10 ms·

Hmm... rules for thee but not for me. Sounds like the beginning of the end for the EPA. Two tiered rules breed resentment. There are already plenty of people

Hmm... rules for thee but not for me. Sounds like the beginning of the end for the EPA. Two tiered rules breed resentment. There are already plenty of people that don't like the EPA. Making exceptions just makes it easier to argue the EPA is useless or just a tool for oppressing the little guy.

dgellow 1mo ago
It’s literally the playbook from project 2025. FWIW it’s not the beginning, that has been a process at play since day 1 of the 2nd trump admin Edit: actually since the 1st term as mentioned below
- josefresco 1mo ago
  Clarification: During his first term, Donald Trump appointed former Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt as the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In his role as state attorney general, Pruitt had sued the EPA multiple times to challenge federal environmental regulations, including the Clean Power Plan and the Waters of the United States rule. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_policy_of_the_first_Trump_administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_policy_of_the_fi...
- lvspiff 1mo ago
  Right? This isnt the first chapter in a long story to come. This is the middle of the book where the villain has all but the final stone of the gauntlet but rather than put up a strong resistance we appear to have elected sycophants who are just watching and saying “dont let him get that stone”
MisterTea 1mo ago
> There are already plenty of people that don't like the EPA. Rich assholes who are upset they can't throw their trash on the ground. Anyone else is parroting propaganda generated by said rich assholes.
- cucumber3732842 1mo ago
  >Rich assholes who are upset they can't throw their trash on the ground. Anyone else is parroting propaganda generated by said rich assholes. Yeah, that guy who owns a liquor store on 7-mil and can't make the $100k underground stormwater treatment it would take to pave his dirt parking lot pencil out and that city in the rust belt who saw a major manufacturer pack up and leave for a desert state because environmental compliance precluded expanding their site, all their grievances are illegitimate, they're just simping for billionares and BigCos who wanna dump crap in the river. People looking down their nose and categorically denying that there is collateral damage when you wave the wand of legislation is a large part of how the current populist got elected.
  - ceejayoz 1mo ago
    > that city in the rust belt who saw a major manufacturer pack up and leave for a desert state because environmental compliance precluded expanding their site The one that's about to whine and demand Federal assistance when their water gets cut off because it ran out? https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/21/climate/colorado-river-water-cuts-drought.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/21/climate/colorado-river-wa...
    - cucumber3732842 1mo ago
      No this was a plastic molding company ~10yr ago. Edit: They had a facility with a rail siding. Cheaper to relocate to a new site with expansion potential in another state than pay the state a million bucks an acre to let them fill in wetland (a ~100yo mill pond). The city did what they could to facilitate things but it basically just came down to the discretion of the state officials who live a few hundred miles away amongst all sort of moneyed tech and medical and finance industry and don't really see any upside to economic development in the poor end of the state, especially manufacturing. We're just a line item on the welfare bill as far are they care. The real cherry on top is that the wetland went away "naturally" as the result of a low head dam removal a few years ago, at the behest of the same agency that said you can't fill in any of the mill pond. The site is still vacant. It got sold to a REIT that's headquartered a couple blocks from the statehouse and environmental agency. Supposedly Waste Management or Republic Services wants to buy the old site now for it's rail siding and development potential.
mixdup 1mo ago
>There are already plenty of people that don't like the EPA And those people are the ones making these bifurcated rules undermining the EPA. The destruction is the purpose, it's not incidental
- sailfast 1mo ago
  Correct. The people that don’t like the EPA appointed their friends who also don’t like the EPA to run the EPA. This is the playbook generally - PE vulturism, but for government agencies. And to their credit it kinda works. Just… not for citizens of the country they have sworn to protect. Currently in progress at GSA, OPM, CFPB (for a decade+), Interior, EPA, labor, education… Nevermind I should’ve started with an exclusion list instead.
miltonlost 1mo ago
And this same behavior is how Republicans prove their own theory that the Government is useless and evil and bad. Because they do everything in their power to actually make it useless and evil and bad. Do not blame this on the "EPA" as an agency. Put the blame where it goes: conservatives actively sabotaging government programs. You're neithersidesing an issue where clearly one partisan group is doing evil things to actively make the situation worse and then "see, told you!"
jimt1234 1mo ago
> Sounds like the beginning of the end for the EPA The beginning of the end of the EPA started the day Trump was sworn in. In the last few years several cases have been decided by this Supreme Court that have effectively reduced the EPA to an advisory board, like a group of consultants that have no real authority over anything.

dgellow 1mo ago

It’s literally the playbook from project 2025. FWIW it’s not the beginning, that has been a process at play since day 1 of the 2nd trump admin Edit: actually since the 1st term as mentioned below

josefresco 1mo ago
Clarification: During his first term, Donald Trump appointed former Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt as the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In his role as state attorney general, Pruitt had sued the EPA multiple times to challenge federal environmental regulations, including the Clean Power Plan and the Waters of the United States rule. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_policy_of_the_first_Trump_administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_policy_of_the_fi...
lvspiff 1mo ago
Right? This isnt the first chapter in a long story to come. This is the middle of the book where the villain has all but the final stone of the gauntlet but rather than put up a strong resistance we appear to have elected sycophants who are just watching and saying “dont let him get that stone”

MisterTea 1mo ago

> There are already plenty of people that don't like the EPA. Rich assholes who are upset they can't throw their trash on the ground. Anyone else is parroting propaganda generated by said rich assholes.

cucumber3732842 1mo ago
>Rich assholes who are upset they can't throw their trash on the ground. Anyone else is parroting propaganda generated by said rich assholes. Yeah, that guy who owns a liquor store on 7-mil and can't make the $100k underground stormwater treatment it would take to pave his dirt parking lot pencil out and that city in the rust belt who saw a major manufacturer pack up and leave for a desert state because environmental compliance precluded expanding their site, all their grievances are illegitimate, they're just simping for billionares and BigCos who wanna dump crap in the river. People looking down their nose and categorically denying that there is collateral damage when you wave the wand of legislation is a large part of how the current populist got elected.
- ceejayoz 1mo ago
  > that city in the rust belt who saw a major manufacturer pack up and leave for a desert state because environmental compliance precluded expanding their site The one that's about to whine and demand Federal assistance when their water gets cut off because it ran out? https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/21/climate/colorado-river-water-cuts-drought.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/21/climate/colorado-river-wa...
  - cucumber3732842 1mo ago
    No this was a plastic molding company ~10yr ago. Edit: They had a facility with a rail siding. Cheaper to relocate to a new site with expansion potential in another state than pay the state a million bucks an acre to let them fill in wetland (a ~100yo mill pond). The city did what they could to facilitate things but it basically just came down to the discretion of the state officials who live a few hundred miles away amongst all sort of moneyed tech and medical and finance industry and don't really see any upside to economic development in the poor end of the state, especially manufacturing. We're just a line item on the welfare bill as far are they care. The real cherry on top is that the wetland went away "naturally" as the result of a low head dam removal a few years ago, at the behest of the same agency that said you can't fill in any of the mill pond. The site is still vacant. It got sold to a REIT that's headquartered a couple blocks from the statehouse and environmental agency. Supposedly Waste Management or Republic Services wants to buy the old site now for it's rail siding and development potential.

mixdup 1mo ago

>There are already plenty of people that don't like the EPA And those people are the ones making these bifurcated rules undermining the EPA. The destruction is the purpose, it's not incidental

sailfast 1mo ago
Correct. The people that don’t like the EPA appointed their friends who also don’t like the EPA to run the EPA. This is the playbook generally - PE vulturism, but for government agencies. And to their credit it kinda works. Just… not for citizens of the country they have sworn to protect. Currently in progress at GSA, OPM, CFPB (for a decade+), Interior, EPA, labor, education… Nevermind I should’ve started with an exclusion list instead.

miltonlost 1mo ago

And this same behavior is how Republicans prove their own theory that the Government is useless and evil and bad. Because they do everything in their power to actually make it useless and evil and bad. Do not blame this on the "EPA" as an agency. Put the blame where it goes: conservatives actively sabotaging government programs. You're neithersidesing an issue where clearly one partisan group is doing evil things to actively make the situation worse and then "see, told you!"

jimt1234 1mo ago

> Sounds like the beginning of the end for the EPA The beginning of the end of the EPA started the day Trump was sworn in. In the last few years several cases have been decided by this Supreme Court that have effectively reduced the EPA to an advisory board, like a group of consultants that have no real authority over anything.