These are the guys "protecting" the environment? Seriously?

Because the country is in the best of hands, naturally:

(CNN)A federal cleanup crew accidentally caused a big, and potentially hazardous, mess in Colorado, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
An estimated 1 million gallons of wastewater spilled out of an abandoned mine area in the southern part of the state on Wednesday, turning the Animas River orange and prompting the EPA to tell locals to avoid it.

Really, are these the people telling us we can't cook out in our back yards, that we can't do this or that with our property because there is a fucking mud puddle that qualifies as a "wetland," that we need to do without electricity because of carbon dioxide, which is plant food that every human on the planet emits copiously? Fuck 'em. Because this is what the guardians of our environment do to our rivers:

I guess if you're a fan of the University of Tennessee Volunteers, then orange rivers are cool. Or maybe not:

Officials said they believe the spill carried heavy metals, mainly iron, zinc and copper, from the mine into a creek that feeds into the Animas River. From there, the orange water plugged steadily along through the small stretch of winding river in southern Colorado and across the state border to New Mexico where the Animas meets the San Juan River. The EPA said it will continue to sample water downstream from the mine until the contamination has passed and it determines there are "no additional concerns for aquatic life or water users." When asked if the spill could affect drinking water, the EPA spokesperson said she did not yet know.

The list of what the EPA doesn't know could fill volumes. We absolutely must stop treating these people as authoritative and start treating them as the partisan ideologue hacks that they are.

I'm sorry, senators making sense? Hot damn!

What are the odds for bipartisan support in the U.S. Senate for something that makes sense? Normally, I would say zero. In fact, normally I would say that the odds for either party in the Senate supporting something that makes sense would be zero, forget about a sensible bill that gets bipartisan support. Well, shut my mouth and slap my grandma, there is a bipartisan bill in the Senate that would finally get rid of the dumb-ass Renewable Fuel Standard, which mandates, among other things, that gasoline include 10 percent ethanol.

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, U.S. Senators John Barrasso (R-WY), Mark Pryor (D-AR) and Pat Toomey (R-PA) introduced “The Renewable Fuel Standard Repeal Act” (S. 1195). The bill would repeal the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) in its entirety.“The Renewable Fuel Standard is fundamentally broken and beyond repair,” said Senator Barrasso. “Instead of delivering meaningful environmental benefits, it’s driven up food and fuel costs for American families.  This flawed program will also inevitably lead to widespread lawsuits against American manufacturers. When Congress enacts bad policy, the right response is to scrap it and start over.”“The Renewable Fuel Standard isn’t working for consumers, refiners, or livestock groups,” said Senator Pryor.  “These mandates are unworkable and need to be overhauled. Repealing the RFS will allow us to develop a new policy for advanced biofuels without driving up Arkansans’ gas and food prices.”

It is astounding how wishful thinking can become policy and, then, how hard it is to remove said wishful thinking from policy. Ethanol is stupid as a fuel, at least if made from corn, which is the current favored source in the U.S.  Without government-mandated use of ethanol as a fuel, no one would make it, because it makes no economic sense.  It takes as much energy to make a gallon of ethanol from corn as that gallon of ethanol delivers as a fuel, it takes a lot of water to support the process,  thus depriving actual agriculture of that water, it results in higher food prices, the ethanol produced delivers less energy per gallon than the gasoline it replaces and, great news for consumers, it fucks up your engine:

Corn-based ethanol is widely recognized as harmful to both the economy and the environment. Once hyped as a solution to high energy costs, global warming and reliance on foreign oil, ethanol is increasingly seen for what it really is: a political boondoggle. Even after receiving billions in subsidies, the ethanol industry still relies on government mandates to survive.Consider the economic implications. Ethanol is known to accelerate damage to car engines and fuel systems, especially among older vehicles. To meet its annual production targets, the EPA is pushing for a 15-percent ethanol blend, or E15 — an amount considered by AAA to be harmful to most car engines. Even at 10-percent levels, ethanol is causing corrosion, engine damage and other costly repairs.The costs of ethanol are not limited to engine problems. Ethanol contains one-third less energy by volume than gasoline. This means drivers must make more trips to the pump than they would with pure gasoline, resulting in poorer mileage and higher fuel costs.
Food prices are also significantly affected by turning corn into fuel. Today, 40 percent of the U.S. corn crop is used to produce ethanol, fueled by a combination of tax credits, import tariffs and production mandates. In turn, retail food prices have risen at home and abroad. World corn prices have more than doubled in the last decade.

On top of all that shit, it's actually bad for the environment:

Environmental groups have slammed on the brakes in their support for ethanol as well. The release of greenhouse gas emissions from forests and grasslands converted into cropland can offset any environmental benefits from using ethanol. A recent study by the National Academy of Sciences found that the use of ethanol “is likely to increase such air pollutants as particulate matter, ozone and sulfur oxides.” 

This is what passes for smart policy at the Environmental Protection Agency.