Popular Science: If the EPA doesn't believe in science, what is it good for?

[PsychoBabble]

What's left when the Environmental Protection Agency throws facts out the window?

The Environmental Protection Agency is supposed to make and enforce regulations that protect the environment. But as the scientific agency seems to throw science out the window, it's worth asking: what happens when the EPA stops putting our health and wellbeing first?

On April 2, 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court made a decision that was easy to miss, if you’re not a policy wonk, and easy to forget even if you were. In the weeks and months following the decision, there’d be a mass shooting on a college campus, not to mention a near collapse of the economy. So it was easy for most of us to overlook their verdict on whether or not the Environmental Protection Agency had an obligation to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

In a 5-4 decision, the Court ruled that the EPA had to regulate greenhouse gas emissions unless it could prove that they did not endanger public welfare.

“That shifted the conversation over to the EPA,” says Glen Kedzie, a senior executive with the American Trucking Association (ATA) who has previously worked for the EPA. “They had to come up with what’s called an instrument finding as to whether these pollutants rise to the level of danger for either human health or welfare. In 2009, the EPA came back and said that these greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles are in fact pollutants that endanger both public health and welfare.”

The EPA based its decision on more than 100 peer-reviewed studies and input from a public comment period. The summary reads, “The Administrator finds that the current and projected concentrations of the six key well-mixed greenhouse gases—carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6)—in the atmosphere threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations.”

Greenhouse gases are putting us at risk. Luckily, the EPA is obligated to limit their emission. That is, as long as the agency chooses to accept the facts.

http://www.popsci.com/epa-without-science-what-does-it-do#page-3

[Alice11111]

1. Nada. Actually, worse than that. It will harm the environment.

We would be better off without it than having these yoyos in charge.

[CousinIT]

2. Why shithead Pruitt wants to shut it down and why he's claiming CO2 isn't harmful

Head of EPA says greenhouse gasses aren't harmful - EPA has no obligation or reason to exist. Agency eliminated.

[Calculating]

3. That's aactually a big Republican goal

Eliminate the EPA and leave environmental regulations up to the states.