Friday, 01 Apr 2011
By Henry J. Reske and Matthew Belvedere
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an out-of-control operation that imperils America’s future as it crusades to regulate every aspect of life, from light bulbs to washing machines, Competitive Enterprise Institute President Fred Smith tells Newsmax.TV.
“The first thing that needs to be done is to strip the EPA of its ability to destroy America’s energy future and therefore America’s economic future,” said Smith, who founded the nonprofit public policy group in 1984.
The EPA is “hell-bent” on regulating CO2, Smith said during a Newsmax interview at a recent dinner in Washington, D.C., adding that allowing the EPA to regulate every use of energy in the country is a massive expansion of government authority “much bigger than Obamacare, which in its own way is every bit as destructive.”
Story continues below video.
“The EPA is a rogue organization,” he said. “It is totally out of control. It’s trying to basically micromanage everything from light bulbs, to the air conditioners we sell, to the washing machines, to our lives. I mean probably our very lives because there are too many of us; they want less of us on our planet.”
Smith’s Competitive Enterprise Institute promotes free enterprise and limited government and deals in a wide range of policy issues including energy, environment, and business and finance. The group also focuses on regulatory agencies, Smith said.
“Regulation is the tool of death to any smaller firm and entrepreneurial firms are always small,” he said. “You stomp out the seeds of tomorrow and you have no plants for tomorrow.”
As to efforts to reduce government spending, Smith said, “Republicans and Democrats and America has to recognize that when you have got a $1.5 trillion deficit and you’re worried about cutting the budget by $60 or $70 billion, you’re a way from being serious about the issue.”
“There is sort of a mock show going on. We haven’t even talked about entitlements, we haven’t talked about the military budget, how many wars can American fight without declarations of war and so on . . . All of that together means America is nonsustainable. It must stop; it will stop. What Congress had to realize is if it doesn’t move quickly, and the administration doesn’t move quickly that crash could be disastrous to the stability of our economy.”
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