GOP Introduces Bill Which Would Gut Parts Of EPA

I’m personally against doing away with the Environmental Protection Agency. When the Environmental Protection Act was first passed, it was a worthy piece of legislation, which bound the nation together to do what we can to clean the air, land, and water. The created agency was not dictatorial, and worked hard to protect the environment.

Since then, though, like so many other government agencies, it saw massive mission creep, moved to be a hard left activist group pushing progressive (nice fascist) goals, and grew to be a giant, unaccountable bureaucracy.

(The Hill) A House Republican is sponsoring legislation to do away with large portions of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), including environmental justice and greenhouse gas programs.

Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Texas) introduced the Wasteful EPA Programs Elimination Act on Thursday, saying it would save $7.5 billion annually. That would leave the agency with a budget of less than $1 billion.

Major EPA climate change programs would be eliminated under the measure.

The legislation would also close all of the EPA’s regional offices, halt new regulations on ground-level ozone pollution and require the agency to lease unused property.

Rolling back the power of the EPA without doing away with the agency is a good thing (and would be great for most federal agencies). They assume power, often based on the shadiest of rationales as provided by legislation (legislation needs to also be less open ended, which gives federal agencies the ability to do power grabs and create rules and regulations out of almost thin air).

The legislation would keep a goodly chunk of the EPA’s power intact, but erase the mission creep. The EPA should act more like FEMA, where they direct state and local agencies to deal with the situations.