This is totally justified if the benefits of regulations that improve environmental quality are zero:
President Trump will send a budget to Congress on Thursday that sharply reorders the nation’s priorities by spending billions of dollars on defending the southern border and bolstering the Pentagon while severely cutting funds for foreign aid, poverty programs and the environment. ...
The most significant cuts would be at the E.P.A., which the Trump administration has accused of overreach. The president wants to trim $2.6 billion from the agency’s budget, in part by cutting about 3,200 positions, about a fifth of the department’s work force.
If enacted, the proposal would cut the agency’s budget to its lowest level in 40 years, adjusted for inflation. That would mean eliminating funding for climate change research, closing state environmental programs and ending regional projects like the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, which has bipartisan support. ...
Trump's proposed cuts to the E.P.A. are a magnitude greater even than those envisioned by congressional Republicans, many of whom forcefully
oppose the agency's regulatory agenda. Last year, the House spending subcommittee that controls the agency's budget proposed funding the
agency at $8 billion, cutting just $291 million from President Barack Obama's request.The E.P.A. administrator, Scott Pruitt, who as Oklahoma’s attorney general spoke out against some of the agency’s core missions, went to the White House on Wednesday to request a smaller cut after the budget office first presented its preferred spending level. He pressed for about $7 billion, according a person familiar with the talks. Instead, the White House slashed his budget even further, to about $5.7 billion.
<-- Straight out of the book of cruel parenting:
Daughter: Can I stay out until midnight?
Dad: 11:00.
Daughter: 11:30, please?
Dad: 10:30, want to try again?
Daughter: You're so mean!
Dad: Go to your room!
The oldest just turned 15 so I'm rehearsing my lines. -->
Someone in the White House really dislikes the EPA. My guess is its the guy who doesn't think the CBO can/should estimate the costs of government health care policies:
Mr. Mulvaney [White House budget director] acknowledged that lawmakers of both parties were likely to resist changes that would affect pet projects in their states. However, he said that Mr. Trump’s budget was a sign that the president is a man of his word.
“We went to what the president said during the campaign,” Mr. Mulvaney said, “and we turned those policies into numbers.”
He's probably also ticked about this:
A broad coalition of pro-regulation advocacy groups is calling on the Senate to block the nomination of Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-SC) as head of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), saying his support for deep budget cuts at EPA and other agencies, and his dismissal of scientific research, should disqualify him.
And stuff like this: http://www.env-econ.net/2016/12/since-we-cant-figure-out-the-answer-to-scientific-questionswe-dont-need-to-fund-scientific-research.html.
*From Caddyshack:
Spalding Smails: I want a hamburger... no, a cheeseburger. I want a hot dog. I want a milkshake...
Judge Smails [angrily]: You'll get nothing and like it.
