Sen. Richard Burr has proposed to merge the EPA with the Department of Energy.
We oppose this move because it would essentially elevate the EPA to cabinet status, extend the life of the useless Department of Energy and encourage the left-tilting environmental bureaucracy to pollute energy policy even more.
The radical greens oppose the bill because it would “abolish” the EPA.
What do you think?
I agree. We have more government than we are willing to pay for out up with. Abolish the EPA, the DOE, Commerce, Agriculture, Dept. of Education, and the DEA and ATF.
Abolish the EPA, the DOE, Commerce, Agriculture, Dept. of Education, and the DEA for starters. Either eliminate or severely restrict the Endangered Species Act. Eliminate all government pensions and put all government workers on social security and 401Ks like the rest of us.
What environmental policy we do need can be handled by the Dept. of the Interior.
Merging the EPA and DOE is comparable to the merging of local police forces into a nation-wide “Homeland Police” (German: Geheimstatspolizei).
It would create a single “regulatory” agency with enforcement powers and non-legislative, non-accountable control (similar to that of the NRC) over the Energy industry (oil, electricity, coal, nuclear, etc.) and every other industry that *might* conceivably introduce chemicals into the environment.
Snorbert, you have said what I wanted to say, but you said it much better. The only thing I can add is that the DOE should be done away with completely. Their only mission was to make the U.S. energy-independent, and they have failed miserably at doing that.
I favor dividing EPA among existing departments, which have overlapping abilities.
Air programs could go back to the Public Health Service, from whence it sprang. The PHS has the medical expertise needed to straighten out the mess that EPA has made of toxicology and the nationwide infrastructure to support the additional responsibility.
The Office of Water, Hazardous Waste Programs and the Wetlands programs could go to the US Army Corps of Engineers. That agency knows how to administer large construction projects, such as water and wastewater treatment facilities and has engineering capabilities needed to understand and administer treatment technology research.
The Office of Radiation could go to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which has excellent nuclear health capabilities.
All programs related to ocean and offshore protection could go to the Department of the Commerce, joining NOAA.
Solid Waste Programs could go into the Department of the Interior; joining the Bureau of Land Management.
The Office of Pesticides could go into the Department of Agriculture, which is appropriate because of the large fraction of pesticides that are consumed by agriculture.
Other, smaller programs, e.g. Noise, Gulf of Mexico, Tribal Affairs could be allocated to existing departments as appropriate. All of EPA educational, pollution prevention and policy functions, along with its entire administrative organization can be abandoned.
The sizeable research capability that EPA has amassed could be distributed among the agencies receiving the various portions of the former agency.
Since my job is managing environmental programs in industry, if the EPA were to be totally eliminated I’d have to find honest work and I’m too old for that. Environmental laws and regulations on the Federal level have resulted in reduced pollution with a growing population and economy. What would replace that if we did away with EPA?
We do need to reduce the pervasive reach of the EPA into our business, industrial and personal lives. I’d favor seriously limiting the EPA, serious reductions in programs and staff. DOE, I never could figure out these folks do. We don’t need them.
Merge them and then send them to hunt Al Zawahiri personally.
I agree that abolishing the EPA is an intelligent move. Merging it with the Department of Energy would merely transform an agency that is out of control into a Department that would be out of control. Nothing would get better; it would get infinitely worse.
They should both be abolished, especially the EPA. The EPA has caused more economic damage that all the terrorism in the world. It is similar to a cancerous growth slowly strangling the economic life blood out of America. There is nothing good I can say about the EPA, and especially Lisa Jackson with her elementary grade school understanding of the truth about CO2. They just don’t have a clue
There are a lot of science fiction novels that use totalitarian or disaster scenarios to discuss the human condition. End-of-the-world scenarios in fiction should be viewed as literary devices. When you get the Pulitzer for depicting a warmist world-view, though, we are once more back into MSM ideology, the stuff that gave the IPCC and Gore Nobel Prizes. Puleeese.
People LOVE to be passionate about something, anything, especially if it is something the individual can’t do anything meaningful about, costs him nothing and the results of which are somewhere unknown but in the future. Better to struggle to help the lives of children in a different country than the ones next door to you, or better still, ones yet unborn. More posture, less blowback.
Cat’s out of the bag. AGW is fiction. A horror movie plot, like ghosts and demons, having just as much factual basis as ghost stories. We are winning.