EPA Has Outside Environmentalists Writing Their Regulations, Targeting Millions of Americans The Environmental Protection Agency, an overbearing regulatory menace, is now showing themselves to be little more than the government muscle behind an environmental agenda aimed at sending Americans back to pre-industrial revolutionary times. In what appears to be an obvious abuse of power and dereliction of duty, the EPA, under the energy-hostile leadership of Gina McCarthy, has been permitting environmental activists to write their agencies policies. Those are policies which have a tremendous impact on the lives of Americans in innumerable ways, from employment to home energy costs to the control and regulation that the agency assumes over our daily lives. As distasteful as the dictatorial agency is itself, the fact that enemies of free enterprise and freedom in general are mandating from behind the scenes is particularly offensive. Senator David Vitter(R-LA) has long been on the scent of impropriety and abuses at the EPA and he, along with veteran watchdog Rep Darrel Issa (R-CA), are launching investigations into the collusion. Of particular concern is the relationship between the EPA and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Emails indicate that inappropriate levels of influence existed between the two and that it directly impacted public policy. The lawmakers released some of that evidence on Wednesday to illustrate the severity of the problem. Senator Vitter said, The EPA is clearly allowing the NRDC to assist in drafting federal regulation, with a heavy-hand in numerous economically destructive policies. This influence is putting American families and future generations on the hook for years of lost opportunity and regulatory burden. The investigation resulted from news reports that NRDC wrote the EPAs 2014 regulations which targeted Co2. That rule, announced in June, mislabeled carbon dioxide as a pollutant, and set seriously destructive energy standards for emissions. It will virtually eliminate coal as a fuel within the United States and tremendously increase the price of our electricity as well as negatively impacting our domestic electrical generating capacity and availability. One of the most revealing emails, from 2011, had no text in the body, but the subject line contained the words: Accepted: Meeting with NRDC on Section 111 Standards for Power Plants. That meeting took place as NRDC was composing the policy proposal that set the new crippling carbon dioxide emissions standards. The New York Times reported the names of those NRDC lobbyists drafting the regulations in July. They described their efforts, saying, Indisputable, however, is that the Natural Resources Defense Council was far ahead of the E.P.A. in drafting the architecture of the proposed regulation. They were apparently so far ahead because they were the ones writing the regulation. Vitter also released an email chain from 2009 in which then-Deputy Asst Administrator McCarthy discussed getting together with NRDCs Daniel Lashoff, one of those authors, to hash out environmental policy. The NRDC claims there is no impropriety, saying, These emails show an advocacy group doing its job, We sent our priorities to EPA and made personnel suggestions. Welcome to Washington. The fact that the NRDC is operating from Washington should not be a free pass to illegality. The authoritarian and oppressive EPA no longer serves the needs of the American people. They serve the elites and special interests who gain financially from the restrictions imposed upon the rest of us. The agency needs to be eliminated and some of their people need to be in a protected environment surrounded by bars, locks and guards. Rick Wells is a conservative author who recognizes that our nation, our Constitution and our traditions are under a full scale assault from multiple threats. Please Like him on Facebook, Follow him on Twitter or visit www.rickwells.us 