4 ms·

Trump rolls back US water pollution controls

64 points by jgwil2 7y ago

jandrese 7y ago
Good news for farmers that don't want to have to worry if the tiny creek on their property drains into a river system. Not so good news for fisherman who lose catches to algae blooms from farm runoff.
- throwawayhhakdl 7y ago
  Also bad news for people who drink water.
- TehCorwiz 7y ago
  And not good news for anyone who depends on clean groundwater.
- givinguflac 7y ago
  so, not good news unless you're someone who wants to pollute more easily. got it
- AlexandrB 7y ago
  An analysis based on pure short-term utility with no consideration for long-term effects. Modern business culture in a nutshell.
- Spooky23 7y ago
  It's good news for specific types of farmers, mostly midwest commodity farmers and feedlots. This is just patronage for flyover Senators to cement their support.
hello_friendos 7y ago
Another day, another terrible thing coming out of the United States
uptown 7y ago
"Under the new regulations, landowners and property developers will be able to pour pesticides, fertilizers and other pollutants directly into millions of miles of the nation's waterways for the first time in decades." Are we great again, yet?
- pupppet 7y ago
  Seriously America, how is this guy's approval rating greater than 0.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    “This guy” is just acting out the ideology the mainstream right carefully cultivated in the electorate for decades (the mainstream right mainly did it, arguably, to get maneuvering room for more modest substantive policy, but once it's cultivated you can't contain it that way if someone is offering them the whole deal they've been conditioned to see as ideal.)
JC5413789642675 7y ago
"We're the cleanest we've ever been" - Trump Yeah, nimrod, because of those protections!
- Ygg2 7y ago
  Hey, don't disrespect Nimrods! They are just regular hunters.
- CWuestefeld 7y ago
  That is not correct. The Clean Air and Clean Water acts don't really show up as important events if you chart out the levels of pollution in America. The levels had been decreasing before the acts, largely because of state-level regulation and self-regulation. Of course, it's not that these acts didn't do anything. They were discrete pieces in the larger edifice that led to the environmental improvements. But it's certainly incorrect to claim that these acts were THE reasons for the cleanup, and thus it's also incorrect to expect that rolling back those acts would return pollution to the previous levels.
CWuestefeld 7y ago
Why are we wanting, or even allowing, the Executive to unilaterally set pollution standards? The right way to do this in the American system is for Congress to enshrine the regulations as laws. Then the President does what Congress says. If we're trying to end-run around Congress's prerogative and responsibility to write the laws, then we shouldn't be surprised when regulations are changed by the caprice of the Executive, as they did with both Obama and now Trump.
- zionic 7y ago
  I agree 100%, but that would require we have progress instead of congress.
- jasonjayr 7y ago
  IIRC the Executive gets to do this because the EPA is part of the executive branch. Can congress setup an agency that is outside of the control of the executive?
  - CWuestefeld 7y ago
    The EPA implements the regulations as described by Congress. Right now, Congress has been very fuzzy about specifics, leaving it to the Executive to fill in the details. Phrased differently, Congress has explicitly given the EPA (under the direction of the President!) a great deal of latitude, and Presidents are using that latitude in both directions. But if Congress has set it up that way, we shouldn't be surprised that this is what happens. The correct fix is to get Congress to provide clearer specs. I suspect that the reason they don't, is that when they're less specific, they are less vulnerable to scrutiny by any given demographic. If they just say "we did something", then maybe both the Sierra Club and the farmers will be happy. But the more specific they are, the more it's going to piss off one or more blocks of voters. So they punt, abdicating their powers. And the result is that things can change as the wind blows. We should not be vesting so much power in the President.
- 40acres 7y ago
  I'm not exactly sure when it started but I've been amazed at how weak Congress is. Presidents are basically conducting war without Congressional approval, signing 'trade deals', vast executive orders, etc. all while Congress twiddle their thumbs. The judiciary and executive have way more power than Congress right now.
tartoran 7y ago
This got flagged. Im a bit confused as to why it did
- jandrese 7y ago
  Because someone clicked the button to flag the article.
- folkhack 7y ago
  In my time on HN I've seen everything political get flagged almost immediately which takes politics out of the discussion here. I don't think it's banned in the rules, but it may as well be because nothing ever really sees the light of day too long without an immediate flag.
- jgwil2 7y ago
  From the guidelines: > Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. To be fair, Trump dismantling environmental regulations is not really an "interesting new phenomenon." I disagree that it's off-topic but I can see how some would consider it so. Edit: resolved ambiguity by expanding OT to off-topic
tzs 7y ago
From a NY Times story a few weeks ago on this [1]: > A top panel of government-appointed scientists, many of them hand-selected by the Trump administration, said on Tuesday that three of President Trump’s most far-reaching and scrutinized proposals to weaken major environmental regulations are at odds with established science. > Draft letters posted online Tuesday by the Environmental Protection Agency’s Scientific Advisory Board, which is responsible for evaluating the scientific integrity of the agency’s regulations, took aim at the Trump administration’s rewrite of an Obama-era regulation of waterways, an Obama-era effort to curb planet-warming vehicle tailpipe emissions and a plan to limit scientific data that can be used to draft health regulations. > In each case, the 41 scientists on a board — many of whom were appointed by Trump administration officials to replace scientists named by the Obama administration — found the regulatory changes flew in the face of science. > A forthcoming rule on water pollution “neglects established science” by “failing to acknowledge watershed systems,” the scientists said. They found “no scientific justification” for excluding certain bodies of water from protection under the new regulations. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/31/climate/epa-science-panel-trump.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/31/climate/epa-science-panel...

64 points by jgwil2 7y ago

Good news for farmers that don't want to have to worry if the tiny creek on their property drains into a river system. Not so good news for fisherman who lose catches to algae blooms from farm runoff.

throwawayhhakdl 7y ago
Also bad news for people who drink water.
TehCorwiz 7y ago
And not good news for anyone who depends on clean groundwater.
givinguflac 7y ago
so, not good news unless you're someone who wants to pollute more easily. got it
AlexandrB 7y ago
An analysis based on pure short-term utility with no consideration for long-term effects. Modern business culture in a nutshell.
Spooky23 7y ago
It's good news for specific types of farmers, mostly midwest commodity farmers and feedlots. This is just patronage for flyover Senators to cement their support.

hello_friendos 7y ago

Another day, another terrible thing coming out of the United States

uptown 7y ago

"Under the new regulations, landowners and property developers will be able to pour pesticides, fertilizers and other pollutants directly into millions of miles of the nation's waterways for the first time in decades." Are we great again, yet?

pupppet 7y ago
Seriously America, how is this guy's approval rating greater than 0.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  “This guy” is just acting out the ideology the mainstream right carefully cultivated in the electorate for decades (the mainstream right mainly did it, arguably, to get maneuvering room for more modest substantive policy, but once it's cultivated you can't contain it that way if someone is offering them the whole deal they've been conditioned to see as ideal.)

JC5413789642675 7y ago

"We're the cleanest we've ever been" - Trump Yeah, nimrod, because of those protections!

Ygg2 7y ago
Hey, don't disrespect Nimrods! They are just regular hunters.
CWuestefeld 7y ago
That is not correct. The Clean Air and Clean Water acts don't really show up as important events if you chart out the levels of pollution in America. The levels had been decreasing before the acts, largely because of state-level regulation and self-regulation. Of course, it's not that these acts didn't do anything. They were discrete pieces in the larger edifice that led to the environmental improvements. But it's certainly incorrect to claim that these acts were THE reasons for the cleanup, and thus it's also incorrect to expect that rolling back those acts would return pollution to the previous levels.

CWuestefeld 7y ago

Why are we wanting, or even allowing, the Executive to unilaterally set pollution standards? The right way to do this in the American system is for Congress to enshrine the regulations as laws. Then the President does what Congress says. If we're trying to end-run around Congress's prerogative and responsibility to write the laws, then we shouldn't be surprised when regulations are changed by the caprice of the Executive, as they did with both Obama and now Trump.

zionic 7y ago
I agree 100%, but that would require we have progress instead of congress.
jasonjayr 7y ago
IIRC the Executive gets to do this because the EPA is part of the executive branch. Can congress setup an agency that is outside of the control of the executive?
- CWuestefeld 7y ago
  The EPA implements the regulations as described by Congress. Right now, Congress has been very fuzzy about specifics, leaving it to the Executive to fill in the details. Phrased differently, Congress has explicitly given the EPA (under the direction of the President!) a great deal of latitude, and Presidents are using that latitude in both directions. But if Congress has set it up that way, we shouldn't be surprised that this is what happens. The correct fix is to get Congress to provide clearer specs. I suspect that the reason they don't, is that when they're less specific, they are less vulnerable to scrutiny by any given demographic. If they just say "we did something", then maybe both the Sierra Club and the farmers will be happy. But the more specific they are, the more it's going to piss off one or more blocks of voters. So they punt, abdicating their powers. And the result is that things can change as the wind blows. We should not be vesting so much power in the President.
40acres 7y ago
I'm not exactly sure when it started but I've been amazed at how weak Congress is. Presidents are basically conducting war without Congressional approval, signing 'trade deals', vast executive orders, etc. all while Congress twiddle their thumbs. The judiciary and executive have way more power than Congress right now.

tartoran 7y ago

This got flagged. Im a bit confused as to why it did

jandrese 7y ago
Because someone clicked the button to flag the article.
folkhack 7y ago
In my time on HN I've seen everything political get flagged almost immediately which takes politics out of the discussion here. I don't think it's banned in the rules, but it may as well be because nothing ever really sees the light of day too long without an immediate flag.
jgwil2 7y ago
From the guidelines: > Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. To be fair, Trump dismantling environmental regulations is not really an "interesting new phenomenon." I disagree that it's off-topic but I can see how some would consider it so. Edit: resolved ambiguity by expanding OT to off-topic

tzs 7y ago

From a NY Times story a few weeks ago on this [1]: > A top panel of government-appointed scientists, many of them hand-selected by the Trump administration, said on Tuesday that three of President Trump’s most far-reaching and scrutinized proposals to weaken major environmental regulations are at odds with established science. > Draft letters posted online Tuesday by the Environmental Protection Agency’s Scientific Advisory Board, which is responsible for evaluating the scientific integrity of the agency’s regulations, took aim at the Trump administration’s rewrite of an Obama-era regulation of waterways, an Obama-era effort to curb planet-warming vehicle tailpipe emissions and a plan to limit scientific data that can be used to draft health regulations. > In each case, the 41 scientists on a board — many of whom were appointed by Trump administration officials to replace scientists named by the Obama administration — found the regulatory changes flew in the face of science. > A forthcoming rule on water pollution “neglects established science” by “failing to acknowledge watershed systems,” the scientists said. They found “no scientific justification” for excluding certain bodies of water from protection under the new regulations. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/31/climate/epa-science-panel-trump.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/31/climate/epa-science-panel...