According to the GOP’s official website, one of the Republican party’s main goals in the area of environmental politics is to limit the reach of the EPA in favor of allowing private industries to decide how to deal with the environmental impacts of their actions. With the recent Republican takeover of both the House and the Senate, a series of bills aimed to limit the power, reach, and budget of the EPA has been proposed in Congress; the most aggressive of the bills are the Environmental Protection Agency Accountability Act of 2015 and the Regulatory Fairness Act of 2015. These bills pose a serious threat to the ability of the Environmental Protection Agency to continue to effectively regulate the actions of private industries and people in order to provide both environmental and public safety.
Even with the editing of these timelines into realistic standards, however, the main issue lies in the political situation the bill is being proposed during. Multiple bills are being proposed in Congress now with aims to limit the EPA in one-way or another. The EPA Accountability Act aims to reduce the budget of the EPA if the agency fails to reach the goals it sets for itself. However, other bills being proposed by Republican leaders in Congress aim to limit the power the EPA has as an agency in its whole. Many projects the EPA regulates require the cooperation of private interests in order to succeed, therefore if other bills successfully pass reducing the power the EPA has over private interests, this could very likely lead to many goals not being met simply because the EPA does not have the authority to ensure the deadlines are met. This situation would cause a Catch-22 of sorts for the EPA: either cut back on the scope of their projects, likely allowing serious threats to environmental and public safety to be left to fester, or continue doing their job and lose a large chunk of their budget, which could also very well prevent them from completing many tasks under their authority.
The bill requires that when an agency wants to deal with an issue under its jurisdiction, said agency must present not only a proposal on what they would like to do, but all possible alternatives to deal with the issue, along with a cost-benefit analysis of each plan. The bill then requires that the agency either choose the least costly option or prove that the option that costs more is absolutely necessary in dealing with the issue in hand. This creates a time consuming process for the EPA to conduct research in order to not only propose solutions, but all the possible alternatives as well. The EPA would also have to find conclusive evidence that their preferred plan would be not only the best option, but worth the costs.
While this seems to be a “fair” standard, many issues of public safety the EPA must address do not have enough conclusive data yet ready to present as undeniable evidence. As well, according to the Clean Air Act, the EPA must aim to provide acceptable air quality first without allowing costs to prevent the most effective and appropriate responses to be undertaken (Weatherford, 2015).
The answer lies back in 1991. Bill Clinton and his VP Al Gore ran on a platform with promising a heavy-handed environmental policy approach. The GOP took a stance more anti-environmental in favor of cutting back costs. As the two parties took opposing sides on the issue, Republicans and Democrats became more polarized in their arguments as we entered into the new millennium. Democrats began pushing for a more strict approach in regards to global warming, with Republicans citing the burdensome costs of things like cutting carbon costs as not necessary and an overreach of authority by the federal government.
Although no one cause can be traced back to the root of the issues, we are nonetheless left with a system where Republican actively aim to oppose Democrats and go the more extreme stance in order to do so.
Ironically, one study conducted by the University of New Hampshire finds that moderate and conservative Republicans have environmental viewpoints closer to those of independents rather than to extreme right Tea Party Republicans. So what does this say about the Republican majority in Congress, when the party as a whole sways to follow the views of the extreme right on this issue in order to oppose the President?
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Hamilton, L. (2014, December 2). UNH Research: On Environment, Republicans Closer to Independents Than Tea Party. Retrieved March 5, 2015, from http://www.unh.edu/news/releases/2014/12/bp02environment.cfm.
McCright, A., Xiao, C., & Dunlap, R. (2014). Political polarization on support for government spending on environmental protection in the USA, 1974–2012. Social Science Research, 48(Bovember 2014), 251-260. Retrieved March 6, 2015, from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0049089X1400132X.
Mooney, C. (2014, August 12). When did Republicans start hating the environment? Retrieved March 6, 2015, from http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/08/republicans-environment-hate-polarization.
S.110 - Environmental Protection Agency Accountability Act of 2015. (2015, January 7). Retrieved March 4, 2015, from https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/110.
S.54 - Regulatory Fairness Act of 2015. (2015, January 7). Retrieved March 5, 2015, from https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/54.
Weatherford, K. (2015, January 12). 114th Congress Begins Attack on Public Protections with So-Called Regulatory Accountability Act. Center for Effective Government. Retrieved March 5, 2014, from http://www.foreffectivegov.org/blog/114th-congress-begins-attack-public-protections-so-called-regulatory-accountability-act