Wanted: EPA Out of Texas

Regarding nullification itself, isn't the historical pattern (S. Carolina - ca. 1832) to call for the people themselves to vote on nullification rather than having the legislature do it?

The obvious question to me is this - bad things happen all the time, this is a really nasty one. But why the hell does the federal government prevent outside help? for example, laws on the books that required them to reject assistance from ships in other countries.

The feds just like being the savior, and they suck at it....especially when they partner with these big companies on so many things.

So what do you guys think now that it appears that EVERY petrochemical corporation was cutting the same corners and LYING to everyone that they were capable of handling a well blowout out in the deep ocean?

What's your opinion that all the oil companies basically copied the same Gulf disaster response plan that listed as species impacted by an oil spill as seas otters and walrus's; neither of which live in the gulf of Mexico? Or how about making reference to an expert that has been dead for 5 years?

If it is not apparent to you now it is clear to any rational person that all the oil companies; particularly BP; were criminally negligent in the construction and monitoring of their drilling operations. They lied to the Federal Government, and the American Public, that what they were doing was being done the safest way possible and that they had a contingency plan in case of an emergency. All of the major oil companies admitted that they are unprepared to handle a deep oil well disaster of the magnitude of Deep Water Horizon(and quite frankly it doesn't really matter what depth the oil well is). They are using the same technology to clean up the spill that was used 30 years ago the last time an oil well blew up in the Gulf.

The Oil Industry has had a free pass for 30 years; they have spent billions on technology to extract oil but has spent next to nothing in safety or disaster preparedness. The libertarian, Ayn Rand Ideals were used to allow the Oil Companies to "self regulate." And this was the result.

No one is asking the obvious questions: If this oil well was so shoddily built; and so many corners were cut in it's construction, how many more ticking time bombs are out there waiting to blow up? And how much of this fact is known to the corporate heads and the shareholders of these companies?

BP has agreed to set aside 20 billion in escrow to clean up the Gulf. This was an act that almost everyone said would be impossible to get them to do. It was stated that the President did not have any authority to compel BP to do this. It took one meeting. I wonder what was said in that meeting that left these Titans of Industry almost paleface when they made the announcement of that and the fact that they will not give out share dividends for the time being. Perhaps there is more collusion going on than even we are aware of. Maybe BP execs knew just how dangerous Deep Water Horizon was and didn't care. Maybe the Pres found out that all the Oil companies were colluding together to undermine any safety or environmental controls on oil drilling.

This is not a new phenomena. The oil industry has gone all over the world and have basically raped the planet for it's own profit. If Texan wants a sneak preview of what their world would be like without government oversight or regulation look up the decades long oil disaster that is happening in Ecuador. Chevron basically did everything that would have gotten them in jail in this country and left the government of Ecuador the mess to clean up.

a Pretty intelligent response. I am convinced - all this 10th amendment stuff is just nonsense. thank you for offering your wisdom!

Really, Guy? The Clean Air Act, along with the Clean Water Act, passed in 1970 by Richard Nixon, established the EPA and has given us cleaner drinking water, cleaner rivers(Galveston Bay was saved by the Water Act requiring cities to better treat raw sewage), and cleaner Air. Its primary function was to empower the Federal Government to establish parameters and allow the states to write regulations to enforce them. The power to do this has been verified as constitutional by the Supreme Court several times. So what would you like to do, ignore the Supreme Court because of your mindless interpretation of the 10th Amendment? You forget yourself, guy. Ignorance is a powerful pulpit to spew crap from. And last time i checked, "the Federalist Papers" do not overrule decisions of the Supreme Court. dumbas*

The Constitution is a farce if we can't stop this extremely damaging intrusion. There is either limited power that deals only with actual interstate commerce, or there is unlimited power that lets the federal government deal with absolutely everything.

To let 9 federally appointed judges dictate the apparently UNWRITTEN and expansive nature of their limitations or lack their of is to treat that court as the constitution rather then as one of the many responsible for enforcing that constitution.

But make no mistake the Federal government apparently feels itself of authority to arrest state agents that defy its limitless dictates. Therefore any state agent that has the courage to stand up to them will be under-threat, and therefore there can be no enforcement of our constitution if Americans have not the courage and patriotism to stand up to this almost entirely unmitigated evil.

I have to agree with Michael here. I have had exposure to the operations of the EPA in both the Eastern and Western United States. One must always keep in mind that they are a government bureaucracy and that their primary motivation is to expand their bureaucracy, not to protect the environment.

I found it very interesting that it has been known for decades that our local watershed has some lead contamination from mines in the mountains. But when a town near the mines found amounts far above the accepted level of safety, the EPA saw its opportunity and tried to make this entire region (thousands of square miles) one big Superfund site... far larger than any currently in existence. I attended some public "informational" meetings about the issue. It was disgusting. EVERYBODY there had an agenda to push. I felt like I was the only person attending simply as a concerned citizen.

The funny thing is, scientists and researchers from universities in at least two states had been monitoring lead levels in the region for 20-30 years. But once the EPA got involved, suddenly government "scientists" were measuring lead levels in our watershed that were 100 TIMES what anyone had ever found before! Just when the EPA is considering making the whole area a Superfund site! How astonishingly coincidental! Those EPA people must really know their stuff, to be able to show in a mere few weeks that all those OTHER scientists and researchers for all those decades must have been just plain stupid. That's your government in action, folks!

In the long run, the EPA's grand plans to annex my city and the surrounding region never panned out. And you can bet that I am very thankful for that.

The rule allows companies that have Texas issued air permits to avoid certain federal clean-air requirements including public review when they modify their plants. These discussions have led to Texas proposing new rules used to issue permits.

I find this entire line of conversation hilarious considering the millions of gallons of oil spilling into the Gulf. While it seems like the FEMA and the EPA and the MMS were caught with their pants down(due to the corrupting influence of Big Oil) there hasn't been any agency, Local, State or Federal, capable of handling the disaster on any level. And I would guarantee that if Texan refuses government regulatory agencies you wouldn't see any environmental protection laws or any regulation of the petrochemical industry(which if I am not mistaken is one of the key industries in Texas). If the Federal Government can't avoid being corrupted by Big Oil; what chance does Texas has to fight against their destructive practices? If I am not mistaken again Texas has been the main cheerleaders of Drill Baby Drill.

I hate to break this to you but regulating mining resources has been a cornerstone of the Federal Government going back to the Louisianan Purchase. Does no one remember that it was the Federal Government that opened up mining rights and created the stable market that the entire industry takes for granted?

Gee does no one remember what happened in the Black Hills? Or in Oklahoma? Most of the development of resources in this country was only made possible with the help of the Federal Government.

So if Texas wanted to turn into Ecuador they can go right ahead and thumb their nose at the Federal Government. Let me know what they think once hurricane season goes into full swing and they get oil landing on their shores for years to come.

I would like to see an arrest made. Any attempt to nullify anything is useless without the power to enforce that nullification. I would like to see some kind of arrest be made or oathkeepers assert their right to be the chief law enforcement officials of the country.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that the EPA is just another unwanted consequence of state lawmakers unthinkingly ratifying the 17th Amendment. I think that if the states were still in control of the federal Senate, then the Senate would have killed the legislation which established the EPA.

This is why voters need to replace Constitution-impaired incumbents in both the federal and state legislatures with pro-constitutional process lawmakers in November.

Then once elected, pro-constitutional process lawmakers in federal and state legislatures can used their legislative votes to destroy the phony powers of the Oval Office and Congress, putting a permanent stop to constitutionally indefensible federal interference in state affairs, evidenced by EPA, by ultimately repealing the 17th Amendment.

Actually, Lonny - these are pretty standard fines and prison times for convictions in states around the country. While this proposal is not yet in our formal list of state sovereignty legislation, when we DO have such things included, they are generally along these lines.

And - it is less about those specifics and much more about the principles. The legislators that introduce such bills tweak them.

There are problems with a couple of the details of this proposal.

First, it should prohibit enforcement of the FEDERAL "Clean Air Act". There is nothing preventing Texas from passing its own; it may have one already.

Second, equating $1000 with a year in prison (as in section C) is not very realistic these days. In many areas, you could not rent a single-bedroom apartment, feed yourself, and pay utilities for a single month on $1000. That number needs to be much higher, otherwise it constitutes a "cheaply buy your way out of prison" clause.

Third, in most States misdemeanors cannot be punished by a year in jail. A year or more requires at least a felony conviction. So you could not put someone in jail for 2 years for a misdemeanor, as suggested in D.