Only Two Weeks Left

"Every echo system performs 'services' that maintain the conditions necessary for all life. Forests store and pump out vast quantities of water, thereby modulating weather and climate; they remove carbon dioxide from the air and generate oxygen by photosynthesis; they inhibit erosion; and they provide essential habitat to countless other species. Such 'echosystem services' are priceless: they keep the plenty healthy." (David Suzuki, The Legacy, 2010)

An article in "The Hill," points out that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is looking for all those dreaded "onerous and burdensome" regulations, especially Obama-era regulations, to repeal.

A regulatory reform task force, established by President Trump’s Feb. 24 Executive Order 13777, is seeking public input on which rules to roll back, the agency said Wednesday in the Federal Register.

The task force is also working with program heads inside the agency to identify rules that they believe impede job growth and impose more costs than benefits, according to The Hill. Republicans are, of course, speaking to the costs levied on their big business campaign donors, and the negligible benefits of preserving a livable planet.

The task force will take this information into consideration before it recommends to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt which rules to repeal. Pruitt, who denies CO2 has promoted global warming, blamed the Obama administration for “abusing the regulatory process to advance an ideological agenda.” Presumably, Obama's ideology was to prevent wholesale destruction of the biota.

“We are supporting the restoration of America’s economy through extensive reviews of the misaligned regulatory actions from the past administration,” Pruitt said in a statement.

“Moving forward, EPA will be listening to those directly impacted by regulations, and learning ways we can work together with our state and local partners, to ensure that we can provide clean air, land, and water to Americans,” he added.

Frankly, I don't believe that Denier Pruitt gives a hoot what you, the general public think about the regulatory rollback. And whatever regulations are left in place will be hard to enforce with a looming 31% cut to EPA funding. Nevertheless, if one doesn't comment, Scott Pruitt will sleep soundly thinking the public doesn't really care about what kind of shithole we leave to future generations.

So go to the EPA comment page here, read the memo containing the criteria for identifying "repealable" regulations, then click the "Comment Now" button in the upper right corner, and make your input. You have until May 15, 2017, to do so -- because Administrator Pruitt thought one month (he posted his memo April 13th) was plenty of time to allow the public to comment on his dismantling of environmental protections.

Two weeks from now.

Do it now!