Watching the Watchmen: Can We Trust the EPA?

And just what exactly is "environmental justice"?

by Rod D. Martin
October 20, 1997

Bill Clinton returned from South America Sunday with an agenda. Fresh off the signing of a "greenhouse gas" treaty with Argentina and getting ready for a world summit on the issue in Kyoto, the President made clear that he would tolerate no hold-outs: all the world must now board the green bandwagon.

Is this wise? Maybe; maybe not. Scientific theories cover the spectrum, from the belief that man-made CO2 emissions will shortly cook the Earth to the increasingly well supported (though by no means proven) idea that a new ice age is soon to be upon us. The truth is, the scientists just don't know. And this fact raises the question: why is the Environmental Protection Agency so adamant that they do?

The Clinton-era EPA, headed by Carol Browner, is on a crusade, and greenhouse gasses are just a part of it. The agenda includes direct federal authority over all of the more than 2000 watersheds in America (which is to say, nearly the entire country) and an elimin…