Tech | July 28, 2011 | 34 comments

Republicans seek big cuts to environmental rules

source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/28/science/earth/28enviro.html?ref=todayspaper

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JanforGore
With the nation’s attention diverted by the drama over the debt ceiling, Republicans in the House of Representatives are loading up an appropriations bill with 39 ways — and counting — to significantly curtail environmental regulation.


One would prevent the Bureau of Land Management from designating new wilderness areas for preservation. Another would severely restrict the Department of Interior’s ability to police mountaintop-removal mining. And then there is the call to allow new uranium prospecting near Grand Canyon National Park.

There is little chance that all the 39 proposals identified by Democrats will be approved by the Senate, which they control, or that a substantial number could elude a presidential veto. In fact, one measure — to forbid the Fish and Wildlife Service to list any new plants or animals as endangered — was so extreme that 37 Republicans broke ranks Wednesday and voted to strip it from the bill.

Although inserting policy changes into appropriations bills is a common strategy when government is divided as it is now, no one can remember such an aggressive use of the tactic against natural resources. Environmental groups and their Democratic allies in Congress worry that more than a few of these so-called riders could stick when both sides negotiate and leverage budget concessions in the fall.

“You have a fatal political momentum,” said David Goldston, director of government affairs for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group. “They are going to load up this bill in an unprecedented fashion.”

Republicans frame their proposals — which are being debated and voted on this week on the House floor — as the best way to counter overreaching regulatory agencies.

The unusual breadth of the attack, explained Representative Mike Simpson, a Republican from Idaho, is a measure of his party’s intense frustration over cumbersome environmental rules.

“Many of us think that the overregulation from E.P.A. is at the heart of our stalled economy,” Mr. Simpson said, referring to the Environmental Protection Agency. “I hear it from Democratic members as well.”

But Democrats argue that the policy prescriptions are proof that Republicans are determined to undo clean air and water protections established 40 years ago.

Many of these new restrictions, they point out, were proposed in the budget debate earlier this year and failed. They are back, the Democrats say, because Republicans are doing the bidding of industry and oil companies.

“The new Republican majority seems intent on restoring the robber-baron era where there were no controls on pollution from power plants, oil refineries and factories,” said Representative Henry A. Waxman, a California Democrat, excoriating the proposal on the floor.

Environmental regulations and the E.P.A. have been the bane of Tea Party Republicans almost from the start. Although particularly outraged by efforts to monitor carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas linked to the warming of the Earth’s atmosphere, freshmen Republicans have tried to rein in the E.P.A. across the board — including proposals to take away its ability to decide if coal ash can be designated as a toxic material and to prevent it from clarifying rules enforcing the Clean Water Act.

The appropriations bill in question covers the Department of Interior, the Forest Service and the E.P.A., and it was voted out of committee and onto the House floor strictly along party lines — with the Republicans prevailing 28 to 18. The bill cuts annual combined funding for agencies by 7 percent — and by nearly 18 percent for the E.P.A. alone — but it is controversial mostly because of the onslaught of policy changes.

Representative Norm Dicks, Democrat of Washington and ranking minority member on the appropriations committee, said Republicans were adding provisions unchecked to the law and getting away with very little scrutiny. He expected even more regulatory rollbacks to be added to the bill this week. The bill is under open debate on the House floor, and policy changes requested by members but not included by the appropriations committee can now be added one by one to the bill, in addition to the 39 riders that came out of the committee.

“It is already like a wish list for polluters,” Mr. Dicks said, “and it is going to get worse on the floor.”

Conservatives have been adding amendments at a furious pace. Earthjustice, an environmental advocacy group, counted more than 70 anti-environmental amendments filed as of Wednesday morning and was monitoring for more.

Dave Conover, a senior vice president of the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington analysis and advocacy group, and a former Republican staff member with the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, said the large number of provisions was less about policy and more a way for the conservatives in the House to signal the depths of their discontent with a broken political process.

“It is clear that the Senate is not going to pass all these appropriations,” said Mr. Conover, adding, “And the message is that in a down economy excessive environmental regulations are a bad move.”

But Mr. Goldston of the Natural Resources Defense Council said that although most of the policy attachments would never become law, the Republican appropriations flurry was still unnerving — and could pose more reason for concern in coming months. ”We are then going to be in a situation again where the Senate and president face the question of whether they are willing to shut down the government or appease a motley group in the House over a spending bill,” he said. “No one knows how that plays out.”
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34 comments // Republicans seek big cuts to environmental rules

  • JanforGore
  • JanforGore
  • hurleyburly
    • 0
      hurleyburly  

    • For the past week I have been forced to watch a commercial with a baby gasping for breath in a red baby carriage. It is effective..but, I promptly turn this commercial off. This ad and the SPCA ads are too disturbing to watch. I'm glad that people are awake to this nonsense...I just hate having reality burst into my fog of 'as seen on tv' and 'dingo ate my baby' lifetime tv.

    • 10 months ago
  • JanforGore
    • +2
      JanforGore  

    • http://www.youtube.com/v/H-XpUacV-TE&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3

      This song came out almost forty years ago and STILL we see the same AHS in Congress thinking THEY OWN IT ALL and have the power to take our Earth from us!. But the question I ask myself which makes me the saddest and most outraged is, what if they get away with all or most of this? Will the people on the whole in this country even care?

    • 10 months ago
  • figgdimension
  • JanforGore
    • +3
      JanforGore  

    • http://bit.ly/qdBX79

      Earthjustice is keeping track of the riders on this bill. It is an all out feeding frenzy.

      "House Expands and Votes on Extreme Anti-Environment Spending Bill; Riders tally soars, 192 amendments filed as of this morning, more expected
      July 29, 2011 Washington, D.C. — The voting on environmentally destructive amendments to the House of Representatives 2012 Interior and EPA spending bill (H.R. 2584) is now underway, as one of the most extreme attacks on our environment and public health in modern history continues. Debate and floor time for this House spending bill, which determines the funding for the Department of Interior, Environmental Protection Agency, Forest Service and other environment-related federal agencies, commenced on Monday."

    • 10 months ago
  • JanforGore
  • lazloman
    • +1
      lazloman  

    • This economy has given the rethuglicans the best opportunity they've had in years to get rid of stuff they don't like. Cutting environmental regulations? They did enough of that under Bush already and now they want more? Does anyone really believe that a corporation will operate in our best interests? That a corporation, when, it could either spend money to protect the environment, or not spend the money and do something else with it, like bonuses, would actually protect the environment, does anyone actually believe that a corporation would do that without regulations? Please, how much damage do we need to see given the current level of (non) regulation? Fracking poisoning the water table. Coal plants spewing noxious fumes into our air. Give me a break. Do we really need to have Lake Erie catch fire again to understand why limited regulation just doesn't cut it?

    • 10 months ago
  • GoodGodGuy
  • kvb1
    • +1
      kvb1  

    • Teddy was so proud of the GOP in his day that he started a new party (the Progressive Party) and ran for President. He was defeated by the money spent by the same wealthy individuals whose corporations (trusts) he broke up while President. This party was and IS dominated by the rich, wealthy, and corporations with the help of a propaganda machine the likes of which have not been since since the 1930s Germany.

      The RIPublicans are doing the same things they did during Roosevelts 2nd term when they forced a reduction in government spending with their balanced budget idea. That sent the country back into recession, only to be pulled out of it by massive government spending on entering WWII.

      The government drives the economy during recessions and depressions. Both of which are caused by corporations, banks, and market speculators. Corporations cause recessions when they ship manufacturing jobs overseas, reducing the amount of money in the economy and the amount of disposable income that can be spent on the economy. Banks, and the Fed, cause recessions by loosening the money supply with low interests rates. This puts too much money in the economy, especially when their is a reduce industrial base. Money is then used to finance or refinance those things that could not otherwise be afforded and are not sustainable in the long term. Speculators drive up the cost of goods by overpricing them on the futures market, and creating investments that are nothing more than Ponzi schemes. This creates bubbles in which the average investor, looking at a get rich quick scheme, will lose their investment when the scheme collapses. The speculators usually do not lose money as they short the investment when they feel it has peeked. Ever hear of a hedge fund fail?

      The RIPublicans have shorted the economy and the government (Cantor openly so as everyone knows his investments include shorting Treasury bonds). They and their corporate masters will make out like bandits, leaving the rest of us destitute and depended on their generosity to survive. And that is how it will be, we will just be able to survive.

    • 10 months ago
  • Bmad
  • bike10
  • PeteLeS33
  • tverdell
  • nanac
    • +4
      nanac  

    • These Tea-Baggers/Republicans should be lined up, blind folded, in front of a firing-squad, and executed. They are nothing but traitors, and the comatose Democrats should expose these parasites for who they really are.

    • 10 months ago
  • freehit
    • 0
      freehit  
    • nanac:

      no blind folds, why they cost money! Also line them up sngle file so one bullet kills at least three and wounds the fourth. (Nazi method before gas chambers) You know, once apon a time not so long ago I was very much against violence towards others. The golden rule was my friend. Watching what these mo-foe a-wipes are pulling in"my" name in Washington is slowly driving me towards having a Rambo mentality. For those in government who are monitoring this site, remember, those who have nothing left to loose are the most dangerous killers of all and are most likely to suceed in their goals of killing their targets. You'll destroy the social safety net at your own peril and that revolution that you think will take down the democrats has your a*s in the cross hairs. (We're talking about YOU miss second amendment remedies.)

    • 10 months ago
  • bailey78
  • wizardofoz
  • GoodGodGuy
    • 0
      GoodGodGuy  
    • wizardofoz:

      There it is again. Election reform is so long overdue. We the people the little 98 percentile of the US need to tell the profit mongers to get the heck out and we need to vote. The last vestige of the US is the non super-rich. The 2 percent are running 98 percent preying on the most gullible to keep their position. Fear is their only weapon and it works on so many. Let's take a small thing and make it huge to scare the small minded into fearing that they will lose something. Get IT DUDEs they already took everything!

    • 10 months ago
  • demsbeans527
  • bailey78
  • demsbeans527
  • bailey78
  • jim_b
  • JanforGore
  • bailey78
  • tverdell
  • bailey78
  • coolplanet
    • +2
      coolplanet  

    • They pray for Armageddon and believe Jesus will come back to clean up our massive mess.
      This is really a religious problem!
      Whatever happened to taking care of God's Garden?

    • 10 months ago
  • Wyley_Wombat
    • +2
      Wyley_Wombat  

    • I don't care how much you money you can make from it, you just don't use your dinner table for your toilet. Don't these idiots realize that poisoning the planet will eventually come back to kill them in the food they eat, the air they breath and the water they drink. I don't see how people can fail to see this.

    • 10 months ago
  • JanforGore
  • warman1138
    • +3
      warman1138  

    • Stupid ass GOP, kill the planet, that makes a lot sense.....morons. Every dollar saved in relaxed enviormental regulation costs one hundred more down the road. Destruction to wildlife,health care,cleanup,ect.....stupid ass GOP morons.

    • 10 months ago
  • JanforGore
    • +5
      JanforGore  

    • They aren't Republicans, they are traitors set upon destroying America. They all need to be impeached. The "Republicans" doing this have gone mad with greed and hate. This will bring more in healthcare costs, costs to ecosystems, food, water, all that keeps us alive! God the American people who voted for these bastards ARE STUPID BEYOND BELIEF. I otherwise would say they deserve this, but these rules if any were to pass will affect ALL of us. How the hell can anyone who is now struggling to pay bills and keep their family healthy vote over and over again for these whores of industry?

    • 10 months ago
  • Incredulous
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