I think that's precisely why there is such a need to blame the border, actually.

'Diddy Party'and 'Diddy' being up there likely means some clown argued that 'Diddy Party' was a distinct term.

A led to B led to C led to D.

I always felt the occupant of the castle would use the roses.

Extremely generally speaking: It more that industries are required to submit information and applications. The regulatory body then determines if it meets the legal minimum requirements.

The process of determining the latter is much slower than the former. The timeline can be as short as 60 days, depending. (I don't think that's the case here. I think this is years long. But studies take that long.) And industries also tend to fight every step of the way, even when caught flagrantly violating agreements, orders, and the plain text of the law.

So industries have incredible power and influence over their regulators as there is a very distinct political cycle to it. Most can wait the 4-8 years for party rule to swap.

They very well had deadlines in the application process where EPA might've had questions or concerns about something but had no legal/further/any ability to hold up the process, which allows approval to move forward. EPA may not have felt they had the grounds without further analysis, or whatever to hold things up knowing if there was a real issue they could still withdraw approval, like so.

A lot of government approvals are automatic and the regulatory body has legally intervene to do anything about it within a strict timeframe.

The EPA gets a lot of data through a whole chains of custody from local and state agencies who themselves largely collect data as self reported from industries.

It is no mystery that this info wasn't readily available for analysis( or with confidence.)

Which is odd because NOAA has like, no regulatory power. The regulated community kinda loves agencies like NOAA because they can tell them to pound sand over anything and that's that

They're not the EPA or anything.

I can hear it.

Geordi's Epic Maneuver.

They're just past the end of the pier, those big things that aren't seals.

Note the lack of drinking water and sanitary facilities with the crowd that size and become a wizard that predicts the future now past.