ANALYSIS/OPINION:
If the 10 most dangerous words in the English language are, “Hi, I’m from the government and I’m here to help,” then the Environmental Protection Agency offers something even more terrifying.
“Hi, I’m from the EPA and I am going to help you whether you want it or not. If you don’t let me help you, I am going to fine you until your company goes out of business. I am going to make you jump through endless hoops that do nothing to prevent pollution in the air, land or water. I am going to saddle you with mountains of regulations and paperwork. If you complain or resist, I will fine you some more. In the end, I just may kill you anyway.”
OK, so that is 82 words more than President Reagan gave us, but the EPA is really scary and litigious and vindictive and, we now know, hates humans. Humans are, after all, the problem. The whole problem. The only problem.
I once used a tree branch to kill a beaver that was trying to attack my children. It was on federal land. Whenever I tell people around here that story, they always ask, “Did you get in trouble?” It is just assumed that on federal land, the life of one frothing, snarling beaver is more valued than three terrified young humans scrambling up a huge rock.
We now know what we have long suspected. The EPA hates humans and seeks to eliminate us all.
Last week, an ambulance rushing to the hospital with a shooting victim broke down on the highway here in the District. (I know, guns are illegal here. So, how did the guy get shot? It’s complicated.) Anyway, the patient was in cardiac arrest.
The rig was a newer model diesel, you know, the engines that are famous for running forever. Well, not after the EPA gets done with them. They required an emission control system that automatically shuts down the entire engine if it is not allowed to, and I am not making this up, “regenerate.” Whatever that means.
Fire department officials say this issue has plagued a number of their new diesel ambulances but never has it led to such tragic consequences.
The patient sat on the side of the highway waiting precious minutes for a replacement rig suitable to EPA standards. One was found and dispatched. The patient was transferred and, finally, back on his emergency way.
By the time he reached the hospital, he was dead.
If Congress is serious about overseeing the leviathan government it has created and if it is serious about reining in the galloping tyranny of agencies such as the IRS and the EPA, then it should hold exhaustive hearings into this matter.
Committees should call in diesel mechanics to testify to the importance of engines that are required to “regenerate.” They should call in ambulance drivers and EMTs who have been forced to keep patients alive while broken down on the side of the road. They should call the mother and family of the shooting victim who died in the back of that ambulance.
Then they should call in a raft of tyrannical bureaucrats from the EPA and ask them why they killed this man and if they know how many others they have killed this way. And would they care more if it had not been an urban shooting victim but, instead, a rich white man who had a heart attack on a golf course. Would they care then? Maybe. Maybe not.
Either way, one down, 315 million to go.