Al Armendariz is the fellow who bragged about crucifying opponents to the EPA’s extra-constitutional power grabs and creation of opportunities for picking winners and losers in energy, otherwise known as graft. After recounting his patently insane comments, Christopher Helman at Forbes’ makes some related observations:

The former professor at Southern Methodist University is a diehard environmentalist, having grown up in El Paso near a copper smelter that reportedly belched arsenic-laced clouds into the air. (Here’s a profile of him in the Dallas Observer.) Texas Monthly called him one of the 25 most powerful Texans, while the Houston Chronicle said he’s “the most feared environmentalist in the state.”

Never mind that he couldn’t prove jack against Range. For a year and a half EPA bickered over the issue, both with Range and with the Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates oil and gas drilling and did its own scientific study of Range’s wells and found no evidence that they polluted anything. In recent months a federal judge slapped the EPA, decreeing that the agency was required to actually do some scientific investigation of wells before penalizing the companies that drilled them. Finally in March the EPA withdrew its emergency order and a federal court dismissed the EPA’s case.

David Porter, a commissioner on the Texas Railroad Commission, wasn’t impressed. “Today the EPA finally made a decision based on science and fact versus playing politics with the Texas economy. The EPA’s withdrawal of the emergency order against Range Resources upholds the Railroad Commission Final Order that I signed concluding that Range is not responsible for any water contamination in Parker County. Al Armendariz and the EPA’s Region Six office are guilty of fear mongering, gross negligence and severe mishandling of this case. I hope to see drastic changes made in the way the regional office conducts business in the future – starting with the termination of Al Armendariz.”

Since government bureaucracies are designed to ensure that self-important asswipes are given great power with no countervailing responsibility to citizens affected by that power, I’ll suggest by way of finding a middle ground that perhaps the EPA ought to initiate a study to find out whether fascist cognition is in any way connected with arsenic exposure. The EPA was cobbled together out of a variety of prior agencies under Nixon, who never even bothered to create an institutional charter. Had there been a charter, you can be sure that it would not have included giving this bureaucracy the power to control CO2 emissions or to rewrite the opinions of scientific experts to comport with their agenda; and since Mr. Obama likes to rail against the Supreme Court not being an elected body, unlike the various Czardoms he likes to use to circumvent the Constitution and brag about it, perhaps he might like to note that we’re keenly aware of the absurd hypocrisy.

Here’s a version of Occam’s razor that one can apply to the rhetoric and behavior of the present administration: if you hear keening in the media about any organization with money, there’s a shakedown going on. Over the past week there’s been a lot of screeching about Wal-Mart expanding in Mexico with the aid of backsheesh. What that means is that Wal-Mart has money, and isn’t giving their fair share to help Obama’s reelection bid. I mean, who ever heard of having to grease palms in Mexico? And shouldn’t they really be focusing their palm greasing here in the United States? Whatever Wal-Mart may or may not have done to get their building permits south of the border, they should be held accountable . . . and so should the usual suspects with their hands out. If Fast and Furious has showed us anything, it’s that the Obama administration cares very deeply about the swarthy people south of the border.

But the creation of bizarre statutory obstacle courses creates a lot of demand for short cuts, and this is a calculated strategy of the Chicago Way. These schemes are enforced by police agencies with the power to crucify, figuratively, if not actually, though the line gets kind of fuzzy in the City of Broad Shoulders with Nightsticks. Gotta protect that environment, if you get my drift.

Capiche, comrade?

UPDATE: Donald Douglas, who is not on Dancing with the Stars, links with his own thoughts on the EPA.