December 7, 2009

Obama, EPA Finalizing ‘Endangerment Finding’ on Emissions

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The Environmental Protection Agency and the Obama Administration are expected to announce the long-awaited — and long-feared, by some — ruling that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions pose a danger to public health and welfare, according to news reports.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has planned a “significant climate announcement” at 1:15 Eastern Dec. 7.

The so-called “endangerment finding” is likely to put in motion a nationwide cap-and-trade program, even if Congress does not enact such legislation, reports the Washington Post.

In response, Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) is telling his Republican colleagues they should back a climate bill so that Congress, not the EPA, defines the rules on national emissions, reports The Hill.

If Jackson announces the endangerment finding as expected, large polluters would be required to upgrade machinery to reduce emissions.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue, in a statement released to the Wall Street Journal, said that EPA’s ruling could lead to a “top-down command-and-control regime that will choke off growth by adding new mandates to virtually every major construction and renovation project.”

Dan Riedinger, spokesman for the Edison Electric Institute, a utility trade group, told WSJ that the EPA would be less likely than Congress to devise an “economywide” approach to emissions regulations that spreads the burden of emissions cuts to other economic sectors.

Under preliminary EPA drafts of the ruling, facilities that emit less than 25,000 tons of CO2e annually would be exempt.

In September, EPA said that large emitters of greenhouse gases will have to begin collecting their emissions data Jan. 1 under the new reporting system.

The program will apply to about 10,000 facilities that emit about 85 percent of the nation’s greenhouse gases.

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Reader Comments

“U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue, in a statement released to the Wall Street Journal, said that EPA’s ruling could lead to a ‘top-down command-and-control regime that will choke off growth by adding new mandates to virtually every major construction and renovation project.’”

Hey Thomas Donohue and US Chamber – if you are so concerned about the effects of EPA regulation (and you should be), then stop lobbying against legislative attempts to address the issue in a more controlled manner!!

It’s really too bad that we have a president and an EPA head that are more concerned with pushing personal agendas, using unproven science as a means to impose higher taxes and greater restrictions on our economy and our daily lives than with actually helping the country. The climate change clamor is rapidly becoming the theater of the absurd with the clowns running the show.

The prevailing media narrative (that climate change is an existential threat to us and planet earth) is driving environmental politicking away from science and toward the irrational demonization of carbon on our planet of carbon-based ecosystems. All life on earth would end without carbon in the form of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. To regulate carbon dioxide as an “air pollutant” is as senseless as regulating oxygen as an air pollutant – these two gases interact to sustain all life on earth. The US EPA has concluded that carbon dioxide linked to climate change, and five other greenhouse gases, are a danger to public health and welfare. Last month, the EPA took the first steps to regulate greenhouse gases as “air pollutants” using an expensive cap-and-trade system. How did this happen ?

The media has been a constant enabler of scary environmental news. And, environmental groups agitate for free media attention as a routine advertising and fund raising practice – green groups have about $1.5 billion in assets. One of the most influential actors (as with all government policies and resultant regulations) is lobbyists. Both legitimate and ubiquitous in Washington DC, there were no less than 2,340 climate change lobbyists in 2008 according to the Center for Public Integrity. Lobbyists have median salaries of $100,000 per year, and there are about 4.5 climate lobbyists for each member of the US Congress. Of the numerous green eco-groups, about 37 have paid and registered lobbyists.

Reality check: Life on planet earth will not survive a war on carbon.

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