Who is the clown?

I saw this commercial on Sunday as I was preparing dinner and about cut myself. The blatant partisanship (read: Republican) behind this ad is too much for me to take. A lot of what has gotten me fired up enough to actually do something, instead of just complaining, has been the recent onslaught of Republican war on the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency). The whole premise of the video, a wild bucking bull that is out of control and destroying everything and everyone in its path, is one that the Republicans have been screaming about since they gained control of Congress.

The Republicans in the House, since gaining control at the beginning of the year, have repeatedly voted to defund the EPA and strip the agency of its power to regulate what businesses can do with and to the environment. For 40 years, the EPA has helped reduce the number of pollutants in the air, water, and soil. They have forced these companies to start cleaning up their acts and stop using nature as a dumping ground or as a vast cornfield that must be stripped of every resource no matter the method. Without the creation of the EPA, done by a Republican president by the way (Nixon), the country and, indeed, the world would be a much different place.

This PSA says the agency is out of control and is hurting the average citizen by forcing energy costs up. This is misleading. The agency is actually telling coal-powered electric plants to get up to speed with the regulations that have existed for many years about the kind and strength of emissions that these power plants let loose into the air. Power plants have been given time to get their factory up to par, but many have put it off. Now that the EPA is after them and they want to say it is unfair and hurts the economy. They are trying to use you and I and the bad economy as a shield from regulatory discipline, and they are even using this as a time to try and trim back the regulations the EPA enforces. I wonder how many Republicans get donations from these coal-powered industries.

It's time to tell the executives of these businesses to stop clowning around and accept the blame, instead of trying to pawn it off on the EPA. These businesses are making money, why is it so hard for them to get into compliance for the betterment of the environment? Also, let's tell our government reps to stop taking orders from the fossil fuel industries and leave the EPA alone. I don't know about you, but I don't want to time travel back to the 70s. I like a cleaner, healthier Mother Nature much better.