Drill, baby, Drill! Environmentalists Have the Last Laugh.
Prof. Zelizer has written a comprehensive and informative review on CNN, as to how Republicans have been systematically gutting the environmental regulations for the past several decades.
Nixon was the last Republican environmentalist, he established the EPA. Republican hostility towards environment started as soon as Reagan came into office. At first he tried to overturn as many environmental regulations as he could (remember his famous phrase, ‘Trees cause pollution?’). But at that he was not successful.
So he went to the next step. If he could not kill the environmental regulations, he was going to maim them. He drastically cut the funding to EPA. EPA chief not only did not fight against the cuts, he welcomed them. It led to drastic reduction in oversight of the industries.
Gorsuch (head of EPA) boasted that under her leadership, the EPA reduced the size of the clean water regulations manual from six inches to half an inch The EPA didn't make sure that companies were complying with regulations such as requirements to use modern pollution control equipment.
This pattern continued under President George W. Bush. Bush administration officials frequently rejected scientific expertise when making decisions and staffed bureaucratic positions with people who were not sympathetic to the goals of their own organization.
When some U.S. policymakers were insisting on the use of a better shut-off mechanism a few years ago, the MMS, convinced by the complaints of the oil industry, rejected their proposals. Congressional hearings recently revealed that the agency let industry officials complete their own inspection forms. They also accepted gifts from the companies they were supposed to be monitoring.
To be fair he does not let Obama off either, he has criticism for Obama as well, for not doing much to correct the Republican hostility towards environmental regulation. However, Obama has been in office for just over a year, Republicans have been weakening the environmental regulations for decades now.
But environmentalists may well have the last laugh. They have already got their moratorium on new offshore drilling, and any more cries of ‘Drill, bay, drill’ by Republicans are likely to be met with hostility by the American public (at least for a short while. Public memory being so short, it wouldn’t surprise me if Republicans again run on the platform of ‘Drill, bay, drill’ in say, 2016.
The legacy of 'drill, baby, drill' - CNN.com
