EPA exodus of staff and scientists

This is what winning looks like.

The NY Times reports on Droves of Scientists Leaving EPA

WASHINGTON — More than 700 people have left the Environmental Protection Agency since President Trump took office, a wave of departures that puts the administration nearly a quarter of the way toward its goal of shrinking the agency to levels last seen during the Reagan administration.

This is 700 of 15,000 employees. The cuts started under Obama (“blame” Republicans) and is just the start:

The cuts deepen a downward trend at the agency that began under the Obama administration in response to Republican-led budget constraints that left the agency with about 15,000 employees at the end of his term.

…the administration is well on its way to achieving its goal of cutting 3,200 positions from the E.P.A., about 20 percent of the agency’s work force.

After skeptical scientists have been sacked, exiled and subject to RICO threats, NOW they worry about “silencing” scientists?

Many also said they saw the departures as part of a more worrisome trend of muting government scientists, cutting research budgets and making it more difficult for academic scientists to serve on advisory boards.

Let’s talk about real silencing. Out of thousands of workers, how many vocal skeptical scientists do the EPA employ? Anyone?

This is a deep-state agency, which was being used to bypass American voters and Congress.

James Delingpole says  “Christmas is here”.

As Dennis Ambler argued at the time in this Science and Public Policy paper:

The EPA is effectively no longer under the control of the US Congress; its allegiance is to the UN and implementation of the policies of Sustainable Development via Agenda 21.

No tears lost:

The junk science of the Endangerment Finding was in turn responsible for Obama’s monumentally destructive Clean Power Plan, which drove up energy prices, hit U.S. economic competitiveness and killed jobs.

Anyone who thinks it’s sad that 700 EPA officials have lost their jobs should maybe consider the 50,000 workers in the U.S. coal industry alone who lost their jobs as a result the EPA-enforced Clean Power Plan.

9.6 out of 10 based on 57 ratings

28 comments to EPA exodus of staff and scientists

  • #
    Phillip Bratby

    The EPA should be disbanded as a big part of draining the swamp and getting rid of corruption.

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    • #

      The EPA can have a positive role regarding real pollution. The problem is that power went to their collective heads and they stretched their initial mandate beyond reason to include imaginary pollution from CO2 and other radical causes. The reason seems to be that their ranks were bloated by green radicals, much like what happened to the IPCC.

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      • #
        Roy Hogue

        President Trump’s policy regarding the EPA is certainly worth celebrating. Hooray for him! The agency was out of control.

        But now I fear that real problems will be ignored. Lead, as the scientist who was working on it said, is still a toxic substance and needs to be controlled. But like so many things, lead also has good uses. Can’t we find a compromise position that allows regulating it so no one is exposed to ingesting it but still allows the stuff to be used where there isn’t any danger or where precautions can be used to mitigate the danger? I think we could have.

        I doubt that we can ever remove all the lead already in the environment all around us. But I think we can do better than to release more of it.

        I’ve noticed that no one ever even proposed eliminating the lead from our car batteries. I wonder why. Could it be that there simply is no substitute for sulphuric acid and lead when it comes to starting your car on a cold morning? And there you have 2 dangerous substances, not just one. And in any serious wreck there’s danger of breaking that battery open or shorting it out. And a short from + to -, as my brother-in-law found out the hard way, will cause it to explode. He was lucky he was not burned by the acid. His car fared less well.

        Mercury is another problem like lead. The list is probably long.

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        • #
          Bobl

          Most plastics, especially PVC are very very toxic, but just like lead they aren’t very sociable, so we can even pump water through PC pipes. Water is pretty toxic if you are immersed in it. Oxygen, in the form of ozone is deadly and is present in electric cars and used to sterilize drinking water. Fluoride added to our water is a scheduled poison and carcinogenic, Bleach is deadly especially if combined with ammonia. Alcohol is also deadly. Almonds contain cyanide. Vinegar and soda water are strong acids.

          Common garden plants, oleander, some nightshades, lilies, etc are deadly.

          But of course the Epa, rather that educating people on how to manage risks from lead and mercury, asbestos instead take the autocratic approach and ban it even in situations where it is passivated and inert and then they approve things like PVA siding that release VOCs that are far more toxic than lead is.

          Our environment IS toxic, what we do these days focussing on mildly toxic substances is just political correctness and autocratic overreach.

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    • #
      Curious George

      Even better it should move to Paris, France, lock, stock, and barrel.

      41

  • #
    Just Thinkin'

    We need a clean-out here in Australia…

    Starting with Tim “the dams won’t fill” Flannery and
    Mr Finkel…

    Of course, Mal is just a given…..

    230

    • #
      Mall

      I live in Wollongong. The Illawarra Mercury reported on Dec 13th that Wollongong University awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Science to Tim Flannerry. He received It at a ceremony for science and engineering students where he gave one of his brainwashing speeches.
      We have along way to go to turn around this religion.
      As with all religions it is an act of faith. Rational people can see through this garbage and also see the consequences. The faithful will only see the the dogma and will always find excuses to support their dogma.

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  • #

    A few less Holocene deniers. Not quite as cool as my idea of obliterating the climatariat by holding all future COPs at the Central Kempsey Caravan Park. But baby steps…

    171

    • #
      Glen Michel

      Kempsey RSL as an alternative in wet weather, or if the Macleay floods. Then again that won’t necessarily work either.

      10

  • #
    Lionell Griffith

    Just a scratch but an important scratch. Reduce the EPA to 12 people and the job is almost done. Twelve more and then it is really done! Then start on the DOE.

    131

    • #
      Roy Hogue

      Why stop at the DOE? Let’s go on to the other DOE, the Department of Education. I could celebrate seeing that one completely eliminated. I can’t point to a single good thing it has done. It was all political from the start.

      51

      • #
        Lionell Griffith

        I was suggesting the next but not the last. After the Department of Energy, the Department of Education needs to go. After that, repeatedly pick one of any alphabet soup agency other than the DOJ and DOD. The DOJ and DOD have a legitimate function but they too likely need to be trimmed of massive amounts of deadweight, duplication, and mendacity.

        After the government is trimmed by 90% then start working to make the remainder work as they should for a free society. Make paying for them user fees and eliminate ALL taxes.

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  • #
    Antoine D'Arche

    So sad, too bad for the global warmists…… 🙂

    100

  • #
    KinkyKeith

    Part of me could fee sorry for some of those in the PEA.
    Still, if they weren’t sufficiently skilled to know that scientifically, CAGW, and therefore the thrust of the EPAs business was a scam, then maybe it was a self inflicted wound.

    Still, the waste of time and energy in ramping up the CAGW scam and then dismantling it is wasteful and sad.

    On a happier note, it’s getting back to the right heading.

    KK

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  • #
    wal1957

    The true cost, in dollar terms of the greatest “scam” in the history of mankind will never be known.
    Unfortunately, we will be paying for this madness long after
    I am 6 foot under.
    I am personally hoping for a very long hot summer in Sth Oz and Victoriastan. Until the drones that vote for these clowns that infest our parliaments in Oz are affected by blackouts, they will happily believe that nothing is wrong.
    Good luck with that Eveready battery in SA, it won’t help in any way with the likely power supply shortfalls that could be experienced.

    160

  • #
    PeterS

    I wonder of the same thing will happen with NASA and our CSIRO.

    80

    • #
      Roy Hogue

      Unless I’ve slipped a gear tooth or 2, NASA has got to be feeling some heat. GISS in particular must have the gas burning under them wide open. But Trump apparently hasn’t said anything publicly about any plan for NASA.

      On the other hand, maybe pulling out of Paris will give all the right people at NASA the incentive they need to jump ship and the rest a good incentive to get onboard with their president’s agenda.

      Let’s hope so!

      61

      • #
        PeterS

        Give Trump more time. He has already achieved in one year more than what virtually all other Presidents achieved in their whole term in office, be it 4 or 8 years. I suspect he will do something to rattle the cages at NASA so hard that a lot of the cockroaches there will want to escape to the moon. We need the same thing done here with the CSIRO. There are still a lot of god scientists in CSIRO but unfortunately the management is destroying the organsiation bit by bit. It started a long time ago when I was there. I never regretted leaving that place although I still feel some sadness as it was full of nice people at the time, and I originally thought it was a great place for the rest of my life. It wasn’t meant to be so. The politics just went to far for me.

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      • #
        Chad

        Whilst the exact effect on NASA was not stated, Trump has declared a new move to establish a manned base on the moon.
        https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/12/trump-man-on-the-moon-space-directive/
        I cannot imagine they woud attempt that without full NASA involvement.

        10

      • #
        PeterPetrum

        My understanding is that Trump has increased funding to NASA space projects by 7%, while cutting their atmospheric (read climate) funding. He wants to get men to Mars. (Sorry, humans, it’s unlikely that they will get back to earth, so they may as well enjoy themselves while living in enviro-domes on Mars)

        50

        • #
          Pauly

          I have had the opportunity through my work to talk to a couple of the JAXA (Japanese version of NASA) astronauts. They are very excited about what Trump is doing with NASA. For them it means more trips tp space and with bigger goals.

          50

  • #
    Roy Hogue

    The appointment of someone at the EPA who has his head screwed on facing straight ahead is something I thought I’d never see. 🙂

    90

  • #
    PeterPetrum

    The EPA’s original charter was to ensure that air and water in the US did not become contaminated by toxins. The High Court decision that CO2 was a toxin was a political and unscientific travesty that changed to EPA into a tool of the Obama presidency to allow him to close down coal mining and oil exploration and use. Once the EPA gets back to its roots, under Pruitt supported by Trump, it might become worth its cost to the US taxpayers again.

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  • #

    Steve Milloy’s Junkscience.com has an article about EPA grant-grubber, activist groups sue EPA for barring agency grantees from science boards

    There was big money being thrown into the swamp as documented previously in EPA stacked ozone science panel with $192 million worth of paid cronies

    Below are listed the panel members at the amount of money they received in EPA grants, according to documents obtained from the EPA:

    Dr. H. Christopher Frey, North Carolina State University — $3,136,162
    Mr. George A. Allen, North east States for Coordinated Air Use Management — $3,907,111
    Mt., Ed Avol, University of Southern California — $67,163,221
    Dr. Michelle Bell, Yale University — $27,216,035
    Dr. Joseph Brain, Harvard university — $15,641,225 …
    Dr. Ana Diez-Roux, Drexel University — $33,575,181 …
    Dr. Jack Harkema, Michigan State University — $26,918,114
    Dr. Daniel Jacob, Harvard University — $14,135,578

    They don’t want much; just to vote themselves more grants.

    20

  • #
    yarpos

    EPA staff will feel no pain, separation packages and plenty of other climate work available for non value adding drones.

    00

  • #
    Amber

    The EPA has become a lobbyist holding pen. 700 job cuts out of 15,000 is only a down payment . Cut it in half and ban grants
    to the lobbyist’s that are bought to work against the public interest .
    Clone Scott Pruitt and there is hope the swamp will get drained .
    Good job but along way to go .

    00