WatchThe U.S. Supreme Court has ruled unanimously in favor of an Idaho couple who were prevented from building their dream home after the Environmental Protection Agency barred them from building on their land. The agency claimed the property was protected wetlands under the federal Clean Water Act.
http://www.npr.org/2012/03/21/149101530/supreme-court-property-owners-can-challenge-epa
Half the time the EPA acts like a bunch of tyrannical idiots picking on lowly civilians having no impact on the environment while ignore huge devastation being done right next door by corporations. Evidently, the EPA just wants easy wins against nobodies rather than doing real work to protect the environment from the real threats, corporations that pollute on a massive scale like coal factories and mines that dump waste into rivers. That that would take balls.
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Every time the EPA tries to do some real environmental good, they're threatened with being dismantled.
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So instead of doing real good, they pick on nobodies with zero environmental impact?
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YOU say it's nobodies. However they may see it as enforcing and not overlooking the little guys either.
In other countries it is routine for people to build houses on park land and so forth, anything they can get away with or bribe their way out of.
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Vicente says
And if they went after the companies that actually had an impact on the environment, maybe you could make a case that they are only being thorough. But the EPA is like the SEC ignoring Goldman Sacs and going after Martha Stewart's dog.
There was a case in Florida where the EPA used eminent domain to steal a dozen houses from people who lived in them for decades. The EPA offered 10% of the value of the house and said take it and give up all your legal rights or we'll still take your house and give you nothing.
Meanwhile, we can't even eat tuna fish or most other sea food without getting methylmercury poisoning. I can't respect the EPA as long as it screws the little guy, doing nothing for the environment, while letting large corporations with money and lawyers completely destroy the ecosystem.
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Dan8267 says
I admit I don't follow what the EPA does or doesn't do on a daily basis.
However I know that the GOP rails against them as "strangling the economy" which I don't think they do 2 people at a time. So I assume they are out there doing something against large corporate GOP supporters.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/18/us/politics/18epa.html
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I read a book by James Galbraith which explained that many environmental regulations (not all!) are intended simply to protect big business from competition.
If you're a small business, you can't afford to comply with all the regulations, so you can't compete in whatever area they have managed to regulate against you.
So while we of course do need the legitimate environmental regulation, lobbyists delight in conflating the good regulations with regulations intended simply to prevent the 99% from competing with the 1%.
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Patrick says
Many people including Ron Paul and Peter Schiff have stated that regulations in general help large corporations with economies of scale in the legal department because they create a barrier to entry into markets and thus prevent competition. To a large extend this is true.
However, that's not the issue I have with the EPA. It's purpose is good, but it's execution is quite often bureaucrats harming the little guy who's impact on the environment is zilch while ignoring the real polluters. Even well meaning departments can become corrupted, and when they do, they need to be slapped back in place.
Patrick says
Exactly. And this applies to all kinds of regulations, not just environmental.
If the EPA enforced a zero net pollution on power plants, wind and solar would become cheap real fast and the oceans wouldn't be poisoned with mercury. Sure, there are short term costs, but the long term costs of the status quo are far greater.
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Vicente says
No, but they do pick on the little guy who can't afford an army of lawyers.
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Dan8267 says
Yeah, what else are they supposed to do?
It's another in a long line of toothless organizations. I'm sure at some point in the future, when things get Really Bad, some politician will create a new three letter acronym organization that will do the same thing as the EPA, but will not actually replace it. Much like how we have the FBI, CIA, NSA, and DHS.
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Dan8267 says
Yep, just like the SEC goes after tiny broker outfits, the IRS goes after single parents and small business owners, etc. In the rare instance government agencies go after the big boys, it's settled with a wrist slap and without admitting guilt on the part of the firm. It's all about getting the numbers up without stepping on toes.
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OK, We've got the IRS, FBI, CIA, NSA, DHS, ABC, NASA, EPA, DOJ, DOC, DOE, GOP, IRA, SEC, GOA, UTI, PUC, IRC, DDC, RTC, POC, WET, OCC, PJB, SIM, IIU, UAW, AFL, CIO, TTP, BOW, COW, NOW, TOW, TWO, NNN, COO, CFO, ZFB, XYZ, BOS, ETC.
Which entity are the citizens most fearful of? THATS the question!
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The GOP is most dangeous one. Their class warfare is rapidly turning the US into a banana republic, where the hereditary aristocracy owns everything, and everyone else is their permanent peons, no matter how hard they work.
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Honest Abe says
Yeah, I'm a afraid of NASA. They might bring back transforming robots from the moon that will kill us all. Good example lumping them in with the rest.
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Dan8267 says
Someone get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning? The epa is about average for a large government agency. Instead of throwing up all this crap why don't you just go to the EPA's website and look at their enforcements. It's all public record.
http://cfpub.epa.gov/compliance/cases/
Union pacific, singular, moex, dupont. Not exactly noboddies. Yes the clean air act is a mess. Yes congresscritters meddle all the time as paid lackies of the monied elite. It's all part of the game. BTW the EPA has been trying to enforce pollution standards on coal power plants for 30 years, but congress has kept them protected.
But as someone who remembers serious pollution in the 60's I would say to everyone who is too young to remember you need to thank the republicans of the Nixon era for the clean air and water act.
I guess in people like Honest Ab's world air you can't see through or rivers that catch fire are just part of the cost of freedom
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Bob, I'm not against regulation. I'm against MASSIVE, obsessive, crushing, OVER-regiulation by a huge body of government employees feeding at the government teat, with their unions demanding and recieving concessions and benefits that private workers don't get. Thats all.
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Patrick, I feel bad for you. You seem to be so entrenched in the victim, shortage, "The Man" is holding me down, mentality.
Here's an interesting quote: "I've been an entrepreneur for most of my life. In 1996 I co-founded LinkExchange which sold for $265 million in 1998. In 1999 I got involved with Zappos and in 2009 it was sold to Amazon for over $1.2 billion.
I've also always been an avid book reader. At Zappos, we encouraged our employees to read. We want to deliver a better customer experience which will make customers happier and create more customer loyalty, leading to inceased profits." Tony Hsieh.
Tony Hsieh doens't seem to exhibit the victim, shortage, the "Man" or the "1%'rs" are holding me down mentality. You should stop being so co-dependent with the concept of scarcity. I would encourage you to embrace abundance. Its very uplifting.
Todays book recommendation: Delivering Happiness, by Tony Hsieh.
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From the "About Patrick" page:
"Liberals say that everyone should be free to live life how they want to, as long as they don't hurt anyone else. The people dictating the conservative agenda just use your fear and shame to get you to help the very rich evade taxes. They create fear and shame to control you: fear that government will take your money in taxes and tell you what to do, fear that immigrants below you will take your job and make you take one you're ashamed of, the shame of working for people who disrespect you. They tell you that your salvation is in playing along with their entire agenda.
But there is only one part of their agenda they really care about: lower taxes on the very rich, people who get more than $1,000,000 in unearned income per year. Everything else is just to get you to vote for lower taxes on the very rich."
http://patrick.net/forum/?p=16284
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bob2356 says
When the EPA extorts people and steals their houses, it ain't crap.
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bob2356 says
When the EPA extorts people and steals their houses, it ain't crap.
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Dan, I second that.
Even worse, they have totally and completly crushed families, taken their property and literally drove them into bankrupcy. Thats abuse of power (government gone wild).
Heck, the EPA was even ridiculed in Ghost Busters. And in Jurrasic Park an attorney was eaten by T-Rex (Speilbergs true feelings towards attroneys...YES!!!).
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People who complain about environmental laws are similar to those who complain about vaccines and autism. Just like the vaccine nutjobs never had to experience the horrors of smallpox, polio, and the like, the anti-environment crowd never had to experience the horrors of Love Canal, rampant birth defects, routine stage three smog alerts, and American rivers catching on fire.
How quickly they forget. This is what unregulated free markets get you: Burning bodies of WATER:
Anyone care for an afternoon of fishing?
Or maybe we can take the kids down to the lake for a nice swim!
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Sorry, I had to delete a copyrighted image.
It's better if you just paste in a URL to the image. That way, it remains on the owner's server.
"Fair use" is kind of a judgement call.
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Nomograph says
When you cant manufacture semiconductors in Silicon Valley to create the fabric that runs the digital universe, because of the EPA, there is very little reason to call your self the heart of innovation and technology... get rid of the name 'Silicon Valley"
You get this...a far cry from the booming economy of the 60-70-80s.. What will the lefties crow about today.. Advertising.
Silicon Valley, Ca - Vacant Office space equal 15 Empire State Buildings
http://www.officefinder.com/blog/post.cfm/silicon-vally-ca-vacant-office-space-equal-15-empire-state-buildings/6331
A Bloomberg news report says Silicon Valley has the biggest office space glut since the dot-com bust, leaving the U.S. technology hub with empty high-rises and office parks that make it impossible for landlords to sustain average rents.
More than 43 million square feet of office space stood vacant in the third quarter of last year -- that's the equivalent to 15 Empire State buildings and a vacancy rate over 21% for the silicon valley area.
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Dan8267 says
Somebody has to fight off the nazis:
thomas.wong1986 says
Bwahahahahahahahaha.
Yeah, it's the EPA that caused chip makers to move their factories out of state, not the ridiculous land costs and ridiculous labor costs.
psst...manufacturing isn't the "innovative" part of silicon valley. Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, Apple, Google, etc. are all doing just fine, thankyouverymuch
By the way, you don't manufacture things in office space.
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Kevin says
The R&D space you see today was the same building that were manufacturing plants. Where else did you make Sun Sparc stations, Semi Fabrication, Semi Equip Mfg, Harddrive and the Apple products back in the day. Yes, it was here...
As for the EPA, no you couldnt build the same mfg facilties in SV today because of the EPA and their regulations.
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Kevin says
No they are not doing well, because US products and IP is being hacked and copied by the Chinese and used against the US. This is a national security problem.
Intel: We Were Hacked Too
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-google-hack-china-hackers,9726.html
US military access cards cracked by Chinese hackers
http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2012/01/13/sykipot_trojan_dod_smart_card_attack/
China's Army Hacked Pentagon Network
http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,148037,00.html
Real-life Star Wars: US claims Chinese military were behind hackers who seized control of two U.S. satellites
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2062755/Real-life-Star-Wars-Were-Chinese-hackers-attacks-U-S-military-satellites.html
Counterfeit chips plague Pentagon weapons systems
The Navy Bought Fake Chinese Microchips That Could Have Disarmed U.S. Missiles
Read more: http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-06-27/news/30048253_1_microchips-missiles-foreign-chip-makers#ixzz1q5dT20Yb
Last year, the U.S. Navy bought 59,000 microchips for use in everything from missiles to transponders and all of them turned out to be counterfeits from China.
Wired reports the chips weren't only low-quality fakes, they had been made with a "back-door" and could have been remotely shut down at any time.
If left undiscovered the result could have rendered useless U.S. missiles and killed the signal from aircraft that tells everyone whether it's friend or foe.
Apparently foreign chip makers are often better at making cheap microchips and U.S. defense contractors are loathe to pass up the better deal.
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Nomograph says
None of us are saying that there should not be very high standards of protection for the environment. We're saying that the EPA's practice of enforcement is often inept and unethical if not down right illegal.
We need good laws and sensible enforcement of them. The first two pictures you posted are the result of small time citizens, but rather they are the result of big corporations with armies of lawyers. The third is ambiguous.