In recent posts, I have called your attention to the organized obstruction and resistance activities designed to bring down our duly elected president, and it continued this week.
I referred to the activity as “fifth column”-like, and I don’t believe I am exaggerating. “People are working overtime inside and outside government to undermine, scandalize, sabotage and ultimately bring down the Trump administration in its incipiency,” wrote columnist David Limbaugh this week.
Newly confirmed EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. (habitat.com)
Unbelievably, employees of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), knowing that their new administrator, Scott Pruitt, was sure to be confirmed by the Senate, urged senators to vote against his confirmation. The Boston Globe called it “a remarkable display of activism and defiance that presages turbulent times ahead for the EPA.”
As I reported to you previously, the EPA is authorized by Congress to write regulations that are mandatory and have, in my opinion, represent serious overreach. The result has been a series of regulations that have been costly to business, small and large.
The EPA-caused mine waste spill sent some three million gallons of wastewater into the Animas and San Juan Rivers. While taking responsibility they did not pay damages. (new.asiantown.net)
While they place mandates and levy fines against individuals and companies alike, they pardoned themselves for $1.2 billion in economic damages from an August 2015 mine waste spill the EPA accidentally triggered in Colorado.
I find it interesting that Nicole Cantello, an EPA lawyer, admitted, “I don’t know if there’s any other agency that’s more reviled.” I recall when the IRS held that “honor.”
Pruitt was confirmed by the Senate on Friday with two Democrats, West Virginia’s Joe Manchin and North Dakota’s Heidi Heitcamp voting with Republicans, who lost the vote of Sen. Susan Collins, the liberal from Maine.
As the attorney general of Oklahoma, Pruitt has waged war with EPA in the courts. With 15,000 employees, many with questionable loyalty, I hope he will soon make us forget the sad history of recent EPA administrators, including Gina McCarthy, Lisa Jackson and Carol Browner. Where’s that swamp drain plug?
