Edward Lotterman’s economic analysis (Pollution can’t just be a state problem) of the need for a robust federal EPA based on interstate externalities is correct as far as it goes, but it is only part of the story.

How to deal with an agency with tens of thousands of employees scurrying about to create at least three very harmful effects on the American economy, Constitutional Rights, and American life in general is the real driving force behind the public outrage driving the Administration’s policies to rein it in.

First, consider the massive bungles epitomized by the outrageous and total pollution of a Colorado river from a mine that EPA had control over and then ignored.  Was restitution ever required?  Were bungling bureaucrats ever fired or disciplined?  The answer is no.

Second, consider the dastardly violation of Constitutional State’s and Property Rights that drove the unilateral claim by EPA bureaucrats to have federal hegemony over “all waters of the USA” by utilizing their imaginary regulatory “powers”.

Third, hidden behind the excesses of “environmental requirements” lies such hidden agendas as closure of the last lead mine and smelter in the US to drive up the cost of ammunition and make ammunition more scarce; all while the Administration legislates more expensive and less efficient ammunition for hunters and other shooters: in other words secretly enabling gun control simultaneously through other means such as the notorious Fast and Furious, and clandestine UN Treaty gun control “negotiations”.

There are many more externalities justifying EPA reductions in manpower and authority than simple economic externalities and interstate issues.