After Scott Pruitt's disgraceful period destroying the Environmental Protection Agency came to an end, his right-hand-man Andrew Wheeler took his position and has been doing the same work but more quietly, quickly, and effectively. Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist, is overseeing a "reorganization" of the agency according to the EPA. We know the truth - he's destroying it just like Pruitt was.
CALL TO ACTION: A SPECIAL REPORT FROM SMART DISSENT ABOUT PUBLIC COMMENTS ON PROPOSED ADMINISTRATIVE REGULATIONS
When you put lobbyists in positions to make the rules in OUR government, this is what happened. These are people who spent their career working to find loopholes, create new ones, and re-write the rules to help private companies to make money. They paid off congress, cabinet, and others to get their way. Now they are the government employees making the rules.
The Trump administration has completed a detailed legal proposal to dramatically weaken a major environmental regulation covering mercury, a toxic chemical emitted from coal-burning power plants....
The headline pretty much tells the story here but please allow us to elaborate a bit.
After the education secretary, Betsy DeVos, started scaling back consumer protections for student borrowers last year, six states and the District of Columbia sped up their own efforts to crack down on abusive lending practices by companies that administer federal loan programs.
There are two separate issues identified in this post. First are gun dealers selling illegally to individuals who have failed or would fail a background check. Second are individuals lying on background checks and never facing punishment for it which encourages them to keep lying to try to buy a gun.
First, on gun dealers who have a vital role to play in stopping gun crimes. For some, what appears to be missing are the will, the competence and the incentives to play that role well.
Sometimes the headline says it all. Once you've stopped shaking your head in disgust, please continue to read below.
....new internal emails from the US Department of Agriculture show big food industry lobbyists are working hand-in-glove with agency staffers.... top USDA political appointees -- former lobbyists themselves -- are in frequent contact with their old employers and others who are lobbying the agency, and...those lobbyists are seeking to influence the agency on issues large and small.
Sometimes Republicans give away the entire game without realizing it. OUR Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), designed to protect us, is doing just the opposite. Want proof?
With faith in our government and our democracy at historically low levels, it's important to recognize there are progressive warriors in Washington fighting for us we believe in our individual and collective futures.
To Warren, the Trump administration’s nepotism is emblematic of everything that is wrong with Washington. But she doesn’t just want to replace Trump and his administration with better actors; she wants to blow up the existing system and start from scratch.
It was nearly a year ago Smart Dissent wrote about the announced repeal of the Clean Power Plan which sought to push states to move away from coal in favor of sources of electricity that produce fewer carbon emissions.
The original post included below is from April 4, 2017 when Scott Pruitt was just getting started with his destruction. Please re-read to remind yourself on the topic of chlorpyrifos but then see this major update from earlier in August.
A federal court on Thursday [August 9, 2018] ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to ban a pesticide used widely in farming.
The 2-1 ruling on a lawsuit brought by public health groups and state attorneys general ordered the agency "to revoke all tolerances and cancel all registrations for chlorpyrifos within 60 days."