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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

#191

Post by natch »

dang wrote: post #151
natch wrote: post #14

>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 .

Thanks for noting the detachment. I also saw your reply acknowledging the summary of the possible reasons.

Not to argue or draw you out necessarily, but just want to share some thoughts.

We (society, human civilization) have incurred a lot of damage over the decades from anti-science motivations. If we can't call this out on HN, I don't know where we can call it out. Also it feels right to me that names should be named. Names of political parties, names of religions, etc.

I do understand the need to keep things, especially when flame wars are likely, from drifting off into divisive and toxic discussions, in order to keep this a healthy discussion. Maybe leaving out the naming of names is the cost to do this.

Somehow, these forces need to be called out.

Maybe this is not the place. That answer seems too facile, though.

Or maybe there are better ways. Instead of mentioning, focusing on, and calling out the negative, I have noticed some people simply highlight the positive alternative view, never acknowledging the (imho) toxic one. This is an interesting approach but I question how far it has gotten us, given… look around at the world today, to get my point.

Again my intent is not to argue with you about this, but just to share thoughts. I am questioning myself, whether I should become one of those people who always just ignores the bad, and only talks about the positive other options. I also realize there are better and worse ways to inject opinions into a discussion.

I think I'm not alone in struggling with this. Feedback welcome but not expected. Thanks.

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#192

Post by umvi »

enraged_camel wrote: post #96
ianleeclark wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, let's ignore this one issue that has majority acceptance across political lines and upwards of 70% Democrat approval because I've got a grudge against it. You can do what you want, throwaway account. When you get Matt Gaetz in 2024 let me know how it feels. 4 years of more means testing will get you there real quick.

I agree that M4A should be adopted, but disagree that not adopting it is hurting Biden. He's doing spectacularly in both state polls and national polls. Back in Spring this could have been ignored, but the election is less than 3 months away now and he has managed to not just retain his lead, but increase it. There's no reason to rock that boat now with major policy adoptions, in my opinion. For what it's worth, if D…

Pretty much everyone knows Biden is senile and that his VP is going to be the real president. So it's a mystery to me why we still don't know who that is mere months before we are supposed to vote.

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#193

Post by Fjolsvith »

michaelmrose wrote: post #154
Fjolsvith wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Please. You surely are aware of the recent failed negotiation requirements of the house majority leader.

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#194

Post by dang »

natch wrote: post #191
dang wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24111740 .

Thanks for noting the detachment. I also saw your reply acknowledging the summary of the possible reasons. Not to argue or draw you out necessarily, but just want to share some thoughts. We (society, human civilization) have incurred a lot of damage over the decades from anti-science motivations. If we can't call this out on HN, I don't know where we can call it out. Also it feels right to me that names should be nam…

The comment was generic religious/political flamebait and unsubstantive. I'm not criticizing you or your good intentions, just explaining how it externally appears from an HN moderation point of view.

Any place the phrase "calling out" appears, it's likely that the desired spirit of this site (i.e. intellectual curiosity) has been left behind. That phrase is the flagship of internet indignation, which is not compatible with curious conversation.

There may be a bit of a misunderstanding though. The intended style of discussion here is not about ignoring what's bad or focusing only on what's good. It's not a question of what you're focusing on, but how you're focusing on it, and what state a comment shifts the conversation into (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). There are certain predictable things about internet forum dynamics; one is that calling-out-style comments that don't add much information tend to take threads into simplistic, overheated states. One essential quality of what we're looking for on HN is unpredictability (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...).

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#195

Post by metta2uall »

The majority of politicians and voters didn't do enough to heed scientific warnings & prepare for an upcoming pandemic.. Similarly, we are not doing enough to mitigate climate change. Unfortunately the consequences will likely be much worse if we don't learn the lesson quickly..

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#196

Post by gamblor956 »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #166
jcranmer wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My grandfather grew up on a farm and, late in life, retired to a farm. Well, a large portion of the property was a swamp, and if he had his way, he would have tiled that swamp, drained it, and grown corn. But the EPA wouldn't let him, since it was destroying wetlands. So he fulminated against the EPA for not letting him do what he wanted with his land. And that's why there's a lot of people who hate regulations, espe…

There's a huge difference between controlling what people do on their own land, and controlling how people affect the broader ecosystem. Burning oil or gas and affecting the atmosphere for everyone is a much larger-scale issue than a local wetland. (And if you're told you can't turn a swamp into a field, for example, you also ought to get paid for effectively having to maintain a public resource.)

Why should the public have to pay you if you bought a farm knowing a lot of it wasn't usable as a farm?

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#197

Post by throwaway5752 »

refurb wrote: post #132
throwaway5752 wrote: post #7

I suggest changing the headline to "outgoing administration continues to sabotage government for next administration as popularity continues to decline during incompetent response to viral pandemic". Another example of something that was so important they waited until less than 3 months before the election to do it. It hardly needs saying, but this is devastatingly bad environmental and climate policy.

You need to get out of your bubble more. Automatically painting the other side as stupid is why the Democrats lost in 2016 (i.e. "deplorables"). It only drivers those voters to the other side.

I'll thank you to not put words in my mouth. Or you can point out where I "painted the other side as stupid".

You can make assumptions about my "bubble" or my "side" but we all exist in our own epistemic closures and you may want to examine yours just as much as I make sure I examine mine.

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#198

Post by spaetzleesser »

hcurtiss wrote: post #63
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…

I'm not sure how old you are, but it's been a very long time since that was true. You're right that the Clean Water Act was as a big success, but those successes were mostly realized decades ago. At some point, the cost of ever-more stringent environmental regulation outweighs the benefit. In many contexts (e.g., air regulation), there are strong arguments that we are at that point. That is, the cost of incrementally…

I am in my 50s, so not that crazy old. I also remember industry fighting very improvement, be it safety or environment, tooth and nail and warning of massive job losses. These losses never materialized but instead profits kept flowing and life improved massively for all citizens. To me it's total nonsense and FUD that the cost of tightening up standards is too high. It gets prized into the product and smart companies will find ways to adapt. Companies that refuse to adapt deserve to go under.

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#199

Post by klyrs »

ardy42 wrote: post #31
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.

> No, it's very easy. Environmental regulations cost money. Lots of money. It's much more profitable to keep these externalities. I don't think that's the whole story. You also have Zombie Reaganism, which has the Republicans reflexively aping 80s policy as the response to everything, even though it's not the 80s anymore.

They've profited handsomely from Reagan's policies. That's not exclusive to Republicans either; I think dems would be quite incensed about Hunter Biden in a different political context.

Re: EPA to Rescind Methane Regulations for Oil and Gas

#200

Post by klyrs »

jcranmer wrote: post #176
trothamel wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't pay him for the reduced value of his land, did he? I think that's a lot of the problem with these regulations - the government requires people to abide by them, but does not compensate for them.

The wetlands predated his ownership of the land, and I think the regulations also predated that as well too. Actually, the local village did offer to buy all the wetlands and a bit more [for road access] to turn into parkland, but my grandparents turned the offer down.

So... he bought cheap land and got mad because he didn't think the rules should apply to him. And then he was too proud to admit that he was wrong. Yeah, that sense of entitlement is a big problem with politics in America.
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