfur Standard to Boost Gas Prices.  Tighter restrictions proposed on sulfur content will add a penny or less to the retail price of a gallon of gasoline, according to the Obama administration, while the oil industry contends those same rules could hike prices at the pump as much as nine cents per gallon. [...] Regulations now limit sulfur content in gasoline to ten parts per million in smog-ridden California, but up to 30 parts per million in all other states.  The new rule would impose the California standard on the entire nation.

Obama Chooses Energy Foe Gina McCarthy to Lead EPA.  President Barack Obama told reporters in early March he is choosing EPA Assistant Administrator Gina McCarthy, architect of unprecedented restrictions on energy use and power generation, to become the new head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.  McCarthy is a longtime advocate of energy restrictions she says are necessary to stop global warming.  She also says government should actively seek to transform energy production in the United States away from affordable conventional sources and toward more-expensive renewable alternatives.

Oil industry, lawmakers say EPA fuel rule would hike prices at the pump.  The proposal, released Friday morning [3/29/2013], aims to reduce sulfur in gasoline by more than 60 percent in 2017.  The agency claimed the change would save lives and cut down significantly on respiratory ailments by making the air cleaner.  But critics questioned those claims, and said the plan would impose higher gas prices on hard-hit families.

The Editor says...
The amount of sulphur dioxide in the air is about one third of the levels experienced in 1970 — when there were less than half as many vehicles on the road.*  In 2011, there were 244,778,179 vehicle registrations.*  In 1970, there were 108,407,306 vehicles on the roads in the U.S.*  It is therefore safe to conclude that sulphur dioxide in the atmosphere isn't killing anybody — and thus any claims that the new EPA regulations "would save lives" are specious.  The purpose of this new regulation is to justify the EPA's existence and to turn the screws a little tighter on "big oil."

Obama administration moves ahead with sweeping rules requiring cleaner gasoline.  The Environmental Protection Agency will move ahead Friday [3/29/2013] with a rule requiring cleaner gasoline and lower-pollution vehicles nationwide, amounting to one of President Obama's most significant air pollution initiatives, according to people briefed on the decision.  The proposed standards would add less than a penny a gallon to the cost of gasoline while delivering an environmental benefit akin to taking 33 million cars off the road, according to a senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the announcement had not been made yet.

The Editor says...
The senior administration official probably wanted to remain anonymous because his claims will someday be proven false:  This action won't make any noticeable improvement in air quality and will certainly cost more than a penny per gallon.

Senators: 'Far-left' group pushes EPA to implement cap-and-trade without congressional approval.  Republican senators urged the Environmental Protection Agency not to participate in a "sue-and-settle" arrangement with a law school policy institute that is trying to require the agency to develop rules implementing cap-and-trade, even though Congress refused to pass the law.  The New York Institute for Policy Integrity told the EPA in November that it plans to file a lawsuit over the agency's failure to respond to IPI's request that it create a rule implementing a cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles.

Auto makers: EPA gas rules good for environment, bad for wallets.  The Environmental Protection Agency's stringent new gasoline rules will be good for the environment but will cost both car manufacturers and consumers more money, automakers say.  The Tier 3 standards, released Friday [3/29/2013], will require carmakers to reduce emissions and reduce the sulfur content of gasoline by 2017, cutting sulfur by more than 60 percent and other pollutants by 80 percent.

EPA Nominee Gina McCarthy Has A History Of Misleading Congress.  President Obama has nominated Gina McCarthy to succeed Lisa Jackson as EPA administrator.  When the Senate takes up her confirmation, lawmakers should be aware that McCarthy, the current chief of air regulation at EPA, has a history of misleading Congress and the public about her agency's greenhouse gas regulations.  At a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in October 2011, McCarthy denied motor vehicle greenhouse gas (GHG) emission standards are "related to" fuel economy standards.  In so doing, she denied plain facts she must know to be true.  She did so under oath.

Supreme Court sides with timber industry in runoff dispute, dealing blow to environmentalists.  In a defeat for environmentalists, the Supreme Court on Wednesday [3/20/2013] sided with the U.S. timber industry in a dispute over whether loggers should have to get special EPA permits because of gravel and dirt falling into nearby waterways.  In a 7-1 vote, the court reversed a lower-court ruling which said the run-off from logging sites is the same as any other industrial pollution, requiring a Clean Water Act permit from the Environmental Protection Agency.

President Obama's EPA Pick Threatens Market Stability.  President Obama has made it clear, both in word and action, that climate-change regulation is a top priority for his second term.  Putting aside the legitimate questions about the science behind climate-change alarmism, the nomination of Gina McCarthy as EPA administrator is just the latest sign that the president is determined to push a market-subverting, economy-handcuffing energy agenda on the American people.

EPA Proposal for New Gas Standards Prompts Backlash.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced today a proposal for new standards for cars and gasoline, causing a backlash by the oil industry, which claims the change will cost drivers even more at the pump.  The new nationwide standards for gasoline, which still have to go through public comment, will cut sulfur in gasoline by two-thirds, from 30 parts per million to 10 ppm.

Gore's group says Obama EPA pick will fight global warming.  Minutes after President Obama announced that his pick to run the EPA would be the agency's greenhouse gas foe Gina McCarthy, former Vice President Al Gore's climate change group heralded the pick, an indication that global warming foes are expecting her to step up the administration's green fuel effort.

The EPA Opens a New Front in the War on Coal.  The rapid pace and severity of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations on the energy sector during the past four years illustrates an ongoing problem — the government's impediment to an economic recovery.  The EPA's mandates have unfairly discriminated against certain sectors of the energy industry, most notably coal, pointlessly killing desperately needed jobs.  On top of the regulations that have questionable benefits at best, the EPA has withheld permits for coal mining that were already approved by other agencies, gratuitously delayed permits, and even rescinded previously issued permits.

Investing in Bad Science.  [Scroll down]  The master of waste, fraud, and abuse among the research-funding agencies, though, is the Environmental Protection Agency, the logo of which should be a Golden Fleece flanked by dollar signs.  EPA, with a research budget in excess of $800 million, has long been more concerned with public relations than public health.  A scheme was exposed several years that would have diverted EPA "research" funds to pay outside public relations consultants up to $5 million over five years to improve the website of the Office of Research and Development, conduct focus groups on how to polish the office's image, and produce ghostwritten articles praising the agency "for publication in scholarly journals and magazines."

Congressmen demand investigation of EPA selectively blocking FOIAs.  An internal email that appears to counsel Environmental Protection Agency officials on delaying or obstructing inconvenient Freedom of Information Act requests has sparked congressional demands for an investigation.  Senators David Vitter, R-LA, and Charles Grassley, R-IA, and Rep. Darrell Issa, R-CA, said in a letter today [3/7/2013] to Attorney General Eric Holder that the investigation should seek to determine if EPA officials stonewall FOIA requests.

Obama's EPA Nominee Vowed Not 'To Sit Around and Wait for Congressional Action'.  President Barack Obama on Monday [3/4/2013] nominated Gina McCarthy to replace Lisa Jackson as Environmental Protection Agency administrator.  McCarthy, who currently heads the EPA's air and radiation office, has vowed "not to sit around and wait for congressional action" when issuing environmental regulations.  On May 1, 2010, in the keynote address for the Green Education Celebration at University of Massachusetts in Boston, McCarthy said she did not go to Washington to wait for congressional action and she said she did not intend to do so in the future.

Carbon Power Politics.  President Obama gave his second-term global warming agenda a lot more definition Monday [3/4/2013] with a new Environmental Protection Agency chief to replace Lisa Jackson.  Picking Gina McCarthy, one of her top lieutenants and the architect of some of the agency's most destructive carbon rules, is a sign he intends to make good on his vow of "executive actions" if Congress doesn't pass cap and tax.

Environmental Zealots vs. the Constitution.  President Obama has given more indication about what we can expect from the EPA in his second-term global warming agenda.  He has picked Gina McCarthy, one of Lisa Jackson's top lieutenants to head the Environmental Protection Agency as its new chief.  Over the past four years, McCarthy has run the EPA's air office, as a notably willful regulator.  Her promotion gives notice that Obama has given up on getting agreement from Congress on his anticarbon agenda, particularly given the number of Senate Democrats from coal or oil states.  The real climate fight is now over the shape of rules to come that could be released as early as this summer, and apparently a brutal under-the-table lobbying campaign is now underway.

The EPA's nonexistent-product mandate.  First, President Obama decided that the government can punish consumers if they don't buy a particular product (e.g., health insurance).  Now, his administration has decided that the government can punish consumers if they don't buy a product that can't be purchased because it doesn't exist.  At one time such a notion would have been laughed off as preposterous.  It would have been considered unfair (before the president made himself the ultimate authority on what's fair and what isn't).  But that's what the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been doing.

EPA's fuel folly.  [Scroll down]  In 2010, the first year of the mandate, EPA projected that 5 million gallons of cellulosic biofuels would be available.  In fact, there were none.  In 2011, EPA increased the mandate to 6.5 million gallons.  Again, the actual amount available was zero.  Undeterred, in 2012, EPA increased the required amount to 8.5 million gallons.  The actual available amount was 25,000 gallons.  Since it is impossible to comply with the mandate to use this phantom fuel, EPA is effectively taxing the industry.  This tax is passed to consumers in the form of higher gas prices.  EPA's overestimates are part of an intentional strategy.

Another Made Up Mandate on Energy that Doesn't Exist.  The dream to "achieve" is cellulosic biofuel or ethanol — which has an admirable goal of producing a renewable transportation fuel without impacting the world's food supply.  Different from corn- or sugar-based ethanol — which is technologically achievable (with questionable benefits) — cellulosic ethanol is made from wood chips, switchgrass, and agricultural waste, such as corn cobs.  The problem is the dream doesn't match reality.

Is it time to get rid of the EPA?  [Scroll down]  I found EPA to be relentlessly anti-science, anti-technology and anti-industry.  The only thing it seemed to be for was the Europeans' innovation-busting "precautionary principle," the view that until a product or activity has been definitively proven safe, it should be banned or at least smothered with regulation.  In fact, during international discussions and negotiations over the harmonization of biotechnology regulations in which I participated, EPA often seemed allied with the European Union and committed to working against U.S. interests.  I was baffled by all this until I realized that EPA was a miasma populated by the most radical, disaffected and anti-industry discards from other agencies [...]

Environmental Protection Agency Funding Up 51% Since 2008.  Inflation-adjusted spending by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has increased by 51% since fiscal 2008, according to Treasury Department data.  In 2008, EPA funding was $7,938,000,000, according to the final Monthly Treasury Statement for fiscal year 2008.  That equals $8,464,894,460 in 2012 dollars, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator.  Meanwhile, EPA funding was $12,796,000,000 in fiscal year 2012.  That's a 51.1 percent increase over four years.

EPA caught sabotaging fracking.  [Ed Lasky has] written numerous columns regarding President Obama's War against Inspectors General.  These are the taxpayer advocates within various government agencies who seek to ensure that fraud, waste and abuse of power is prevented.  Hence, Obama determined opposition to them that has gone to such lengths as character assassination, attempts to form a new $30 billion-dollar agency without an Inspector General, failing to replace Inspectors General when they depart.  Now comes news that again illustrates the reasons Obama has tried to gut the Inspector General program:  one is investigating possible abused or power at the EPA as part of its crusade against energy producers.

Environmental Correction Agency.  A federal watchdog is investigating Environmental Protection Agency enforcement actions against a Texas natural gas company that the agency claimed contaminated drinking water through its drilling activities in the state.  The investigation, initiated in July 2012 but announced publicly for the first time on Tuesday [2/12/2013], could substantiate allegations that the agency ignored information in its investigation that might have cast doubt on its findings.

Obama's picks for EPA, Energy all about climate change.  President Barack Obama plans this week to nominate Gina McCarthy to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and nuclear physicist Ernest Moniz as his Energy Department chief, according to numerous press reports.

EPA's illegal human experiments could break Nuremberg Code.  The Obama Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says no law empowers any judge to stop it from conducting illegal scientific experiments on seniors, children and the sick.  That astounding assertion will be tested Friday [1/4/2013], when a federal district court in Alexandria decides whether it has jurisdiction to hear claims made by the American Tradition Institute that EPA researchers are exposing unwary and genetically susceptible senior citizens to air pollutants the agency says can cause a variety of serious cardiac and respiratory problems, including sudden death.

The EPA Pushes the Envelope, Again.  A long train of abuses suggests an institutional culture that sees the law as an impediment.

EPA chief compares auto standard move to finding cigarette-cancer link.  In an interview with the Tulane University student newspaper published Thursday [1/31/2013], outgoing Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson, a Tulane alumna, said that her agency's 2009 "endangerment finding," which directly led to the implementation of the auto standards to fight greenhouse gas emissions, is her proudest achievement and represented a major step forward for public health.

The EPA vs. Reality.  The Environmental Protection Agency has been demanding the impossible of refiners and then penalizing them when they fail to comply.  A new ruling from a federal appeals court stops this shakedown.  For the past few years, the EPA has required refiners to purchase vast quantities of cellulosic biofuel, which is made from non-edible plant parts such as wood, grass, and cornstalks, and to use it in the gasoline they produce.  The problem?  The EPA wants refiners to buy more of this fuel than is available on the market — or has ever been available, for that matter.  When those refiners have understandably failed to comply, the EPA has forced them to pay for an exemption.

The Real Barack Obama.  The country may be catching on:  Barack Obama is our first knee-jerk liberal president.  And now that he will never face the voters again, he doesn't mind showing it. [...] Obama will soon fill key vacant posts at the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy.  Reuters reports that the front runner in the race to become the new head of the EPA is Gina McCarthy, who is now the assistant administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation, which makes her the point person for the administration's "war on coal" campaign.

The EPA's War on Home Appliances.  The 1992 Energy Policy Act states that all toilets sold in the United States use no more than 1.6 gallons of water per flush.  These water restrictions are the reason why we have to use plungers far more often than we used to.  As strange as it may seem, there used to be a thriving black market for Canadian toilets that actually flush.  As the executive editor of Laissez-Faire Books Jeffrey Tucker writes, "What we have in these regulations passed since the 1990s is therefore a step backwards from a central aspiration of mankind to dispose of human waste in the best possible way.  We have here an instance of government having forced society into a lower stage of existence."

EPA: Green Gone Wild.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) wants to vastly expand its power.  Last year, the agency paid nearly $700,000 to the National Academy of Sciences to draft the document "Sustainability and the U.S. EPA."  This manifesto rationalizes why the EPA has the right to regulate every business, community and ecosystem in the country.  The key to the EPA's regulatory control is " sustainability," an illusive and ill-defined term even more broadly applicable than the interstate commerce clause.

Judge rules EPA can't mandate use of nonexistent biofuels.  The court sided with the country's chief oil and gas lobby, the American Petroleum Institute, in striking down the 2012 EPA mandate that would have forced refineries to purchase more than $8 million in credits for 8.65 million of gallons of the cellulosic biofuel.  However, none of the biofuel is commercially available.

Court rejects EPA biofuel mandate.  Cellulosic biofuel is ethanol fermented from products other than corn, which is the major source of biofuel production in the United States.  The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the mandate for 2012, which would have held oil refiners accountable for purchasing 8.65 million of gallons of the biofuel even though none is commercially available for sale, was based on flawed projections.

EPA's carbon regs not based on sound science.  The bottom line is that no scientist or team of scientists has come up with an empirically validated theory proving what the EPA claims it knows with 90 to 99 percent certainty.  Moreover, if the EPA's three lines of evidence are so easily refuted, then the EPA's strong claim of causality, that higher carbon emissions affect sea levels and severe storm, flood and drought frequency, is on ever shakier ground.

Obama's Lawless Presidency.  [Scroll down]  Obama has used the Environmental Protection Agency as a weapon repeatedly, as well.  In only the latest example we find that a federal court has determined that the EPA overstepped its boundaries by idiotically claiming that water is a "pollutant" in order to force its will on state officials.

EPA's Attempt to Regulate the Rain Washes Away.  In the process of regulating everything under the sun, (literally) the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently made a bold grab at regulating everything from the clouds as well.  More specifically, they had to defend themselves in a court case in Virginia for the right to regulate the rainfall.  The very fact that they would attempt something so bizarre is a clear indication that despite the departure of their red tape-wielding leader Lisa Jackson, the EPA has no intentions of easing off the regulatory gas pedal.  Allow me to repeat that — the EPA made a case to regulate rain water.

The Regulatory Landscape in America — A Morass Of Red Tape.  The EPA in February finalized strict new emissions standards for coal- and oil-fired electric utilities.  The benefits are highly questionable, with the vast majority being unrelated to the emissions targeted by the regulation.  The costs, however, are certain:  an estimated $9.6 billion annually.

Obama's Second Term Regulations That Will Destroy America.  There are a large number of other planned EPA air and water regulations either in force or in the works.  EPA's Boiler MACT (Maximum Achievable Control Technology) standards are so restrictive that not even many of the best-performing sources can meet them.  Such companies will have no choice but to shut their doors and ship manufacturing jobs overseas.  The rule has been projected to reduce U.S. GDP by as much as 1.2 billion dollars, and to destroy nearly 800,000 jobs.  EPA's Cement MACT rule could cause 18 plants to shut down, eliminating up to 80,000 road, bridge and building construction workers due to substantially increased cement costs.  As with Boiler MACT, EPA had postponed decisions on certain aspects of the rule until after the election.

EPA's statistics not science, but nonsense.  The scientific and medical reality is that ambient air pollution — even as grimy, stinky, eye-watering and ugly as it is in China — does not kill or hasten death.  Fine particulate matter was such a public health problem, in fact, that no one knew about it until EPA-funded researchers invented it in 1993 — 30 years after the Clean Air Act was enacted.  Since the Clinton administration, the agency has been using its invention to impose billions and billions of dollars of costs on our economy in return for the entirely imaginary benefit of tens of thousands of lives saved annually.

EPA offers hints on fracking's future.  Fracking is safe until the Obama administration finishes burying the coal industry.  Obama allows fracking to flourish because low gas prices are killing coal.  But when that mission is accomplished, watch out frackers.

EPA Sued Over Heinous Experiments on Humans.  After accumulating evidence via the Freedom of Information Act that showed the Environmental Protection Agency conducted disturbing experiments that exposed humans to inhalable particulates the agency has said are deadly, sound science advocate Steven Milloy has sued the federal government.

Federal judge rules EPA overstepped authority trying to regulate water as pollutant in Virginia.  Virginia officials scored a key victory Thursday [1/3/2013] in their battle with the Environmental Protection Agency over what EPA critics describe as a land takeover.  U.S. District Judge Liam O'Grady in Alexandria ruled late Thursday that the EPA exceeded its authority by attempting to regulate stormwater runoff into a Fairfax County creek as a pollutant.

Court: Stormwater runoff not a pollutant, EPA can't regulate it.  A federal judge ruled Thursday that the Environmental Protection Agency exceeded its authority by trying to regulate water as a pollutant and restricting stormwater flow into a Fairfax County creek.  "Stormwater runoff is not a pollutant, so EPA is not authorized to regulate it," said federal judge Liam O'Grady, who sided with the county and Virginia in the ruling.

EPA to tighten standards for soot pollution.  In its first major regulation since the election, the Obama administration on Friday imposed a new air quality standard that reduces by 20 percent the maximum amount of soot released into the air from smokestacks, diesel trucks and other sources of pollution.

Marxist EPA Wants to Regulate Water As a Pollutant in Virginia.  The EPA's latest overreach is beyond the pale.  The inmates are in charge of the prison.  Ken Cuccinelli likes to call the EPA the "Employment Prevention Agency."  In addition to preventing job creation, the EPA wants other peoples' private property and their money for non-existant or minor problems.

EPA offers hints on fracking's future.  The Obama administration has pulled back the curtain on its long-awaited study of the possible correlation between water pollution and fracking, but the full results and definitive findings of its far-reaching report won't be released until 2014.  The review, the most sweeping federal survey to date, likely will have major implications for the country's natural gas and oil boom spurred by hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which has transformed the U.S. fuel market and is reshaping the global energy landscape.

Congress may be stalled out, but the EPA certainly isn't.  The Environmental Protection Agency took a strategic timeout on their zealous regulatory agenda in the run-up to last November's election, lest their many ambitious plans for job-killing regulations should put a damper on President Obama's prospects.  Post-election, however, it has been full steam ahead for the independent agency, and they are finally starting to release some of the some of the rules and regulations to which we are all going to be forced to adjust over the coming years.

Just Freeze! EPA Says Burning Wood Is Bad, but so Is Natural Gas, Coal, Oil.  So, you're living in Fairbanks, Alaska, and it's 45 degrees below zero, Fahrenheit.  The high today will be -39 degrees below zero.  The weather services all project lots more double-digit minus numbers in the coming days and weeks, with dips into the minus 50s and 60s.  Heating oil prices are killing your family budget, so you crank up the wood stove and start burning some of the firewood you collected last summer.  Uh-oh!  Now you're in trouble!

EPA Employee Demoted for Prison Telephone Scheme.  An Environmental Protection Agency employee was demoted and reassigned in April "due to involvement in a telephone calling scheme" involving prison inmates, according to the agency's recently released semi-annual report to Congress.  "The scheme involved using government telephone lines that gave inmates at a prison in Illinois access to EPA telephone lines in order to make personal telephone calls from prison," the report stated.  "The employee reportedly received compensation for performing this act."  The employee was not fired for this violation.

What's EPA smoking?  As reported in an October 2003 study published in the American Medical Association's Archives of Internal Medicine, the risk of sudden death among those who smoked as long as 10 years was zero.  If you can smoke for 10 years and have zero chance of sudden death, you can breathe average U.S. air for thousands of years with zero risk of sudden death.  Given that the "worst" U.S. air has, perhaps, twice the level of PM2.5 as average U.S. air, you even could breathe the "worst" U.S. air for thousands of years with zero risk of sudden death.  Therefore, the EPA's claim that PM2.5 is killing people and the nation stands to reap billion of dollars' worth of health benefits from its new rule are without merit.

AAA asks EPA to stop sales of high-ethanol fuel.  AAA urged the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to halt sales of gasoline with higher ethanol concentrations Friday [12/7/2012], contending the fuel blend causes engine damage not covered under most auto warranties.  EPA says that cars made in the model year 2001 and later can handle E15, the fuel blend made up of 15 percent ethanol and 85 percent petroleum.  But automakers say EPA is only considering the fuel's impact on emissions control systems while disregarding the impact on the rest of the vehicle.

EPA's engine destroying gas may be coming soon.  Nine gas stations in the nation now have pumps with E15 gasoline.  E15 is a blend of regular gasoline mixed with 15 percent ethanol.  The pumps are recognized by their black and orange labels.  And that label is not something you want to ignore.

Government eyes crippling climate-control measures.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is ready to unleash its first wave of carbon-dioxide regulations.  Some members of Congress want to tax hydrocarbon use and carbon-dioxide emissions.  Moreover, United Nations climate alarmists are trying to devise a new treaty to regulate energy use at the international level.  Even one of these government actions would send shock waves through the economy.  If all three are imposed (or worse, imposed in conjunction with Obamacare and other tax increases on job and wealth creators) the impacts will be devastating.

EPA should consider American drivers, not special interests.  Reducing dependence on foreign oil is an important goal.  However, the EPA should not allow new fuels without assurances that it won't mean shorter engine life and more trips to the pump.  As Americans are trying to do more with less, Congress should ensure that the EPA considers the needs of American drivers who rely on their cars every day, not certain special interest lobbies.

A Supremely Important Decision About America's Logging Industry.  On December 3, the U.S. Supreme Court will consider who is best suited to set national environmental policy — the experienced scientists and regulators at the Environmental Protection Agency or activist trial lawyers. [...] Under the Ninth Circuit ruling, a permit could be demanded for every drain and ditch that directs water from a logging road to a fish-bearing stream.  The U.S. Forest Service estimates that getting all its roads fully certified could take as much as a decade.

AAA says certain ethanol fuel can damage cars, asks EPA to remove from pumps.  The recently approved use of E15 fuel made from blending gasoline and ethanol could damage vehicles and void warranties says the American Automobile Association (AAA), which is urging the federal government to ban it from the market.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved the fuel earlier this summer, but AAA says only five percent of vehicles on the road are approved by the manufacturers to use the special blend they say causes significant problems such as accelerated engine wear and failure, fuel-system damage and false "check engine" warning lights.

EPA refuses to waive ethanol mandate.  The Environmental Protection Agency is rejecting requests from states and meat industry groups to waive regulations that require the blending of ethanol into gasoline.  EPA rejected petitions from nearly a dozen states, including Texas, Virginia, and Maryland, for waivers of the federal Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS).  "[T]he agency has not found evidence to support a finding of severe 'economic harm' that would warrant granting a waiver of the Renewable Fuels Standard," EPA said Friday [11/16/2012].

Sen. Sessions to EPA: Show Me Evidence for Obama's Global Warming Agitprop.  Today [12/4/2012], Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) directed a letter to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson asking for clarification on President Obama's recent statement that "the temperature around the globe is increasing faster than was predicted even 10 years ago."  That position has been used by the administration to push the possibility of vastly increased regulation of carbon emissions.

Union demands investigation into 'climate of fear,' alleged staff abuse at EPA.  The Daily Caller has obtained an internal "report of violence in the workplace" notifying top officials at the Environmental Protection Agency about the abusive behavior of a political appointee close to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson.

The EPA vs. State Economies.  On Friday [11/16/2012], the Environmental Protection Agency rejected petitions from the governors of Georgia, Texas, Arkansas, Delaware, Maryland, New Mexico, and North Carolina to suspend the biofuel-blending requirements established by the federal renewable fuel standard (RFS) program.  This program requires refiners to blend increasing quantities of biofuel — mostly corn ethanol — into the nation's motor-fuel supply.  The 2012 target is to blend 13.2 billion gallons of biofuel into our gasoline, a quantity that ratchets up to 13.8 billion gallons in 2013.

Killing Animals to Save Animals: A Conundrum.  There is no scientific dispute that extinctions are occurring, that they are occurring at a rate above the natural level due to human action, and that strenuous efforts are needed to protect critical habitats, to eliminate invasive competitors that threaten species, and to prevent over-exploitation.  Yet, animal rights activists who are fighting eradication point to a real conundrum:  how do humans choose which creatures are more worthy of survival?

Dirty Secrets at the EPA.  What do you suppose President Obama's initial instruction were to his agency heads:  Lisa Jackson at the EPA, Dr. Steven Chu at Energy, Ken Salazar at Interior and Tom Vilsack at Agriculture?  "Go forth and regulate.  Wrap American business in enough red tape to hamstring their efforts to grow or prosper.  Restrict energy wherever you can, favoring 21st Century green power, use lots of ethanol — fuel of the future, and try to get rid of dirty coal."  One would hope that such orders were improbable, but the results would seem to indicate something along those lines.

18 months later, the Daily Caller reports the same story.
Report: EPA tested deadly pollutants on humans to push Obama admin's agenda.  The Environmental Protection Agency has been conducting dangerous experiments on humans over the past few years in order to justify more onerous clean air regulations.  The agency conducted tests on people with health issues and the elderly, exposing them to high levels of potentially lethal pollutants, without disclosing the risks of cancer and death, according to a newly released government report.  These experiments exposed people, including those with asthma and heart problems, to dangerously high levels of toxic pollutants, including diesel fumes, reads a EPA inspector general report obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation.  The EPA also exposed people with health issues to levels of pollutants up to 50 times greater than the agency says is safe for humans.

EPA Conducted Pollution Experiments on Children.  The Environmental Protection Agency is under fire for exposing children to pollution as part of an experiment at the University of Southern California.  This information is coming to light from the website junkscience.com after an investigation from the EPA's Office of the Inspector General stated in a recent report that the EPA's pollution experiments on older people, done at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, were more harmful to the subjects than what the EPA presented.  The IG also said that while the experiment's subjects did consent to exposure, the "risks were not always consistently represented."

Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Fifth Edition, 1939.

Fixing the EPA.  The Environmental Protection Agency wants to reinterpret the Clean Water Act; according to Congressman Bill Shuster, its new interpretation will "open the door for the federal government to regulate just about any place where water collects."  Till now, the EPA has been able to impose itself only on "navigable waterways."  The EPA wants to drop the word "navigable."

The EPA's RRP Rule isn't About Safety.  On April 22, 2010 an EPA regulation governing renovation, repair, and painting (RRP) took effect.  The regulation governs any activity that will disturb paint containing lead and applies to all homes built before 1978 and "child-occupied facilities". [...] But combating lead poisoning is not a proper function of government.  And RRP is going to do little, if anything, to combat it.  It will however, grant the government greater control over the lives of contractors and cost consumers a lot of money.

"Government bureaucracies and public institutions have a unique way of signaling that they no longer serve any purpose and it's time to eliminate or drastically reform them.  They do so by conducting themselves in a manner that demonstrates self preservation has become their one and only objective."

— John Martin   

"The risks [Superfund] addresses are worst-case, hypothetical present and future risks to the maximum exposed individual, i.e., one who each day consumes two liters of water contaminated by hazardous waste.  The program at one time aimed to achieve a risk range in its cleanups adequate to protect the child who regularly ate liters of dirt. ... And it formerly assumed that all sites, once cleaned up, would be used for residential development, even though many lie within industrial zones.  Some of these assumptions have driven clean-up costs to stratospheric levels and, together with liabilities associated with Superfund sites, have resulted in inner-city sites suitable for redevelopment remaining derelict and unproductive."

– Former EPA Administrator William Reilly.  

More about The BP oil spill.

Interior Department Ends 'Sue And Settle' Deals.  Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke signed a Secretarial Order promoting transparency and accountability in consent decrees and settlement agreements, aimed at ending secret "sue and settle" deals with environmental activist plaintiffs.  Zinke's September 11 order comes roughly one year after former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt issued rules ending such agreements at EPA. [...] From January 1, 2012 through January 19, 2017, Interior entered into more than 460 settlement agreements and consent decrees, resulting in the payment of more than $4.4 billion to plaintiffs, while keeping key provisions of these agreements secret, DOI reports.  In President Barack Obama's last year in office, Interior entered into 96 such agreements or decrees, costing taxpayers more than $1.7 billion.

Good riddance to the 'sue and settle' regulatory process.  Both parties consent to this arrangement — or in other words, the adversarial judicial process is a sham.  The private plaintiff and the public agency, hand in hand, quickly come to a settlement agreement that both of them love — one that imposes new rules and new burdens on the public, only without having to go through the messy and transparent rulemaking process set forth in the Administrative Procedure Act.  Unfortunately, this is how all too many regulations are made — not based on science or laws passed by Congress, but through a "sue and settle" process that creates regulations behind closed doors, bypassing administrative law and defeating transparency.  In the case of environmental law, the vast majority of these cases that settle are brought by the same small handful of left-wing activist groups.

Regulatory scheme killed by EPA's Scott Pruitt cost taxpayers $68 billion.  A practice known as "sue and settle" used by the Environmental Protection Agency to enact controversial regulations cost taxpayers $68 billion since 2005 and has an annual cost of $26 billion, according to a new report.  The American Action Forum found that "sue and settle," killed this month by EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, also dumped millions of hours of red tape on industries.

EPA Ending Obama Era Practice Of Sue And Settle.  This was one of the more egregious bits of corruption during the Obama years, where the EPA was tightly knit with environmental groups, who used "friendly lawsuits" to force regulatory change[.]

Thrown off the gravy train.  Green groups are discovering that Donald Trump is not the same president as Barack Obama, whose EPA routinely engaged with them in corrupt deals flavored with an excess of sugar and grease.  The EPA had been awarding millions of dollars to environmental groups that could collect the swag by filing a law suit against the agency.  "When the EPA settles or loses those suits, it then awards the groups millions more in attorneys' fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act," Walter Olson of the Cato Institute says.  "The EPA isn't harmed by these suits," explains Jeffrey Holmstead, who headed the EPA's air-pollution office in the George W. Bush administration and is under consideration now for the No. 2 post at the agency.  "Often, the law suits [demand] things the EPA wants to do anyway.  By inviting a lawsuit and then signing a consent degree, the agency gets legal cover from the political heat."

Feds Hiding Lawsuit Payoffs Made to Environmental Groups.  A recent analysis conducted by The Daily Caller shows since 2009, more than $49 million has been paid by federal agencies to environmental groups that have engaged in "citizen lawsuits" against the Obama administration.  About $25 million went to lawyers and firms whose names have been redacted from publicly available records.  Many of the lawsuits examined also resulted in federal agencies expanding environmental regulations through "sue-and-settle" agreements.  Sue-and-settle is an increasingly common strategy used by environmental groups.  Groups that use sue-and-settle file a lawsuit against the federal government for allegedly not enforcing environmental rules or not issuing regulations as quickly as they should be under certain statutes.  Rather than fighting many of these claims, agencies have settled the lawsuits, resulting in new rules being enacted without consultation from the states and without public input, which are required by federal law.

Exclusive: Feds Hide $25 Million In Payments To Lawyers Suing Under Environmental Laws.  Groups concealed by the government have raked in $25 million in legal fees from federal agencies through lawsuits under three environmental laws since 2009, a Daily Caller News Foundation analysis found.  The Department of Treasury's Judgment Fund database tracks how much federal agencies have paid out for lawsuits and court settlements, but doesn't track the names of the individuals or groups that are actually suing the government.

EPA panel backs tough new ozone regs — after getting $200M in grants, lawsuit charges.  Scientists on a key panel handpicked by the Environmental Protection Agency to green-light new environmental emissions regulations have received nearly $200 million in grants from the agency, according to a federal lawsuit which charges the past funding calls into question the objectivity of the process.  The Energy & Environment Legal Institute, a Washington-based nonprofit, claims tough new EPA regulations that critics say would cost the industry trillions of dollars and thousands of jobs are being waved through by scientists dependent on the federal agency.  Of the 26 members appointed to the EPA's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee Particulate Matter Review Panel, 24 received direct or indirect grants from the EPA totaling more than $190 million claims the institute's lawyer.

Fighting Junk Science.  The government's Environmental Protection Agency promotes junk science because it gives the bureaucracy mission and funding.  The Sierra Club is little more than a junk science 5th column.  The club has adopted global warming as its primary tool for frightening people into paying dues.  The club's war on coal promotes numerous imaginary scares concerning the alleged toxicity of coal. [...] Unfortunately, politics rules and politics dances to the tune of junk science.  Thus we have the EPA joining the Sierra Club in the war against coal by setting standards for mercury and other emissions designed to destroy coal-generated electricity.  The motivation, of course, is to reduce CO2 emissions in order to prevent the imaginary global warming.

EPA Emails Reveal Collusion with Green Groups.  A raft of documents seemingly showing collaboration and coordination between the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and environmental lobbyists to shape and support EPA regulations is raising serious questions about the integrity of the federal rulemaking process.  In August, the majority staff on the Senate Environment and Publics Works Committee released a 72-page oversight report "Obama's Carbon Mandate: An Account of Collusion, Cutting Corners, and Costing Americans Billions," documenting hidden e-mail exchanges and secret meetings between EPA and environmental groups in the years leading up to the June 2014 release of the Obama administration's proposed Clean Power Plan.

Lawmakers take aim at EPA 'sue-and-settle' collusion.  Faced with President Obama's vastly expensive Clean Power Plan to remake the U.S. electrical system and other looming regulatory decisions that dramatically affect energy supplies, Republican lawmakers have renewed their offensive against alleged under-the-table legal collusion between the administration and environmental lobbyists in the cascading anti-carbon agenda.

Emails appear to show coordination between EPA, environmental groups on power plant rules.  Numerous emails appear to show close coordination between the EPA and environmental groups in drafting the controversial Clean Power Plan which could mark the demise of coal-fired power plants in the United States.  The emails, obtained by Fox News, came to light in a lawsuit filed by the Energy and Environment Legal Institute.  Chris Horner, of EELI, told Fox News he believes the emails show a breach of the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946, which codifies constitutional guarantees in federal rulemaking.

Three Signs the EPA/Army Corps Water Rule is a Disaster.  [#1] The Regulating Agency is Acting More like an Advocacy Group than a Federal Agency.  The EPA engaged in controversial activities to help get support for the water rule.  It launched a video and social media PR campaign asking:  "Do you choose clean water?"  As if critics of the rule want dirty water.  And that was just one gambit.  According to the New York Times, "Late last year, the EPA sponsored a drive on Facebook and Twitter to promote its proposed clean water rule in conjunction with the Sierra Club."

Crushing the Poor & Middle Class with the EPA.  President Obama is surreptitiously colluding with radical anti-growth environmentalists to force ideologically driven carbon-emission controls on the energy industry that will devastate the U.S. economy, congressional investigators have discovered.  As the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) drew up rules aimed at limiting carbon emissions from power-generation plants, "key stakeholders — including the American public — had little to no influence over the debate while powerful environmental activist groups were given unprecedented access to and influence over administration officials," the Washington Times reported yesterday [8/4/2015].

Emails appear to show coordination between EPA, environmental groups on power plant rules.  Numerous emails appear to show close coordination between the EPA and environmental groups in drafting the controversial Clean Power Plan which could mark the demise of coal-fired power plants in the United States.  The emails, obtained by Fox News, came to light in a lawsuit filed by the Energy and Environment Legal Institute.  Chris Horner, of EELI, told Fox News he believes the emails show a breach of the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946, which codifies constitutional guarantees in federal rulemaking.  "There is a process under our laws — very specific, very precise — detailing how agencies are allowed to write what is, in effect, law," Horner said.  "They are to afford all parties equal right to participate.  They are not permitted to write rules in the backroom with your buddy or on Yahoo accounts with your buddy."

Guess Who Writes the Oppressive EPA Rules in the War on Coal.  The EPA's climate rules, which will destroy the coal industry if successful, aren't based on science so much as leftist ideology, on fact so much as on propaganda.  Beginning in 2012 and continuing over a period of a year-and-a-half, the Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E & E Legal) filed FOIA requests with the EPA to explore their close, taxpayer-funded relationship with the American Lung Association (ALA) and the Sierra Club.  Both are pressure groups who are uncomfortably and intricately intertwined with the EPA, perhaps illegally if not unethically.  E & E were forced to sue in January 2013 for release of the records.  They were joined by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI).

Center for American Progress helped craft EPA talking points, emails show.  A prominent left-wing group helped formulate Environmental Protection Agency talking points designed to sell a controversial regulatory scheme to skeptical journalists, internal emails show.  The emails show Joseph Goffman, the senior counsel of EPA's Office of Air and Radiation, circulating talking points from Center for American Progress climate strategy director Daniel Weiss among EPA colleagues attempting to sell the agency's controversial power plant regulations to a New York Times reporter.  Weiss emailed Goffman in September 2013 with a series of suggestions for convincing the Times' Matt Wald of the commercial viability of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology, a vital component of the agency's stringent power plant emissions regulations.

Inhofe wants documents on EPA coordination with nonprofit environmental groups.  Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Sen. Jim Inhofe told Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy Friday [4/17/2015] to hand over information about the extent left-leaning nonprofit advocacy groups' influenced greenhouse gas regulations on power plants.  "While it is well known that these rules will have a devastating economic impact on state and local governments, businesses, and private citizens, very little is known about the amount of taxpayer dollars and agency resources that have already gone into developing these rules," the Oklahoma Republican told McCarthy in a letter.

Senator: Emails Reveal EPA, Green Group in 'Beyond Cozy' Relationship.  Republican lawmakers say the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency enjoys a "beyond cozy" relationship with a liberal environmental action group that seeks to reshape national energy policies in a way that would hurt American businesses and families.  Sen. David Vitter, R-La., the top Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, told The Daily Signal that the Natural Resources Defense Council played an "absolutely inappropriate" role in drafting the EPA's new carbon emissions plan.

Emails show 'collusion' between EPA, environmental lobby: watchdog.  The EPA and environmental groups are exceptionally close for a government agency and lobby groups, with a revolving door and pressure from the groups often shaping EPA's policies, according to a new report from a conservative watchdog group based on emails obtained in a yearslong battle with the agency.  The report, which details what the Energy & Environment Legal Institute terms "collusion" between the Environmental Protection Agency and eco-friendly groups, is also a study in the way E&E used open records laws to force transparency on a secretive agency.

GOPs Charge Environmental Lobby Getting 'Unprecedented Access' to EPA Officials.  Republicans in both the House and Senate are opening inquiries into what they maintain is the improper influence the Natural Resources Defense Council has on the Environmental Protection Agency policies.  Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee, and Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), ranking member on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, maintain the NRDC played a dominant role in developing proposed regulations that will limit carbon emissions from existing coal-fired power plants.  Issa and Vitter are seeking documents to determine the extent of the NRDC's influence and whether the New York-based environmental group and the agency engaged in inappropriate collusion.

Republicans To Investigate Coziness Between The EPA And Enviros.  Republicans are launching an investigation into the cozy relationship between the Environmental Protection Agency and an environmental lobbying group that has allegedly played a major role in crafting recent global warming rules and stymieing an Alaska mining project.  Louisiana Sen. David Vitter and California Rep. Darrell Issa sent a letter to the EPA and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) asking for records regarding the environmental group's role in drafting a rule limiting carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants, and blocking a permit for the Pebble Mine in Alaska.

Senate report details how EPA officials divert millions of tax dollars to activist groups.  Are tax dollars being channeled through the Environmental Protection Agency to Democratic activists working in the nonprofit sector?  A comprehensive new report released Wednesday by the Republican staff of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee makes clear that the answer to that question is yes.  The report is entitled "The chain of environmental command."  Major mainstream media which generally parrot the perspectives and analyses of the environmental movement have utterly ignored the report.

Senate Report Ties Soros Group to 'Billionaire's Club' Dictating EPA Actions.  An "elite group of left wing millionaires and billionaires" fund "the far-left environmental movement, which in turn controls major policy decisions," according to a U.S. Senate report released on July 30.  The report singled out, among other groups, the secretive Democracy Alliance, a group founded in part by liberal billionaire George Soros.  The report stated that "DA flouts transparency and public participation as the group emphasizes secrecy in all its operations."  It also said that the influence of the DA and groups like it could be traced through other liberal groups to environmental regulations mandated by the EPA.

Report: US, Foreign Elites Pay Greens To Push EPA Policies.  Environmental organizations are often portrayed as homegrown groups fighting back against the tide of corporate boogeymen like Big Business or Big Oil.  But this is not the case, according to a new congressional report.  A report by Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee says environmentalists are being backed by "an elite group of left-wing millionaires and billionaires."  This "Billionaire's Club" funnels money to environmental groups who then lobby on behalf of the Environmental Protection Agency to help promote its agenda, in return, getting access to generous tax write-offs and federal funding.

EPA illegally collects personal farm data, then releases it to environmental extremist groups.  Extremist environmental activist groups filed a FOIA request with the EPA and received private information, including home addresses, phone numbers and e-mails on farmers all over the country.  The concern is these activist groups will use this data to threaten or bully farmers.

Obama's EPA And IRS Violate Our Constitutional Rights.  The Environmental Protection Agency has acknowledged that it released personal information on potentially thousands of farmers and ranchers to environmental groups, violating their privacy rights and acting in collusion with private groups with private political agendas.  In Nixonian fashion, the EPA has provided these environmental groups with the dossiers of farmers it has gathered to help them create an enemies list of potential polluters.  The agency acknowledged the information included individual names, email addresses, phone numbers and personal addresses.

Senators demand transparency on EPA interactions with environmentalists.  Sens. David Vitter (R-La.) and James Inhofe (R-Okla.) demanded transparency from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on their relationships with environmental groups, such as the Sierra Club, so the public can see how these groups are shaping policy.  "The American people deserve to understand the process EPA follows when crafting the environmental policies under which they must live," Inhofe and Vitter wrote Monday in a letter to acting EPA administrator Bob Perciasepe.

EPA waives fee requests for friendly groups, denies conservative groups.  Conservative groups seeking information from the Environmental Protection Agency have been routinely hindered by fees normally waived for media and watchdog groups, while fees for more than 90 percent of requests from green groups were waived, according to requests reviewed by the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

EPA to review claims of bias against conservatives amid fight over IRS.  The Environmental Protection Agency's inspector general will review claims the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) refuses to waive public records fees for conservative groups while granting the waivers for environmental organizations.  Acting Administrator Robert Perciasepe asked the agency's inspector general to review claims after GOP lawmaker accusations of a double standard.  The charges came up Thursday during a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing, where Republicans compared the EPA's actions to the IRS's targeting of conservative groups.

More about the use of the IRS as a weapon.

EPA accused of singling out conservative groups, amid IRS scandal.  It's not just the IRS.  A second federal agency is facing a probe and accusations of political bias over its alleged targeting of conservative groups.  The allegations concern the Environmental Protection Agency, which is being accused of trying to charge conservative groups fees while largely exempting liberal groups.  The fees applied to Freedom of Information Act requests — allegedly, the EPA waived them for liberal groups far more often than it did for conservative ones.

EPA confesses to handing out farmers' personal information to activist-lawyers.  [T]he EPA just admitted that, yeah, it gave out a bunch of personal information about farmers and ranchers — including phone numbers, email addresses, regular addresses, and whatnot — to various environmental groups.  The EPA also is kind of admitting that, yeah, maybe it shouldn't have given out that information, which is why they've asked those groups to give that information back (note that the EPA apparently didn't even bother to ask that the groups give back the information without making copies first).  This is not amusing Senator John Thune, because a) the damage is done; b) apparently nobody in the EPA talks to Agriculture and Homeland Security, which both decided not to make this particular information available in a database; and c) there's a question about whether or not all of this violates the Privacy Act of 1974.

Senators Call Out the EPA For Leaking Private Info of Farmers to Radical Environmental Groups.  We've known for months now that the Environmental Protection Agency has been leaking the private information of small farmers to radical environmental groups, some of which are full of attorneys constantly snooping around for a lawsuit.  According to a letter from a group of Senators to Acting EPA Administrator Bob Perciasepe, the EPA "released farm information for 80,000 livestock facilities in 30 states as the result of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from national environmental organizations.

The Totalitarianism at the Heart of the Obama Scandals.  [Scroll down]  And most recently, it has come to light that the Environmental Protection Agency displayed political bias when charging fees to groups seeking information via Freedom of Information Act requests.  Research by a conservative think tank showed that the EPA waived fees for documents requested by left-leaning groups about 90 percent of the time, while denying fee waivers to conservative counterparts about 90 percent of the time.  So much for the administration that promised transparency.  But such behavior is entirely consistent with the power-hungry nature of Obama and his cronies.

EPA 'Mistakenly' Gives Names of Farmers to Radical Groups.  A bipartisan group of 24 senators has sent a letter to the EPA, demanding that the agency explain why it leaked the names and personal information of more than 80,000 farmers and ranchers to left-wing organizations.  In April, the EPA admitted the information had leaked in a story broken by FoxNews.com.

Senate GOP blasts EPA for release of private business info to environmental groups.  Senate Republicans on the Environment and Public Works Committee this week criticized the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for improperly releasing private personal and business information to environmental groups.  Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), the lead Republican on the committee, and other committee Republicans charged that the EPA answered a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request last year by including business information that should have remained private.

EPA acknowledges releasing personal details on farmers, senator slams agency.  The Environmental Protection Agency acknowledged Tuesday that it released personal information on potentially thousands of farmers and ranchers to environmental groups, following concerns from congressional Republicans and agriculture groups that the release could endanger their safety.

How the EPA connives with Greens on policy.  A U.S. Chamber of Commerce study has found that the EPA has given green groups a seat at the table when drafting environmental regulations, but it has excluded the people and industries most likely to be affected.  The Sierra Club has participated in "closed-door deals" with the EPA 34 times since 2009; WildEarth Guardians has had the inside line on environmental policy 20 times, the EPA has struck nine deals with the Natural Resources Defense Council, six with the Center for Biological Diversity, and five with the Environmental Defense Fund.  How have these overtly political groups obtained such access to policy decisions that have the power to destroy industries and eliminate jobs?

Rogue EPA Staff Spies On U.S. Farmers, Releases Data.  We saw such leaking of data compiled on one group to its political opponents in the IRS scandal.  In that case, the IRS leaked the 2008 confidential financial documents of the National Organization for Marriage to the rival Human Rights Campaign.  At that time, Joe Solmonese, a left-wing activist and Huffington Post contributor, was the president of the HRC.  Solmonese also was a 2012 Obama campaign co-chairman.  Now a letter from a group of 24 senators to Acting EPA Administrator Bob Perciasepe claims that the EPA has "released farm information for 80,000 livestock facilities in 30 states as the result of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from national environmental organizations."

Emails Show Extensive Collaboration Between EPA, Environmentalist Orgs.  Internal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) emails show extensive collaboration between top agency officials and leading environmentalist groups, including overt efforts to coordinate messaging and pressure the fossil fuel industry.  The emails, obtained by the Energy and Environment Legal Institute (EELI) through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, could fuel an ongoing controversy over EPA policies that critics say are biased against traditional sources of energy.  Emails show EPA used official events to help environmentalist groups gather signatures for petitions on agency rulemaking, incorporated advance copies of letters drafted by those groups into official statements, and worked with environmentalists to publicly pressure executives of at least one energy company.

Ranchers, farmers fear eco-terrorists after EPA releases private info.  The Environmental Protection Agency has told farmers and ranchers it is sorry for handing private information about them over to environmental groups, but agriculture advocates who fear attacks from eco-terrorists say it's like closing the barn door after the horses escaped.  In response to Freedom of Information Requests, the federal agency released information on up to 100,000 agriculture industry workers, including their home address and phone numbers, GPS coordinates and even personal medical histories.

'Secret dealing'? Emails show cozy relationship between EPA, environmental groups.  Newly disclosed emails suggest senior policy officials at the Environmental Protection Agency and environmental groups are working closely to kill the Keystone XL pipeline, critics say.

Democrats armed with wealth of EPA records; Little trace of FOIA requests from Republicans.  Democrats have filed more than 50 FOIA requests, including lots seeking correspondence between Republicans and EPA officials — letters that operatives will scour for any hint that politicians' rhetoric doesn't square with how they conduct themselves outside of public view.  Their findings help supply a steady flow of material for damaging news stories and campaign ads.  Twenty-eight of the Democrats' requests have been completed. [...] Republican political committees have filed just four requests since 2012, and none of those has been fulfilled.

Emails Reveal EPA Collaboration with Environmental Activists.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency routinely collaborates with environmental activist groups to develop stringent regulatory policies and strategies, according to emails obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.  The emails confirm longstanding suspicions that EPA pursues hidden agendas on behalf of environmental activist groups.  The Energy and Environment Legal Institute obtained emails showing the Starbucks located in the J.W. Marriott Hotel near EPA's Washington, DC headquarters serves as a convenient "off campus" meeting place, where EPA officials and environmental activists plot strategy.  By sitting down with government regulators at the local Starbucks rather than EPA headquarters, environmental activists can avoid signing in at EPA headquarters and thus keep the meetings secret.

Sue and Settle

Feds Hand Over Nearly $50 Million In Environmental Lawsuits.  Federal agencies have paid out more than $49 million to groups suing the government under major environmental laws since 2009, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation analysis of the Department of Treasury's Judgement Fund.  Agencies have been hit by 512 "citizen suits" since 2009, and paid out millions to lawyers often suing to increase regulations on businesses and landowners.  Three major environmental laws allow groups to bring citizen suits against federal agencies:  the Clean Air Act (CAA), the Clean Water Act (CWA) and the Endangered Species Act (ESA).  Federal agencies paid out $30 million to attorneys for 237 citizen suits under the ESA.  Citizen suits under CAA paid out the second most, at $13 million for 224 suits, and the 51 CWA suits resulted in $6.7 million in federal payments.

EPA Growth Knows No Limits.  [Scroll down]  Just as scary, the EPA is replacing American citizens and state regulatory officials' input with environmental activist groups through sue and settle agreements.  Here's how it works:  An environmental litigation organization like the Sierra Club sues the EPA for failing to meet a deadline for regulatory action.  Instead of challenging the suit, both the EPA and the environmental groups immediately engage in a friendly settlement that determines a deadline.  By dictating how the EPA should roll out environmental regulations, these settlements effectively render official policy without any input from elected officials at the federal and state levels.

Primary Document Dump Fridays: Anatomy of an Ongoing Sue & Settle Scandal.  Sue and settle refers to sweetheart lawsuits between EPA and environmental groups.  The victims are States, which get left out of negotiations with a material impact on policy-making, despite the fact that they — the States — are EPA's rightful partners (rather than green groups).  In fact, the opportunity for such sue and settle shenanigans is created by the Congress's overreliance on deadlines in environmental statutes.  The Clean Air Act, in particular, contains far many more date-certain duties than the agency has proven capable of performing.  Since 1993, of 200 date-certain duties pursuant to three core Clean Air Act programs, only 2% were completed on time, and the agency was, on average, late by almost 6 years.

EPA's "sue and settle" scam.  Earlier this week, I wrote about a new lawsuit by Arizona in an attempt to fight "regional haze" regulation by the EPA.  Sean Hackbarth follows up at the US Chamber of Commerce with a look at how the EPA uses the courts to push the boundaries on regulation, in a scam Sean calls "Sue and Settle".

Former senior EPA adviser Beale expected to plead guilty in $900,000 pay fraud.  Over the past 12 years, John C. Beale was often away from his job as a high-level staffer at the Environmental Protection Agency.  He cultivated an air of mystery and explained his lengthy absences by telling his bosses that he was doing top-secret work, including for the CIA.  For years, apparently, no one checked.

EPA official who faked CIA ties takes the Fifth.  The former senior EPA adviser who stole $900,000 from taxpayers while posing as a CIA agent pleaded the Fifth on Tuesday morning — shortly before House members expressed outrage upon learning that he's still due to get his government pension.  John C. Beale invoked his right not to incriminate himself when facing questioning from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, just four days after he pleaded guilty to charges that could bring him three years in prison.

The Editor says...
If he has pled guilty, then he has already incriminated himself, so why hide behind the Fifth Amendment?

The 'Spy' Who Fooled the EPA.  Information released by law enforcement, and details from an investigation by Louisiana Senator David Vitter, show that the fraud began when [John C.] Beale stated in his 1989 EPA job application that he'd worked for the U.S. Senate, though there is no record of such employment.  By 1994 Beale was claiming he was a CIA operative to justify prolonged absences.  Apparently this raised no eyebrows at EPA.  Prosecutors estimate that from 2000 to 2013 Beale was absent from his EPA duties for a total of 2.5 years, claiming to be working for "Langley" or on a special EPA "research project."

Who Are The People Touting Global Warming? Here's One.  Michael Isikoff at NBC News comes up with an interesting report today on government waste, fraud and abuse.  It seems the EPA was playing top-dollar to a "climate-change expert" who told them he was working undercover as a CIA spy in Pakistan.  Except he wasn't.  He was goldbricking.

Climate change expert's fraud was 'crime of massive proportion,' say feds.  The EPA's highest-paid employee and a leading expert on climate change deserves to go to prison for at least 30 months for lying to his bosses and saying he was a CIA spy working in Pakistan so he could avoid doing his real job, say federal prosecutors.

John Beale's EPA.  Last month we told you about John Beale, the Environmental Protection Agency employee who bilked taxpayers out of almost $900,000 by pretending to be a secret agent. [...] He was among the EPA's most senior, most highly paid officials, one entrusted with formulating the agency's most controversial policies.  Thus the consequences of his EPA tenure go far beyond the specific fraud for which he will now go to prison. [...] What Congress needs to examine is whether the policies that the head of EPA says were shaped to a large degree by Beale were also based on fraud.

The EPA's Million-Dollar Con Man.  As a senior policy adviser in the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Air and Radiation, [John C.] Beale dealt with his workplace malaise by convincing his bosses that he was a CIA operative whose top-secret work required him to be out of the office for long periods of time — including one stretch that lasted 18 months.  Sometimes Beale claimed to be in Pakistan.  Other times he claimed to be at CIA HQ in Langley.  In reality, the agency's top climate-change expert spent most of his time puttering around his Northern Virginia home or at his vacation house on the Cape, collecting his salary (plus bonuses!) while doing zero work.

Smoking Gun: Disgraced Obama EPA Official Testifies to Anti-Capitalist Plan.  The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has released a transcript of former senior EPA official John Beale's testimony.  The Committee deposed Beale in connection with his recent fraud conviction.  He was sentenced to prison for posing as a CIA agent, and defrauding the government of about $900,000.  Beale told the Committee that under President Barack Obama, the Environmental Protection Agency is being used for a purpose far beyond protecting the environment.

John Beale: The EPA fraudster you've never heard but whose work is destroying America.  Who is John Beale and why is he ruining your life?  John Beale was a career employee in the Environmental Protection Agency.  He was not qualified for the job he got.  In fact, it is a bit of a mystery how he got the job.  Beale defrauded the government, claiming to be an employee of the Central Intelligence Agency taking lengthy absences from his job in order to go to serve the CIA.  Beale served thirty-two months in prison once he was found out. [...] While an employee of the EPA, Beale created the EPA playbook, a guide to not only exaggerating the benefits of regulations versus their costs, it also created the insidious tactic of "sue and settle" or what is often called "friendly lawsuits."

EPA fraudster helped craft sweeping air quality rules.  A former high-ranking EPA staffer convicted of stealing nearly $900,000 by pretending to be a CIA spy had virtually no experience, got his job with help from a college buddy, and went on to play a key role in sweeping environmental regulations, according to a report Senate Republicans released Wednesday [3/19/2014].  Those regulations remain in place despite John C. Beale's lack of environmental expertise, Republican investigators said, adding that they want the Environmental Protection Agency to review the work in which Beale was involved during his 24-year tenure.

Phony CIA Agent Pulled Off a 'Scam' to Impose Environmental Regulations.  Remember the EPA bureaucrat who got caught receiving $900,000 in pay without working because he claimed he also was employed by the CIA?  According to a report from the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, the man, former climate policy expert John Beale, "retired" when questions arose about his spotty attendance and expense records.  Only he didn't file his retirement paperwork and continued to draw an active-duty salary for some time after.  His boss at the time in the EPA's Office of Air and Radiation, now-EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, knew this for about seven months and did nothing to stop it.

Report: EPA fraudster wrote the EPA's Playbook' on regulations.  A report by Senate Republicans contends that the Environmental Protection Agency's regulatory "playbook" was written by known agency fraudster John Beale, who put into place major air quality regulations that set the stage for "the exponential growth of the agency's power over the American economy."  According to Republican senators, Beale used "Machiavellian" tactics to change the role of the EPA from protecting the environment to pushing an ideological political agenda aimed at expanding agency control over the economy.

Toothless EPA homeland security office bristles at oversight.  When EPA officials began having doubts in 2012 about John Beale — a top adviser who bizarrely claimed he was missing work because he was on secret CIA spy missions — they didn't go to the agency's inspector general for an investigation.  Instead, they went to the Environmental Protection Agency's little-known office of homeland security to check out Beale's story.  Beale's ruse eventually unraveled, but questions have emerged in the wake of his time and attendance fraud case about the role of the EPA's homeland security operation.

The Jailbird Architect Of Obama's Global Warming Plan.  When President Obama announced an unprecedented effort by the EPA to strong-arm states into adopting cap-and-trade, he made the announcement not by focusing on the benefits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but rather on the so-called co-benefits that closing coal plants will have on particulate matter, which is already tightly regulated.  These purported co-benefits are based on two secret studies that have never been publicly validated.  Amazingly, the architect of this co-benefits strategy is a long-time EPA staffer named John Beale, now known as federal inmate number 33005-016 and locked up for fraud at Cumberland Federal Correctional Institution.

Former EPA official charged with stealing nearly $900G.  A former high-ranking official with the Environmental Protection Agency was charged Friday [8/23/2013] with stealing nearly $900,000 from the agency over 13 years.

EPA employee stole $886K from the agency.  An Environmental Protection Agency employee knowingly stole more than $886,000 from the agency, according to a criminal filing from the Department of Justice.  The alleged fraud occurred in the EPA's Office of Air and Radiation under the nose of former administrator Gina McCarthy, who now heads up the entire agency.  "There appears to be corruption to the umpteenth degree," said Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter.

EPA Investigation Sought as Top McCarthy Aide Faces Embezzlement Charges.  The top Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is demanding an investigation into a former top aide to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy who faces federal charges of embezzling almost $900,000.

Hillary Cashes In At Fundraiser Hosted By Former EPA Chief Who Used A Secret Email Account.  Former Environmental Protection Agency chief Lisa Jackson co-hosted a fundraiser for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Wednesday [8/24/2016] — an ironic twist since Jackson left the Obama administration amid a major email scandal.  Jackson co-hosted the Clinton fundraiser with Apple CEO Tim Cook in the San Francisco Bay area, and tickets for the event reportedly cost between $2,700 and $50,000.  Jackson currently serves as Apple's environmental director, and is also on the board of the Clinton Foundation.  Jackson took the Apple job after leaving the EPA amid a scandal involving her use of a secret email account.  For years, Jackson used an email account under the alias "Richard Windsor" in what critics called an effort to sidestep transparency laws.  Jackson's emails were on a government server, but the former administrator used her alias account to conduct official business and communicate with environmental activists.

Alphabet Soup Corruption.  [Scroll down]  The director of the EPA, Lisa Jackson, stepped down shortly after Obama's reelection, given that she belatedly admitted to using a false email alias "Richard Windsor" to conduct official EPA correspondence in a fashion that was not subject to public transparency.  After pressure from congressional committees and the EPA's own inspector general's requirement for Jackson to produce some 12,000 "Richard Windsor" alias emails, Jackson resigned — and was almost immediately hired as an environmental consultant by Apple Inc.

EPA chief's secret 'alias' email account revealed.  The name Richard Windsor may sound innocuous, but it is allegedly one of the secret "alias" email accounts used by Obama EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson.  "That is the name — sorry, one of the alias names — used by Obama's radical EPA chief to keep her email from those who ask for it," Chris Horner, senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and author of the new book "The Liberal War on on [sic] Transparency," told the Daily Caller News Foundation in an email.

Who is 'Richard Windsor'?  In The Liberal War on on Transparency, published by Threshold Editions last month, I revealed the existence of a series of black, or "alias" email accounts used by EPA administrators.  These were actively instituted by none other than Carol Browner, who designed her own secret address, for an account that I also learned was set to "auto-delete".  You remember Ms. Browner?  She's the lady who suddenly ordered her computer hard drive be reformatted and backup tapes be erased, just hours after a federal court issued a "preserve" order that her lawyers at the Clinton Justice Department insisted they hadn't yet told her about?  She's the one who said it didn't matter because she didn't use her computer for email anyway?  Yes, that one.

Is The Obama EPA Running Its Own Black-Ops Program?  Federal law prohibits the government from using private emails for official communications unless they are appropriately stored and can be tracked.  Because things look suspicious at the EPA, the House Science Committee is investigating the possibility that the agency has conducted business it doesn't want the public to see.  On Friday [11/16/2012], the committee delivered letters to the EPA and "various agency inspectors general" seeking to find out if "senior personnel have been conducting official business through secretive means such as aliases and private email accounts."

Congress demands EPA's secret email accounts.  A House committee has launched an investigation into whether EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson used an email alias to try to hide correspondence from open-government requests and her agency's own internal watchdog — something that Republican lawmakers said could run afoul of the law.  The science committee has asked Ms. Jackson to turn over all information related to an email account under the name of "Richard Windsor," which is one of the aliases identified by a researcher looking into the EPA.

Members Question Use of Secret Email Accounts by Top Obama Administration Officials.  In letters today [11/16/2012] to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and various agency Inspectors General, members of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee questioned whether senior personnel have been conducting official business through secretive means such as aliases and private email accounts.

Congressmen Confront EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson Over Use of Alias 'Richard Windsor'.  Two members of Congress sent a letter to EPA administrator Lisa Jackson over her use of the alias "Richard Windsor."  The congressmen, Fred Upton and Cliff Stearns, want Jackson to explain her actions. [...] Upton is the chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce; Stearns is the chairman of the subcommittee on oversight and investigation.

EPA inspector general audits agency's use of secret email accounts.  Last week the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of the Inspector General announced an audit of the agency's electronic records management practice to determine if it follows the law when conducting official business using private and alias email accounts. [...] Among other things, the Inspector General's office will look at is whether or not the EPA "[p]romoted or encouraged the use of private or alias email accounts to conduct official government business."

EPA IG audits administrator's private e-mail account.  Leaders of two House committees with jurisdiction over the EPA have questioned whether the agency has been fully transparent in its handling of electronic records.  Last month, House science committee Chairman Ralph M. Hall (R-Tex.) and five of his colleagues wrote to EPA Inspector General Arthur A. Elkins Jr. and questioned whether Jackson violated federal law by using "private email and alias accounts to conduct official government business."

Head of EPA does a bunch of her work on alias e-mail account.  So, the head of one of the most active and heavy-handed regulatory agencies in the federal government does a bunch of her business with colleagues on an e-mail address, that while it's a .gov address, has no obvious connection to the EPA administrator herself.  Among the regulations the EPA released just last year were five classified as "major" and expected to cost $4 billion annually. [...] But I'm sure there's nothing the public would want to know about going on in "Richard Windsor's" e-mail.

Questions mount over EPA administrator's secret email address.  The House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology sent a letter Tuesday [12/18/2012] requesting additional information on the secret email addresses, and earlier this month the EPA's inspector general announced the agency would begin an investigation into the issue.  Chairman Ralph Hall (R., Tex.) and other Republicans on the committee requested additional information on the secret email account, expressing concern that "the potential for confusion, not to mention intentional malfeasance, is enormous."

EPA admits secret email use as House leaders fume.  Six House leaders are pressing their demands for documents after a senior Environmental Protection Agency executive confirmed that Administrator Lisa Jackson has used a fake name and a secret email account while doing official business. [...] It is against federal record-keeping laws and regulations to use a private or secret email account or fake name to conduct official business.

The Editor says...
A violation of federal law?  Well, then I guess we can expect Ms. Jackson to be fired and arrested next week, right?

Exit of EPA boss was a protest.  EPA chief Lisa Jackson suddenly resigned last week because she was convinced that President Obama is planning to green-light the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline, The [New York] Post has learned.

Politico's Framing of Jackson's Resignation from EPA.  Please.  It's not as if only Republicans oppose the EPA's energy-hostile agenda; last time I checked, most of West Virginia's national politicians, as well as many if not most of the state's coal miners who are losing their jobs as a result of out-of-control environmentalism, are Democrats.  And I don't recall President Obama or the White House ever having any problems with what Jackson was saying or doing.  The Politico pair also waited until the sixth paragraph of their report to mention Jackson's admitted use of an accountability-avoiding email account in the name of "Richard Windsor" to conduct official business.

E-mail Scandal at the EPA.  The sudden announcement that Lisa Jackson, the controversial head of the Environmental Protection Agency, will be resigning later this month means that the mysterious Richard Windsor will be leaving the building with her.  His is apparently one of several fake names on official EPA e-mail accounts that Jackson used to conduct business while at EPA.

Hide & sneak.  Richard Windsor was the nom de plume of EPA chief Lisa Jackson, who announced her resignation last month.  Why, you may ask, would a federal bureaucrat need an alias? [...] Jackson has not been charged with any wrongdoing, but she has apparently been using unofficial e-mail accounts to discuss government affairs.  As a side benefit, such exchanges might have been expected to escape discovery via the Freedom of Information Act.  It is against federal law to use private e-mail addresses to discuss the people's business.

The EPA is Hiding Something.  From ignoring open-record requests, to creating bogus e-mail accounts and names, the EPA has proven there is no level to which they will not stoop in an attempt to sidestep the era of open government the President has so vociferously hailed.  The tale of Richard Windsor would hardly warrant a blip on the radar of those analyzing the EPA's activities, save for the fact that Mr. Windsor does not exist.  Windsor is in fact EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, the name used as an e-mail alias she has reportedly used to cover her tracks in private correspondence.

Goodbye, Lisa Jackson.  During her four years as administrator, Jackson has put her radical environmental agenda before the wellbeing of the U.S. economy, the integrity of science, and even the structure of the American political system itself.  Start with her regulatory record.  Since January 2009, Jackson's EPA has issued 20 "major" regulations — defined as rules with an economic cost of $100 million or more each year.  Incidentally, that $100-million standard looks like a low-ball upon examining many of the Jackson EPA's own economic-impact statements.  These 20 rules carry a total initial cost of $7 billion, a painful capital expenditure demanded of businesses that aspire to meet compliance standards.

DOJ to Release Secret EPA E-Mails.  Today, the Department of Justice is to produce the first of four monthly batches totaling 12,000 emails to and from the "secondary" email account of President Obama's EPA administrator, Lisa Jackson.  Rolling Stone hailed Jackson as "the most progressive" EPA chief ever.  Today we begin to know her better as "Richard Windsor", which is the false identity Jackson assumed for federal recordkeeping purposes.  Here is why that matters.

New mysteries in EPA's Windsorgate scandal.  Washington's transparency and environmental communites were abuzz yesterday awaiting release by the Environmental Protection Agency of the first 3,000 of an expected 12,000 "Richard Windsor" emails sent to and from outgoing Administrator Lisa Jackson.  After sorting through technical glitches that undermined the agency's first attempt to post the documents ordered released by a federal court, it became obvious that EPA had only made public about 2,100 emails and "Richard Windsor" — Jackson's admitted illegal non [sic] de plume on one of her government email accounts — was nowhere to be found.

EPA Email Release "Gravely Compounded Unlawful Activity We Have Exposed".  At about 4:55 p.m. on Monday, the Environmental Protection Agency finally complied with a court order to deliver the first of four sets of emails in response to a lawsuit filed by Christopher Horner, a senior fellow in the Center for Energy and the Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.  Here is Horner's statement on the emails:  Where in the World is Richard Windsor?

EPA releases first tranche of Lisa Jackson's alias e-mail correspondence.  Last we heard of Lisa P. Jackson, she was exiting the administration for new challenges and time with family or something.  Her resignation came just weeks before a court-imposed deadline for the EPA to release some 12,000 e-mails associated with her alias e-mail account under the name "Richard Windsor."  Competitive Enterprise Institute's Chris Horner stumbled on the Windsor account while perusing documents he'd FOIAed while doing research for his book, "The Liberal War on Transparency."

The myserious case of Richard Windsor.  All is not as it appears in the case of Richard Windsor, the alias used by outgoing EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, apparently to shield email messages from discovery and disclosure.  Under court order to cough up the email messages to Chris Horner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and having turned over a first installment of 2,100 such email messages earlier this week, the Obama administration is making this a case that might challenge the ingenuity of Sherlock Holmes.

Lisa Jackson's Gadfly.  Chris Horner is the gadfly determined to force the Obama administration to live up to its professed commitment to transparency. [...] Horner suspects that, despite what the EPA says, Jackson actually has more than one internal account:  at least one used to correspond with agency employees at large — the one from which the EPA turned over the documents on Monday — and the Windsor account, used for more sensitive subjects.  Horner believes that, in protecting the Windsor e-mails, the administration is trying to hide its musings on cap-and-trade, a legislative proposal that never gained broad political support.

The Windsor-Not.  Republican lawmakers on the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee warned the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Thursday they may take "formal action" to pry information from the department regarding outgoing EPA administrator Lisa Jackson's use of secret email addresses.  Committee Republicans in a letter said the agency failed to properly respond to requests for records about the use of non-public email accounts by EPA officials, including Jackson.

EPA Email Scandal Is Worse than Originally Thought.  President Barack Obama and, for that matter, most of America seem woefully ignorant about a scandal unfolding at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.  As hard as it is to believe, outgoing Administrator Lisa Jackson actually appears to have had agency personnel create a fictitious employee by the name of "Richard Windsor" so that Jackson could appropriate the Windsor's email address for her own purposes.  We're not talking about some alias to be used for personal correspondence but a totally false identity in whose name official business was allegedly conducted created specifically to avoid federal record-keeping and disclosure requirements.

E-mail Scandal at the EPA.  When the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free-market group, came up empty on its FOIA requests for Jackson's e-mails relating to her anti-coal efforts, it was told by an EPA whistleblower that she was using "Richard Windsor" and other aliases to coordinate with outside anti-coal groups and engage in other activity she wouldn't want to come to light.  After CEI filed suit, the Justice Department last month reluctantly agreed to produce 12,000 "Richard Windsor" e-mails.

20 Windsorgate questions for Obama administration.  "Richard Windsor" was the government email non [sic] de plume used by former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson during her tenure from 2009 through 2013.  It is a violation of multiple federal public access and transparency laws for government officials to use fake email names while doing official business.  [Christopher C.] Horner sued EPA in federal court after the agency refused to provide Jackson emails he requested through the Freedom of Information Act.  A federal court sided with Horner and ordered the emails to be made public.

The EPA's Lisa Jackson: The Worst Head of the Worst Regulatory Agency, Ever.  President Obama and his minions seem to think that freedom is a four-letter word.  His administration has imposed an array of intrusive, nanny-state, financial, environmental and consumer-product regulations that will cost Americans hundreds of billions of dollars.  Public policy has consequences, and excessive, unwise regulation has contributed to a potentially catastrophic slowing of the nation's economic growth.

EPA Corruption and Scandal.  The EPA and Ms. Lisa Jackson, its chief, have committed extensive violations of law that should receive in-depth scrutiny from Congress, law enforcement and the American people.  Yes the Obama administration has yet another serious scandal on their hands.  The scandal features a fantasy administrator, 'Richard Windsor', and 'his' email account.  The account was established and used by Ms. Jackson to camouflage controversial EPA processes, discussions, decisions and accountability.

The adventures of 'Richard Windsor' — EPA e-mail dump due today.  Sometime Friday [2/15/2013], the Environmental Protection Agency is expected to deliver a tranche of "Richard Windsor" emails to the Competitive Enterprise Institute.  Those emails may shed light on the efforts of Lisa Jackson, EPA's departing administrator, to conceal details of her involvement in President Obama's war on coal by using the fictional Windsor as a false online identity for certain federal record-keeping.

Vitter: Another EPA official resigning amid probe into use of banned email account.  Sen. David Vitter, R-La., revealed that he has found "widespread" use of banned, unofficial email accounts at the Environmental Protection Agency.  At least two regional administrators used the unofficial email accounts, including the acting agency leader and one person resigning as the investigation gets underway.

Whole Lotta Redactin' Going On.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its second batch of emails from former administrator Lisa Jackson's secret email address Friday [2/15/2013], but the researcher who sued the agency to obtain the records says it improperly redacted nearly all of the information.  The emails, released in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), are from Jackson's pseudonymous, secondary email account under the name "Richard Windsor."

Republicans threaten 'formal action' over EPA head's 'Richard Windsor' emails.  House Republicans are threatening "formal action" against the Environmental Protection Agency unless the agency hands over records about Administrator Lisa Jackson's use of a secondary government email account.  Republicans allege that Jackson's use of an internal account under the alias "Richard Windsor" undercuts the agency's transparency.

Windsor Knot Tightens.  Yet another top Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official used a personal email address to conduct government business, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) disclosures reveal.  EPA Region 9 administrator Jared Blumenfeld used his personal Comcast email account to send a news article to former EPA administrator Lisa Jackson's secret "Richard Windsor" email account.  The email was discovered within a tranche of thousands of emails from Jackson's alias email account disclosed by the EPA earlier this month in response to a FOIA request by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI).

EPA Official Resigns.  A top Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official under congressional investigation for using a private email address to conduct government business is stepping down.  EPA Region 8 administrator James Martin is resigning this week, according to a press release from Sen. David Vitter (R., La.).  Martin faces a congressional probe for allegedly using a private email account to circumvent disclosure requirements.  Bob Perciasepe, the current acting EPA administrator, also used a private account to send emails to other EPA officials, Vitter said his office has discovered.

Senator: EPA lied about using private emails.  Environmental Protection Agency officials lied when they said a top official used his private email only once for public business, a Republican senator said Friday [3/8/2013] as he released copies of several emails in which that official conducted business with the EPA's director and with outside groups.

EPA Corruption and Scandal.  The EPA and Ms. Lisa Jackson, its chief, have committed extensive violations of law that should receive in-depth scrutiny from Congress, law enforcement and the American people.  Yes the Obama administration has yet another serious scandal on their hands.  The scandal features a fantasy administrator, 'Richard Windsor', and 'his' email account.  The account was established and used by Ms. Jackson to camouflage controversial EPA processes, discussions, decisions and accountability.

EPA accused of using instant messages to avoid sunshine laws in lawsuit.  Top Environmental Protection Agency officials used computer instant messages to try to circumvent open-records laws, according to a new lawsuit filed late last week by a researcher who has been demanding the agency comply with the law.  Christopher C. Horner, the researcher who earlier uncovered that EPA officials were using private email addresses to conduct official business, said that in going over some of those earlier records he discovered the agency was using instant messages, too.  He now is suing to get a look at those records, which he said EPA has refused to release.

New mysteries in EPA's Windsorgate scandal.  Washington's transparency and environmental communites were abuzz yesterday [1/14/2013] awaiting release by the Environmental Protection Agency of the first 3,000 of an expected 12,000 "Richard Windsor" emails sent to and from outgoing Administrator Lisa Jackson.  After sorting through technical glitches that undermined the agency's first attempt to post the documents ordered released by a federal court, it became obvious that EPA had only made public about 2,100 emails and "Richard Windsor" — Jackson's admitted illegal non de plume on one of her government email accounts — was nowhere to be found.

Former EPA head defends alias email at alma mater.  Lisa Jackson, the former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, told an audience at Princeton University that politics are to blame for the uproar over her "Richard Windsor" alias email account, but she wishes she had chosen a less obscure name for the account.

The Editor says...
"Politics are to blame" for Lisa Jackson having that job in the first place.

New emails: EPA chief pretended to be 'Richard Windsor'.  Investigators have questioned whether that email address was used to hide records from public view.  But in the latest twist, Ms. Jackson apparently also used the address to pretend to be someone else.  Michael Martin, CEO of sustainability company MusicMatters, emailed asking if "Richard Windsor" could get a message to Ms. Jackson, since she didn't seem to be responding to her personal email.

Disgraced EPA Chief Used Fake Name to Coordinate with Liberal Groups.  The Lisa Jackson/Richard Windsor story is getting progressively weirder as new emails released show that Jackson used her fake "Richard Windsor" account to communicate with top liberal groups without them being aware of who she really was.  It's hard to see why Jackson would want to do that unless she was engaged in activities so illegal that she didn't trust them or any real life assistant to handle.  The current email releases don't show anything that bad, but we haven't seen all of it.  And the only two possible conclusions is that either Lisa Jackson really had something to hide or she was insane.

Former EPA chief under fire for new batch of 'Richard Windsor' emails.  Critics are leaping on private emails from the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency that seem to show her using the alias of "Richard Windsor" to communicate with people outside the government.  Messages released Wednesday [5/1/2013] show former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson using the Windsor email account to talk with people who would later serve in the Obama administration.

Newly released emails show EPA director's extensive use of fictional alter ego.  Richard Windsor never existed at the EPA, but the agency awarded the fictional staffer's email account certificates proving he had mastered all of the agency's technology training — including declaring him a "scholar of ethical behavior," according to documents disclosed late last week.

Richard Windsor Lives.  Richard Windsor, the e-mail alias employed by former EPA administrator Lisa Jackson to communicate with high-level Obama administration officials, environmental activists, and other top EPA officials, is still listed in the agency's digital directory as an EPA employee, according to an agency employee who asked to remain anonymous.  The source tells National Review Online that a search of the agency's internal directory for Richard Windsor returns an employee by that name, "buried in there with active employees."

EPA grants ethics, cyber-security certificates to fake employee 'Richard Windsor'.  Environmental Protection Agency officials granted at least six ethics and cyber-security certifications to "Richard Windsor," the fake employee invented for former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson's use for conducting official business.

White House knew about Lisa Jackson's secret email account.  Email records show that the White House knew about the secret email account used by former Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson since at least February 2010.  In a 2010 email exchange between Jackson and Gary Guzy, the Deputy Director and General Counsel at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, after some initial confusion, Jackson reveals to the White House staffer that "Richard Windsor" is her "private" email account.

Lisa Jackson Contacted Lobbyist from Private Email.  Former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson used her private email to conduct official business, including with a lobbyist, in a possible violation of federal record laws.  The emails were part of the latest batch of documents released through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI).  The conservative nonprofit has been digging through Jackson's correspondence for months after it discovered she used a secret EPA email address under the pseudonym "Richard Windsor."

Coal Industry Regulations Were A Laughing Matter to the EPA.  Lisa Jackson recently left her job as EPA administrator amid an investigation into her use of alias email accounts.  She apparently used those secret accounts to shield official agency business from Freedom of Information Act requests.

Former EPA Admin Lisa Jackson Hires Lawyer for Email Investigation.  Former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson has hired a lawyer in the ongoing congressional investigation into her use of private and secret email addresses to conduct official business.  Jackson, who announced her resignation from the EPA in December amid a congressional probe, hired lawyer Barry Coburn from the D.C. firm Coburn & Greenbaum, according to a source.  Jackson now works for Apple as the tech giant's top environmental officer.

Do you smell whitewash?
EPA officials cleared of email abuse charges.  The EPA has failed to train its employees or give them sufficient guidance about abiding by open-records laws, according to an inspector general's report released Monday [10/7/2013] that chides the agency but clears top-level employees of intentionally trying to hide information by using private email accounts.  Investigators said they talked with top-level employees and found no intent to deceive the public.

Democrats renew push for Obama EPA pick Gina McCarthy.  [Senator David] Vitter, along with other Republicans, say they have unanswered questions about EPA transparency and the use of secondary email accounts under pseudonyms.  Former Administrator Lisa P. Jackson, for example, has come under fire for her email account under the name "Richard Windsor."  Other Republicans criticize Mrs. McCarthy — and the EPA as a whole — for what they call an anti-fossil-fuels agenda and the use of questionable science to demonize coal, oil and natural gas.

Lisa Jackson Denies Skirting FOIA Laws.  Former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson denied circumventing federal record law by using secret email addresses in testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Tuesday [9/10/2013].  Jackson, who announced her resignation in December and is now the chief environmental officer at Apple, has been in the crosshairs of congressional GOP investigators since it was discovered last year that she used a secondary EPA email address under the alias "Richard Windsor."

Former EPA Administrator Defiant over Use of Email Aliases.  Seven months after resigning as head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Lisa Jackson returned to the hot seat Tuesday [9/10/2013] to refute allegations she had abused her official email accounts and used her own private account to circumvent open records requirements.  Jackson, who used an email under the alias "Richard Windsor" at the EPA, said the practice of using a secondary official account was common among former administrators from both parties.

The Editor says...
Really?  Name the Republican officials who have used opposite-sex pseudonyms to send clandestine email about official business.

EPA's use of secret email addresses was widespread: report.  EPA employees' use of their own private email accounts to conduct government business was rampant among top-level officials, according to according to a new report Thursday from Senate Republicans that accused the agency's own internal watchdog of botching an investigation.  Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee said their findings call into question the work of the EPA's inspector general, who in September issued a report clearing the EPA of wrongdoing in the email scandal.

Vitter Accuses Inspector General of Providing Cover for EPA in Investigation.  Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee are condemning an inspector general's report exonerating Environmental Protection Agency officials in the case of using unofficial email addresses to hide their dealings from public scrutiny.  In a letter to Arthur A. Elkins Jr., the agency's inspector general, Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), the panel's ranking member, charged that the probe was not only insufficient but that it was conducted in a manner "that inappropriately provided cover for EPA's problematic email practice."  Vitter expressed concern over the scope of the OIG investigation, cited flaws in the office's methodology and maintained investigators arrived at questionable conclusions despite evidence to the contrary.

EPA Chief: CO2 Regulations Are About 'Justice' For 'Communities Of Color'.  The Environmental Protection Agency's proposed global warming regulations aren't just about stemming global temperature rises — according to agency's chief, they are also about "justice" for "communities of color."  "Carbon pollution standards are an issue of justice," said EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy in a teleconference call with environmental activists.  "If we want to protect communities of color, we need to protect them from climate change."  McCarthy is referring to the EPA's proposed rule that would limit carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants.

The Editor says...
Obviously this is a tactic designed to preemptively paint opposition to the EPA's plans as racist.  When the lights go out on the hottest (or coldest) day of the year because the EPA forced the closure of too many power plants, neither the residents of low-income neighborhoods nor anyone else will care about the carbon dioxide content of the air.

EPA Puts Brakes on Approval Process for Gold, Copper Mine.  In a surprise move, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reversed itself Friday and stopped the approval process for the proposed Pebble Mine copper and gold mine project in southwest Alaska's Bristol Bay region.  "It is my judgment at this time that any mining projects in the region likely pose a risk to the abundant natural resources that exist there," EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said in a statement.

Alaska's Pebble Mine moves closer to fruition as permitting process begins.  A proposed gold and copper mine that nearly got buried by the Obama administration moved closer to reality when its developers filed new permits with the federal government.  The company behind Pebble Mine, in Alaska's Bristol Bay, were poised Friday to file a wetlands-fill permit with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.  The permit application by the Pebble Limited Partnership, a subsidiary of Northern Dynasty Minerals, marks a milestone for the project that has seen renewed interest since President Trump appointed former Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to head the EPA.

Obama's EPA derailed Alaskan mine for years:  Pebble Partnership CEO.  A controversial plan to build a mine on top of a copper and gold deposit outside of Bristol Bay, Alaska was rejected outright by the Obama administration's Environmental Protection Agency, despite refusing to allow the company, Pebble Partnership, to submit an initial environmental impact statement.  But in May, under the Trump administration, new EPA administrator Scott Pruitt met with the CEO of the company, Tom Collier, to strike a deal:  It would begin to roll back restrictions on large-scale mining in Alaska, which is located near a major salmon fishery.

A Green Mess: Is EPA in Hot Water Over Alaska's Bristol Bay?  Alaska's Pebble Partnership, which owns the rights to the second-richest copper-gold deposit on earth, is at the center of one of the premier resource issues of our time.  Environmentalists and sportsmen are concerned that mining the deposit will despoil Bristol Bay, home of the world's largest sockeye salmon fishery.  Investors in Pebble obviously want the site developed, which has been zoned for mining by the State of Alaska.  The Obama Administration's 54.5 mpg fuel economy mandate for 2025 may not be met without a substantial shift towards pure-electric and advanced hybrid cars, whose motors will require massive amounts of copper wiring and hardware.  Unemployment in south coastal Alaska is epidemic, and the mine will surely provide relief, if not a cure.

EPA cleared of bias in Alaska mine controversy despite lost emails.  Despite acknowledging it could not obtain more than two years of emails from a key employee, the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Inspector General on Wednesday [1/20/2016] effectively cleared the EPA of allegations of bias in its quest to preemptively kill a proposed mine in southwest Alaska.  The troubling details of the missing emails raise charges of an EPA whitewashing, a scenario and an allegation all-too-familiar in the Obama administration.

Federal judge orders former EPA scientist to testify in Pebble mine case.  A federal judge considering a court challenge by Pebble mine developers has granted Pebble's request to force testimony by a former government scientist now believed to be living in Australia.  Pebble Ltd. Partnership asserted in court filings that Phil North fled the country to avoid answering allegations that he colluded with tribal groups and environmentalists to block the mine's development.  North was a lead scientist for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which has proposed to use its powers under the Clean Water Act to block any mine of the scale proposed by Pebble developers in the Bristol Bay watershed.

Federal judge refuses to stop Alaska mine developer's lawsuit against EPA.  In what is being hailed as a "significant victory" for due process, a federal judge last week ruled that a lawsuit by mine developer Pebble Limited Partnership against the Environmental Protection Agency may proceed.  Judge H. Russel Holland said PLP, the developer of a proposed copper and gold mine in southwest Alaska, has raised plausible claims the EPA improperly used input from anti-mining groups in crafting its Bristol Bay Watershed assessment.

Curbing EPA Abuses.  As Kimberly Strassel documents in May 14 and May 21 articles, EPA emails and other documents reveal that the agency had already decided in 2010 to veto the proposed Pebble Mine in Alaska on ideological grounds, "well before it did any science" on the project's potential environmental impacts.  Meanwhile, an EPA biologist was working with eco-activists to recruit Native Americans to oppose the mine.  "It's not much of a leap," Strassel writes, "to suggest that the EPA encouraged [petitions against the mine] so that it would have an excuse to intervene, run its science as cover, and block a project it already opposed."  At the same time the biologist was aiding the petition drive, he was also helping to write EPA's "options paper" for the mine — and lobbying his co-authors and report contributors to veto the mine, Strassel notes.

Judge Orders EPA to Stop Clandestine Anti-Mining Collusion.  Natural resource industry leaders nationwide shuddered in February 2011 when the Environmental Protection Agency announced its intent to veto the proposed copper, gold and molybdenum-rich Pebble Mine in southwestern Alaska — before the developer even had finished its preliminary design.  Without warning, the EPA had nullified a half-dozen basic laws and seized power to itself without authority.  The shock went viral:  "If they can do it to Pebble, they can do it to us."

Judge puts brakes on EPA's action against Alaska's Pebble Mine.  A federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction blocking the Environmental Protection Agency from taking action against a massive Alaska mining project that the agency says could be catastrophic for the best run of wild salmon remaining on the planet.  Fishermen in Washington state and Alaska, along with tribal groups, environmentalists, chefs and even jewelers have fought the proposed Pebble Mine for years and thought it dead.  But the ruling gives at least some temporary hope to the Canadian developers of the project.

Republicans To Investigate Coziness Between The EPA And Enviros.  Republicans are launching an investigation into the cozy relationship between the Environmental Protection Agency and an environmental lobbying group that has allegedly played a major role in crafting recent global warming rules and stymieing an Alaska mining project.  Louisiana Sen. David Vitter and California Rep. Darrell Issa sent a letter to the EPA and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) asking for records regarding the environmental group's role in drafting a rule limiting carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants, and blocking a permit for the Pebble Mine in Alaska.

Fight heats up over EPA sabotage of Alaska gold mine.  The controversy centers on Pebble Mine, located 200 miles southeast of Anchorage.  It is the largest deposit of copper and gold in North America. [...] The company behind the mine claims the agency went too far.  "The intent of the EPA is to take on an authority that nowhere has Congress given them, to go across America and determine where development should occur and where it shouldn't occur before anyone ever files a permit," Pebble Limited Partnership CEO Tom Collier said.

EPA to block Alaska's proposed Pebble Mine over salmon risk.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Friday [7/18/2014] it is endorsing analysis that would essentially block development of a massive gold-and-copper prospect near the headwaters of a world premier salmon fishery in Alaska.  The controversial mine, whose supporters say the EPA has colluded with environmentalists to block, "would cause irreversible damage to one of the world's last intact salmon ecosystems," according to EPA regional administrator Dennis McLerran.  The EPA produced analysis showing environmental damage it believes the mine would cause, which if accepted would bar the project.

Alaska Responds to EPA power grab.  The State of Alaska has responded to the EPA's threatened preemptive veto of large mining operations in the Bristol Bay region of Alaska via a letter to EPA Regional Administrator Dennis McLerran dated April 29, 2014.  The letter was once again signed by Alaska's Attorney General, Michael Geraghty.  The letter makes very interesting reading.  In parallel, the Pebble Partnership submitted similar comments.

EPA Studies and Preordained Conclusions.  With great fanfare the Environmental Protection Agency announced [in] January that their "assessment" of potential mining impacts on salmon ecosystems of Bristol Bay, Alaska had discovered unacceptable risks to salmon and their habitat (various drainages in the region).  The agency stated that they would be proceeding to take action under the Clean Water Act to pre-emptively halt action on the Pebble Mine project before permitting begins on the proposed copper, gold, and molybdenum extraction project.  Essentially, they studied three mine scenarios, none of which would be able to be permitted under either the state of federal systems and found them unacceptable.

Inspector General launches investigation into EPA's Alaska Pebble Mine study.  Days after the publication of Environmental Protection Agency emails showed EPA officials advocating for a pre-emptive veto of the Pebble Mine project in southwest Alaska, EPA's Office of Inspector General announced plans to look into the agency's activities to find out whether it broke any laws or policies.

Memos show EPA officials tried to kill mine project before scientific review.  Though President Obama has repeatedly urged that science guide environmental decisions, regulators inside the Environmental Protection Agency secretly worked with tribal and environmental activists to preempt a full review of an Alaskan mine and veto the project before the owners' permits could be considered, internal memos show.  Charged with being neutral arbiters, EPA officials instead began advocating for a preemptive veto of the Pebble Mine project in western Alaska as early as 2008, long before any scientific studies were conducted or the permit applications for the project were even filed, the emails obtained by The Washington Times show.

EPA moves against major Alaska gold mine, could sideline project over salmon.  The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday [2/28/2014] moved against a massive mine project in Alaska which supporters say could contain billions of dollars in gold and copper, delivering a win for environmentalists who claimed the mine could endanger sockeye salmon populations.  The decision on Pebble Mine was highly anticipated, and comes after an EPA report in January found large-scale mining in the Bristol Bay watershed posed significant risk to salmon and could adversely affect Alaska Natives in the region, whose culture is built around salmon.

Crushing Pebbles.  The investors haven't even made a formal proposal.  But the Environmental Protection Agency had threatened to issue a pre-emptive veto even before the traditional approving authorities in the state of Alaska and the Army Corps of Engineers had weighed in.  The EPA typically regulates projects once they are approved, but in the Obama Administration such notions of regulatory restraint are considered quaint.

Vitter slams EPA after mining giant abandons Alaskan project.  Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), the top Republican on the Senate's environment committee, blamed the Environmental Protection Agency Monday [9/23/2013] after a major mining company abandoned the business partnership seeking build a huge copper and gold mine in Alaska.  "This is a prime example of why the economy isn't recovering.  EPA and their far-left environmental allies are using unprecedented tactics to shut down potential projects and corresponding jobs before they've even begun the permitting process," Vitter said after mining giant Anglo American abandoned the proposed Pebble Mine.

EPA Issues New Pebble Mine Assessment.  The proposed mine has the potential to triple the nation's strategic copper reserves and more than double its strategic gold reserves.  It could also nearly double U.S. molybdenum reserves, allowing the United States to rival China in the production of this critical metal used to harden steel for manufacturing and construction.

EPA study cites report from admitted data fakers.  The Environmental Protection Agency's revised draft assessment of an Alaska mine project cites research from environmental consultants who admitted falsifying a report in an environmental lawsuit.  The EPA's new review of the potential Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay, Alaska, relied on research from Stratus Consulting and Ann Maest, the company's managing scientist.  Stratus recently admitted to providing false statements in a decades-long $19 billion lawsuit against the oil company Chevron.

New EPA chief must end political attacks on Pebble Mine.  Not long before U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson resigned from President Obama's cabinet, it was revealed she spent years using a secret e-mail account to conduct official business.  Under pressure, the agency has started releasing those e-mails, which provide a glimpse into how top officials at the agency worked to outmaneuver lawmakers and the press.  But I found one of Jackson's e-mails particularly astounding and hypocritical, given the agency's apparent obsession with politics and PR spin.

EPA official who wanted to 'crucify' oil companies praised EPA nominee for help in 'shaming states'.  Al Armendariz, the Environmental Protection Agency official who said regulators should "crucify" a few oil and gas companies as a warning to the industry, praised Gina McCarthy for proposing air rules that were "icing on the cake" for agency effort to "sham[e] the states" into greener policies.  Armendariz made the comments in a 2012 email to other colleagues released by Sen. David Vitter, D-La. who is raising questions about McCarthy, Obama's nominee to run the EPA.

Al Armendariz is back in the news:
NY Fracking Study Used Research By EPA Official Who Touted 'Roman Crucifixion'.  The New York state study on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, relied on research from a former Environmental Protection Agency official who compared enforcing environmental regulations to "Roman crucifixions."  Former EPA Region 6 Administrator Al Armendariz may have resigned from the Obama administration in 2012, but his research was included in the Cuomo administration's environmental study on fracking.