If it makes you feel any better, it may no longer be safe to drink tap water anywhere.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/06/plastic-...

Turning? Wasn't it true already with cases like Flint?

And Flint is just the tip of the iceberg

"63 million Americans exposed to unsafe drinking water"

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/08/14/63-million-am...

I feel like these things go in cycles and things are going to have to get worse before people notice and push for something better.

great, I'm looking forward to the next Love Canal.

I know this is no time to joke but your sarcasm did made me laught.

There are still 14,400 EPA employees left. Are you saying that this many EPA employees are not sufficient to ensure safe drinking water?

If that's literally the only thing it did, with zero management structure, that means a scant 4-5 people to assure clean water per county in the US.

Can't tell if this is sarcasm. Clean water is the responsibility of local governments, not the federal government.

Not sarcasm. The comment I replied to made the argument, likely hyperbolically, that 14,400 people should be enough to make sure water is safe. Taking that literally, according to the mighty Google, we have roughly 3,142 counties (or similar organizational units) in the States, meaning that even if clean drinking water was it's only function (which it obviously isn't) that gives you 4.58, or between 4 and 5, EPA representatives per county in the US to oversee clean drinking water. And again that is assuming there is no management structure, no supervisors, no coordinators, no managers, and that clean drinking water is their only function which it isn't.

Basically I'm taking the hyperbole and showing that it's not even that hyperbolic, and while 14,400 sounds like a lot of people, when you're talking the task of protecting the environment in all 50 states, that's really not that many.

How do you explain the existence of the Clean Water Act? Waterways don’t end at county or parish borders.

The federal govt is expected to resolve disputes between states in the Constitution. Waterways and pollution clearly falls under that.

The federalist papers also expect the federal govt. to offer some protection from more local governments when they disregard public order.

Yes they have a role, but most water management happens at a local level.

by that logic hurricane repair is the responsibility of local governments, not the federal government.

or taken to the stupid conclusion, war is the responsibility of local governments, not the federal government.

>or taken to the stupid conclusion, war is the responsibility of local governments, not the federal government.

Well no, I think that one is quite literally spelled out in the Constitution as a function of Congress.

Waterways normally cross state lines so that is also spelled out in the Constitution as a responsibility of the federal government.

Apparently it's already unsafe to drink the tap water in parts of the country. No turning needed.

Sometimes bureaucracies need a cleanout. They can then be rebuilt more effectively later.

You realize the EPA has its own fully supplied SWAT teams and everything? The EPA has gone waaaaay past just the drinking water thing. Also they ensured crappy drinking water by mass dumping a bunch of waste and ruining one of the rivers in southwest CO.

Government agencies in the US need very serious trimming. Too many friggin bureaucratic power mad lifers running around who don't give a rat's ass about all those "little people" stuck with their obamacare.

"The EPA has gone waaaaay past just the drinking water thing. Also they ensured crappy drinking water by mass dumping a bunch of waste and ruining one of the rivers in southwest CO."

I assume you're referring to the accidental leak of contaminated mine water into the Animas river. The private sector is free to clean up after itself instead of abandoning mines in a hazardous state. Unfortunately they don't always do that. The EPA is charged with managing hundreds of thousands of abandoned mines of which tens of thousands threaten to contaminate groundwater. Sabotaging and underfunding the organization with this responsibility can't end well.

As a staunch conservative, this attitude mystifies the shit out of me. "$organization does a shit job at what it's supposed to do, so let's cut their funding so they have fewer employees and resources!" How on Earth are they supposed to fix anything if you keep reducing them to a skeleton crew?

>You realize the EPA has its own fully supplied SWAT teams and everything?

...And? When they find a massive crisis like Flint and need to swoop in and gather evidence you want them to what... send a form letter? Of all the agencies of government that SHOULD have a SWAT team, they're at the top of the list. If they're doing their job properly they're investigating both private business and other government agencies. NOT having a "SWAT" team means their potential targets have more than enough time to destroy evidence. If my options are giving the DEA 200 SWAT teams or the EPA 1, I'll vote for the EPA every time.

When something like Flint happens, they'll blame EPA for letting it happen on their watch and exploit the situation to call for _further_ cuts to EPA. If this sounds disingenuous, its because it is.

> you want them to what... send a form letter?

Obtain a warrant empowering the police to enter and secure the premises, before the agency staff enter to obtain evidence.

That's how we do it in Europe at least, where environmental protection agencies don't run around with M4s and tear-gas.

I agree that there's way too much regulation in the US, too much rent seeking and regulatory capture. Deregulation is one area I have extremely mixed feelings about Trump about: in some ways I don't think he's going far enough, and in other ways I feel like he's going too far.

However, this EPA cutting is one of those cases where context is everything. If Trump were trimming the EPA but maintaining its core mission and not letting the foxes guard the henhouse, I might feel differently. And lauding Trump for cutting the EPA SWAT teams even while he lets municipal police--who have ample daily opportunities for abuse--stockpile military supplies seems disingenuous.

So: EPA BAD