The current bunch of ruffians running the government have managed to do something that until recently was thought impossible. They have managed to make Richard Nixon look good.

Richard Nixon signed an executive order which created the EPA in 1970 to implement a number of environmental laws in order to make America clean again. Republicans would like to reverse these Nixonian regulations and go back to a simpler, almost biblical time, when rivers burned and skies were scarred brown with the unchecked pollution of industry.

In 1969, Ohio’s Cuyahoga River burned for a 13th time. It was also in 1969, that California experienced its largest oil spill when a Union Oil offshore rig dumped oil along thirty-miles of Santa Barbara coast-line. Public outrage spurred Congress to pass the Clean Air Act of 1970 and to re-write the Federal Water Pollution Control Act into what has become known as the Clean Water Act.

Trump and Pruitt see the EPA and its bothersome standards as an example of the federal government trampling on states’ rights. Which may be. But recall that one purpose of the U.S. Constitution is to “…promote the general Welfare…” This means that the federal government must sometimes intercede and protect us from our baser instincts.

So, if you would prefer not to be able to swim in your local rivers on a hot summer afternoon, to breathe the air without a respirator, to bathe on beaches uncontaminated with oil, or to eat food unladen with toxic chemicals, then Trump and Pruitt are the men to have on your side.