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Re: undefined

#11

Post by ci5er »

mikestew wrote: post #9
ci5er wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And that's ignoring the fact that he seemed to fail at the main tenets of his job. Really? How? The personal habits were egregious, but as to his administrative choices, do you simply disagree with his policy choices? Or did he do something wrong? EDIT: The reason his corruption made me sad is that I thought he was succeeding at the basic tenets of his job. Which means that you and I might well differ at what those…

Pruitt has rolled back or delayed the implementation of many regulations that I think would be effective in protecting the environment. Civil penalties against polluters are half of what they were before Pruitt showed up. I could go on, but suffice it to say that as director of the Environmental Protection Agency, I don't think Pruitt was doin' a whole lot of protectin'. If you feel that the environment (no, not the…

I don't disagree.

As an economics-ish guy, I tend to look at Cost-Benefit. Spending one billion dollars to comply with a reg (silly extreme example) for a dollar worth of saved salamander, doesn't make sense to me. But I don't think anyone wants to leave a dirtier earth to their children...

Re: undefined

#12

Post by ci5er »

throwaway956739 wrote: post #10
ci5er wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough. I do not like corruption in government officials, regardless of any particular policy positions. EDIT: I am still curious as to the actions he took, as an officer that people here might disagree with...

This isn't about the policies, Pruitt realistically hasn't been administrator long enough to be enacting or implementing policies. They are separate cases, he resigned for misconduct reasons ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malfeasance_in_office ) as you can't really judge policy within a court of law within such a short period unless the policies immediately infringed upon certain things that can be judged.

Fair enough.

Re: undefined

#13

Post by virtuabhi »

ci5er wrote: post #4
mikestew wrote: post #2

Many in the Trump administration strike me as simply incompetent in their roles. Pruitt, OTOH, almost seemed to be going out of his way to see what he could get away with. "How much self-dealing, graft, and over-spending can I do before they can my ass? Hold my beer..." I'm surprised it has taken this long, but perhaps his antics were a useful distraction from other issues. And that's ignoring the fact that he seemed…

> And that's ignoring the fact that he seemed to fail at the main tenets of his job. Really? How? The personal habits were egregious, but as to his administrative choices, do you simply disagree with his policy choices? Or did he do something wrong? EDIT: The reason his corruption made me sad is that I thought he was succeeding at the basic tenets of his job. Which means that you and I might well differ at what those…

https://www.apnews.com/646836ad590c4230b730fc17cfbcb967/EPA-...

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/22/climate/epa-scientists.ht...

https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/2018/06/22/epa...

http://www.newsweek.com/pruitt-trump-asbestos-chemicals-trum...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2018/04/24/epa-chief...

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-verchick-epa-cost...

I am surprised that you were not able to search for this information yourself. I sense either incompetence or trollish behavior.

Re: undefined

#14

Post by ci5er »

virtuabhi wrote: post #13
ci5er wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And that's ignoring the fact that he seemed to fail at the main tenets of his job. Really? How? The personal habits were egregious, but as to his administrative choices, do you simply disagree with his policy choices? Or did he do something wrong? EDIT: The reason his corruption made me sad is that I thought he was succeeding at the basic tenets of his job. Which means that you and I might well differ at what those…

https://www.apnews.com/646836ad590c4230b730fc17cfbcb967/EPA-... https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/22/climate/epa-scientists.ht... https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/2018/06/22/epa... http://www.newsweek.com/pruitt-trump-asbestos-chemicals-trum... https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2018/04/24/epa-chief... http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-verchick-epa-cost... I am surprised that you were not abl…

HN, collectively, has it's own opinions. I was curious (and asking) about that. I certainly know what the MSM thinks - but they are a bunch of hacks that have to churn out 3 articles/day (god save them), and have no time to develop any insight of their own.

Thanks, though, for impugning motive. That makes me feel all sorts of warm and fuzzy about you.

Re: undefined

#15

Post by js2 »

mikestew wrote: post #2

Many in the Trump administration strike me as simply incompetent in their roles. Pruitt, OTOH, almost seemed to be going out of his way to see what he could get away with. "How much self-dealing, graft, and over-spending can I do before they can my ass? Hold my beer..." I'm surprised it has taken this long, but perhaps his antics were a useful distraction from other issues. And that's ignoring the fact that he seemed…

Next up: Ryan Zinke.

Re: undefined

#16

Post by elipsey »

ci5er wrote: post #4
mikestew wrote: post #2

Many in the Trump administration strike me as simply incompetent in their roles. Pruitt, OTOH, almost seemed to be going out of his way to see what he could get away with. "How much self-dealing, graft, and over-spending can I do before they can my ass? Hold my beer..." I'm surprised it has taken this long, but perhaps his antics were a useful distraction from other issues. And that's ignoring the fact that he seemed…

> And that's ignoring the fact that he seemed to fail at the main tenets of his job. Really? How? The personal habits were egregious, but as to his administrative choices, do you simply disagree with his policy choices? Or did he do something wrong? EDIT: The reason his corruption made me sad is that I thought he was succeeding at the basic tenets of his job. Which means that you and I might well differ at what those…

Pruitt is accused of declining to exercise the mandate of EPA in various ways, and discarding results and recommendations from staff scientists. In context, he was appointed to administer EPA by an executive that is issuing orders to modify science based recommendations by fiat. A cursory search in this area returns a variety of examples.

--canceled tracking requirements for fossil-fuel related methane emissions[1]

--overruled the internal recommendation to ban chlorpyrifos[2]

--sought to delay various reports and standards[3][4]

–proposed “transparency” rules to disallow the use of anonymized human health data[5]

--worked to remove climate assumptions from agency recommendations, e.g. for flood risk[6]

--ordering downward revision of environmental cost assumptions[7]

[1] https://insideclimatenews.org/news/03032017/scott-pruitt-env...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/29/us/politics/epa-insectici...

[3] https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/14/emails-white-house...

[4] https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/8-1-17_state_of_ny_v_u...

[5] https://s3.amazonaws.com/ucs-documents/science-and-democracy...

[6] https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2015/0...

[7] https://e360.yale.edu/features/how-the-trump-administration-...

Re: undefined

#17

Post by elipsey »

ci5er wrote: post #11
mikestew wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pruitt has rolled back or delayed the implementation of many regulations that I think would be effective in protecting the environment. Civil penalties against polluters are half of what they were before Pruitt showed up. I could go on, but suffice it to say that as director of the Environmental Protection Agency, I don't think Pruitt was doin' a whole lot of protectin'. If you feel that the environment (no, not the…

I don't disagree. As an economics-ish guy, I tend to look at Cost-Benefit. Spending one billion dollars to comply with a reg (silly extreme example) for a dollar worth of saved salamander, doesn't make sense to me. But I don't think anyone wants to leave a dirtier earth to their children...

Is this intended as hyperbole, or is there really a billion dollar salamander I should know about?

Re: undefined

#18

Post by ci5er »

elipsey wrote: post #16
ci5er wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And that's ignoring the fact that he seemed to fail at the main tenets of his job. Really? How? The personal habits were egregious, but as to his administrative choices, do you simply disagree with his policy choices? Or did he do something wrong? EDIT: The reason his corruption made me sad is that I thought he was succeeding at the basic tenets of his job. Which means that you and I might well differ at what those…

Pruitt is accused of declining to exercise the mandate of EPA in various ways, and discarding results and recommendations from staff scientists. In context, he was appointed to administer EPA by an executive that is issuing orders to modify science based recommendations by fiat. A cursory search in this area returns a variety of examples. --canceled tracking requirements for fossil-fuel related methane emissions[1] -…

Generally, I like his evidence-based protocols over the predecessor, but #2 (in your list) is troubling (as implemented.

Hes's a corruptocrat and must go ... but I actually like the (general) balance (Cost-Benefit) of most (most! not all!) of his diktat moves.

Sometimes it feels as if that agency was arguing over parts in a million vs parts in a quadrilion. At some point - it just becomes too expensive to implement for no benefit except to guarantee jobs to a lifeless bureaucrat. (Well, I guess that was an assessment, so I should say: It seems so to me.)

Re: undefined

#19

Post by danso »

ci5er wrote: post #4
mikestew wrote: post #2

Many in the Trump administration strike me as simply incompetent in their roles. Pruitt, OTOH, almost seemed to be going out of his way to see what he could get away with. "How much self-dealing, graft, and over-spending can I do before they can my ass? Hold my beer..." I'm surprised it has taken this long, but perhaps his antics were a useful distraction from other issues. And that's ignoring the fact that he seemed…

> And that's ignoring the fact that he seemed to fail at the main tenets of his job. Really? How? The personal habits were egregious, but as to his administrative choices, do you simply disagree with his policy choices? Or did he do something wrong? EDIT: The reason his corruption made me sad is that I thought he was succeeding at the basic tenets of his job. Which means that you and I might well differ at what those…

It seems his resignation was directly related to his "administrative choices". It wasn't coincidence that his resignation came minutes after a NYT story alleged that he ordered the deletion of records that are mandated for preservation by federal law:

https://nytimes.com/2018/07/05/climate/pruitt-epa-calendar-m...

Re: undefined

#20

Post by ci5er »

elipsey wrote: post #17
ci5er wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree. As an economics-ish guy, I tend to look at Cost-Benefit. Spending one billion dollars to comply with a reg (silly extreme example) for a dollar worth of saved salamander, doesn't make sense to me. But I don't think anyone wants to leave a dirtier earth to their children...

Is this intended as hyperbole, or is there really a billion dollar salamander I should know about?

Hyperbole. Also in Austin Texas, "Save Our Salamander" (SOS) is a real (major) thing.
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