Death to Regulations

    Ever wonder why there are so many regulations. Why does the EPA even exist? I like to start with my favorite point of reference Ohio's own Cuyahoga River. Ask most people what makes this body of water infamous and they probably couldn't tell you. It's the definition of what happens when industry is allowed to police their own without outside intervention. August 1, 1969  Time Magazine reported  " The lower Cuyahoga has no visible signs of life, not even leaches and sludge worms that usually thrive on wastes." its also quite literally a fire hazard. This, after a fire earlier that year June 22 . It also burned 9 times before that. Yes the River burned. Literally.

    The Clean Water act and the formation of the EPA soon followed in 1970. Some believe its main function is to generate income by relentless fining of companies not meeting regulatory standards, unobtainable at worst or not profitable after costly conformation at best. Or its focus may be on keeping our drinking water clean and our agriculture relatively edible.

      Most people do know about how dirty those New York rivers are, you know, no fishing in the Hudson River. That's because Kodak,GE and a host of others used the Erie Canal as their waste disposal area during that regions manufacturing boom that lasted until the 1970's. The best is Lake Onondaga also in New York 125 years of pollution, 20 lbs of mercury per day. All surface water, ground water, and sediment, contaminated. It's the most polluted lake in the country, no swimming since 1940, no fishing since 1970. Its not clean now and experts say it wont be clean for a generation. So at the next Restore our nations freedom obligatory photo op in front of the Statue of Liberty, ask a Republican if they would eat a fish from that water, and what they think it's situation would be without regulations.It's amazing that a whole platform could be based on dismantling regulatory bodies. The death of regulation goes unquestioned as a political talking point by people that were adults when some of these things happened. As politics go, not too shocking, but it still seems kind of dirty to me.