The EPA’s war on carbon
Eco-czars of the Obama administration, activate!
Form of…a corrupted “scientific” finding on greenhouse gas “public endangerment.”
Timed for maximum impact on the Copenhagen global warming treaty talks, the Obama EPA is set to announce that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare, paving the way for the green bureaucrats to radically regulate emissions.
Keeping an open mind about dissenting researchers? Listening to input from the Hill? Screw them:
The Obama administration is pressing for a new law that would establish a cap-and-trade system to curb emissions from power plants and scores of other sources. But the administration has also warned that it plans to move ahead with EPA rules absent a final bill. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is urging GOP colleagues to back an emissions bill in part because Congress, not EPA, should decide the contours of a national emissions program. The so-called endangerment finding stems from a major 2007 Supreme Court decision that enables EPA to limit the emissions if it finds that greenhouses gases are indeed a danger. The agency issued a preliminary finding in April.
The EPA announcement could also give U.S. negotiators more leverage at the international climate talks in Copenhagen that begin today, demonstrating domestic action even though Congress has not completed a final bill to curb emissions.
Although EPA chief Lisa Jackson will make the announcement this afternoon, the edict has global warming zealot and Obama energy czar/chief ClimateGate denier Carol “Put nothing in writing…ever” Browner’s fingerprints all over it.
Take a moment to refresh your memories on how Obama’s enviro-ministers have dealt with inside watchdogs on the endangerment issue. It’s the same way the ClimateGate cabal has dealt with its critics: By attempting to squash them. From my June 26 column:
The free market-based Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington (where I served as a journalism fellow in 1995) obtained a set of internal e-mails exposing Team Obama’s willful and reckless disregard for data that undermine the illusion of “consensus.” In March, Alan Carlin, a senior research analyst at the Environmental Protection Agency, asked agency officials to distribute his analysis on the health effects of greenhouse gases. EPA has proposed a public health “endangerment finding” covering CO2 and five other gases that would trigger costly, extensive new regulations of motor vehicles. The open comment period on the ruling ended this week. But Carlin’s study didn’t fit the blame-human-activity narrative, so it didn’t make the cut.
On March 12, Carlin’s director, Al McGartland, forbade him from having “any direct communication” with anyone outside his office about his study. “There should be no meetings, emails, written statements, phone calls, etc.” On March 16, Carlin urged his superiors to forward his work to EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, which runs the agency’s climate change program. A day later, McGartland dismissed Carlin and showed his true, politicized colors:
“The time for such discussion of fundamental issues has passed for this round. The administrator and the administration has decided to move forward on endangerment, and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision… I can only see one impact of your comments given where we are in the process, and that would be a very negative impact on our office.”
Contrary comments, in other words, would interfere with the “process” of ramming the EPA’s endangerment finding through. Truth-in-science took a backseat to protecting eco-bureaucrats from “a very negative impact.”
In another follow-up e-mail, McGartland warned Carlin to drop the subject altogether: “With the endangerment finding nearly final, you need to move on to other issues and subjects. I don’t want you to spend any additional EPA time on climate change. No papers, no research etc, at least until we see what EPA is going to do with Climate.”
But, of course, the e-mails show that EPA had already predetermined what it was going to do – “move forward on endangerment.” Which underscores the fact that the open public comment period was all for show. In her message to the public about the radical greenhouse gas rules, EPA administrator Lisa Jackson requested “comment on the data on which the proposed findings are based, the methodology used in obtaining and analyzing the data, and the major legal interpretations and policy considerations underlying the proposed findings.” Ms. Jackson, meet Mr. Carlin.
The EPA now justifies the suppression of the study because economist Carlin (a 35-year veteran of the agency who also holds a B.S. in physics) “is an individual who is not a scientist.” Neither is Al Gore. Nor is environmental czar Carol Browner. Nor is cap-and-trade shepherd Nancy Pelosi. Carlin’s analysis incorporated peer-reviewed studies and, as he informed his colleagues, “significant new research” related to the proposed endangerment finding. According to those who have seen his study, it spotlights EPA’s reliance on out-of-date research, uncritical recycling of United Nations data, and omission of new developments, including a continued decline in global temperatures and a new consensus that future hurricane behavior won’t be different than in the past.
But the message from his superiors was clear: La-la-la, we can’t hear you.
In April, President Obama declared that “the days of science taking a back seat to ideology are over.” Another day, another broken promise.
Philip Klein has more on the EPA bureaucrats expanding their power under the guise of saving the planet:
Lisa Jackson, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, made these intentions clear in her opening memo to employees in January 2009. “EPA will stand ready to help Congress craft strong, science-based climate legislation that fulfills the vision of the President,” she wrote, adding, “As Congress does its work, we will move ahead to comply with the Supreme Court’s decision recognizing EPA’s obligation to address climate change under the Clean Air Act.”
The Supreme Court decision Jackson referred to is Massachusetts v. EPA. Decided in 2007, the Court ruled that, pending a finding of “endangerment,” the EPA was required to regulate greenhouse gases in new vehicles. Obama appointed the lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the suit, Lisa Heinzerling, to be senior policy counsel on climate change at the EPA, a position that does not require confirmation. In her speeches and academic writings, Heinzerling has advocated an unabashedly activist role for the federal government in regulating carbon emissions….
Heinzerling has gone so far as to argue that since global warming kills people, a failure to address it is tantamount to somebody not acting on prior knowledge that a homicide is going to take place.
“Knowledge that death and suffering will result from our actions leads uncontroversially to a moral obligation to change our behavior,” Heinzerling wrote in a 2008 article for the Georgetown Law Journal. “In the United States, knowing killing is condemned in the criminal laws of all 50 states, in modern regulatory laws at the federal level, and in civil jury awards in tort cases. These laws embody a moral commitment against knowing killing that, in traditional criminal contexts, is uncontroversial. It should be no more controversial when it occurs on a global scale.”
Jackson is set to speak in Copenhagen.
I call to your attention GOP Sen. Jim Inhofe’s warning when the EPA took its first steps on this finding:
Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said today that the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposed endangerment finding will unleash a torrent of regulations that will destroy jobs, harm consumers, and extend the agency’s reach into every corner of American life. Despite enormous expense and hardship for the American economy, these regulations will have virtually no effect on climate change.
“Today’s action by the EPA is the beginning of a regulatory barrage that will destroy jobs, raise energy prices for consumers, and undermine America’s global competitiveness,” Senator Inhofe said. “It now appears EPA’s regulatory reach will find its way into schools, hospitals, assisted living facilities, and just about any activity that meets minimum thresholds in the Clean Air Act. Rep. John Dingell was right: the endangerment finding will produce a ‘glorious mess.’
“It’s worth noting that the solution to this ‘glorious mess’ is not for Congress to pass cap-and-trade legislation, which replaces one very bad approach with another. Congress should pass a simple, narrowly-targeted bill that stops EPA in its tracks.”
Endangering Farmers, the Elderly, and Construction Workers: Once EPA makes a finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare under the Clean Air Act, who, specifically, would be affected? As EPA’s Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) makes clear, an endangerment finding would lead to regulations covering nearly every facet of the American economy. In reading through comments filed in the regulatory docket, one is struck by how broadly the Clean Air Act would apply once an endangerment finding is made-especially to sources that have hitherto never come under the ambit of the Act. EPA received thousands of public comments from various industries and groups that expressed concern and outright opposition-on issues of cost, competitiveness, jobs, and administrative complexity-to greenhouse gas regulation under the CAA.
AN “HISTORIC” DAY: EPA’s finding is indeed historic news, for the simple fact that it will enlarge EPA’s regulatory reach to an unprecedented degree, extending it into every corner of the US economy, causing enormous economic damage. According to Peter Glaser, a national legal expert on the Clean Air Act, an endangerment finding will lead to new EPA regulations covering virtually everything, including “office buildings, apartment buildings, warehouse and storage buildings, educational buildings, health care buildings such as hospitals and assisted living facilities, hotels, restaurants, religious worship buildings, public assembly buildings, supermarkets, retail malls, agricultural facilities…and many others.” An array of new development projects could be delayed, perhaps for several years, causing “an economic train wreck.” This conclusion was supported recently by the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis, which found that EPA’s new carbon regulations would destroy over 800,000 jobs and result in a cumulative GDP loss of $7 trillion by 2029.
Risky Legal Schemes: “…hospitals, schools, farms, commercial buildings, and a host of other small sources emit more than 250 tons per year of CO2-a limit expressly mentioned in the statute-they will be required, once an endangerment finding is made and CO2 becomes a regulated pollutant, to obtain costly, burdensome pre-construction permits for their activities…Further, Glaser notes that “the statutory language is mandatory and does not leave any room for EPA to exercise discretion or create exceptions.” In short, unless Congress exempts them, there’s no way out for schools, assisted living facilities, and thousands upon thousands of small businesses.”
I declare the Obama eco-appartchiks a public danger whose regulatory emissions must be contained.
***
Side note: My views on the Obama green power grab and the global warming mob have been clear and unchanged from day one. Some folks have asked about the ad that is appearing on the site today. I obviously do not agree with the advertiser’s support for the Copenhagen treaty.
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Categories: cap and trade,czars,global warming
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I’ll worry about breathing in and breathing out when the gubmint fellers deport about 20 million illegals – that would go a long way in reducing all kinds of ‘pollutants’ in our air. Since they won’t I see no reason to stop breathing.
Roadrage, You are forgetting one thing. When we win! Remember to go for the jugular.
From time to time we are all confronted with a situation where we have to separate ourselves from people, associations and/or businesses who have made decisions that are so contrary to our values that we have to let them go, even if it costs us personally.
I feel somewhat obligated to address this issue since this is sort of my fault, but .0003852* of the atmosphere is clouding the thoughts in my brain, stifling my creativity. Curse you, CO2! Why must you do this to me at a time like this?
Thanks, Siemens ad, for reminding me that I have a Twitter account.
*number is subject to change due to variables
I’m going to ask a rather obvious question:
Why is there a Siemens ad on this blog? Don’t they stand to gain as much from the Cap n’ Tax as GE? Aren’t they supporitng this Copenhagen travesty? Didn’t they do business in Iran?
Now I address our hostess:
Michelle, does this sit well with you? I mean, you can have so many other more suitable enterprises advertising on your blog. Why Siemens? They’re corporate poison. Siemens is one of many global corporations that are just a little too cozy with government.
And, yes, Michelle, I know you disagree with Siemens but do you really need them to help perpetuate this blog? What does that say about you?
It’s time to stop sleeping with the devil. Especially time for those who know better to walk away from such practices.
Or costs us financially. While I understand MM’s “side note” I don’t understand having such a company as Siemens advertise. I guess that’s my conscience at play. I mean, if I was employed right now, I would just look the other way while my employer did something that made it hard for me to look myself in the mirror. I’ve had such experiences with different employers, both public and private.
On another note, I’ve had to separate myself from people (my family) when they’ve chosen a path that didn’t align with my beliefs or morals. I could’ve kept making excuses, could’ve kept saying that I’ll look the other way while they betrayed me or did something they knew would hurt me, but I decided to make a clean break. Believe me, it hurt me personally to do so. Still does.
Human beings, many of them, don’t have the guts to take a stand and walk away from personal and professional relationships that don’t align with their “values.” It’s too messy. Too difficult. Too hard.
It can be done. And it’s worth looking yourself in the mirror again without wincing.
What if all Democrats were to stop breathing? I’m sure that would put a dent in our CO2 emissions.
I say congratulations Michelle! Looks like revenue coup for you! They are looking for places where decisions make hang out. They found you! I say take their money.
The new regulations these zealots will impose on our Liberty will be viewed by history as another step towards Fascism by the corrupt administration of the Chicago Thug.
Seems to me that if I were paying for advertising, I would want better placement than simply painting the ads on sites with matching keywords. Like how silly is it that Seimens is paying for ads on a site where most of us are not in the AGW cult. Maybe if Mr. Schmidt were less concered about erasing all of our privacy concerns, then Google could check the content of a site to see if the keywords are assembled into a position that is favorable to the advertiser. Anyhow, click the ad like mad and don’t buy anything. Make them pay for thier silly practice.
PS. We should not be in favor of pollution or opposed to decreasing our reliance on fossil fuels. In theory I support windmills if private enterprise wants to build them. I just oppose the government getting involved to issue mandates and directives that will result in profit for themselves at the expense of the American economy. For example, T Boone Pickens plan to install all this wind generation power and re-purpose our natural gas to auto fuel was great until he went beggin on Capital Hill for Billions in Government handouts to make it happen.
California Red :
Maybe they are testing the waters here.
I vote that we stuff the ballot box by clicking their ad like mad.
Maybe they would change their corporate focus based on the response here.
I would venture that Siemens is in some kind of co-op funding advertising on blogs that have proven traffic patterns. I’m doubtful MM had any decision about it being run on her site. If she didn’t get paid for every click on her site she’d have to resort to begging like other sites for tip jars, or shut it down. Let us be thankful for Siemens and their generosity.
And, no, we don’t have to agree with the sponsors to enjoy her generosity either.
24Klady :
Thank you for enlightening me about the ways of the cyber world.
Love the site but that’s the most obnoxious ad technique ever
I hate to think what our climate would be like without carbon dioxide.
The next order of business for the EPA should be to ban that dangerous substance known as dihydrogen monoxide. After all, dihydrogen monoxide is the main component found in acid rain, it can cause steel and other metals to corrode, and if breathed, it can kill!
The thing that gets me about this is that the EPA has effectively ruled that all animals damage the environment by breathing. This is breathtakingly stupid (sorry).
If this one action does not prove that bureaucrats (or at least leftist ones) lack even the most basic common sense of an infant, and therefore can not be trusted with authority of any kind, what does?
I will quite breathing if Al Gore does. I will even let him go first. Of course, it is a woman’s perogitive to change her mind.
I must have missed something or I am terribly naive. Can you explain why you accepted the ad in the 1st place if it’s contrary to your own beliefs?
These wackos are wanting us to give up our animals, but yet squawk about the polar bears. Looks like the more species that were to go extinct the happier they would be. Hypocritical eco idiots!!
I am really getting fed up with these people wanting to run everyone’s life. I have never seen this country in such a mess, I’m 73 years old, and what I see happening scares the life out of me. So many power hungry, ravening wolves. They want to tell people where and how to live, what to eat, what to wear,what to say, what light bulbs to use, when to flush the toilet, and how much water to use when we do.Seat belts, helmits, trans fats, cigarettes, obesity, Political correctness, hate crimes.Taxes into oblivion. I could go on and on. Soon they will want to come for your guns. All this is for our “own good”,like health care reform.(yeah right)
Time for Americans to stand up before they have ALL our freedoms.
Our entire way of life is under attack by lying liberal politicians and scientists whose agenda it is to transform this Country to a socialist European Nation. When is this coup going to end?
Maybe you will turn out to be right but I doubt it.
Many farmers are already paying heavily, and will be paying even more if this stands.
Much of the equipment on a farm is diesel powered, and equipment is already mandated to meet new emissions requirements which will mean many thousands added to each piece of equipment.
If you think ethanol production had a huge impact on corn being taken from the food market, this will have a similar if not bigger impact.
What do you think will happen with those who raise cattle or hogs? How much will they be taxed PER ANIMAL because of their supposed impact, as determined by the EPA?
These eco-whackos never think beyond their next footstep, and will do whatever they can to tax anything they can….which, along with control, is what they really want.
Liberals have never cared about how stupid they look, only what their end results are, which are control and money.
Those animals that are captive will be taxed. Those not captive will be ignored.
…but it does almost make one think the left would support hunting huh?
I s’pose PETA would be a little upset.
2010 at the earliest, but only if enough people get off their butts at election time to make it impossible for ACORN/SEIU and the left to steal elections.
This is nothing short of a prelude to one-world government.
Depends on the judge.
We need separation of earth and state.
And I really don’t like the new background on the site.
On the background Ad on Michelle’s site.. That’s kind of a tough one.. On one hand not all alternative power is bad, & being independent of foreign oil is a good thing..
But on the other hand, Seimen’s is clearly supporting a policy that is going to do serious damage to the Economy. I wrote a story today my site about this subject, & while I think that Seimen’s is a small part of the problem, I’m not sure that it rises to the level of refusing advertisement money from them, that promotes wind power, & not Cap & Trade specifically. After all, they aren’t refusing to advertise here knowing that many of us don’t agree with them on Cap & Tax right?
It’s a fine line, & a balancing act. You have to choose your battles. I think if Mrs. Malkin feels she made the right decision, then it’s hers to make, & I’m not going to criticize her on what I’m sure was a well thought out decision.
We don’t know that global warming will kill more people than it helps. Their predictions are complete guesses made with loaded dice. But we do know for sure that strict carbon regulations will kill people.
If carbon is a polution, then carbon-based life forms, like human beings, are a polution and can be regulated, too. That is what the left has always wanted to control — the earth’s population. If human life has negative value, it makes it easier for them to justify the restrictions that will end up starving and killing people by the millions. In fact, in their mind, it becomes a moral imperative to reduce the population.
If the left gets it’s way on regulating carbon, the masses will soon be wishing for Global Warming when they can no longer afford the energy needed to heat their homes or grow and cook their food. The left’s favorite philosopher, Mao, would be so proud of them.
Not only that, the SCOTUS decision of 2007 that opened the door to the EPA decision was based on testimony that had to have included evidence based in part on data tracing back to the CRU.
We now have a slam dunk smoking gun that the data used was manipulated and an admission from the CRU that much of the original data was destroyed with therefore no means for them to disprove that maybe ALL of the data from the CRU used in evidence was just a bunch of manufactured CRAP.
It ought to be reason enough for the SCOTUS to re-consider their decision, (and I personally would like to see liars like Ed Markey behind bars).
Possible I suppose, but very hard to believe.
Since humans inhale oxygen and exhale CO2, the worst polluters under this new mandate are tall office buildings like the Sear Tower.
All this EPA garbage is really an attempt to shift the focus from the global warming scam to a new type of scam. Scientists look horrific here.
The EPA, along with far too many Washington bureaucratic entities, has become arrogant. It is pushing an anti-American agenda yet is paid for with American taxpayer money.
Just for starters…2 things that need to be dissolved if and when conservatives manage to regain a veto-proof majority:
National Education Association (parents can do a much better job directing the educational standards on a state-by-state level)
Environmental Protection Agency (pick up your own damn trash)
I don’t recall the EPA being a branch of the federal government. Wherever it derived its power from can and should be taken away by that source – or, their judgements taken as advisory only.
When someone can show where a forest, let alone one tree, has died because of CO2 exposure, please provide the proof.
Any idiot knows that humans thrive on oxygen and plants on carbon dioxide. We exhale CO2 and plants produce oxygen. Pretty ingenius way of supplying everyone’s needs to survive.
And yes, put a human in a sealed room with only CO2 and yes, it will be harmful to that person.
The proponents of this junk science are either insane or have an agenda that has nothing to do with the climate; CO2; or anything else related to it. It’s a money and power grab and most sane people see it for what it is.
Or, is this an example of the strong deception that people will believe in the end times according to the Bible?
Guys, guys calm down on MM for the ad. Honestly short of using the keyboard how much do you know about the net or google ads?
I’ve ran a few forums over the years, been to a number and to various websites and let me tell you, you have ZERO control over the ads. They are compleatly 100% random and based off of whats typed the most on said sie or forum at the time. We are speaking on global warming so google bots pick it up reguardless of stance and then finds the proper money making ad from a its list.
I’m un-aware of many or any companies going GLOBAL WARMING IS FALSE OR EVIL, rather its more like SAVE YOUR SELF PREY FER GUBERMENT TO SAVE US. So we get a pro-eco ad. For instance we type RPG alot then an RPG Ad will be up, type ann coulter then her books or site. Type Bush’s baked beans enough you get that ad.
Once the summit is over in Denmark I suspect the ad will be gone. Its not MM’s fault nor can she remove it without removing ALL of it. And it cost money to run a site like this, so you want the ad gone, then ask MM where you may send money, till then wait and ignore if you don’t want to pay.
Its much like goverment. All of the complaining we do won’t stop or fix anything, you got to pay to do it, and how or what that is, up to each person.
So move along nothing to see here.
blah sorry about typo’s, not a very good typiest at times…
The EPA is bypassing Congress, basically giving them the finger.
All of Congress ought to be hopping mad at this usurpation of their power.
They should defund the EPA.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” – Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776
I submit that any government which proposes to regulate the breath of its citizens has decided to stomp on “unalienable Rights”.
Ah, “Minority Report.”
Saw the movie: this doesn’t go well.