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disasters in decades, including the Flint, Michigan, water crisis in 2014+ and the Gold King Mine spill in 2015.°

Beyond creating such immediate and tangible harm in various communities, an EPA led by activism and a disregard for the law has generated uncertainty in the regulated community, vendetta-driven® enforcement, weighted analytics, increased costs, and diminished trust in final agency actions. Although the U.S. environmental story is very positive, there has been a return to fear-based rhetoric within the agency, especially as it pertains to the perceived threat of climate change. Mischaracterizing the state of our environment generally and the actual harms reasonably attributable to climate change specifically is a favored tool that the Left uses to scare the American public into accepting their ineffective, liberty-crushing regulations, diminished private property rights, and exorbitant costs. In effect, the Biden EPA has once again presented a false choice to the American people: that they have to choose between a healthy environment and a strong, growing economy.

Historical Role and Purpose. For many decades, rapid industrial activity with an unorganized approach to environmental standards significantly degraded the country’s environment. Particle pollution in the form ofa thick, fog-like haze that at times was laced with harmful metals was a frequent occurrence across the country.’ More than 40 percent of communities failed to meet basic water quality standards, and in 1969, the Cuyahoga River infamously caught fire after sparks from a passing train ignited debris in the water, which was filled with heavy industrial waste.®

EPA was established on December 2, 1970, following a call by President Richard Nixon to “rationally and systematically” organize existing piecemeal efforts to clean up and protect the environment.’ Under Reorganization Plan No. 3, the EPA was to initiate a “coordinated attack on the pollutants which debase the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the land that grows our food.”’° Numerous authorities were consolidated and given to the EPA including research, monitoring, standard-setting, and enforcement activities. The mission to protect public health and the environment was born, and the first Administrator was sworn in on December 4, 1970.

Congress followed suit with the landmark Clean Air Act of 1970 (CAA)" and the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972.” The subsequent Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990" played a significant role in the expansion of EPA’s responsibilities and legal authority with the agency then being tasked with the development of new regulatory mechanisms that included, among other things, cap-and-trade programs for the control of sulfur dioxide and technological standards for nitrogen oxide emissions from coal-fired power plants, a vastly expanded hazardous air pollutant program, a federal operating permit program, and new regulations governing phaseout of the production of ozone-depleting substances in conjunction with U.S. ratification of the Montreal Protocol in 1988."*