from masterresource
Author: Robert Bradley Jr.
“A more conservative EPA… would prevent unnecessary spending by regulated communities [and] …savings for American taxpayers. Increased transparency will be an important check… [to] Deliver real environmental improvements to the American people in the form of cleaner air, cleaner water, and healthier soil. (—Heritage Foundation, 2025 Plan)
Last week's post reviewed the Energy section of The Heritage Foundation's 922-page Leadership Mandate: 2025. .
As discussed below, the EPA needs to prioritize achievable, demonstrable environmental improvements rather than engage in wasteful, futile climateism and forced energy transitions.
The challenge in creating a conservative EPA will be balancing legitimate suspicion of an agency that has long been co-opted by the left for political purposes with the need to carry out the agency’s true function: working with states to protect public health and the environment. Additionally, the EPA needs to realign itself away from trying to be an all-powerful energy and land use policymaker and instead return to its congressionally recognized role as an environmental regulator.
Not surprisingly, the EPA under the Biden administration has returned to the top-down, mandated approach of the Obama administration. Some unachievable standards have been reworked in an effort to aid the “transition” from politically disfavored industries and technologies to the Biden administration's preferred alternatives. This approach is most evident in the Biden administration’s attack on the energy industry, as the administration uses its regulatory power to make coal, oil, and natural gas operations prohibitively expensive and increasingly inaccessible, while forcing the economy to grow and rely on unreliable renewable energy sources. renewable energy…….
The result of this approach is that we see a return to costly, job-killing regulations that not only stifle the economy but breed bureaucracy but do nothing to address, let alone solve, complex environmental problems. In some cases, these actions even undermine environmental efforts by pushing overseas industries into countries with woefully inadequate enforcement of pollution control requirements—if they have any meaningful requirements at all. At the same time, agency costs and staffing increased significantly….
There is one key difference between the Biden administration's approach and that of the Obama administration: In a concerted effort to weaken congressional oversight, the EPA administrator's status has been eclipsed by the creation of multiple “climate czars” in the Biden White House. In fact, current EPA Administrator Michael Regan, who is considered a well-intentioned and generally competent former state official, has been kept out of the political cycle primarily to distract from concerns about EPA expansion. , expensive and economically damaging attention.
co-opted mission. The EPA has been a breeding ground for the federal government to expand its influence and control over the entire economy. Entrenched activists have sought to evade legal restrictions to pursue a global climate agenda, aiming to achieve it by implementing costly policies that would otherwise fail to gain the necessary political support in Congress. Many EPA actions in liberal administrations have completely ignored the wishes of Congress and instead aligned with the goals and desires of politically connected activists.
Pursuing this globally focused agenda distracted the agency from fulfilling its core mission, creating a backlog of statutory deadlines and sometimes leading to preventable environmental disasters. For example, during the Obama administration, the United States experienced two of the worst EPA disasters in decades, including the 2014 Flint, Michigan, water crisis and the 2015 Gold King Mine spill.
In addition to causing such direct and tangible harm in various communities, an EPA led by activism and disregard for the law has brought uncertainty to regulated communities, vendetta-driven enforcement, weighted analysis, increased costs, and Ultimately there is less trust in agency actions. While America's environmental story has been overwhelmingly positive, there has been a resurgence of fear-based rhetoric within the agency, particularly when it comes to the threat of climate change.
Mischaracterizing the state of our environment, and the actual harm caused by climate change, is a favorite tool of the left to scare the American public into accepting their ineffective, freedom-suppressing regulations, diminished private property rights, and exorbitant costs. In fact, the Biden EPA once again presents the American people with a false choice: They must choose between a healthy environment and a strong, growing economy.
Policy Reform (“Back to Basics”)
EPA's structure and mission should be tightly constrained to reflect the principles of cooperative federalism and limited government. This will require a significant reorganization and streamlining of the agency to reflect:
- National leadership. EPA should build genuine relationships with state and local officials and take a more supportive role by sharing resources and expertise, recognizing that the primary role in environmental choices belongs to the people who live in it.
- responsible progress. Regulatory efforts should focus on solving real environmental problems through practical, cost-effective and affordable solutions to clean air, water and soil, and results should be measured and tracked through simple indicators available to the public.
- Simplify the process. Duplicate, wasteful, or redundant programs that do not meaningfully support the agency's mission should be eliminated, and structured management plans should be designed to assist state and local governments in protecting public health and the environment.
- Healthy, Thriving Communities. The EPA should consider and minimize the economic costs of its actions on local communities to help them thrive.
- Pre-execution compliance. EPA should build partnerships with regulated communities, especially small businesses, to encourage compliance rather than enforce it.
- Transparent scientific and regulatory analysis. EPA should disclose and comment on all scientific research and analyzes that support regulatory decisions.
climate change
- Remove any source category that is currently not regulated under the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP). Overarching reporting schemes place a heavy burden on unregulated small businesses and corporations. This is either a pointless burden or a Sword of Damocles threat to future regulation, neither of which is appropriate.
- Establish a system to update the 2009 hazard findings within appropriate deadlines.
- Establishing significant emission rates (SER) for greenhouse gases (GHG).
Reforms needed: Day one priorities
- Notify Congress that EPA will not conduct any ongoing or planned scientific activities that do not have clear and current congressional authorization. This priority should be emphasized in the President's first budget request.
- The new Presidential Inauguration Day regulatory review/freeze directive should avoid exceptions to EPA actions. Such a freeze should explicitly include quasi-regulatory actions, including assessments, determinations, standards, and guidance, that fail the notice and comment process and may date back several years.
- Suspension of review of all contracts above $100,000 to focus on primary external peer review and regulatory models.
- The public is urged to identify areas where EPA has been inconsistent in its risk assessments, failed to utilize the best science and technology, or engaged in research misconduct.
- Eliminate the use of unauthorized regulatory inputs such as the social cost of carbon, black box and proprietary models and unrealistic climate scenarios, including those based on Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) 8.5.
in conclusion
A more conservative EPA consistent with the policies outlined in this chapter would lead to a better environmental future without unintended consequences. It will prevent unnecessary spending in regulated communities, allowing investment in economic development and job creation, which are key to community prosperity.
Cutting the size and scope of the EPA will save American taxpayers money. Increased transparency will be an important check to ensure that the agency’s mission is not distorted or exploited for political gain. Importantly, the conservative EPA will deliver real environmental improvements to the American people in the form of cleaner air, cleaner water, and healthier soils.
critical comments
There is much to praise about the above-mentioned reforms, but this political document easily cuts off the roots of the poisonous tree. Specifically, the new president should completely terminate the EPA’s climate mission; withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement; and cease funding and participation in the International Energy Agency. The infamous harm finding needs to be revisited and reversed, and the platform’s call to “establish a Significant Emission Rate (SER) for greenhouse gases (GHG)” should be removed.
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