President Trump is winning at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
There can be no better proof of this than the latest anguished editorial in the New York Times, lamenting the changes made by EPA administrator Scott Pruitt.
The EPA, it claims, is the “epicenter of denial.” Its new regime is “terrified” of thwarting “Trump’s promise to ease regulations on fossil fuel companies and increase their profits”. Its every new action flies in the face of all the regulatory efforts made by such experts as Barack Obama, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, ex-EPA administrator Gina McCarthy and some guy from the Union of Concerned Scientists.
What’s not to like?
Steve Milloy, a writer more familiar with the EPA’s past dirty tricks than almost anyone, has compiled a glorious, line-by-line demolition of the Times‘s editorial.
Here is a taster (Milloy’s comments in bold):
The other day, Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, took yet another step to muzzle the scientific inquiry that for years has informed sound policy at an agency he seems determined to destroy. [False. The move advances science and improves the regulatory process by requiring replication of claimed scientific results prior to use in regulation.] He told his subordinates that they could no longer make policy on the basis of studies that included data from participants who were guaranteed confidentiality. [False. EPA can no longer base regulations on secret data — i.e., no using taxpayer-funded data that researchers refuse to allow others to see for purposes of replication of results. There is no personal privacy issue here. No personal data is required. None is being asked for. This privacy issue is a desperate red herring.] Over the years, such studies have been crucial to establishing links between mortality and pollution, led to regulations and saved many lives. [False. Over the years, such fraudulent science was crucial to the Obama EPA’s criminal overregulation of the coal industry. No environmental or public health gain was produced.] Limiting policymakers to only those studies with publicly available health data greatly narrows the field of research. [Naked claims that cannot be verified are not “research.”]
This got us to searching again (we’ve been here before with Mr. Pruitt) for the word that best describes the Trump administration’s hostility to scientific inquiry. [False. The hostility is to junk science and fraud.] “Disdain” jumps to mind. Fourteen months into his term, President Trump has yet to name a director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, or any of the four associate directors authorized by Congress — jobs that have provided presidents for decades with unbiased counsel. [Such BS. Obama science adviser John Holdren (a global warming zealot and advocate of forced abortion for population control) was totally politicized and biased.]
To me this is a vindication not just of Trump’s policy at the EPA but, more generally, his contemptuous attitude towards the MSM. What the New York Times is saying about Trump’s supposed war on science is pure nonsense: the fakest of fake news. It’s more than just routinely inaccurate or politically slanted: it’s quite literally the polar opposite of the truth. Far from showing “hostility to scientific inquiry”, Trump – thanks to Scott Pruitt – is actually introducing scientific integrity (and accountability) to the EPA for perhaps the first time in its history.
At least one of the New York Times‘s readers gets this in the comments section:
Suppose you own a small business – an auto body shop, dry cleaning shop or a metal plating operation. EPA comes along and tells you they have evidence that your emissions are killing people and threatens you with regulation that could potentially bankrupt you. You ask to see the data. You are told that academic researchers have concluded this and you can’t see their data. You have no recourse.
Contrast this with criminal proceedings. The police or FBI gather forensic evidence and accuse you of a crime. The legal system gives you access to the evidence and you have the right to hire your own expert to analyze the evidence and defend yourself. You have the right to question your accusers.
I don’t like Trump’s environmental policies, but I believe the public should absolutely have access to the data that underlies these important policies.
If only all the left-liberal MSM’s readership was capable of such critical thinking. Then we might not see the massive – and growing – divergence between Republicans and Democrats on climate change issue. Much though I enjoy winding up the greenies, I have to admit that I would much rather live in a world where climate realists weren’t treated with such hatred and contempt and menace by climate alarmists. But I fear – at least until media organs like the New York Times learn to start doing actual reporting rather than merely regurgitating left-wing eco propaganda – that this is about as likely as Leonardo DiCaprio learning to live without his private jet.