MORE TAXPAYER-SUBSIDIZED MISBEHAVIOR FROM BARACK OBAMA’S LEFT-LEANING “ROGUE BUREAUCRACY”
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency – which has stepped up its radicalism to new and frightening heights under the administration of Barack Obama – broke the law by engaging in “covert propaganda” to advance its controversial “Waters of the United States” regulation.
Remember that shameless big government power grab? We do …
Unfortunately, this regulation was one of many Obama initiatives fully funded by “Republicans” in the latest Washington, D.C. spending plan.
Crazy, huh?
Anyway, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), Obama’s EPA covertly “constructed a message to be shared by others that refers to the EPA in the third person and advocates support of the agency’s activities.” According to the GAO report (.pdf here), more than 1.8 million people received this taxpayer-subsidized missive – which expressly violated congressional prohibitions against such propaganda.
“(The) EPA violated the anti-lobbying provisions contained in appropriations acts,” the report found.
It also broke another federal statute – the antideficiency act – because “the agency’s appropriations were not available for these prohibited purposes.”
“Apparently the EPA was so desperate to move public opinion in favor of its controversial regulation that it hid its identity in order to make it look like these communications were not organized from the top down, but were rather an organic grass roots uprising,” Nathan Mehrens of Americans for Limited Government (ALG) noted.
Mehrens added that the extent of the EPA’s lawlessness in this matter imposed an affirmative obligation on the agency to report its bad behavior “to the President, Congress, and the Comptroller General.”
“It remains to be seen whether the EPA will file this report and come clean on its activities in this area,” Mehrens concluded.
As we noted in our previous coverage, the EPA’s “Waters of the United States” – or WOTUS – rule intends to dramatically redefine which bodies of water fall under the jurisdiction of the federal government. How dramatic a redefinition are we talking about?
Critics referred to the legislation as an attempt by the Obama administration to claim “dominion over every puddle.”
“This rule will be used in the future to regulate and control every square foot of the United States, leaving it to federal regulators to determine where, what, when, why and how you can build something,” U.S. Rep. Jeff Duncan of South Carolina warned at the time. “The EPA claims this will be used to clean up ‘dirty waters.’ Unfortunately, now the dirtiest thing about these waters is the fat power hungry fingers of federal regulators dipping in to regulate it.”
In addition to its work to expose the covert propaganda behind this latest power grab, Americans for Limited Government has filed a Freedom of Information Act request (.pdf here) with the EPA in an effort to determine the extent to which the agency has been collaborating with radical environmental groups in the implementation of its agenda.
Stay tuned … we look forward to seeing what the group is able to uncover.
11 comments
Republicans do this type of thing all the time, they sure hate it when someone else uses their tactics.
Not doubting you but could you list a couple of examples?
Still waiting, huh?
This article is full of it. The Waters of the US aka Clean Water Rule is nothing new. In fact, it’s a much better definition than we had previously as defined by several SCOTUS decisions. Nowhere in the rule does it give the EPA or the Corps of Engineers power over a puddle. That’s the propaganda talking.
The rule ensures that waters protected under the Clean Water Act are more precisely defined, more predictably determined, and easier for businesses and industry to understand.
http://www.epa.gov/cleanwaterrule/final-clean-water-rule
The rules NOT cover the following:
-Protect any types of waters that have not historically been covered by the existing Clean Water Act of 1972.
-Add any new requirements for agriculture. <–BIG ONE FOR FARMERS
-Interfere with or change private property rights.
-Regulate most ditches.
-Change policy on irrigation or water transfers.
-Address land use.
-Cover erosional features such as gullies, rills and non-wetland swales.
-Include groundwater, shallow subsurface flow and tile drains.
Yeah – sounds good but ain’t quite so: https://www.rivernetwork.org/a-big-year-for-the-clean-water-act/
“…the establishment of bright line boundaries in the rule for adjacency does not in any way restrict states from considering state specific information and concerns, as well as emerging science to evaluate the need to more broadly protect their waters under state law.”
It doesn’t today, but what about tomorrow?
Wetlands and streams are constantly changing….just like our beaches.
Why doesn’t American for Limited Government go after that CEO Governor Snyder for poisoning the drinking water in Flint, Michigan to save a few bucks? Good example of how a business man runs an already distressed state further into the ground.
to the writer of this article, take yourself and your family swimming in gills creek all this summer season or with all due respect, shut the fuck up!
Damn. Clean, water, air and soil. So fucking radical!
It was late 2017 and President Trump’s new HONEST DAs finally restored justice again
Obama was indicted and had fled the U.S. lest he join his EPA thugs in the federal pen !!!