One needs to look no further than the “debate” over “global warming” to see how far the EPA has gone off the tracks since you retired. The surface temperature data that we have available even as manipulated and flawed as it is... still shows no statistically sinificant warming for approximately 18 years. Yet our EPA and Obama still insist that CO2 is a harmful polutant that is causing irreversable damage. Where is the measurable data that supports this belief? It does not exist.
Yet you call this type of argument, “rightwing rhetoric”. I actually work on a hazmat team. My interaction with the people I come into contact with, the technicians who work with the EPA have mostly been positive. Unfortunately, the technicians make up only a very small percentage of people working for the EPA. I have had conversations with some of the technicians and in some most they are as appalled as I am over what is going on at the administrative level.
That is being driven by the courts.
In 2007 SCOTUS ruled that CO2 was a pollutant, that EPA should determine the risk, and regulate CO2 with the clean air act.
Both Bush and Obama tried to get Congress to deal with it, but Congress failed because of conflicts within the GOP.
That resulted in the 2010 lawsuit against EPA over how and why EPA would regulate CO2
In June 2012, the DC Court of Appeals ruled for the EPA.
In May 2013, the DC Court's decision was appealed to SCOTUS and that is where it sits. Its not known if SCOTUS will take the case or how they might rule.