Excerpts:
“Behold the Obama Administration’s new public works plan. Sue cities for polluting waterways and then as part of a settlement require them to spend, er, “invest” billions in extraneous sewer improvements. The White House doesn’t even need legislation to pour this money down the drain.”
“The Justice Department and Environmental Protection Agency have taken enforcement actions against 25 cities over the last four years for allegedly violating the Clean Water Act, and there are another 772 on their list.”
“The EPA says this extraordinary intrusion on local sovereignty is justified because cities are discharging waste into waterways during heavy rains.”
“The U.S. Conference of Mayors says the EPA’s heavy-handed management can’t be justified by the supposed environmental or economic benefits.”
“Fossil fuel CEOs couldn’t have said it better.”
“Since cities don’t have that much spare change, they’ve been making improvements incrementally. But the EPA is demanding that they accelerate their work, which means they’ll have to issue bonds as well as raise residents’ water and sewer rates. David Berger, the Democratic mayor of Lima, Ohio—which has a median household income of $26,000—told Congress this summer that the EPA’s consent decree could raise the average resident’s $333 annual sewer bill by $539. Call the surcharge the Obama storm tax.”
“New York City’s deputy mayor for operations Cas Holloway is less charitable. The EPA, he wrote in “The Environmental Forum” journal this month, is “treating cities as it might have treated Standard Oil early last century.” The agency is “imposing billions of dollars of unfunded mandates without a clear scientific and public health basis for doing so.”
Perhaps by targeting cities the EPA is merely trying to show that it’s an equal opportunity harassing regulator. To adapt one of the President’s favorite phrases, everyone deserves a fair shakedown.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444799904578052673425236066.html