If you don't think Rethuglicans are hostile to environmental protection, then read this story in today's New York Times. Teahadist Rethuglican Governors and legislatures in Maine, Florida and North Carolina want to eviscerate their states' environmental funding and regulations, in an attempt to reward the powerful business interests that supported them:
"When Republicans wrested control across the country last November, they made clear that reducing all government was important, but that cutting environmental regulations was a particular priority....The strategies have been similar across the affected states: cut budgets and personnel at regulatory agencies, prevent the issuing of new regulations, roll back land conservation and, if possible, eliminate planning boards that monitor, restrict or permit building development."As with their assault on Medicare, labor, and womens' reproductive rights, the Rethugs are taking the results of an off-year election ostensibly about jobs and treating it as a mandate to impose every far-right policy they can before the next elections.
More than ever, Dems need to push back hard, with the majority of the public on their side on these issues. The voters know overreaching when they see it, especially when it adversely affects the quality of their lives.
