Posted on 07/06/2011 5:56:12 PM PDT by Kaslin
When the Environmental Protection Agency said in late June that it would force Western coal-fired power plants to install haze-reducing pollution-control equipment at a cost of $1.5 billion a year, it said it had to in order to settle a lawsuit by environmental groups.
One organization involved in the suit, the Environmental Defense Fund, has a long history of taking the EPA to court. In fact, a cursory review finds almost half a dozen cases in the past 10 years.
The odd thing is that the EPA, in turn, has handed EDF $2.76 million in grants over that same period, according to an IBD review of the agency's grant database.
This strange relationship goes well beyond EDF. Indeed, several environmental groups that have received millions in EPA grants regularly file suit against that same agency. A dozen green groups were responsible for more than 3,000 suits against the EPA and other government agencies over the past decade, according to a study by the Wyoming-based Budd-Falen Law Offices.
The EPA even tacitly encourages such suits, going so far as to pay for and promote a "Citizen's Guide" that, among other things, explains how to sue the agency under "citizen suit" provisions in environmental laws. The guide's author — the Environmental Law Institute — has received $9.9 million in EPA grants over the past decade.
And, to top it off, critics say the EPA often ends up paying the groups' legal fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act.
'Sweetheart Suits'
What's going on?
"The EPA isn't harmed by these suits," said Jeffrey Holmstead, who was an EPA official during the Bush administration. "Often the suits involve things the EPA wants to do anyway. By inviting a lawsuit and then signing a consent decree, the agency gets legal cover from political heat."
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
Exactly. PS Your nic is apt...
The EPA. Screwing over the American people with their own money. Nice.
This sounds exactly like what happened with Fannie / Freddie and the “Community Reinvestment Act”
Kill the EPA before they become the second act of the great housing scam.
What we need is to clean house. Would we elect someone in 2012 that just smiles and turns their head away from this mess of wasteful spending and entrenched attorneys, bureaucrats, and demorats?
Not just no, Hell no!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2742458/posts
Related thread. Seems the EAJA has been a cash cow for these extreme environmental organizations. This new bill needs to be passed, but like some posters said, it’ll never pass the Senate.
Thanks very much for posting, Kaslin. DEFUND socialist collectives. DISMANTLE the EPA.
Thanks very much for posting, Kaslin. DEFUND socialist collectives. DISMANTLE the EPA.
Sure does, and this is largely tied up with the 'human caused Global Warming' scam.
SHEESH!...and people are shocked, surprised at this sort of going’s on.
This is why we have to eliminate everything the Left has done since Woodrow Wilson’s time. Anything they have been responsible for has to be run by a legitimate SCOTUS to determine constitutionality, and eliminated. The supporting bureaucracies have to be eliminated.
We have to also pull the chain, and flush the Congressional Bowl. Pull that chain at least three election cycles, and get the Leftists the “H” out of our government, or substantially reduced to inconsequential.
THEY gotta go.
The EPA should not be exempt from the RICO statutes.
Giving public moneys to activist groups to sue the Agency and then not contesting the suits is fraud; money laudering, or worse.
is there not ONE Representative or Senator with the integrity to create a bill defunding this criminal EPA?
This is exactly the same technique used in fisheries management. Green groups are funded by the government through grants, they then turn around and sue NMFS to enact regulations that they couldn’t get through the public hearing process. It does not hurt the federal agency, but rather promotes their real agenda. I have seen this first hand, going on for decades.
It's not limited to the EPA. Other government agencies, at all levels, use the courts to allow them to expand their powers by inviting lawsuits in the jurisdiction of a sympathetic judge, deliberately losing the suit, and then saying they must do what the court orders.
Contrast that with what the Obama administration does when a court issues an order that they DON'T want to do, like allowing oil drilling.
note: The photo with the article is probably deceptive. That “smoke” is probably condensed water vapor, NOT particulate matter. The “smoke” probably evaporates & disappears just downwind of this photo. Coal fired power plants have been required to have stack scrubbers since the EPA began implementing the stack scrubber policy in 1978, as required by the 1977 Clean Air Act amendments.
“Wet scrubbers may increase the proportion of water in the gas, resulting in a visible stack plume, if the gas is sent to a stack”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrubber
We have a mill in our town that makes cardboard using recycled paper & cardboard and wood chips. On a cool day with high humidity the mill puts out billowing clouds of “smoke”. On a day with low humidity the “smoke” disappears about 100 feet from the smoke stack.
Paper mills are notorious for the horrible smell. The only smell this plant emits is a faint odor of wet wood chips. The plant is located three blocks from “downtown” in our small town.
Overall, it is a good employer and a good neighbor.
Wtf?
The underlying goal is to subjugate America under communist rule. Those in the inner circle have this direct goal, and they recruit fellow travelers and dupes under the guise of environmentalism.
This is the same reason that China is exempt from “Global Warming” treaties (because they’re communist) and why America is targeted (as the most capitalist).
You have to keep playing “whack a mole” with the commies, though, because they’ll just slink away and find another popular feel-good cause to get behind in order to increase their power and reduce the influence of capitalism.
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