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PrintJune 10, 2010
Reining in the EPA
Why is the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) under the direction of Janet Jackson escaping critical coverage over its lack of oversight of the Deepwater Horizon oil catstrophe? According to the "National Oil and Hazardous Substances Contingency Plan Act" signed into law in 1994 by President Bill Clinton, which superseded previous legislation going back to the Torrey Canyon oil spill in 1969, the EPA has legal responsibility for maintaining readiness for such an emergency.
The "National Contingency Plan" as described in the EPA manual:
"WHEN A MAJOR oil spill occurs in the United States, coordinated teams of local, state, and national personnel are called upon to help contain the spill, clean it up, and ensure that damage to human health and the environment is minimized. Without careful planning and clear organization, efforts to deal with large oil spills could be slow, ineffective and potentially harmful to response personnel and the environment . In the United States, the system for organizing responses to major oil spills is called the National Response System."
Also designated in the EPA manual is that the chair and vice-chair of the National Response Team are to come from the EPA and the Coast Guard. Some might argue that the BP incident was a blow out and unlike other catastrophic oil spills; nevertheless, the National Contingency Plan does assign a prominent role to the EPA. Minerals Management Service, however, is given only a relatively minor role and yet it has taken on the role to assist the Coast Guard.
Might the EPA be far too busy dealing with "real emergencies" like carbon dioxide emissions to worry about a "minor" oil spill? It's incredible that Lisa Jackson had time to regulate C02 as a pollutant, but she can't be found when there is a serious oil spill at the bottom of the sea.
As was predicted early on in the Obama Administration when Rahm Emanuel set the tone of things to come by remarking that a crisis should never be wasted, the BP oil spill is being used as a reason to pass the Left's radical agenda including a version of "Cap and Trade."
With this in mind, Americans United, an ultra-liberal group, is running a TV ad saying the oil spill is why senators have to oppose the Murkowski resolution, Senate Joint Resolution 26 (SJ Res 26), which is long overdue, and which would rein in Obama's out-of-control EPA and its power grab
This vote takes place this Thursday (June 10). According to the the "Americans For Prosperity" website, "This resolution will stop the EPA's astonishing effort to regulate the whole U.S. economy by shoehorning global warming regulations into the 1970 Clean Air Act.
The American people elect their legislators and leaders to do the peoples business. When unelected officials are able to act on their own to advance a political agenda unchecked by Congress and against the wishes of the American people, it results in a form of tyranny through freedom-crushing regulations which are harmful to the American people and to the future of this nation.
The commonsense Murkowski resolution would put Congress back in charge instead of the unelected EPA bureaucrats. Since the resolution is not subject to a filibuster, it will clear the Senate with 51 votes. Americans for Prosperity is asking that we call and email our senators to request that they vote for SJ Res 26. In so doing a message will be sent to the Obama administration that it is being watched, as are those who are pushing costly and destructive policies not supported by the American people.
