President Trump is wasting no time in cleaning up Obama Administration messes where it’s possible to do so by executive order. One over the weekend started reigning in the EPA. “The Trump administration instituted a media blackout at the Environmental Protection Agency and barred staff from awarding any new contracts or grants. Emails sent to EPA staff since President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Friday and reviewed by The Associated Press, detailed the specific prohibitions banning press releases, blog updates or posts to the agency’s social media accounts.”

Under Obama the EPA was a rogue agency perusing a radical environmental agenda at the expense of congressional intent. Texas alone has sued the EPA numerous times. A few of the lawsuits currently in progress over EPA overreach:

The Cross-State Air Pollution Rule.

The “Endangerment Finding” over greenhouse gas emissions congress never authorized the EPA to regulate.

The unconstitutional Clean Power Plan to regulate coal power plant carbon dioxide emissions.

The “Waters of the U.S. Rule,” allowing the EPA to micromanage the way farmers run their own farms.

Pollution Control Permitting, where the EPA illegally disapproved of Texas’ permitting program.

The 2016 Regional Haze Plan Suit. “Once again, the Obama Administration is misinterpreting and misusing federal agencies to force through a radical agenda based more on the beliefs of his environmentalist base than on common sense.” There was also a lawuit over the 2012 Haze Plan.

A lawsuit over the EPA’s failure to analyze job losses from coal regulations.

The Qualified Facilities Program for oil and gas drilling.

The Mercury Rule.

Industrial Plant Regulation.

Two separate Sulfur Dioxide Rule lawsuits. one still pending.

Multiple Greenhouse Gas rule lawsuits.

A lawsuit over Freedom of Information Act requests over the EPA colluding with various environmental groups to issue laws.

There are probably a few I’ve forgotten.

U.S. District Judge John Preston Bailey has said that the agency “evidences the continued hostility on the part of the EPA to acceptance of the mission established by Congress.”

Says Powerline’s John Hindraker:

The EPA was created by Congress and owes its powers exclusively to Congressional enactment, but over time it has become contemptuous of its democratically-elected master, and has come to view itself as a superior and independent power, entitled to enforce those legal provisions that it likes, and ignore those that are inconvenient. Agencies like the EPA are the single greatest threat to the freedom of American citizens.

The EPA is a rogue agency long overdue for reining in.

Tags: Donald Trump, EPA, John Hinderaker, John Preston Bailey, Regulation, Supreme Court, Texas, West Virginia