The Biden EPA has been no friend to science. Like with his other agencies, if the president can't have science or Congress on his side, he will change the mandate of EPA and then direct them to do what he wants. A 1984 Supreme Court ruling made that possible.

Eventually, the Supreme Court will find some of his actions illegal, as they unanimously did when he tried to declare small ponds on farms "navigable waters of the United States" and used CDC to prevent landlords from evicting those who refused to pay rent but he counts on some actions never getting there. He lowered the standard on a common weedkiller to make it an effective ban by telling EPA to go to court and ask the court to undo EPA's previous court order that had negotiated a standard with an environmental group. That didn't get to the Supreme Court so it is basically banned even though EPA found it safe in every re-registration.

If that reads confusing, it is actually a Master Class on how to exploit 1984's Supreme Court 'Chevron deference' ruling to make loopholes through science. President Obama did it to overrule his own scientists on the Deepwater Horizon spill and the Keystone XL pipeline and President Biden has taken executive branch abuses to the next level. As long as those afflicted don't get to the Supreme Court, he wins, and his party won't object - until their opposition gets into power and does the same thing.


Do you think the pizza box harms you more than the calories in pizza? Then the president wants to make sure you vote this November.

With perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), he had no science ground to stand on. He only had suspect epidemiological correlation because so many of them are found in nature that 98% of us will have detectable PFAS levels. He got an agency to test water and they found 6 in nearly 50% of water they tested and because agencies are political even if they pretend it's about the public, they used NPR-friendly verbiage like "under-served" and "minority" (though rarely the term "rural", even though wells are, because farmers hate Biden) and then directed EPA to take action. Don't be surprised if he then has another agency sue EPA over it so he can tell EPA to settle and claim 'the courts made us do this', as they did when they began using armed federal agents to trespass on private property to enforce his Waters of the United States scheme that was never legally in force.

Lowering the standard for 6 of the 12,000 PFAS chemicals out there is a smart campaign tactic - but don't believe it is improving public health. 

He gets to claim he did something while accomplishing nothing. As with BPA and trans fats and GMOs, companies that never had them in the first place will now get to place a 'NO PFAS' sticker on their bottle and the kinds of coastal elites who think the eclipse was caused by climate change or that the moon is a planet made of gases will buy the new marketing gimmick.

No lives will be saved because none have ever been lost. Prices will be a little bit higher but he'll tell voters we can't think about that. It's for the children.