Environmentalists' shower power

The Environmental Protection Agency strikes fear in the hearts of most Americans because of the substantial regulatory power it wields.

The current administration has used the EPA as a tool to make an end run around Congress and implement much of the liberal utopian dream of a green society regardless of the cost or impact of those regulations.

Because, as we all know, the feds know more about how we should conduct our lives than we mere mortals.

But the EPA has a new target -- children!

This Draconian federal bureaucracy wants youngsters to abandon baths in favor of showers. And they want those showers timed in a "big brother" attempt to control water usage.

But they don't stop there.

Kids are asked to urge their parents to use only recycled water in their carwash and to conduct experiments with their parents to monitor toilets for leaks.

They've even designed an online video game for children to answer water efficiency questions.

This massive and guilt-laden brainwashing can only come from a federal agency fully out of control.

We once had a family ritual of taking the handy water hose and washing the car on a bright sunny Saturday morning. How lost I was. I actually thought this ritual might teach responsibility and hard work.

Little did I know that I was indoctrinating my children to ruin the environment.

It would seem to me that the EPA has more important issues like killing the Keystone Pipeline or imposing job-killing and rate-hiking regulations on coal-fired power plants.

But apparently stopping just short of mandating 5-minute showers for children is high on their list as well.

The EPA is a prime example of a federal bureaucracy gone amok. Originally designed to help promote a cleaner environment, the agency has now evolved into little more than a mouthpiece for a green agenda that cares little about costs and more about rewarding friends.

And when the EPA runs into the expected Congressional blockade, this administration quickly implements an executive order more often than not against the wishes of the American public.

It's past time for the EPA to slip into the shadows.

Between overhauling the school lunch program and seeking to eliminate bath water, the feds are pointedly telling the American public we clearly don't know what's best for us.

It's increasingly apparent that we need "big brother" to regulate every single aspect of our lives down to how we bathe our children.

Let's hope and pray the next administration -- and it can't come quickly enough -- considers implementing a policy of common sense that is sorely lacking in Washington, D.C.

Michael Jensen is the publisher of the Sikeston Standard Democrat.