Wednesday, December 12, 2018

The Donald's EPA lies about 'no data' on WOTUS rule


As if we needed more proof this administration cares nothing for the environment or public health, the TEPA stated yesterday that it doesn’t know how many streams will be excluded from the Clean Water Act and the chief of TEPA’s Office of Water Dave Ross stated no one has that data.


Reporters from E&E News, Ariel Wittenberg and Kevin Bogardus obtained evidence from a slideshow from 2017 that contains the data and even further, it demonstrates that at least 18% of streams and 51% of wetlands would not be protected under TEPA’s new definition of WOTUS (Waters of the United States).  The slides were prepared from data supplied by the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Hydrography Dataset (NHD).

Later E&E News asked TEPA Molly Block why they didn’t use the USGS data as the EPA did under Shrub’s administration in 2005.  Unsurprisingly, Block defended Ross’ statement, saying the EPA and the Army Corps had determined the datasets are “not robust enough” to depict federally regulated waters.

In Trumpspeak, that means 'we don’t like what the data is showing so we choose to ignore it.'
This comes on the heels of Andrew Wheeler’s inability to come up with three programs the TEPA has to protect the Clean Air Act.  There simply are few, if at all, that exist.

We are so screwed.

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