NYT: The Latest GOP Temper Tantrum

[wtmusic]

"Moments before a scheduled vote on Thursday on the nomination of Gina McCarthy to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, Republican members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee announced a boycott. One result was to delay her confirmation, which still seems virtually certain in the long run since Democrats control the committee as well as the full Senate. The other result was to make the Republicans look not only vindictive but supremely childish.

Their stated reason for the boycott was that Ms. McCarthy, who had already been bombarded in earlier hearings with 1,079 questions, spoken and written, had not sufficiently answered what Senator David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican and ringleader of the group, called 5 important “transparency requests.” What was really transparent was the Republicans’ true motive. They detest E.P.A. and the regulatory authority it possesses (authority granted to it, by the way, by Congress) to clean up the air and water and, in general, take steps to safeguard public health. The transparency issue was merely cover for deep-seated ideological objections to the agency’s basic mission.

A case in point was the request that the agency undertake “whole economy” cost-benefits analysis of its rules and regulations. Ms. McCarthy had earlier replied that the agency already conducts detailed, peer-reviewed analyses of those rules. So what more do Mr. Vitter and his colleagues expect? They want the agency to superimpose on its own reviews an industry-friendly cost-benefit model that — in addition to adding new layers of bureaucratic red tape — could also lead to weaker regulation. Their other requests would impose similarly time-consuming and non-essential burdens."

http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/09/the-latest-g-o-p-temper-tantrum/

[nykym]

1. The EPA & Ms McCarthy

since she is in charge of Air Quality regulations and enforcement should open a case
on Vitter's Washington office and his residence. I have heard there is a horrible smell emanating from them.