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Walcher: Is the goal cleaner air, or something else?
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Commentary, Greg Walcher

Walcher: Is the goal cleaner air, or something else?

By GREG WALCHER | GregWalcher.com In 1991, Oleta Adams sang “Get Here” on “Soul Train.” She spent 23 weeks on the Billboard top 100 with the love ballad, listing all the ways he could get to her: by railway, trailway, airplane, caravan, sailboat, swinging on a rope, by sled, horseback, or even by windsurfing, magic carpet, or hot air balloon. The conclusion is, “I don’t care how you get here, just get here…” Government regulators like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), ought to take that approach, but rarely do. This was the primary controversy surrounding EPA’s regulation of methane emissions, which sought not only to set and enforce standards for the pollutant, but also to dictate a one-size-fits-all outdated technology to monitor emissions. Governments are often behind ...
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Walcher: Crying Crocodile Tears Over ‘Sue-and-Settle’
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Commentary, Greg Walcher, National

Walcher: Crying Crocodile Tears Over ‘Sue-and-Settle’

By  GREG WALCHER House Republicans were so upset that they held two committee hearings during 2023, and in November the Committee on Oversight and Accountability announced that it will investigate EPA’s “use of secretive ‘sue-and-settle’ practices.” The Chairman says EPA uses the tactic “to avoid congressional oversight” and implement policies that special interests want. Letting outside groups sue the government to compel enforcement actions dates from the Nixon years, and during the Reagan era became a favorite tactic of the environmental industry. During the Clinton Administration several agencies discovered they could make secret back-room deals, using outside groups to file “friendly lawsuits” demanding they do what they wanted to do anyway, thereby short-circuiting all ...
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