[TheRealThing]

EPA is much like everything else. It was a good idea and a needed entity, and probably did a good job for the first few years.

But power, money, greed etc. swayed them to what they are today; and they are totally unrecognizeable from they were and what they should be.

You're right and yet they are more than that. As far as anybody knows they have unlimited power/authority to enforce 'and define' any kind of evironmental situation they see fit. They have the power to decide whether a company, or other entity's activities threaten the environment. The EPA is therefore limited only to how creative their imagination may be, as to the number of ways they can control American industry. What makes them particularly dangerous is that they don't answer to anybody except maybe the president of the United States. The administrator of the EPA is considered a Cabinet level post (even though it is not really a cabinet position) and is appointed by the president. Further, the agency has approximately 17,000 full-time employees, and engages many more people on a contractual basis. More than half of EPA human resources are engineers, scientists, and environmental protection specialists; other groups include legal, public affairs, financial, and information technologists. [Wiki] They've got enough clout to be much more than a formidable opponent.

When one considers that the administrator of this nearly autonomous and vaugly defined super agency, was appointed by Obama, it is clear how he could very conveniently wage his war on coal. BTW, we taxpayers give them a whopping 8.7 billion dollar war chest from which to operate every year, not counting a vast amount of money in fines.