So he is holding meetings with the regulated industries at the homes of head representatives from these industries and deliberately excluding all other stakeholder groups.

He wants to hear about the people "on the ground that are impacted by the rules"? How about commercial and recreational fisheries that harvest downstream of those sod farms, golf courses, and industrial meat growers that he is sheltering from regulation?

Imagine if an EPA administrator had held a meeting at the home of the Sierra Club president and invited only representatives from The Nature Conservancy, Earth First, Natural Resources Defense Council, etc...?  That is exactly what Pruitt is doing but at the opposite end of the spectrum.

This type of behavior has never happened before in the 4 decade history of the EPA.

Farm Bureau and Nat. Assn. of Homebuilders told him to defund the Chesapeake Bay program so he did. Screw the people that live and work on the Chesapeake Bay, the homebuilders and meat grows don't want to have to have any rules about run-off from their developments and feed lots...

 

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Edited: 07/26/2017 at 05:42 AM by scombrid

Make a fast buck today, screw tomorrow.

These fool are a danger to everything a surfer holds dear.

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I was right.

you elect a kleptocracy,
you get what you chose

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"The truth is incontrovertible.
malice may attack it,
ignorance may deride it,
but in the end,
there it is." -Sir Winston Churchill

Farmers, including the sod farmers, keep insisting that they are the biggest environmentalists; meaning that they do not believe that they should be subject to regulation because they promise to be good stewards.

Do they really believe that about themselves? It is patently false given the history of water pollution by large scale agriculture operations. But do they see themselves that way?

The idea of the farmer/rancher as an environmentalist is a silly myth to be filed along side the "nobel savage". 

 

And seriously, how about the head of the EPA deliberately excluding all but one particular stakeholder group and even going so far as to hold official meetings in the home of lobbyists instead of on neutral ground?

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Short term euphoria for long term depression. Mental and Financial.

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Replace turf grass with native plants that don't need irrigation and synthetic fertilizers or chemicals that can go into our waterways and ocean

Pruitt looks like he drinks glycophosphate on the rocks with a 20-10-20 salted rim.

We threw out the dems to get precisely this. Maybe they'll start listening to the people and stop cramming crap down our throats that we don't want.

Oh, btw, the PiC's EPA did meet with environmental nuts to the exclusion of others. I was very much against that. And while I think that gov't should hear all sides and meet with all interests, I'll give them a pass on this one.

 

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I :heart; Q

A handful of really wealth landowners and developers are no "the people". They are the oligarchs. If they were such good stewards then the Chesapeake Bay wouldn't have gotten so messed up in the first place.

 

Show us the meetings then, the ones that are in the home of the president of Sierra Club or similar and to which only environmentalists were invited.

 

 

 

 

Words matter and when you write "the people" in the context that you did you are implying a broad group.

The Farm Bureau and Nat. Assn of Homebuilders represent a very narrow group of stakeholders in the realm of natural resource managment. They are not "the people". They are part of the people but not the whole or even close to the majority.

The people that live downstream of feed lots and sod farms are not a "handful of nuts".

You seem to think that you should be able to do what you wish on your property irrespective of downstream and downwind effects. That is certainly the impression got from the comments coming out of Pruitt's latest meeting in South Carolina. Farmers are mad that they cannot just cut any drainage ditch anywhere they want. The developers are mad that they have to build retention ponds to mitigate the impervious surfaces that they create and then they have to make sure those retention ponds function propertly. The horror.

 

 

Because they didn't happen.

 

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Scombrid, you have decent points. And I am not in disagreement with them for the most part. But, in my view and in the view of many others, the pendulum had swung to far to one side. Now it is swinging back.

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I :heart; Q

If EPA simply clarifies and provides a framework for the state DEPs to do their job then that helps.

If EPA flat refuses to step in when state DEPs fail to hold a standard then there is a problem. It is really hard for a crabber in Gloucester, VA to go after livestock operations in Pennsylvania when an algae bloom wipes out his crabbing for a season.

Right now the pendulum seems to be swinging all the way back to 1950 on water resource managment and regulation.

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The pendulum swung too far? Have you noticed the condition of the lakes, lagoons, and reefs in the state you live in? Nutrient loading is getting worse, and the consequences aren't just aesthetic. The economic consequences outweigh the economic benefits of reckless land management.

Well, then there is this -

http://watchdog.org/235785/epa-lawsuit-pond-fines/

I think both you and I would agree that that is outrageous. And there are hundreds of similar stories. There is a balance, and over time, we will generally find that balance. But, as of late, the EPA has gotten too big for its britches and very much needs to be brought down a few pegs. The Sierra Club, etc., aren't always right and don't always represent the will of the people either.

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I :heart; Q

If there are "hundreds of similar stories" then why is that one story the only one that has been posted here over and over again?

I disected it once if I can find it in the archives. Guy is caught be between jurisdictional dispute.

The closest thing I can find to balance is the Chesapeake Bay Agreement wherein the states are in a voluntary agreement with federal oversight to help hold each other's feet to the fire over specific objectives.

And Pruitt/Trump pretty much immediately yanked all funding for that because the Farm Bureau was pissed over poultry rules on the Delmarva.

 

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Locally the Lagoon is dying, fish have cancer, world wide there is more plastic in the ocean than fish, yep the pendulum needs to swing in favor profit over pollution. Then fish as a food source can all be farm raised since natural populations will be extinct. One more nail in the human race coffin.

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Replace turf grass with native plants that don't need irrigation and synthetic fertilizers or chemicals that can go into our waterways and ocean