Environmental Protection Agency: Successes and Failures
Given the overall success of the EPA in cleaning up America’s air and water, it’s hard to remember what things looked like half a century ago, before the agency was formed in the early 1970s. At left is a shot of Louisville, Kentucky, and here is an article providing dozens more colorful, if disgusting, examples.
As Andrew Wheeler, current administrater of the EPA continues on his relentless quest to roll back as many environmental regulations as possible and undermine science as the agency’s guiding principle, it’s worth keeping in mind that we’re headed in a very bad direction. Here’s an article from the Union of Concerned Scientists, summarizing the damage he’s done in just one short year.
Craig,
Obviously some environmental regulations are essential, but in the main most smog related problems are more the result of new technology and industrial practices than the result of regulations.
Like many US cities Louisville, Kentucky, was once a concentrated Heavy Industrial centre. Most of those heavy industries have gone. The industrial processes have changed with new technology and the old “dirty” industries transferred overseas to developing nations.
America still buys these products, just no longer makes them in the USA. Huge textile mills which once exported around the globe have no been replaced by healthcare or Fast food companies.
Many regulations are actually counter-productive and made redundant by advanced technology, yet they still remain to deter investment and prevent the development of new employment.
The EPA has been badly in need of reform for decades. The agency had become an overblown bureaucratic refuge for unproductive political ideologues and time servers, featherbedding leeches on the public purse.
The agency will benefit from once again focusing on it’s true mission, and spending taxpayer funds more prudently.