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EDITOR OF REDSTATE

Environmental Extremists Making Regulatory Policies?

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  April 5th, 2010 at 09:50 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Ross Kaminsky has the top story at Human Events today.

Although they were released on April Fools Day, new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations covering vehicle efficiency and water quality standards near mines are no joke.  Instead, they are the inevitable outcome when government puts environmental radicals in charge of writing regulations. 

These unelected bureaucrats, headed by EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, have no regard for or understanding of property rights, free markets, or our economy.  It’s all about worshiping at the altar of “climate change” and offering penance for America’s high standard of living by attacking industry in the name of “justice”.  

Ms. Jackson can be viewed in a clip from an EPA video saying that “we’re building our environmental justice team, increasing budget support for their work and seeking new strategies.”  Everything the EPA does must be understood within this context: “Environmental justice” is a leftist scheme to justify redistribution of wealth and the resulting regulations are not based on scientific evidence or cost/benefit analysis.

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  • raginpatriot

    It’s not just about wealth redistribution.

    As many have observed, modern environmentalism is largely Marxism proceeding under green camouflage (some call them watermelons — green on the outside, red on the inside).

    I’ve become convinced that the unstated policy of this administration is, through multiple / simultaneous means (environmental policy, fiscal policy, foreign policy) to hobble this country’s economic system so that we are “aligned” with other has-been nations (e.g., Europe) with a lower standard of living and an inability to marshall world-leading economic power … and the inability to resist calls for sublimation to the U.N. or other global governance schemes.

    In other words, the Marxist – progressive ideal of “equality” extended across nation states and not just individuals.

  • weatherford

    It is a little like the Florida Interstate Tunnel for Turtles, but I have just learned that the Endangered Species Act is being used to designate “Critical Habitat”
    for critters that are NOT in the habitat but might want to move there.

    Can anyone shed any light on this absurdity? If not, I will try to run it to ground.

    If it is something relatively new, Dennis Miller might have some useful comments.

  • http://vladenblog.tumblr.com Vladimir

    http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2010/01/hurricane_katrina_propels_lisa.html

    http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2010/01/epa_administrator_lisa_jackson.html

    The second article highlights the EPA’s focus on NO2 – nitrogen dioxide.

    Environmental justice = “Women and minorities hardest hit”

    These people insist on interjecting race into the discussion of everything.

    As the first black EPA administrator, Jackson has infused race and class into environmental decisions even though she acknowledges it’s not a top priority for Obama. She’s changed the way EPA does business with minorities and has called on the predominantly white environmental movement to diversify.

    In speeches, she says she’s trying to alter the face of environmentalism. She started in her own office, appointing a special adviser for environmental justice issues and hiring a multiracial staff to lead an agency where she often finds herself the only nonwhite at the table.

    “This is a unique moment, where you now have a person of color in charge of the EPA for the first time ever and not trying to make that into a one-liner, but say, ‘OK, what does that mean?’” said Jackson, 47, in an interview with The Associated Press.

    “It means that I can sit in a room … and maybe use my position to hear in a different way folks who don’t feel heard. … It’s about me trying to figure out what I would like people to say about the Lisa Jackson EPA when I’m done. And I want them to say, ‘You know, she really opened that agency up, she really made ways that have lived past her for that agency to speak to people of color, to speak to the poor, and to make sure their issues are taken into account.’”

    Oh, brother. Hold on to your wallets.

  • weatherford

    Unbelievable.

    Apart from Saudi Arabia, I always thought we shared the environment.

  • msctex

    . . .quickly loses its luster when put to practice. For much the same reason we live in a carefully designed Republic of checks and balances, as opposed to a pure Democracy, certain people are going to be forced to realize that true Equality is only a recipe for equal misery, with Equality of Opportunity the ultimate goal of a system which truly places Individual freedom above all else.

  • E Pluribus Unum

    in your title.

    But I’m pretty sure you did too.

    :)

  • http://xmmlbchat.blogspot.com katesmith

    The EPA is a tool, UN called meeting last week to refocus world leaders including George Soros on how to collect trillions for ‘climate fund.’ Meeting in London also included Obama rep Larry Summers. “British, Ethiopian PM’s, UN meet over $100 billion climate fund.”

  • jdw4america

    How freakin’ stupid are these people? Actual words spoken by an actual person -

    “As the first black EPA administrator, Jackson has infused race and class into environmental decisions ….”

    ?This is a unique moment, where you now have a person of color in charge of the EPA for the first time ever and not trying to make that into a one-liner, but say, ?OK, what does that mean???

    “And I want them to say, ?You know, she really opened that agency up, she really made ways that have lived past her for that agency to speak to people of color, to speak to the poor, and to make sure their issues are taken into account.??

    THE POOR?? REALLY? PEOPLE OF COLOR???

    One question -Are You On Crack?

    That’s not a racial question, BTW. I’ve often asked obermann the same question through the tv screen. But honestly, if it’s not crack, were ya dropped on your head as a child? Have ya ever suffered anoxia? Or are you just a moron?

    The poor do not give a sweet rat’s butt about global warming, endangered flies or the impact of offshore drilling on buttercups! You know what they do care about? Keeping a roof over their heads, feeding their children, paying their bills so that they don’t lose their electricity. Most of the poor in this country are WORKING POOR. They work hard, they get to keep crap from their paychecks cause the left wants them to join in supporting and now insuring the people who don’t work.

    If those people – the ones that are being fed, clothed, housed and coddled on MY dime are concerned about the environment, may I suggest they get off their butts and get a job first? Otherwise, they can just shut up and eat their organic fruit and tofu dinners – that we’ve been forced to pay for.

    BTW as the “first black EPA administrator” you’re as pathetic and irresponsible, as anti-people as any of your white predecessors. Your recent decision to “increase fuel efficiency” in cars will significantly DECREASE their safety because the only way to accomplish it is to decrease the weight of the cars. The lighter cars get, the more fatalities occur in cars. History reveals this indisputably.

    Good thing you’re soooooo concerned about the environment. Too bad you couldn’t find a way to care about human beings as much as you care about polar bears.

  • eastbaylarry

    is to declare ALL lands under US jurisdiction as ‘protected’ for the future use of wildlife. That would end all those pesty property rights that get in the way of the socialist redistribution plans.

  • eastbaylarry

    is to declare ALL lands under US jurisdiction as ‘protected’ for the future use of wildlife. That would end all those pesty property rights that get in the way of the socialist redistribution plans.