Firstly, everyone has their embarrassing fringe element. It is a mistake to judge the entirety of the effort to force Big Corp to be environmentally responsible based on the tree-hugging progressive left who chain themselves to trees with galvanized chains and locks while holding up signs made of paper. Or by those on the hard-right which equate small g'ment with no g'ment.
And certainly the EPA must, as with many government agencies, be overhauled.
But the Republicans removing the teeth of the EPA has not helped one bit, however.
Having grown up literally a stone's throw from Love Canal, having a retired steel plant grandfather die of leukemia thanks to the Manhattan Project, and avoiding Niagara County at all costs thanks to such concerns as one of the Nation's largest haz-mat dumps and the slag from the Man. Project being used as foundations for a significant number of roads in that county, I simply cannot let this subject go.
Right now, the EPA is the best thing we have. We must force our Elected Employees in Congress to create rational environmental laws (a monumental effort unto itself) while keeping the overzealous wackos to a minimum, such as those who try to fine landowners for unregistered damns... built by beavers. Or those who put holds on construction projects until culverts are laid for the small creeks under the proposed driveway... "creeks" made by skidder tires. Or forcing 1st Nations people in Washington State onto welfare by declaring the forest they wisely managed for generations for their heat and cooking wood, and wood they used to make the furniture that was their only income, a possible habitat for an endangered species of owl.
My favorite saying in such a circumstance as the EPA and environmental protection laws...
"You don't fix a leaky roof by burning the house down".
