![\"\"](\"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Virgil-EPA-Building-DC-3-10-AP-640x480.jpg\")
<\/a>AP, BNN Edit
<\/p><\/div>
\nby Virgil
\nBreitbart.com<\/p>\n
Everyone\u2019s talking about the Deep State now.\u00a0 The other day, Virgil searched\u00a0 \u201cdeep state\u201d and found, just in the Google News section, no less than 3.86 million hits.\u00a0 Republican politicians<\/span><\/a> are using the phrase, and so are Democratic pols.\u00a0 In fact, one Democrat, Rep. Ted Lieu of California, chose to \u201cown\u201d the phrase, tweeting, \u201cWe are #Deep State.\u201d<\/span><\/a>\u00a0 Translation: Trump, we are coming for you<\/i>.<\/h2>\nIndeed, the Deep State hashtag<\/span><\/a> is now busy, used by both fans and foes of the DS.\u00a0 There are even a bunch of Twitter accounts<\/span><\/a> on the Deep State theme\u2014which may or may not have any connection to reality.<\/p>\nAnd there are even plays on the phrase, such as DeepStateGate<\/span><\/a>, which by now is familiar to Breitbart readers<\/i>, and also \u201cShallow State<\/span><\/a>,\u201d an anti-Republican coinage from David Rothkopf, an appointee in the Clinton administration.<\/p>\nIt was different back on December 12, when Virgil first started writing about the Deep State<\/span><\/a>; back then, references were scarce.\u00a0 Yet today, if one goes to Google Trends and types in \u201cdeep state,\u201d this is what one sees: a recent sharp spike in usage<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 It\u2019s fun to have company!<\/p>\nAnd speaking of company, I\u2019ll hope you\u2019ll continue to join me on our tour of the Federal Triangle, the heartland of the Deep State.\u00a0 We started our tour at the Department of Commerce<\/span><\/a>, and so next we\u2019ll visit the federal bureaucracy in the next building over.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/media.breitbart.com\/media\/2017\/03\/FederalTriangle_WashingtonDC_2009.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe Federal Triangle (Source: Wikimedia Commons)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\nThat would be the Environmental Protection Agency, which fills up, in fact, three different buildings, stretching from Constitution Avenue to Pennsylvania Avenue, from 14th Street to 12th Street.\u00a0 (Plus, of course, the EPA has myriad satellite offices all over the country; the total head-count is more than 15,000, not counting contractors and grantees.)<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/media.breitbart.com\/media\/2017\/03\/Epaheadquarters.jpg\")
<\/p>\nEnvironmental Protection Agency Headquarters (Source: Wikimedia Commons)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\nThe EPA, of course, is right in the middle of the ongoing DC power struggle, which has spilled into open bureaucratic revolt.\u00a0 On February 16, for example, The New York Times<\/i>reported<\/span><\/a> that EPA employees had brazenly been calling senators to urge them to vote against Scott Pruitt, President Trump\u2019s pick to head the agency.\u00a0 It was, the Times<\/i>\u2019 Coral Davenport observed, \u201ca remarkable display of activism and defiance that presages turbulent times ahead for the EPA.\u201d<\/p>\nSpeaking of turbulence, the career staff at EPA is feeling it.\u00a0 On March 7, Axios<\/i>\u2019 Jonathan Swan tweeted a picture of a sign at EPA<\/span><\/a>, offering counseling sessions to fearful careerists:<\/p>\nFeeling Pressured?\u00a0 Worried About Change at EPA?\u00a0 The EPA\u2019s Employee Counseling and Assistance Program presents a 45 min. seminar on \u201cDealing with Change.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Yes, the delicate snowflakes at the agency need help\u2014your tax dollars at work.<\/p>\n
Yet whether they have had counseling or not, EPA-ers seem to be girded for battle.\u00a0 A rogue Twitter account, AltEPA<\/span><\/a>, billing itself as the \u201cresistance,\u201d has 382,000 followers\u2014and there are many more such accounts in existence.\u00a0 It\u2019s possible, of course, that some, perhaps most, of these accounts are fakes.\u00a0 But probably not all.<\/p>\nIn the meantime, some EPA people, long ago, developed their own \u201cresistance strategies.\u201d\u00a0 For instance, Lisa Jackson, the EPA administrator in Barack Obama\u2019s\u00a0 first term, had a nifty Deep State tactic\u2014she hid her identity, even with her own agency. As far back as 2009, Jackson was using a fictitious name, \u201cRichard Windsor,\u201d for her e-mail<\/span><\/a>, in a seeming attempt to evade the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and other transparency laws.\u00a0 By some reckonings, such evasion might be counted as a crime, but Jackson suffered no ill consequences.\u00a0 In fact, she is now a well-paid vice president at Apple<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\nGiven that sort of no-penalty precedent, it\u2019s little wonder that a pervasive culture of clandestine operating still permeates EPA.\u00a0 To illustrate, we might recall an EPA inspector general\u2019s report prepared at the behest of the House Republicans<\/span><\/a>: In 2014-2015, EPA employees sent or received 3.1 million text messages on government-issued devices; of these, just 86 were archived for the federal records. \u00a0 So what were all the rest of those 3-million-plus texts about? \u00a0 Maybe they were all personal, or maybe they were leaks, or maybe they were back-and-forths with Lisa Jackson\u2014we\u2019ll never know. \u00a0 And we can underscore: that\u2019s just on government equipment; who knows what\u2019s been happening on personal equipment, and on personal accounts.<\/p>\nSo as we can see, secrecy is one weapon that EPA lifers can deploy.\u00a0 Another weapon is complexity. \u00a0 The same Times<\/i> reporter on the environmental beat, Coral Davenport, recently interviewed Jackson\u2019s successor at EPA, Gina McCarthy, who served from 2013 to 2017.\u00a0 McCarthy was eager to outline the torturous process that the Trump administration would have to follow to undo Obama regulations:<\/p>\nIf you want to do these executive orders that require a whole rewrite of the rule, you have to get that right, legally.\u00a0 It took years to do those rules. To now ask for those things to be undone with less staff and low morale\u2014how are they going to do it?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Yes, that\u2019s standard Deep State stuff.\u00a0 As bureaucrats like to say to the political appointees of any administration, \u201cWe were here when you arrive, and we\u2019ll still be here when you depart.\u00a0 In fact, by the time you figure out how things really work, it\u2019ll be time for you to go!\u201d\u00a0 In other words, the Deep State is eternal, and throughout that eternity, Deepists have mastered the arcane procedures needed to make any sort of change.\u00a0 So the message to interlopers is simple: Do it our way, or else face frustration, or even failure. \u00a0 \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n
Moreover, perhaps more than any other government agency, the Deep Statists at EPA can call upon powerful outside allies\u2014in the media, in partisan politics, and in the realm of litigation activism.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s take a look, starting with the media.\u00a0 On March 8, that same Times<\/i> reporter, Coral Davenport, printed the names of five aides<\/span><\/a>\u00a0 that Scott Pruitt, having been confirmed for his post, now plans to bring with him.\u00a0 Just a hunch: Davenport didn\u2019t get those names from Pruitt; instead, most likely, she got them from some EPA worker with inside access to his doings.\u00a0 And so the Democratic war rooms, joined by so many others, can get to work building their \u201coppo\u201d dossiers on each new hire.<\/p>\nMeanwhile, other media outlets, too, are piling on. Thus we get dozens of Pruitt\/Trump administration-bashing headlines every day.\u00a0 For example, here\u2019s Slate:<\/i> \u201cTrump\u2019s EPA Plans Are \u2018Just Racist<\/span><\/a>.\u2019\u201d And MinnPost:<\/i> \u201cTrump\u2019s EPA cuts would undo local efforts to restore iconic places\u2014like the Great Lakes<\/span><\/a>.\u201d And Quartz:<\/i> \u201cLeaked document details plan to starve an already malnourished EPA budget<\/span><\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\nAh yes, there\u2019s the \u201cl\u201d word again\u2014\u201cleaked.\u201d\u00a0 Indeed, it seems that back on March 3, the National Association of Clean Air Agencies got its hands on a Trump administration document<\/span><\/a> calling for $2 billion in cuts at EPA, and then shared it with various publications, including The Oregonian<\/i>.<\/p>\nAnd then on the second bounce of that particular leak-story, as reporters sought to give it \u201clegs,\u201d we saw headlines such as this, in Science:<\/i> \u201cTrump plan for 40% cut could cause EPA science office \u2018to implode,\u2019 official warns<\/span><\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 The EPA official doing the warning, of course, was unnamed.\u00a0 Meanwhile, the internal communications at EPA have been leaking out in near real-time<\/span><\/a>. That\u2019s how things work in DC, every day.\u00a0 Warning to Trumpsters at EPA: You\u2019re going to be parachuting in far behind enemy lines, and they know where to find you.<\/p>\nNow we come to a second ally of the permanent regime at EPA, the increasingly greened Democratic Party.\u00a0 Yes, it\u2019s the Democrats who put the wind beneath the wings of the environmental- (anti) industrial complex.<\/p>\n
We can recall that it was not always this way: As recently as the 1960s, the Democrats cared cared more about growing the economy than greening the environment. \u00a0 That is, Democrats worried about workers and their wages, and to that end, they focused on the development\u2014the word often used back then was \u201creclamation\u201d\u2014of natural resources.<\/p>\n
For example, the 1960 Democratic platform<\/span><\/a>, the one that helped elect John F. Kennedy, was emphatic:<\/p>\nThe new Democratic Administration will develop a comprehensive national water resource policy.\u00a0 In cooperation with state and local governments, and interested private groups, the Democratic Administration will develop a balanced, multiple-purpose plan for each major river basin.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Indeed, in those days, the Democrats attacked the outgoing Eisenhower administration for its alleged cheapness when it came to funding new projects:<\/p>\n
We will erase the Republican slogan of \u201cno new starts\u201d and will begin again to build multiple-purpose dams, hydroelectric facilities, flood-control works, navigation facilities, and reclamation projects to meet mounting and urgent needs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
By contrast, the 2016 Democratic platform<\/span><\/a> offered a much different worldview: workers and wages were an afterthought, well behind penguins and polar bears. \u00a0 In fact, the old concept of \u201creclamation\u201d never appears at all; instead, we get 16 paragraphs, for instance, on \u201cclimate change.\u201d<\/p>\nOf course, at this precise moment, in 2017, the Democrats lack the political power\u00a0 fully to protect their friends at EPA, although they\u2019ll certainly always be trying.<\/p>\n
And now to a third ally of Deep EPA: the activist litigators.<\/p>\n
As every conservative knows, the left has been far more effective, in recent decades, at winning in the courts than winning at the ballot box.\u00a0 And yet on many issues, a win is a win: If a judge orders the government to take action of a certain kind, well, oftentimes that\u2019s it\u2014that\u2019s the ballgame.\u00a0 No wonder the left is so tight with the lawyers!<\/p>\n
And as a sign of the anti-Trump eco-litigation flood to come, on March 8, nearly three dozen green groups<\/span><\/a> filed a formal legal petition<\/span><\/a> with EPA, demanding that the agency tighten the regulations on concentrated animal-feeding operations (CAFO), also known as \u201cfactory farms.\u201d\u00a0 As the lead plaintiff, Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch<\/span><\/a>, declared,<\/p>\nThis petition paves the way for EPA to finally regulate CAFOs as required under the Clean Water Act, and explains that allowing CAFO pollution to continue unabated by maintaining the woefully inadequate status quo would violate federal law.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
That petition, we might note, is 58 pages of closely argued legalese, boasting 294 footnotes.\u00a0 And there\u2019s a clear call to action in the document\u2019s conclusion; as it reads, \u201cPetitioners believe that EPA has an obligation pursuant to its [Clean Water Act] duties to [take new action against CAFOs] without further delay.\u201d<\/p>\n
In other words, it\u2019s a serious legal demand, aimed at forcing EPA to take additional regulatory action.\u00a0 Or, failing that, to persuade a judge somewhere to order such additional regulation into existence.<\/p>\n
So now Virgil wonders: Who among Team Trump at EPA is actually going to have time to read<\/i> this petition, let alone develop an appropriate legal counter-strategy?<\/p>\n
And so what might happen if the Trump people choose to delegate the handling of this case to the EPA career staff?\u00a0 Well, we know what could easily happen: The Deep Statists at EPA could consult with their like-minded friends, neighbors, and former law-school classmates\u2014quite possibly, including the very people who filed the CAFO case\u2014and come up with a nice green answer.<\/p>\n
That is, it\u2019s easy to see EPA Deep Statists communicating with their friends\u2014perhaps even their spouses\u2014in the activist legal world.\u00a0 Suppose, for example, that two grocery shoppers at the Whole Foods in Northwest DC\u2019s Tenleytown neighborhood<\/span><\/a> just happen to have a friendly ex parte<\/i> conversation?\u00a0 You know, about maybe, legal strategy in the CAFO case?\u00a0 What would be the policy upshot of such a chat?<\/p>\nAs an answer, here\u2019s one scenario that we\u2019ve seen many times before: The career legal staff tells the thin layer of political appointees at an agency that the plaintiffs have a strong case, and so it\u2019s best to settle.\u00a0 That is, except for maybe a few face-saving tweaks, give the plaintiffs what they want.\u00a0 After all, the careerist could be saying to the politicals, if you choose to fight, it could get really messy, and, in the end, you\u2019d likely still lose.\u00a0 So why not do it the easy way?\u00a0 Why not do it our<\/i> way?<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the pitch that\u2019s been heard a million times within the Deep State.\u00a0 And while it doesn\u2019t always work, since it\u2019s the path of least resistance, it\u2019s a familiar course of action.\u00a0 And so we see how the Deep State so often wins.<\/p>\n
So now the Deep State stands ready to welcome Scott Pruitt and the rest of the Trump contingent to their humble outpost at 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue.\u00a0 Well, okay, maybe \u201cwelcome\u201d isn\u2019t quite the right word.<\/span><\/p>\n
And there are even plays on the phrase, such as DeepStateGate<\/span><\/a>, which by now is familiar to Breitbart readers<\/i>, and also \u201cShallow State<\/span><\/a>,\u201d an anti-Republican coinage from David Rothkopf, an appointee in the Clinton administration.<\/p>\n It was different back on December 12, when Virgil first started writing about the Deep State<\/span><\/a>; back then, references were scarce.\u00a0 Yet today, if one goes to Google Trends and types in \u201cdeep state,\u201d this is what one sees: a recent sharp spike in usage<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 It\u2019s fun to have company!<\/p>\n And speaking of company, I\u2019ll hope you\u2019ll continue to join me on our tour of the Federal Triangle, the heartland of the Deep State.\u00a0 We started our tour at the Department of Commerce<\/span><\/a>, and so next we\u2019ll visit the federal bureaucracy in the next building over.<\/p>\n The Federal Triangle (Source: Wikimedia Commons)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n That would be the Environmental Protection Agency, which fills up, in fact, three different buildings, stretching from Constitution Avenue to Pennsylvania Avenue, from 14th Street to 12th Street.\u00a0 (Plus, of course, the EPA has myriad satellite offices all over the country; the total head-count is more than 15,000, not counting contractors and grantees.)<\/p>\n Environmental Protection Agency Headquarters (Source: Wikimedia Commons)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n The EPA, of course, is right in the middle of the ongoing DC power struggle, which has spilled into open bureaucratic revolt.\u00a0 On February 16, for example, The New York Times<\/i>reported<\/span><\/a> that EPA employees had brazenly been calling senators to urge them to vote against Scott Pruitt, President Trump\u2019s pick to head the agency.\u00a0 It was, the Times<\/i>\u2019 Coral Davenport observed, \u201ca remarkable display of activism and defiance that presages turbulent times ahead for the EPA.\u201d<\/p>\n Speaking of turbulence, the career staff at EPA is feeling it.\u00a0 On March 7, Axios<\/i>\u2019 Jonathan Swan tweeted a picture of a sign at EPA<\/span><\/a>, offering counseling sessions to fearful careerists:<\/p>\n Feeling Pressured?\u00a0 Worried About Change at EPA?\u00a0 The EPA\u2019s Employee Counseling and Assistance Program presents a 45 min. seminar on \u201cDealing with Change.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Yes, the delicate snowflakes at the agency need help\u2014your tax dollars at work.<\/p>\n Yet whether they have had counseling or not, EPA-ers seem to be girded for battle.\u00a0 A rogue Twitter account, AltEPA<\/span><\/a>, billing itself as the \u201cresistance,\u201d has 382,000 followers\u2014and there are many more such accounts in existence.\u00a0 It\u2019s possible, of course, that some, perhaps most, of these accounts are fakes.\u00a0 But probably not all.<\/p>\n In the meantime, some EPA people, long ago, developed their own \u201cresistance strategies.\u201d\u00a0 For instance, Lisa Jackson, the EPA administrator in Barack Obama\u2019s\u00a0 first term, had a nifty Deep State tactic\u2014she hid her identity, even with her own agency. As far back as 2009, Jackson was using a fictitious name, \u201cRichard Windsor,\u201d for her e-mail<\/span><\/a>, in a seeming attempt to evade the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and other transparency laws.\u00a0 By some reckonings, such evasion might be counted as a crime, but Jackson suffered no ill consequences.\u00a0 In fact, she is now a well-paid vice president at Apple<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n Given that sort of no-penalty precedent, it\u2019s little wonder that a pervasive culture of clandestine operating still permeates EPA.\u00a0 To illustrate, we might recall an EPA inspector general\u2019s report prepared at the behest of the House Republicans<\/span><\/a>: In 2014-2015, EPA employees sent or received 3.1 million text messages on government-issued devices; of these, just 86 were archived for the federal records. \u00a0 So what were all the rest of those 3-million-plus texts about? \u00a0 Maybe they were all personal, or maybe they were leaks, or maybe they were back-and-forths with Lisa Jackson\u2014we\u2019ll never know. \u00a0 And we can underscore: that\u2019s just on government equipment; who knows what\u2019s been happening on personal equipment, and on personal accounts.<\/p>\n So as we can see, secrecy is one weapon that EPA lifers can deploy.\u00a0 Another weapon is complexity. \u00a0 The same Times<\/i> reporter on the environmental beat, Coral Davenport, recently interviewed Jackson\u2019s successor at EPA, Gina McCarthy, who served from 2013 to 2017.\u00a0 McCarthy was eager to outline the torturous process that the Trump administration would have to follow to undo Obama regulations:<\/p>\n If you want to do these executive orders that require a whole rewrite of the rule, you have to get that right, legally.\u00a0 It took years to do those rules. To now ask for those things to be undone with less staff and low morale\u2014how are they going to do it?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Yes, that\u2019s standard Deep State stuff.\u00a0 As bureaucrats like to say to the political appointees of any administration, \u201cWe were here when you arrive, and we\u2019ll still be here when you depart.\u00a0 In fact, by the time you figure out how things really work, it\u2019ll be time for you to go!\u201d\u00a0 In other words, the Deep State is eternal, and throughout that eternity, Deepists have mastered the arcane procedures needed to make any sort of change.\u00a0 So the message to interlopers is simple: Do it our way, or else face frustration, or even failure. \u00a0 \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n Moreover, perhaps more than any other government agency, the Deep Statists at EPA can call upon powerful outside allies\u2014in the media, in partisan politics, and in the realm of litigation activism.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s take a look, starting with the media.\u00a0 On March 8, that same Times<\/i> reporter, Coral Davenport, printed the names of five aides<\/span><\/a>\u00a0 that Scott Pruitt, having been confirmed for his post, now plans to bring with him.\u00a0 Just a hunch: Davenport didn\u2019t get those names from Pruitt; instead, most likely, she got them from some EPA worker with inside access to his doings.\u00a0 And so the Democratic war rooms, joined by so many others, can get to work building their \u201coppo\u201d dossiers on each new hire.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, other media outlets, too, are piling on. Thus we get dozens of Pruitt\/Trump administration-bashing headlines every day.\u00a0 For example, here\u2019s Slate:<\/i> \u201cTrump\u2019s EPA Plans Are \u2018Just Racist<\/span><\/a>.\u2019\u201d And MinnPost:<\/i> \u201cTrump\u2019s EPA cuts would undo local efforts to restore iconic places\u2014like the Great Lakes<\/span><\/a>.\u201d And Quartz:<\/i> \u201cLeaked document details plan to starve an already malnourished EPA budget<\/span><\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Ah yes, there\u2019s the \u201cl\u201d word again\u2014\u201cleaked.\u201d\u00a0 Indeed, it seems that back on March 3, the National Association of Clean Air Agencies got its hands on a Trump administration document<\/span><\/a> calling for $2 billion in cuts at EPA, and then shared it with various publications, including The Oregonian<\/i>.<\/p>\n And then on the second bounce of that particular leak-story, as reporters sought to give it \u201clegs,\u201d we saw headlines such as this, in Science:<\/i> \u201cTrump plan for 40% cut could cause EPA science office \u2018to implode,\u2019 official warns<\/span><\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 The EPA official doing the warning, of course, was unnamed.\u00a0 Meanwhile, the internal communications at EPA have been leaking out in near real-time<\/span><\/a>. That\u2019s how things work in DC, every day.\u00a0 Warning to Trumpsters at EPA: You\u2019re going to be parachuting in far behind enemy lines, and they know where to find you.<\/p>\n Now we come to a second ally of the permanent regime at EPA, the increasingly greened Democratic Party.\u00a0 Yes, it\u2019s the Democrats who put the wind beneath the wings of the environmental- (anti) industrial complex.<\/p>\n We can recall that it was not always this way: As recently as the 1960s, the Democrats cared cared more about growing the economy than greening the environment. \u00a0 That is, Democrats worried about workers and their wages, and to that end, they focused on the development\u2014the word often used back then was \u201creclamation\u201d\u2014of natural resources.<\/p>\n For example, the 1960 Democratic platform<\/span><\/a>, the one that helped elect John F. Kennedy, was emphatic:<\/p>\n The new Democratic Administration will develop a comprehensive national water resource policy.\u00a0 In cooperation with state and local governments, and interested private groups, the Democratic Administration will develop a balanced, multiple-purpose plan for each major river basin.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Indeed, in those days, the Democrats attacked the outgoing Eisenhower administration for its alleged cheapness when it came to funding new projects:<\/p>\n We will erase the Republican slogan of \u201cno new starts\u201d and will begin again to build multiple-purpose dams, hydroelectric facilities, flood-control works, navigation facilities, and reclamation projects to meet mounting and urgent needs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n By contrast, the 2016 Democratic platform<\/span><\/a> offered a much different worldview: workers and wages were an afterthought, well behind penguins and polar bears. \u00a0 In fact, the old concept of \u201creclamation\u201d never appears at all; instead, we get 16 paragraphs, for instance, on \u201cclimate change.\u201d<\/p>\n Of course, at this precise moment, in 2017, the Democrats lack the political power\u00a0 fully to protect their friends at EPA, although they\u2019ll certainly always be trying.<\/p>\n And now to a third ally of Deep EPA: the activist litigators.<\/p>\n As every conservative knows, the left has been far more effective, in recent decades, at winning in the courts than winning at the ballot box.\u00a0 And yet on many issues, a win is a win: If a judge orders the government to take action of a certain kind, well, oftentimes that\u2019s it\u2014that\u2019s the ballgame.\u00a0 No wonder the left is so tight with the lawyers!<\/p>\n And as a sign of the anti-Trump eco-litigation flood to come, on March 8, nearly three dozen green groups<\/span><\/a> filed a formal legal petition<\/span><\/a> with EPA, demanding that the agency tighten the regulations on concentrated animal-feeding operations (CAFO), also known as \u201cfactory farms.\u201d\u00a0 As the lead plaintiff, Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch<\/span><\/a>, declared,<\/p>\n This petition paves the way for EPA to finally regulate CAFOs as required under the Clean Water Act, and explains that allowing CAFO pollution to continue unabated by maintaining the woefully inadequate status quo would violate federal law.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n That petition, we might note, is 58 pages of closely argued legalese, boasting 294 footnotes.\u00a0 And there\u2019s a clear call to action in the document\u2019s conclusion; as it reads, \u201cPetitioners believe that EPA has an obligation pursuant to its [Clean Water Act] duties to [take new action against CAFOs] without further delay.\u201d<\/p>\n In other words, it\u2019s a serious legal demand, aimed at forcing EPA to take additional regulatory action.\u00a0 Or, failing that, to persuade a judge somewhere to order such additional regulation into existence.<\/p>\n So now Virgil wonders: Who among Team Trump at EPA is actually going to have time to read<\/i> this petition, let alone develop an appropriate legal counter-strategy?<\/p>\n And so what might happen if the Trump people choose to delegate the handling of this case to the EPA career staff?\u00a0 Well, we know what could easily happen: The Deep Statists at EPA could consult with their like-minded friends, neighbors, and former law-school classmates\u2014quite possibly, including the very people who filed the CAFO case\u2014and come up with a nice green answer.<\/p>\n That is, it\u2019s easy to see EPA Deep Statists communicating with their friends\u2014perhaps even their spouses\u2014in the activist legal world.\u00a0 Suppose, for example, that two grocery shoppers at the Whole Foods in Northwest DC\u2019s Tenleytown neighborhood<\/span><\/a> just happen to have a friendly ex parte<\/i> conversation?\u00a0 You know, about maybe, legal strategy in the CAFO case?\u00a0 What would be the policy upshot of such a chat?<\/p>\n As an answer, here\u2019s one scenario that we\u2019ve seen many times before: The career legal staff tells the thin layer of political appointees at an agency that the plaintiffs have a strong case, and so it\u2019s best to settle.\u00a0 That is, except for maybe a few face-saving tweaks, give the plaintiffs what they want.\u00a0 After all, the careerist could be saying to the politicals, if you choose to fight, it could get really messy, and, in the end, you\u2019d likely still lose.\u00a0 So why not do it the easy way?\u00a0 Why not do it our<\/i> way?<\/p>\n That\u2019s the pitch that\u2019s been heard a million times within the Deep State.\u00a0 And while it doesn\u2019t always work, since it\u2019s the path of least resistance, it\u2019s a familiar course of action.\u00a0 And so we see how the Deep State so often wins.<\/p>\n So now the Deep State stands ready to welcome Scott Pruitt and the rest of the Trump contingent to their humble outpost at 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue.\u00a0 Well, okay, maybe \u201cwelcome\u201d isn\u2019t quite the right word.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n