
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Plans to Tie Its Own Hands - petethomas
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-10-10/epa-mercury-rule-making-proposal-threatens-the-environment
======
maxxxxx
I don't have much opinion about the other stuff they are doing like
challenging China on trade but what the EPA is doing seems outright evil.
Instead of increasing standards they seem to be hellbent to go back to the
glory days of 100 years ago when companies could pollute as much as they
wanted. And the whole push for more coal seems incredibly stupid. Instead of
taking the leadership with renewable energy they want to prop up an industry
that's (hopefully) on the way out.

~~~
mywittyname
This administration has found the person who has the most incentive to destroy
a particular government agency, then puts them in charge of it.

See: Pruitt & EPA, DeVos & DoE, Pai & FCC.

And now Kavanaugh has been put on the Supreme Court specifically because his
view is that the entire idea of Congress delegating authority to government
agencies is unconstitutional.

~~~
ArchTypical
> the entire idea of Congress delegating authority to government agencies is
> unconstitutional.

Authority? More like responsibility, aka implementation. I happen to believe
that congress born agencies should never have been created. Anything Congress
creates becomes a self-sustaining, unkillable organization, because...Congress
is glacial in deciding anything.

Any government born agency (regardless of branch) has authority. Which is more
efficient and reliable, Congressional Agencies or Cabinet Bureaus? The threat
that a Bureau can be dissolved at any time is important to their operation.

~~~
maxxxxx
I am not sure what you are trying to say. Do you have any examples?

~~~
mywittyname
I believe he's getting at the Nondelegation Doctrine [0].

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nondelegation_doctrine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nondelegation_doctrine)

~~~
slededit
This would also prevent congress from delegating war making powers to the
President. In essence a formal declaration would then be required before
military force could be used. I think it would be a healthy change.

~~~
maxxxxx
Congress seems to have given up on using their powers because they are way too
busy fighting each other. So they delegate decisions to the president.

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gdubs
It’s a big bummer when your kid is a picky eater, loves tuna, but you have to
severely restrict it because it’s loaded with mercury.*

One thing I’ve learned about constraints is that they breed creativity. It’s
one of the reasons why I think a well-regulated market isn’t a bad thing.

How many of your unconstrained projects withered due to choice paralysis? How
many of your tightly constrained problems led to some of the most satisfying
solutions?

(* I’ve recently discovered Safe Catch brand tuna which claims to be tested
for mercury and safe for athletes, children, etc. Haven’t verified their
claims, but looks promising at least.)

~~~
verall
Also - if you're talking about canned tuna, the "Chunk Light" is generally
made from Skipjack which is a smaller fish and will have less bio-accumulated
mercury than any other tuna.

~~~
gdubs
Did not know that, thanks!

~~~
mrslave
1\. Rules are good. They force creativity! 2\. Did you know that the rules
have allowed Skip Jack fishers to call it something else and you have been
missing out on this healthy alternative all this time?

Great conversation.

You need to consider also that there is a lot of creativity destroyed because
of the rules, and this is difficult to see or imagine. The seen vs the unseen
is a Bastiat classic idea, but it is well summarized in Economics in One
Lesson by Henry Hazlitt (only about 200 pages).

~~~
gdubs
Thanks for the book recommendation, I'll check it out.

Believe me, I think there's too much red tape in _plenty_ of areas of
government – I definitely don't see it as black & white.

------
poulsbohemian
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends
on his not understanding it.”

Top coal producing states (Note: only one went Democrat in 2016 presidential
election) Wyoming: 297.2 (41%) West Virginia: 79.8 (11%) Pennsylvania: 45.7
(6%) Illinois: 43.4 (6%) Kentucky: 42.9 (6%)

Coal industry job count info:
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/03/20/t...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/03/20/there-
are-fewer-coal-miners-than-you-might-realize/?utm_term=.15628c3071a3)

Coal industry political donations:
[https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=E1210](https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=E1210)

Pretty clear why the current administration is hellbent on supporting coal in
contrast to facts.

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ocschwar
When I was in college, my tech-heavy school was about 50% Republican.

No more.

The GOP's descent into anti-intellectualism started with a war on science and
has since escalated to a war on engineering.

Unfortunately the GOP seems bound to win that war.

~~~
sosense
This has more to do with the success of Cultural Marxists in there takeover of
colleges than anything done by the GOP.

~~~
ocschwar
No. IT doesn't. It has to do with the GOP's platform being at odds with the
domain knowledge of engineers.

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nimbius
The political drive to intentionally limit the arguments for well established
chemistry and science is absurd to say the least. But it remains true:

Lead, cadmium, mercury, arsenic, and other chemicals do not have a political
leaning. They dont selectively impact the democratic left more so than the
right. They dont hang out at coffee shops or read Marx. These are chemicals
that are regulated, arguably, because plutocrats began to realize they could
not use their boundless wealth to escape them. They are regulated ultimately
because they have been scientifically proven a unilateral threat to human
health if uncontrolled.

~~~
ocschwar
> Lead, cadmium, mercury, arsenic, and other chemicals do not have a political
> leaning. They dont selectively impact the democratic left more so than the
> right.

Yes they do, unfortunately.

If you look at state-level regulation of industrial activities in the South,
you'll notice that the cavalier attitude towards pollution only applies when
it's the poor and the dark skinned who live downwind or downstream.

~~~
philipkglass
I'm not sure that is true. When I read Arlie Hochschild's _Strangers in Their
Own Land_ it focused on a largely white community in Louisiana, where
practically everyone had first-hand experience of harms to people and the
environment from local chemical industry pollution. The town and its leaders
were nonetheless very supportive of the old polluting businesses and their new
expansion plans. The residents also opposed federal regulations that would
limit industrial pollution more than Louisiana's extremely lax state laws.

In Washington state, the Hanford facility that made plutonium for weapons was
also largely staffed by prosperous white workers. Before the end of the Cold
War, that community of workers knew better than anyone the risks that they and
sometimes neighboring communities were exposed to by time pressures and lack
of oversight. That same community was also fiercely protective of their
employers and resisted health/environmental oversight by "outsiders." (See
Kate Brown's _Plutopia_ for a fascinating history.)

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anoplus
I wish this kind of topic would draw more attention and discussion. Greed is
absolutely infuriating. I have similar "poison people to save money" energy
project in the making in my country. Engaging in activism and crowd funding.

------
wonderwonder
It's pretty unfortunate, especially in light of the recent UN Climate report
that the US is using its power to prop up the fossil fuel industry. Given
current cost trajectories, coal was going to have a hard time competing
against renewables. But if the health and safety regulations that coal
operates under are greatly reduced or removed, coal may become very
competitive again, to the detriment of pretty much everything and everyone
else.

Mercury is a known harmful substance, and while the coal companies state they
don't plan on taking advantage of any reductions I find it hard to believe
that if a plant found itself not in compliance with old standards that it
would voluntarily disclose and correct the issue if not required. Changing the
way standards are calculated will also go a long way towards changing the
standards on other pollution limits. The end result is more poison in our air,
rivers, and bodies.

Add to this the Trump administrations draft plan to use the Defense Production
Act to mandate the purchase of coal power and you have a pretty stark
narrative.

~~~
java-man
depressing.

------
forkLding
Expected this to happen when you have EPA administrators who are former
lobbyists and whom previously opposed the EPA

~~~
mr_overalls
Exactly.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture)

------
syntaxing
Whether you agree or disagree with the current administration's policy, PLEASE
VOTE. Voting is how you change the country towards the direction you want. If
you want to know who is up for elections, you can visit
[https://www.ballotready.org/](https://www.ballotready.org/) .

------
learc83
I don't think that Trump style Republicans will be in power long, so in
addition to worrying about the short term consequences of gutting the EPA, I
that the blowback when they aren't in power will be so extreme that we'll go
to far in the other direction.

~~~
poulsbohemian
Until Gen X and younger are in political power, things will continue as they
are. I'm sure there are outliers, and admit it is difficult to make
generalizations about an entire generation, but it's pretty evident that Baby
Boomers are in support of anything that keeps their taxes low, yet ironically
supports their Medicare, Social Security, and defense industry spending.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2016/11/09/the-20...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2016/11/09/the-2016-elections-
generation-gap-infographic/#6240672e497b)

[https://theweek.com/articles/627505/how-baby-boomer-
psychodr...](https://theweek.com/articles/627505/how-baby-boomer-psychodrama-
infected-2016-election)

~~~
learc83
Trump won by around 80k votes in 3 states. Very small changes would have
produced a dramatically different outcome. For example, if you'd had the same
election with the projected demographics of 2020 (remove all of the people who
died between 2016 and 2020, add in voters who were [14,18) in 2016,
naturalized citizens, greater proportion of gen x and millennials etc..), its
likely he would have lost (note this isn't the same thing as saying he's
guaranteed to lose in 2020). If you had the 2016 election with the
demographics of 2024, he definitely would have lost.

As it stands, Trump has absolutely abysmal approval ratings for such a strong
economy. If we have a recession sometime before he leaves office, I think a
complete Democratic takeover of the House Senate, and Presidency is very
likely.

Right now 538 is showing around an 80% chance that Republicans lose the House
next month.

~~~
mikeyouse
Another way to visualize how close the last election was;

If the sparsely populated Upper Peninsula of Michigan were part of Wisconsin
and if the Florida Panhandle were part of Alabama, Clinton would've won. These
odd little geographic quirks have an enormous impact on our national politics.

