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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, JULY 17, 2018
editor@dailyastorian.com
KARI BORGEN
Publisher
JIM VAN NOSTRAND
Editor
Founded in 1873
JEREMY FELDMAN
Circulation Manager
DEBRA BLOOM
Business Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN
Production Manager
CARL EARL
Systems Manager
OUR VIEW
Today’s EPA is profoundly disruptive
M
aking sure Americans now
and in the future have clean
air, water and land is so
uncontroversial that pro-business
President Richard Nixon enthusi-
astically created the Environmental
Protection Agency nearly 50 years ago.
But judging by the actions and words
of today’s EPA leaders, you’d think
voters were clamoring to return to the
Industrial Revolution’s 19th-century
heyday, when coal cinders choked the
sky, rivers were used by industry as free
toxin-disposal sewers and life expec-
tancies were about half what they are
today.
Scott Pruitt, who resigned the EPA
administratorship on July 5, brought
renewed meaning to the word scan-
dalous. He had no ethical compass but
instead a divining rod closely attuned
to the dark desires of some in the fos-
sil-fuel industry. Lacking any meaning-
ful experience in large-agency manage-
ment or federal environmental law, he
would hardly have qualified for a jan-
itorial position in Nixon’s EPA. More
than a dozen ethics probes will continue
beyond his resignation.
And yet Pruitt and his likely suc-
cessor, coal-industry lobbyist Andrew
Wheeler, are both true to a certain ante-
diluvian vision of the U.S. — one in
which failing smokestack corpora-
tions should call all the shots. Hewing
to President Trump’s idea that national
success can be measured in tons of coal
and steel, his EPA appointees aren’t just
trying to negate the 10-year-old legacy
of President Obama, but the 110-year-
old legacy of Theodore Roosevelt.
AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin
Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler speaks to EPA staff last week.
There are many problems with this
approach, but it isn’t even very effective
at achieving its own goals. Most U.S.
industrial leaders, while sometimes bri-
dling at cumbersome or overreaching
environmental regulations, nevertheless
value pure water and air. They under-
stand the harsh costs of bad publicity
when there are oil spills, cancer-caus-
ing contaminants, or mining permits
issued in pristine settings. Perhaps most
of all, they value predictable long-term
policies that can be factored into deci-
sions about investments and other mat-
ters. There is nothing quite so damag-
ing to business as wild swings from one
extreme to another.
Did the Obama administration take
environmental regulations beyond statu-
tory limits, inviting the backlash evident
in everything Trump does? Defenders
of Obama EPA policies would say that
a decision like regulating greenhouse
gas emissions under existing air pollu-
tion rules is a logical step made vital by
congressional malpractice — the stated
goal of GOP leaders to stall and block
everything the Democrat tried to do. An
overwhelming majority of the scientific
community believes there is no more
urgent problem facing the world than
figuring out how to pull the planet back
from climate catastrophe. There are
many citizens who believe if this isn’t a
proper function of the EPA, what is?
Objectively, however, the
Constitution gives Congress alone
the power to make laws. Presidential
administrations routinely write rules to
implement those laws, but stretching
The Oregonian complaint line, and it wasn’t
working. No story in the Sunday edition,
either. I felt the news was kept from us.
I call this “journalistic malpractice.” Most
of Oregon did not vote for Trump. For the
most part, we are a fairly progressive popu-
lation. Oregonians do not need censorship.
Shame on The Oregonian.
MARY TANGUAY WEBB
Astoria
down the entire space. While it may save a
bit of time, that is a terribly wasteful abuse of
water. Is it really that important that we blast
all the schmutz off of all surfaces??
In the U.S., residential water use peaks
during the summertime, mainly from water-
ing lawns. Maintaining a green lawn can
be a massive drain of water — irrigating a
1,000-square-foot lawn with just a half an
inch of water takes about 330 gallons. Other
outdoor water use includes washing the car
and filling the swimming pool (watercalcula-
tor.org)
In effort to practice my preaching, I have
begun to water my outside plants with water
from my dehumidifier tank, when full. Hon-
estly, I avoid watering my yard, because it
makes the grass grow more, and I have to cut
it more often. Who wants that? Is brown grass
really that offensive in the face of wiser water
use?
LYNN HADLEY
Astoria
rule-making too far invites the kind of
counterrevolution initiated by Trump.
Such expansion of rules into new areas
is likely to be hobbled for decades to
come by a more conservative Supreme
Court. This means it is increasingly
essential for our three branches of gov-
ernment to begin working together with
the same sense of compromise that
served our democracy so well in the
mid-20th century.
This give and take has included exec-
utive department agencies like EPA.
Beyond the pressing global emer-
gency of climate change, in Oregon
there are any number of locally import-
ant issues that demand intelligent ongo-
ing involvement by the agency. These
include everything from enforcing the
clean-water standards that recently dis-
rupted municipal water supplies in
Salem to requiring higher fuel-effi-
ciency standards for cars and trucks.
Neither the state nor all the companies
that do business here can easily afford to
gyrate between Trump’s vision of unfet-
tered capitalism and the nearly inevita-
ble repudiation of Trump policies by a
new administration in 2020 or 2024.
Conservation of the natural world
is literally conservative — consist-
ing of cherishing what is good about
our world and keeping it that way. The
Trump EPA isn’t conservative, but pro-
foundly disruptive. Our nation needs
stable, common-sense, constitution-
ally defensible environmental rules, not
a radical rejection of fundamental prin-
ciples established during decades of
previous Republican and Democratic
presidencies.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Up to legislature
to change bad laws
egarding judicial appointments, I fail to
understand how anyone can have a prob-
lem with a jurist who finds it necessary to
interpret a law as written, or as it applies to
the Constitution. Could it be that one hopes a
judge would have the law interpreted to fit a
particular point of view?
Writing laws is the job of the legislature,
not judges. If a law is bad, it is up to the leg-
islature to change it. And, that can only be
accomplished fairly on a bipartisan basis.
ROBERT FLETCHER
Seaside
R
County doesn’t
need a new jail
latsop County does not need a new jail.
Clatsop County needs smarter incarcer-
ation. The plan for a new jail almost three
times the current capacity is ludicrous. Our
county is close to the same size population as
when the current jail was built. Money would
be far better spent for increased mental health
programs.
If you still want to build a new jail,
remember, it is the care and feeding that is
the real expense. Also, a county jail needs to
be located near courtrooms for frequent trial
appearances from the facility.
Again, we do not need a large new jail,
just better, efficient utilization of the space we
have.
BOB WESTERBERG
Astoria
C
Oregonians do
not need censorship
read The Daily Astorian, The Oregonian
and, once weekly, the New Yorker. I have
been extremely proud of the Fourth Estate
during this troubled political time we seem
mired in. The truth seemed to abide … until
now.
On Friday, July 13, a quarter million Brits
— men, women and children, carrying home-
made signs — gathered in Trafalgar Square to
protest President Donald Trump. It was abso-
lutely the biggest and most significant news
story of the day. It was of special interest to
me, because my husband and I had joined
a peace rally in Trafalgar Square in 1966,
demonstrating against the Vietnam War. We
were looking forward to reading this partic-
ular story in The Oregonian and seeing the
wonderful photos.
On Saturday, July 14, there was nothing
in the paper about the demonstration. I called
I
We need to use
water more wisely
ately, I have noticed a great deal of water
use abuse. Yes, we live in the Pacific
Northwest, home of the old novelty patch,
“Oregon Rain Festival, Jan. 1 through Dec.
31.” However, to use our brains, and not just
the convenience of the assumption that water
will always be available in abundance, we
need to use it much more conservatively and
wisely.
Example 1: Sprinklers that distribute the
water liberally onto concrete sidewalks; I am
pretty sure concrete grows nicely without
hydration.
Example 2: In lieu of sweeping off a drive-
way or a parking lot, many folks will hose
L
Engaged citizens are
contented citizens
s a candidate for District 3 commissioner,
I would like to see a more robust citi-
A
zen-participation process in county govern-
ment. Citizen input should be early and often
in forming county policies and delivering pro-
grams. Two recent county initiatives illustrate
my point.
There is no more important function of
government than to formulate its budget. Cit-
izens have a right to be skeptical when the
budget process includes only staff analysis
and input. The county’s 2018-2019 budget
was recently brought to the commission after
one 8-hour session, where the appointed bud-
get committee was asked to review a $70 mil-
lion budget. This is not meaningful input.
The county missed another opportunity
to engage citizens in the design and opera-
tion of a new jail. When the jail proposal was
unveiled to commissioners last spring, there
had been zero citizen input. The jail plan
would have benefited from citizen ideas, and
have made the proposal a stronger sell on the
November ballot.
Citizens have greater ownership of gov-
ernment programs when they feel they have
contributed to decision-making. I believe we
should do a better job of engaging our citi-
zens on the important issues facing Clatsop
County.
PAMELA WEV
Astoria