The Soapbox

Joined: 10/07/1998 Posts: 24
Likes: 23

What's this?

Here's the info you asked for

EPA's website shows their historic budgets and staffing (https://www.epa.gov/planandbudget/budget). They've been above $7 billion since FY1998, so I'm not sure where you got the idea that they had tripled in size recently. Staffing levels the past couple years are the lowest they've been since the late 80s.

I didn't spend a lot of time looking (nor am I qualified to speak on the intricacies of budget reports), but it looks like about 25% of their budget goes to cleanup. See page 9 in https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-02/documents/fy17-budget-in-brief.pdf.

I would note that, from a cost-efficiency standpoint, cleanup is far more expensive than preventive measures. That's just basic engineering and economics. You can argue that "preventive" can overreach in places and you wouldn't be wrong, but my philosophy is to err on the side of protection. (I would typically say "conservatism" here, but that seems like an ironic choice of words!) And to your point, the gold mine was a train wreck. But they were dealt a crap hand--a ticking time bomb that was going to continue polluting regardless of whether they did anything or not. So, they tried to tackle the issue and missed badly. Better preventive measures (eg, more funding for Superfund, oversight of mines) might have made this issue a lot less thorny and avoided the scenario that unfolded.

I realize you and I will never see eye to eye on the EPA, but I don't think they are quite the boogeyman that you say they are.

(In response to this post by TomKazanski)

Posted: 04/04/2018 at 5:49PM

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Boy they did a bang up job cleaning up that Colorado mine didn’t they.... -- TomKazanski 04/04/2018 4:21PM

Here's the info you asked for -- Notorious KOM 04/04/2018 5:49PM

In the late 80s budget was 3+B in 2010 in was over ten billion -- TomKazanski 04/04/2018 9:11PM

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