Angry about the debt deal? Prepare to get a little angrier.

[FarLeftFist]

The GOP's Hidden Debt-Deal Agenda: Gut the EPA

It was lost in the endless drama of the debt-ceiling negotiations, but last week the Republicans in charge of the House of Representatives launched an unprecedented attack on the country's environmental protections. GOP representatives added rider after rider to the 2012 spending bill for the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department, tacking on amendments that would essentially prevent those agencies - charged with protecting America's air, water and wildlife - from doing their jobs.

snip

Among the 40 riders the knee-jerk antienvironmentalists of the House GOP produced last week were:
• A rider that would prevent the EPA from issuing any regulations on greenhouse-gas emissions over the next year - despite the fact that the Supreme Court has ruled the agency has the responsibility to regulate those emissions as a public health threat under the Clean Air Act.
• A rider that would stop the EPA from carrying out tough new automobile-fuel-efficiency standards that were announced last week - standards that have the support of all the major automakers.
• A rider that would prevent the EPA from labeling the toxic ash left over from coal combustion as hazardous waste - something that would no doubt alarm the people of Kingston, Tenn., buried by a coal-ash spill in 2008.

snip

Last week's rider fest wasn't unusual for the 112th U.S. Congress. Representatives Henry Waxman and Edward Markey - two senior Democrats with solid green credentials - recently charted all the votes taken so far this year and calculated that the Republican-led House has voted to "stop," "block" or "undermine" efforts to protect the environment 110 times since January. As Natural Resources Defense Council president Frances Beinecke wrote recently, this body of lawmakers stands an excellent chance of becoming "the most anti-environment House of Representatives" in U.S. history.

snip

The good news for environmentalists is that with the Democrats still in charge of the Senate, those riders are unlikely to remain in the final EPA-Interior spending bill. Indeed, these demands were less about actual policy than about making a political point.


Link: http://news.yahoo.com/gops-hidden-debt-deal-agenda-gut-epa-111500435.html

[valerief]

1. This IS making me angrier!

:grr:

[xchrom]

2. Recommend

[jpak]

3. Obama strikes again

:poutrage:

[Bandit]

7. Hammer meet nail

Who or what do you think was responsible for the Huge Republican turnout and the lack of a Democratic turnout in the last election.. I know :think: it was Kucinich's fault...That's the ticket....

[Eddie Haskell]

4. If the human race is to survive, this kind of thinking must be ...

Eliminated!

[Javaman]

5. Anyone paying attention saw this coming...

it's been in the background news for a couple of weeks now.

the acceleration down has increased.

[earthside]

6. Oh my god!

Let's just hope that the situation doesn't arise where Pres. Obama has to negotiate over the survival of the EPA!

[Altoid_Cyclist]

9. That made me chuckle.

The sad part is that it's a valid point.

It would probably be something like this:
We'll eliminate the lower 48 & Alaska from any and all EPA regulations, but in return you have to promise to self regulate in Hawaii. That would be the initial compromise followed by concession after capitulation.

I kid.....but it is something to think about.

[MedicalAdmin]

16. Dont worry. If he does he pit it on the table wrapped in a bow.

Sigh. We needed a poker player and we got a mythical hypothetic Chess master. We needed a Mandela and we got wall streets own Stephen Fetchit.

[AC_Mem]

8. Remember, we have majority in the Senate

It may be time to start a coordinated effort to call our congressmen and ask them to protect our fragile earth from the republicans.

Good Grief. What next?

Annette

[PufPuf23]

10. What next? Selling public lands. nt

[Lorien]

12. They'll create more fake emergencies in the States to accomplish that. Starve them of

revenue so that they "must" sell our State and National parks. :grr:

[Enthusiast]

13. It was proposed by Bush during his maladministration.

It isn't dead.

[n2doc]

11. Until 2013. Unless things change fast n/t

[lib_wit_it]

14. K&R. Like I need to get madder.

[sofa king]

15. Now that's a crap headline.

To be clear, since the article is not, these anti-EPA riders appear in an appropriations bill that was being worked on this week. They have nothing to do with the debt deal.

As punishment for their prior lack of cooperation in all things, this year not one single Republican-authored bill of any importance has passed in the Senate.

So the only guarantee those riders have is that of an instant death the moment the House passes it and sends it on to the Senate. It doesn't delay proceedings at all, since all House-authored appropriations bills will be rejected by the Senate while they write their own. Nobody's going to agree to have that language re-inserted later.

All it does is telegraph the scummery they will resort to once they kill and steal their way back into power, which is beginning to look like a very, very long way off.