Scott Walker gives gollum a bad name.
Scott Walker, the Wisconsin governor who has said he will announce whether he is running for president after the state budget is wrapped up this month, has a plan in mind if he occupies the Oval Office: Smash the Environmental Protection Agency. Walker
wants:
“...major portions of the funding and responsibilities of the federal government in that regard, natural resource protection, and send it back to the states.”
“One of the things I’d love to see the next Congress and the next president hone in on is pulling major portions of Washington and sending it back to the states,” Walker told a crowd at an event in Disney World. “The EPA’s a good example. Every state has an equivalent of the EPA. Every state that has it, not that they’re all perfect, but they’re much more effective, much more efficient and certainly much more accountable at the state and local level than they are in Washington.”
The hobbled EPA would then just be responsible for “mediating between interstate disputes and compacts where you’ve got bodies of land and water that go over multiple state lines, but leave the rest at the state level.”
Although Walker has a dreadful environmental record, his stance on the EPA doesn't make him unique or original among Republicans. Newt Gingrich, another would-be presidential candidate—in 2012—
announced he wanted to get rid of the EPA and replace it with an industry-kowtowing "Environmental Solutions Agency." And it's not just presidential wannabes who want to see the EPA eliminated or eviscerated.
At the beginning of May, Rep. Sam Johnson (R-TX) introduced the Wasteful EPA Programs Elimination Act. The bill would chop 13 EPA programs and close all its field offices. The bill would also block the EPA from restricting greenhouse gas emissions of electricity-generating plants with new rules. It doesn't have much chance of passing, but it's the thought that counts. And the widespread GOP thought on the EPA is abolish or demolish.
Those emissions rules are a key reason for Walker's stance on the EPA. He and other critics say the rules are part of a "war on coal" that will cost jobs and harm the economy. No recognition from him or them about the number of jobs a move away from coal and other fossil fuels will create or the health impacts, including thousands of annual deaths, caused by burning coal. And, of course, no mention of climate change. Walker has informed the EPA that its proposed level of emissions cutbacks for Wisconsin are "unworkable." Under the rules, EPA is giving each of the 50 states the flexibility to come up with its own method for reducing emissions. But Walker, the utility and fossil fuel industries don't want states to come up with any plan at all.
Having 50 state EPAs all setting different pollution and other environmental standards would create an incredible mess. But no doubt the American Legislative Exchange Council and industry would rush in to solve this by eliminating or making toothless state environmental regulations from West Virginia to Wyoming. A perfect world if you're a Koch.