New Executive Order allows Businesses to buy insurance across state lines.

So a dummy in Mississippi buys an Oregon policy and then the dummy discovers that he has to go to Oregon in order to see a doctor.

 

The Ongoing Lack of EPA Accountability for the Gold King Mine Spill: The EPA’s New “Responder” Theory.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) employees caused the discharge of approximately 3 million gallons of toxic waste into the Animas River surrounding the Gold King Mine in Colorado. Shortly thereafter, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy publicly stated that the EPA took complete 'responsibility' for the incident. “Yet, nothing has happened” within the agency to hold anyone accountable for its discharge, said U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R–AK) to Cynthia Giles, head of the EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, during a June 2016 congressional oversight hearing. The Senator added that “if a private sector company did this, it’s likely that the CEO or some members of that company would actually be in jail right now.”

The Senator has a point: The federal government has criminally prosecuted private parties under the Clean Water Act for negligently polluting bodies of water like the Animas River without a permit. Perhaps the EPA’s Office of the Inspector General is aware of the Senator’s concern, because the office has since initiated a criminal investigation into the EPA’s spill.

At the June hearing, members of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works questioned Giles about why the agency had taken no action against the parties responsible for the Animas River Spill. In response, Giles said that:

[T]he law and enforcement distinguishes between the company who makes and releases pollution and the entities that are trying to respond and clean up pollution that other people created. So, in the case of EPA’s action in Gold King, we were acting as a responder, trying to prevent releases of pollution that were left there by others.
.
That claim, however, is not well founded in the law. In fact, there is no basis for claiming that entirely different legal standards apply under the Clean Water Act to “polluters” and “responders”—with one exception: a 2012 EPA memorandum co-authored by Cynthia Giles. The EPA, however, is not entitled to exempt its own employees from the reach of the criminal law. What is more, Congress, the Supreme Court of the United States, and the EPA itself have either expressly rejected or seriously undermined the theory that Giles expressed in her memorandum and testimony. Accordingly, Congress should
(1) ask the Department of Justice (DOJ) whether it agrees with the theory Giles has proposed, and
(2) ask EPA Administrator McCarthy how often the EPA has declined to investigate potential criminal conduct by one of its employees.

Cases of Liability Under the Clean Water Act
Typical Cases. The Clean Water Act (CWA) is the principal federal law addressing water pollution. The statute makes it a crime to pollute one of the “waters of the United States” without a permit, even if the pollution occurs due only to negligence. For example, the government prosecuted an oil and gas company after some of its workers discharged “rock, sand, soil and stone into streams” to impound a water supply for drilling activity. In another case, when an off-duty backhoe operator accidentally struck open an oil pipeline in Alaska and 1,000 to 5,000 gallons of oil spilled into the Skagway River, the Justice Department prosecuted the operator’s supervisor. A district court sentenced the supervisor, Edward Hanousek, to serve six months’ incarceration, six months in a halfway house, and six months on supervised release and to pay a $5,000 fine.

An Atypical Case: What Caused the Gold King Mine Spill? An investigative report on the EPA’s Gold King Mine spill, commissioned by the EPA from the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation, explains that the spill occurred when a backhoe operator struck a flooded adit (a horizontal mine portal), causing it to open. The EPA published an addendum confirming that its excavation caused the discharge. At the same time—contrary to what EPA Administrator McCarthy said shortly after the spill occurred—the EPA denied responsibility for the spill.Unlike Edward Hanousek, however, no one at the agency has been held accountable, let alone charged with a crime.

At a congressional oversight hearing on the Gold King Mine spill, as noted, Senator Sullivan asked Giles, “Why has nobody in EPA been held liable, been criminally charged?” That question remains unanswered.

http://www.heritage.org/environment...ability-the-gold-king-mine-spill-the-epas-new

 

In other words you couldn't answer my question and you couldn't come up with Obama executive orders worth keeping. I can't either.

 

I didn't say anything about Obama Executive Orders worth keeping. This thread is about an EO that Trump issued about a change to the ACA, not Obama EOs. Do you not know what's being discussed here?

 

You were the one that opened this line of questioning with your "Trump just wants to undo everything Obama has done" post. I asked you what Obama did that's worth saving and you became speechless.

 

Please start a separate thread about Obama's EOs. I'm talking about this particular EO from Trump. I have no interest in looking up all of Obama's EOs to discuss each one, but I'm sure someone would like to.

Back to the subject of this thread. It isn't all of Obama's EOs. Hope that clears things up for you.

 

if you don't want to talk about Obama's policies and which ones you think are worth saving don't bring them up or someone might ask you to expound.

 

Pay attention to the thread topic, Sawyer. It isn't Obama's EOs. It's Trump's new EO.

 

Pay attention to your post. When you go off thread subject someone might ask you to explain what you said. In this case when I did so you hid behind "it's off thread subject so I refuse to answer". You lose more credibility every day.

 

Pay attention to the thread. It's about Trump's EO - NOT Obama's. You want to discuss Obama's EOs? Good. Start a new thread. You're in the wrong one.

Credibility? On an anonymous message board? You need to gain a life, Sawyer, if "credibility" is about message boards to you. Join me in the real world. That's where credibility matters.

Now will you please stop quoting me and going off topic? This thread is about a Trump EO. Join the rest of us in that discussion.

 

I'm done. I think you've learned your lesson here. Don't spout nonsense and then when someone ask you to back it up hide behind "off thread subject". Now carry on with thread subject.

 

Good. You're done going off topic. Now post something about the topic. I'm not the topic any more than Obama is.

 

But Obama is indeed the topic and his executive order that funded insurance companies was declared unconstitutional by the courts. Trump is merely enforcing a court ruling. Here's your chance to defend an Obama illegal executive order, have at it.

 

If Obama's EO was illegal, please explain why SCOTUS didn't overturn it. Please explain why the Congress never fought to overturn it. You do know they are separate and equal branches of government, I assume?

 

So you are denying that courts found this executive order funding insurance companies was unconstitutional?

Edit: it was a simple yes or no question and your silence is telling so I'll help you here.

" Republicans won Round 2 in a potentially historic lawsuit Thursday when a federal judge declared the Obama administration was unconstitutionally spending money to subsidize health insurers without obtaining an appropriation from Congress."
Paying [those] reimbursements without an appropriation thus violates the Constitution," she wrote. "Congress is the only source for such an appropriation, and no public money can be spent without one."

 

And when was it overturned by the courts again? I know that one federal judge ruled it unconstitutional. When did SCOTUS order it overturned?

 

I never said they did. I said Trump is enforcing a court ruling. Pay closer attention.

 

The topic is "New Executive Order allows Businesses to buy insurance across state lines". This certainly relates to Healthcare, Obamacare and EO's which relate.

 

Like Trump enforced the court rulings about his travel ban, you mean?

 

Earlier you accused me of going off thread and now you do it as you lose the debate.

 

Just post "Ooops, yes, I forgot about Trump refusing to enforce the lower court rulings on his EOs. Let's pretend that didn't happen." It would be more honest.

 

Start a thread on that if you like. This threads about Trump's obamacare changes. Live by the rules you yourself earlier tried to impose on me.