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EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

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Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#51

Post by Spooky23 »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #2

It’s very hard to understand why the current administration has such an urge to roll back environmental regulations. I grew up in a time when rivers were red or green depending on what type of leather the factory upstream was processing at the time. The only fish you could see were dead. Breathing in cities was hard. Environmental regulation is a big success story that improved the lives of countless people while com…

Resource extraction provides the cash that is the bread and butter of reactionary and conservative politics. Every penny of cost removed is a penny gained.

With an administration willing to do anything for a little grift, and demographic changes threatening the governing dynamic (non-hispanic whites will be ~50% of the population by 2030-2040), this is the time to cash in.

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#52

Post by busterarm »

AlexandrB wrote: post #44
busterarm wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's a 74 year old speaking to other 70+ year olds there. Talk to some younger Republicans, even Christian ones, who aren't in your social filter bubble. The whole Falwell family has long been disgraced and ignored. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Majority#1988 If you scroll down and do some followup reading you'll see that his plans to revive the organization failed miserably.

Have you looked at who's in power lately? There are a lot of ~70 year olds in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. It seems relevant what they think.

Have you looked at the demographics around COVID-19 deaths?

They'll all be gone soon enough.

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#53

Post by nickff »

Reason077 wrote: post #46
outworlder wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s very hard to understand why the current administration has such an urge to roll back environmental regulations. No, it's very easy. Environmental regulations cost money. Lots of money. It's much more profitable to keep these externalities.

> ”Environmental regulations cost money. Lots of money.” That’s a narrow-minded view. Sure, environmental regulations cost oil and gas companies money. But this fails to consider the external costs to society: increased healthcare costs and reduced life expectancy due to air and water pollution, future costs of global heating including property damage to coastal cities from rising sea levels, agricultural regions bec…

The USA has been improving energy security by reducing net fossil fuel imports since 2005, just not by weaning off carbon-based fuels.[1]

[1] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-produc...

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#54

Post by arkanciscan »

Reason077 wrote: post #46
outworlder wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s very hard to understand why the current administration has such an urge to roll back environmental regulations. No, it's very easy. Environmental regulations cost money. Lots of money. It's much more profitable to keep these externalities.

> ”Environmental regulations cost money. Lots of money.” That’s a narrow-minded view. Sure, environmental regulations cost oil and gas companies money. But this fails to consider the external costs to society: increased healthcare costs and reduced life expectancy due to air and water pollution, future costs of global heating including property damage to coastal cities from rising sea levels, agricultural regions bec…

the choir errupts in applause

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#55

Post by yalogin »

Not trying to make a political statement here but more about people and what they care about in general. Its amazing to me that trump's support is still at 40-45% in the country.

The people living in the same country can see things unfolding in front of their eyes and make completely different decisions on them is fascinating to me.

When I talk to my friends who are staunch trump supporters, they give me some fox news platitudes about him and Biden. But when I talk about individual issues and the things he has done all of them agree that its bad or really bad. I went down the list about 20-25 of them and did not get a single pushback. However they still vote for him. The human mind is a fascinating and complicated thing.

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#56

Post by Finnucane »

Reason077 wrote: post #46
outworlder wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s very hard to understand why the current administration has such an urge to roll back environmental regulations. No, it's very easy. Environmental regulations cost money. Lots of money. It's much more profitable to keep these externalities.

> ”Environmental regulations cost money. Lots of money.” That’s a narrow-minded view. Sure, environmental regulations cost oil and gas companies money. But this fails to consider the external costs to society: increased healthcare costs and reduced life expectancy due to air and water pollution, future costs of global heating including property damage to coastal cities from rising sea levels, agricultural regions bec…

Sure, but oil companies have the narrow view. External costs to society: they care not. Any cost they can pass on to you, they will.

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#57

Post by vanusa »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #2

It’s very hard to understand why the current administration has such an urge to roll back environmental regulations. I grew up in a time when rivers were red or green depending on what type of leather the factory upstream was processing at the time. The only fish you could see were dead. Breathing in cities was hard. Environmental regulation is a big success story that improved the lives of countless people while com…

Actually it's quite easy to understand.

It all comes down to their ideology, which in a nutshell comes down to: maximizing profits and (perceived) short-term gains for its core constituency (i.e. business elites) - and where that's not quite possible, at least keep the illusion of an every-expanding, anything goes "free market" system chugging along for another year or two -- at the expense of everyone and everything else -- and all common sense to boot.

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#58

Post by meragrin_ »

zentiggr wrote: post #38
dmurray wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say it goes further than that. With the polarisation of American politics, rolling back environmental regulations is politically popular with one cohort of voters just because it's unpopular with the "other" side. Repealing regulations (not necessarily environmental ones) was popular enough to be a Trump campaign promise, after all.

I've seen someone's opinion basically summarized as "a lot of these [Trump / republican] supporters don't really reason through anything political beyond "fuck liberals". As long as it opposes the damn liberals and whatever they want, it's all good, no matter how illogical, self-harming, or clueless in any other regard.

Someone on Fox News actually made a bit out of lying about Trump's stance on various things and people would say they agree with Trump's actual stance. I believe there are a number of people on either side that way. They believe the other side is evil and will take the opposite stance on many things just because of that.

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#59

Post by pjc50 »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #43
zentiggr wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen someone's opinion basically summarized as "a lot of these [Trump / republican] supporters don't really reason through anything political beyond "fuck liberals". As long as it opposes the damn liberals and whatever they want, it's all good, no matter how illogical, self-harming, or clueless in any other regard.

When someone summarizes their political rivals' positions as "they're just nasty people who hate me and want to oppose anything I like", I don't think you should put a tremendous amount of stock in that.

That has literally been their stated position: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/own-libs-was-snide-way...
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