Environmental Justice implies that an injustice has been done.
While the Obumble’s regime continues to stumble into one political scandal after another, the quiet destruction of our economy is being systematically carried out by the EPA. I like to think of the Environmental Protection Agency as the Employment Prevention Agency.
This regime that refuses to prosecute real criminals, has selectively decided that there are environmental victims that now need justice. Who are these victims of such evil environmental segregation? Consider this statement from an EPA senior adviser:
“Far too often, and for far too long, low-income, minority and tribal communities have lived in the shadows of some of the worst pollution, holding back progress in the places where they raise their families and grow their businesses,” said Lisa F. Garcia, senior advisor to the EPA Administrator for Environmental Justice. “Today’s release of Plan EJ 2014 underscores Administrator Jackson’s ongoing commitment to ensuring that all communities have access to clean air, water and land, and that all Americans have a voice in this environmental conversation.”
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Plan EJ 2014 is EPA’s strategy to meet the mandate of Executive Order 12898, “Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations,” which states that each federal agency, with the law as its guide, should make environmental justice part of its mission.
Executive Order 12898 was issued on February 11, 1994 by then President Bill Clinton. You can read the whole text of that Executive Order here. The Environmental Justice movement came about in the 1980’s, and the EPA created the Office of Environmental Justice (Offices of Administration and Resources Management) in 1992. Originally named the Office of Environmental Equity, the purpose of the department was to integrate Environmental Justice concerns with the EPA’s existing programs.
However, Plan EJ 2014 states in the following goals:
- Protect health in communities over-burdened by pollution
- Empower communities to take action to improve their health and environment
- Establish partnerships with local, state, tribal and federal organizations to achieve healthy and sustainable communities.
The EPA calls Plan EJ 2014 a strategy for integration of Environmental Justice into the EPA’s day to day activities and that this is not an regulation or rule. Yet. In 2014, the EPA will issue an “assessment” of its progress in implementing the goals of Plan EJ 2014. A report will be issued detailing the accomplishments, lessons learned, challenges, and next steps in enforcing environmental justice.
How does this redefine the EPA’s authority? Other than issuing environment grants to various groups, does this grant the EPA more power to regulate and apply rules? Who are these people, the low income, minority and tribal communities, that the EPA considers living in the shadows of the worst pollution in America? Where are these places in America that are holding up progress?
Remember in 2009, the EPA declared dust a pollutant. In particular, coarse particulate matter.
In its opinion yesterday, the court upheld EPA’s rule for farm dust, saying that the industry petitioners “mistakenly equated an absence of certainty about dangerousness with the existence of certainty about safety.”
This is significant because it sets the precedent for the EPA to further regulate just about any industry, business and home without any evidence, reason or need. The agency doesn’t have to wait for studies and research to declare anything it wanted as a pollutant. Such as CO2.
EPA’s endangerment finding covers emissions of six key greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride – that have been the subject of scrutiny and intense analysis for decades by scientists in the United States and around the world.
By declaring Carbon Dioxide as a pollutant, the EPA has chosen to endorse junk science. Not only is Carbon Dioxide a naturally producing gas, it is also a necessary gas for life on this planet. How does the EPA regulate CO2? What will it cost and who will the rules affect?
The EPA has been issuing, quietly, rules as a part of the Obama regime’s policy on Cap and Trade. What the regime couldn’t do by legislation, they’ve been doing by Executive Order Fiat. Even though the regime had to delay implementing several of own regulations:
For the second time in four months the Environmental Protection Agency has confirmed that they will again delay the release of their much anticipated global warming regulations.
Only after the regime realized that its EPA regulations would cause major power grid interruptions in order for power companies to comply with the rules. During peak time in the summer and winter when demand for electricity is high, power plants would have to redirect power causing rolling blackouts. Not only would that cause great public hardship, it could also cause emergency first responders from performing public safety duties. It would cause an interruption of businesses causing millions of dollars of lost revenue. It could actually put people’s lives in danger.
Caveat Emptor
Another important issue is the money trail. While the EPA is doling out million dollars in grants, who will be auditing how and where the money is being spent? Who will be held accountable?
Many of these justice grants, however, have been issued through Environmental Justice Small Grants Program, which started in 1994 and has awarded more than $21 million in funding to 1,200 local organizations for environmental justice. In 2010, the Obama administration distributed $1.9 million, more than another year in over a decade.
At the beginning of this year, the EPA awarded another $7 million to “scientists around the country,” as part of the Science to Achieve Results (STAR) research grants program, to study how pollution affects “poor and underserved communities.”
The Environmental Protection Agency should be renamed to the Employment Prevention Agency, because the Obama regime’s track record on green job creation hasn’t been very good. All those green-jobs that were to be created by taxpayer loans are failing. These green companies are going out of business and the government is losing billions of taxpayer dollars in bad investments.
Solyndra, the solar panel company whose highly publicized failure and consequent investigation by federal authorities has flashed across headlines recently, isn’t the only business to go belly up after benefiting from a piece of the $800 billion economic stimulus package passed in 2009.
At least four other companies have received stimulus funding only to later file for bankruptcy, and two of those were working on alternative energy.
In this Fox Business News video by John Stossel entitled “Freeloaders”, shows the difference between Indian tribes that accept government money, and those that use the capitalist free-market system. Clearly, those that employ limited government enjoy a higher standard of life. Could it be that government programs, grants and rules interfere with the health of the community? Could it be that the government is the source the pollution segregation?
As a part of Obumbles plan to redistribute wealth, and the EPA’s pattern of waste and fraud, the regime has obviously identified some group it considers victims of Environmental Segregation. If this is so, then who are the perpetrators? Who is the target of the EPA’s wrath?
What’s For Snacks?
Home Made Banana Bread
E Māua Ola i Moku o Keawe 