❝ The text of a bill introduced in the US House of Representatives in early February to dramatically change the way the government regulates environmental issues was finally posted online for public viewing, and it gets right to the point. The statement of purpose for H. R. 861 is only one line long: “To terminate the Environmental Protection Agency.”
Below that is the single directive the bill would require, if passed: “The Environmental Protection Agency shall terminate on December 31, 2018.”
❝ While it would be illegal for president Donald Trump to unilaterally abolish the EPA—which he has said he’d like to to — it is technically within the power of Congress to do so. The president does plan to sign executive orders to limit the EPA’s climate change-related work as soon as his nominee to run the agency, Scott Pruitt, is confirmed, according to sources within the Trump administration.
❝ H.R. 861 was introduced to the House by Matt Gaetz, a Republican from Florida who took office in January. It’s co-sponsored by Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, who introduced another one-line bill last week, to “terminate the Department of Education.” The text of H.R. 899 is not yet posted online, but on his website Massie promises it has only eight words: “The Department of Education shall terminate on December 31, 2018.”
It’s been 63 years since the first time I heard an American say they wished to have public education abolished. They were unashamed of the elitism they embraced. The mother of a friend simply said, “You have no right to an education unless your family can pay for it.”
I admit I was shocked. I didn’t know that people so completely caught up into the value of money and privilege lived on this planet. Not in my neighborhood. I’m not shocked anymore. Surviving a lifetime of cowardly rationales for TweedleDeeDumb two-party politics ain’t easy; but, it didn’t kill me. Although a number of war-lovers – mostly chickenhawks like Trump – tried their best to send me and my peers off to wars halfway around the planet to “defend” this nation.
But, then, I grew up in a time when our money didn’t need God imprinted on it to have any value and the creeps who fronted for weapons manufacturers were open about working for the War Department. Generations since are handicapped by listening to years of nothing but politically correct slogans governing foreign and domestic policy.
Eideard 
After two years of increases, greenhouse gas emissions fell in 2015, reducing the U.S.’s overall climate pollution to below 1994 levels, according to a draft EPA report published Tuesday. http://www.climatecentral.org/news/americas-climate-pollution-falling-epa-21165 “These numbers demonstrate the successfulness of the policies that were instituted by the Obama administration — the Clean Power Plan and incentives for renewable energy — to lower domestic carbon emissions,” said Michael Mann, a Penn State University climatologist. “And, this underscores how disastrous it would be if the Trump administration makes good on its threat to undo the progress that was made under the Obama administration.”
“Has the Moment for Environmental Justice Been Lost? : Facing Trump’s proposals for cutting programs that help minorities and the poor, Democrats scramble to make up for missed opportunities to protect them.” (ProPublica 7/24/17) https://www.propublica.org/article/has-the-moment-for-environmental-justice-been-lost ”
See also “Kaboom Town” https://www.propublica.org/article/military-pollution-toxic-burns-colfax-louisiana