Community | February 10, 2011 | 54 comments

GOP aims to slash $1.6 billion in EPA funding

source: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/gop-epa-funding/

Image
WakeUpPeople
House Republicans on the appropriations committee released a plan Thursday that would eliminate $1.6 billion from the Environmental Protection Agency's budget.

The news, as first noted by Kate Sheppard of Mother Jones, is part of a broader GOP assault on the EPA as the Obama administration seeks to use the agency to control greenhouse gas emissions.

The EPA, created by Republican President Richard Nixon in 1970, is tasked with enforcing standards for environmental laws in tandem and state and local governments. It also researches and monitors potential environmental health hazards.

In President Barack Obama's first two years, Republicans successfully blocked Democrats' attempts at passing comprehensive energy and climate change reform through Congress. As a result, the administration decided to use the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Since then, Republicans have increasingly called for eliminating or reducing the role of the EPA.

GOP lawmakers have described EPA regulations as "job killing."

As part of the effort, House Republicans this month unveiled legislation that would forbid the EPA from controlling carbon emissions. Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), a fierce climate-change denier, has drafted a similar plan in the Senate.

EPA administrator Lisa Jackson decried the proposals, saying it would "eliminate portions of the Clean Air Act, the landmark law that all American children and adults rely on to protect them from harmful air pollution."

"This bill appears to be part of a broader effort in this Congress to delay, weaken or eliminate Clean Air Act protections of the American public," she said in a committee hearing.

The efforts reflect a concerted GOP effort to combat the notion of human-caused climate change.

Progressives and environmentalists fret that with Republicans making it effectively impossible to limit greenhouse gases through the legislative process, the EPA may be the last best chance for Washington to try and combat global warming.

An overwhelming majority of climate scientists say global climate change is being significantly exacerbated by the burning of fossil fuels such as oil and coal and will have disastrous environmental impacts across the world.
  1. groups:
    Community,   News and Politics,   Politics,   Green,   3 more
  2. tags:
    Climate Change,  Global Warming,  EPA,  GOP tactics,  2 more
  3. recommended by:
    WakeUpPeople
  4.     
    |

54 comments // GOP aims to slash $1.6 billion in EPA funding

  • August_K
    • 0
      August_K  

    • Leave the EPA alone and ask if we ever got THIS money back!

      "A top US Army procurement official said today Halliburton's deals in Iraq were the worst example of contract abuse she had seen as Pentagon auditors flagged more than $US1 billion ($A1.3 billion) of potential overcharges by the Texas-based firm.

      "I can unequivocally state that the abuse related to contracts awarded to KBR (Kellogg Brown and Root) represents the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed during the course of my professional career," said Greenhouse, a procurement veteran of more than 20 years.

      Her blistering criticism came as the Democrats released a new report including Pentagon audits that identified more than $US1.03 billion ($A1.34 billion) in "questioned" costs and $US422 million ($A550 million) in "unsupported" costs for Halliburton's work in Iraq."

      http://www.theage.com.au/news/iraq/halliburton-accused-of-1bn-overcharge/2005/06...

    • 1 year ago
  • Conniepae
    • +1
      Conniepae  

    • Just asking, but wasn't George W. a Republican? Didn't he spend like a drunken sailor on the books? Didn't he keep his war of choice off the books? The costs of the two wars initiated by George W. were not even on the books until he left office, leaving that debt to appear as though it happened under President Obama's watch.

      The GOP are masters of deception. Don't gut programs that help us. Make those who caused the problems, pay for the EPA. No more molly codling the polluters! Make them pay, cause we need the EPA!

    • 1 year ago
  • Wetdog
    • +1
      Wetdog  

    • Well, fine. Cut the EPA budget. And let the cuts be made on all the offices that handle permit approvals for oil drilling and coal mining. No permits, no drilling or mining. Congress can mandate the budget. But Congress can not mandate how the budget is spent. That is the decision of the Executive department.

    • 1 year ago
  • Colin_McCabe
    • +1
      Colin_McCabe  

    • It's amazing how efficiently the Republicans can brainwash the people. They get in by preaching values and ethics and then they take huge payouts from oil companies to do things like this yet the people say "they're pro jobs" say that in 20 years when the SMOG is so thick you can't drive to work.

    • 1 year ago
  • Persecuted
  • Colin_McCabe
  • Conniepae
    • 0
      Conniepae  
    • Persecuted:

      They don't even have to cut military spending. Recoup the money lost to fraud for military work. They catch people who have committed fraud and don't recoup the money they defrauded us of. That's an "Assault on Reason" and us.

    • 1 year ago
  • Conniepae
  • highking1979
    • 0
      highking1979  

    • I'm offended that the GOP would rather see us and our children die from polluted air, food and water just to thumb their noses at President Obama. Why is it in America today the choice is between money and wellness, sadly wellness is losing because our nation gets greedier and greedier everyday and poor health, death and disease are what is going to be left.

    • 1 year ago
  • 11dim
  • Conniepae
    • 0
      Conniepae  
    • 11dim:

      Voted up! We need the EPA. The Environmental 'Protection' Agency is what protects us from those who chose to ignore the risks they are placing on the American people and our earth in general. The only chance we have for holding polluters accountable is the EPA. No wonder they want to gut the EPA, their base prospers from greed! The haves and have mores benefit from less regulation.

      Don't do away with the EPA. Fine the polluters who make the EPA a necessity to protect us from them.

    • 1 year ago
  • 11dim
    • +2
      11dim  

    • If the GOP succeeds in in cutting EPA regulations. We could call their bill, The People Killing Bill. More cancers,lung diseases, etc..

    • 1 year ago
  • Blueshound9
  • Persecuted
  • Conniepae
    • +1
      Conniepae  
    • Blueshound9:

      If you think our jobs are contingent on letting corporations operate with reckless abandon, you are part of the problem. We can do both! Make the environment better and police the polluters. We don't need to kill the EPA to be able to have jobs. That's crazy talk.

    • 1 year ago
  • Conniepae
  • Mark701
    • +5
      Mark701  

    • GOP lawmakers have described EPA regulations as "job killing.". Really? How about all their buddies on Wall Street whose greed and stupidity cost us 20 million jobs?
      We GAVE THEM a trillion dollars and they're still sending jobs to China!!!!!!!!!

      Is there anyone in the GOP who doesn't have their head up their colon?

    • 1 year ago
  • Conniepae
  • FLeggplant
    • +1
      FLeggplant  

    • What puzzles me are these same people who want to do away with the EPA pretend to be so worried about the debt their granchildren will inherit.
      What does debt matter when when the planet is dead?
      When there is nothing to eat and no air to breath will they still worry about debt?

    • 1 year ago
  • WakeUpPeople
    • +2
      WakeUpPeople  
    • FLeggplant:

      They don't really care about the deficit. They say they do, but their actions speak otherwise. When they have control, they spend like crazy. When they don't have control, they make a ruckus and try to cut funding to programs that they don't like. It's not about the debt so much as it is about the justification to get what they want. I agree with you though... it's aggravating to see these politicians focus on trivial things when the biggest issue facing humanity gets ignored.

    • 1 year ago
  • Conniepae
    • 0
      Conniepae  
    • FLeggplant:

      They aren't really worried about the debt. They are worried about their bottom lines, cause they want more, more, more! Debt is a 'talking point' used to fleece us, so they can make more, more, more, with NO ACCOUNTABILITY! I say ACCOUNTABILITY, ACCOUNTABILITY, ACCOUNTABILITY!

      Don't let them destroy the planet. Use the EPA to hold them accountable. Fines, fines and more fines! Eventually they will make different choices, when it affects their bottom line.

    • 1 year ago
  • WakeUpPeople
    • +4
      WakeUpPeople  

    • Let's all remember what our Founder's would have wanted...

      "We the Businesses of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Profit, establish Loopholes, insure domestic Pollution, provide for the common misinformation, promote the Corporate Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to the wealthy and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Corruptible Constitution for the United States of America."

    • 1 year ago
  • Conniepae
  • extracrazykiwi2008
  • Schnookums
    • +7
      Schnookums  

    • You know I'm all for cutting the budget. However, instead of cutting the main agency in charge of protecting the environment from businesses that are willing to do anything that's legal (or that they think they can get away with), perhaps we should look at cutting other areas of the Federal Budget first where redundancy is rampant.

      Take your pick of just one of our 'big-brother' intelligence agencies:

      National Intelligence Council
      National Counter-terrorism Center
      Central Intelligence Agency
      National Security Agency
      National Reconnaissance Office
      National Geo-spatial Intelligence Agency
      Defense Intelligence Agency
      Federal Bureau of Investigation
      DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis
      Defense Information Systems Agency
      Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
      Defense Protective Service
      Defense Security Service
      US Special Operations Command
      Office of Naval Intelligence
      Air Intelligence Agency
      National Security Council
      Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board
      Office of Intelligence
      Justice Intelligence Coordinating Council
      U.S. National Central Bureau
      Bureau of Intelligence & Research
      Counter-terrorism Office
      Office of Intelligence Support
      Information Security Oversight Office

      Better yet, let's take them all and consolidate them down into just a couple of agencies while narrowing their scope significantly.

    • 1 year ago
  • Conniepae
  • Incredulous
    • +4
      Incredulous  

    • of course they do...we can't have the EPA funded to the point where they can actually enforce any environmental standards or laws...that might have an impact on the profit margin of the giant polluters.

    • 1 year ago
  • Nancy_J_Powell
  • oppressed1
  • Persecuted
    • +1
      Persecuted  
    • oppressed1:

      we got a boat load of newbies here... you are gonna have to say (sarcasm) when you are being sarcastic... its painfully obvious that what you said was sarcasm to me... maybe it wasnt to these new olberman junkies.

    • 1 year ago
  • August_K
    • +4
      August_K  
    • Image

    • Americans for Prosperity is the political arm of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, which David Koch co-founded in the 1980s under the name Citizens for a Sound Economy.

      Americans for Prosperity says it spent $40 million in the 2010 election cycle, organized rallies and phone banks, and canvassed door to door in nearly 100 races across the country. The organization found scores of energetic activists in the "tea party" movement to carry its message.

      The advocacy group does not disclose spending in individual races. But it said it facilitated tens of thousands of phone calls and organized dozens of events in recent congressional campaigns. Among the beneficiaries, besides Griffith, were newly elected Reps. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.).

      All three now sit on the Energy and Commerce Committee.

      The EPA's regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, they wrote, "represents an unconstitutional power grab that will kill millions of jobs — unless Congress steps in."

      The Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that the EPA had the power to regulate greenhouse gases as air pollutants under the Clean Air Act.
      Griffith and others want to strip the EPA of that authority.

      The change on the committee is "like night and day," said Jeremy Symons, senior vice president of the National Wildlife Federation, a nonpartisan organization that lobbied the committee to stem greenhouse gas emissions.

      "In the past the committee majority viewed the Clean Air Act as an effective way to protect the public," Symons said. "Now the committee treats the Clean Air Act and the EPA as if they are the enemy. Voters didn't ask for this pro-polluter agenda, but the Koch brothers spent their money well and their presence can be felt."

      So we have a couple of Billionaires (the Koch Brothers) who made billions in oil and gas that got the tea party groups "educated" (the word the Koch's used when they organized and paid for the Tea Party rallies) to vote for these legislators so they could get the EPA's power neutered. I'll bet the tea party voters didn't realize their "smaller government" reward would be dirty air and water .....

      Sure smells like payback time and has zero to do with what the Koch's or these bought legislators claim. I suspect the story below is a major reason the Koch's don't like the EPA.

      http://projects.publicintegrity.org/oil//report.aspx?aid=347

    • 1 year ago
  • Conniepae
  • Varex_Sythe
  • KSirys
  • DocRockk
    • +1
      DocRockk  

    • Good luck getting this passed in the Senate. They'll need even more than that to overturn Obama's veto.

      Did you all forget that the Republicans have "already repealed Obamacare". Woop Dee Doo! They can propose making a ham sandwich the Secretary of the Interior. Doesn't mean squat if you dont have the Senate and 60 votes. They don't.

    • 1 year ago
  • Persecuted
  • DocRockk
    • 0
      DocRockk  
    • Persecuted:

      No they shouldn't. That's why we have a Constitution and the Government it gives us. We are a Representative Democracy, not a Pure Democracy, and that's a good thing. You get to vote for your Representative. Letting the public vote on the various minutia of public policy is unworkable.

    • 1 year ago
  • Persecuted
    • 0
      Persecuted  
    • DocRockk:

      yes we shouldnt vote on every issue that comes to the table... but people should be able to tell the government, less military, more good. we should be able to tell the government how much of our taxes we want allocated for different issues.... the POLITICIANS want military and expensive health insurance because they are highly profitable... is this what the american people want? hell no its not.... why dont we get a say on where our money goes?

    • 1 year ago
  • Chris_Lundgren
    • +4
      Chris_Lundgren  

    • First they deregulate oil drilling...look where that got us. This sadly is going to happen and while the people that enacted it are dead me and my children will be suffering the consequences.

    • 1 year ago
  • Persecuted
    • 0
      Persecuted  
    • Chris_Lundgren:

      dont forget about the bill saying that genetically modified foods do not have to be labeled as GM... and NON GM foods are not allowed to label themselves as non GM... what a wonderful democratic system we have... looking out for the welfare of the people.

    • 1 year ago
  • Conniepae
    • +1
      Conniepae  
    • Persecuted:

      They are laughing all the way to the bank. Gullible American voters. Groups who pollute put large sums of money into our political campaigns, then stand to gain from misleading people with spun rhetoric. Sad, sad, sad!

    • 1 year ago
  • FoosMaster
    • +4
      FoosMaster  

    • ALL the GOP cares about is putting More Money in the pockets of their contributors. Protecting the environment costs their contributors money.
      It's Always about the MONEY!!!

    • 1 year ago
  • coolplanet
    • +3
      coolplanet  

    • Why should this surprise us?
      These A-holes still believe "dilution is the solution to pollution."
      Like it gets sucked out the ozone holes or something even stupider.

    • 1 year ago
  • Incredulous
  • Rightor
  • kennymotown
  • KSirys
  • kennymotown
    • +2
      kennymotown  
    • KSirys:

      That is a big problem that we have let slip past us in the past. Now we see what the Egyptians are going through, how long before Americans wake up and realize we have lost control of our government decades ago.

    • 1 year ago
  • KSirys
  • kennymotown
    • +2
      kennymotown  
    • KSirys:

      I sadly agree with you on our choices, change my ass! Sure we got some superficial changes, but big changes are what was needed. Now the very people we have been fighting have a major piece of our President. Hell they probably had that piece before he was elected.

    • 1 year ago
  • KSirys
  • kennymotown
  • samthesixth
  • Conniepae
more from Community:
from the community

top videos