The Tennessee GOP commemorates Earth Day by mocking President Obama and claiming free markets will solve all our environmental problems, concluding:

"Throughout American history, it is not government that has developed our best new technologies and products, it is free people motivated by passion and the potential for profit, who produce the solutions to our most pressing problems,” Smith said. "We the people do not need Big Government to clean up the environment."

Maybe Robin Smith and the TNGOP are not aware that Richard Nixon (a famous Republican President for you youngsters) created the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and was instrumental in its formation.

Thanks to EPA regulation, we have cleaned up auto tailpipe emissions and reduced smog in American cities. We're getting more serious about cleaning up coal pollution and we're restoring the agency's authority to protect our environment after eight years of Republican negligence and mismanagement.

And the TNGOP is apparently out of sync with Tennessee's top elected Republican, senior U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander. The unfortunately (for the TNGOP) timed headline on the front page of today's Knoxville News Sentinel is "Alexander urges tough new rules for coal plants."

It would be funny if it weren't so pathetic. And dangerous.