The EPA and other regulators have been hamstrung by republicans since their inception and then when they don't do everything perfectly republicans love to show how the EPA, SEC or whoever aren't doing their job. Republicans sabotage these regulators and don't provide adequate funding. It's sabotage. "The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it." - P. J. O'Rourke

FYI, the EPA is comprised of 15000 employees, and its annual budet is $8.14B. That's $543K per head. A lot of money for sitting on their hands and making excuses that they're "hamstrung".

It's all about how you want to manipulate the stats--$8billion for 320,000,000 Americans is $25/person. Don't you think $8billion is a relatively small budget/price to pay for protecting human health and regulating environment protections in a $16.7 trillion economy with 3.797 million square miles of territory? I sure do.

That is a poor metric. The EPA funds many pollution prevention and mitigation programs that far exceed the cost of staffing.

Nonetheless, people in Flint didn't have drinkable water for years. If the agency is so toothless with a highly politicized case like this, you can only imagine how toothless it is when it comes to the less publicized cases. So don't tell me how awesome the EPA currently is. Maybe it could, in fact, benefit from a swift kick in the ass.

They can't do anything with the funding they have, so maybe they'll do better with less funding? That's a non-sequitur.

Maybe it's not about funding at all?

It's been proven that policy decisions & budgeting issues at the state level(and more specifically the governors office) propagated the issues potable water issues Flint has been encountering.

If only there was a conscientious regulator at the state of Michigan....

I'm not sure the logical response to the failings in Flint is to throw out the EPA and other "massive" government agencies. I haven't followed the situation closely but my understanding is that multiple levels of government failed the people of Flint (and continue to fail people in other areas with similar water quality issues) due to politics, funding, and the complex nature of the crisis.

Replacing aging infrastructure needs to be a national priority and will take many decades. Until that is complete we need a strong agency that monitors hazards and enforces compliance regulations - access to clean drinking water (and clean air) should not be a partisan issue. Instead we have a President who appears to believe that the solution to "Democrats didn't do anything to help Flint" (my fake news alarm bells are ringing....) is to gut the EPA and pass ridiculous laws like "for every new regulation we need to remove two".

Not to diminish the Flint Michigan situation, as republicans did when they shuttered the investigative bodies that were looking into it. But how dafuq can the EPA be doing nothing if flint is the rare exception to the rule? If they are to lose credibility for not catching one thing, how much credibility do they get for all the stories we DONT read?

Being EPA is like running IT in a company. You can only lose. If things don't go well you get the blame. If things go well you are asked "what are all these people doing?"

Let me make sure I understand your argument; The EPA was not able to prevent a State's local budgetary decisions regarding drinking water. Therefore it would be more effective if we cut funding to the EPA?

I'm not sure how anyone is better off with reduced regulations. Except possibly developers.

Just goes to show that "regulations" isn't all that needs to happen. We've known for years there are problems in various areas, some of the most drastic of which have been widely publicized due to Flint. What's also been publicized by Flint is that the US government can't find $60M in their multi trillion dollar budget (EPA budget alone is $8.1 _billion_) to fix the situation, yet there's $210M to send abroad at the last minute as Obama is heading out the door, none of which, I might add has any chance of reaching the people who need it there either.

Regulations are not enough. Someone needs to actually go in and fix the shit that doesn't meet the regulations. For that to happen, someone needs to make it a priority to actually fix things right here in this country, rather than just tell us regulations aren't met, and writing up new ones all the time.

FWIW I agree with you, which isn't to say I have any ideas.