THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY SHALL TERMINATE ON DECEMBER 31, 2018

Feb 15, 2017 by

The seats for Democratic senators remain empty as a vote is held on the nomination of Scott Pruitt to be Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) during a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, February 2, 2017. / AFP / SAUL LOEB        (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

A vote on the nomination of Scott Pruitt held without Democratic senators present

That’s H. R. 861. Not the title of H. R. 861, it’s the whole bill.

The Environmental Protection Agency shall terminate on December 31, 2018.

The bill, introduced by Florida Republican Matt Gaetz and co-sponsored by Kentucky’s Thomas Massie, Mississippi’s Steven Palazzo, and Georgia’s Barry Loudermilk doesn’t bother with anything like wondering what happens to the data the agency collects, or the enforcement the agency carries out. It doesn’t sweat the details of employees or contracts. There’s nothing about what happens to the Clean Air Act, or the Clean Water Act, or the Endangered Species Act, or … anything at all.

Just ‘terminated.’

Of course, Republicans already have an alternative means of destroying the EPA in place. Under Scott Pruitt, the plan is already underway to subvert and pervert the agency’s mission, to make sure it is critically understaffed, to turn it into a prime example of a non-functional bureaucracy.

So it’s likely that Gaetz’s bill won’t get the support it needs. This time.


Remember how the Tea Party turned the tide against us back in 2010, by showing up at town halls and annoying Democratic members of Congress? Well, now it’s time to return the favor.

2 Comments

  1. Ken Powers

    It just gets in the way of big business and the costs are expensive to comply with. How can we possibly keep up with China, and India’s, production rate if we are not allowed to destroy our environment at the same rate as they do. Screw fresh drinking water and contaminates in your food we are taking about corporations making money here. We want to attract more companies here and create more jobs and put people back to work. If they get sick? So what if they have to spend all that hard earned money on medical expenses it’s job security for big pharma. When you’re a member of the 1% and they already own 99% of everything it becomes a real challenge to suck that last remaining resources from this earth. Do you realize we still have approximately 3 billion people on this earth earning less than 2 dollars a day. Obviously we are paying our workers here too much. We must keep up with the rest of the world and we cannot stop until it is all destroyed!

Leave a Reply to Ken Powers Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *