Last week, the Obama administration issued its latest EPA rule, this one protecting rivers, tributaries, and other sources of the country’s drinking water. Republicans seek to dismantle this rule, arguing that it’s an overreach of executive power, reported CBS News.
This is the latest implementation of Obama’s environmental protection efforts. It expands and clarifies to landowners exactly which water sources will be protected against pollution and industrial development. According to EPA head Gina McCarthy, the rule only affects sources with “direct and significant” connections to larger bodies that are already protected.
Despite the administration’s efforts to protect water sources and reduce carbon emissions, Republicans have cried foul since day one.
“There may be a lot of continued rhetoric that [this] is a doomsday scenario. But we will just remind people that this is a different decade, the same stuff,” said McCarthy. “They have been saying this every decade that EPA has been around and we have not seen those doomsday scenarios come true.”
Perhaps it’s the EPA’s existence that has kept those “doomsday scenarios” from coming true?
Republicans’ oppose Obama’s EPA rule because they say it will kill jobs and ruin businesses. According to Republican House Speaker John Boehner, the water rule will send “landowners, small businesses, farmers, and manufacturers on the road to a regulatory and economic hell.”
The new EPA regulations would mainly affect fossil fuel businesses that have the Republicans in their pockets anyway. Republicans are protecting the companies that dump countless tons of carbon emissions into the atmosphere every year. By protecting these energy companies, Republicans are protecting their campaign contributions.
Despite heavy pushback from Republicans and the energy industry, the Obama administration and EPA refuse to back down. They argue that the new regulations are not as rigid as Republicans make them out to be.
Upon the rules’ initial rollout last June, a Washington Post–ABC News poll revealed that 70 percent of those surveyed said they support expanded EPA regulations. Interestingly, 57 percent of the Republican constituency polled in favor of expanded EPA regulations.
The Republican effort to dismantle the administration’s expanded EPA regulations is intended to please only the GOP’s energy industry overlords. By protecting the industry’s profits, they protect their precious campaign dollars.
