Imagine, if you will, the EPA headquarters in Washington, D.C., filled with employees wringing their hands, fretting over the prospect of relocation. President Trump and Lee Zeldin have floated the radical idea of moving the EPA out of D.C., an idea the agency describes as nothing less than catastrophic—a “devastating blow” that would “decapitate” their operations (source: Relocating EPA Headquarters Blasted as ‘Decapitation’, E&E News by POLITICO). Oh, the irony. After decades of the EPA mercilessly displacing small businesses across the country under the flimsiest of legal pretenses, they’re suddenly concerned with the trauma of uprooting.
Let’s pause and consider this reversal. For decades, the EPA has bulldozed over small business owners using its favorite tools: vague, cobbled-together “interpretations” of environmental statutes that seem invented to sidestep pesky constitutional protections. Environmental protection? Try “environmental eviction.” The EPA has become a master of lawfare, turning statutes into bludgeons and regulations into weapons. Under the guise of environmental justice, the agency has consistently pushed Americans off their land, sometimes offering token “compensation” that wouldn’t cover the cost of a moving truck, much less a business relocation.
Look at a 2018 case, covered in detail by the Delco Times, the EPA sought to evict a small business from its property, apparently without due regard for the livelihoods of those involved. This was the case of one business owner in Pennsylvania, who found himself on the receiving end of the EPA’s selective sense of justice. This business owner with a 99-year leasehold on a business site that the EPA deemed to be located within the bounds of their “Superfund Site.” As the story goes, the lessor passed away in late March 2018. The EPA, after hearing this news, the EPA took it upon themselves to seize on a new and irresistible opportunity. What, you ask? In April 2018, the following month, the EPA suddenly decided that the business owner now needed to be vacated from the business site in 90 days to make way for their latest environmental crusade. The EPA, in all its compassion, offered him $2,500 to help him find a new location. They might as well have handed him a coupon for a moving van. When he raised questions about his rights, the EPA helpfully told him to “either relocate or go out of business” (source: Business Owner Claims Feds Are Pushing Him Off His Property, Delco Times). What a choice!
Now, as soon as the EPA faces its own potential displacement, they’re quick to call it “decapitation” and “devastation.” Nate James, the president of the union representing EPA headquarters employees, warns of mass resignations, lamenting that relocation would “make it very difficult for what would be left of the agency…to accomplish the mission” (source: Relocating EPA Headquarters Blasted as ‘Decapitation’, E&E News by POLITICO). The same agency that has been telling small businesses to “relocate or close” now claims relocation is unbearable. Apparently, forced relocation is only a nightmare when it’s the EPA’s problem.
Trump’s relocation proposal doesn’t just expose the EPA’s hypocrisy; it holds a mirror up to the agency’s long-standing abuse of power. For years, the EPA has wielded regulatory authority like a personal fiefdom, tossing aside property rights and constitutional protections to expand its reach. And now, as it finally faces a taste of its own treatment, the agency wants sympathy. They want Americans to believe that moving out of D.C. would be the end of environmental protection as we know it, that only from the heart of Washington can the EPA properly wield its bureaucratic power.
The truth is that Trump’s proposal to relocate the EPA is a necessary check on an agency that has long ignored checks and balances. If the EPA genuinely believes that moving would be so devastating, perhaps it will gain a new appreciation for the impact of its policies on the countless Americans it has displaced. This potential move isn’t punishment; it’s accountability. And if the EPA finds that concept “devastating,” it’s a lesson long overdue.
Unfortunately, far too many American businesses and entrepreneurs are burdened by big government bureaucracy. These are the people that built something real, not a bureaucrat clutching to a desk in Washington. Let the EPA pack its bags and feel the consequences of its own heavy-handed tactics. It’s time for a taste of accountability, and if that’s “devastating,” well, welcome to the world they’ve created.