Less Fresh Water and No EPA? Good Luck America!

If you live in New York, you can't count on your state government to protect the environment during a climate emergency. So here's why Trump destroying the EPA is bad news for everyone.

We’re living in a world with less and less fresh, clean drinking water. This is a fact, and you would do well to remember it.

This is especially true because, with another Trump term looming, nothing is more important right now than what your State and Local Government does. Because you can’t count on the federal government for anything.

Today, I’m going to highlight why this is a big fucking problem for New York State residents, who need the federal Environmental Protection Agency to intervene in environmental disasters because the state Department of Environmental Conservation often can’t be bothered to do the same.

2023 was the hottest year ever recorded.

2024 is likely to break that record.

Despite this, almost 73 million Americans in the United States just re-elected a man who called Climate Change “a hoax” because his opponent wasn’t white enough for them.

Oh, I’m sorry. Did I say that out loud? I meant to say she wasn’t “qualified” enough for them.

How very “woke” of Trump voters not to tell you the truth about how they really feel about the Vice President. I thought “No More Bullshit” was one of the campaign slogans?

So, with Trump back in power, you can safely assume that the Environmental Protection Agency is about to become completely useless in protecting your local water supply.

At a minimum, for the next four years. But I’d argue that it’ll probably be ineffective for the rest of our lives.

You have to remember that Trump didn’t happen overnight. This was a fifty-plus-year effort by the wealthiest people in this country to destroy the federal government and eliminate all of the taxes and regulations that go along with it. The EPA included.

And not having the EPA around to protect you is real bad news, man; because one thing we’ve uncovered here at The Monroe Gazette is that New York State’s Department of Health, Department of Environmental Conservation, and Attorney General’s office can’t be bothered to do much of anything in our area.

If you live in Southern Orange County, for example, you’ve seen this firsthand as it relates to South Blooming Grove and Orange County Sewer District 1.

The EPA and other federal agencies were your last line of defense when it came to bad actors putting profit ahead of people and wrecking what’s left of the environment. The fact that they were federal agencies made them invaluable because that means they are immune to the typical bullshit found in one of America’s most corrupt states.

Put another way, the federal EPA is investigating Crooked County Executive Steve Neuhaus and Orange County Sewer District 1, without having to deal with all the local political issues in this part of New York.

Alleged International Man of Mystery, Steve Neuhaus, is currently trying to ram through an exemption to the Village of Woodbury’s proposed Sewer Moratorium on behalf of the multibillion-dollar corporation, Simon Property Group, which owns Woodbury Common.

The sewer moratorium is needed because Orange County Sewer District 1 is well over capacity, has crumbling infrastructure, and is currently polluting the Ramapo River. A drinking water source for over two million people across New York and New Jersey. But Crooked County Executive Steve Neuhaus won’t let a little thing like that get in his way. He is currently trying to push through the Woodbury Common expansion and have area residents pay for it in higher sewer fees. All while bragging about the “great” job he did cutting taxes for Orange County residents.

(Simon Property Group had $2B to issue stock buybacks with in February. Instead of having the locals pay for the new sewage treatment plant via fees, I can think of at least one company who could easily foot that bill.)

Another Example: The EPA is looking into that water emergency that’s happening in South Blooming Grove. One made worse by de facto Mayor, Joel Stern, and his rampant approval of permitted (and often unpermitted) construction within the Village since taking power in 2021, despite …

Well, the email speaks for itself:

In the picture above, Joel Stern writes to the New York State DEC in July 2023, confirming the violations and non-compliance status of the water infrastructure and that the Village is operating on water restrictions.

Despite this full knowledge of the situation, Mr. Stern continued to act recklessly and without any regard for human life, continuing to approve projects that would further tax the water system he knew was falling apart.

Sten instead blamed the water crisis on “previous administrations” despite being in power for almost a full four years now — three at the time of the email — and promising “magic wells with plenty of water” as recently as this month, without providing any testing data or geologic information to back those statements up.

You know what that’s called, right? It’s a crime.

Don’t listen to State Senator Skoufis. Skoufis wants to tell you Mr. Stern is not a criminal. I have proof of that in an email sent from his Chief of Staff, Emma Fuentes, who still can’t admit that Frederick Douglas was a journalist.

But this email from Stern to the DEC? Yeah, it proves knowledge of the situation that he continued to intentionally and willfully make worse on behalf of the men funding Stern’s local hate group.

Despite this information, by the way, the DEC went ahead and approved Mr. Stern’s megadevelopment in South Blooming Grove a few weeks ago.

Got all that?

Stern told the New York State DEC there was a problem in July of 2023.

Stern continued to make that problem way, way worse through July 2024.

Stern and Tom Shepstone (Village Planner and just “great” guy) provided the DEC with bogus information on the Clovewood development. (Shepstone put the project together, then Stern hired him to be Village Planner so Shepstone can approve his own work without any critical analysis.)

And despite all this, the DEC still granted the permits to Mr. Stern because … LOL Nothing Matters.

Or because there was a Congressman involved.

Or because the governor was already in the bag for Joel Stern.

Take your pick. Either way, it’s not a good look for New York State government, and that’s the point I’m making here.

Yes. They suck.

But That’s why it was nice to have the EPA.

So, can you see why having the federal EPA around was a good thing?

If you think this situation is bad, you’re right. This is bad.

And you should prepare yourself.

Everything in America is about to get so much worse than you can possibly imagine because, after fifty years of effort, the wealthy finally won and secured one-party rule across the entire federal government and the courts.

USA! USA! USA!

By the way: All this handwringing right now from Democrats? It’s useless. Just totally useless. I don’t blame (most) of the people who voted for Trump.

You know why?

Because most people who voted for Trump were rightfully pissed off by the Democratic Party’s total abandonment of the working class during an ongoing affordability crisis that started back in the ‘70s.

Is that totally fair? Fuck no.

But … Working class is just a euphemism for poor, so let’s just call it what it is: The Democrats don’t care about Poor People.

Neither do the Republicans, but at least they’re honest about it, and that’s the difference.

That’s why people voted for them. They know who the Republican party is, and they know who the Democrats are not, and they voted accordingly.

The people who voted for Trump did so with enthusiasm. The people who voted for Harris voted for her because she wasn’t Trump.

That was the exact same problem in 2016.

“Look at that Fucking Guy” is not a winning political strategy, but the Democrats couldn’t be bothered to learn that lesson.

In defense of the Democrats, the Affordability Crisis is something that’s been building in the background since we stopped raising the wages of the American worker in the 1970s. Corporate profits skyrocketed, wages stagnated. We just became more and more aware of what was happening as the economy got worse and worse over that time.

Under Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush Jr., the economy was GREAT. It started to stall out a little bit at the end of Clinton’s term (Dot Com Crash). Then we had another depression under Bush Jr. at the end and throughout most of Obama’s first term, and then you had the Orange Jackass and one of the worst financial collapses in our history during a pandemic he mismanaged.

Each time we hit a speed bump, we became more and more aware of how bad things were getting since the ‘70s, and then Trump finished the job. Now everyone was aware of how badly they were getting fucked by the wealthy and corporations over the last fifty years, and they are PISSED.

Both parties until Biden deserve blame for that.

I know it’s cool to rag on the Old Man, he’s in charge right now, but Biden was also the first president since before Reagan to try to fix it. To try to reverse the last fifty years of “Reaganomics”: Deregulation, shipping all the jobs overseas and letting the wealthy make all the money. All while claiming their success would would “trickle down” on to the rest of us.

The money never did, but we all got pissed on just the same.

Biden started to put the guardrails back, but that shit takes years to notice, and Americans have attention spans shorter than someone with ADHD trying to watch a video on TikTok while their house is on fire.

You know what’s going to happen now? Assuming Trump doesn’t dismantle everything, Trump will look good economically for the first year or two, maybe three, as the Biden policies start taking effect.

That alone scares me. Because people are going to see this Big Orange Idiot and think he’s doing a good job. He’s not. He won’t. He can’t.

But then again, Trump is Trump, and he’ll find plenty of other ways to remind you that he’s an insane Batman villain suffering from dementia.

I sure hope all those people worried about Joe Biden’s cognitive difficulties show the same level of enthusiasm for pointing them out with Trump, but you know they won’t.

Anyway, my point here is that the Corporate Democrats are to blame for the 2024 Election, and now they all need to go. Every single one of them. If you took corporate money? Fuck you. You’re done.

That includes Congressman Pat Ryan, who took a hell of a lot of money from both Peter Thiel (the man who created JD Vance) and AIPAC. And as mentioned, he’s buddies with hate group founder and environmental criminal, Joel Stern.

Above: Congressman Pat Ryan is in the center. Stern is the schmuck on the right. The other guy isn’t important. This photo with the Congressman will not age well. I promise you.)

That also includes State Senator James Skoufis, who blatantly lied to people about taking money from LLCs and PACS while racking up tens of thousands of dollars from both in 2024 alone.

It’s time to clean house. Or fuck it, join me over at the Working Families Party. Because if the Democrats are going to make weak ass excuses for Skoufis and Ryan’s lack of action in Blooming Grove — as just one example — or find themselves unable to understand why their party lost, maybe they’ll never change.

But you can.

Otherwise, assuming we have free and fair elections in 2028, this shit is going to happen again.

So, what can YOU do about all this?

For one, you must understand that you can’t rely on the federal government for anything anymore. That’s why we just took this long detour together.

The EPA? Forget them. They’re not going to do shit for you now.

And that means New York State is going to need to work hard to better fund its DEC, better staff it, and give it real teeth.

Otherwise, that New York Constitutional Amendment we passed a few years back? The Green Amendment?

It’s going to be a bunch of nice-sounding words to New York residents and little else. “Each person shall have a right to clean air and water, and a healthful environment.”

Well that’s great asshole, but if the DEC, DOH, AG, and the Governor can’t be bothered to step in and stop factually verifiable environmental criminal activity, who exactly is supposed to uphold that amendment?

For another, you need to understand that local politics and state politics just became the most valuable thing you can invest your time, money, and attention into.

So, for example here in New York, that means Governor Kathy Hochul, who also objectively sucks, just became the most important political figure in your life.

You know what that means, right?

It means you’re now fighting a war on two fronts.

You’re living through the Second Gilded Age and now have to fight the oligarchy on one front, since they hijacked the federal government.

And here at home, you’re fighting another front to make sure your representatives work for you, and not the oligarchs, and that your state government operates the way it’s supposed to.

Before, the EPA was your last line of defense. But that line is now gone, leaving you only with your state government to protect you.

That’s because we’re living in a 10th Amendment World now: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Remember that sentence because the 10th Ammendment should allow the State to protect itself, and you, from anything creepy, weird, and not at all in the Constitution.

You’re going to be hearing about the 10th Ammendment A LOT in the months ahead. So over the next week or so, I’m going to spend some time on here digging a bit deeper into what it is, how it works, and why you need to make sure your state is ready to use it at every opportunity to defend itself.