Radio America Online News Bureau

Dossier Twist Points to Dems, Jeff Flakes Out, Fact Check Flop

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America discuss the Washington Post revelation that the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee provided some of the funding for the infamous and largely discredited Trump dossier that involved significant collaboration with officials in Russia, and they shake their heads as Democrats insist this was just simple opposition research.  They’re also unmoved by Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake’s denunciation of President Trump or Flake’s decision to fight back by retiring from the Senate, when it’s obvious the real reason he ended his campaign was because he can’t win.  And they get a kick out of the Washington Post fact checkers making a big deal out of determining that Virginia GOP gubernatorial nominee Ed Gillespie was wrong by claiming there were 2,000 MS-13 gang members living in one Virginia county when the best guess of law enforcement is there are just 1,400 violent criminals from that gang roaming area streets and neighborhoods.

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Tax Bill is Put Up or Shut Up Time for GOP

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After a frustrating failure on repealing or even reforming Obamacare, Senate Republicans are about to embark on a tax reform debate that prominent House conservative says will either pass and spark badly needed economic growth or spell doom for the GOP majority in Congress.

“If the Senate doesn’t vote yes for tax reform, we’re out of business.  They might as well pack their bags and head for home,” said Rep, Dave Brat, R-Virginia, a former economics professor and member of the House Freedom Caucus.  He also sits on the House Budget Committee.

The first step towards unveiling and advancing specific tax reform legislation is for the House and Senate to agree on a budget.  The House version contains far more in spending cuts but GOP leaders are urging House members to approve the Senate bill as it stands since nothing better will emerge in a conference committee.

Brat bristles at the thought of losing so many cuts because that limits how aggressive Republicans can be in their tax cut proposals but he says getting tax reform done soon is vital.

“We had $200 billion in mandatory reforms that we were pretty happy about achieving.  We’re going to be giving that up, but if we don’t move on taxes right now the alternative is giving up about three weeks and then maybe not getting tax (reform) done before Christmas,” said Brat.

And why would that delay be so bad?

“The longer you wait, the more the swamp engages and takes away their special loopholes and deductions.  Those are called pay-fors.  If you lose that money, then we will not have the money we need to lower the rates for the middle class,” said Brat.

Given the Senate’s inability to pass anything on the health care front, Brat understands why skepticism abounds over this legislation as well.  However, he says the crafting of this legislation has been far different, with key leaders in the House, Senate and the White House agreeing strongly on the framework for legislation.

That includes dropping the corporate tax rate to 20 percent, the S Corp or small business rate to 25 percent, providing middle class tax relief and easing the repatriation process for business to return to the United States.

While nothing is guaranteed in this political climate, Brat is confident about the progress to this point.

“If five or six folks in the Senate decide to put up a roadblock, we’re going to be in trouble again, but so far, no one’s put up any stark red lines yet,” said Brat.

One reason for that, Brat suspects, is that politicians who scuttle tax reform will pay a severe price back home.  He says the people who flocked to Trump – and to some extent Bernie Sanders – want more money in their paychecks.  And he says tax reform is the key to making that happen.

“They haven’t had a wage increase in 30 years.  They rightly know that the swamp and the system up here is rigged in favor of elites and against them.  They’re demanding attention, so I wouldn’t want to be the senator who holds that up.  I don’t think it’ll go too well for them,” said Brat.

Finding support among Democrats is going to be difficult in any meaningful numbers, as leaders on the left accuse the GOP of catering to the rich at the expense of the poor and middle class and being unconcerned about adding to the deficits after spending eight years castigating President Obama for doubling the national debt.

Brat says a look at the facts proves who is more serious about fiscal responsibility.

“The progressive Democrat budget they put in two weeks ago: we put in tax cuts and we’ve got to overcome $1.5 trillion in 10 years with economic growth, which we think we can pull off with some of the other levers as well.

“But the Democrats put in a $10 trillion tax increase over 10 years and $11 trillion in new spending and end up with more debt and deficits than we do even though they raise taxes by $10 trillion,” said Brat.

Brat is also weighing in on a couple other controversies associated with the legislation that still hasn’t been introduced.  Earlier this week, a tweet from President Trump poured cold water on the reported plan to cap 401(k) contributions at $2,400 per year.  Brat says that was never on the table.

He also defended the GOP goal of eliminating federal income tax deductions for state and local taxes, saying national tax policy shouldn’t be formulated based on what states decide to levy in taxes.

“I don’t think the federal government should be in the business of picking winners and losers and subsidizing rates that vary across states,” said Brat.

Eliminating the deduction would hit taxpayers hardest in high-taxing states like New York, California, and New Jersey.

“They have high taxes.  They have high government services and they like it that way.  Why should someone in a low-tax state like Texas or the Midwest be paying for elites on the beaches,” said Brat.

Brat did not weigh in to a large extent on the Twitter feud  between President Trump and Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn, other than to say he prefers discussing policy goals rather than social media zingers.

“I’m in favor of getting rid of picking winners and losers, saving $1.5 trillion, giving everybody a tax cut, getting economic growth going, putting a couple thousand dollars back in the average family’s pocket and getting their kid a job when they get out of college,” said Brat,

He says this will be a moment of great possibility for young people.

“The one thing I can tell them with a straight face is, ‘I’m going to pop this economy for you.  I’m going to give you a chance.  If you want to jump in and go pro-business, I’m going to provide an opportunity for you to set up the rest of your life.  I highly encourage everyone to take advantage while we get this economy moving right now,” said Brat.

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‘Holy Cow, We’ve Lost Our Culture’

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Western civilization is thoroughly battered in Europe and America is on course for the same fate unless unless it once again embraces the ideas that made us strong and resists the tide of progressive momentum that seeks to destroy them, according to Sovereign Nations founder and editor-in-chief Michael O’Fallon.

Sovereign Nations is hosting a three-day conference in the nation’s capital next week designed to highlight the threats to the founding principles and how to thwart them.  The conference will be held at the Trump International Hotel from Oct. 30-Nov. 1.

O’Fallon says he started Sovereign Nations as he watched America turn against the very things that made it strong.

“I imagine most [people] have noticed that there are things around them, especially in the last 8-10 years, that just don’t make sense.  What was once heresy is now law and what was once law is now heresy.

“When we take a look at things that were accepted in the United States, the things that held us together, the glue that really kept our civilization together, those things are now being turned and looked at as if they are things and signs of oppression,” said O’Fallon.

And what are some of those things?

“The way we raise our children, the basis of America in self-government in the family, those things are now looked upon as being controlling, oppressive, not the way that people can truly have freedom, things that need to be thought through and possibly done away with.  So everything that really keeps our society together as we know it is quickly being extinguished,” said O’Fallon.

O’Fallon says this is all a result of a carefully planned onslaught from the intellectual left.

“That cause of things we believe to be rooted in what is known as progressivism that is backed by open society foundations.  More commonly known is the name of George Soros, which keeps coming up again and again.  Certainly, he would be at the source of that,” said O’Fallon.

But how?  How can someone like Soros and his allies really implement so much change?

O’Fallon says the first powerful took is what Soros calls the theory of reflexivity.

“It’s creating an atmosphere of transmission and acceptance of either true or false statements in order to fulfill a manipulative function,” said O’Fallon, who says that tactic morphs into what are known as “fertile fallacies.”

“We know a fallacy is something that’s not true, but it’s fertile in that maybe it’s not true but it’s got legs.  It’s a great story.  It’s going to go someplace,” said O’Fallon.

He says the cumulative impact of this strategy on multiple economic, cultural, and international fronts, is aimed towards a the ultimate goal of undermining the philosophical foundations of the United States.

“The target, in and of itself, is to destroy anything that makes us a sovereign nation with the ability to have self-governance,” said O’Fallon.  “The citizens of this country are the ones that determine what this country does by making sure that we are within the frames of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.”

O’Fallon says the current attempts to blur the lines on citizenship by allowing non-citizens to vote and being lax on the enforcement of immigration laws is a direct attack on the right of citizens to rule, and he says killing that nation is the greatest tool the progressives have.

“All of these things are tools to break down and mold this world in a way that they would desire it – and when I say ‘the’y there’s a big ‘they’ there – in a way to not have us to be able to say,’That’s unconstitutional.  That needs to go to the Supreme Court.’  We need to make sure that we look at things as the U.S. as apart from the rest of the world,” said O’Fallon.

He says America needs to wake up fast because it may already be too late for Europe.

“The same thing is happening in Europe.  People are just waking up to the fact that, holy cow, we’ve lost our culture.  And that, sadly, is happening here as well,” said O’Fallon.

O’Fallon blames “progressive” Republicans and Democrats for trying to stop President Trump from strengthening American sovereignty .  He says the GOP is split between defenders of the Constitution and lawmakers behind the Gang of Eight immigration plan and other “globalist” initiatives.

He has even harsher words for the Democrats, whom O’Fallon believes need a new party name.

“They just need to come straight out and say, ‘We are globalist progressives at this point.  What people joined 30, 40, 50 years ago with the Democrat Party, it doesn’t even resemble it at this point,” said O’Fallon.

“They have become a party that is wanting to quickly take us out of our sovereignty and put us into a situation where we could have something that’s very much like a global EU very soon.

“They are the party of eugenics.  They are the party of attacking our sovereignty.  They are the party that is always looking to obstruct,” said O’Fallon.

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Reporter Actually Meets Red State Voters, Trump vs. Corker, Math is Racist

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David French of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America applaud former NPR CEO Ken Stern for taking the time to meet voters in red states and realizing they are nothing like the caricature offered by the mainstream media.  They’re also exasperated as President Trump and Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker resume their public feud and accomplish nothing other than choke momentum for tax reform and tax cuts.  And they react with disgust to a University of Illinois professor who argues that proficiency in algebra and geometry perpetuates unearned white privilege and that “mathematics itself operates as Whiteness.”

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Mueller Looks at Podesta, Right Needs to Reject O’Reilly, CNN’s Rotten Apple

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David French of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America welcome the news that special counsel Robert Mueller is looking at possible criminal activity by the Podesta Group, which not only shows Mueller is looking at activities on the left but also highlights the fact Russia and the Soviet Union have meddled in U.S. politics for decades.  They also discuss the latest reports of former Fox News allegedly shelling out $32 million to settle a lawsuit from a former Fox contributor who alleged a “non-consensual sexual relationship” with Bill O’Reilly, and David concluding the political right should treat O’Reilly as a pariah akin to Harvey Weinstein.  And they roll their eyes as CNN unveils its new “Facts First” campaign by showing an apple and saying that some people – clearly referring to President Trump – insist the apple is a banana.  They explain why CNN’s does not have the moral high ground in this debate.

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Lawyer for FBI Informant Talks Russia Uranium Probe

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The lawyer for a former FBI informant who gathered evidence of a massive Russian bribery scheme to influence U.S. nuclear policy during the Obama administration says it is illegal for the government to prevent her client from speaking to Congress about what he knows.

She also says her client’s revelations went largely ignored by the FBI for political reasons and that he was threatened with criminal prosecution by the Justice Department under former Attorney General Loretta Lynch if he ever spoke publicly about the case.

Victoria Toensing has been representing the unnamed informant for the past several weeks.  Toensing is a former deputy assistant attorney general and a former federal prosecutor.  She is now a partner in the Washington law firm of diGenova & Toensing.

She says this whole saga began more than eight years ago.

“My client began working with the FBI in 2009 after he was contracted with the Russian company in the nuclear business.  All of a sudden, he was asked to take part of his salary and give it as kickback money in bribes.  They didn’t say it that way.  They just said take part and pay this person, pay that person.  So he went to the FBI.  He was appalled,” said Toensing.

“The FBI saw an opportunity and they said, ‘Work undercover for us.’  So he thought he was being a good American and he reported not only the payoffs – that was just run of the mill corruption, it’s bad corruption – but also it was important for the government as a counterintelligence measure to get information about what the Russians were doing,” said Toensing.

Toensing says her client fed volumes of information to the FBI only to learn the bureau did nothing with it.

“So that started in 2009.  Can you imagine my client’s surprise when he finds out in October 2010 that the U.S. government authorized the purchase by these corrupt companies of a company [that provided] 20 percent of the uranium for the United States?” said Toensing.

The informant was dumbfounded.

“‘Why did this go through?  Why did this happen?  Look, I’ve been giving you all this information,’ he says to his FBI people.  They kind of rolled their eyes and one of them said, ‘Politics,'” said Toensing.

No prosecutions occurred in the case until 2014 and Toensing says even then the worst penalties amounted to a slap on the wrist.  The ordeal took a much uglier turn when the Justice Department refused the informant’s request for reimbursement.

“My client was never given the money back that he paid out from his own salary that the FBI had promised to give him, so he brought suit in 2016,” said Toensing, who was not representing him at that time.

“When he filed this suit, the Loretta Lynch Justice Department called his lawyer and threatened him and said, ‘If you don’t withdraw this lawsuit, we’re going after your liberty and reputation,” she added.

The Justice Department staked its argument on the non-disclosure agreement, or NDA, that the informant signed when first agreeing to funnel evidence to the FBI.

“They said, ‘You signed a non-disclosure agreement when you started working and you will be violation of that non-disclosure agreement, and we will prosecute you for that,'” said Toensing.

In decades of legal work, Toensing says she’s never come across a threat like that over an NDA.

“I’ve never heard of a criminal penalty in a non-disclosure agreement.  It’s usually a civil penalty, a $25,000 fine or something,” said Toensing, who also says there almost always exceptions to the NDA, such as court subpoenas or congressional testimony.

Furthermore, she says the Justice Department won’t even allow her client to see his NDA.

“How do I know?  When the lawyer in 2016 filed a [Freedom of Information] request to get that non-disclosure agreement, the government refused to answer, wouldn’t even respond,” said Toensing.

The effort now is to waive the terms of the NDA.  Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, is formally inviting Toensing’s client to testify and also asking Attorney General Jeff Sessions to release him from the NDA to testify.

Toensing says if given the opportunity, her client’s testimony will be “significant” but she doesn’t see how the testimony can legally be blocked.

“It’s a constitutional issue.  The executive branch can’t forbid someone from giving information to the legislative branch.  That’s a separation of powers issue,” said Toensing.

When asked if Sessions’ decision to recuse himself from the probe into Russian involvement in the 2016 elections could complicate his decision on Grassley’s request for the informant to testify, Toensing says it is vital no to intertwine or conflate the two matters.

“No, no, no, no.  Don’t do this.  This is not all things Russia.  I haven’t met a reporter yet who understands this, which shows you how good the Democrats are in their talking points.

“Jeff (Sessions) recused himself because he was involved in the campaign and there’s a specific Justice Department guideline that says if the campaign is being investigated, if you participated in the campaign you have to recuse yourself.  This is not all things Russia,” said Toensing.

She says Trump could also release her client from his NDA.

While on the subject of recusal, Toensing says former FBI Director Robert Mueller ought to step aside as special counsel following the revelation from the informant that the FBI sat on the Russian corruption while Mueller was in charge.

Toensing says that alone is not evidence of any misdeeds by Mueller, but she says the mere appearance of impropriety should lead him to step away from the investigation.

In addition, she says the virtual media blackout on this story since the explosive reports emerged earlier in the week is stunning.

“Gosh, it’s just amazing.  I was told by a friend of mine that knows something about this that he approached CNN and they said, ‘No, we don’t want to do it.’

“I was called by CNN [Thursday] just to give some facts.  At the end, I said, ‘Well, why don’t you have me on.’ ‘Oh that’s a good idea.  We’ll get back to you,'” said Toensing.

“Jake Tapper had (former Attorney General) Eric Holder on the other day after this story broke and didn’t even ask him if he had been briefed on the corruption investigation.  He didn’t even ask him.  He calls himself a journalist?” said Toensing.

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Kelly’s Critical Message, Revolting ‘Rock Star,’ Left Suddenly Respects Bush 43

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America applaud White House Chief of Staff John Kelly for painfully explaining to reporters and the public what the family of a fallen service member goes through and why he was stunned at Florida Rep. Frederica Wilson going public with her condemnation of President Trump’s phone call with the grieving widow of a slain soldier.  They also vent their disgust as Wilson reacts to Kelly’s criticism by claiming she is stunned at all the attention she is getting from the White House and planning to tell her children she’s now “a rock star.”  And they roll their eyes as many liberal writers and commentators claim they’ve always thought George W. Bush was a decent guy in the wake of his speech that many see as a rebuke of Trump.  Jim reminds lefties of how they compared Bush to Hitler on a regular basis and accused him knowing about the 9/11 terrorist attacks ahead of time.

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Property Rights Advocates Plead with Trump

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Property rights advocates are pleading for President Trump to get much more aggressive in rolling back national monument declarations on federal lands, asserting jobs and communities are scarce because of Uncle Sam’s tight grip on any sort of activity in those areas.

At issue is a 1906 law called the Antiquities Act.  Originally designed to protect sensitive areas containing fossils and petrified wood from looters in the sparsely populated western United States, the law gave the president the power to unilaterally protect vulnerable sites, with the specific instruction of taking control of as little land as possible to get the job done.

Over the past 111 years, however, the government has gotten far more aggressive in designating larger and larger swaths of lands in the West and elsewhere as national monuments and grinding business and recreational activity to a halt.

“They just use it to prevent the American people from using their own land.  That’s what president Trump said he would end, that he would end this egregious abuse of federal power and return the decisions on how these lands are used to the people who live on the land,” said Robert J. Smith, a senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research.

Smith’s organization is leading a push consisting of 37 different groups and activists in getting Trump to take decisive action on the issue.

They are worried that Trump will tread lightly since Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke conducted a study of what many property rights advocates consider the 27 greatest abuses of the Antiquities Act.  They were not impressed with Zinke’s conclusions.

“I don’t think he has really followed the directions he got from President Trump to really look at these and end this abuse of federal power.  On most of them, he has essentially left them as they are.  I think all these that were under consideration – all 27 – should be rescinded,” said Smith.

Smith is urging the president not to accept Zinke’s recommendations.

“When he has finally had a chance to go through Zinke’s report, he should send him back to the drawing board and say, ‘That’s a nice start but now you really have to do what I suggested and that’s end this abuse of federal power,” said Smith.

The Antiquities Act was first used by Theodore Roosevelt to protect Devil’s Tower in Wyoming, a designation that put two square miles under tighter federal control.  Smith says that cautious approach was largely honored until 1996 and presidents of both parties have pushed the envelope ever since.

President Bill Clinton stirred major controversy by designating in 1996 by designating Utah’s Grand Staircase Escalante as a national monument without ever conferring with any Utah officials.  That move locked up 1.9 million acres of land by the federal government with the stroke of a pen.

Smith says there was an ulterior motive than just keeping certain lands pristine.  Environmental groups were threatening to boycott Clinton’s re-election that year unless he gave them what they wanted in terms of national monument declarations.

And why did the green movement have their eyes on that particular land?

“Among other things, it included the Kaiparowits coal deposits, one of the two largest EPA-compatible clean coal deposits on the planet, enough clean coal to run the U.S. for hundreds of years,” said Smith.

Smith says Clinton authorized other major land grabs, so did George W. Bush and he says Barack Obama did it “in spades.”  In fact Bush and Obama teamed up for an unthinkably huge monument designation that didn’t even involve land.

“One of those was called the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, created first by George W. Bush and then expanded by Obama.  It’s 500,000 square miles in the middle of the Pacific Ocean,” said Smith.

Smith says the economic impact of national monument designations has been devastating to job creation and the economies of the local communities.  With no development allowed, good jobs in energy exploration, forestry and mining are gone and only low-paying service jobs remain to cater to the tourists visiting the monuments.

He says the creeping of federal control also makes if harder for ranchers to let their cattle graze, as locks on grazing areas will suddenly be changed.  Even vehicular traffic is greatly restricted in many of these areas despite government promises that would not happen.

Smith hopes Trump will push Secretary Zinke to be much more aggressive in his recommendations.  But he says Congress ultimately holds the key on this problem and needs to repeal the 1906 Antiquities Act.

“It’s an antiquated act.  These western lands are not unpopulated and unwatched and being looted and pillaged and destroyed today.  In fact you just about can’t do anything on these lands.  Almost everything is now illegal,” said Smith.

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Sunlight for New Russia Scandal, Unmasking Mess Gets Worse, ‘Fake Melania’

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As they celebrate seven years of the Three Martini Lunch, Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America also applaud Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley for requesting testimony from the FBI informant behind the explosive reports of Russians engaging in bribes, kickbacks, and Clinton Foundation donations in order to get Hillary Clinton’s help in steering 20 percent of U.S. uranium to Russia.  They also wonder just how deep the unmasking scandal goes, as former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power says she had nothing to do with the vast majority of the 260 unmasking requests done in her name.  And they have fun with the absurd but viral contention among liberals on social media that someone else was pretending to be First Lady Melania Trump during a recent appearance with the president.

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EPA Sinks ‘Sue and Settle’

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Limited government advocates and property rights champions are cheering Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt for publicly announcing he will scrap the tactic known as “sue and settle” for as long as he is in office.

“We will no longer go behind closed doors and use consent decrees and settlement agreements to resolve lawsuits filed against the Agency by special interest groups where doing so would circumvent the regulatory process set forth by Congress,” Pruitt said in a statement.

So what is “sue and settle?”  In short, it’s a way that politicians and bureaucrats shift policy by pretending to be in a legal fight with a political ally and altering a specific rule in order to supposedly avoid a lawsuit.

Patrick Hedger, manager of the Regulatory Action Center at the FreedomWorks Foundation, offers a more detailed description of how this political and legal charade plays out.

“(Government) agencies will sometimes collude with private actors, such as third party non-governmental organizations, non-profits, and other activist organizations in order to facilitate an expedited rule-making process that goes outside the normal rule-making,” said Hedger.

“There will be a faux lawsuit and instead of taking that suit to court, they will settle it out of court, generally behind closed doors, in a process known as a consent decree.  That consent decree will force the agency to act in a way that’s normally a lot faster and more aggressive than a normal federal rule-making process,” said Hedger.

Hedger says this bureaucratic maneuver then provides political cover for an administration that wanted to change the rule all along.

“This is a way for agencies to avoid political accountability for controversial decisions.  Usually, we’ve seen very expensive and aggressive regulations being passed, particularly environmental regulations.  This is a way for agencies like the EPA, in the past, to say, ‘We had our hands tied by this lawsuit,’ even though this was their ultimate political goal,” said Hedger.

Hedger is quick to add that no party is innocent when it comes to using “sue and settle” but some administrations have utilized it much more than others.

“This has basically been a bipartisan practice but it accelerated greatly during the Obama administration,” said Hedger.

He also offered some examples of the more onerous rules established through “sue and settle,” including the Utility Maximum Achievable Control Technology rule.

“It basically forces power plants to put in expensive new infrastructure to achieve extremely stringent emissions standards.  That’s estimated to cost almost $10 billion annually.  There were Clean Water Act rules that applied to the Chesapeake Bay.  Those are estimated to cost anywhere from $18-20 billion per year.  All of these were achieved through ‘sue and settle’ litigation,” said Hedger.

Hedger is thrilled that Pruitt declared an end to a practice that subverts the normal rule-making process.

“This is a process that has been used by both Republican and Democratic administrations.  This just shows that the Trump administration is very much still committed to getting back to regular order and the proper way of doing things.

“Instead of using this political end around to achieve its own goals, the Trump administration is just trying to bring the government back in line with the Constitution and the Administrative Procedures Act, which is supposed to govern regulations,” said Hedger.

Scrapping “sue and settle” is just one of several moves from Pruitt’s EPA that is drawing high praise from limit government activists.  Earlier this month, Pruitt announced what many see as the beginning of the end of President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which required substantial decreases in carbon emissions and was considered the death blow to the coal industry.

Earlier this year, Pruitt also started the rollback of the Waters of the United States rule, or WOTUS.  That update changed the definition of navigable waterway from one you could actually navigate with a boat and was usually connected to a larger body of water to virtually and standing water in a drainage ditch or even a puddle.

Hedger likes Pruitt’s policies but likes his fidelity to his oath even more.

“I think Administrator Pruitt is doing a phenomenal job of, first and foremost, putting the Constitution first,” said Hedger.  “There is a way to achieve a clean environment while also adhering to the rule of law and I think that’s the structure that we’re seeing from Pruitt’s EPA.”

But while Pruitt is making a lot of big moves, Hedger says the next EPA boss could easily reverse it all.  He says lawmakers need to get involved.

“This does, at some level, have to fall back on Congress to stop passing these vague laws.  Particularly in the case of ‘sue and settle,’ there are parts of the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act that encourage that encourage this type of practice.  So Congress should go in and clarify that they never intended for this ‘sue and settle’ and consent decree practice to happen,” said Hedger.

Hedger says Pruitt’s moves on process and on existing rules are a breath of fresh air to property and business owners.  However, he says much more can be done to relieve the regulatory burden on American families and businesses.

“Right now, there’s so much focus on tax reform, which is good, but if you look at the estimates of the economic burden of federal regulation versus the economic burden of taxes, they estimate that the regulatory burden in this country approaches two trillion dollars per year, which is more than is collected in individual and corporate income taxes,” said Hedger.

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