OPINION:
Individuals with outside agencies who have advised the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Interior on matters related to science for years have been handed pink slips of sorts and placed under review in recent days.
And note to left, which has been trying to stir a pot over the reviews and job vacancies: This is a normal part of executive business. The pink slips are mostly being handed to those whose terms are up — whose appointed services have come to a natural end.
In other words: Barack Obama would’ve done the same in his White House administration.
Regardless, this is a real returning-to-sanity moment in American history. Republicans are now poised to take some dramatic steps to reel in the regulatory powers of these agencies, starting with the basic means they use to regulate: the science they cite as fact.
EPA chief Scott Pruitt is replacing fully half the members on one of his agency’s scientific review board, The Washington Post reported. And Interior’s secretary, Ryan Zinke? He’s reportedly “reviewing the charter and charge” of 200-plus advisory boards, committees and other groups that exist to make recommendations to Interior — and putting them all on the table for possible cut.
The left, of course, is spinning this is a travesty, suggesting Republicans are doing away with science and scholarly thinking and climate change fact in order to destroy the country with development. But what Republicans are really doing is trimming back a process that’s become rife with politics. And thank goodness for that.
Pruitt is taking a good, long look at the Board of Scientific Counselors, the key 18-member panel of advisors to the EPA on scientific integrity. These are the people who say, for instance, that those who live in poverty in roach-infested homes are near-helpless victims and should be treated with all due environmental justice dignity — which means, in the view of the left, taxpayer-funded homes.
The left, once again, is spinning the out-with-the-old, in-with-the-new as a partisan hit job fueled by climate change denying Republicans.
But as EPA spokesman J.P. Freire said in an email to The Post: “No one has been fired or terminated. … We’re [just] not going to rubber-stamp the last administration’s appointees.”
And again: Thank goodness for that.
Zinke’s move alone is a breath of fresh air. His review will basically freeze the Bureau of Land Management’s advisory boards — and there are 38 of them dealing with resources — and put on hold some pending invasive species determinations.
And here’s what Interior spokesperson Heather Swift had to say about the decisions: “The secretary is committed to restoring trust in the department’s decision-making.”
Amen to that. For far too long, both EPA and Interior have run roughshod over the private property rights of home- and business-owners in America. Taking a slow-go approach to the issuance of further environmentally based rules is a great move on the part of the President Donald Trump administration, and no matter how the left spins, patriotic Americans everywhere will be thankful for the regulatory reprieve.
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