EPA regulations = TOTAL RED TAPE! EPA has had negative impacts on miners, young college grads, farmers and businessmen! Enough is Enough!

Yesterday I attended my first protest rally.  It was called “Occupy the EPA”/“Give Red Tape a Rest” rally.  Going to a rally and holding a sign while calling out to passing cars is completely new to me, but totally worth it.  I’ve been reading and hearing more and more about the overreach of the EPA and how it is slowly finding more and more ways of gaining unlimited control over our way of life.  They have too much power with no oversight and that is one of the reasons I decided I had to join Americans for Prosperity-Colorado in protesting the Environmental Protection Agency-organized mining conference in Denver.  EPA officials were meeting here for a conference on hard-rock mining.

I have come to agree with AFP-CO which believes “the agency’s rogue regulators and biased scientists are destroying jobs, driving-up energy costs, crippling America’s competitiveness and contributing to the country’s economic crisis.”

According to AFP-CO:

Recent rules targeting coal-fired power plants are the latest in a long list of EPA regulatory excesses, according to AFP-CO, which will cost Coloradans jobs and contribute to already-skyrocketing energy costs. The agency relies on biased, agenda-driven “science” and “scientists” to bolster its actions, the group says, pointing to the shoddy work the agency did investigating alleged water well contamination in Pavillion, Wyoming — as well as the agency’s decision to provide a prime speaking spot at the April 4 conference to Boulder-based Stratus Consulting, a hired gun for extreme environmental groups that has been implicated in a scheme to use shady science to rig a favorable ruling in a lawsuit in South America.

Read more here…

About 50-75 people showed up for to protest the red tape the EPA is using to make it tougher for businesses to get approval they need to comply with the crazy regulations and guidelines they keep adding for the supposed purpose of protecting the environment.  We wanted people to know about how red tape and government overreach is restraining businesses to the cost of higher energy rates for everyone and the loss of jobs for many.  Most of the time lately, this comes at the expense of small businesses being unable to afford the cost of implementing procedures to meet EPA regulations.  Large businesses end up passing the cost onto the consumer which means the cost of gas, electricity, natural gas, etc. is passed on to people like you and I.  What’s worse is that these businesses have no recourse but to pay the money and comply or go out of business.

The reason for our protest had a more personal context to those of us here in Denver.  Colorado is a big mining state and we have great resources for hydraulic fracturing (fracking).

According to Valerie Richardson from The Colorado Observer:

[…]The EPA is expected to issue new rules on fracking April 17, which critics fear will increase the regulatory burden on the natural-gas industry and drive up energy prices.

[…]The fracking rules come just weeks after the EPA proposed further limits on newly built coal-fire plants. Protestors said they worry that the Obama administration is trying to circumvent the coal industry in favor of natural gas and renewable energy.

Read her article about the protest here.

Lucky for me there are groups like AFP-Colorado that make it easy for people like me to get involved in making a difference.

At the main website for Americans for Prosperity it says“AFP is an organization of grassroots leaders who engage citizens in the name of limited government and free markets on the local, state, and federal levels. The grassroots activists of AFP advocate for public policies that champion the principles of entrepreneurship and fiscal and regulatory restraint.”

If you want to become more involved in standing up for limited government and getting back to the freedoms we’ve been used to as free American Citizens then check out Americans for Prosperity and click on your state to see what’s going on in your area.  It’s really helped me to feel as though I have a voice where I can go and participate in events that are done here in my state and city.  Check it out.  Find your voice!!