Shut down the EPA?

[King]

EPA's just one of those things Republicans hate when they're not in control of it. A GOP President would not propose getting rid of such a powerful tool.

[King]

They believe in climate change = breach of power.

[King]

Anyone who has ideas of eliminating 40-100+ year old institutions like EPA, the Fed, Social Security, Medicare, etc., has to turn in their "conservative" card and call themselves a radical.

[King]

It's tempting, but not without figuring out a better system.

Anyone who has ideas of eliminating 40-100+ year old institutions like EPA, the Fed, Social Security, Medicare, etc., has to turn in their "conservative" card and call themselves a radical.

These institutions are generally designed in such a way that they continue to expand their reach at the expense of other institutions.  Agencies find new things to regulate and new methods of regulating and shuttering shops, entitlement programs make up a larger and larger portion of the economy, etc. It is not necessarily conservative to support this trajectory just because it is the status quo.

Not supporting the trajectory is okay, but full elimination is another thing entirely. It's an aggressive reform and not conservatism. Eliminating these programs suggests that they never worked and, therefore, America during this time has been in a constant state of broken in your lifetime.

Everyone on this board has lived under the Federal Reserve, for example, their entire lives. As such, anyone who wants it gone is equivalent to anyone who wants to replace Congress with a parliament or scrap private healthcare. It's a call to overturn a system you were born into it. . It is neither cautious nor traditional. It's rebellion and radicalism at its core. It is not conservatism.

The EPA is not as old as the Fed, but the same rule applies. We've gone over 40 years with the EPA. There's been economic highs and lows. For a great amount of it's history, the EPA has succeeded in its mission. To turn back, is to turn your back on the past 40 years and that's a radical, far out thought.

[King]

The EPA is not abusing its power unless you don't believe in what science defines as pollution.

My dad deals with the EPA working with transmission lines in Texas and landfill regulations in New Mexico, always on the side of the private sector. They always give a fair hearing and decision. He's won a few regulatory battles during this Presidency. According to him, it's usually the state government (especially Texas if you can believe it) that is more unreasonable when it comes to taking unfounded environmentalist concerns seriously.

[King]

The EPA should be merged with the Department of the Interior to form a Department for the Environment.

EPA deals far more with Energy and Justice than it ever talks to Interior.

[King]

Doesn't a proposal for a departure from the status quo require the burden of explaining why things would be better off otherwise?

Just because EPA is an independent executive agency doesn't mean that it doesn't operate independently of the ability of Congress to do anything about it. Congress always has the ability to pass statutes reining in EPA's purview, if it so chooses.

So your argument is: Congress has the power to rein-in the EPA whenever it wants; therefore, Congress should not actually rein-in the EPA?

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Someone can be against Congress taking action on something while acknowledging they have the Constitutional authority to do so.

[King]

If Congress already regulates the EPA, why not let Congress handle the specific legislation and let the executive branch execute the law? The tacit answer is: they don't actually believe in allowing Congress/Executor to regulate the EPA or the environment. They want to believe in the idea of a clandestine institution that fights pollution like Captain Planet.

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They do. It's called the EPA.

Every regulatory decision written by the executive branch details in appendix how they are working within the law set by the Congress to make their decision. If the Congress rejects the decision, the EPA gives them a blueprint in these notes of the statute modifications that must be made to invalidate their decision. The courts system has ruled time and again that it is the legislative branch in the checks and balances system which bears the responsibility of making sure the regulations of the EPA or any executive branch are within the confines of the law.

You are demanding a system in regards to the EPA which already exists and is, technically, currently in use today.  The House of Representatives and Senate could meet today and pass legislation which overturns any EPA decision. Every day they chose not to do this not because the EPA is out of control, but because the beliefs of the Congress are not in consensus to reject any decision by the EPA. Therefore, by not rejecting the decision, the Congress de facto approves and backs any regulatory decision by the EPA.

As it stands today, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Harry Reid, Ted Cruz, Charlie Rangel, Justin Amash, any member of Congress record on the environment matches that of the EPA's record for the environment as the EPA is an extension of their authority and acts on their behalf at all times.

[King]

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[King]

Surely you understand the difference between agencies that must be instructed how to act by Congress/POTUS and agencies that can do whatever they please within the confines of blanket legislation until Congress/POTUS order them to stop or refuse approval.

That's really an impossible distinction. A purely academic idea, as you are prone to do.

If every stretch of American land, water, and wildlife could be easily regulated by one omnibus bill for life and just carried out strictly, the EPA would have never been established from the beginning.  Technologies are always changing, land ownership is always in dispute, business interests are always changing, new species are discovered, human populations shift, animal populations migrate, etc., etc.

People who aren't fully into what the EPA does assume it's just spending all its time trying to keep oil in the ground and fighting big business. 90% of what they do is boring disputes over owns what field for a powerline to be constructed, what share of the groundwater belongs to the city and what share belongs to the state, is the wildlife on this acre of new highway construction native to that acre, abundant to that area, or migrant and expendable, etc., etc.  My father works with them and landfill/recycling program disputes are their most common case.

If the EPA wasn't given broad leeway to make decisions, Congress would have to pass a 1000 page reform bill every term and in the meantime courts would be bogged down with challenges for the law as it stood for the moment and business interests would suffer waiting on Congressional action. The EPA probably grants just as many exceptions to rules as they do overly strict interpretations. Stopping CO2 production which draws the ire of big energy is a major focus right now, sure, but there's plenty of environmental cases which have nothing to do with CO2 that the EPA expedites and gives fair and open mediation to all concerned parties much faster than the court system and Congressional hearings could deliver.

[King]

That's not really true, though. EPA is not independent. The military and Federal Reserve are far more sovereign. The EPA head does not have Chairman for Life status that cross administrations like Fed and generals tend to receive. There is no secrecy in anything they do. Everything is published and out in the open. No redacted records. No discretionary budget. It is like any other cabinet department.

The reason the EPA seems to operate with autonomy is because its workload is so heavy and intricate that nobody from the outside who has authority over them ever has the time or energy to intervene.  It's not an autonomous agency out of control. It's a low level employee with terrible supervisors that takes it upon itself to assume responsibility of its bosses because somebody has to make decisions.