Pirate's Cove

The EPA apparently doesn’t want Black people to attend

(The Blaze) Democrats have argued for the past few years that voter ID laws are being used by Republicans to create obstacles to voting by minorities, the elderly and others.

But on Monday, the Obama administration said it would require anyone who wants to attend critical environmental hearings later this summer to show a photo ID. The rule raises the question of whether everyone will have a fair shot of attending these hearings, which have the potential to shape environmental policy for the next few decades.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday announced a proposed regulation aimed at curbing carbon emissions from power plants by 30 percent by 2030, and said it would hold four hearings on its controversial proposal in July.

The EPA said photo IDs would be needed to attend these hearings because they will be held in government buildings.

“Because these hearings are being held at U.S. government facilities, individuals planning to attend the hearing should be prepared to show valid picture identification to the security staff in order to gain access to the meeting room,” the regulation states. The rule doesn’t define what a valid ID is, but the term is generally understood to mean a passport, driver’s license, military or other form of government identification card.

Racism! Discrimination! An attempt to suppress our right to vote express our Free Speech rights!

The “government facilities” talking point is a cute one, and states under assault for passing ID requirements (remember, it’s only certain ones, typically those who tend to vote GOP or could be swing states that Dems rail against. They don’t bother with other states with voter ID laws) to vote should should simply have all votes at government facilities. Heck, in my area quite a few early voting places are government property. I usually end up going to a school in Knightdale to early vote. Let’s have all voting on government property.

Anyhow, racism! Discrimination!

I will say, I doubt any of the conspiracy talk about using this to deny Skeptics access is real. That would require competence on the part of the federal government. Besides, there are way too many of us to stop.

The EPA has other rules about how participants are supposed to behave during the hearings, including: ”No large signs will be allowed in the building, cameras may only be used outside of the building and demonstrations will not be allowed on federal property for security reasons.”

In other words, they do not want their words recorded by citizens, and, more importantly, they want to deny citizens their 1st Amendment Rights to protest peaceably and ask for redress of grievance.

Crossed at Right Wing News.