EPA move on greenhouse gases is a win for sanity and the working class | Opinion

We’ve had enough of being told what we want to hear. It’s time we start telling the truth again. America works best when it trusts its people.

• Brian Frye is a sixth-generation Iowa farmer, a former crude oil broker, and an energy expert with over 15 years of experience in the oil and gas industry.

Imagine waking up every day and being told your very existence is a threat — your pickup, your tractor, your job, your way of life. For the past 15 years, that’s exactly what Washington’s climate elite have been selling to the American people. And now, finally, someone had the guts to tear up the script.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to reverse its 2009 “Endangerment Finding” is more than a policy change. It’s a moment of truth. It’s a line in the sand where fear-mongering ends and common sense begins.

This so-called finding claimed that carbon dioxide — the gas we exhale, the same one that feeds the crops we grow — was a dangerous pollutant. And with that one bureaucratic ruling, Washington handed itself the power to regulate nearly every corner of the American economy. Farms. Trucks. Factories. Power plants. All under the guise of “saving the planet.”

Let me put it this way: It’s like declaring water a hazard because someone once slipped in a puddle. It gave the government an excuse to micromanage how much water you use, when you use it, and how much you’ll pay for it.

That’s exactly what happened with carbon.

More: Opinion: Iowa crop yields are setting records, not failing, amid modest warming

We weren’t fighting pollution. We were fighting a narrative. A doomsday narrative wrapped in scientific jargon, funded by taxpayer dollars, and peddled by people who’ve never had to fill a diesel tank or check a thermostat during a polar vortex. While they held conferences and got awards, we got mandates, fines and higher bills.

But this reversal? It’s the sound of sanity returning.

This doesn’t mean we’re throwing trash in rivers or going backward on clean air. Quite the opposite. America already leads the world in emissions reductions without draconian controls. Our air is cleaner not because of fear-driven policies, but because of real innovation by real people.

Scrapping the Endangerment Finding says loud and clear: Carbon is not the enemy. Tyranny wrapped in lab coats is.

Let’s talk about what this means for real people:

• For farmers, it means no longer being painted as climate villains for growing food.
• For truckers and factory workers, it means fewer senseless rules designed by people who couldn’t change a tire if their life depended on it.
• For families, it means maybe affording to keep the lights on and gas in the tank without choosing between dinner and heat.
• And for all of us, it means reclaiming our right to debate, to question, and to stop being ruled by worst-case scenarios disguised as settled science.

More: I’m glad Trump is gutting the EPA. My family’s tire-burning business is on fire! | Opinion

The fear peddlers will scream. They’ll say we’re anti-science, reckless, even dangerous. But here’s the truth they don’t want to admit: When everything is an emergency, nothing is.

Science is a tool, not a weapon. It’s not supposed to be used to scare people into submission. It’s supposed to inform, to guide, and to help us weigh costs and consequences. And when science becomes dogma, that’s not progress. It’s just a fancier form of tyranny.

The EPA’s move is a win for the working class, for rural America, for anyone who’s tired of being lectured by people who’ve never set foot in the real world. It’s a long-overdue shift from feelings back to facts.

Thomas Sowell wrote: “When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.”

We’ve had enough of being told what we want to hear. It’s time we start telling the truth again. America works best when it trusts its people.

Brian Frye is a sixth-generation Iowa farmer, a former crude oil broker, and an energy expert with over 15 years of experience in the oil and gas industry. He is on the board of directors for Farm Bureau in Wright County as well as Dows Golf Course. He is also serves on the Wright County Central Committee for the Republican Party.