H.R.861 – To Terminate the Environmental Protection Agency(congress.gov)
congress.gov
H.R.861 – To Terminate the Environmental Protection Agency
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/861/text
31 comments
Why Delhi, Beijing, Chongqing? Why not ask the old-timers who grew up in LA ( cf. https://www.kcet.org/shows/lost-la/las-smoggy-past-in-photos ), for instance? Or how about asking someone who was in Cleveland in June 1969, when the Ohio river caught fire? ( https://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/63 )
Compare those times to today, and you can see the impact of the EPA. Right here, at home.
Compare those times to today, and you can see the impact of the EPA. Right here, at home.
Mostly because we don't have a time machine, and anecdotes are often less impactful than direct experience. The scale, level of filth, and complete disregard for the environment in modern China and India is incomparable to anything ever seen in the USA anyway.
> Anyone in favor of this should have to spend a few months in Dehli, Beijing, Chongqing, or even worse, a true industrial city or district in either country.
I wish people understood something about environment concerns, the action of using cleaner methods is a 'cost', and this cost is only worth paying when the people behind it are willing to pay the cost.
These countries aren't dirty because they don't have an EPA, they are dirty because they are making their lives better and for the time being they don't care about spending huge cost on keeping things clean.
Consider it to be like writing tests for your code. Writing tests for your code is a cost and not every team is willing to pay it, even though they should. If govt creates a National Testing Agency in 1987 which forced teams to have certain code coverage and tests then it would have faced major opposition from most people. In 2007 even fewer teams wrote tests, and in 1997 very few teams wrote tests. Similarly in 2027 testing standards would be a lot bigger norm where the presumption would be that every component is fully covered and tested.
When West had its industrial revolution it was pretty dirty, but it was acceptable to most people because their standards of living were going up exponentially high. Sooner or later after reaching a plateau of progress, they realized that at this point they don't care about increase in standards of living via goods as much as they care about other things like cleaner environment etc.
People in India and China currently don't care so much about environment because of the magnitudes of progress they are seeing. Soon enough they will start valuing cleaner air and water.
I wish people understood something about environment concerns, the action of using cleaner methods is a 'cost', and this cost is only worth paying when the people behind it are willing to pay the cost.
These countries aren't dirty because they don't have an EPA, they are dirty because they are making their lives better and for the time being they don't care about spending huge cost on keeping things clean.
Consider it to be like writing tests for your code. Writing tests for your code is a cost and not every team is willing to pay it, even though they should. If govt creates a National Testing Agency in 1987 which forced teams to have certain code coverage and tests then it would have faced major opposition from most people. In 2007 even fewer teams wrote tests, and in 1997 very few teams wrote tests. Similarly in 2027 testing standards would be a lot bigger norm where the presumption would be that every component is fully covered and tested.
When West had its industrial revolution it was pretty dirty, but it was acceptable to most people because their standards of living were going up exponentially high. Sooner or later after reaching a plateau of progress, they realized that at this point they don't care about increase in standards of living via goods as much as they care about other things like cleaner environment etc.
People in India and China currently don't care so much about environment because of the magnitudes of progress they are seeing. Soon enough they will start valuing cleaner air and water.
I strongly disagree with your statement. Many people in India and China would be happy to have cleaner skies. Especially in China, they know that they have too many polluting factories, and their economy has gotten to the point that they can afford to have treatment of the exhaust - but many companies pay off regulators as that is cheaper than treating their waste products.
Some of the very poorest of the poor would be more open to dirty industry so they can have a more affluent lifestyle, but it is not something they all want. And in the US, we didn't have people willingly trading off more pollution for better jobs - there just wasn't an easy way to stop the polluters.
Some of the very poorest of the poor would be more open to dirty industry so they can have a more affluent lifestyle, but it is not something they all want. And in the US, we didn't have people willingly trading off more pollution for better jobs - there just wasn't an easy way to stop the polluters.
It seems extremely unlikely that most of the people in these countries are fine with the health effects from their environment.
A more likely scenario is that they have no power or voice to do anything about it.
A company exists to create profit. This is true in China, India and the U.S. We can see first hand the damage this causes without some form of regulatory control.
It is similar to saying that the free market will regulate itself and we all know how that turned out.
A company exists to create profit. This is true in China, India and the U.S. We can see first hand the damage this causes without some form of regulatory control.
It is similar to saying that the free market will regulate itself and we all know how that turned out.
We have to stop the republican party to save the planet. They will continue to allow oil companies and chemical companies to pollute and lie about it until we force them to change.
Look I'm an Aussie living in Japan, but I know what the EPA is.
Someone please tell me this won't pass. I really hope not, and I hope this is a moon shot of a bill, as I know how much my original country and my new country follow the US.
Someone please tell me this won't pass. I really hope not, and I hope this is a moon shot of a bill, as I know how much my original country and my new country follow the US.
Don't panic yet. There's all sorts of fun bills that get introduced, chances are slim for any one to make it into law
There's also this https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/899?...
There's also this https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/899?...
I could get potentially get behind this one:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/25/a...
"To promote freedom, fairness, and economic opportunity by repealing the income tax and other taxes, abolishing the Internal Revenue Service"
Note: 36 co-sponsors, but this has no chance of making it into law either.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/25/a...
"To promote freedom, fairness, and economic opportunity by repealing the income tax and other taxes, abolishing the Internal Revenue Service"
Note: 36 co-sponsors, but this has no chance of making it into law either.
"Finally, the bill terminates the national sales tax if the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution (authorizing an income tax) is not repealed within seven years after the enactment of this bill."
So if the 16th isn't repealed, and the IRS no longer exists... does the US just stop functioning in 2024?
So if the 16th isn't repealed, and the IRS no longer exists... does the US just stop functioning in 2024?
So... How does the fed continue to function?
It wouldn't, which would be the entire point.
Reduce government to the size that it can be dragged into the bathroom and drowned in the bathtub, as Grover Norquist eloquently put it, letting state governments and private interests fill the power vacuum.
Reduce government to the size that it can be dragged into the bathroom and drowned in the bathtub, as Grover Norquist eloquently put it, letting state governments and private interests fill the power vacuum.
Yeah, who needs interstates, foreign relations, and minority protections anyway?
Any authority not explicitly granted by the US Constitution to the Federal government lies first with the people, and second with the states. The Federal government is supposed to be the weakest and least privileged by design.
That may not be the most humane, egalitarian or efficient way to run a country at the scale of the US, but to many people that is the way it's supposed to work.
That may not be the most humane, egalitarian or efficient way to run a country at the scale of the US, but to many people that is the way it's supposed to work.
This is noise. My understanding is all kinds of crazy bills like this get introduced all the time by backbenchers, but they almost always never make it past the first few procedural steps.
The page states:
> Mr. Gaetz (for himself, Mr. Massie, Mr. Palazzo, and Mr. Loudermilk) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and in addition to the Committees on Agriculture, Transportation and Infrastructure, and Science, Space, and Technology, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned
If it actually gets traction in a committee, then that's a reasonable time to talk about it seriously.
The page states:
> Mr. Gaetz (for himself, Mr. Massie, Mr. Palazzo, and Mr. Loudermilk) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and in addition to the Committees on Agriculture, Transportation and Infrastructure, and Science, Space, and Technology, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned
If it actually gets traction in a committee, then that's a reasonable time to talk about it seriously.
It’s a shame you can’t sort the resolutions by number of Cosponsors, as that’d give a much better idea of which are viable.
I don’t have a solid number, but I get the impression a resolution is essentially dead out of the gate, if the number of Cosponsors is <50. It does seem to be an easy metric to get a rough idea of which bills have legs, and which are fluff.
I don’t have a solid number, but I get the impression a resolution is essentially dead out of the gate, if the number of Cosponsors is <50. It does seem to be an easy metric to get a rough idea of which bills have legs, and which are fluff.
If the information is public, why can't it be scraped and sorted by a third party?
You can...the government even has code to help
https://github.com/unitedstates/congress
https://github.com/unitedstates/congress
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/browse
I don't see a "filter by sponsor count" but you can at least see the number of sponsors. They have "secret sauce" sorting which tries to surface more important bills and presumably uses number of cosponsors as a filter.
I usually just look at the bill on Govtrack if I want to know what's going on with it.
I don't see a "filter by sponsor count" but you can at least see the number of sponsors. They have "secret sauce" sorting which tries to surface more important bills and presumably uses number of cosponsors as a filter.
I usually just look at the bill on Govtrack if I want to know what's going on with it.
Honestly you never know these days, but it's not a bill from an influential rep, has few cosponsors, and so far has no important movement, so right now it's unlikely. I suspect that the republicans in congress understand that the correct way to get what they want is to have the president order the EPA to roll back tons of regulations, not to literally undo hundreds of thousands at once without review.
Something many people (even Americans) don't realize about the US system is that thousands of bills get introduced every session that have zero chance of passing. They're just to score political points with the home crowd.
Something many people (even Americans) don't realize about the US system is that thousands of bills get introduced every session that have zero chance of passing. They're just to score political points with the home crowd.
Ahh thanks for the reply.
I can't pass because you'd need 60 votes in the senate (which the Republicans don't have).
More of the backstory, including excerpts of the email that the bill sponsor sent to his peers:
Unfortunately, includes auto-play video, but: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bill-to-abolish-epa_us_5...
Unfortunately, includes auto-play video, but: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bill-to-abolish-epa_us_5...
This came up last week. Same thing then as now: this is a House bill by a 32-year-old first-term Congressperson from Florida. Any Congressperson can write any bill they want. Some of them do, hoping to get press coverage. If we had a story for every whackjob go-nowhere bill from the House, the front page would be nothing but this stuff.
The EPA isn't going anywhere.
The EPA isn't going anywhere.
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This comment is completely incidental (because I don't have the energy to comment on the sad content), but does anybody else find the typography and style of these completely bizarre? It looks stuck in the 19th century, and it is very confusing. "A BILL" is much larger than the actual title.
I know one reason for legal ideosyncrasies is that they need a very specific and precise language, and form, to leave no ambiguities. But then the contents of the bill is just one line, "The Environmental Protection Agency shall terminate on December 31, 2018". I'd love them to propertly terminate their cables, or maybe terminate a cockroach, on that given day.
And, don't they have to make it a lot more specific, like what happens to the buildings, the people, ongoing contracts, what older bills have to be amended, and so on? Or is this just an order to some other branch to draft an appropriate law? I find the US government system sometimes very confusing.
I know one reason for legal ideosyncrasies is that they need a very specific and precise language, and form, to leave no ambiguities. But then the contents of the bill is just one line, "The Environmental Protection Agency shall terminate on December 31, 2018". I'd love them to propertly terminate their cables, or maybe terminate a cockroach, on that given day.
And, don't they have to make it a lot more specific, like what happens to the buildings, the people, ongoing contracts, what older bills have to be amended, and so on? Or is this just an order to some other branch to draft an appropriate law? I find the US government system sometimes very confusing.
Question for my American cousins: In your opinion, what percentage of fellow Americans see themselves as part of the global community? I've read a few comments on HN on many different topics along the lines of "but that wouldnt work in the states because we are different". I'm genuinely curious how disconnected from the rest of the planet people feel/are. Thanks in advance.
I have met families in rural West Virginia who for generstions haven't ventured outside of the country. They trace their ancestry back to before 1776. The connection with the global community does not seem real to them. Take this as an extreme example of what some rual communities are like.
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Republicans will never be held accountable by their voters, ever.
Anyone in favor of this should have to spend a few months in Dehli, Beijing, Chongqing, or even worse, a true industrial city or district in either country. The rivers and creeks are full of visible toxic waste, sewage and garbage, the air is so foul and acrid that almost everyone wears masks, your eyes can burn from who-knows-what chemicals in the air, water is trucked in from hundreds of miles away from clean sources (and sometimes imported from different countries entirely). No, that's not fog, that's pollution. No that's not a cloudy day, that's pollution. After a few days with enough time spent outside, you develop congestion and a minor sensation of having a cold, and when you blow your nose a bunch of black and brown soot comes out. But hey, you can pay slave labor wages to make cheap disposable crap for oversees consumer markets!