Issued today 4/28/2010
EPA Press Office
202-564-4355
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 28, 2010
Statement of Lisa P. Jackson Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Legislative Hearing on Clean Energy Policies That Reduce Our Dependence on Oil
House Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment
WASHINGTON – Chairmen Markey and Waxman, Ranking Members Upton and Barton, Chairman Emeritus Dingell, and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to testify about the Environmental Protection Agency’s work to reduce America’s oil dependence and greenhouse gas emissions. That work stems from two seminal events.
First, in April 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded in Massachusetts v. EPA that the Clean Air Act’s definition of air pollution includes greenhouse gases. The Court rejected then-Administrator Johnson’s refusal to determine whether that pollution from motor vehicles endangers public health or welfare.
In response to the Supreme Court’s decision, and based on the best available science and EPA’s review of thousands of public comments, I found in December 2009 that motor-vehicle greenhouse gas emissions do endanger Americans’ health and welfare.
I am not alone in reaching that conclusion. Scientists at the 13 federal agencies that make up the U.S. Global Change Research Program have reported that unchecked greenhouse gas emissions pose significant risks to the wellbeing of the American public. The National Academy of Sciences has stated that the climate is changing, that the changes are mainly caused by human interference with the atmosphere, and that those changes will transform the environmental conditions on Earth unless counter-measures are taken.
The second pivotal event was the agreement President Obama announced in May 2009 between EPA, the Department of Transportation, the nation’s automakers, America’s autoworkers, and the State of California to seek harmonized, nationwide limits on the fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions of new cars and light trucks.
My endangerment finding in December satisfied the prerequisite in the Clean Air Act for establishing a greenhouse gas emissions standard for cars and light trucks of Model Years 2012 through 2016. So I was able to issue that final standard earlier this month, on the same day that Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood signed a final fuel efficiency standard for the same vehicles.
Using existing technologies, manufacturers can configure new cars and light trucks to satisfy both standards at the same time. And vehicles complying with the federal standards will automatically comply with the greenhouse gas emissions standard established by California and adopted by 13 other states. This harmonized and nationally uniform program achieves the goal the President announced last May.
Moreover, the EPA and DOT standards will reduce the lifetime oil use of the covered vehicles by more than 1.8 billion barrels. That will do away with more than a billion barrels of imported oil, assuming the current ratio of domestic production to imports does not improve. The standards also will eliminate more than 960 million metric tons of greenhouse gas pollution.
But if Congress now nullified EPA’s finding that greenhouse gas pollution endangers the American public, that action would remove the legal basis for a federal greenhouse gas emissions standard for motor vehicles. Eliminating the EPA standard would forfeit one quarter of the combined EPA-DOT program’s fuel savings and one third of its greenhouse gas emissions cuts. California and the other states that have adopted California’s greenhouse gas emissions standard would almost certainly respond by enforcing that standard within their jurisdictions, leaving the automobile industry without the nationwide uniformity that it has described as vital to its business.
I would like to mention one more action that EPA has taken to reduce America’s oil dependence and greenhouse gas emissions. In February, I signed a final renewable fuels standard. It substantially increases the volume of renewable products – including cellulosic bio-fuel – that refiners must blend into transportation fuel. EPA will implement the standard fully by the end of 2022. In that year alone, the standard will decrease America’s oil imports by 41 and a half billion dollars. And U.S. greenhouse gas emissions that year will be 138 million metric tons lower thanks to the standard.
EPA’s recent work on vehicles and fuels shows that enhancing America’s energy security and reducing America’s greenhouse gas pollution are two sides of the same coin.
R133
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h/t to WUWT reader Michael C. Roberts
old construction worker says:
April 29, 2010 at 4:10 am
Please help to change Democrat Party.
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If you look at history, the Democratic party (funded by the bankers) has been used to push legislation that is destructive to the USA, such as the 1913 Federal Reserve Act and the confiscation of US citizens gold by the bankers.
before you think I am crazy think of this. The leaked Denmark text that crashed the talks in Copenhagen named the World Bank as Controller of Carbon credit trading. After the World Bank and IMF annual meeting in New York City they meet at David Rockefeller’s Westchester estate. Maurice Strong father of the entire CAGW mess is a senior Adviser to the World Bank and Rockefeller Foundation Trustee.
“…To this day, no one can say what Theodore Roosevelt’s program was, or why he would sabotage his own party. Since the bankers were financing all three candidates, they would win regardless of the outcome. Later Congressional testimony showed that in the firm of Kuhn Loeb Company, Felix Warburg was supporting Taft, Paul Warburg and Jacob Schiff were supporting Wilson, and Otto Kahn was supporting Roosevelt. The result was that a Democratic Congress and a Democratic President were elected in 1912 to get the central bank legislation passed…..
For many years, there has been considerable mystery about who actually owns the stock of the Federal Reserve Banks…. Because the Federal Reserve Bank of New York was to set the interest rates and direct open market operations, thus controlling the daily supply and price of money throughout the United States, it is the stockholders of that bank who are the real directors of the entire system. For the first time, it can be revealed who those stockholders are. This writer has the original organization certificates of the twelve Federal Reserve Banks, giving the ownership of shares by the national banks in each district. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York issued 203,053 shares, and, as filed with the Comptroller of the Currency May 19, 1914, the large New York City banks took more than half of the outstanding shares. The Rockefeller Kuhn, Loeb-controlled National City Bank took the largest number of shares of any bank, 30,000 shares. J.P. Morgan’s First National Bank took 15,000 shares. When these two banks merged in 1955, they owned in one block almost one fourth of the shares in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which controlled the entire system, and thus they could name Paul Volcker or anyone else they chose to be Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Chase National Bank took 6,000 shares. The Marine Nation Bank of Buffalo, later known as Marine Midland, took 6,000 shares. This bank was owned by the Schoellkopf family, which controlled Niagara Power Company and other large interests. National Bank of Commerce of New York City took 21,000 shares. The shareholders of these banks which own the stock of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York are the people who have controlled our political and economic destinies since 1914. They are the Rothschilds, of Europe, Lazard Freres (Eugene Meyer), Kuhn Loeb Company, Warburg Company, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, the Rockefeller family, and the J.P. Morgan interests. These interests have merged and consolidated in recent years, so that the control is much more concentrated. National Bank of Commerce is now Morgan Guaranty Trust Company. Lehman Brothers has merged with Kuhn, Loeb Company, First National Bank has merged with the National City Bank, and in the other eleven Federal Reserve Districts, these same shareholders indirectly own or control shares in those banks, with the other shares owned by the leading families in those areas who own or control the principal industries in these regions.* The “local” families set up regional councils, on orders from New York, of such groups as the Council on Foreign Relations, The Trilateral Commission, and other instruments of control devised by their masters. They finance and control political developments in their area, name candidates, and are seldom successfully opposed in their plans.” http://www.whale.to/b/m_ch_3.html
Anybody seen my fuel ration book?
Another related EPA/DOT/USDA move is
“…The feds are overstepping their juristiction attempting to impose DOT regulations on farmers for tractors and other farm vehicles. …
Forcing farmers to act like long distance truckers will destroy small farms. Bureaucrats are ceaselessly looking for more ways to extend their domain by taking away our traditional rights to live our lives. “
Currently farming equipment is not subject to fuel tax. If Farm tractors will be subject to similar regs to that of long distance truckers it is the first step to regulating and taxing ALL equipment using internal combustion engines.
I guess it is time to get my draft horse colts trained.
Forgot the site for the quote. It is http://nonais.org/2010/03/02/feds-dot-farm-tractors/
Noelene says:
April 28, 2010 at 9:44 pm
The day will come when people are limited by the government on how much driving they can do.
Oh well,at least it would cut the crime rate.
They are trying that in my neck of the woods. Putting all the road money into trains trying to force everyone onto mass transit (Portland, OR). You know what the cops call the Max train? A rolling crime wave. Crime has gone up significantly a half mile to either side of the track. The criminals jump on the train, go to a neighborhood, commit crimes then hop the train to ride home again. They are out of their area so nobody recognizes them and there is no vehicle description or license plate to give cops if they are seen. Oh, lets not forget transit was given money to put up security cameras but most those don’t work or were never isntalled.
Hey Gail Combs : April 30, 2010 at 5:17 am.
Don’t worry! as long as we do not need a billion bucks for living. Perhaps you won’t believe me but I knew one of these guys, many years ago, and a few weeks afterwards he was eaten by a crocodile in a southern asia jungle. I think that they just take care of their pennies in case they need some change. If they think they will make the world better, well, that is their illusion. As Paul Brunton’s indian guru said: “Change yourself and the world will change”. If you are unable to change a simple trait of you character how do you dare to change the world?
Well, I concede you that some guys are utterly disgusting and at the same time ridiculously funny like our beloved “Al Baby”, caring so much of destroying the last remnants of knowledge in our kids and grandkids with his Nobel prize science or devilish like old crow Jerry Ravetz, who seeks to delete all archives of knowledge from humanity’s hard disk with his post-normal-virus.
Fortunately they shun before light beacons like WUWT.
When Benjamin Franklin was asked what kind of government had been crafted, he responded “It’s a Republic Ma’am, if you can keep it.”
It is now time for the individual states to repudiate these unlawful acts by the Federal Government.
At least there is some comfort that Poor Richard knew there would be days like these.
Zeke the Sneak says:
April 30, 2010 at 11:24 am
I would repudiate the republic instead, monarchy was better (provided I am the King, of course).
Believe me, just wait 90-100 years, and things, believe me, will be different, so enjoy your life TODAY and let the “serious people” to worry about not so serious matters.
-Increased taxes means higher expenses in salaries.
-Higher salaries means the goods produced becomes more expensive.
-More expensive goods means the customer goes elsewhere.
-This force the investors to get the goods produced in China.
-This creates unemployment.
It is too late then for the politician to promise “more jobs” in the next election.
As usual the tyrants on the left cannot understand what is the cause and what is effect.
That is the great irony of it all.