The EPA is earning a reputation for abuse
By Editorial Board, Published: May 3
MAYBE AL ARMENDARIZ — until Monday, one of the Environmental Protection Agency’s top administrators — didn’t mean his comments to sound quite how they did. But they didn’t sound good. In a 2010 speech, now circulating online, Mr. Armendariz compared his “philosophy of enforcement” to ancient Roman soldiers’ practice of crucifying random victims in recently conquered territory.
The most reasonable interpretation is also among the most disturbing — that Mr. Armendariz preferred to exact harsh punishments on an arbitrary number of firms to scare others into cooperating. This sort of talk isn’t merely unjust and threatening to investors in energy projects. It hurts the EPA. Mr. Armendariz was right to resign this week, while EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson denied that his comments reflected the agency’s approach. Yet the question will remain: Is an aggressive attitude like the one Mr. Armendariz described common among EPA officials?
The EPA is earning a reputation for abuse – The Washington Post
A huge scandal at the White House. Washington Post makes a short editorial, and that will be the last we hear of it. The EPA strategy is being directed from the White House -Obama himself promised to bankrupt coal companies.
Let me sort of describe my overall policy.
What I’ve said is that we would put a cap and trade system in place that is as aggressive, if not more aggressive, than anybody else’s out there.
I was the first to call for a 100% auction on the cap and trade system, which means that every unit of carbon or greenhouse gases emitted would be charged to the polluter. That will create a market in which whatever technologies are out there that are being presented, whatever power plants that are being built, that they would have to meet the rigors of that market and the ratcheted down caps that are being placed, imposed every year.
So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.
Audio: Obama Tells SF Chronicle He Will Bankrupt Coal Industry | NewsBusters.org
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpTIhyMa-Nw]
American democracy is dead, because the press corps(e) is in bed with a White House that plans to wreck the US.
This has been the standard business model for the EPA for many years. EPA is the Sledge Hammer that has been used to drive a tack since it was started. While there was a need to protect the environment, the result of the actions by the EPA has been the loss of industry in the US due to the restrictions they placed on everything.