Presidential candidate Ben Carson, right, meets supporter Rebecca Bextel and others during a campaign stop at Snow King Resort on Monday, Aug. 17, 2015, in Jackson, Wyo. He visited Colorado on Tuesday. (Price Chambers/Jackson Hole News & Guide via AP)
Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson visited Durango on Tuesday to use the into the Animas River to draw attention to his plan to revamp the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The move made Carson the first 2016 candidate to highlight the environmental disaster, though the former neurosurgeon is far from the first politico to see political implications in a 3-million gallon deluge of wastewater caused by an EPA-led crew.
“One wonders, if this accident had occurred at the hands of a private business, or even an individual property owner, would the EPA be as forgiving as they have been of themselves? I think not,” Carson said in a statement after the visit.
Carson, who is following the first GOP debate, toured the mine area by helicopter and met with local officials. His calendar also included a town hall at Rotary Park.
The candidate called on the EPA to perform a transparent investigation of the spill and provide “full compensation and reparations” to those affected.
He proposed the EPA pay the money from fines it collected from private companies who violate environmental rules, not tax dollars. “The EPA must face the same consequences and same accountability as they require of each of us,” he said.
The focus is part of his effort to overhaul the EPA, for which he plans a new mission statement that downplays fines and penalties, allows for laws that protect business from “unnecessary liability” and incorporates a cost-benefit analysis in its regulatory decisions.
“We all want a better environment,” he said in the statement. “We all want to protect the environment for generations to come. We all want more common sense in the administration of our environmental laws and policies.”
