AP Interview: Gingrich calls for replacing EPA

[twa]

I could tell you a lot about the way they work and the bureaucratic idiocy involved...but it is better not to draw their fire

[Destino]

I could tell you a lot about the way they work and the bureaucratic idiocy involved...but it is better not to draw their fire

Anything enforcement is better left alone in the way you are talking about. Never poke a bear. Speak "in general". lol

[twa]

In general they are incompetent asses that generate and require a ton of paperwork and wasted time,,,and that's the good side

I'll shut up now

[Prosperity]

It's a hand out to big business. We pay for the research for cleaner tech and once we get it cheap enough for them to use we *ASK* them if they'd please use it. Meanwhile we allow self regulation and refuse to fund or authorize enforcement.

As dark humor it's great. Anyone taking it seriously however shouldn't be taken seriously by anyone else.

well I guess that depends on the money, the NIH gives it to research projects done by scientists. Who would get these grants he's talking about? Give $4 billion to BP to develop cleaner natural gas?

either way, the environment being such a broad concept (by definition) we can't hope for standard private sectors solutions because the damage is spread over everyone, so anybody that is gaining anything by wasting will profit cause his costs are spread to everyone else. The EPA was pretty useful through the clean air act. Acid Rain has actually been significantly reduced, could that have been done without enforcement?

I don't know, but I doubt it.

[AsburySkinsFan]

In general they are incompetent asses that generate and require a ton of paperwork and wasted time,,,and that's the good side

I'll shut up now

Yeah, see this is the kinda crap that I don't care about. Sorry, but your ranting about a bureaucracy isn't convincing, there are incompetents in every line of work, and if statistics hold then 1/2 of those employed today are below average workers. Folks on the Right like to kick and scream about the big gov't EPA sticking it's nose into everyone's business and mucking things up. But, you know what? The rest of us look and see that if the only thing that stands between us and companies that dump chemicals into our water supply is a bureaucracy that at the very least slows down the rate at which companies poison the people who live around them...then so be it.

Again, there is a reason that the EPA exists and it's because the people need protection from those who would poison the world to make a quick buck. My jerk of an ex-step father was one of these, he drove truck in the 80's and it was found out that he was illegally dumping 53 foot trailers full of scrap and every other kind of waste you could imagine down some of the country back roads near where we lived in Maine...my mother (they were divorced at this point) called the police and the EPA came in...seized his 80,000 dollar rig and put him on probation for two years. I say right on!

BTW, in case you don't know...hell hath no fury.

[twa]

Your example is perfect,they do not prevent the excesses...your mother did

[Hubbs]

Nuclear power is capable killing thousands of people, and making hundreds of thousands sick with cancer, and is capable of making entire areas of land uninhabitable for thousands of years.

The other things that can make that claim are . . .

just a thought......

Well, I think the pessimistic predictions of man-made global warming actually make significantly worse claims, so within that context, a large-scale shift towards nuclear power would actually be safer....

[Destino]

TWA has a point on paperwork. The government is too obsessed with paperwork and they are dreadfully inefficient because of their ridiculous need to track EVERYTHING.

[NoCalMike]

Suggesting the reforming of the EPA to make it work more efficiently is one thing, and actually something that could be looked into. However if anyone believes Newt's intentions are anything besides another backdoor deal with big business, has got to be kidding themselves. It is just another attempt to de-regulate big business further. Environment be damned, because there is profit to be made.

[mardi gras skin]

However if anyone believes Newt's intentions are anything besides another backdoor deal with big business, has got to be kidding themselves.

Is this just another layer of the "Newt the Boogie Man" cardboard cutout or do you have some reason to believe Gingrich doesn't care about the environment?

http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2007/11/10/gingrich

Do you think that we should preserve the environment primarily for economic reasons or moral ones?

First of all, I don't think that you preserve the environment. The environment is constantly changing, constantly evolving. But I think that you want to nurture the environment and protect the environment from undue damage largely for moral reasons. It's part of our quality of life, and part of our relationship to a larger world. We ourselves are diminished when the environment is diminished.

Why do you think that we haven't seen more leadership from the United States on global warming?

We have been caught in a trap where environmental solutions are defined on the left as higher taxes, bigger government, more regulation and more litigation, and so conservatives just shrug their shoulders; since they oppose all four of those solutions, they refuse to get engaged in environmental issues.

One of the major reasons that Terry Maple and I wrote "A Contract With the Earth" was to reopen the debate, and to say that there are solutions which involve incentives, science and technology and markets. Entrepreneurs are potentially much more powerful and successful than regulatory and litigation solutions. We ought to be having a dialogue about which solution works better rather than being engaged in a purely partisan debate to see who can yell "anti-environmentalist" more.

What do you think that the U.S. should do about global warming right now?

I think we should have a billion-dollar tax-free prize for a hydrogen engine that can be produced at a commercially available price. I think that we should have a substantial prize for developing the first engine that can be mass produced that gets 100 miles or more to the gallon of fuel. I think that we should have a substantial research program under way for dramatically better ethanol products than corn or cane sugar.

We should have a 100 percent tax write-off for investment in the technology needed to make composite-material cars using the material comparable to that which works in the 787 Dreamliner that Boeing is building. Because composite material is stronger than steel and much, much lighter than steel, and you could produce a safer car at lighter weight, which would get dramatically more mileage.

Unless you can create economically desirable, environmentally positive technologies, you are never going to get China and India to adopt. If you truly want to affect global warming, you have to have a strategy that works in the U.S. and Europe, but it also has to work in China and India, or you're just, frankly, going to fail.

Do you think that we should adopt a cap and trade system for carbon emissions?

I think that we'd get results dramatically faster if we adopted large tax credits for non-carbon systems, including nuclear power. If we produced the same level of our electricity from nuclear as the French do, we would take 2,200,000 tons a year of carbon out of the atmosphere. That would be 15 percent better than the Kyoto treaty goal, and it would be almost a third of all the carbon produced by the U.S. annually.

I don't see where anyone, on the right or left, should have a problem with his vision for a cleaner earth. The right is not in favor of the past methods but the left isn't tied to those methods are they? They care about a better environment and if Gingrich has bought into solutions that conservatives can embrace, the stalemate can be unlocked and we can make progress.

Everyone's happy.

[AsburySkinsFan]

Your example is perfect,they do not prevent the excesses...your mother did

With that logic twa we should eliminate the police force too, because they don't prevent crime either. :doh:

Sorry man but that was totally weak.

[NavyDave]

Anyone surprised? We've all known the GOP position on the environment is "just leave the hunting areas alone because we need their votes, everything else is fair game"

Ahh, the ole we are against clean air and for dirty water accusation, from the bash capitalism playbook 30th anniversary edition.

Now tell me how worried you are about Caribou and polar Bears if we are eventually drilling in Anwar to reduce our dependence on foreign oil?

Since when did calls for replacing the EPA means eliminating sound environmental policies? Yeah the left would be upset if the Cap and Tax mandates the EPA are pushing, without going thru Congress, end up defeated I guess.

[AsburySkinsFan]

Well, I think the pessimistic predictions of man-made global warming actually make significantly worse claims, so within that context, a large-scale shift towards nuclear power would actually be safer....

So stop global warming by creating an endless supply of radio active waste.........

---------- Post added January-26th-2011 at 07:34 AM ----------

Since when did calls for replacing the EPA means eliminating sound environmental policies? Yeah the left would be upset if the Cap and Tax mandates the EPA are pushing, without going thru Congress, end up defeated I guess.

After watching the environmental policies of the last administration it's no wonder people don't trust the GOP with the environment.

[twa]

With that logic twa we should eliminate the police force too, because they don't prevent crime either. :doh:

Sorry man but that was totally weak.

Well since ya mention it, they are getting to be more catalogers of crime than preventers...there is certainly room for reform or replacement there as well.

[DRSmith]

But back on topic.

I think we should replace the FDIC and the SEC with a new organization which will be friendlier to the banking and investment industry. One which will be tasked with"stimulating the economy" (meaning, the profits of the baking and investment industry).

You had feriendly banking and investment laws and it killed the economy

You have to have balance one that protects the economy from the bad choices of the few and acts in the best interests of the coutry as a whole

[AsburySkinsFan]

Well since ya mention it, they are getting to be more catalogers of crime than preventers...there is certainly room for reform or replacement there as well.

Yeah, I think we need a Pre-Crime division with the Pre-Cogs.

In a free society law enforcement happens after a crime is committed...not before.

[twa]

Yeah, I think we need a Pre-Crime division with the Pre-Cogs.

In a free society law enforcement happens after a crime is committed...not before.

You are the one that brought up prevention,and police presence can do so if done correctly.

[AsburySkinsFan]

You are the one that brought up prevention,and police presence can do so if done correctly.

You're right, and the EPA can enforce environmental policy through inspections, fines and regulation which is what they were created to do and I support that task 100%, even if that means extra paperwork for someone. Local law enforcement agencies are not equipped nor funded to accomplish this task.

[Larry]

Is this just another layer of the "Newt the Boogie Man" cardboard cutout or do you have some reason to believe Gingrich doesn't care about the environment?

We have been caught in a trap where environmental solutions are defined on the left as higher taxes, bigger government, more regulation and more litigation,

Yeah, it's terrible trying to discuss issues with people whose position is to create boogymen.

----------

Ahh, the ole we are against clean air and for dirty water accusation, from the bash capitalism playbook 30th anniversary edition.

No comment necessary.

----------

Since when did calls for replacing the EPA means eliminating sound environmental policies?

Since it's the Party that has opposed every single piece of environmental legislation for the last 50 years, proposing it?

[mardi gras skin]

Yeah, it's terrible trying to discuss issues with people whose position is to create boogymen.

Ok, I agree with his characterization but even if he is wrong, so what? If he's on board with some way to actually improve the environment, isn't that a win for those who want to see progress? Instead of one party or the other promoting environmental improvement, we have the potential of two parties promoting environmental improvement. If Gingrich is wrong, if the left isn't tied to a certain set of solutions that the right opposes, all the better.

[DRSmith]

So was Nixon a man of the left?

Why is such issues such as health care, the enviroment used to be good Republican ideas?

[Larry]

So was Nixon a man of the left?

Actually, I've seen a lot of support for the argument that if Nixon were in politics, today (and if his policies hadn't taken a major shift to the right), then he'd be kicked out of the Republican Party. (Which also supports the contention that the reason Newt hasn't been kicked out, is because he's taken a major shift to the right. Which makes this thread kind of ironic, with the folks trying to claim that what Newt says, today, isn't really Newt, because look what he said 10 years ago. Y'all aren't highlighting how the evil liberals are falsely painting Newt. You're highlighting how far Newt has been forced to change, if he wants to get today's Republican vote.)

[DRSmith]

Actually, I've seen a lot of support for the argument that if Nixon were in politics, today (and if his policies hadn't taken a major shift to the right), then he'd be kicked out of the Republican Party. (Which also supports the contention that the reason Newt hasn't been kicked out, is because he's taken a major shift to the right. Which makes this thread kind of ironic, with the folks trying to claim that what Newt says, today, isn't really Newt, because look what he said 10 years ago. Y'all aren't highlighting how the evil liberals are falsely painting Newt. You're highlighting how far Newt has been forced to change, if he wants to get today's Republican vote.)

Like I said in the primary thread I feel sorry for people in the Pub party now, because they seem to have to choose between sounding sane and rationale and getting moderates and independents and getting the extremists in the base mad at them or doing the reverse and scaring the moderates and independents

[mardi gras skin]

Actually, I've seen a lot of support for the argument that if Nixon were in politics, today (and if his policies hadn't taken a major shift to the right), then he'd be kicked out of the Republican Party. (Which also supports the contention that the reason Newt hasn't been kicked out, is because he's taken a major shift to the right. Which makes this thread kind of ironic, with the folks trying to claim that what Newt says, today, isn't really Newt, because look what he said 10 years ago. Y'all aren't highlighting how the evil liberals are falsely painting Newt. You're highlighting how far Newt has been forced to change, if he wants to get today's Republican vote.)

Ah, this is just like saying Obama can't be pro-business because he's a democrat. It doesn't help at all.

[PeterMP]

Is this just another layer of the "Newt the Boogie Man" cardboard cutout or do you have some reason to believe Gingrich doesn't care about the environment?

http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2007/11/10/gingrich

I don't see where anyone, on the right or left, should have a problem with his vision for a cleaner earth. The right is not in favor of the past methods but the left isn't tied to those methods are they? They care about a better environment and if Gingrich has bought into solutions that conservatives can embrace, the stalemate can be unlocked and we can make progress.

Everyone's happy.

People are tied to the previous methods because they worked.

"I think we should have a billion-dollar tax-free prize for a hydrogen engine that can be produced at a commercially available price. I think that we should have a substantial prize for developing the first engine that can be mass produced that gets 100 miles or more to the gallon of fuel. I think that we should have a substantial research program under way for dramatically better ethanol products than corn or cane sugar.

We should have a 100 percent tax write-off for investment in the technology needed to make composite-material cars using the material comparable to that which works in the 787 Dreamliner that Boeing is building. Because composite material is stronger than steel and much, much lighter than steel, and you could produce a safer car at lighter weight, which would get dramatically more mileage."

How is this not a tax increase?

Where is the billion dollars going to come from? the money to off set the tax cuts?

(What is he going to do if the Chinese government wins the prize?)

This is either a tax increase or deficiet increasing.

The other issue is the government is making industry favoring decisions. Why ethanol, hydrogen, and materials? What about solar, wind, batteries, CO2 capturing (MIT is passing emissions through a solution containing algea, which than absorb the emissions, including CO2, and use them to grow. Over time the algae can be collected and used as biomass for energy.), geothermal, what about the guy working on technology in his garage that Gingrich has never heard of?

Cap and trade is actually innovation friendly and not targetted. It doesn't matter where the technology is comes from. All that matters is that matters is CO2 reductions.

In addition, the cap and trade law that was rejected was predicted to be deficet reducing according to the CBO.

Gingrich is favoring approaches that are tax increases (or deficent increasing) that will most likely favor big businesses (as they will direct where and how the government directs its resources in terms of things like tax cuts and it isn't like the guy sitting in the garage working on the technology we never heard of is going to get tax cuts for him written into the law) and isn't guaranteed to work (I guess you don't pay out the prize if nobody wins, but you still have "costs" associated with the R&D tax credits even if the R&D never pays out).

Cap and trade on the other hand was deficiet reducing, is a true free market approach, and is likely to have some benefit no matter what (realistically if there is ABSOLUTELY NO innovation the cap levels will have to increased dramatically or phased in over much longer periods of times, but you'd still get some gain from increases in conservation and effeciency that can be achieved with the current technology), and has worked in the past for other issues.

I'm really not surprised that nobody takes Gingrich seriously on the issue.

He's right about China though, but there is no reason to believe that the innovations used by companies here to deal with cap and trade won't be applicable in China or that cap and trade is less likely to produce new technologies than other methods.