15 ms·

EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

195 points by julienchastang 6y ago

spaetzleesser 6y ago
It’s very hard to understand why the current administration has such an urge to roll back environmental regulations. I grew up in a time when rivers were red or green depending on what type of leather the factory upstream was processing at the time. The only fish you could see were dead. Breathing in cities was hard. Environmental regulation is a big success story that improved the lives of countless people while companies could still make enormous profits. Why try to roll that back? If anything we should get even more clean.
- hylaride 6y ago
  Follow the money.
- outworlder 6y ago
  > It’s very hard to understand why the current administration has such an urge to roll back environmental regulations. No, it's very easy. Environmental regulations cost money. Lots of money. It's much more profitable to keep these externalities.
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
    Pretty much. It is annoying, but it is not difficult to understand.
  - ngngngng 6y ago
    Where does that money go?
    - jandrese 6y ago
      To the 0.1%.
      - ngngngng 6y ago
        Ok Mr. Sanders. I meant like literally. Where does the money that is spent meeting environmental regulations go? The money is not just being burnt up. It's going to a different segment of the economy, I'm just not versed in what that means or looks like.
        jandrese 6y ago
        Oh, you meant the environmental regulation money? I misread your question, I thought you were talking about the money saved by the oil and gas companies when they removed said regulation. Anyway, that money is generally spent on equipment and processes to clean up after whatever the company is doing. Collection pods for contaminated water. Scrubbers on chimneys. Direct pay to inspectors to come out and make sure you aren't trying to cheat to save money. That sort of thing. It spreads out across the entire economy. Markets and industries are formed to support finding the cheapest way to keep the processes in question from damaging the environment and requiring much more expensive cleanup (think EPA superfund and class action lawsuits over medical conditions suffered by nearby communities) after the fact.
        brewdad 6y ago
        So it creates jobs? Someone has to build those collection ponds. Those chimney scrubbers don't just grow in the forest. Why can't Democrats get that message across?
        jandrese 6y ago
        For some strange reason Fox News and AM Talk Radio never mention that part. So the message never reaches the base. The only people who would mention it are the untrustworthy lieberal media.
        12xo 6y ago
        The Right is dominated in media silos. AM radio is almost exclusively right wing talk these days. FoxNews is 100% propaganda and almost all fiction. Avg people who support the GOP are encrusted inside this silo. They do not listen, watch, read or see any objective news. Its 100% partisan political propaganda. So getting the message through isnt possible. Its about as biased as anything in history. But they'll tell you that they're oppressed by the Liberal Media... Facts be damned.
  - dmurray 6y ago
    I'd say it goes further than that. With the polarisation of American politics, rolling back environmental regulations is politically popular with one cohort of voters just because it's unpopular with the "other" side. Repealing regulations (not necessarily environmental ones) was popular enough to be a Trump campaign promise, after all.
    - zentiggr 6y ago
      I've seen someone's opinion basically summarized as "a lot of these [Trump / republican] supporters don't really reason through anything political beyond "fuck liberals". As long as it opposes the damn liberals and whatever they want, it's all good, no matter how illogical, self-harming, or clueless in any other regard.
      - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
        When someone summarizes their political rivals' positions as "they're just nasty people who hate me and want to oppose anything I like", I don't think you should put a tremendous amount of stock in that.
        pjc50 6y ago
        That has literally been their stated position: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/own-libs-was-snide-way-mock-conservatives-now-fun-way-ncna897636 https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/own-libs-was-snide-way...
        zentiggr 6y ago
        Opinion columns are not particularly strong support for any position. Other than some secondary references in the piece, I don't see anything factual there, just the writer's take on each side baiting the other.
        michaelmrose 6y ago
        This would be an easier argument to make if one side wasn't making an issue out of wearing masks, fighting for their right to spread a deadly disease to others, and in some cases actually attacking people for asking them to wear masks.
  - ardy42 6y ago
    > No, it's very easy. Environmental regulations cost money. Lots of money. It's much more profitable to keep these externalities. I don't think that's the whole story. You also have Zombie Reaganism, which has the Republicans reflexively aping 80s policy as the response to everything, even though it's not the 80s anymore.
    - klyrs 6y ago
      They've profited handsomely from Reagan's policies. That's not exclusive to Republicans either; I think dems would be quite incensed about Hunter Biden in a different political context.
  - paulryanrogers 6y ago
    Money can't buy cures for many pollution causing diseases. We should require that those in charge of these regulations must periodically drink from the 'treated' water output which tests as most polluted. Likewise they must breath air samples from the communities that test as most polluted. Once it's personal, and they can't buy their way out then improvements can be maintained.
    - jefurii 6y ago
      > We should require that those in charge of these regulations must periodically drink from the 'treated' water output Better yet, they and their spouses and children.
  - Reason077 6y ago
    > ”Environmental regulations cost money. Lots of money.” That’s a narrow-minded view. Sure, environmental regulations cost oil and gas companies money. But this fails to consider the external costs to society: increased healthcare costs and reduced life expectancy due to air and water pollution, future costs of global heating including property damage to coastal cities from rising sea levels, agricultural regions becoming less productive, etc. Secondly, reducing dependence on fossil fuels (many of which are imported, even in America) will improve energy security and reduce energy costs in the long term. Great economic benefits, as well as environmental ones.
    - nickff 6y ago
      The USA has been improving energy security by reducing net fossil fuel imports since 2005, just not by weaning off carbon-based fuels.[1] [1] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-products/imports-and-exports.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-produc...
    - arkanciscan 6y ago
      the choir errupts in applause
    - Finnucane 6y ago
      Sure, but oil companies have the narrow view. External costs to society: they care not. Any cost they can pass on to you, they will.
      - Reason077 6y ago
        Of course. But is it government’s role solely to boost oil company profits? Or should they consider these against long-term costs incurred by everyone? Surely there is a middle ground that works for everyone. It’s not as if major oil companies are struggling to survive.
        ianleeclark 6y ago
        > But is it government’s role solely to boost oil company profits? Or should they consider these against long-term costs incurred by everyone? We don't live in a world where we get to speculate on what the intended role of government ought to be.
  - mistrial9 6y ago
    tragically, markets have a way to settle, such that costs rise to match cash flows.. so the easy (and true) accusation "It's much more profitable to keep these externalities" is part of the story.. profit is sometimes over decades with low margins and upfront investment (coal) .. telling people that the coal barons are simply paying their long term loans and legally-mandated retirement benefits, is not as appealing to outrage the public.. I agree that it is apparently a bonding exercise among certain capital-crowds to dismantle and mock environmental protections. The real world works like that.
- rtkwe 6y ago
  Because people helped by something not happening don't put huge amounts of money into Republican politics and companies that have to 'properly' [0] dispose of their toxic byproducts have money to spend. It's a problem with collective action on a lot of climate problems in particular; the benefits are in the future and dilute while the costs are concentrated and immediate. Because of that there's a LOT of money available to push off imposing those costs and no direct money available to push for imposing them. [0] Giant air quotes here because the approved disposal method is usually a poorly maintained pond that leeches into the water anyways.
  - mywittyname 6y ago
    Environmental harm should be one place where the corporate veil should be pierced and people should be held personally liable for their actions and decisions. If someone dumped tons of deadly chemicals into a river for no reason, and those actions resulted in the long-term deaths of thousands, they'd go to jail. But if that person does the same thing for profit, as an executive of a massive conglomerate, nothing happens to them.
    - rtkwe 6y ago
      A big issue with pollution cases is it's hard to definitively prove that some pollution event cause a particular person's disease so there's always long drawn out suits where the corporations hold a majority of the power because they have so much more money. As for piercing the veil it's rarely super clear that someone high up actually forced the pollution to happen. All the internal policies and emails usually say the right thing but the incentives, pressures and money all put pressure to people down the ladder to skirt the rules the inevitably leads to disaster.
- duskwuff 6y ago
  > It’s very hard to understand why the current administration has such an urge to roll back environmental regulations. There's a part of it that's performative. Liberals care about the environment and want to impose regulations, ergo conservatives should disregard the environment and should roll back regulations. Of course, this is a ridiculous line of reasoning. But it's not meant to convince anyone who would recognize how illogical that is.
- martythemaniak 6y ago
  It's very easy to understand if you know what "coal rolling" is. As with many of the administration's actions, this is just Executive-level coal rolling.
- Spooky23 6y ago
  Resource extraction provides the cash that is the bread and butter of reactionary and conservative politics. Every penny of cost removed is a penny gained. With an administration willing to do anything for a little grift, and demographic changes threatening the governing dynamic (non-hispanic whites will be ~50% of the population by 2030-2040), this is the time to cash in.
- vanusa 6y ago
  Actually it's quite easy to understand. It all comes down to their ideology, which in a nutshell comes down to: maximizing profits and (perceived) short-term gains for its core constituency (i.e. business elites) - and where that's not quite possible, at least keep the illusion of an every-expanding, anything goes "free market" system chugging along for another year or two -- at the expense of everyone and everything else -- and all common sense to boot.
  - nickff 6y ago
    The demographics of voting are not so clear-cut (though income is correlated with votes), and the bigger gap is really between male and female voters.[1] There is also abundant evidence that people do not vote in their economic self-interest.[2] [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/11/does-your-wage-predict-your-vote/264541/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/11/does-yo... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_the_Rational_Voter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_the_Rational_Voter
    - vkou 6y ago
      The voters, for the most part, are treated as useful idiots [1]. The real constituents are the business community, which will make or break your candidacy, who not only vote, but more importantly, fund candidates in alignment their own self-interest. Voting is actually the least effective means of democratic change (It is more effective then sitting at home, and complaining.) The second least effective means of democratic change is getting other people to vote. The most effective means of democratic change is picking the candidates that will be in the running - before voting happens - which can largely be done with dollars. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot
      - nickff 6y ago
        Money (generally) doesn't buy elections.[1][2] [1] https://freakonomics.com/2012/01/12/does-money-really-buy-elections-a-new-marketplace-podcast/ https://freakonomics.com/2012/01/12/does-money-really-buy-el... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_the_Rational_Voter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_the_Rational_Voter
- hcurtiss 6y ago
  I'm not sure how old you are, but it's been a very long time since that was true. You're right that the Clean Water Act was as a big success, but those successes were mostly realized decades ago. At some point, the cost of ever-more stringent environmental regulation outweighs the benefit. In many contexts (e.g., air regulation), there are strong arguments that we are at that point. That is, the cost of incrementally more regulation is very, very high, and the benefit to anyone is very difficult to discern. Whether or not you believe that's true in the context of GHGs largely depends on your overall view of the benefit of mitigating climate change, but your comments seemed directed toward environmental regulation as a whole, and whether any regulation has gone too far.
  - amluto 6y ago
    I would believe that the costs of further clean air improvement are high as measured by annoyance to established people, but not necessarily cost. Where I live, the following would help particulate pollution: - Eliminating existing grandfathered-in wood burning fireplaces. Costs almost nothing as measured by dollars. - Emission controls on restaurant exhaust. This is currently required only for restaurants that chat-grill more than a certain amount of beef. Restaurants that smoke up whole blocks grilling pork, lamb, veggies, etc are exempt. These emission controls are not that expensive. - Outdated fuel-burning devices such as 2-stroke leaf blowers and old cars. Electric leaf blowers are cheap now. Old cars are fun, and banning or taxing them would be unpopular but would cost almost zero dollars.
    - asdff 6y ago
      Where I live, the vast majority of pollution comes from shipping, not residential or light commercial uses. We have arguably the worst traffic in the U.S. in LA, but driving or other individual consumer activities is a drop in the bucket compared the the ecological scarring diesel trucks, LAX and especially the port of LA have done and will continue to do to the region for the foreseeable future, until we change how we fuel transocean shipping and air travel. https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/6c4535d/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1280x810+0+0/resize/840x532!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fa7%2F31%2F9c6902ec4238a6302ce680b0c501%2Fla-g-projected-top-10-smog-sources-in-southern-california-2019-12-27-chartbuilder.png https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/6c4535d/214...
- BurningFrog 6y ago
  It's not that hard. Some regulations have low cost and high benefit. They should be kept. Others have high cost and low benefit. They should be removed or reformed.
  - glitcher 6y ago
    That takes care of all the low hanging fruit, then the real work begins. High cost and high benefit regulations are where it starts to get significantly more difficult to find the right balance. I would argue that if this balance doesn't at least lean towards the progress of long term environmental goals, then it is the wrong balance.
  - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
    That would be wonderful. But it's harder than you think. For regulations that have low cost and high benefit, the costs are often borne by few people, but the benefits are spread among many. Those who bear the costs scream loudly; those who reap the benefits may be mildly grateful. And those who bear the costs try very hard to make this regulation look like it is high-cost and low-benefit. And the same is true in reverse for regulations that are high-cost and low-benefit. Those who receive the benefit try very hard (and very loudly) to make it seem that the regulation is low-cost and high-benefit. This can make it hard to determine which kind of regulation is which, even if you genuinely want to. But regulations are political, and politicians care about votes, not necessarily about costs and benefits. As long as the narrow interests care deeply (and vote accordingly), the politicians are not likely to care about the wider interests.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - bnjms 6y ago
    To those pointing out problems with this position I’d say. The real issue is that no politicians even attempt to take this position. We lack a worthwhile Conservative party.
- scelerat 6y ago
  The only thing that makes sense to me is that these politicians believe they are living in the end times. Whether that's theological end times, environmental end times, or political end times is up for debate, but nothing they do seems to have any kind of sustainability to it. They expect to be dead or out of power soon and are squeezing every last drop while they still can.
  - specialist 6y ago
    James Watt, Reagan's Sec of the Interior, was pretty explicit about this belief. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_G._Watt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_G._Watt Given Watt's public pillorying, methinks the others learned to keep their apocalyptic beliefs on the down low. Mostly. I really wish people on the "left" would learn that when people voice such beliefs to believe them, that they're not joking. Edit: Oops. Just saw natch's reply. Sorry for dupe.
- jcranmer 6y ago
  My grandfather grew up on a farm and, late in life, retired to a farm. Well, a large portion of the property was a swamp, and if he had his way, he would have tiled that swamp, drained it, and grown corn. But the EPA wouldn't let him, since it was destroying wetlands. So he fulminated against the EPA for not letting him do what he wanted with his land. And that's why there's a lot of people who hate regulations, especially environmental regulations. They have a very concrete harm from the regulations that they can see (they can't do certain actions), and the benefits are not so easily noticed. Labor regulations, where the benefits are much more easily visible and relatable are likely to have higher support, although I suspect that a large rural constituency wouldn't mind seeing child labor laws repealed.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - JoshTriplett 6y ago
    There's a huge difference between controlling what people do on their own land, and controlling how people affect the broader ecosystem. Burning oil or gas and affecting the atmosphere for everyone is a much larger-scale issue than a local wetland. (And if you're told you can't turn a swamp into a field, for example, you also ought to get paid for effectively having to maintain a public resource.)
    - ultrarunner 6y ago
      What I don't understand is how that isn't a taking.
    - gamblor956 6y ago
      Why should the public have to pay you if you bought a farm knowing a lot of it wasn't usable as a farm?
      - JoshTriplett 6y ago
        The original comment didn't include that information; that came out later in the thread. The comment implied that the notification happened after it was already owned, as an added restriction.
- rsynnott 6y ago
  I wonder are demographics a factor, here. While I'm not sure about the US, in this part of the world the worst visible impacts of pollution peaked in the 50s to early 60s (the Great Smog of London, which killed 4,000 people at the very least and likely over 10,000, was in 1952, for instance). Most voters today probably haven't seen significant personal impact from pollution, so it might not be as frightening. That said, it also does seem like this narrative of "regulation is ruining everything", as a sort of objection to regulation as a concept without reference to what the regulation is regulation, has seen an uptick recently, between Trumpism and Brexit.
- rayiner 6y ago
  To begin let me caveat that I'm a huge proponent of environmental regulation. That said, most of the regulations Trump is rolling back aren't longstanding ones that produced the cleanups you observed. They're ones the Obama administration rushed through in the last year or two of his presidency, which often had quite sweeping effects or federalized things that had previously been regulated at the state level. These methane regulations are a good example. Every state that has oil & gas drilling already regulates methane emissions as part of the necessary permits. The Obama EPA enacted a rule to federalize those standards that took effect in March of 2016. It's a duplicative rule that's been operative for about five minutes. I like Obama a lot, but on the environmental front, he was willing to spend zero political capital to achieve consensus on environmental reforms. To the contrary, he won reelection on a pro-coal and pro-fracking platform! Here is Obama criticizing Romney for standing in front of a coal plant (as Governor) and saying "this plant kills": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXRmlxBDjfE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXRmlxBDjfE. Here is Obama talking about the how great fracking is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uVGY3sIBsA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uVGY3sIBsA. He somehow found environmental Jesus around 2015 and rushed through a bunch of regulations at the last minute. But, as such, his successor is perfectly entitled to reverse them just as quickly and easily.
- crocodiletears 6y ago
  The administration is trying to divorce us from much of our dependency on the global order. Part of this agenda comes with the (un?)fortunate fact that we can no longer economically farm out as many of the negative externalities of our consumption to the third world, if we want to mantain it. From that perspective, deregulating areas which prevent us from competing in historically outsourced industries with large ecological footprints makes perfect sense to them. I expect this to have a bet-negative impact on our ecosystems, and quality of life. But with any luck, our more informed public - faced with the real externalities of their lifestyles, will be more readily swayed to adjust their consumption patterns in order to make for a better world.
  - christopher22 6y ago
    As someone who is quite anxious about climate change, your comment has done the most to give me hope with regards to these rollbacks. To add, if this brings manufacturing back to USA, maybe also the factories will be less polluting/ghg emitting than the factories they are replacing overseas.
- 12xo 6y ago
  If its good for the masses, Trump will almost certainly do the polar opposite. He has proven to be one of the worst people in our country's history and yet somehow, 100million American's support the guy and his actions. Odd since 99/100 are in direct contrast to their actual needs... History will not be kind to Trump or to his followers. The coming economic shift with automation are going to eat the last of their jobs and their future. To them, as long as it makes the Left cry, its totally worth destroying everything along the way... Ignorance is not a virtue as one cannot eat, drink or breath money.
- MisterBastahrd 6y ago
  Not if you pay attention at all to national politics, it isn't. Most companies are not going to go backwards because they know that a second a Democrat is in charge, they're going to be tasked with sticking to tougher regulations. They're not going to backfall after this much time and energy has been spent on the issue. Trumpism isn't about doing what's smart, though. It's about smiting those who disagree with you and dismantling the regulatory state while strengthening the administrative state by stacking the courts so that Congress is locked out of decision making. They aren't doing it because it's the smart thing to do. They're doing it because Democrats hate it.
- ultrarunner 6y ago
  In short because it's an easy to people who are acutely harmed by this stuff (even while experiencing unseen long-term benefits). I have an early-90s Volkswagen van. It came with a very underpowered and fuel-thirsty gas engine. Eventually it could barely make it up the hills around here, and was prohibitively expensive (not to mention unreliable) to use practically. I replaced the old engine with a modern TDI that gets ~33mpg and is undoubtably cleaner than the 80s-era technology that powered it before. It gave the van a renewed life, keeping it from being crushed and precluding the environmental cost of building a new car. And above all, it solved my problem in a mentally engaging way. For this I have been rewarded with constant red tape from the state department of air quality and EPA. They test tailpipe opacity while driving it on a set of rollers (if I can find a tech that knows how to drive stick shift). The standard to beat is 20% opaque, which would choke out the room. Despite the LED/opto pair usually measuring less than 1% opaque, it once measured 100% opaque. Think about that for a minute. I am not the only one to have done something like this, much less the only one to have EPA-mandated portable gas container designs break & spill, EPA-mandated sensor systems break and cost hundreds, etc. I'm not the only one who's been annoyed by land closures (despite having a permit) due to the EPA's concerns of dust entering the air. This is to say nothing of e.g. the farmers who have had increased compliance costs and fines for operating on their own land. A politician coming out against the EPA is an immediate emotional appeal to many people who are somewhat likely to support Trump's ideas to begin with. These people feel they have been hamstrung by the man, and apparently think that mining for uranium in the Grand Canyon is a reasonable price to pay to beat back the EPA a little. The answer, of course, is to be more sensible in the way that the environment is regulated. No, people should not mine the Grand Canyon (at least not in any way mining is currently conducted). No, a yearly tailpipe opacity test is not an effective way of regulating diesel emissions. But unfortunately, politics turns everything into an emotional appeal that leads to both sides talking past one another. I think the best thing we can do as individuals is honestly try to be better.
- HumblyTossed 6y ago
  Money. It really is that simple. Any money that is used to clean or keep clean is not being returned to investors.
vkou 6y ago
Edit: I stand corrected.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  Bernie Sanders supported not only going 100% renewables as quickly as possible, but also banning hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") [1]. Silver lining is Aramco and COVID is doing what American's politicians didn't have the fortitude to do: force the scaling down of the US oil and gas industry and the inherent reduction in fossil demand from reducing commuting and air travel (respectively). I'm unsure how anyone can argue for additional oil and gas industry support at this point, with renewables and EVs proven; it's time to treat it like the toxic industry the coal industry is, and transition away from it as fast as possible (not "as fast as commercially reasonable"! as. fast. as. possible, World War 2 mobilization style). [2] It's annoying we're only making headway in transitioning off of fossil fuels due to luck (cost decline curve of renewables and batteries, making them cheaper than all other fossil and nuclear generation) and a pandemic instead of a concerted effort. "It is what it is." EDIT: @natch: To refine my point, I don't intend to minimize the work of those performing R&D or implementation of renewables and associated technologies, but that we "lucked out" that we've gotten as far as we have with the minimal amount of resources we've put into the domain. We should be pouring significant amounts of global GDP and productivity into this transition. [1] https://berniesanders.com/issues/green-new-deal/ https://berniesanders.com/issues/green-new-deal/ [2] https://www.gatesnotes.com/Energy/Climate-and-COVID-19 https://www.gatesnotes.com/Energy/Climate-and-COVID-19 (Bill Gates: "COVID-19 is awful. Climate change could be worse.")
  - nicetryguy 6y ago
    ....we had a chance to really fix our country with him. I don't know when another candidate of his honesty, consistency and moral caliber will appear again; if ever. My countrymen baffle me ...I really enjoyed phone banking.
    - toomuchtodo 6y ago
      Appreciate your efforts, we have lots of work left to do as a nation. Don't give up, every election cycle the demographics shift even further [1] [2] due to younger cohorts aging into voting rights and older cohorts aging out. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/03/20/a-wider-partisan-and-ideological-gap-between-younger-older-generations/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/03/20/a-wider-par... [2] https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2019/11/25/u-s-public-views-on-climate-and-energy/ https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2019/11/25/u-s-public-vi...
agentultra 6y ago
I guess the best way to put out a fire is to add more fire. Methane is way worse as a greenhouse gas.
throwaway5752 6y ago
I suggest changing the headline to "outgoing administration continues to sabotage government for next administration as popularity continues to decline during incompetent response to viral pandemic". Another example of something that was so important they waited until less than 3 months before the election to do it. It hardly needs saying, but this is devastatingly bad environmental and climate policy.
- xeromal 6y ago
  Clearly this whole situation is political but I'd make 2 points. 1. You might be surprised at the election outcome. 2. The headline is based on the article, not what people think it should be.
  - non-entity 6y ago
    I doubt they were being serious about the title.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - JKCalhoun 6y ago
    I can only have my confidence in the U.S. voting public renewed or absolutely shattered this November.
    - xeromal 6y ago
      I definitely understand and feel the same way but I also think he's gonna win despite every fuck up he's made along the way.
    - jfengel 6y ago
      Even the outcome I would prefer isn't going to come anywhere near renewing my confidence. If it happens at all, it will only because a catastrophe made the incumbent's incompetence affect some of his supporters directly -- many of whom will still, in fact, remain supporters. Even before that, enormous numbers of people were harmed, but they weren't among his supporters. Indeed, for them, the negative outcomes were the desired effect. Even if they lose in the fall, they will continue to prefer to insult, harass, and even defend murder if it's of the people they don't like. November won't even begin to fix what's wrong. It began long before 2016, and my biggest fear will be that come 2024 they'll elect somebody who is not only hateful, but also competent, and not saddled with a crisis immediately before the election.
Reason077 6y ago
Isn’t the name “EPA” increasingly inaccurate? Shouldn’t it now be called something like the Oil & Gas Promotion Agency (OGPA)?
- jandrese 6y ago
  It's just an extension of the George W. Bush era where every piece of legislation was required to have an name that was completely the opposite of its intent. They would write a law allowing mines to dump heavy metal contaminated tailings into the nearby rivers and streams which would be named something ridiculous like the Clean Water Act.
- refurb 6y ago
  The EPA seemed to do a poor job even under the Obama administration. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/08/10/431223703/epa-says-it-released-3-million-gallons-of-contaminated-water-into-river https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/08/10/431223703...
  - syspec 6y ago
    Furthering their original point
natch 6y ago
>It’s very hard to understand why As republican former secretary of the interior James Watt put it, “Why worry about the environment when the second coming is at hand?”
- dang 6y ago
  We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24111740 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24111740.
  - akiselev 6y ago
    Just curious, why? Is it a tactic to quarantine content that has potential to start flame wars from other content?
    - dang 6y ago
      Basically yes.
  - natch 6y ago
    Thanks for noting the detachment. I also saw your reply acknowledging the summary of the possible reasons. Not to argue or draw you out necessarily, but just want to share some thoughts. We (society, human civilization) have incurred a lot of damage over the decades from anti-science motivations. If we can't call this out on HN, I don't know where we can call it out. Also it feels right to me that names should be named. Names of political parties, names of religions, etc. I do understand the need to keep things, especially when flame wars are likely, from drifting off into divisive and toxic discussions, in order to keep this a healthy discussion. Maybe leaving out the naming of names is the cost to do this. Somehow, these forces need to be called out. Maybe this is not the place. That answer seems too facile, though. Or maybe there are better ways. Instead of mentioning, focusing on, and calling out the negative, I have noticed some people simply highlight the positive alternative view, never acknowledging the (imho) toxic one. This is an interesting approach but I question how far it has gotten us, given… look around at the world today, to get my point. Again my intent is not to argue with you about this, but just to share thoughts. I am questioning myself, whether I should become one of those people who always just ignores the bad, and only talks about the positive other options. I also realize there are better and worse ways to inject opinions into a discussion. I think I'm not alone in struggling with this. Feedback welcome but not expected. Thanks.
mas3god 6y ago
Reading this after a megastorm just blew through my town in iowa
- zentiggr 6y ago
  I'm in Moline and about to have our turn.
makerofspoons 6y ago
Dr. Peter Carter, an IPCC expert reviewer, provides one of the most concise and sobering summaries of the trajectory of our planet as methane and carbon emissions continue to rise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa13KrOvE2s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa13KrOvE2s It's one of the first things I think about when I read articles like this that demonstrate that not only are the powers that be not taking climate change seriously, they are actively accelerating it for profit.
- fmakunbound 6y ago
  Just watched that in its entirety and highly recommend. I think you can count on our species NOT solving this crisis. I'm kind of glad I don't have and don't want kids, but that's nothing compared to the inevitable, massive loss of life in our biosphere.
- asdff 6y ago
  If you are one of the powers that be, and probably are of the ruling generation with 20-40 years left to live, why wouldn't you accelerate your gain? These people in positions of power don't care about the long term, because they will be dead by then, but will be able to realize that short term gain in their limited lifetime. The only way to tackle climate change is to force politicians to sell all private assets and ban them from anything but investing in an index fund for the remainder of their life. Harsh, but public servants should really hold that name literally in my opinion. The science and engineering on climate change has been solved for decades. Whether or not we act in time is a political question, not a technical one.
  - rektide 6y ago
    I like your desire to restrain politician's incentives, & watching folks like Joe Biden takes these kind of steps (selling all his stocks thirty years ago) is a good thing to do. At the same time it seems wholly insufficient. Whether Betsy DeVos has stocks is not really that relevant, when she still is going to act on behalf of her ultra-rich clan & other extremely well-monied interests. I'm all for raising standards but I think there's a huge continent of politician who exist only to be bad guys, & some large large amount of people seem to love them for their wretchedness.
yalogin 6y ago
Not trying to make a political statement here but more about people and what they care about in general. Its amazing to me that trump's support is still at 40-45% in the country. The people living in the same country can see things unfolding in front of their eyes and make completely different decisions on them is fascinating to me. When I talk to my friends who are staunch trump supporters, they give me some fox news platitudes about him and Biden. But when I talk about individual issues and the things he has done all of them agree that its bad or really bad. I went down the list about 20-25 of them and did not get a single pushback. However they still vote for him. The human mind is a fascinating and complicated thing.
- adammunich 6y ago
  It's about owning the libs... righteous indignation
- sonotathrowaway 6y ago
  How many of those things materially hurt them in the short term? I assume most conservatives don’t care about an issue unless they themselves are going to affected by it in the immediate term.
  - asdff 6y ago
    >I assume most conservatives don’t care about an issue unless they themselves are going to affected by it in the immediate term Unless that issue that doesn't affect these conservatives at all has something to do with what a woman can do with her body, or having a different skin tone, or worshiping a different god, that is. Rules for thee but not for me is practically a tenet of conservatism.
- mrguyorama 6y ago
  Don't forget the people who vote for Trump because he "Supports the troops" Despite being Mr Bone Spurs Despite making fun of a gold star family Despite bounties on american heads Despite not improving the VA Despite the pentagon being a shitshow from Trump not filling lots of administrative positions and putting incompetent people in charge and even those people don't believe in him and try to softball the shit he is causing Despite that covid death ship that the navy pretended wasn't happening But yeah, "Blah blah supports Troops", whatever that means
euroderf 6y ago
Terraforming: 80% complete...
xnx 6y ago
Reminder that your "regulations" are often my "protections".
microcolonel 6y ago
Does anyone have a link to an actual writeup of which of these regulations are being rescinded? It's not clear from what's visible publicly on this WSJ article to a non-subscriber.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
neonate 6y ago
https://archive.is/ixNen https://archive.is/ixNen
eisa01 6y ago
This will be interesting for the LNG exports to Europe The EU commission is looking at associated methane emissions from natural gas imports, so there is a risk that the US may very well shut off their access to EU markets, or be subject to taxation or similar https://ec.europa.eu/info/news/commission-open-views-methane-strategy-2020-jul-08_en https://ec.europa.eu/info/news/commission-open-views-methane...
aaron695 6y ago
When we/you choose lockdown this is what you choose. And it's only just beginning. This is going to get boring real quick, complaints should have been in April or even January. Environment/disability/healthcare will all be cut and stay cut for years no mater who is in charge.
chrisgd 6y ago
Trump is like a caricature of anarchy capitalism
metta2uall 6y ago
The majority of politicians and voters didn't do enough to heed scientific warnings & prepare for an upcoming pandemic.. Similarly, we are not doing enough to mitigate climate change. Unfortunately the consequences will likely be much worse if we don't learn the lesson quickly..

It’s very hard to understand why the current administration has such an urge to roll back environmental regulations. I grew up in a time when rivers were red or green depending on what type of leather the factory upstream was processing at the time. The only fish you could see were dead. Breathing in cities was hard. Environmental regulation is a big success story that improved the lives of countless people while companies could still make enormous profits. Why try to roll that back? If anything we should get even more clean.

hylaride 6y ago
Follow the money.
outworlder 6y ago
> It’s very hard to understand why the current administration has such an urge to roll back environmental regulations. No, it's very easy. Environmental regulations cost money. Lots of money. It's much more profitable to keep these externalities.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
  Pretty much. It is annoying, but it is not difficult to understand.
- ngngngng 6y ago
  Where does that money go?
  - jandrese 6y ago
    To the 0.1%.
    - ngngngng 6y ago
      Ok Mr. Sanders. I meant like literally. Where does the money that is spent meeting environmental regulations go? The money is not just being burnt up. It's going to a different segment of the economy, I'm just not versed in what that means or looks like.
      - jandrese 6y ago
        Oh, you meant the environmental regulation money? I misread your question, I thought you were talking about the money saved by the oil and gas companies when they removed said regulation. Anyway, that money is generally spent on equipment and processes to clean up after whatever the company is doing. Collection pods for contaminated water. Scrubbers on chimneys. Direct pay to inspectors to come out and make sure you aren't trying to cheat to save money. That sort of thing. It spreads out across the entire economy. Markets and industries are formed to support finding the cheapest way to keep the processes in question from damaging the environment and requiring much more expensive cleanup (think EPA superfund and class action lawsuits over medical conditions suffered by nearby communities) after the fact.
        brewdad 6y ago
        So it creates jobs? Someone has to build those collection ponds. Those chimney scrubbers don't just grow in the forest. Why can't Democrats get that message across?
        jandrese 6y ago
        For some strange reason Fox News and AM Talk Radio never mention that part. So the message never reaches the base. The only people who would mention it are the untrustworthy lieberal media.
        12xo 6y ago
        The Right is dominated in media silos. AM radio is almost exclusively right wing talk these days. FoxNews is 100% propaganda and almost all fiction. Avg people who support the GOP are encrusted inside this silo. They do not listen, watch, read or see any objective news. Its 100% partisan political propaganda. So getting the message through isnt possible. Its about as biased as anything in history. But they'll tell you that they're oppressed by the Liberal Media... Facts be damned.
- dmurray 6y ago
  I'd say it goes further than that. With the polarisation of American politics, rolling back environmental regulations is politically popular with one cohort of voters just because it's unpopular with the "other" side. Repealing regulations (not necessarily environmental ones) was popular enough to be a Trump campaign promise, after all.
  - zentiggr 6y ago
    I've seen someone's opinion basically summarized as "a lot of these [Trump / republican] supporters don't really reason through anything political beyond "fuck liberals". As long as it opposes the damn liberals and whatever they want, it's all good, no matter how illogical, self-harming, or clueless in any other regard.
    - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
      When someone summarizes their political rivals' positions as "they're just nasty people who hate me and want to oppose anything I like", I don't think you should put a tremendous amount of stock in that.
      - pjc50 6y ago
        That has literally been their stated position: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/own-libs-was-snide-way-mock-conservatives-now-fun-way-ncna897636 https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/own-libs-was-snide-way...
        zentiggr 6y ago
        Opinion columns are not particularly strong support for any position. Other than some secondary references in the piece, I don't see anything factual there, just the writer's take on each side baiting the other.
      - michaelmrose 6y ago
        This would be an easier argument to make if one side wasn't making an issue out of wearing masks, fighting for their right to spread a deadly disease to others, and in some cases actually attacking people for asking them to wear masks.
- ardy42 6y ago
  > No, it's very easy. Environmental regulations cost money. Lots of money. It's much more profitable to keep these externalities. I don't think that's the whole story. You also have Zombie Reaganism, which has the Republicans reflexively aping 80s policy as the response to everything, even though it's not the 80s anymore.
  - klyrs 6y ago
    They've profited handsomely from Reagan's policies. That's not exclusive to Republicans either; I think dems would be quite incensed about Hunter Biden in a different political context.
- paulryanrogers 6y ago
  Money can't buy cures for many pollution causing diseases. We should require that those in charge of these regulations must periodically drink from the 'treated' water output which tests as most polluted. Likewise they must breath air samples from the communities that test as most polluted. Once it's personal, and they can't buy their way out then improvements can be maintained.
  - jefurii 6y ago
    > We should require that those in charge of these regulations must periodically drink from the 'treated' water output Better yet, they and their spouses and children.
- Reason077 6y ago
  > ”Environmental regulations cost money. Lots of money.” That’s a narrow-minded view. Sure, environmental regulations cost oil and gas companies money. But this fails to consider the external costs to society: increased healthcare costs and reduced life expectancy due to air and water pollution, future costs of global heating including property damage to coastal cities from rising sea levels, agricultural regions becoming less productive, etc. Secondly, reducing dependence on fossil fuels (many of which are imported, even in America) will improve energy security and reduce energy costs in the long term. Great economic benefits, as well as environmental ones.
  - nickff 6y ago
    The USA has been improving energy security by reducing net fossil fuel imports since 2005, just not by weaning off carbon-based fuels.[1] [1] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-products/imports-and-exports.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-produc...
  - arkanciscan 6y ago
    the choir errupts in applause
  - Finnucane 6y ago
    Sure, but oil companies have the narrow view. External costs to society: they care not. Any cost they can pass on to you, they will.
    - Reason077 6y ago
      Of course. But is it government’s role solely to boost oil company profits? Or should they consider these against long-term costs incurred by everyone? Surely there is a middle ground that works for everyone. It’s not as if major oil companies are struggling to survive.
      - ianleeclark 6y ago
        > But is it government’s role solely to boost oil company profits? Or should they consider these against long-term costs incurred by everyone? We don't live in a world where we get to speculate on what the intended role of government ought to be.
- mistrial9 6y ago
  tragically, markets have a way to settle, such that costs rise to match cash flows.. so the easy (and true) accusation "It's much more profitable to keep these externalities" is part of the story.. profit is sometimes over decades with low margins and upfront investment (coal) .. telling people that the coal barons are simply paying their long term loans and legally-mandated retirement benefits, is not as appealing to outrage the public.. I agree that it is apparently a bonding exercise among certain capital-crowds to dismantle and mock environmental protections. The real world works like that.
rtkwe 6y ago
Because people helped by something not happening don't put huge amounts of money into Republican politics and companies that have to 'properly' [0] dispose of their toxic byproducts have money to spend. It's a problem with collective action on a lot of climate problems in particular; the benefits are in the future and dilute while the costs are concentrated and immediate. Because of that there's a LOT of money available to push off imposing those costs and no direct money available to push for imposing them. [0] Giant air quotes here because the approved disposal method is usually a poorly maintained pond that leeches into the water anyways.
- mywittyname 6y ago
  Environmental harm should be one place where the corporate veil should be pierced and people should be held personally liable for their actions and decisions. If someone dumped tons of deadly chemicals into a river for no reason, and those actions resulted in the long-term deaths of thousands, they'd go to jail. But if that person does the same thing for profit, as an executive of a massive conglomerate, nothing happens to them.
  - rtkwe 6y ago
    A big issue with pollution cases is it's hard to definitively prove that some pollution event cause a particular person's disease so there's always long drawn out suits where the corporations hold a majority of the power because they have so much more money. As for piercing the veil it's rarely super clear that someone high up actually forced the pollution to happen. All the internal policies and emails usually say the right thing but the incentives, pressures and money all put pressure to people down the ladder to skirt the rules the inevitably leads to disaster.
duskwuff 6y ago
> It’s very hard to understand why the current administration has such an urge to roll back environmental regulations. There's a part of it that's performative. Liberals care about the environment and want to impose regulations, ergo conservatives should disregard the environment and should roll back regulations. Of course, this is a ridiculous line of reasoning. But it's not meant to convince anyone who would recognize how illogical that is.
martythemaniak 6y ago
It's very easy to understand if you know what "coal rolling" is. As with many of the administration's actions, this is just Executive-level coal rolling.
Spooky23 6y ago
Resource extraction provides the cash that is the bread and butter of reactionary and conservative politics. Every penny of cost removed is a penny gained. With an administration willing to do anything for a little grift, and demographic changes threatening the governing dynamic (non-hispanic whites will be ~50% of the population by 2030-2040), this is the time to cash in.
vanusa 6y ago
Actually it's quite easy to understand. It all comes down to their ideology, which in a nutshell comes down to: maximizing profits and (perceived) short-term gains for its core constituency (i.e. business elites) - and where that's not quite possible, at least keep the illusion of an every-expanding, anything goes "free market" system chugging along for another year or two -- at the expense of everyone and everything else -- and all common sense to boot.
- nickff 6y ago
  The demographics of voting are not so clear-cut (though income is correlated with votes), and the bigger gap is really between male and female voters.[1] There is also abundant evidence that people do not vote in their economic self-interest.[2] [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/11/does-your-wage-predict-your-vote/264541/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/11/does-yo... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_the_Rational_Voter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_the_Rational_Voter
  - vkou 6y ago
    The voters, for the most part, are treated as useful idiots [1]. The real constituents are the business community, which will make or break your candidacy, who not only vote, but more importantly, fund candidates in alignment their own self-interest. Voting is actually the least effective means of democratic change (It is more effective then sitting at home, and complaining.) The second least effective means of democratic change is getting other people to vote. The most effective means of democratic change is picking the candidates that will be in the running - before voting happens - which can largely be done with dollars. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot
    - nickff 6y ago
      Money (generally) doesn't buy elections.[1][2] [1] https://freakonomics.com/2012/01/12/does-money-really-buy-elections-a-new-marketplace-podcast/ https://freakonomics.com/2012/01/12/does-money-really-buy-el... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_the_Rational_Voter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_the_Rational_Voter
hcurtiss 6y ago
I'm not sure how old you are, but it's been a very long time since that was true. You're right that the Clean Water Act was as a big success, but those successes were mostly realized decades ago. At some point, the cost of ever-more stringent environmental regulation outweighs the benefit. In many contexts (e.g., air regulation), there are strong arguments that we are at that point. That is, the cost of incrementally more regulation is very, very high, and the benefit to anyone is very difficult to discern. Whether or not you believe that's true in the context of GHGs largely depends on your overall view of the benefit of mitigating climate change, but your comments seemed directed toward environmental regulation as a whole, and whether any regulation has gone too far.
- amluto 6y ago
  I would believe that the costs of further clean air improvement are high as measured by annoyance to established people, but not necessarily cost. Where I live, the following would help particulate pollution: - Eliminating existing grandfathered-in wood burning fireplaces. Costs almost nothing as measured by dollars. - Emission controls on restaurant exhaust. This is currently required only for restaurants that chat-grill more than a certain amount of beef. Restaurants that smoke up whole blocks grilling pork, lamb, veggies, etc are exempt. These emission controls are not that expensive. - Outdated fuel-burning devices such as 2-stroke leaf blowers and old cars. Electric leaf blowers are cheap now. Old cars are fun, and banning or taxing them would be unpopular but would cost almost zero dollars.
  - asdff 6y ago
    Where I live, the vast majority of pollution comes from shipping, not residential or light commercial uses. We have arguably the worst traffic in the U.S. in LA, but driving or other individual consumer activities is a drop in the bucket compared the the ecological scarring diesel trucks, LAX and especially the port of LA have done and will continue to do to the region for the foreseeable future, until we change how we fuel transocean shipping and air travel. https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/6c4535d/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1280x810+0+0/resize/840x532!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fa7%2F31%2F9c6902ec4238a6302ce680b0c501%2Fla-g-projected-top-10-smog-sources-in-southern-california-2019-12-27-chartbuilder.png https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/6c4535d/214...
BurningFrog 6y ago
It's not that hard. Some regulations have low cost and high benefit. They should be kept. Others have high cost and low benefit. They should be removed or reformed.
- glitcher 6y ago
  That takes care of all the low hanging fruit, then the real work begins. High cost and high benefit regulations are where it starts to get significantly more difficult to find the right balance. I would argue that if this balance doesn't at least lean towards the progress of long term environmental goals, then it is the wrong balance.
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  That would be wonderful. But it's harder than you think. For regulations that have low cost and high benefit, the costs are often borne by few people, but the benefits are spread among many. Those who bear the costs scream loudly; those who reap the benefits may be mildly grateful. And those who bear the costs try very hard to make this regulation look like it is high-cost and low-benefit. And the same is true in reverse for regulations that are high-cost and low-benefit. Those who receive the benefit try very hard (and very loudly) to make it seem that the regulation is low-cost and high-benefit. This can make it hard to determine which kind of regulation is which, even if you genuinely want to. But regulations are political, and politicians care about votes, not necessarily about costs and benefits. As long as the narrow interests care deeply (and vote accordingly), the politicians are not likely to care about the wider interests.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- bnjms 6y ago
  To those pointing out problems with this position I’d say. The real issue is that no politicians even attempt to take this position. We lack a worthwhile Conservative party.
scelerat 6y ago
The only thing that makes sense to me is that these politicians believe they are living in the end times. Whether that's theological end times, environmental end times, or political end times is up for debate, but nothing they do seems to have any kind of sustainability to it. They expect to be dead or out of power soon and are squeezing every last drop while they still can.
- specialist 6y ago
  James Watt, Reagan's Sec of the Interior, was pretty explicit about this belief. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_G._Watt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_G._Watt Given Watt's public pillorying, methinks the others learned to keep their apocalyptic beliefs on the down low. Mostly. I really wish people on the "left" would learn that when people voice such beliefs to believe them, that they're not joking. Edit: Oops. Just saw natch's reply. Sorry for dupe.
jcranmer 6y ago
My grandfather grew up on a farm and, late in life, retired to a farm. Well, a large portion of the property was a swamp, and if he had his way, he would have tiled that swamp, drained it, and grown corn. But the EPA wouldn't let him, since it was destroying wetlands. So he fulminated against the EPA for not letting him do what he wanted with his land. And that's why there's a lot of people who hate regulations, especially environmental regulations. They have a very concrete harm from the regulations that they can see (they can't do certain actions), and the benefits are not so easily noticed. Labor regulations, where the benefits are much more easily visible and relatable are likely to have higher support, although I suspect that a large rural constituency wouldn't mind seeing child labor laws repealed.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- JoshTriplett 6y ago
  There's a huge difference between controlling what people do on their own land, and controlling how people affect the broader ecosystem. Burning oil or gas and affecting the atmosphere for everyone is a much larger-scale issue than a local wetland. (And if you're told you can't turn a swamp into a field, for example, you also ought to get paid for effectively having to maintain a public resource.)
  - ultrarunner 6y ago
    What I don't understand is how that isn't a taking.
  - gamblor956 6y ago
    Why should the public have to pay you if you bought a farm knowing a lot of it wasn't usable as a farm?
    - JoshTriplett 6y ago
      The original comment didn't include that information; that came out later in the thread. The comment implied that the notification happened after it was already owned, as an added restriction.
rsynnott 6y ago
I wonder are demographics a factor, here. While I'm not sure about the US, in this part of the world the worst visible impacts of pollution peaked in the 50s to early 60s (the Great Smog of London, which killed 4,000 people at the very least and likely over 10,000, was in 1952, for instance). Most voters today probably haven't seen significant personal impact from pollution, so it might not be as frightening. That said, it also does seem like this narrative of "regulation is ruining everything", as a sort of objection to regulation as a concept without reference to what the regulation is regulation, has seen an uptick recently, between Trumpism and Brexit.
rayiner 6y ago
To begin let me caveat that I'm a huge proponent of environmental regulation. That said, most of the regulations Trump is rolling back aren't longstanding ones that produced the cleanups you observed. They're ones the Obama administration rushed through in the last year or two of his presidency, which often had quite sweeping effects or federalized things that had previously been regulated at the state level. These methane regulations are a good example. Every state that has oil & gas drilling already regulates methane emissions as part of the necessary permits. The Obama EPA enacted a rule to federalize those standards that took effect in March of 2016. It's a duplicative rule that's been operative for about five minutes. I like Obama a lot, but on the environmental front, he was willing to spend zero political capital to achieve consensus on environmental reforms. To the contrary, he won reelection on a pro-coal and pro-fracking platform! Here is Obama criticizing Romney for standing in front of a coal plant (as Governor) and saying "this plant kills": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXRmlxBDjfE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXRmlxBDjfE. Here is Obama talking about the how great fracking is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uVGY3sIBsA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uVGY3sIBsA. He somehow found environmental Jesus around 2015 and rushed through a bunch of regulations at the last minute. But, as such, his successor is perfectly entitled to reverse them just as quickly and easily.
crocodiletears 6y ago
The administration is trying to divorce us from much of our dependency on the global order. Part of this agenda comes with the (un?)fortunate fact that we can no longer economically farm out as many of the negative externalities of our consumption to the third world, if we want to mantain it. From that perspective, deregulating areas which prevent us from competing in historically outsourced industries with large ecological footprints makes perfect sense to them. I expect this to have a bet-negative impact on our ecosystems, and quality of life. But with any luck, our more informed public - faced with the real externalities of their lifestyles, will be more readily swayed to adjust their consumption patterns in order to make for a better world.
- christopher22 6y ago
  As someone who is quite anxious about climate change, your comment has done the most to give me hope with regards to these rollbacks. To add, if this brings manufacturing back to USA, maybe also the factories will be less polluting/ghg emitting than the factories they are replacing overseas.
12xo 6y ago
If its good for the masses, Trump will almost certainly do the polar opposite. He has proven to be one of the worst people in our country's history and yet somehow, 100million American's support the guy and his actions. Odd since 99/100 are in direct contrast to their actual needs... History will not be kind to Trump or to his followers. The coming economic shift with automation are going to eat the last of their jobs and their future. To them, as long as it makes the Left cry, its totally worth destroying everything along the way... Ignorance is not a virtue as one cannot eat, drink or breath money.
MisterBastahrd 6y ago
Not if you pay attention at all to national politics, it isn't. Most companies are not going to go backwards because they know that a second a Democrat is in charge, they're going to be tasked with sticking to tougher regulations. They're not going to backfall after this much time and energy has been spent on the issue. Trumpism isn't about doing what's smart, though. It's about smiting those who disagree with you and dismantling the regulatory state while strengthening the administrative state by stacking the courts so that Congress is locked out of decision making. They aren't doing it because it's the smart thing to do. They're doing it because Democrats hate it.
ultrarunner 6y ago
In short because it's an easy to people who are acutely harmed by this stuff (even while experiencing unseen long-term benefits). I have an early-90s Volkswagen van. It came with a very underpowered and fuel-thirsty gas engine. Eventually it could barely make it up the hills around here, and was prohibitively expensive (not to mention unreliable) to use practically. I replaced the old engine with a modern TDI that gets ~33mpg and is undoubtably cleaner than the 80s-era technology that powered it before. It gave the van a renewed life, keeping it from being crushed and precluding the environmental cost of building a new car. And above all, it solved my problem in a mentally engaging way. For this I have been rewarded with constant red tape from the state department of air quality and EPA. They test tailpipe opacity while driving it on a set of rollers (if I can find a tech that knows how to drive stick shift). The standard to beat is 20% opaque, which would choke out the room. Despite the LED/opto pair usually measuring less than 1% opaque, it once measured 100% opaque. Think about that for a minute. I am not the only one to have done something like this, much less the only one to have EPA-mandated portable gas container designs break & spill, EPA-mandated sensor systems break and cost hundreds, etc. I'm not the only one who's been annoyed by land closures (despite having a permit) due to the EPA's concerns of dust entering the air. This is to say nothing of e.g. the farmers who have had increased compliance costs and fines for operating on their own land. A politician coming out against the EPA is an immediate emotional appeal to many people who are somewhat likely to support Trump's ideas to begin with. These people feel they have been hamstrung by the man, and apparently think that mining for uranium in the Grand Canyon is a reasonable price to pay to beat back the EPA a little. The answer, of course, is to be more sensible in the way that the environment is regulated. No, people should not mine the Grand Canyon (at least not in any way mining is currently conducted). No, a yearly tailpipe opacity test is not an effective way of regulating diesel emissions. But unfortunately, politics turns everything into an emotional appeal that leads to both sides talking past one another. I think the best thing we can do as individuals is honestly try to be better.
HumblyTossed 6y ago
Money. It really is that simple. Any money that is used to clean or keep clean is not being returned to investors.

vkou 6y ago

Edit: I stand corrected.

toomuchtodo 6y ago
Bernie Sanders supported not only going 100% renewables as quickly as possible, but also banning hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") [1]. Silver lining is Aramco and COVID is doing what American's politicians didn't have the fortitude to do: force the scaling down of the US oil and gas industry and the inherent reduction in fossil demand from reducing commuting and air travel (respectively). I'm unsure how anyone can argue for additional oil and gas industry support at this point, with renewables and EVs proven; it's time to treat it like the toxic industry the coal industry is, and transition away from it as fast as possible (not "as fast as commercially reasonable"! as. fast. as. possible, World War 2 mobilization style). [2] It's annoying we're only making headway in transitioning off of fossil fuels due to luck (cost decline curve of renewables and batteries, making them cheaper than all other fossil and nuclear generation) and a pandemic instead of a concerted effort. "It is what it is." EDIT: @natch: To refine my point, I don't intend to minimize the work of those performing R&D or implementation of renewables and associated technologies, but that we "lucked out" that we've gotten as far as we have with the minimal amount of resources we've put into the domain. We should be pouring significant amounts of global GDP and productivity into this transition. [1] https://berniesanders.com/issues/green-new-deal/ https://berniesanders.com/issues/green-new-deal/ [2] https://www.gatesnotes.com/Energy/Climate-and-COVID-19 https://www.gatesnotes.com/Energy/Climate-and-COVID-19 (Bill Gates: "COVID-19 is awful. Climate change could be worse.")
- nicetryguy 6y ago
  ....we had a chance to really fix our country with him. I don't know when another candidate of his honesty, consistency and moral caliber will appear again; if ever. My countrymen baffle me ...I really enjoyed phone banking.
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    Appreciate your efforts, we have lots of work left to do as a nation. Don't give up, every election cycle the demographics shift even further [1] [2] due to younger cohorts aging into voting rights and older cohorts aging out. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/03/20/a-wider-partisan-and-ideological-gap-between-younger-older-generations/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/03/20/a-wider-par... [2] https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2019/11/25/u-s-public-views-on-climate-and-energy/ https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2019/11/25/u-s-public-vi...

agentultra 6y ago

I guess the best way to put out a fire is to add more fire. Methane is way worse as a greenhouse gas.

throwaway5752 6y ago

I suggest changing the headline to "outgoing administration continues to sabotage government for next administration as popularity continues to decline during incompetent response to viral pandemic". Another example of something that was so important they waited until less than 3 months before the election to do it. It hardly needs saying, but this is devastatingly bad environmental and climate policy.

xeromal 6y ago
Clearly this whole situation is political but I'd make 2 points. 1. You might be surprised at the election outcome. 2. The headline is based on the article, not what people think it should be.
- non-entity 6y ago
  I doubt they were being serious about the title.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- JKCalhoun 6y ago
  I can only have my confidence in the U.S. voting public renewed or absolutely shattered this November.
  - xeromal 6y ago
    I definitely understand and feel the same way but I also think he's gonna win despite every fuck up he's made along the way.
  - jfengel 6y ago
    Even the outcome I would prefer isn't going to come anywhere near renewing my confidence. If it happens at all, it will only because a catastrophe made the incumbent's incompetence affect some of his supporters directly -- many of whom will still, in fact, remain supporters. Even before that, enormous numbers of people were harmed, but they weren't among his supporters. Indeed, for them, the negative outcomes were the desired effect. Even if they lose in the fall, they will continue to prefer to insult, harass, and even defend murder if it's of the people they don't like. November won't even begin to fix what's wrong. It began long before 2016, and my biggest fear will be that come 2024 they'll elect somebody who is not only hateful, but also competent, and not saddled with a crisis immediately before the election.

Reason077 6y ago

Isn’t the name “EPA” increasingly inaccurate? Shouldn’t it now be called something like the Oil & Gas Promotion Agency (OGPA)?

jandrese 6y ago
It's just an extension of the George W. Bush era where every piece of legislation was required to have an name that was completely the opposite of its intent. They would write a law allowing mines to dump heavy metal contaminated tailings into the nearby rivers and streams which would be named something ridiculous like the Clean Water Act.
refurb 6y ago
The EPA seemed to do a poor job even under the Obama administration. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/08/10/431223703/epa-says-it-released-3-million-gallons-of-contaminated-water-into-river https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/08/10/431223703...
- syspec 6y ago
  Furthering their original point

natch 6y ago

>It’s very hard to understand why As republican former secretary of the interior James Watt put it, “Why worry about the environment when the second coming is at hand?”

dang 6y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24111740 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24111740.
- akiselev 6y ago
  Just curious, why? Is it a tactic to quarantine content that has potential to start flame wars from other content?
  - dang 6y ago
    Basically yes.
- natch 6y ago
  Thanks for noting the detachment. I also saw your reply acknowledging the summary of the possible reasons. Not to argue or draw you out necessarily, but just want to share some thoughts. We (society, human civilization) have incurred a lot of damage over the decades from anti-science motivations. If we can't call this out on HN, I don't know where we can call it out. Also it feels right to me that names should be named. Names of political parties, names of religions, etc. I do understand the need to keep things, especially when flame wars are likely, from drifting off into divisive and toxic discussions, in order to keep this a healthy discussion. Maybe leaving out the naming of names is the cost to do this. Somehow, these forces need to be called out. Maybe this is not the place. That answer seems too facile, though. Or maybe there are better ways. Instead of mentioning, focusing on, and calling out the negative, I have noticed some people simply highlight the positive alternative view, never acknowledging the (imho) toxic one. This is an interesting approach but I question how far it has gotten us, given… look around at the world today, to get my point. Again my intent is not to argue with you about this, but just to share thoughts. I am questioning myself, whether I should become one of those people who always just ignores the bad, and only talks about the positive other options. I also realize there are better and worse ways to inject opinions into a discussion. I think I'm not alone in struggling with this. Feedback welcome but not expected. Thanks.

mas3god 6y ago

Reading this after a megastorm just blew through my town in iowa

zentiggr 6y ago
I'm in Moline and about to have our turn.

makerofspoons 6y ago

Dr. Peter Carter, an IPCC expert reviewer, provides one of the most concise and sobering summaries of the trajectory of our planet as methane and carbon emissions continue to rise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa13KrOvE2s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa13KrOvE2s It's one of the first things I think about when I read articles like this that demonstrate that not only are the powers that be not taking climate change seriously, they are actively accelerating it for profit.

fmakunbound 6y ago
Just watched that in its entirety and highly recommend. I think you can count on our species NOT solving this crisis. I'm kind of glad I don't have and don't want kids, but that's nothing compared to the inevitable, massive loss of life in our biosphere.
asdff 6y ago
If you are one of the powers that be, and probably are of the ruling generation with 20-40 years left to live, why wouldn't you accelerate your gain? These people in positions of power don't care about the long term, because they will be dead by then, but will be able to realize that short term gain in their limited lifetime. The only way to tackle climate change is to force politicians to sell all private assets and ban them from anything but investing in an index fund for the remainder of their life. Harsh, but public servants should really hold that name literally in my opinion. The science and engineering on climate change has been solved for decades. Whether or not we act in time is a political question, not a technical one.
- rektide 6y ago
  I like your desire to restrain politician's incentives, & watching folks like Joe Biden takes these kind of steps (selling all his stocks thirty years ago) is a good thing to do. At the same time it seems wholly insufficient. Whether Betsy DeVos has stocks is not really that relevant, when she still is going to act on behalf of her ultra-rich clan & other extremely well-monied interests. I'm all for raising standards but I think there's a huge continent of politician who exist only to be bad guys, & some large large amount of people seem to love them for their wretchedness.

yalogin 6y ago

Not trying to make a political statement here but more about people and what they care about in general. Its amazing to me that trump's support is still at 40-45% in the country. The people living in the same country can see things unfolding in front of their eyes and make completely different decisions on them is fascinating to me. When I talk to my friends who are staunch trump supporters, they give me some fox news platitudes about him and Biden. But when I talk about individual issues and the things he has done all of them agree that its bad or really bad. I went down the list about 20-25 of them and did not get a single pushback. However they still vote for him. The human mind is a fascinating and complicated thing.

adammunich 6y ago
It's about owning the libs... righteous indignation
sonotathrowaway 6y ago
How many of those things materially hurt them in the short term? I assume most conservatives don’t care about an issue unless they themselves are going to affected by it in the immediate term.
- asdff 6y ago
  >I assume most conservatives don’t care about an issue unless they themselves are going to affected by it in the immediate term Unless that issue that doesn't affect these conservatives at all has something to do with what a woman can do with her body, or having a different skin tone, or worshiping a different god, that is. Rules for thee but not for me is practically a tenet of conservatism.
mrguyorama 6y ago
Don't forget the people who vote for Trump because he "Supports the troops" Despite being Mr Bone Spurs Despite making fun of a gold star family Despite bounties on american heads Despite not improving the VA Despite the pentagon being a shitshow from Trump not filling lots of administrative positions and putting incompetent people in charge and even those people don't believe in him and try to softball the shit he is causing Despite that covid death ship that the navy pretended wasn't happening But yeah, "Blah blah supports Troops", whatever that means

euroderf 6y ago

Terraforming: 80% complete...

xnx 6y ago

Reminder that your "regulations" are often my "protections".

microcolonel 6y ago

Does anyone have a link to an actual writeup of which of these regulations are being rescinded? It's not clear from what's visible publicly on this WSJ article to a non-subscriber.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

neonate 6y ago

https://archive.is/ixNen https://archive.is/ixNen

eisa01 6y ago

This will be interesting for the LNG exports to Europe The EU commission is looking at associated methane emissions from natural gas imports, so there is a risk that the US may very well shut off their access to EU markets, or be subject to taxation or similar https://ec.europa.eu/info/news/commission-open-views-methane-strategy-2020-jul-08_en https://ec.europa.eu/info/news/commission-open-views-methane...

aaron695 6y ago

When we/you choose lockdown this is what you choose. And it's only just beginning. This is going to get boring real quick, complaints should have been in April or even January. Environment/disability/healthcare will all be cut and stay cut for years no mater who is in charge.

chrisgd 6y ago

Trump is like a caricature of anarchy capitalism

metta2uall 6y ago

The majority of politicians and voters didn't do enough to heed scientific warnings & prepare for an upcoming pandemic.. Similarly, we are not doing enough to mitigate climate change. Unfortunately the consequences will likely be much worse if we don't learn the lesson quickly..