Notice whose photo this is. What is it being used for? Photo via Flickr: TexasGOPVote.com

It’s been obvious for some time now that the Republicans have been trying to undercut the EPA at every turn — the slew of anti-environmental riders attached to the 2012 spending bill being the latest example — but an article out this week puts the writing on the wall: The Republicans have made it their mission to halt what it views as EPA’s ‘activist’ agenda.

From Reuters:

Emboldened by their success wresting concessions from the Obama administration in debt-limit talks, House Republicans now plan an assault of similar vigor on the Environmental Protection Agency.

Republicans, backed by wealthy conservative lobbyists, are determined to stop the EPA and what they see as an activist agenda that is costing jobs and hurting corporate profits.

“Right now for House Republicans one of their important rally cries is that EPA regulations are excessive and even abusive,” said Robert Stavins, director of the Harvard Environmental Economics Program.

Here’s my question: Isn’t calling the EPA “activist” kind of like calling the Department of Homeland Security activist? I don’t know about you, but I like my taxpayer dollar–funded federal agencies to do the job they’ve been tasked with, which in the case of the EPA — otherwise known as the Environmental Protection Agency — is to do just that: Protect. The. Environment.

It’s not the Protect-The-Environment-But-Only-When-It’s-Convenient-For-Big-Business Agency, after all. That would be too cumbersome an acronym.

Hell, why don’t we just shut down Border Patrol while we’re at it? Terrorist, shmerorist — the BP oil spill was arguably a weapon of mass destruction (though perhaps an unintentional one), and we’re doing just fine now, thank you very much. (By “we” I mean BP — $18 billion-plus in cash and counting!).

Did you know the EPA was created during the Nixon administration?

–Jennifer Grayson