First, lol at “center right.” Hewitt’s sleaze is boundless. But the rest of the media isn’t much better.
Here’s a response to Hewitt from Ruhle:
There is almost no (well, none, really) coverage of actual policies by Pruitt and Zinke. Their plunder of tax payer money, sure, but not the actual damage that they are doing. These are policies almost every Republican wholeheartedly endorses, and I really cannot find adequate words to condemn such reprehensible positions. These are also the same yucks that express moral outrage of leaving “our children” with a federal deficit. A dying, polluted environment? Shoulder shrug, at least their stock portfolio is doing well.
But here’s an article from Dave Roberts back in March and he neatly summarizes why the GOP hate the EPA:
EPA rules, OMB writes, “account for over 80 percent of the monetized benefits and over 70 percent of the monetized costs” of federal regulation during this period.
For example, new fuel economy standards for medium- and heavy-duty engines had (in 2001 dollars) between $6.7 billion and $9.7 billion in benefits. But they cost industry $0.8 billion to $1.1 billion.
The MATS rule, aimed at reducing toxic emissions from power plants, had between $33 billion and $90 billion in benefits (in 2007 dollars, for some reason), but it cost industry $9.6 billion.
In short, air quality rules secure enormous health benefits for the American public, but they also ask a great deal of industry.
To frame the same point another way: Air quality regulations serve as a downward redistribution of wealth, out of the pockets of industrialists and into the pockets of ordinary Americans, particularly the poor and vulnerable Americans (African Americans and Hispanics in particular) who tend to live closest to pollution sources. They shift costs, from the much higher health and social costs of pollution remediation to the comparatively smaller costs of pollution abatement.
And therein lies the source of industry and GOP rage toward EPA. It’s why EPA delayed and delayed air rules under Bush. It’s why the GOP Congress worked so furiously to block air rules under Obama. And it’s why EPA is weakening or repealing air rules as fast as possible under Trump.
The GOP is opposed to downward redistribution of wealth. If one policy goal has unified the right above all else, it is upward redistribution. Even as its base drifts further into a fog of xenophobic, reactionary ressentiment, its moneyed interests and policy leaders remain laser-focused on reducing taxes and regulatory burdens on the wealthy. Upward redistribution is what unites GOP health care policy, tax policy, financial sector policy, and environmental policy.
That is why Republicans hate EPA and its rules: They are a burden to industry, but worse, they are a burden to industry that is very obviously worth it. Industry makes a small sacrifice, public health improves, and economic growth continues apace. EPA rules are a living demonstration of the good that government can do.
