Why the EPA should not exist - today's edition

If all its pointy-head bureaucrats did was make life difficult for American businesses, that would be bad enough.  But it is pro-actively trying to influence policy-making even before the scientific review has been conducted in some cases, such as this:

 . . . regulators inside the Environmental Protection Agency secretly worked with tribal and environmental activists to preempt a full review of an Alaskan mine and veto the project before the owners’ permits could be considered, internal memos show.

Charged with being neutral arbiters, EPA officials instead began advocating for a preemptive veto of the Pebble Mine project in western Alaska as early as 2008, long before any scientific studies were conducted or the permit applications for the project were even filed, the emails obtained by The Washington Times show.

Cozying up to one side in a situation in which policy was ostensibly going to be decided by what science had to say:

EPA wouldn’t even announce the beginning of a scientific review of Pebble Mine until 2011, two years after Mr. North’s email, but discussion of a pre-emptive veto dominated internal discussions inside the agency for much of the three years beforehand.
At the same time, EPA officials had regular contacts with potential opponents of the mining project, coordinating activities with environmentalists and even coaching local tribes on how they could strengthen their case opposing the project.
“Tribes have a very special role in Pebble issues because of government-to-government relations,” Mr. North wrote to an Alaskan tribal leader in June 2010. “EPA takes that very seriously. I encourage you to develop that relationship as much as you can.”
The efforts to get EPA to veto the project before the Army Corps of Engineers could evaluate the engineering and scientific impacts reached all the way to top officials in Washington.
A presentation prepared in 2010 for then-EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson made clear that a preemptive veto “had never been done before in the history” of the Clean Water Act and could risk litigation.
EPA eventually conducted a narrow scientific review and preemptively vetoed the mine project this February, before the Army Corps of Engineers could decide the permits for the project on the scientific and technical merits.

This is a clear encroachment on the power of the legislative branch.  This is tyranny.