I have traditionally avoided discussing federal issues in my reports, because I serve at the state level, and because we have very competent federal representatives to protect our interests and keep us informed on what is going in Washington, D.C. This week, however, I am making an exception and writing about one particular federal agency whose actions consistently defy any logic and reason and make most of us wonder why we continue to allow this agency to exist: The Environmental Protection Agency or – as I like to refer to it – The Employment Prevention Agency.
Many of us remember the EPA’s early days in the 1970s. President Richard Nixon created it with a very limited and defined mission of watching out for our environment. At the same time, it was not intended to kill American jobs and grind natural resource development to a virtual standstill. The agency, as it exists today, is one with a radical political agenda that specializes in making energy more expensive, blocking policies that create more jobs, and destroying what jobs we do have. This process has accelerated under the Obama Administration to the point where we cannot even approve an oil pipeline being built by our neighbor to the north, Canada, and that enjoyed wide bipartisan support in Congress. Who was standing in the way? President Obama and his EPA who overruled the State Department and declared the project unsafe for the environment.
While I think the EPA has no reasons to be involving itself in the Keystone Pipeline approval process, there’s no question the agency has no business sticking its nose in this next issue. It was recently discovered that the EPA is funding a study through the University of California-Riverside on the impact of “particulate emissions” that a person breathes while grilling. The project’s goal is to limit emissions from grease drippings with a special tray to catch them and a "catalytic" filtration system to eliminate pollution before being released into the air. You heard that right, the EPA wants to regulate your backyard barbecue where we grill hamburgers or hotdogs with family and friends and celebrate the Fourth of July. The idea that the EPA wants to regulate barbecues is just another example of an agency that is out of touch and out of control.
I wish this was the EPA’s only ridiculous transgression but it gets worse. The agency also recently awarded a grant to the University of Tulsa to develop a shower water usage monitor. I promise I am not making this up. The EPA is spending our tax dollars on a study to create a wireless system that will track how much water a hotel guest uses. In language taken straight from the press release announcing the grant, the EPA said “this technology will provide hotel guests with the ability to monitor their daily water online or using a smartphone app and will assist hotel guest in modifying their behavior to help conserve water”. So maybe the water will shut off when the EPA thinks our shower is getting too long or a hotel employee will knock on the door to tell us it’s time to wrap it up. This would be funny if it wasn’t your tax dollars paying for it. One has to wonder if President Obama is laughing all the way to the bank or just asleep at the wheel and doesn’t know what his department is doing.
All of us want clean air and water and we should be aware of what is happening around us. However, the surge of EPA studies, reports, and regulations are doing nothing to help our economy, put people to work (except for government bureaucrats) or secure our energy future. If we are serious about growing jobs and business and finding an energy policy that protects our environment and, most importantly, our freedom, it starts with reforming the EPA.
As always, I welcome your ideas, questions and concerns about Missouri government. You may contact me at the State Capitol as follows: (573) 751-1480, david.sater@senate.mo.gov or by writing to Sen. David Sater, Missouri State Capitol, Room 419, Jefferson City, MO 65101.
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