EPA’s Totalitarian Frontal Assault on America

Duggan Flanakin

Biden-Harris Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan is clearly on a mission. He has “bold aspirations, and a long to-do list,” says The Washington Post. But to succeed, the Post acknowledges, he must “help the EPA get its groove back.” As Reagan put it, “We’ve got a lot of work to do, starting with rebuilding staff morale and getting all our staff back to feeling as if they matter, their voices matter.” 

Regan says his job is “to restore the scientific integrity and the utilization of data, of facts, as we move forward, and make some very important decisions.” His second goal is to increase “cooperation” between the EPA and its “subordinate” state environmental agencies. EPA will dictate; states will fall in line. 

A big step toward that goal was extending a Memorandum of Agreement between the EPA, the Environmental Council of the States, and the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. According to Regan, “EPA is committed to building on the values of transparency, respect, and an open dialogue that are the cornerstone of a successful partnership with the states.” As EPA defines the terms.

An Obama-appointed federal judge just restored the EPA’s use of “secret science” in formulating regulations that businesses and industries must follow just because the EPA says so – with “scientific evidence” that cannot be cross-examined. U.S. District Judge Brian Morris (in Great Falls, Montana) took just hours before vacating the Trump EPA rule that would have ended this Star Chamber style rule. 

For decades, the EPA relied on unreviewable studies to impose draconian restrictions on businesses and industries, and thus on the U.S. economy. Trump wanted to bring true transparency to the process. Opponents claimed the Trump secret science” rule would block the use of critical public health studies kept secret supposedly to protect the identities of trial participants – which of course was not the case. 

As Trump EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler explained, the “secret science” rule in no way blocked previous “secret” studies; rather, it created tiers in which preference is given to studies with public data. Peer reviewers looking at a study’s raw data did not need to know any of the subject’s names, so no patient confidentiality was at risk. Moreover, in most cases, a review of basic methods, statistics and results is sufficient to determine if they actually support the study’s conclusion. Wheeler also noted: 

“Too often Congress shirks its responsibility and defers important decisions to regulatory agencies. These regulators then invoke science to justify their actions, often without letting the public study the underlying data. Part of transparency is making sure the public knows what the agency bases its decisions on.”

Now the Biden-Harris EPA has revived its old policy based on a failed 2015 (Obama-Biden) rulemaking that twists the Clean Air Act language in an effort to destroy auto racing as a sport in the USA. 

The EPA claims modifying a vehicle previously certified for street driving for use as a competition-only racecar is unlawful even for vehicles that are trailered and never driven on public roads again. This policy seeks to end a 50-year-old American tradition. It has no precedent; even California exempts racing vehicles from regulation. 

Not only does the EPA claim it is illegal to convert a vehicle for racing by modifying its emission system; it claims manufacturing, selling or installing race parts for such vehicles is likewise unlawful. It’s even said enforcement actions against high performance parts – including superchargers, tuners and exhaust systems – will now be a top priority. 

This policy constitutes a direct assault on the nation’s 1,300 racetracks, tens of thousands of participants and vehicle owners, and millions of racing fans nationwide. It is also a death blow to retail sales of racing products, a $2 billion a year industry. The move appears to be part of the Obama-Biden-Harris EPA strategy to rid the planet (or at least the USA) of internal combustion engines by taking away the romance of the racecar. 

To try to thwart this EPA power grab, the Specialty Equipment Market Association has filed an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief in a lawsuit filed by Gear Box Z, Inc. challenging the racecar conversion ban. The industry group is also supporting the Recognizing the Protection of Motorsports Act (RPM Act), which reaffirms the legality of converting street vehicles into race-only vehicles and confirms the legitimacy of producing, marketing and installing racing equipment. 

They should prevail. But with today’s courts, do even the most specific laws still matter?

A recent Wall Street Journal editorial says the Biden-Harris EPA has a secret plan to force massive CO2 emissions reductions under the Clean Air Act, using ozone as its vehicle of choice. “Plan B” is the fallback strategy to be implemented once it is clear that even the Democrat-controlled Congress will not enact economy-killing anti-fossil fuel legislation. The ultimate goal is total fossil fuel eradication. 

Under Plan B, EPA will reset the National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for ground-level ozone to zero – way below natural levels that Mother Nature herself emits! The “science” is based on a questionable 2017 study from Harvard’s T. C. Chan School of Public Health, which claims there is no safe level of ozone in the atmosphere. How do you prosecute Mother Nature? 

Plan B responds to the failure of the Obama-Biden Clean Power Plan, which was blocked by the U.S. Supreme Court. It reflects former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson’s blunt admission that it is technically infeasible and even legally questionable to regulate CO2 as a “criteria pollutant” under the Clean Air Act. 

The simple reasons are fundamental. CO2 is what humans and animals exhale. It is what plants inhale to support photosynthesis and produce the oxygen that most life on Planet Earth requires to exist. It does not cause asthma or other diseases. CO2 emissions generated in a locality cannot be measured reliably and certainly cannot be reduced within the 10-year timetable for criteria pollutants. CO2 is not a pollutant. 

Using ozone and the NAAQS to regulate CO2 is reportedly the brainchild of Joe Goffman, whom the Biden-Harris Administration has installed as principal deputy assistant administrator for the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation. Goffman, a chief architect of the Obama era Clean Power Plan, is known as EPA’s “law whisperer.” His specialty is “teaching old laws to do new tricks.” 

Goffman’s plan was jump-started on January 19, 2021, when 16 Democratic state attorneys-general filed a legal challenge to the EPA’s recently reauthorized ozone NAAQS. Their one-paragraph sue-and-settle lawsuit claims the standards are “unlawful, arbitrary and capricious and therefore must be vacated.” 

The Trump EPA in December 2020 had retained the ozone NAAQS at levels set in 2015 by the Obama-Biden Administration. That action marked only the second time since the 1970 Clean Air Act was enacted that EPA completed its ozone NAAQS review within the mandatory 5-year timeframe. 

As the Wall Street Journal explains, Democratic AGs, green groups and top Biden environmental regulators intend to impose the Green New Deal on states through backdoor regulations, because they know they can’t get it through the front door of Congress, even this sycophantic Congress. 

Under this nefarious scheme – which could be imposed this year without any “open dialogue” in Congress – every state would be forever out of compliance, JunkScience.com director Steve Milloy emphasizes. It is simply impossible to eliminate natural background levels of ozone. But this action would give EPA effective and arbitrary control over the entire economy, especially fossil fuel use.

Giving unelected bureaucrats and a like-minded political cabal “effective and arbitrary control” over the entire U.S. economy creates a dictatorship of faceless and nameless totalitarians whose diktats the political class can claim they are powerless to upend. This is where America is headed, unless we stop these power-crazed autocrats.

Radical New Rules for Post-America

Americans privately fear these rules, while publicly appearing to accept them.

By Victor Davis Hanson March 31, 2021

 

There are 10 new ideas that are changing America, maybe permanently.  

1) Money is a construct. It can be created from thin air. Annual deficits and aggregate national debt no longer matter much. Prior presidents ran up huge annual deficits. But at least there were some concessions that the money was real and had to be paid back.  Not now. As we near $30 trillion in national debt and 110 percent of annual GDP, our elites either believe permanent zero interest rates make the cascading obligation irrelevant, or the larger the debt, the more likely we will be forced to address needed income redistribution. 

2) Laws are not necessarily binding anymore. Joe Biden took an oath to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” But he has willfully rendered federal immigration laws null and void. Some rioters are prosecuted for violating federal laws, others not so much. Arrests, prosecutions, and trials are all fluid. Ideology governs when a law is still considered a law. Crime rates do not necessarily matter. If someone is carjacked, assaulted, or shot, it can be understood to be as much his fault as the perpetrator’s. Either the victim was too lax, uncaring, and insensitive, or he provoked his attacker. How useful the crime is to the larger agendas of the Left determines whether a victim is really a victim, and the victimizer really a victimizer. 

3) Racialism is now acceptable. We are defined first by our particular ethnic or religious tribe, only secondarily—if at all—by an American commonality. Unapologetic and explicit exclusion of whites from dorms, graduations, safe spaces, welfare, and federal aid programs is now noncontroversial. It is unspoken payback for perceived past sins, or a type of “good” racism. Falsely being called a racist makes one more guilty than falsely calling someone else a racist. 

4) The immigrant is mostly preferable to the citizen. The newcomer, unlike the host, is not stained by the sins of America’s founding and history. Most citizens currently must follow quarantine rules, social distancing, stay out of school, and obey all the laws.  Yet those entering the United States en masse and illegally need not follow such apparently superfluous COVID-19 rules. Their children should be immediately schooled without worry of quarantine. Immigrants need not worry about their illegal entry or residence in America. Our elites believe illegal entrants more resemble the “founders” than do legal citizens, about half of whom they consider irredeemable.

5) Most Americans should be treated as we would treat little children. They cannot be asked to provide an ID to vote. “Noble lies” by our elites about COVID-19 rules are necessary to protect “Neanderthals” from themselves. Americans deserve relief from the stress of grades, standardized testing, and normative rules of school behavior. They still are clueless about why it is good for them to pay far more for their gasoline, heating, and air conditioning. 

6) Hypocrisy is passé. Virtue-signaling is alive. Climate change activists fly on private jets. Social justice warriors live in gated communities. Multibillionaire elitists pose as victims of sexism, racism, and homophobia. The elite need these exemptions to help the helpless. It is what you say to lesser others about how to live, not how you yourself live, that matters. 

7) Ignoring or perpetuating homelessness is preferable to ending it. It is more humane for both the homeless and the public that thousands live, eat, defecate, and use drugs on public streets and sidewalks than it is to green-light affordable housing, mandate hospitalization for the mentally ill, and create sufficient public shelter areas. 

8) McCarthyism is good. Destroying lives and careers for incorrect thoughts saves more lives and careers. Cancel culture and the Twitter Reign of Terror provide needed deterrence.  Now that Americans know they are one wrong word, act, or look away from losing their jobs or livelihoods, they are more careful and will behave in a more enlightened fashion. The social media guillotine is the humane, scientific tool of the woke. 

9) Ignorance is preferable to knowledge. Neither statue-toppling, name-changing, nor the “1619 Project” require any evidence or historical knowledge. Heroes of the past were simple constructs. Undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees reflect credentials, not knowledge. The brand, not what created it, is all that matters. 

10) Wokeness is the new religion, growing faster and larger than Christianity itself. Its priesthood outnumbers the clergy, and exercises far more power. Silicon Valley is the new Vatican, and Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Twitter the new Gospels. Americans privately fear these rules, while publicly appearing to accept them.  They still could be transitory and invite a reaction. Or they are already near-permanent and institutionalized.  The answer determines whether a constitutional republic continues as once envisioned, or warps into something never imagined by those who created it.

About Victor Davis Hanson

Victor Davis Hanson is a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness and the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He is an American military historian, columnist, a former classics professor, and scholar of ancient warfare. He has been a visiting professor at Hillsdale College since 2004. Hanson was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2007 by President George W. Bush. Hanson is also a farmer (growing raisin grapes on a family farm in Selma, California) and a critic of social trends related to farming and agrarianism. He is the author most recently of The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won and The Case for Trump.

 

 

The Importance of Rules

September 11, 2020 By John Leonard
 
Last weekend a most extraordinary thing happened -- #1 seed Novak Djokovic was unceremoniously thrown out of the U.S. Open tennis tournament after hitting a ball in anger that accidentally struck a line judge in the throat. She wasn’t seriously hurt, and Djokovic had smacked the ball behind him without looking so the incident was clearly accidental, but rules are rules for a reason. A tennis ball smashed at top speed can cause fairly serious injury, depending on where it hits you. If an unseeded player who earned a wildcard entry would have been defaulted in the same circumstances without question, how would it be fair if the rule was not applied equally to Djokovic, just because he was “supposed” to win the match?

In the interest of full disclosure, I will confess that Djokovic is currently my favorite player to watch, and I was very disappointed that he was unable to finish the match, but I would have been even more disappointed if the rules of the game were not applied fairly and equitably to every player competing in the sport. Rules exist for a reason............

Can you imagine the utter chaos that would ensue if no one enforced the rules? Governments also have “rules of the game” called life. These rules are called laws. Law enforcement are our line judges and the judicial system our chair umpires. Without the police and the rule of law, we’d have the chaos and anarchy we’ve seen in Seattle and Portland spread like a virus throughout the country. Victims of crimes that go unpunished will be tempted to seek vigilante justice or revenge............... The “official” Black Lives Matter organization are nothing more than domestic terrorists with a catchy slogan of passive-aggressive perfection........ it has become painfully and abundantly obvious that not every black life matters equally.....

Liberal Democrat prosecutors desperate to get reelected have overcharged police officers in some of these cases, which discourages more aggressive law enforcement to help keep the peace. Meanwhile, many arrests have been rendered meaningless by district attorneys who subsequently drop all the charges against arsonists and looters. What is the point of arresting somebody if you know in advance they aren’t going to be prosecuted? Rumor has it that George Soros is primarily responsible for financing the elections of these liberal district attorneys who refuse to prosecute crimes unless the accused is a cop.................To Read More....

Rules for white people

May 18, 2019 By Michael James

Old news to you, but I just found out NETFLIX produces a show titled “Dear White People”. How quaint -- another aerobically airheaded mental exercise in doling out privilege to some while presenting a forum to spread blame throughout the larger society. Just what the country needs..........Without rules I might find myself robbing and beating people at stupendous discount; I might even find myself over-represented in penal institutions.

My wife knows the rules, so when a girl’s night out ends up at MacDonald’s she and the other womey’s rarely pull each other’s hair and beat the snot out of each other while men stand around screaming “World Star.”.............Without rules I might write and produce songs about hos and b***hes, educate my children with them, and then pretend those children will be future leaders of the community.

White people aren’t all saints, but people who live in glass ghettoes shouldn’t throw pipe bombs while watching each other crayon over all the lines a polite society employs to safeguard civility and harmony............. Read more

My Take - Okay, so why is there a rules for white people show and not a rules for black people show?  Because everyone knows - making rules for blacks is a waste of time as they have no respect for rules or others.  Including their own race. What's worse, they might riot and burn down the studio what makes the show and attack the people involved.  Now that's a rule for black people that has traction. 

The 2019 Unconstitutionality Index: 12 Federal Agency Rules for Every Law Congress Passes

Clyde Wayne Crews • December 31, 2018

Even in an administration attempting to cut regulation, the number of rules from hundreds of federal agencies (nobody really knows exactly how many) will vastly outstrip the number of laws that Congress passes. That represents the triumph of the Administrative State over the Constitution, and this it even holds under President Trump.

The year 2018 and the 115th Congress have drawn to a close, so let’s look at Trump’s second calendar year.

The 116th Congress gets underway The 116th Congress gets underway January 3, 2019, in the wake of the Trump administration’s touting notable regulatory rollback achievements in a 2018 Regulatory Reform Status Report on the adminstration’s “one-in, two-out” goals for regulation. It’s available on the Unified Agenda web page, although it must be said that it becomes harder over time, for a president acting alone, to streamline anything. ..............As 2018 wound down, the Federal Register ended at 68,082 pages. Within those pages, agencies issued a total of 3,367 rules..........To Read More....