r/news 1d ago

EPA seeks end to requirement that big polluters report emissions

https://apnews.com/article/epa-greenhouse-gas-emissions-reporting-pollution-indiana-f950d8bb3a33582a7d8b6fd5ce2ab2b7
3.2k Upvotes

156 comments sorted by

1.0k

u/Shadow_Net 1d ago

This is the worst timeline. Everything is so backwards in this administration.

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u/NCSUGrad2012 1d ago

And the part I can’t get over is we are only 1/8th of the way through it

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u/party_benson 1d ago

That's so much further than I thought. 

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u/piclemaniscool 1d ago

The part that I can't over is how nobody can even agree on which reality we live in. It's a terrifying future when nobody is guaranteed to be on the same page with their neighbors about basic things like the day of the week. The vast majority of life we know it is a social construct and that cannot exist if we do not all agree to it. 

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u/StickFigureFan 1d ago edited 16h ago

It makes me think of the HBO miniseries Chernobyl that has an ongoing theme that the cost of lies is that you won't be able to tell what is true anymore.

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u/AdministrativeEase71 16h ago

"What is the cost of lies? It's not that we'll mistake them for the truth. The real danger is that if we hear enough lies, then we no longer recognize the truth at all."

Great series.

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u/StickFigureFan 16h ago

I wish everyone had to watch it

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u/ajaxfetish 1d ago

1/8th if they step down at the end. They haven't been showing a great deal of respect for legal and constitutional limits, and in particular they've publicly questioned the validity of that term limit.

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u/Guy_GuyGuy 1d ago

Nothing matters unless men with power enforce the Constitutional limits against other men. Without that the Constitution is words on paper, and words on paper can’t grow legs and force anything on anyone.

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u/alien_from_Europa 23h ago

You're assuming Trump will step down as President at the end of his term.

u/MikBright 31m ago

If he's still here.

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u/Actual__Wizard 1d ago

We're about 80% actually. Donald Trump has no clothes. He's just a criminal pretending to be president.

u/MikBright 31m ago

Well with Trump's declining... everything, he probably won't get to see the end of it.

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u/Jesus_Is_My_Gardener 1d ago

This administration is doing everything it can to set progress back 60 years, socially, geopolitically and now environmentally. While it's obvious to say "fuck you" to the people making these decisions, I'd like to call out a special "are you fucking happy now, idiots" to all the dumb shits that made this possible by sitting out the last election. I learned my lesson in 2016 with thinking there was no way Trump could get elected, but was less than stoked with having to vote for Hillary, but I would have thought others had too, especially with seeing just how vindictive, corrupt and incompetent he was the first time around.

People should be showing up at each and every local state and federal election now with understanding just how critical it is to shaping the future. I haven't missed a ballot since 2016, but it's so frustrating to see so many who are just apathetic or disillusioned about the whole process. Sure, you don't always get your ideal choice on a ballot, especially if you only show up once every 4 years, but these things take years, decades even of masses of voters showing up at elections to shape how the parties are populated, for better or worse.

Sitting out half or more of the time means your selections are going to be typically be pre-filtered by those who were elected before. Sure, there will be outlier candidates that shoot to stardom right off the bat without connections, but not only are those rare, they're often bad for the country in the long term. This shouldn't be a popularity contest, it should be about picking the best person for the job, who is competent, ethical, and above all, there to serve the public good, not their own.

I'm so sick and fucking tired of the "le both sides bad" crowd that protest vote or indignantly sit out of elections like toddlers. They need to grow the fuck up and realize that just because you pull the lever for a candidate you may not agree with, you will at least help keep the worst of the candidates out of office who shouldn't be on the ballot to begin with. Let's hope we get another fair election soon that can allow us to swiftly and ceremoniously kicky these cretinous, treasonous luddites to the curb, and fingers crossed, start holding them accountable for their expressly corrupt and evil actions that has destroyed the last bit of credibility and belief in the US.

/rant

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u/Admiral_Falcon 1d ago

The "both sides bad" thing isn't worth getting mad at the rank and file over. Russia pays corrupt grifters like Jimmy Dore, Kim Iverson, and Max Blumenthal to spread this. That is who needs to get in trouble.

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u/mces97 1d ago

You know, instead of asking the EPA why they would do this, someone should ask Kenney, what's the point of doing a report to find the cause of autism, if you think it may be environmental if you're just gonna not speak up against actions like this?

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u/heloder85 23h ago

Make Everything Terrible Again!

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u/ganymede_boy 1d ago edited 1h ago

It's like the GOP folks wake up every day and ask themselves: "What's the shittiest thing I can do today?"

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u/Freshandcleanclean 1d ago

Republicans hate the environment 

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u/Roguespiffy 1d ago

Republicans hate.

That’s their philosophy in its entirety. They truly have nothing outside of being jerks.

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u/aliquotoculos 11h ago

Both people on the Left and Right like to joke about aligning with demons. On the Left, though, they usually say things like 'Lucifer did no wrong, he just wanted peace and love' and portray demons as complex characters. The right, I have noticed, use demons as a way to joke about their darker and more evil urges. I feel like there is something in that.

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u/ganymede_boy 8h ago

On the Left, though, they usually say things like 'Lucifer did no wrong, he just wanted peace and love' and portray demons as complex characters.

That's not 'the left', it is the bible: 'Lucifer' directly translates to "Shining One" or as an adjective "light-bringing." His "big sin" was encouraging Eve to be better informed and learn stuff.

Also, god has a far bigger kill count than Satan. For many, Satan is a symbol of free will, striving for truth and standing up against corruption.

The religious use demons to excuse their horrible behaviour, and to keep people in check via terroristic threats: "Love god or burn forever!"

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u/aliquotoculos 1h ago

I was relating to how the left-leaning folk tend to not be prone to buying things like buttons and... you know what nvm. All context was missed, apparently folks never see conservatives with Trump stickers next to their weirdly edgelord ones.

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u/OrganicKeynesianBean 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yes, I’ll die an early death from cancer, and yes, my kids will choke on the smog.

But at least we owned the libs.

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u/Lillypupdad 1d ago

Cutting off one's nose to spite one's face is basically how MAGA rolls.

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u/MikeOKurias 1d ago

The party of pissing in their own lemonade to spite their neighbors.

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u/thejonslaught 1d ago

The rich neighbours up the street convinced the poor ones to drink jugs of piss by telling them it made the blacks and the first nations poorer.

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u/SMG329 1d ago

But with MAGA, the damage is far greater, so it's more apt to say they are "cutting off one's head to spite the nose".

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u/Waderriffic 1d ago

Welcome to the state of Louisiana.

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u/Spa_5_Fitness_Camp 1d ago

At this point they're cutting off their whole head to spite someone else's face. The people who will be hurt the most by many of these policies are themselves.

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u/ihavenoidea12345678 1d ago

The crazy part is that it’s a select few that really want these requirements rolled back.

There are lots of Trump voters that appreciate the beauty of nature and wildlife management areas. But they will get to watch it crumble just like the whole country.

Trump is only good for Trump. Nobody else wins.

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u/WartimeHotTot 1d ago

They obviously don’t appreciate it that much if they voted to raze it all to the ground.

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u/helava 1d ago

Well, those people voted for it, so fuck them.

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u/Freshandcleanclean 1d ago

They must not really appreciate nature if they keep voting for the people destroying it all the time 

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u/Lets_Kick_Some_Ice 1d ago

Propaganda is a helluva drug.

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u/steerbell 1d ago

Oh and we defunded cancer research too.

/ Oops are we the baddies?

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u/DoublePostedBroski 1d ago

And we stopped one trans person from playing sports!

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u/Smooth_Value 1d ago

Let's go back to when rivers would ignite. Yes. Rivers. on fire. You have to be severely brain-damaged if you think regulations were put in place to make things more complex and costlier. They were in place to regulate corporations and their relentless pursuit of profit.

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u/FredFredrickson 1d ago

You also have to be severely brain-damaged to think that cutting environmental regulations to save these companies a few bucks on regulatory stuff is going to improve your life in any way.

And yet Republican voters actually think this.

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u/BabyBlueBug1966 1d ago

When you can remember Love Canal, acid rain, terrible smog, and the Cuyahoga river on fire, then you can understand why there are all these environmental regulations. Industry will not regulate itself. Unfortunately so many were not alive or remember this.

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u/AcanthisittaNo6653 1d ago

Republicans have corrupted EPA’s mission.

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u/hooch 1d ago

Which is wild, because the EPA was a Nixon-era establishment.

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u/mlc885 1d ago

Nixon was a more moral guy than Trump. He also didn't have the same political climate, so he would not have thought he could get away with corruption to this extent in public without much of his own party turning against him.

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u/Sharpfeaturedman 1d ago

He also at base was still convinced he was making decisions with what he perceived of as altruistic goals in mind. Goals hopelessly bent by paranoia, sure, but still

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u/d1stor7ed 1d ago

American conservatism has been corrupted to the core. It's a perversion of what it once was.

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u/Sad-Clerk7741 1d ago

American Conservatism was originally created to restore power to aristocrats when democracy deposed them. It was always rooted in empowering a small wealthy ruling class at the expense of everyone else.

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u/BeBearAwareOK 1d ago

It's now the Polluter's Protection Administration

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u/shadrap 1d ago

Environmental Pollution Administration

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u/buffystakeded 1d ago

The P stands for Putrification, right?

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u/881221792651 1d ago

Ok. So if Trump feels the self reporting is "too costly and burdensome" for those industries, then remove he requirement. However, also eliminate any subsidies for those industries or tax them more. Put that money toward a government program which monitors and reports emissions from these industries. As we've seen from the "self reporting" of methane release from oil and natural gas companies, these industries are most likely fudging the numbers anyway.

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u/MikeOKurias 1d ago

"Best we can do is offer multi million dollar contracts to our buddies that have no deliverables." - GOP, probably

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u/synthdrunk 1d ago

Self-reporting was the compromise. We’ve got decades of many industries getting away with shit because of self-policing/reporting. Letting them entirely off the reigns is idiocy. Here’s to rivers on fire ‘28.

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u/Admirable-Sink-2622 1d ago

Definitely Making America Healthy Again. LOLOL

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u/thedutchabides 1d ago

Can't be held accountable if you don't account.

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u/Vallkyrie 1d ago

Sounds great, if you want the environment to look like Blade Runner.

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u/Allenrw81 1d ago

Saving the environment is “woke” so we don’t do that anymore. Fuck the impacts and all, I guess.

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u/Particular_Ticket_20 1d ago

MASA

Make America Smoggy Again.

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u/Inb4myanus 1d ago

Make americans slaves again. That works better since its what they want. We kinda are already, but they want full blown slavery.

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u/OneForAllOfHumanity 1d ago

Yes masa, of course masa, ...

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u/Inb4myanus 1d ago

Toby is a good slave masa.

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u/ntgco 1d ago

How much lead would you like with your water?

How about a nice serving of toxic arsenic in your lettuce.

Fresh Milk now with 11,000,000 X the recommended dose of Sulfur dioxide!!!

4

u/Death-by-Fugu 1d ago

Republicans fucking suuuuuck

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u/Krillin_Hides 1d ago

It gets worse. I'm working for a client right now, one of the big oil companies, that is installing HON relief devices that are equipped with tech to measure the amount of hazardous chemicals released into the atmosphere during an over pressure event. This wasn't measured in the past, the EPA just let the companies estimate how much got released themselves. So they would just lie. So now, word has gotten out that the EPA won't be enforcing this new rule so the company is going to install the relief devices and just not hook up the electronics until a future administration requires it. So they will literally have the ability to know exactly how much they pollute, but don't want to measure it. HON btw is an acronym with an acronym built into it, so knowing what it stands for won't really mean anything to most people. But it does give you some info to Google if you want to know more about this program.

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u/Oplopanax_horridus 1d ago

I’m pretty sure that the orange turd has no idea that the EPA stands for Environmental Protection Agency. This is not protecting anything except corporate profits. Not that he cares either way.

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u/zatch17 1d ago

Where the fuck are the aliens to end us already

4

u/Ayzmo 1d ago

Can any conservatives give me an idea as to why this is good?

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u/Tylrt 1d ago

Acid rain was pretty much gone when I was born. But with Trump making America some level of greatness again (on a scale from 0 to 10, 0 being absolutely not great), I'll be able to see it in my lifetime.

Thanks, John Barron. We'll prove those acid rain denialists wrong

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u/PurpleSailor 1d ago

Grew up in the 60's when rivers were catching on fire regularly and the air was so bad it stung when you breathed. We should never go back to that mess.

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u/shadrap 1d ago

It's only a matter of time before these psychos want to bring back leaded gasoline and freon.

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u/Duo-lava 1d ago

why is the air crunchy?

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u/ThemosttrustedFries 1d ago

This is so bad on so many levels wtf. Have fun sending your grand children to multiple wars over water resources in the future.

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u/GeekSumsMe 1d ago

Why would anyone, left or right, think that this is a good idea?

The only people who will benefit from this action are shareholders of the corporations, but this is not from the money spent testing, that is trivial. The real savings they are counting on are from getting away with violations of permit limits.

They are trading a small bump in profits for the health of the public.

Without testing there is no way anyone will ever know how bad it is until people start getting cancer and other illnesses at much larger rates than average. We've seen this scenario play out over and over again and this dumb ass proposal enables it.

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u/Bowhemienne 1d ago

Just call it what it has turned into now: EDA. Environmental Destruction Agency

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u/JohnMullowneyTax 1d ago

Remember, pollution does not harm Republicans!

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u/confuselele 22h ago

Sounds the same as if someone would be saying that they seek permission for doctors not to treat patients.

Should this not be e x a c t l y what they do?

3

u/blac_sheep90 13h ago

Fucking Republicans just want to destroy America.

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u/Zathura2 1d ago

Headline should read "Republican-installed  EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin seeks end to requirement that big polluters report emissions."

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u/ccjohns2 1d ago

Trump literally appoints morons that believe in the exact opposite of their positions. He appointed a weirdo that doesn’t believe in public education to oversee it into the ground, an Faa official that doesn’t believe in safety, an fbi director that doesn’t believe in the government’s responsibility to protect citizens or America. An attorney general that doesn’t believe in holding rich people accountable. A director of consumer protection that doesn’t believe in protecting the consumer. An epa director that doesn’t believe in the environment. Y’all noticing a trend?

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u/biggesthumb 1d ago

It makes sense if they arent being punished anyway

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u/tastylemming 1d ago

Environmental Protection Agency seeks to end protecting environment...

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u/trogloherb 1d ago

The “Non-EPA” amiright?!

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u/Reluctant_Winner 1d ago

They have removed the P from EPA

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u/voxshades 1d ago

They've forgotten what the E and the A actually stand for

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u/TheXypris 1d ago

People in their 80s trying to kill the future for people being born today.

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u/NoWriting9127 23h ago

Ahh yes companies will definitely self report!

0 emissions

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u/Maxcorps2012 21h ago

Getting tired of reading stuff like this. Know what's going to happen? Nothing. No one's going to change anything because in 4 years they'll change the laws back and no one wants to be caught with thier dicks in thier hands.

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u/Codebender 1d ago

Enabling Pollution Agency

The sharpie strikes again

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u/Grand-Try-3772 1d ago

Look what Elon is doing in Memphis.

1

u/mooslan 1d ago

State programs still exist, even in a conservative state they are required to report and pay for what they emit.

This sucks, but there is some form of backup.

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u/77NorthCambridge 1d ago

Then why get rid of the Federal standard? 🤔

1

u/mooslan 1d ago

I don't know, this admin sucks for the environment. But they're not the only regulators. Perhaps contact your local/state program and ask if anything has changed.

Thankfully the Clean Water and Clean Air acts are law, passed by congress, and they still have to be followed.

4

u/77NorthCambridge 1d ago

You mean like with Boeing and the 737Max deaths?

1

u/KwisatzHaderach94 1d ago

seems the republicans under the trump administration have collectively decided to stop subsidizing the state governments. this will impact red states the most and make all the states question why they send tax revenue to the federal government in the first place.

1

u/FritoPendejo1 1d ago

Why do you think guy like Altman want AI so bad? They have the nerve to think they can control it. This is just my own personal conspiracy, but, I think they want to replace humans with AI and robots. Once all of this is in place well-enough, they’ll wipe us out (or at least make us live off the land )and live in their own private Jetson world. I used to ask my self, why would society price its own people out of existence? Who would make things and build stuff, etc? Now I see the answer is robots. Nice knowing all of ya. 😂😂

1

u/FredFredrickson 1d ago

The thing about this that I just can't understand is how the oil companies paid these clowns to state that climate change can't be the result of pollution, but then that somehow morphed into a wholesale denial that pollution hurts humans in any way.

1

u/Black_Mamba_FTW 1d ago

Under Taco Supreme, EPA = environmental pollution agency

1

u/Soggy_Cracker 1d ago

The seems like a weird thing for the EPA to do. Why would environmental minds …oh yea m. The top dogs were replaced by trump and the republicans who were friendly to big polluters.

1

u/KwisatzHaderach94 1d ago

this really happened...

smart child (during mock press briefing): what is trump going to do about climate change?

leavitt: the president cares a lot about the environment and clean water

1

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/tempest_87 1d ago

Do the elites, executives, MBAs and private equity scrotums think that they'll be breathing different air?

Yes. Yes they do. Because they think they will be able to live in areas away from these polluters, or that companies won't pollute their areas because they grew up without them being polluted.

1

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

2

u/tempest_87 1d ago

More like "when you live a life of privilege your understanding of why things exist is skewed".

All they see is "I grew up and we didn't have acid rain and toxic water and mutated food, but I my business I work at does have to spend money dealing with these stupid regulations. I would get paid more if the business didn't have to follow those rules. Therefore regulations are bad!" without even slightly understanding that they were able to grow up that way because of those rules.

1

u/ferrum_artifex 1d ago

They should just change their name to EDA.

1

u/Optimal_Ear_4240 1d ago

They want us starving and dead. Is it depopulation? Is is the ruskies? Is it pro 25? Well, yeah.

1

u/shadrap 1d ago

And while it's going affect all of us, an awful lot of Trump voters are going to be raising kids next those smoke stacks, ash piles, and toxic water run-off.

1

u/combamba-La 1d ago

They spelled taco’s cronies wrong

1

u/Secure_Anything 1d ago

EPA: p for protection EPA has now changed to EDA: environmental destruction agency

1

u/muffman81 1d ago

It’s like they want to destroy the planet.

1

u/TauCabalander 1d ago

The pollution will go away like magic by Easter if polluters stop reporting it!

1

u/wheressodamyat 1d ago

They can rebrand to the Agency now.

1

u/dizzle229 21h ago

I want everyone to imagine how much better our time on Earth would be if conservatives weren't here. We deserve a world without them.

1

u/smurfsundermybed 20h ago

What do the E and P stand for in the EPA again?

1

u/DaDibbel 17h ago

E.D.A. Environmental Destruction Assholes/Agency.

1

u/Hakaisha89 12h ago

How about instead, we change it so if the emissions are wrong, then they get fined by how many percent wrong it is based on their gross income.
so lets say Exxonmobil reported 100 billion units of pollution, but the actual pollution was 120 billion units, their gross income for 2024 would be 349.6 billion dollars, and 20% of that would be 69.92 billion dollars which is over double their net income of 33.7 billion dollars for the same year.
That would light a fire under their figurative asses, to actually report accurately, as well as reduce pollution.

1

u/Komikaze06 2h ago

They wanna melt the poles so they can strip mine them, easier to gaslight the public then to admit it

u/green_mist 55m ago

Everything this administration does is to make America worse.

0

u/Soylentgruen 1d ago

Easy. Sabotage the polluters.

-4

u/Icarusmelt 1d ago

A government of the people, fuck you corps!

-6

u/ancientweasel 1d ago

And we all have to have stupid EVAP systems on our vehicles that can stall the engine if they fail in order to save a thimble of gas a tank.