Tag: Breitbart

Bravo, Trump Administration for Increasing Transparency at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Breitbart News posted an article discussing the re-opening of a public online portal hosted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, where Americans can access straightforward information about regulations so that they don’t run afoul of environmental rules unwittingly.

A stylized illustration of a man speaking at a podium with a microphone, advocating for transparency at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, with a speech bubble stating the message.

From ClimateRealism

By Linnea Lueken

Sign for the United States Environmental Protection Agency displayed on a building.
FILE PHOTO: Signage is seen at the headquarters of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 10, 2021. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/File Photo

Breitbart News posted an article discussing the re-opening of a public online portal hosted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, where Americans can access straightforward information about regulations so that they don’t run afoul of environmental rules unwittingly. This is a great move towards transparency by the EPA, and important that Breitbart helped spread the word so that business and land owners are aware. The massive body of environmental regulations that exist can be complex to navigate, and the EPA absolutely should provide an easy-to-understand guide, as it continues its worthwhile and justified deregulatory efforts.

In the post, “Exclusive: EPA Relaunches Guidance Document Database, Continuing Trump Tradition of Transparency,” Breitbart received exclusive comments from EPA deputy administrator David Fotouhi regarding the new “Guidance Portal.”

The goal of the portal, Fotouhi told Breitbart, was to “compile all of those in one searchable, publicly accessible database, so that if you’re a small business owner, if you’re a farmer or rancher, if you’re in any way subject to one of our regulatory requirements or statutory obligations, you can go on there and conduct a search and see very clearly what the agency’s interpretation of that requirement and how it applies to your situation.”

The portal will include guidance documents intended to outline the steps a business or landowner should follow to best ensure they don’t run afoul of regulatory requirements. Feedback on the portal will also help the agency figure out places they can make EPA guidance simpler, getting rid of redundancies and bloat, Fotouhi told Breitbart. Additionally, EPA administrator Lee Zeldin said the portal should help small business owners navigate the Clean Air or Water Acts without needing to hire “a high-priced lawyer.”

This is something that seems very common sense: regulations people can understand. It was a program that the previous Trump administration attempted to implement by executive order, but strangely the Biden administration rescinded it as part of their own environmental agenda. Biden’s EPA was unable to hide the portals completely without an official rulemaking, so they simply failed to keep them updated. This was just one more example of the lack of transparency embraced by the Biden administration as it expanded the reach of its environmental agenda.

Government environmental regulations have long crushed small business and landowners. The Clean Water Act, for example, was at the center of a 16-year legal battle that fortunately concluded in the favor of a family trying to build a home on property they owned in Sackett v. EPA. The family had begun to construct a house on a small lot in Idaho, when the EPA suddenly decided that their property contained wetlands that counted as “navigable waters,” and thus needed to replace the soil already moved. In reality, the Sackett property was merely near a ditch that only intermittently filled with water which fed to a creek. The Supreme Court finally determined the EPA was out of line, ending the so-called “significant nexus” standard for the Clean Water Act. Damage had already been done to other landowners and farmers who were not able to fight it out in court so long, while the EPA’s standards were not at all transparent, confusing, and often arbitrary.

Making any of this kind of permitting process easier to understand should be a no-brainer. It’s very good that the Trump administration is pursuing transparency in regulatory agencies again, it can only benefit Americans, and Breitbart News’ writers are to be applauded for recognizing how important these issues are and publicizing the Trump administration’s efforts to improve government transparency.

Right, The Hill, Polls Do Show Declining Public Concern About Climate Change

The Hill posted an article discussing the fact that a recent survey indicates that the public’s concern about climate change is waning, especially among younger people, those we are constantly told are most concerned about and demanding governments take action to fight climate change. This poll’s results are confirmed by another recent independent survey which came to the same conclusion.

From ClimateRealism

By H. Sterling Burnett

The Hill posted an article discussing the fact that a recent survey indicates that the public’s concern about climate change is waning, especially among younger people, those we are constantly told are most concerned about and demanding governments take action to fight climate change. This poll’s results are confirmed by another recent independent survey which came to the same conclusion. Despite a daily barrage of mainstream media stories alternately proclaiming “we have just X number of years fight to radically reduce carbon dioxide emissions before it’s too late to save the planet,” or that we face a “climate crisis,” or that  “climate change is an existential threat,” polls show the public is increasingly immune to the message.

Dozens of surveys conducted by a variety of noted polling organizations over the past two decades consistently demonstrate a few clear results: 1) a plurality or slight majority of the public (or registered voters, or people likely to vote—depending upon the polling organization’s criteria) are somewhat or very concerned about climate change; 2) when asked to rank climate change against other public policy issues of concern, climate change ranks last or near last among the issues of concern; 3) when asked how much those polled were willing to pay to fight climate change, or alternately the degree to which government should act to restrict or direct peoples’ choices to fight climate change, the answer is very little, to the former, or not much, to the latter.

Discussing the results of a recent survey conducted by the Monmouth University, The Hill writes:

Fewer Americans today see climate change as a “very serious” problem than they did three years ago, according to a new survey released Monday.

The Monmouth University poll, conducted on April 18-22 shows a 10-point decline in Americans who says climate change is a “very serious” problem, falling from 56 percent in September 2021 to 46 percent in April.

Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute, attributed this trend to a decline in urgency among Americans.

“Most Americans continue to believe climate change is real. The difference in these latest poll results is a decline in a sense of urgency around this issue,” Murray said.

Perhaps surprising to many, the decline in concern among adults ages 18-34 was 17 points. In 2021 67 percent of that demographic said climate change was a “very serious” problem compared to just 50 percent in the most recent survey.

Interestingly, Monmouth’s survey found 27 percent of those surveyed did not believe climate change was happening or were unsure of it (an increase from 24 percent in 2021). And, almost as many survey participants believed human activities and natural changes in the environment were equally responsible for climate change (31 percent) as those who believed that human actions alone were responsible (34 percent).

The Monmouth poll is not really all that surprising to anyone who has closely followed surveys asking questions about climate change during the past two decades or longer.

On Earth Day, April 24, Breitbart reported on Gallup’s annual Earth Day poll, a survey it has undertaken since 2000. Its results were consistent with pervious Earth Day surveys. Finding the environment in general, and climate change, in particular, ranked very low on the list of the public’s issues of concern. Gallup’s 2024 poll found that despite decades of climate doomsaying fewer people worried a great deal about climate change in 2024 (42 percent) than were very worried about it in 2020, when the stated concern hit its high point (46 percent) in more than 20 years of surveys asking the question.

In Gallup’s survey a majority (55 percent), said they did not believe that climate change would pose a serious threat in their own lifetime.

Also, when ranked against other issues confronting the nation, as Gallup states: “Environmental Worries Lag Behind Economic and Social Issues,” which is also consistent with past surveys. And all of this is despite nearly two decades of climate alarm propagandizing in the mainstream media.

“Among the leading issues confronting the nation, the environment ranks as a lesser public concern, with 37% saying they worry a great deal about environmental quality,” Gallup reports.

In fact, worry about “the quality of the environment” (the category climate change was lumped into, tied for 11th place with “the availability and affordability of energy,” at 37 percent, out of the 14 issues of concern Gallup listed. Only race relations and unemployment at 35 percent and 33 percent, respectively, ranked lower. By contrast, more than 50 percent of those surveyed said that they worry a great deal about inflation, crime and violence, hunger and homelessness, the economy, affordable health care, and government spending. Concern about illegal immigration, drug use, the social security system, and the possibility of a terrorist attack all also ranked above concern about a quality environment.

Of course, climate change is just one environmental challenge lumped together under the category “quality of the environment.” When various environmental issues were polled individually, poll participants said pollution of drinking water; pollution of rivers, lakes, and streams; and contamination of soil and water by toxic waste were each more worrying to them than climate change. And this response comes despite the fact those topics collectively are rarely discussed by politicians, and never as an existential threat to human life, and get a fraction of the coverage climate change does.

It’s good when the media acknowledges the public’s true depth of concern about climate change and whether they believe it poses a credible threat to their lives or standards of living, rather than simply asserting it based on their writers’ personal beliefs and commitments to fighting climate change. The Hill and Breitbart are to be applauded for publicizing these recent surveys that most mainstream media outlets have largely ignored. The survey data show, that while a plurality of those surveyed are somewhat concerned about climate change, most think it will have little impact on their lives, and it ranks very low on the list of issues people think confront the United States and the world.