Senator introduces bill to abolish EPA

This is some nasty news. Senate Republicans introduced legislation to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency - which was established 40 years ago by President Richard Nixon to give Americans clean air and water.

The bill was introduced by Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.). The plan is to merge the EPA, which enforces environmental laws, with the Department of Energy. They manages nuclear energy and energy research. Why one department?

Burr introduced a bill that would consolidate the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency into a single, new agency called the Department of Energy and Environment (DOEE). The bill would provide cost savings by combining duplicative functions while improving the administration of energy and environmental policies by ensuring a coordinated approach.

Burr’s bill has 15 cosponsors. All, coincidentally,  are global warming deniers : Sens. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), John Thune (R-S.D.), John McCain (R-Ariz.), Dan Coats (R-Ind.), Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), John Boozman (R-Ariz.), Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), David Vitter (R-La.), Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Mike Lee (R-Utah).

If you recall, back in January, Newt Gingrich proposed abolishing the EPA and a few House Republicans supported that goal, all the while making many attempts to hamstring limits on industrial polluters. In an address at the Renewable Fuels Summit, Gingrich told attendees, including Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, a key figure in the state’s first-in-nation Republican presidential caucuses, that the EPA should be replaced with a new “Environmental Solutions Agency.” The replacement agency “would encourage innovation, incentivize success and emphasize sound science and new technology over bureaucracy, regulation, litigation and restrictions on American energy,” according to materials provided by Gingrich aide Rick Tyler.

“We need to have an agency that is first of all limited, but cooperates with the 50 states,” Gingrich said.” The EPA is based on bureaucrats centered in Washington issuing regulations and litigation and basically opposing things.”

If you read Burr’s statement about the bill to eliminate the EPA , he argues that “duplicative functions” can be eliminated. I don’t always agree with the EPA but don’t be fooled - the two departments are completely different and this seems like a Trojan Horse move to a more sinister outcome for public health.