>It’s very hard to understand why As republican former secretary of the interior James Watt put it, “Why worry about the environment when the second coming is at hand?”
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24111740.
EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas
151–160 of 213 posts
Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
This is an utterly specious claim that overlooks the fact that the oil and gas industry is highly competitive and sells commodities. As a result, Exxon, for example, has a net profit margin well under 10%: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/XOM/exxon/profit-m... . (Compare Google at 20%+ https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/GOOG/alphabet/prof... ) Because of commodification and competition, almost all cos…
The "maximizing profits" trope simply doesn't explain why o1l and gas has such an outsize influence.
I agree that these kinds of supports (to certain industry sectors) don't always do all that much to maximize their profits (short, let alone long).
The real reason behind them is their symbolic effect. It's the idea of a limitless (and infinitely exploitable) "frontier" -- and the inherent, sacred right of private capital to manage that exploitation, unfettered by regulation -- that they seek to defend with these actions. (That, and the repudiation of basic science on general principles of course).
That some of their donors (who as I'm sure you know will individually benefit many magnitudes of order more than individual consumers will from the temporary increase in economic potential) is a nice plus (icing on the cake) as it were -- but it's not the main driver.
Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas
#153Edit: I stand corrected.
Biden's website lists as his plan: "Requiring aggressive methane pollution limits for new and existing oil and gas operations." https://joebiden.com/climate-plan/
Which, in its observable impact will be indistinguishable from lip service. The time for lip service was 40 years ago - today, we need aggressive cuts to fossil fuels across the board.
Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
This would be an easier argument to make if one side wasn't making an issue out of wearing masks, fighting for their right to spread a deadly disease to others, and in some cases actually attacking people for asking them to wear masks.
Or the other side trying to force funding marijuana legalization and abortion clinics by holding stimulus relief and supplemental unemployment benefits hostage.
Can you please link me to wear that holding up stimulus relief? The issue holding up relief as I understand the matter are
- Piles of money for military and FBI projects in the same bill
- Despite there being 5 unemployed for every free job not wanting to pay people so much that they will incentivized not to work
- Not waiting to provide additional funds to states to deal with the current crisis
Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas
#155It’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…
Because people helped by something not happening don't put huge amounts of money into Republican politics and companies that have to 'properly' [0] dispose of their toxic byproducts have money to spend. It's a problem with collective action on a lot of climate problems in particular; the benefits are in the future and dilute while the costs are concentrated and immediate. Because of that there's a LOT of money availa…
Environmental harm should be one place where the corporate veil should be pierced and people should be held personally liable for their actions and decisions.
If someone dumped tons of deadly chemicals into a river for no reason, and those actions resulted in the long-term deaths of thousands, they'd go to jail. But if that person does the same thing for profit, as an executive of a massive conglomerate, nothing happens to them.
Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas
#156It’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…
Not if you pay attention at all to national politics, it isn't.
Most companies are not going to go backwards because they know that a second a Democrat is in charge, they're going to be tasked with sticking to tougher regulations. They're not going to backfall after this much time and energy has been spent on the issue.
Trumpism isn't about doing what's smart, though. It's about smiting those who disagree with you and dismantling the regulatory state while strengthening the administrative state by stacking the courts so that Congress is locked out of decision making. They aren't doing it because it's the smart thing to do. They're doing it because Democrats hate it.
Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas
#157Dr. Peter Carter, an IPCC expert reviewer, provides one of the most concise and sobering summaries of the trajectory of our planet as methane and carbon emissions continue to rise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa13KrOvE2s It's one of the first things I think about when I read articles like this that demonstrate that not only are the powers that be not taking climate change seriously, they are actively accelerating…
If you are one of the powers that be, and probably are of the ruling generation with 20-40 years left to live, why wouldn't you accelerate your gain? These people in positions of power don't care about the long term, because they will be dead by then, but will be able to realize that short term gain in their limited lifetime.
The only way to tackle climate change is to force politicians to sell all private assets and ban them from anything but investing in an index fund for the remainder of their life. Harsh, but public servants should really hold that name literally in my opinion. The science and engineering on climate change has been solved for decades. Whether or not we act in time is a political question, not a technical one.
Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas
#158Earlier 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.
Money can't buy cures for many pollution causing diseases. We should require that those in charge of these regulations must periodically drink from the 'treated' water output which tests as most polluted. Likewise they must breath air samples from the communities that test as most polluted. Once it's personal, and they can't buy their way out then improvements can be maintained.
> We should require that those in charge of these regulations must periodically drink from the 'treated' water output
Better yet, they and their spouses and children.
Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas
#159Dr. Peter Carter, an IPCC expert reviewer, provides one of the most concise and sobering summaries of the trajectory of our planet as methane and carbon emissions continue to rise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa13KrOvE2s It's one of the first things I think about when I read articles like this that demonstrate that not only are the powers that be not taking climate change seriously, they are actively accelerating…
By now it is clear that is not stupidity but malice (or a combination of both) what have in this respect the powers that be. They are ok with the idea that after them, the deluge.
For the rest of us, well, fasten your seat belts and try to enjoy the ride.
Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas
#160It’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…
> 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)
That's not it at all. It politics, not ideology.
The fossil fuel industries in the US are huge. They employ millions of people.
But those industries are rightly under attack for causing climate change and generally destroying the environment. If we did the right thing and priced carbon and prohibited pollution then they would be uncompetitive. Those forms of energy would cost more than solar or nuclear or something else and those people would lose their jobs.
Which is what needs to happen, but did you really think they'd go down without a fight? Any politician who wants to win an election in those districts is going to be under pressure to take the "screw the environment to save the oil industry" position. It happens that the oil and coal deposits are disproportionately in red states, so that's where those constituents live and those are the politicians saddled with that voting block.
This is a different motivation than an ideological preference for actual deregulation, which would have them e.g. refusing to regulate the tech industry rather than calling for some ridiculous anti-encryption nonsense.
To get rid of it you need to do one of two things. One option is that when the other team gets in they need to do a better job of completely smashing those industries into smithereens so they no longer represent a powerful constituency (e.g. Obama could have done this but didn't), but they pay a short term cost for doing that. They'd almost certainly lose the next election because in the short term the people whose jobs you just destroyed are going to be angry and resentful. You also run the risk that after you lose the election the other team comes in and undoes what you did.
The other option, and this is the really great one, is that you also pick some evil constituency of the other team and have everyone get together and destroy them both at once, so that politically it cancels out. But that requires a level of bipartisanship that isn't currently very common. It's everybody doing something which is good for the country even though it yields no partisan advantage, and that's not really how modern politicians think, so how do you get it to happen?