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Comment by twsted | Hacker News Reader

I can’t believe we’re seeing so much bad news coming from EPA. Why all this backtracking from an agency that used to be so effective and well organized? Well, I guess we know the reason.

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Really, you can’t? When the President and his party have been saying out loud for decades that they want to destroy the EPA?

The same EPA that under 5+ administrations has taken no material action to reduce the effects of climate change? Approved the widespread use of PFAS for stuff as silly as egg pans and snowboard wax, poisoning people's blood and community water supplies for decades? The same EPA that allows the use of leaded AVgas for flights over communities and schools, because otherwise a dentist might have to pay a little more for his Cessna flight?

Gosh, they were such a paragon of environmental protection, effective and well organized in the last 40 years.

Yeah, they were bad at their jobs before, so we should make them even worse now!

It doesn't serve any purpose to act like they were good at their jobs before. Returning to a status quo of 5 or 15 years ago is such a mediocre goal in this space that its arguably not worth spending political capital on.

> The same EPA that under 5+ administrations has taken no material action to reduce the effects of climate change?

Huh? The endangerment finding was in 2009. The problem is that we have a very litigious set of polluters and then we elected Trump who stacked the supreme court, and then we elected Trump again, this time with a bunch of insane people with him who had specific plans to bring on the end of this country via the unitary executive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_greenhouse_gases...

Huh? Scientists in federal government were discussing the risks of CO2 and the greenhouse effect for 30+ years before that point. There's literal White House memos from 1977 calling it out. In that time we've cycled through R's and D's, the courts have swung left and right, but still nothing meaningful was done. It's hilarious the kneejerk recency bias people have with thinking that every failure of the government is because of Trump.

Because it's now headed by an ex-lobbyist for the chemical industry

> an agency that used to be so effective and well organized?

The last time the federal government had an agency that fit that description it was the Hoover FBI.

Man, if you ever start reading books instead of spouting shit online, it is going to get weird.

Sick burn, bro. Have any recommendations on books about how functional the EPA was?

EPA is garbage, pray you never end up on the wrong side of one of their poorly written enforcement mandates. They will take down your life's work for something you have no control over.

I’m sorry that definitely happened to you. Can you tell us more?

Let's just say the EPA can enforce vaguely written laws starting day 0 against property you own but you had absolutely nothing to do with the issue.

Vague example: You buy a house, a month later you get a demand letter from the EPA that you need to raise your home, spend millions to clean the ground contamination that was caused by a owner before you were born and more than 3 transactions before yours.

And they are not nice, they will gladly bankrupt you and put you in jail. Selling it or giving it to the EPA to release the obligation is not a option. The EPA can sometimes look a lot like a cartel.

Bad news? This is good news.

I agree with the sentiment but you lack context. The SuperFund has been a training ground for stall-and-pad-billing for decades. Certain bureaucrats gained lifetime employment for stall-and-declare skills.

Critics on all sides have ample ammunition AFAIK

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