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Comment by nimbius | Hacker News Reader

Disclosure: im a full-time diesel engine mechanic.

my shop was due for a round of vessel inspections for our waste and fresh oil holding tanks last friday, but, no EPA. Without these inspections we can not technically order new oil or have oil recycled, because the EPA signoff is required as part of cradle-to-grave handling of hazmat substances.

so how do we get around it? we now have half our back parking lot filled with 55 gallon drums of waste byproduct from engine work, which can be shipped without an EPA cert to recyclers. This is also outright illegal if it gets big enough, but we've been declaring it as required by the EPA. since we cant schedule a formal review of that either, we confirm the storage with their hotline for doing so, and since thats not staffed and the voicemail box is full, I have been mailing Kodak pictures and printed descriptions of the storage.

our full-site inspection is due feb 2nd...without it, the federal government (if it were running) would cite us for a flagrant violation and shut us down. The guy who does that inspection called us and confirmed hes quitting to work for...of all places...the company that recycles our oil.

View on HN

>The guy who does that inspection called us and confirmed hes quitting to work for...of all places...the company that recycles our oil.

This type of thing is one part of the story that not enough people are focusing on regarding the shutdown. How many people are going to come back to these jobs once the shutdown inevitably does end? Odds are these "nonessential" government departments will be crippled for years by the loss of both experience and manpower.

This.

I have been on the non-essential side, so I know some people who are moving on. It's all anecdotal, but I'd be curious to see what the cost of this shutdown is going to be.

One of the things that needs to be understood is that this is intentional.

The Grover Norquist "drown it in a bathtub" contingent of the Republican party is large, influential, and for them, this is not at all unfortunate collateral damage in pursuit of The Wall or something. The crippling of public institutions (if not outright dissolution) is part and parcel with the ideology.

And that's even if you don't believe that the executive branch may have been compromised by a foreign power interested in weakening and destabilizing the United States.

It's really disappointing to see how much the executive branch is getting away with.

A surprising amount of the American political system was built around our natural human desire to avoid being shamed. Once you have a political figure who is shameless all the rules chance.

I'm a centrist but I saw as early as 2015 that shame was being overused. Shamelessness should be an expected escalation.

A figure? Seems to me many in Washington were shameless before Trump, when they can lie to people about death panels so they can deny them healthcare, or "we need to tax the rich less!", etc. Or announcing support for a policy and denouncing it after taking lobbyist money...

There's everyday politicking, and then there's Trump.

It's not though. Vetos can easily be overridden by the legislative branch so this is coordination between executive and the Republicans of the legislation.

"Trump is doing this and is unstoppable" is a false narrative and is the reason that "Trump is compromised by Russia" is a senseless explanation.

I'm also disappointed by progressives who don't acknowledge the role of the legislative branch in all of this, starting with Paul Ryan endorsing Trump back in June 2016.

Agreed, the fact that they have sprawled out to include all of these unchecked executive agencies with non-essential bureaucrats on payroll deciding the day-to-day of American life without any checks is appalling.

Without any checks or oversight at all! Shameful!

Well, OK... there's obviously one little check. Like, the staff of these organizations are literally not getting paid right now because of a funding impasse. So, obviously there's some regular oversight about who gets what kind of funding.

And come to think of it, all these organizations and jobs were created by act of congress and/or executive prerogative, with scope prescribed by the relevant orders and law.

But who are congress and the executive accountable to anyway? And who writes these so called "laws"? Who are the laws accountable to?

Wait. They're written by members of congress? And carried out by the executive? Huh. OK, but other than that, totally unchecked! Again, who are "congress" and the so-called "president" accountable to? Who made them "officials"?

Oh, yeah. Voters.

So actually, there isn't any defensible sense in which one can say "unchecked" at all, actually.

Now that we're here, it's almost as if the only way one could use the term "unchecked" is if they're not using language in an attempt to actually describe the world, but out of intent to characterize inaccurately without a supporting argument. Propagandize. Or, I suppose, if one had already had one's mind hijacked by such propaganda.

But who would suspect that someone named "rattlesnakedave" might actually be engaging in that sort of commentary?

On the other hand, I think we are finding out how “essential” some of these institutions really are. During this shutdown, besides these workers unfortunately not being able to work and get paid, normal life is still going on. Actual essential things are still happening. Armageddon is not happening. Sure, forms are not getting stamped in triplicate, and inspectors are no longer inspecting inspectors, but these are “paper and ink” problems.

As a taxpayer, I see that life is still going on while these jobs are not getting done and I might eventually ask, do these jobs even need to exist? What about my life changes if that stack of papers no longer gets stamped and moved into another stack?

Sure. And then you find out your kids get cancer 10 years later and you wonder why nothing was done about all that toxic waste?

The comment that started this thread mentioned how the shutdown is creating an environmental ticking time bomb in back of their shop. Just because you personally don't immediately feel the repercussions of the shutdown doesn't mean those repercussions don't exist.

I think their point was that the ticking time bomb is only caused by regulations, which they can no longer comply with. The situation would be better for them if they could just get the oil recycled from their typical tank, but they need approval for that, so they are falling back to using drums in the parking lot.

I doubt any of us trust companies to do the right thing most of the time, but I think we all agree some regulations are dumb, and a loss for everyone except the people whose jobs depend on them.

For clarity, I have no idea if the tank inspection is a dumb regulation. And I realize without the regulations, they'd probably be dumping the oil behind the shop somewhere which we obviously don't want.

Exactly. OP physically can get their oil recycled. The only reason they are not doing it is because the law requires an inspector to come and inspect and tick a checkbox. Without that requirement, there would be no ticking time-bomb. They could just recycle the oil, buy new supplies, and life could go on.

Same for the TSA. If the TSA disappeared overnight, we’d just get on airplanes and fly to our destinations like we did before they came around. We have long lines not because there are fewer agents, but because the law says an agent must process you and there are few agents.

If the regulations were abolished, some companies would just dump the harmful waste products. Negative externalities are a real thing.

Obviously, regulations can cause problems or have significant issues, so we should continually modify them as necessary, to the best of our ability. This includes removing them if they aren't beneficial, or creating new ones.

The reason that person needs to come tick that checkbox is because less ethical businesses have shown time and again that they will dump the oil wherever is cheapest/easiest if there is no oversight.

Same with TSA. While they aren't perfect, we don't have bimonthly hijackings like we did 40-50 years ago.

You realize TSA didn't even exist until George W. Bush in 2001. It's also not unheard of for TSA to screw up[1]. I'd also be very interested in where your data of "bimonthly hijackings" comes from.

[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/atlanta-tsa-offic...

The US had a huge number of hijackings in the late 60s through early 70s [1]. There has not been a single hijacking or terrorism related death on a commercial airliner in the US since the TSA was created. The TSA doesn't deserve all the credit there as other post-9/11 security changes were implemented at the same time, but you can't just hand wave away their role in that unprecedented streak of safety.

[1] - https://www.wired.com/2013/06/love-and-terror-in-the-golden-...

> The US had a huge number of hijackings in the late 60s through early 70s [1].

And very few after that (two in the 1980s, with a couple attempts in the 1989s and 1990s) because of the first round of airport security rules adopted immediately in the wake of those and the tightening permanently applied during the 1990 Gulf Crisis.

> The TSA doesn't deserve all the credit there as other post-9/11 security changes were implemented at the same time, but you can't just hand wave away their role in that unprecedented streak of safety.

It's not significantly different that the period before 9/11, so it's not clear they the TSA and other post-9/11 actions deserve any credit, and calling it an unprecedented streak of safety is hyperbolic.

You are correct that the TSA didn't invent airport security screenings, but they took them over, improved, and standardized them. They certainly aren't perfect but they have yet to have the type of catastrophic failures that occasionally happened before the TSA existed.

>It's not significantly different that the period before 9/11, so it's not clear they the TSA and other post-9/11 actions deserve any credit, and calling it an unprecedented streak of safety is hyperbolic.

First off, you can't just pretend like 9/11 doesn't count in pre-TSA security stats. Four planes were hijacked within an hour of each other on 9/11 and zero have been hijacked in the last 17+ years? Those rates seem significantly different to me. Also can you find any stretch of US history in which commercial airliners have flown close to as many miles as they have over the last 17+ years in which there wasn't a hijacking? Unprecedented seems like a perfectly fine word to describe that streak.

> First off, you can't just pretend like 9/11 doesn't count in pre-TSA security stats. Four planes were hijacked within an hour of each other on 9/11 and zero have been hijacked in the last 17+ years?

Prior to 9/11, there were 14 years with no US hijackings (failed attempts are a different story) and 27 with no deaths on a commercial aircraft due to a hijacking. 17 years with neither hijackings nor hijacking related deaths is not a clear improvement that calls for credit anywhere. Since the 1980s, hijacking events have been so rare that it would take many decades under a give policy regime before and after a policy change before you couls have even remote statistical confidence that my quiet period

Really, since at least the 1980s, hijacking is so rare that it would take an extraordinarily long time to have even remote confidence that there was an increase in safety, much less of assigning a specific cause to it.

And, on assigning cause, if there was a reduction in hijackings post-9/11, well, there's a pretty good reason to think that al-Qaeda and the passengers of Flight 93 jointly might be responsible without any government policy as an intermediate cause.

Hijacking became something passengers would no longer be likely to accept as a “cooperate and noone gets hurt” event, which rendered it pointless as almost anyone has ever used it (even as al-Qaeda used it on 9/11, which while it doesn't factually fit that model clearly required for effect that people believed that it did.)

>There has not been a single hijacking or terrorism related death on a commercial airliner in the US since the TSA was created.

I have an anti-tiger rock to sell you.

We didn't have bimonthly jackings without the TSA in 1990s either.

Is there any evidence that the TSA has ever prevented a hijacking?

Except that without this inspection they could also pour the oil into the nearest river and no one would know. The inspection is there for a reason - to see that it is properly stored and recycled, at every stage of its life.

The TSA is whatever, but do you honestly believe that if oil regulations weren't in place, you wouldn't see companies just dumping oil wherever they could? Like they've done in the past? Hence why the regulations exist?

States and localities can regulate dumping in their jurisdictions. No need to have the Federal government involved.

They could regulate dumping in their jurisdiction, but I think this is one scenario where it is a good idea for the government to step in and prevent people from dumping hazardous chemicals into vulnerable areas.

Unless you'd like to see what Flint Michigan but Worse might look like on a more national scale.

Do you think that failing to do essential work always has an immediate consequence that's visible to you personally?

1) Remember that many (almost all) government employees are working for free right now. So basically, those individuals are suffering so that you do not.

2) Many government agencies exist to do things that may not affect you personally. NASA does not do anything you'll be affected by - neither does law enforcement. Or border security. You probably wouldn't notice if your local fire department vanished for a few weeks. Until, of course, your house is on fire.

3) Those things that affect society as a whole (like... EPA inspections) take a long time to affect society but have huge costs down the road if not done (good luck cleaning up water sources, or dealing with your cancer caused by your poisoned soil).

4) Airports are starting to be affected first because these are among the lowest paying federal positions, so those employees are going to have to find other work the fastest.

The US Economy is losing points, fast.

You will feel this shutdown. You haven't yet because macroeconomics and bureaucracy happen on scales longer than a month.

You'll feel it in the missing percentage gains this year for your investment portfolio (or its complete annihilation if the contraction turns into a depression).

You'll feel it later this year when you try to sort some federal paperwork and it takes them 3 weeks longer than normal because everyone at the department is a brand new employee, or they never managed to recover headcount because nobody wants to work for the Fed anymore.

You'll feel it when you head to Joshua Tree and it's missing a couple more trees than it should be, and they haven't yet managed to scrub off all the spraypaint.

Give it time. You'll feel the pain.

It seems starkly short-sighted to infer that institutions like the EPA may not be "essential" when the anecdote you're replying to shows that they're stockpiling waste fuel. I would think such an act is dangerous in several respects.

I think that the original commenter is trying to say is that it's possible that their jobs won't be done if their shop has to close. They're already being impacted: their work time is being wasted. That makes the business less profitable and eventually this could affect everyone that works there.

Some of the jobs that "need to exist" are not people who work for the government.

Good question.

Government waste is frustrating as hell to me as a taxpayer. I believe, however, in spending money to protect our quality of life in the long term.

For instance:

If the EPA and all environmental legislation ceased to exist tomorrow, you wouldn’t be able to tell in a month, or even a year.

You would notice if in ten years’ time your kid got lead poisoning from swimming in the local river.

> I see that life is still going on

This may be something like the idea that life still goes on while you have 10% kidney function and for a certain amount of time after liver failure. Even when a system hasn't outright collapsed yet, that doesn't mean it isn't compromised or even approaching failure.

The grandparent comment describes a situation for handling waste, waste that has serious impacts on the health of the environment. That's what you reduce to "paper and ink," so I'll assume you're part of the crowd that generally trivializes environmental concerns.... as if they've forgotten this is where they live and the food chain is how they eat. And then one day we wake up and it's perfectly normal to have a conversation about limiting our consumption of tuna and other fish because of mercury levels they contain as a consequence of uncontained industrial activity. Because we forgot that we're part of a system. Not surprising to see people do... but it is a little surprising to see it pop up on HN.

Speaking of the food chain, here's some fun food for thought:

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/lifestyle/food-and-cook...

Planning on flying anywhere?

https://www.iheart.com/content/2019-01-04-air-traffic-contro...

How sure are you that these jobs don't need to exist? These are just two examples. How sure are you that you really have any idea what the government does?

Are you the kind of person who just deletes large swathes of code from a system because they're ugly, because they don't fit your aesthetics, because you're not sure what they do and you'd rather just re-write than find out?

If you're driving on the freeway and your car suddenly runs out of gas, the fact your vehicle keeps moving is not a sign that your car only optionally needs gas.

I hope the shutdown ends soon so I can pay taxes.

Congress can end the shutdown tomorrow, if 2/3rds of the House & Senate are willing to vote on a spending bill. The executive branch is unnecessary.

They shouldn't agree with something that no one wants.

They could have passed it when the Republicans were in Congress.

> if 2/3rds of the House & Senate are willing to vote on a spending bill.

Only if the House and Senate leaders decide to put the vote to the floor. Even 100% (less one) support is powerless if they can't vote on it.

“Direct Pay is continuing to process payments as normal during the government shutdown. Continue to make your tax deposits and payments according to your normal schedule.” —directpay.irs.gov. Of course.

Strange, last I checked there isn’t a bill on the President’s desk. The shutdown has now cost more than Trump wanted to spend on border security to begin with.

If it wasn’t clear that everyone here is just playing politics, it should have been after Nancy’s letter to Donald about the SOTU.

But your last paragraph says it all. If you believe, without any evidence, that the President of the United States is a foreign agent, talk about it on /r/politics please.

> Strange, last I checked there isn’t a bill on the President’s desk.

There isn't a bill on his desk because McConnell won't let it happen because Trump won't sign it. Your reading of this situation is incredibly simplified. Trump by virtue of McConnell is absolutely a big reason why we are in a shutdown.

There isn't a bill on president's desk, because the Speaker of the Senate refuses to allow a vote on any bill that the president claims he won't sign (which includes the bill that Senate has passed originally).

Of course. And what’s stopping Congress from coming together with a compromise bill the President will sign?

Last year we had a bipartisan bill with $25 billion in Wall funding and DACA amnesty. Now he’s asking for $5.7 billion and has said he wants to negotiate.

There is a long, long prescedent of bipartisan negotiation in these matters. The new Speaker of the House has said she will absolutely not negotiate and claims border walls (which we have in spades already) are immoral and racist. Ok then!

Several days ago Donald met with Chuck and Nancy and asked if he signed a CR opening the govt for 30 days, would they take up wall funding and Nancy said No.

There’s nothing stopping either “side” from unilaterally taking a simple step to fully open the government. So logically everyone is to blame.

What, exactly, was stopping congress from coming together to fund the wall before the democrats came into power?

The answer: Absolutely nothing. The reason why they kicked this can down the road was solely for the purpose of using it as political leverage against the democrats. There was literally no excuse for not getting funding for his wall over the past two years. Except to use government employees as hostages.

There is no two sides to blame here. Republicans had the power to do so. They didn't. Now at the 11th hour they want to do it, so they can blame Democrats for not adhering to their outlandish demands.

Actually, they didn’t have the votes in the Senate. They still don’t without bipartisan support.

The funding Donald wanted is now less than the cost of the shutdown. $5.7 billion toward border security is not outlandish. Shutting down the government for 30 days absolutely is outlandish.

Objectively wrong. They HAD the votes in the Senate. There was absolutely nothing stopping them from employing the nuclear option to fund the wall. A simple majority was all they needed.

If they wanted to fund the damn wall, they could've funded it. You're right that shutting down the government for 30 days is outlandish, and it falls squarely on Republicans and Trump.

My understanding is that the so-called “nuclear option” was eliminating the 60-vote threshold only for Federal branch nominees and judicial appointments, not for basic legislation and particularly not the budget.

Eliminating the 60-vote threshold for legislation would destroy a massive part of what makes the Senate the Senate. It is stunningly worse policy than spending $6b on marginally effective border security.

But because Republicans didn’t do that, and Dems won’t vote for even $2 of Wall funding the only blame for the current shutdown is to Republicans. Do I understand your logic correctly?

No, your understanding was wrong. Please read up before you make claims about voting thresholds.

And Republicans have already eliminated said threshold for ramming through a supreme court nomination. I want to get this straight though: Your argument now is that parliamentary procedure was more important for Republicans than building the wall. A wall that they're claiming is a national crisis resulting in widespread issues. Enough of an issue to shut down the government over it.

If the wall was vital, then why didn't they employ the nuclear option (as was backed by Donald Trump, obviously) to build the wall. Why are are they, now that the Democrats are in power, demanding a wall be built?

And yes, the only party to blame for the current shutdown is in fact, Republicans. They had two years to build a wall. They didn't.

My previous statement seems to jive with the Wikipedia on the subject. [1]

I said Federal and judicial appointments. The Supreme Court is a judicial appointment.

Legislation has always been a 60-vote threshold to end debate in the Senate. It’s one of the cornerstones of the Senate.

I wouldn’t say Democrats are “in power” now. They took back the House and lost seats in the Senate. But the fact remains they have always needed Democratic votes to get to 60 in the Senate.

You say they should have voted it through with just 50 in the Senate. Which by the way they don’t want to do even now. I think that would have far worse long-term effects for the country, and many Democrats and Republicans alike agree.

You can obviously believe whatever you like. It’s your opinion, and I’m not trying to change it.

My simple observation was that right now, with the House and Senate that we have, with the rules and procedures that have been in place for centuries, both parties are equally capable of funding the govnernment in less than an hour if they decide they want to do it. It will only cost them ~$6b one way or the other. Either party is indisputably capable of ending the shutdown, but both as of yet have chosen not to.

[1] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_option

And my simple observation, one that you seem to keep ignoring, is that they had two years to fund the wall. They had two years of full governmental control to pass a bill which could've allocated all of the funding they wanted for the wall. They could've done it during Reconciliation, they could've invoked the nuclear option, they had multiple opportunities to do so. If you keep reading the wikipedia article you can clearly see that there was nothing stopping them from employing it, outside of a lack of unity on the Republican party side of things.

You're effectively saying that Republicans holding the government hostage instead of employing the nuclear option in the past is far less damaging to the country than if they had lifted the parliamentary procedures. This is also ignoring the fact that there has been bipartisan clean CRs which have been outright denied by the Senate.

Can you explain why it would've been more damaging to the country than the current shutdown? I would like an actual explanation.

Talk about moving the goalposts! No, I don’t have any interest in a nuanced discussion with you around why I think that legislation in the Senate should pass a 60-vote threshold.

Whether or not Republicans could have funded border security Before is an interesting diversion.

Trump actually pushed hard for border security & wall funding the last time the govt was facing a shutdown, and he was convinced to sign a clean CR with the promise that border security would be addressed. It wasn’t.

So this time he has held fast. He is absolutely responsible for holding firm for a bill that has what he wants in it. He could sign a bill today without Wall funding and re-open the government.

Democrats in the House could also pass a bill today with $5.7b in Wall funding and the government would be open again in an hour. You have not disputed this as it’s indisputable.

Both sides are choosing to keep the government shut down.

Tomorrow at 3pm Trump will present yet another compromise proposal. He has at least been standing ready to negotiate this entire time, even through Christmas. He has said what he wants, as it’s a promise he made when he was running for election, and he is obviously willing to trade a lot for it. We’ll see tomorrow what his latest proposal is, and if and when Democrats will come to the table.

A rational negotiator, when the other side says “this is what I need to have” figures out what they need in return. If border fencing is “immoral” or “racist” then we have a lot of walls we better get bulldozing.

At worst Trump is saying he wants to waste $6b dollars on ineffective border measures. Well, by denying that appropriation, House Democrats have burned much, much more than $6 billion by now.

There are things you can ask for that cannot be bartered. He could be asking for a Constitutional Amendment of some sort. He could be asking for certain politicians to resign. He could be asking for actual racist or immoral things.

He’s asking for a border security appropriation to build 230 miles of wall in addition to the 690 miles that already exist. He wants to increase the border fencing by 1/3rd. He’s demanding this because a large number of people voted for him because he said he would do it.

This is something that can be traded for in a functioning democracy. I believe Democrats should put something commensurate on the table that they’re willing to trade for $6b in wall funding.

For example, the next Supreme Court nomination. If Ginsburg knew that Dems could fill her spot, perhaps she would be ready to retire. I think Trump would want $25b in Wall funding in return for that, but it’s within the realm of possibility. I think Dems need to get fucking creative and get to work on solving this, versus assuming a fake BuzzFeed scoop is going to solve their problem for them, or continue to play the optics as if the shutdown is good for Dems.

The last time the Dems played ball, it was around DACA. Trump and Republicans promised to fix DACA if the Dems agreed to some of their demands. The Govt shut down, Dems were somehow blamed for this despite a republican majority, and the end result was a bill [1] that gave Trump some of what he wanted, including border security funding. Then DACA never was put on the table because naturally, that's how they negotiate.

Acting like Trump is a rational negotiator is delusional. Why should the Dems ever bother listening to his demands when last time they negotiated, he backed out of the deal? And you're objectively wrong, again, on it being a clean CR.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_Appropriations_...

That is a clean CR in my opinion. No DACA and no new border wall. $1.6 billion for existing fencing and planning is status quo, not what Trump wanted, and certainly not worth any kind of quid pro quo amnesty.

I don’t think either side is a particularly good faith negotiator, but it’s totally beside the original point I made which you refuse to debate while continuously smoke screening with side shows.

You refuse to admit that the way the Senate has done legislative business for its entire history is at odds with your “despite a Republican majority” rhetoric. A Replublican majority is not sufficient to stop a Democratic philibuster in the Senate. That’s how the Senate works. If one party with at least 40 seats decides to filibuster, then they are responsible for the bill not passing. That is exactly how it has always worked in the Senate and any good faith debater would accept that the party filibustering is the party responsible for stopping the bill from going to the President’s desk, in that case, causing a shutdown.

I mean, if you blame Republicans for the Jan 2018 shutdown where Senate democrats were damanding a permanent DACA fix, and then relented, you know even the NYT disagrees with you [1];

Congress brought an end to a three-day government shutdown on Monday as Senate Democrats buckled under pressure to adopt a short-term spending bill to fund government operations without first addressing the fate of young undocumented immigrants.

[1] - https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/22/us/politics/congress-vote...

Budgets can pass through reconciliation with 50 votes.

There's a very simple way to determine who is responsible for the shutdown: look at who is passing the bills to fund everyday workings of the government, and who is refusing to advance them without their riders.

What if I believe he’s a foreign agent with lots of evidence?

The FBI would sure be interested in talking with you, for starters.

Thankfully what I know is all public knowledge, so they can stick to talking to all of his criminal underlings and associates.

yup, it's pure politics.

Trump could have gotten his wall when republicans had both the house and the senate. He didn't push it because not enough republicans wanted it I guess, and he wouldn't shutdown the government based on his own party not funding the wall.

Now that the dems have the house, he (and the republicans) can just blame the dems. But if congress really wanted to end this, they can just pass a budget with enough votes and override the president's veto. But instead, the republicans sit back and blame the dems, without having to admit to trump's base that they don't want a wall.

It's reprehensible.

Easy solution, the Dems can help fund the wall and the shutdown is over. Why not? They've repeatedly says walls don't work anyway, and the cost of the wall is a rounding error in the federal budget.

it’s not the cost really. although it will easily balloon to 5x the cost (initial overrun plus maintenance) it’s still too small to care about. the shutdown has probably already cost more than the nominal wall cost.

the problem is it’s a symbolic, umm symbol that is hard to walk back from.

another problem with your argument is that it’s blame shifting.

Wow Grover is lucky that the new House leadership agreed to work with him on this dastardly plan. What was the fig leaf they came up with? Something about a shovel-ready project in Texas and New Mexico?

I love it, that somebody decided to have a contest of stubbornness with Donald Trump. When we wrestle with pigs...

I would guess close to all of them. A large percentage of people that work for the Federal Government really don't add much value and not employable outside of that setting.

Of course, I could be wrong, but I am willing to bet on it, if anyone is interested.

In the hipothetical case you're wrong, how would you be satisfied of having lost the bet?

Every time I read one of your comments I think “is that the same diesel guy?”, and so it is. You always have some of the most interesting things to say here.

He has a tag 'diesel mechanic' on Momento: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/momento-for-hacker... - it's actually pretty handy! :)

Since I just got Momento, all I want is to import your tags.

I second that- wish tags could be shared with or imported from the memento community.

That's a great way to encourage brigading.

Is there some sort of widely accepted "hacker news +" addon like RES for reddit? If not I think I just found the project I want to start :)

Is there a version of this plugin for Firefox?

>our full-site inspection is due feb 2nd...without it, the federal government (if it were running) would cite us for a flagrant violation and shut us down. The guy who does that inspection called us and confirmed hes quitting to work for...of all places...the company that recycles our oil.

What will you do when this date comes around?

I'm going to assume you just can't shut down and lose business? Do you just keep at it and take the hit in fines/whatnot when the govt. reopens?

To think similar things are happening at mechanic shops all over the country... it's a bit horrifying honestly. Diesel is nasty stuff.

If you can demonstrate that you’ve substantively complied with the regulations to the best of your ability given the circumstances (and it sounds like you can) I would imagine most regulators and/or administrative judges have better things to do than try to ding you for this.

Quick edit: Might want to make sure you’ve got something between the storage containers and the ground though so there won’t be any leeching into the soil.

Source: I’m a regulatory compliance attorney. Mostly investment management but I moonlight as a legal journalist covering EPA enforcement cases.

I would imagine most regulators and/or administrative judges have better things to do than try to ding you for this.

In my experience running businesses in several states, regulators are surprisingly helpful. They don't want to punish you unless you're being a deliberate jerk. They want to help you learn to comply with the law first. They'll only go for the throat if you tell them to pound sand.

Interesting. I make a part that a large diesel manufacturer uses on fixed and marine diesels to clean the crankcase air and meet EPA regs. I noticed a big uptick in purchasing right around the shutdown and then it fell off a cliff. I chalked it up to holidays but now I wonder if everyone is deferring maintenance since they can't do anything with the waste.

I would be interested in hearing your (and owner, coworkers, etc) honest opinion of the EPA regs prior to this shutdown. My understanding (and I very well could be wrong) is that many of the EPA's rules are overly burdensome, expensive, and unnecessary while there are other areas that go without oversight that could use it.

Certainly it is frustrating to be blocked from conducting business because you are unable to follow the regulations. But if the regulations are misguided to begin with, perhaps there is some merit in exposing that life and business can continue with reduced bureaucracy.

There's lots of weird legal impacts of the shutdown. Some are big issues, like your situation with hazardous materials and trying to comply with the law. Others are tiny things that impact everyday people in weird ways.

My particular issue is that I'm trying to arrange to transport my dog across country lines on an airplane. But the county I'm flying to requires my vet to complete a vaccination certificate which then has to be stamped by the USDA APHIS office (normally no big deal). But of course this is currently impossible because USDA APHIS is shut down and doesn't even answer their phones. It's not clear if any alternate path exists to get around this.

Oh! I have a relevant and potentially helpful life experience.

Twice in my life I have needed to get a cat from Point A in central time to Point B somewhere in California. Handling all the vaccinations and associated paperwork was (in one case) annoying or (in the other) the person who actually owned the cat not remotely organized enough to have records.

It turns out some domestic airlines will permit you to fly with a pet on-board in a soft-side case under the seat where one might normally put a bag. This may or may not work for you, depending on how patient and large your dog is and how big your budget is.

> It turns out some domestic airlines will permit you to fly with a pet on-board in a soft-side case under the seat where one might normally put a bag. This may or may not work for you, depending on how patient and large your dog is and how big your budget is.

The person to whom you replied is trying to import an animal into a foreign country. Doing that, even for pet-in-cabin and service animals, requires a certificate from the USDA. The same process as domestic flights won't work in this circumstance, unfortunately.

Oh! I missed the country lines portion. That's quite unfortunate for them.

Couldn't you ask the country representative? A more expensive way night be to get a stamp from the destination country authorities that confirms your dog has all the relevant vaccines (is the stamping doable via post?)

Just to clarify, are you saying you're able to recycle your oil without inspection and also wont't have to undergo a full site inspection (if the gov remains shutdown)?

sealed vessels under a certain capacity can be recycled normally by most companies. we dont often do it because its cumbersome, and larger holding tanks are safer than random barrels that get forgotten and dont have leak alarms or overflow alarms. large tanks require certification, samples, and periodic checks to make sure we arent secretly filling them full of nacho cheese or something and not waste oil.

that having been said, we will still require an EPA site inspection, and im pretty sure when that happens theyll be rather accommodating to any lapses in certification. Id dread having to check that voicemail box though.

If I worked for the EPA and found you had filled your large tank with nacho cheese I'd be impressed!

First you'd have to prove that it was, in fact, the nacho cheese that it was claimed to be. I am betting lots of companies would be happy to toss random chemical solvents without any environmental oversight into whatever tanks they thought could hold it. Witness the Silicon Valley superfund disaster, for one.

periodic checks to make sure we arent secretly filling them full of nacho cheese or something and not waste oil

I'm not sure there's a test sensitive enough to make this distinction. ;)

Off topic: I would like to chat about the diesel mechanic business. Any way to contact you?

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