The EPA - Jack Boots Cometh

Fear of the almighty (not the Almighty)

The EPA

Jack Boots Cometh

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

            The notice announced the agency will solicit more feedback from farmers, Ag companies, and academics before moving ahead with a first-of-its-kind plan to curb the spreadof corn rootworms that can damage insect resistant GMO corn and survive. The presiding feds also forewarned that they may need to impose requirements that disallow year to year corn rotation in some areas.

            Of course, the fear of this almighty (not the Almighty) has set the stage for producers, seed companies, and Constitutionalists to wring their hands yet again and add worry to the fear of limitations imposed on American farmers to make their own business decisions. The expected industry reaction was accompanied by the expected default suggestion that some academics say the step is long overdue to maintain the GMO corn’s effectiveness.

            Aha!

            The agency in question is not the USDA which used to focus on all matters of American agriculture production. No, that agency has set its own evolutionary path toward expanding its role in engineering social welfare programs and rural community organizing matters. The agency setting course for its self directed and assumed calling of ruling the entire environmental universe is none other than … the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

            From Nixon’s hand

            Before we set the stage to cast further aspersions on the character of one Dick Nixon, the matter of public comments must be addressed. To those who loyally take the call for comments to heart and expend honest effort in objective responses for the creation of rules and regulations, the best case outcome has been woefully disappointing. There is little expectation that the adopted rules will be crafted in the best interest of those who actually face the directed assaults. The best case scenario for that citizenry has become recognition by the courts in order to sue in the aftermath of implementation.

            That theoretically still keeps the citizenry in the framework of the debate if, of course, they have the wherewithal to pony up the greenbacks.

            The truth is, power accrual in the implementation of the law is always the goal. Comments are just window dressing. The agenda of the power structure is the driving force and the affected citizenry is at best secondary. That is why Washington systematically doesn’t work.

             Nixon proposed the creation of EPA for the purpose of writing and enforcing regulations based on various laws, but most specifically the National Environmental Policy Act passed by Congress in 1969. Nixon was also the presidential signer of that historic act.

The EPA began operation in 1970 following another of the Nixon actions in the form of an executive order authorizing its creation.  To this day, the EPA is still not a Cabinet level department even though its administrator is normally given cabinet rank.

            It is a state within itself although it doesn’t have an official governor or dog catcher. The current agency has just over 15,000 employees and engages an unknown number of contractors. Its 2015 budget is $7.9 billion which happens to be $1.6 billion more than the annual budget of my home state of New Mexico.

            From an historical perspective, the agency rides shotgun over the big three natural resources that provide the foundation for our existence. That, of course, is air, water, and soil, or, as the official description implies … land.

            The number of environmental laws its tentacles have ensnared is fairly impressive. In the matter of air, there are 10 primary ones. From water, there are another 13 pieces of legislation, and from land there are 11.

             The horizons were expanded beyond foundational resource protections when the next two environmental materfamilias were cast into causes. Those grandiose bifurcations were endangered species and hazardous wastes. Another 15 laws required the agency’s diligent regulatory creation. Seemingly, the role of saving the environmental universe was nowhere near half life.

Not to be lax in saving the known environment, though, the agency ventured off into the energy sector in 1992. That was joined by pesticides, detergents, fuel economy, oil pollution, water use efficiency, radiation protection, and potable water supplies. The latter inspired the urge to venture off shore, so, in 2004 the OSV Bold, a Stalwart class ocean surveillance ship, was commissioned to go forth and monitor anything that might be dumped into the ocean. In 2013, the agency sold the boat to Seattle Central Community College for five grand for students to set up shop and determine the highest and best use of environmental surveillance.

With such conquests, the question must be asked … will imagination be the next frontier of entry for this agency’s regulatory quest?

            Global warming and water

            Before we get to imagination, two professionalized and induced moral assaults remain. That would be global warming and the attempt to alter the Clean Water Act (CWA).

First, there is the nebulous danger to mankind …global warming.

            The matter of global warming (or climate change) has never been codified in law. Although, there is a gang within congressional ranks who are fully vested in the notion, there has never been a congressional directive. It has been the agencies, led by EPA and started by a Bush era administrator, Stephen L. Johnson, that have seized authority in the matter.

            In 2007, Johnson approved a draft document that declared man-made climate change imperiled public welfare. It was not accepted by the Bush Oval Office. Johnson resigned in protest, but the machine was ready for action. The agency set a course for regulatory controls anyway.

            The CWA bolstered the authority of the EPA dramatically. It was passed on the premise to protect the primary responsibilities and rights of the States … and … to consult with the (EPA) Administrator in the exercise of his authority under this Act, but, like most legislative outcomes, those words became largely convenient filler. The current battle rages over the agency’s decision to rewrite the law through regulatory fiat by simply dropping the word ‘navigable’ from the reference of waters of the United States. That simple change alters the authority of the administrator from defined parameters to every puddle of water as well as inland and coastal waterways.

Congressional committees have been convened to counter the action, but nobody has yet threatened the agency with a budget cut that would stifle their unbridled nonsense and unlawful quest for authority.

            That brings us back to the matter of imagination.

            A quick search reveals the agency is assuming greater conformity to 1930 era jack boot outreach paradigms for the mushy, malleable minds of academia (MMMA). The money is coming from the agency’s National StudentDesign Competition Focus on People, Prosperity, and the Planet.

In southern California, a grant has been given to UC Riverside to conceptualize and convert into practice methods to capture toxins released in the process of backyard grilling. Since the MMMA crew’s latitude is undefined, the assumption is they are free to go to the ends of the earth to come up with novel ways to police the lawless grillers. That will be particularly important in the particulate output generated from choice rather than select marbling characteristics of beef since it is increasingly monitored and controlled from all aspects of the regulatory spectrum.

            Another program in the pipeline harkens back to abusive uses of water. Control is forthcoming through the auspices of Urban Water Planning. One project is to monitor the amount of water hotel guests use while showering. The data will identify and track excessive users. It will also clarify what is acceptable per showering experience. With such intrusion of privacy, one can only surmise how the bathers will be identified.

            The bottom line is the imagination of the regulatory almighty is becoming incalculable, and … it will remain so as long as we, the policed subjects, dutifully pay our taxes.

             Real imagination

            As long as the go-along-to-get-along, flimflamming elite and want-a-be conservatives concede on every budget negotiation, there will be no change in the growing tyranny. The abuse the American taxpayer has taken is simply staggering. Americans are sick of the antics of confusion and breach of oath witnessed each day in Washington. Rather than strengthening any measure of resistance, Congress creates confusion and chaos.

            The real imagination is demonstrated in the heartland. It comes from the constant belt tightening and restructuring that tax payers must accomplish to accommodate the assault on their lives and freedoms.

            Half of the answer lies in defunding rogue agencies. There is neither self policing nor are there bounds regarding regulatory fiat in the face of the ineffective oversight. Control must start with the EPA and … it must continue through every expanding agency fiefdom.

           

            Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “Notwithstanding the recent ruling by the Supreme Court, if the spirit of a law is changed through the crafting of agenda driven regulations, that is the creation of law without representation.”