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Environment/Energy · Media · Politics

Fox News Channel Covers Heartland’s Petition Effort to Rein in the EPA

We enjoyed excellent coverage of our event this morning on Capitol Hill with Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) in which we presented petitions signed by more than 16,000 Americans demanding Congress rein in the Environmental Protection Agency. (Be sure to read Heartland Institute President Joseph Bast’s op-ed on the event at The Daily Caller.)

As the preamble of our petition states:

EPA has become a rogue agency, spending billions of dollars (approximately $9 billion in 2012) directly and imposing on individuals and businesses hundreds of billions of dollars in compliance costs. …

The toll EPA is now taking on our country is staggering, putting hundreds of thousands of Americans out of work at a time when millions of people are unemployed and our reliance on foreign sources of energy threatens to compromise the nation’s security. …

The solution is to rein in EPA through deep cuts in the size, power, and cost of the agency.

We will post video of the entire event soon, but we’re grateful to Media Matters (no fan of ours) for grabbing the video of coverage from the Fox News Channel. Jenna Lee interviewed Peter Barnes of the Fox Business Network about the event, the petition, and the effect EPA regulations have on our economy — specifically, gas prices.

The event also earned a segment on “Special Report with Bret Baier.”

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— Jim Lakely

Jim is the the director of communications at The Heartland Institute. Prior to joining Heartland, he was an ink-stained newspaperman for 16 years with many stops in "old media." Jim covered Congress and The White House during the George W. Bush administration for The Washington Times, and worked as a reporter, editorial writer and columnist for newspapers in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and California. He has appeared on the Fox News Channel, CNN, MSNBC, C-Span, and many local and national talk radio shows to talk politics and policy.

  • harryhammer

    As always, your group is lobbying for deep cuts in the size, power and cost of the Environmental Protection Agency.

    Is it because you can’t find a way to make money without poisoning the air and the water?

    Because if that’s the case then you should move over because you’re getting in the way of folks who can.

    For starters, the EPA has 17,000 full-time employees, most of which are scientists and engineers. They also sub-out quite a bit of work.

    So, your first move to create jobs would be to lay off a bunch of scientists and engineers.

    Let me give you an example of how more stringent regulations create jobs:

    Catalytic converters for cars were invented in the mid1950′s.

    Today, just about every gas powered vehicle that exists is fitted with one.

    The device can cost anywhere from $500 – $2000.

    Do you know how many jobs the adoption of the catalytic converter has created since 1975?

  • alvin691

    They can’t prove directly that lives are lost to coal power plants. They can’t.

    • harryhammer

      They can prove directly that lives are lost to coal workers’ pneumoconiosis (CWP), better known as “Black Lung Disease”

      There are currently about 130,000 underground coal miners actively working in the United States.

      In the past ten years, over 10,000 American miners have died from Black Lung Disease.

      A miner who spent 25 years in underground coal mines has a 5–10% risk of contracting the disease.

      Coal is nasty stuff.