Uh-oh. Leftists are nearly apoplectic. Not only has Trump ordered an EPA media blackout…

Emails sent to EPA staff since his inauguration on Friday and reviewed by the Associated Press detailed the specific prohibitions banning press releases, blog updates or posts to the agency’s social media accounts.
 
Trump — who at a meeting with automakers Tuesday insisted he was “an environmentalist” — also ordered a “temporary suspension” of all new business activities at the department, including issuing task orders or work assignments to EPA contractors.

He’s also acting to advance Keystone XL, Dakota Access Pipelines…

President Donald Trump signed executive actions Tuesday to advance construction of the huge Keystone XL and Dakota Access oil pipelines, moving aggressively to overhaul America’s energy policy and dealing a swift blow to Barack Obama’s legacy on climate change.

It’s really more than they can cope with.

 
You see, progressives love massive bureaucracy. Every new agency they can create is another little fiefdom, enabling the Left to evade the Constitution – and tax and regulate the hell out of the private sector. Under the Obama Administration, the EPA became a rogue dictatorship, issuing new mandates at whim, totally disregarding the effect on average Americans.
 
When unaccountable public officials have the authority to redefine plowed farm fields as ‘mini mountain ranges’ or place regulations on ponds, ditches and puddles – they have WAY TOO MUCH POWER.

 
Late in December – perhaps sensing the winds of change blowing in D.C. – and just as winter was settling in, the EPA actually moved to Fine Alaskans For Burning Wood To Keep Warm ~

Civil fines by Fairbanks North Star Borough — which includes the cities of Fairbanks and North Pole, with a total population of about 100,000 — could be assessed in coming days against residential polluters. The E.P.A. could declare the entire area to be in “serious” noncompliance of the Clean Air Act early next year, with potentially huge economic implications, including a cutoff of federal transportation funds.

Source: New York Times

 
Writing at The Federalist, John Daniel Davidson explains what some clueless, un-elected bureaucrat in Washington D.C. doesn’t understand about winter in our 49th state ~

Like most people in Alaska, the residents of those frozen cities are burning wood to keep themselves warm this winter. Smoke from wood-burning stoves increases small-particle pollution, which settles in low-lying areas and can be breathed in. The EPA thinks this is a big problem. Eight years ago, the agency ruled that wide swaths of the most densely populated parts of the region were in “non-attainment” of federal air quality standards.
 
 
That prompted state and local authorities to look for ways to cut down on pollution from wood-burning stoves, including the possibility of fining residents who burn wood. After all, a declaration of noncompliance from the EPA would have enormous economic implications for the region, like the loss of federal transportation funding.
 
The problem is, there’s no replacement for wood-burning stoves in Alaska’s interior. Heating oil is too expensive for a lot of people, and natural gas isn’t available. So they’ve got to burn something. The average low temperature in Fairbanks in December is 13 degrees below zero. In January, it’s 17 below. During the coldest days of winter, the high temperature averages -2 degrees, and it can get as cold as -60. This is not a place where you play games with the cold. If you don’t keep the fire lit, you die. For people of modest means, and especially for the poor, that means you burn wood in a stove—and you keep that fire lit around the clock.

 
Here’s a nutshell version from Matt Kibbe (Conservative Review) ~

 
Now clearly we can’t let industries and individuals run roughshod over the environment; God instructs us to be responsible stewards of all creation. But it’ll certainly be nice to see the Trump Administration restore some level of sanity to the out-of-control EPA.
 
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Related:

Navajo Nation vows to fight EPA for toxic mine spill ~ The EPA is much better at making messes than cleaning them up
Progressives impede progress; DAPL blocked again
EPA’s war on American productivity
 
Update: 1-29-17
Forgot about this article when I was writing this post. It further demonstrates how the “P” in EPA stands for “power” – not “protection” ~ EPA Let Pollution Fester At 302 Sites For Years, Sometimes DECADES

Those sites are part of the EPA’s Superfund program, which is intended to clean the most dangerous and polluted places in America. But the agency has either been unable or unwilling to decontaminate many of the locations, allowing pollution to fester, a DCNF analysis of more than 1,300 active Superfund sites found.