Imagine That – Congress Making Laws And Not EPA
By: Doug Busselman, Executive Vice President
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is not a bunch that follows direction easily – unless they are told to do what they wanted to do anyway…and then they really go overboard in getting it done. When it comes to following laws…or Supreme Court orders, that they don’t want to follow – then they come up with their own game plans and issue “guidance” documents that spell out that they are going to do what they darn well please.
A few weeks ago, the House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment passed a bill, H.R. 2018, which is aimed at restoring the relationship between the states and EPA. This measure, accurately named “the Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act of 2011”, seeks to put EPA back in their appropriate boundaries.
For most people who have been paying any attention, EPA is on a self-authorized path to expanding its role over Clean Water Act operations. EPA has been involving itself in the implementation of state standards and second-guessing states on how standards are to be implemented. They even have been going back and overriding their own prior determinations of whether a state standard meets the minimum requirements of the Clean Water Act.
The move behind H.R. 2018 is to halt EPA from going beyond its statutory role as the agency responsible for approving programs and standards. With passage, EPA would no longer be able to try and direct the implementation of water quality programs in states or override the judgment of water quality professionals in the state.
It’s good that Congress take charge of putting this agency back where it belongs, but you have to wonder about the approach of passing a law to tell a rouge agency to follow the laws it is supposed to operate under. Perhaps a more effective message would be sent by significant budget reductions.
We have a federal over-spending problem that could be helped with a lot of reductions in spending. I can’t think of any place where cutting would be better than at EPA. You would get extra economic gain by cutting them since the private sector wouldn’t have to waste even more money trying to deal with the EPA storm-troopers.
For those worrying about rampant pollution problems from not having the all-powerful EPA prowling about -- State officials have plenty of ability to deal with resolving water quality issues and they don’t have to make up, invented problems to be solved. Since the state officials pay attention to actual matters that require action, they are best equipped to implement action steps to correct the real-world things to be fixed.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is not a bunch that follows direction easily – unless they are told to do what they wanted to do anyway…and then they really go overboard in getting it done. When it comes to following laws…or Supreme Court orders, that they don’t want to follow – then they come up with their own game plans and issue “guidance” documents that spell out that they are going to do what they darn well please.
A few weeks ago, the House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment passed a bill, H.R. 2018, which is aimed at restoring the relationship between the states and EPA. This measure, accurately named “the Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act of 2011”, seeks to put EPA back in their appropriate boundaries.
For most people who have been paying any attention, EPA is on a self-authorized path to expanding its role over Clean Water Act operations. EPA has been involving itself in the implementation of state standards and second-guessing states on how standards are to be implemented. They even have been going back and overriding their own prior determinations of whether a state standard meets the minimum requirements of the Clean Water Act.
The move behind H.R. 2018 is to halt EPA from going beyond its statutory role as the agency responsible for approving programs and standards. With passage, EPA would no longer be able to try and direct the implementation of water quality programs in states or override the judgment of water quality professionals in the state.
It’s good that Congress take charge of putting this agency back where it belongs, but you have to wonder about the approach of passing a law to tell a rouge agency to follow the laws it is supposed to operate under. Perhaps a more effective message would be sent by significant budget reductions.
We have a federal over-spending problem that could be helped with a lot of reductions in spending. I can’t think of any place where cutting would be better than at EPA. You would get extra economic gain by cutting them since the private sector wouldn’t have to waste even more money trying to deal with the EPA storm-troopers.
For those worrying about rampant pollution problems from not having the all-powerful EPA prowling about -- State officials have plenty of ability to deal with resolving water quality issues and they don’t have to make up, invented problems to be solved. Since the state officials pay attention to actual matters that require action, they are best equipped to implement action steps to correct the real-world things to be fixed.
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