In October 2015, the EPA announced a new standard for ground-level ozone, tightening its stringent existing standard even more. It set the new standard at 70 parts per million (0.0070% of the atmosphere), a 9% decrease from the previous standard of 75 ppm established in 2008. Along with nearly 1000 counties nationwide that may not meet this new standard, one-third of all US counties, you’ll find at least 26 national parks. Does it seem ridiculous to you that the EPA has created a situation where some of the most rural and pristine areas of the United States could be lumping in the same category with the most densely-populated and industrialized? Well, then you don’t know the EPA.

Given the harassment and everyday burdens that federal bureaucrats subject small businesses and families to, it seems obvious that decisions could be challenged by the basic process of judicial review. This right, however, was apparently not entirely evident. The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled unanimously in favor of property owners in a decision that weakens the EPA’s authority under the Clean Water Act. The ruling in United States Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes Co., Inc gives landowners and businesses the right to go to court when federal regulators trample their rights to property and due process.

On Wednesday, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held a hearing to examine employee misconduct at the EPA. Misconduct has continued at the EPA despite repeated reform efforts and multiple hearings. Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) opened the hearing by calling the EPA “one of the most toxic places in the federal government to work.” That is a big claim, and one that should alarm conservatives and libertarians who consciously worry about corruption, protectionism, and bureaucracy in the federal government.

FreedomWorks Foundation’s regulatory reform project is focused not just on mobilizing our activists to engage in advocacy against particularly egregious proposed regulations, but also on educating citizens about the threats posed by the federal regulatory state. The project’s educational mission was made easier by the publication earlier this year of “Liberty's Nemesis: The Unchecked Expansion of the State,” a book by Dean Reuter, Vice President and Director of Practice Groups for the Federalist Society, and John Yoo, Emanuel Heller Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley.

A recent report from the Daily Caller highlights how the Environmental Protection Agency frequently uses private email accounts to communicate with environmental lobbyists, ducking the transparency and record-keeping requirements that are supposed to bind the agency.

Lately, Congress has been taking some significant steps to push back against federal regulatory agencies. Regulations cost our economy $2 trillion a year, and are written and enforced by unelected bureaucrats with no accountability to voters. They undermine property rights, representative government and the rule of law, and its high time someone did something about it.