Grandstanding, Payoff, or Genuine Concern?

A United Kingdom parliament has the ability to pass environmental legislation on account of its unified nature. On the other hand, the separation of power between states and national government, bicameral legislative branch, and general weakness of the United States government makes it more difficult to make pass and implement important legislation. This weakness in government creates discrepancies between the powers of state and national government.

In Texas, EPA officials have decided to take action against Range Resources Corporations, overstepping state regulators. The national agency believes that the company has contaminated the nearby residents’ water supply. They claim that the state regulators have not done enough to ensure the safety of the residents; thus, the interference of the EPA. While the company and regulators are going back and forth disputing the cause of the water contamination, the issue still remains on who has primary control over regulations of the company- the Texas regulators or the EPA officials? This could be a case for the Interstate Commerce Clause in that air pollution would affect people’s health, which would, in turn, affect the economy by increasing unemployment (because of poor health) and thus affect Interstate Commerce. If that is true, then the EPA would have control over how to help residents nearby drilling sites. In contrast to the weak government of the United States, a stronger government would not have such problems between separations of power in state and national governments.

Having local regulators is useful because, let’s face it, EPA officials cannot do everything on their own. Having help on a state level distributes the power so that the EPA does not have an overwhelming amount of overseeing to do. Unfortunately, while it distributes the power in a helpful way, it also forces the EPA to go through state regulators who can easily be affected by interest groups.

Also, when the local regulators and EPA officials disagree, who REALLY has the residents’ best interests in mind? Perhaps the local regulators are being paid off by the company for paying less attention to safety regulations, similar to inspectors in the Gulf of Mexico. Or maybe this is just the EPA grandstanding, trying to get hype and support while showing off what they can do.

No matter what the underlying intentions of the EPA and the local regulators may have been or may be, the safety of residents is the most important aspect of this dispute. If, in the end of the investigation and work by the EPA and local regulators, the residents have clean water and are healthy and safe, then the EPA has done a fine job of fulfilling their purpose of “protecting human health and safeguarding the environment.”