EPA Press Office
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 8, 2010
Administrator Jackson: Keep Moving America Forward Into Energy Independence
Addresses upcoming “resolution of disapproval” vote in remarks before small business owners
WASHINGTON – In remarks today at EPA’s 2010 Small Business Environmental Conference, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson outlined the impact of a so-called “resolution of disapproval” of the EPA’s endangerment finding in the Senate. Administrator Jackson discussed how this resolution would undermine EPA’s common-sense approach to addressing climate change, move America a “big step backward in the race for clean energy” and “double down on the energy and environmental policies that feed our oil addiction.”
Administrator Jackson noted that increasing our oil addiction “…at the very moment a massive spill – the largest environmental disaster in American history – is devastating families and businesses and destroying wetlands is contrary to our national interests.” Administrator Jackson also reminded these small businesses that EPA has finalized a rule specifically designed to protect them from regulation – focusing EPA’s efforts on the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions, like power plants and oil refineries.
The administrator’s full remarks are below. Video of these remarks are available at http://www.epa.gov/administrator
Remarks of U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson
2010 Small Business Environmental Conference
June 8, 2010
(As prepared for delivery.)
I’m happy to have the chance to welcome you today. I want to use my time here to speak about a question before Congress this week – a question that involves small businesses and our clean energy economy. But let me begin by saying that in the last 18 months this administration has been working to strengthen the prospects for American small businesses.
We are facing the worst economic challenges of any generation since World War II. The recovery we envision is a recovery focused on Main Street – a recovery that provides economic security through good wages, affordable health care, and a strong, stable horizon for investing in new businesses, new ideas and new workers. We know that at the core of that recovery are American small businesses. That’s why these first months have been full of bold steps to help you prosper.
The needs of small business have also factored into the response in the Gulf. The worst environmental disaster in our nation’s history is also an economic catastrophe for the small business there – the fishers and shrimpers and restaurant owners who live off the resources of the water. There are billions of dollars and thousands of jobs at stake in travel, tourism, food and other industries. Because those industries make up the foundation of these economies, those effects can be expected to ripple outwards. President Obama has made clear to BP that the protection and compensation of small businesses is a priority. In a meeting I attended with the President last Friday, he said in no uncertain terms that the needs of the people and the businesses in that area come before the needs of BP shareholders.
When it comes to the environmental issues you are here to discuss, small businesses play a critical role as the drivers of innovation. Today we’re honoring innovative small businesses that are leading the way – like the Dull Homestead, a family farm in Brookville, Ohio. The first wind generator went up on the Homestead in 2004. Today there are six wind turbines, a fuel cell generator, geothermal and biomass heating, and other renewable energy technologies. That work earned the Dull Homestead the small business environmental stewardship award.
We also see innovative products like Greensulate from Ecovative Design in New York. Greensulate is a natural form of insulation made from locally-grown materials. They use rice hulls from the Midwest, or cotton burrs from the South – keeping costs and transportation emissions down. Unlike most insulation that gives off significant CO2 emissions during production, Greensulate is organically grown, not manufactured. And the idea began as a spark in the mind of an entrepreneur, an idea that moved from the drawing board to the market place with the help of a Small Business Innovation Research grant.
These are the kinds of innovations that have allowed us to grow our economy and protect our environment. In the last 30 years, emissions of six dangerous air pollutants that cause smog, acid rain, lead poisoning and more decreased 54 percent. At the same time, gross domestic product grew by 126 percent. That means we made huge reductions in air pollution at the same time that more cars went on the road, more power plants went on line and more buildings went up. That kind of progress only happens when innovations are encouraged to take shape and take hold – and our nation’s best innovators come from our small businesses.
So – at a time of extraordinary challenges, this administration and this EPA are working to ensure that the foundations you need to thrive are strong and protected. As the drivers of economic growth and technological innovation, we also want to ensure that you have the resources and the flexibility you need to invest in new directions. That is what “Expanding Partnerships to Meet the Changing Regulatory Landscape is All About.” Which brings me to the question before Congress this week.
In two days, the Senate is scheduled take a vote that will have a significant impact on our regulatory future. Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska has proposed a resolution of disapproval of EPA’s endangerment finding on greenhouse gases. As you know, EPA followed both the science and the Supreme Court last year to issue a finding that greenhouse gases pose a threat to our health and welfare. That was a historic decision. And it obligated our agency to find ways of reducing greenhouse gas pollution under the Clean Air Act.
Supporters of Senator Murkowski’s resolution, including the oil industry and their lobbyists, claim that the endangerment finding will force small businesses – restaurants, coffee shops and mom-and-pop stores – to comply with burdensome, potentially bankrupting regulations. I hope the small business owners in this room will be sure and write to the big oil companies to thank them for looking out for the little guys and taking up this noble cause. However, I have to say I agree with their concerns. I know that the local Starbucks and the backyard grill are no places to look for meaningful CO2 reductions. That is why – before we issued the endangerment finding – EPA went to work on a rule that protects small businesses. Under what we call the tailoring rule, small sources would be exempted from regulations for the next six years. That should be more than enough time for Congress to pass a law with permanent exemptions.
Senator Murkowski’s resolution would undermine that common sense approach. It would take away EPA’s ability to take action on climate change. And it would ignore and override scientific findings, allowing big oil companies, big refineries and others to continue to pollute without any oversight or consequence. Finally, it will result in exactly zero protections for small businesses.
What is will do is move America a big step backward in the race for clean energy. It will double down on the energy and environmental policies that feed our oil addiction. That addiction to oil pollutes the air we breathe. It sends billions of our dollars to foreign countries. And it leaves American small businesses and American drivers at the mercy of fuel price spikes, like the $4 a gallon prices we were paying not so long ago. The BP oil spill is a tragic reminder of the hazards of our oil addiction. It highlights just how important it is that we keep moving America forward, into energy independence.
For those reasons and more, we’ve taken significant steps forward. In addition to the tailoring rule, EPA joined President Obama, automakers, the Department of Transportation, governors from across the country and environmental advocates to craft an historic agreement. The clean cars program that we built will make American cars more fuel efficient than ever and cut oil consumption by billions of barrels. It will also mean new innovations.
American scientists can step up to produce new composite materials that make cars lighter, safer and more fuel efficient. Our inventors and entrepreneurs can take the lead in advanced battery technology for plug-in hybrids and electric cars. And manufacturers across the country can produce these new components – which they can then sell to automakers in the US and around the globe.
The Murkowski resolution would gut EPA’s authority in the clean cars program. Our dependence on oil would grow by 455 million barrels. That dependence rises to billions of barrels when you factor in the effect on a follow-on program that expands fuel efficiency to heavy-duty vehicles and extends beyond the 2016 model year. Undermining a program supported by our automakers and autoworkers, environmentalists and governors from across the country seems questionable at any time. But going back to a failed approach and deepening our oil addiction at the very moment a massive spill – the largest environmental disaster in American history – is devastating families and businesses and destroying wetlands is contrary to our national interests.
This is happening despite the overwhelming science on the dangers of climate change, despite the Supreme Court’s 2007 decision that EPA must use the Clean Air Act to reduce the proven threat of greenhouse gases, and despite the fact that leaving this problem for our children to solve is an act of breathtaking negligence.
Supposedly these efforts have been put forward to protect jobs. In reality, they will have serious negative economic effects. The clean cars program could be put on indefinite hold, leaving American automakers once again facing a patchwork of state standards. Without a clear picture of greenhouse gas regulations, there will be little incentive to invest in clean energy jobs. America will fall further behind our international competitors in the race for clean energy innovation. Finally, the economic costs of unchecked climate change will be orders of magnitude higher for the next generation than it would be for us to take action today.
I can’t in good conscience support any measure that passes that burden on to my two sons, and to their children. I find it hard to believe that any parent could say to their child, “We’re going to wait to act.” It ignores the responsibility we have to move the country forward in a way that creates jobs, increases our security by breaking our dependence on foreign oil, and protects the air and water we rely on.
At no point in our history has any problem been solved by waiting another year to act or burying our heads in the sand. Our oil addiction is not going to go away unless we act. Now is not the time to go back. Rather than increasing our addiction, we need to keep moving America forward into a clean energy future. As we move forward, we’ll need the help of our small business community – our nation’s innovators and job creators. Your cooperation and coordination are vital to meeting both our economic and our environmental goals. I look forward to working with you. Thank you.
I can not opine but I do express my sincere condolences.
Bull!
So what has the economics of energy production got to do with the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency anyway?
I got to the words “oil addiction” and had to excuse myself to the bathroom to throwup. What a load of horse$#!t. Stop acting like we just figured out this crude oil stuff was good for making things run.
Nothing but sound and fury….
No wonder people are sitting on their hands waiting to see what happens in November.
She sounds really nervous about the outcome of the vote. Was oxygen on that list?
Once again, the administration mixes up the rhetoric between real pollutants (smog generating pollutants and lead) , energy security (importing oil) and climate change.
Don’t let them conflate the two issues!
Disconnect the two, and most people would go along with reducing toxic emissions (CO2 is not toxic to life at the concentrations we are dealing with-and good for plants) and detaching from foreign oil imports.
So, regulate lead, mercury from coal burning, and nitrous oxides etc, and put a big tax on IMPORTED oil.
But there is no crisis that would justify cap and trade carbon trading as a big giveaway to the Goldman Sachs crowd.
I don’t recognize this line of thinking as being anything like a free and democratic country. How can a non-elected body formulate and enforce such a highly legislative agenda? To say it’s scary is not even close. It’s stooopid scaaary. She barely even mentions the environment. Does she really have a mandate to ensure energy self sufficiency? That seems to be her biggest focus. How is that environmental protection? Of course I don’t live in the US. But I was under the misunderstanding that you had a democracy of some sort going on there.
Good Lord, this BS is getting to be incredibly depressing.
Well, of course. You didn’t think for a second she would support the Murkowski “gut the EPA” bill did you? I mean, we’re talking about her political and financial future here!
Coalsoffire,
…so did I….
America, designed by Geniuses, run by Idiots….
11 died on the drilling platform. How sad. 40,000 will die in car accidents due to the tiny car regulations.
Fake green is around us.
I just contacted Sen. Durbin’s office by phone. He will vote against the resolution.
The staffer had no clue, saying if CO2 were to high, it would be bad for our health.
He had no counter to the lack of political accountability of the EPA vs Congress’s action and the false connection to the BP oil mess.
Historically, US did not outlaw the horse for the car to take over our transportation needs. Why do we need to place a heavy tax on combustion products like CO2 today? My understanding is that this would increase the cost of every day products and inflate our electrical bill without an increase in salary. Not a good deal, vote down any tax on CO2. Yes, getting US energy independent is wonderful goal but it is a separate issue. Allowing the electric engine to continue to improve the efficiency and decrease the cost should be the driving force behind replacing gasoline as our transportation fuel within the free world marketplace. Remember electric cars still need electrical power plants to supply their horsepower.
Jackson is very dishonest. When folks have addictions, their brain releases chemicals and endorphins. Oil creates nothing more than ambivalence. It is a strawman fetish that triggers her false claims.
Humans eat food. Hopefully daily. For the most part we don;’t accuse them of being addicts. Much of our petrol consumption is used to raise food for the world. Our use of petrol for food production is actually getting more efficient. More tons of food for less tons of petrol. We are wasting millions of tons of petrol under the notion that ethanol is cleaner CO2 from the exhaust than the Co and CO2 from a gasolene exhaust.
This is happening despite the overwhelming science on the dangers of climate change, …
I throw the BS flag. There is no science on the dangers of climate change. There is speculation and modeling (which can be the samething) but no science.
“Administrator Jackson also reminded these small businesses that EPA has finalized a rule specifically designed to protect them from regulation – focusing EPA’s efforts on the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions, like power plants and oil refineries.”
IOW, we’re lining you up for the guillotine, tallest to shortest.
Re: Coaloffire June 8th 1:18 pm
That is exactly right it is as if the FAA declared that trains can fly and then made rules to regulate trains.
Dear Jay (C[z]ech?),
Nice thought (tax on oil imports). Alas, with the way the oil market is set-up (internationalized, with ALL transactions originating in USD), this would be hard to implement (this is why it is almost impossible to single-out the prevention of imports from specific countries).
Of course, the conflation by Jackson of the EPA is so obvious on this, a Middle Schooler would see through it with ease. This is not going to help the admin. in November, as people do not like being treated like fools.
Bruce
I note that this press release is full of distortions and hides the economic burden of socialist mandates dictating design “changes” that only increase costs and decrease efficiency. (For example, the EPA mandates on regional differences in summer time fuel blends increase both the price of gasoline everywhere, but also the amount of energy needed to refine it.)
Likewise, strong-arming (forcing) democratic governors (who receive government money! and union money! and union votes ! to support the unions in Detroit who received government money to bail out the their union pension funds and auto manufactures to support the government position that the government should change car designs by arbitrary reductions in gas mileage is NOT a “scientific” argument.
It is a political statement that makes political patrons of unions, of less safe cars, of less powerful cars happy.
It can accurately be argued that Pelosi’s restrictins on offshore drilling and ANWAR drilling restriction in early 2007 led DIRECTLY to the higher fuel prices in 2007 through late summer 2008. Higher fuel prices broke the car and manufacturing and distribution and housing industries and air and travel industries. Those losses – wih the arbitrary and fake market for alternative (more expensive!) “fuels” such as bio-fuels to “solve” the CO2 problems then collapsed the housing and mortgage and financial industries that led to our current worldwide recession/depression. IF the gas prices had not risen as democrat energy policies were implemented through Pelosi (House) and Reid (Senate) control – and not effectively opposed by Bush – then the financial crash in September would not have happened.
Then again, without that September crash, and the energy-induced recession, Obama and the democrats would not be in power now. (Would says a little job loss is not a good thing, or a “we should not let a good crisis go to waste”?)
I fail to see how levying taxes and fines on the coal-burning electric power industry is going to help small business. Higher rates for electricity are beneficial … how?
Her comments are typical, and they are mostly entirely wrong. I am in the auto industry, and the fuel economy standards (CAFE) are already set by NHTSA for 2016, and the Murkowski resolution will do nothing to change them. Today, there are three fuel economy standards, California, EPA, and NHTSA. There should only be one, NHTSA. But EPA wants to control fuel mileage standards by control of CO2. The Murkowski resolution must pass, to put the EPA in control of our economy, our transportation, and our lives, would be a serious and tragic mistake.
The Murkowski resolution simply keeps the control in Congress, and prevents the EPA from rewriting the Clean Air Act.
Anyone who talks about “our oil addiction” does not belong in government, put them in the loony bin with the other radical greens.
There is Garrett’s phenomenon, which tells us that planet Earth GDP is directly proportional to energy consumption: 9.7 mW x year per US $1 inflation-adjusted to prices 1990. Thus, it is law-governed the carbon sequestration chokes grow of the world and aggravates the crisis. As exactly measured in Spain, 1 artificially created “green” job means destruction of at least 2.3 jobs in really productive economics. EPA brutally kills grow, jobs and welfare.
Administrator Jackson clearly believes there is a connection between burning carbonaceous fuels and climate change. She just as clearly does NOT see a connection between her agency paying scientists, and those same scientists telling her what she wants to hear.
Why is it that people in the pay of Big Business are automatically evil and not to be trusted, but scientists and bureaucrats in the pay of Big Government are honest and without doubts? Conflict of interest ethics should prohibit EPA from funding climate science. “We need to regulate more things, so let’s fund some studies showing all the additional things that need to be regulated.”
Smaller cars she calls clean?
Larger cars are dirty?
Smaller children/toddlers are clean and large people are dirty?
Is dirt by the spoon full cleaner than dirt from a shovel?
She also is not serious about dependence on foreign oil. We can convert domestic coal to either gas or liquid fuel.
We could send our awesome host to her house for an ambush interview. Have her splain and do so by showing her work how CO2 goes up and it still cools off after sunset. Does CO2 drop at night?
Et tu Lisa?
“Administrator Jackson also reminded these small businesses that EPA has finalized a rule specifically designed to protect them from regulation – focusing EPA’s efforts on the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions, like power plants and oil refineries” – raising the cost these small businesses pay for energy – driving still more of our industry off-shore.
We have plenty of wind and sunlight. We should be focusing on renewable energy instead of drilling for more oil.
Small businesses should realize that consumers will end up having less spending power after all the taxes that those consumers will be paying thanks to EPA-regulations. It will hurt small businesses as much as the rest of the economy. Maybe even worse.
Vote EPA out!
I’m not US-citizen and I am completely shocked about the US democracy. I always thought it was very direct, but it’s not. Now it’s getting even further away from people than here in Europe. Welcome to the jungle, but leave it while you can!
So is the EPA under any kind of democratic control or is it just a eco-fascist government organization with unlimited power? The American EPA sounds very scary to me as a Swede, it’s like if our green party would be put in power and have sole responsibility of environmental errands and politics.
I just hung up the phone. Sears called and offered a free set of estimates for improving energy efficience in my home.
Federal tax subsidized windows.
Energy Star Appliances.
I pay for an inspection which is a car and gallons of gas. Pay some federal Union approved folks to come out and do what I can do myself and run all this thru red tape and borrow money from China. This ordeal would generate 15 grand in taxes and purchases, burn up a lot of petrol and save a few dollars a month on the 70% increase in energy prices Obama promised. Tell Jackson to leave us alone. May electric bill was 43 dollars. June will have more a/c days. Most of these energy saving endeavors are energy wasters.
“Simpsons – the movie” becomes more and more close to reality. Remember Eepah?
We are currently facing the 21st Century version of taxation without representation, as unelected, unacountable beauracrats seek to impose their political and economic agenda upon the American people.
This will not end well, one way or the other.
This is IT! ☺
“Administrator Jackson discussed how this resolution would undermine EPA’s common-sense approach to addressing climate change, move America a “big step backward in the race for clean energy” and “double down on the energy and environmental policies that feed our oil addiction.””
EPA and common sense in the same sentence?
Hah!
“… big step backward in the race for clean energy”?
Hah! Leave CO2 alone and put a stop to soot, mercury, and SO2 emissions. (Oh wait… we’ve had scrubbeers since the ’80s…)
“… environmental policies that feed our oil addiction.”
Huh?! I thought unrestricted access to world oil supplies helped keep us addicted to oil. US environmental policies seem to do everything possible to prevent access to US oil. And what do US environmental policies have to do with foriegn trade? Seems a bit out of the EPA’s jurisdiction, if you ask me.
The scary thing is, I think she genuinely believes she’s doing good. Yipes
Does anyone know the current status of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s lawsuit (here) that challenges the EPA’s global warming regulations? Also, I thought somebody was also suing the EPA for not following “EPA Quality Guidelines”, discussed here at Climate Audit. Is this still active, and, if so, is their any status available?
I would hope either or both of these might just put a rather large crimp in the EPS’s plans for regulating CO2.
“EPA’s common-sense approach to addressing climate change”
If common sense is what’s called for what do we need with an EPA? Common sense rules are what legislatures are designed to make. This business is too important to be handled by an agency whose head thinks her country suffers from an “oil addiction.” Talk of an “oil addiction” is soap box rhetoric that has little to do with the nature of our predicament in the gulf.
The reality is that there is no hope of any innovation coming out of the EPA, heads of agencies should not be cursing our modern way of life, and Lisa Jackson’s answers for our oil addiction problem is horse sh&t — literally if we lose are modern modes of transportation .
This the same tripe they’ve been spewing ever sine the big O came into office and it’s all false , starting with the Supreme Court decision . As far as I could tell , the SCOTUS told the EPA that in order to regulate CO2 , they would have to find that CO2 was an endangerment . We all know how the EPA arrived at that finding – they could have found otherwise but didn’t . Hell , they even stacked the deck .
As for the rest of it ….. well , if we all start smoking from that pipe , we’re in deep doo .
Now you all know what I have to put up with on a day to day basis.
Nice to see the govt thinks we are a bunch of idiots that will believe anything they say. Unfortunately for them, we can think & they will see the results of that in Nov. The energy addiction metaphor is an insult to all those who are afflicted with true addictions. ….but they don’t really care about people the way they claim anyway. Decreasing foreign energy dependance is a good thing, doing thru a mythical CO2 boogieman is not. They need to learn that we will respect honest talk on these matters.
“Stephen Melinger says:
June 8, 2010 at 1:55 pm
We have plenty of wind and sunlight. We should be focusing on renewable energy instead of drilling for more oil.”
Stephen, until we figure out how to make that work, what do you propose we do in the mean time? That all sounds warm and fuzzy, until you have to do without some things you may be used to. Like food.
I have to admit that it is extremely tempting, given Jackson’s (and other’s, including Obama here) invocation of the Gulf spill in this context, to subscribe to (or invent if it doesn’t exist already) a “Gulf Oil Truther” conspiracy theory.
Yep, here’s how it goes: When the spill first happened Obama or some high official decided not to let this crisis go to waste and thus deliberately neglected (possibly illegally) to implement the national contingency plan for oil spills. They even suppressed any move toward using the well-established bioremediation technology that could possibly forestall a major environmental disaster! Doesn’t it all add up?
The objective was clear: by sacrificing a small ecosystem they could gain the political capital needed to ram through unpopular environmental legislations and policy initiatives. Don’t forget that BP was a major contributor to Obama’s election campaign.
Clever plan. Until the surely-soon-to-be-released homemade video “Loose Hope and Change” goes viral! Heh-heh!
Maybe they even intervened at a higher level earlier in the game, either conspiring with BP insiders to install faulty equipment or going as far as sabotage.
The crux of the problem is this: the Liberal Democrats literally do not understand what they are doing to our economy.
See:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703561604575282190930932412.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
Is every appointee of this administration some combination of idiot, socialist, and criminal? Sure seems like it.
Stephen Melinger says:
June 8, 2010 at 1:55 pm
We have plenty of wind and sunlight. We should be focusing on renewable energy instead of drilling for more oil.
Stephen,
Wind and sunlight are not comparable to oil. Oil is used for transportation, manufacturing of plastics, asphalt for roads, etc. There are alot of industrial uses for oil and it is plentiful. Wind and sunligh cannot be converted into anything that will replace oil with the exception of electricity to power some transportation.
In the US, from the government to the citizens, the public transport network for most of the country seems to be seen as something that only poor or mental people should use. When the US gets serious about its public transport networks then I’ll take its ramblings about energy policy seriously. Everything until then is just talk and suicidal legislation.
“Stephen Melinger says:
June 8, 2010 at 1:55 pm
We have plenty of wind and sunlight. We should be focusing on renewable energy instead of drilling for more oil.”
You have no storage facilities.
It’s the “Moving America Foraward” dept. that worries me.
As in over a towering economic cliff.
In the name of Science, so she says.
Coming from folks that don’t know the difference between C0 and C02, that’s a real stinker.
Beaurocratic Hogwash Island effect.
This is the same EPA that told BP it was ok to use dispersants known to kill the fish.
Please save us from the EPA.
(if it works here) This must be that “race for clean energy”…..
After these morons “fix” our “addiction to oil”, maybe they can do something about our addictions to food and shelter.
“Senator Murkowski’s resolution would undermine that common sense approach. It would take away EPA’s ability to take action on climate change. And it would ignore and override scientific findings, allowing big oil companies, big refineries and others to continue to pollute without any oversight or consequence. Finally, it will result in exactly zero protections for small businesses”.
Sounds like a reasonable arguement, except for the fact that should Senator Murkowski’s resolution succeed, then small businesses would require zero protection (THE REQUIRED PROTECTION DISAPPEARS) and their customers would have a few more dollars in their pockets to spend. Failure of the resolution will be the thin end of the wedge and a will seriously damage the democratic process. This is in my opinion, A VERY GRAVE MATTER indeed, for all americans.
However, with a lot of luck and the endeavours of Senator Murkowski, sanity and democracy will prevail.
(I wouldn’t bet on it though)
“”” Jay Cech says:
June 8, 2010 at 1:16 pm
Once again, the administration mixes up the rhetoric between real pollutants (smog generating pollutants and lead) , energy security (importing oil) and climate change.
Don’t let them conflate the two issues!
Disconnect the two, and most people would go along with reducing toxic emissions (CO2 is not toxic to life at the concentrations we are dealing with-and good for plants) and detaching from foreign oil imports.
So, regulate lead, mercury from coal burning, and nitrous oxides etc, and put a big tax on IMPORTED oil. I’m all for that, Jay, but to really make an impact you have t6o do it right.
I suggest a tax of $1,000,000 per barrel of imported oil or oil equivalent in natural gas etc.
That should really make solar cells and wind turbines competitive and get us off our oil drunk quickly.
I can hardly wait to see all the solar farms spring out of the woodwork; freed from the neeed to compete with big oil.
I’m not sure who is going to be paying all the taxes that go to subsidize solar cells though; all the companies that do that now will of course be out of business with that price for oil.
That’s a really great idea you have there Jay.
I want to see this woman under subpoena.
I want to see her and her minions testifying under oath.
There are several reasons that it makes sense to restore some checks-and-balances to our government and get the GOP back in control of at least one house of Congress, and this is one of the big ones.
Until November we are helpless against this menace of stupidity.
okay, here’s an alternate of that race for clean energy…
Eric Gisin says:
June 8, 2010 at 1:41 pm
Anyone who talks about “our oil addiction” does not belong in government, put them in the loony bin with the other radical greens.
Sorry, there IS an addiction to foreign oil that is devastating our economy and workforce. First there is the $450 BILLION we send ANNUALLY to nations that sponsor terrorism with our petrodollars. Then there is the enormous cost in materials, dollars and lives in defending these corrupt petroleum cartels. THAT is an addiction we simply cannot afford.
The looney bin should be filled with people unwilling to accept responsibility for their
petro-addicted actions.
Many of the key arguments in that speech are very troubling coming from the head of the EPA.
Al Gore’s Holy Hologram says:
“In the US, from the government to the citizens, the public transport network for most of the country seems to be seen as something that only poor or mental people should use. When the US gets serious about its public transport networks then I’ll take its ramblings about energy policy seriously. Everything until then is just talk and suicidal legislation.”
Public transportation isn’t the answer for large parts of the country. I live near Wichita, Kansas with a population of somewhere around 350,000. I can climb in my car and drive completely across town in the amount of time I’d have to wait at a bus stop. That’s if I’m in Wichita. There is no possible way to provide cost-effective public transportation between Wichita and the dozens of surrounding communities, many of which have populations of less than 5,000 people. Why would I wait for a train or bus in my small town, ride it to some hub somewhere in Wichita that is likely miles from where I want to go, then wait for a bus to slowly take me to my final destination? I can get anywhere I need to go in 30-45 minutes in my car.
I’ve been in places like New York City and Washington D.C. where public transportation makes good sense. It works in areas where the population density is very high and the average traveling distance is small. With the exception of a few major cities, the U.S. between the Appalachians and the Sierra Nevadas consists mostly of small rural towns. There is simply no way you could possibly develop a public transportation system that works on this type of structure. Even the larger cities are spread out over many, many square miles. You would need some type of hub-and-spoke system that almost guarantees that the travel time would be longer than driving yourself.
Nothing personal…I enjoy reading your posts but I hear this a lot and it’s a pet peeve of mine. Too many people assume the rest (the most?) of the U.S. is just like L.A. and New York.
The EPA’s position is a killer around here. Fuel prices are a big part of the family budget and the farmers/ranchers are going to get hit hard.
“At no point in our history has any problem been solved by waiting another year to act” Lisa Jackson
“Delay is preferable to error” Thomas Jefferson
I know who gets my vote.
Jackson is being dangerously stupid. Is she being fed this drivel, or does she make it up herself? Her piece is propagandist hectoring – are US citizens not affronted to be taken for fools by this woman?
“EPA followed both the science and the Supreme Court last year to issue a finding that greenhouse gases pose a threat to our health”.
What? If SCIENCE has established that a few hundred ppm of CO2 is a health hazard, then that has no right to be called science.
“That addiction to oil pollutes the air we breathe.”
Burned properly, oil distillates produce mainly CO2 and water, which are essential to the biosphere. There may be all sorts of arguments as to which energy sources are in the national interest, but suggesting that substances essential to life are pollutants is absurd and disingenuous.
“This is happening despite the overwhelming science on the dangers of climate change”.
The evidence for a link between carbon dioxide and significant climate change is distinctly underwhelming. To believe such a tenuous link would be permissible as a mere opinion and matter of faith, but it should not be credited as scientific fact.
“the economic costs of unchecked climate change will be orders of magnitude higher for the next generation than it would be for us to take action today”
That’s a complete lie. Even assuming that there is a link between CO2 and a small degree of climate change, the amount that temperatures could be cut would be so tiny as to be immeasurable for trillions of expense today that the economic argument is utterly dead. This is really flogging a dead horse.
“The Murkowski resolution would gut EPA’s authority”. Well, that would seem to be a jolly good thing. The EPA is extremely dangerous with this character at the helm.
The US may have started down a one way street.
There are more and more controls on energy in the US, fewer controls elsewhere. China is investing heavily in Canadian gas and oil companies, heavy oil upgraders and plans to build oil and gas pipelines from Alberta to the ports of Prince Rupert and Kitimat – something that was planned years ago but got abandoned in the recession of 1983. They are also investing in Africa and elsewhere.
Up to a couple of years ago, the Canadian government (encouraged by the US government) blocked the sale of blocks of the tar sands and energy companies to China. But then came Obama telling people not to look at dirty Canadian oil. Then the Chinese pointed out that they own a huge chunk of American debt (along with the Japanese).
Suddenly, there has been a rash of Chinese investment. And not just in Canada. China has been busy securing its fossil fuel energy supply while Europe and the US focus on less proven technologies.
Now, if the EPA ruling does get reversed, the US is going to have to develop the Bakken field and shale oil/gas projects as a lot of the oil and gas that was available to the US is now committed to others countries.
The US may find that during their short time in office, the Obama administration may have started the US down a road one way street.
Great masses of solar collectors in the Arizona desert and a wind turbine every kilometre on the tops of the Sierra Nevada’s and all the roads and power lines that go with them is beginning to look like a certain future that will be much harsher on the environment than fossil fuels (BP Gulf of Mexico disaster excluded.)
It likely does not matter that there is little or no link between AGW and CO2. The die has been cast.
Thank goodness I heat with wood and run my livestock fences on solar and use geothermal cause electricity prices have doubled in my area and will likely double again in a few years as we subsidize “alternative” energies.
Time to go feed my trout.
“Stephen Melinger says:
June 8, 2010 at 1:55 pm
We have plenty of wind and sunlight. We should be focusing on renewable energy instead of drilling for more oil.”…
and them renewable energies will be built with?? yep! Oil,chemicals,mines etc..is that not what Lisa is against?
Take a look at Norway 15000 wind mills and not one power has been shut down because wind energy is not a reliable power source.
Drilling for oil at 5000 feet under the sea is dangerous and stupid…. try to remember which agency imposed those rules on the oil companies despite all the danger warnings from the industry….that’s right the EPA.
The federal mandate to include oxygenates (MTBE or ethanol) in gasoline. Both of these additives add cost to gasoline without providing any benefit to the environment,the stated goal of mandating them in the first place. This substance is a known carcinogen and doesn’t belong in our gasoline and does not improve pollution,e in California. It doesn’t work and costs us more. Vice President Al Gore has been given authority over environmental policy by the Clinton White House for the past eight years. He has routinely approved the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s actions against much smaller mines that pollute the soil and waterways. He has appeared at press conferences and photo opportunities across the nation to praise the Clinton administration’s actions to close down and/or punish mining and industrial operations that pollute the environment.” An investigative report in The Wall Street Journal on June 29, 2000, page A26, confirms that Vice President Al Gore has received $500,000 in royalties over the last 25 years from a large polluting Zinc mine on his Tennessee homestead. The operating mine, literally in his backyard, is on the banks of the Caney Fork River which flows into the great Cumberland River. Independent tests of the soil on the riverbanks show “large quantities of Barium, Iron, and
Zinc, as well as smaller amounts Arsenic, Chromium, and Lead.” Other tests of the water and soil in June of this year by Environmental Science Corp. show high levels of the same metals plus traces of cyanide.” No Lisa J. to be seen.
Ever since first listening to this blowhard I’ve been annoyed at how she says, “EPA” and not “the EPA.” It strikes me as some sort of internal lingo meant to raise its users on some imaginary pedestal, but I personally think it sounds both uneducated and elitist – an impressive combination.
The BP oil spill is a tragic reminder of the hazards of our oil addiction.
Naw, in the form of her own vivid proof , Lisa Jackson instead only reminds us once again that “a mind is a terrible thing to waste.”
EPA’s GHG policy is expressed in four sequential rules:
1. The GHG Endangerment Finding;
2. The Johnson Memo Reconsideration Rule (a/k/a the “Timing Rule”);
3. The Light Duty Vehicle Rule (a/k/a the “Tailpipe Rule”); and
4. The “Tailoring Rule.”
The root of it all is the Endangerment Finding, which says CO2 causes global warming that endangers human health and welfare. It is largely based on the IPCC’ reporting on that subject, but also relies on other reports which are themselves derivative of IPCC reporting.
Many of the IPCC errors exposed in Climategate and the follow-on scandals are embedded in the Endangerment Finding. EPA has IPCC omelette on its face, a fact that has been too little noted here on the Internets.
All four rules are being appealed to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. There were a large number of appeals of the Endangerment Finding alone, and they have all been consolidated. In these Endangerment Finding cases there are vigorous attacks on the substantive science of the IPCC as adopted by EPA, as well as on the scientific process used by EPA – whether EPA can legally rely on IPCC reporting. EPA says nothing to see here, move along.
The Tailoring Rule purports to rewrite the Clean Air Act by raising the statutory threshold for regulating emissions of pollutants from 250 tons per year to 100,000 tons per year for CO2.
But it is illegal and unconstitutional for the executive branch to rewrite a statute in such stark fashion. That requires new legislation that passes both houses and is signed by the President.
The rationale for rewriting the statute in this manner is that if they didn’t it would bring absurd results in that the number of CO2 emitters required to apply for permits under the statute as written would go from thousands to millions and be impossible to administer. Which is a clue about whether CO2 was intended to be regulated under the Clean Air Act.
But instead of concluding that attempting to regulate CO2 under the Clean Air Act is illegal and stupid, their answer to is to unconstitutionally rewrite the statute.
Statutes and constitutions can be so pesky!
The whole exercise will have no effect whatsoever on global CO2 concentrations, or on global warming, even if you accept the causal premise.
And it would be very economically destructive.
What’s not to like?
This is the Insane Clown Posse on PCP and Tequila!
If the Murkowski resolution of disapproval were adopted, it would bring the EPA side of this to a screeching halt, and Restore Balance To The Force.
Crap weasels want to install cap and ration and destroy America.
Tyranny is marching in America.
“we have wind and sunlight”
not in the Seattle area.
what happens when the sun has set AND the wind isn’t blowing? besides the fact the footprint pretty much tramples on your yard and landscapes if you want to get anywhere near comparable generation levels. Maybe nuclear, that makes sense.
Wait, it might work if we all agree we want to live in a sixties era commune.
Indy says:
June 8, 2010 at 3:41 pm
Sorry, there IS an addiction to foreign oil that is devastating our economy and workforce.
This statement is wrong in many ways.
First is the premise of the sentence. The need for oil is not an addiction, but rather a necessity of commerce both domestically and globally. the US and the Worlds economy is built on the availibility and use of oil. It has been a very economical, transportable, source of energy that can be used in a multitude of engines to provide transportation of both people and goods, safely and economically.
If we allow the premise of the sentence to stand, then the second error is the distinction about the “addiction” being to foreign oil. The reason we import so much of our oil, and mostly from Canada I might add, is because the EPA, DEQ, Sierra Club, Earth First etc, environmental groups have restricted our accessing our own domestic oil fields. There is of course more complex economic issues at play here, but if we can’t get it from our own backyard, then we have to get it some where else.
The rest of your commets about terrorism etc have been covered by extension, no need to elaborate.
As for Petro-addicted actions, unless you are refering to pyro-maniacs who light fires using oil refined products, then be careful of throwing rocks while living in your glass house.
… the resulting product of ever-increasing, all-encompassing ‘mission’ to protect us (the citizens of the US) , A/K/A “mission creep” ( bureaucratic over-reach, fulfills the psychological “need to be needed”). I would broach the subject of Jackson being a “nest sitter” (as it applies to her ‘Raison d’être’ vis-a-vis the EPA and a protective overlord/’mommy’ syndrome and all) but I shall refrain from going further.
.
“Administrator Jackson noted that increasing our oil addiction ‘. . . at the very moment of a massive spill -the largest environmental disaster in American history- is devastating. . .’ ”
I’m flabbergasted that she has the ‘audacity’ to reference this disaster. As noted over at Climate Audit the EPA is legally bound to maintain readiness for just such a disaster. The ‘National Oil and Hazardous Substances Contingency Plan Act’ was signed into law in 1994 & the EPA has a manual describing the plan & the coordinated actions to be undertaken to contain, clean up, & mitigate damage from a spill. The EPA is to be the chair & the Coast Guard the co-chair.
Here anything from the EPA bout this? Any effort? The only statements come from the CG but the EPA is the chair.
Lisa, may I recommend you learn how to protect the planet from a real time occuring disaster (as your EPA is legislatively required to do) instead of issuing edicts (which I’m not certain you’re legislatively entitled to do) to protect the planet from highly speculative future disasters. At crunch time, wow how u & your boss failed.
Since we are trying to become independent from foreign oil, oh why would we want to become dependent on foreign carbon credits? Please explain, administrator Jackson.
jack morrow says:
June 8, 2010 at 3:33 pm
“Until November we are helpless against this menace of stupidity.”
You are lucky to have the chance of change! The UK simply swapped one lot of idiot M.P.s for another lot of idiot M.P.s, all of which have the scientific bent of an amoeba!
(My apologies to any WUWT amoeba reading this).
You know, I see much from the CAGW side about breaking our dependence on foreign oil, and alternative energy sources, but I see precious little in the way of feasible alternatives. Nuclear would do, but for some reason saving the Earth is not worth it…
This of course is the administration—and establishment—line, but one has to wonder, do Ms. Jackson and her confreres actually believe it? Are they so brainwashed by the incessant repetition of this catechism that they lack the capacity for independent, critical thought? Or are they they genuinely convinced by the evidence in the literature? Has Ms. Jackson ever perused the ample resources of climate realists?
It is just hard to fathom the mindset of someone who follows the company line to the exclusion of rationality or common sense. But I suppose they are all over Washington, and indeed, most of the country. You want to print up a pile of WUWT threads and send them to her, but, alas, it would just be fodder for the shredder.
/Mr Lynn
More “public servants” using the public money to spew forth their own version of propaganda.
As far as the press release, it is unfortunate, because some of the things she says is semi-good…
But then she throws it all away when she starts talking about “climate change” and then has the audacity to bring up the oil spill in a classic [and utterly distasteful] capitalize-on-disaster-to-advance-one’s-agenda technique.
I fully believe bureaucrats like her [from both sides of the political aisle] would never survive a day at a REAL company that actually depended upon profits for survival
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
I am pleased and grateful Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln moveon.org’d Lt Gov Bill Halter out of the way in the primary run-off election. Blanche is a proud Murkowski supporter.
She is also trying to be one of the few moderates up there in a sea of extremists with absolutely no horse sense!
There are no incentives for the EPA to piss off the boss *and* the legislative branch. They will do what they are told to do or be replaced by someone who will do what they are told to do. People are quite capable of believing they are doing God’s Work or saving the planet or rescuing mankind without a shred of evidence that we need to be saved or that their solution works.
Stephen Melinger says: “We have plenty of wind and sunlight. We should be focusing on renewable energy instead of drilling for more oil.”
Keep coming back, Stephen. You might learn something.
Stupid question but why can’t we have our oil while we fund and develop new energy sources?
tallbloke says:
“So what has the economics of energy production got to do with the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency anyway?”
One must understand that by controlling and regulating CO2 the EPA would have control of the economy all the way down to how we do our everyday activities. This is power at an unprecedented level and all concentrated in a single government agency, ignoring the legislative process.
This all comes from some vague wording in a poorly written law giving the EPA the power to regulate air pollutants – defining air pollutants as anything emitted into the atmosphere, regardless of whether it is harmful or not. All they have to do is decide that something is harmful and they can regulate it. This is not what Congress intended, but it gives Obama the weapon that says that, if we do not pass a cap and trade tax package, the EPA will do it for us. Now there’s a choice we all want – door number 1 or door number 1? You decide.
If they’re really so concerned about the “largest environmental disaster”, why haven’t they been all over it since day one?
I wonder how many fire booms have been put into action since they realized that it was US policy since 1994.
Why didn’t BP crimp the well pipe below the BOP or just above it right away to minimize the volume of leakage? Of course, they wouldn’t be able to collect the oil from this gusher like they’re trying to do now.
It’s sad that no one, WH Admin or BP, has wanted to stop this thing right away.
Only a point of detail. But:-
“I hope the small business owners in this room will be sure and write to the big oil companies to thank them for looking out for the little guys and taking up this noble cause. However, I have to say I agree with their concerns. I know that the local Starbucks and the backyard grill are no places to look for meaningful CO2 reductions.”
But, apparently sticking up windmills at a rural farm and using cotton burrs for insulation is the way forward?
Really?
This speech is so riddled with stupidity & bare faced dishonesty that I’m sure even the politicians and journalists must blush when reading it.
And, incidentally, for those promoting windmills and solar cells – and suggesting big taxes on oil imports to drive this forward, can you explain where the rare- earth metals you will need will come from? Isn’t it 93% of world resources that China controls? And, as has already been pointed out, how are you going to store your wind and sunshine energy for those cold nights and wind free days?
Just thought I’d ask.
Jim G says:
June 8, 2010 at 11:22 pm
“If they’re really so concerned about the “largest environmental disaster”, why haven’t they been all over it since day one?”
A very good question.
“Why didn’t BP crimp the well pipe below the BOP or just above it right away to minimize the volume of leakage?”
Well, there’s the small matter of it being under about a mile of sea water, but the main factor is the fact that BOPs stand on the seabed, so how do you get below it (under a mile of sea water)? Besides which the (American designed, built and operated) BOP is supposed to stop such blowouts automatically or, if that fails, manually, anyway.
kramer says:
June 8, 2010 at 10:17 pm
“Stupid question but why can’t we have our oil while we fund and develop new energy sources?”
Not really a stupid question (The only stupid question is the one you were afraid to ask for fear of looking stupid). I fear the answer has to do with the other defining characteristic of H. sap. (after stupidity), i.e. idleness. While you have plenty of food in the larder you don’t go hunting. Whether this argument is true or not, I don’t know, but it seems probable that people will not spend large amounts of resources developing alternatives for what they’ve already got. Governments and other control freaks of course will say that this shows the need for them to take the lead in developing the next generation of xyz, but bitter experience of socialist grand plans shows that this never works because no-one can predict successfully the way things will turn out. As an example, in about 1895 some far-sighted people were getting very worried by the rate of increase of horses in London because of rising prosperity. Where will all the hay come from to feed them? Will there be enough space in the Pool of London to accommodate all the barges bringing food in? Are we going to be up to our oxters in horsesh*t? It’s worse than we thought! We’re all doomed!!
And what happened? The underground railways expanded, and the Infernal Combustion Engine introduced the car, which doesn’t sh*t quite so obviously. Now we worry about the cars. Where will all the oil come from to power them? Will there be enough storage and distribution facilities? Are we going to choke on fumes? It’s worse than we thought! We’re all doomed!!
Plus ça change…
“Administrator Jackson discussed how this resolution would undermine EPA’s common-sense approach to addressing climate change…”
Demonising CO2 and setting up the US for a trillion dollar bill is a common sense approach? Jackson wouldn’t recognise common sense if it walked up, doffed its hat and introduced itself.
Charles Higley says:
June 8, 2010 at 10:50 pm
‘This is not what Congress intended, but it gives Obama the weapon that says that, if we do not pass a cap and trade tax package, the EPA will do it for us. Now there’s a choice we all want – door number 1 or door number 1? You decide.’
At least, the EPA can be sued.
“At no point in our history has any problem been solved by waiting another year to act or burying our heads in the sand.”
Actually, that’s exactly how we solved the Bigfoot problem.
“JimBob says:Public transportation isn’t the answer for large parts of the country. I live near Wichita, Kansas with a population of somewhere around 350,000. I can climb in my car and drive completely across town in the amount of time I’d have to wait at a bus stop.”
That’s simple enough to understand but places like Wichita are going to always grow. That’s what towns do. Urbanism is inevitable in many cases because not everybody wants to leave their town to go to an already crowded city. With that in mind it helps to have an transport infrastructure ready to accommodate growing towns which will inevitably merge with nearest towns to create larger towns and so on until they become a city.
Without that you end up with something like Los Angeles where the trains only cover a tenth of the region and buses are avoided by most in favour of cars because the wealthier classes don’t want to mix with the poorer classes.
Another incompetent in an incompetent administration. In case you haven’t noticed, incompetence breeds incompetence.
EPA talks about the hazard of lead and how good it was to lower it.
Anyone able to report a single USA human death from lead poisoning in the last 50 years?
There is another side to this, reverse causation, a logical trap that many climate science authors run into. Here is a counter argument on lead from two old friends who looked at the subject professionally for 60 years combined.
http://dnacih.com/SILVA.htm
Conclusion: “The arguments which have been put forward in support of the view that low level lead exposure causes mental deficit cannot be sustained and the reverse causation hypothesis is a much more plausible explanation of the facts.”
BTW, there are a few Web papers that give maps showing ambient or man-enhanced levels of soil lead. These do not always gel, because often they are high enough to excite an exploration geochemist to the stage of looking for an ore deposit. Most lead in soil is below about 75 ppm (=mg per Kg).
Remember now: You get the government you deserve.
Remember, Remember, voting day in November!
Over on this side of the pond, a civil servant is not allowed to be partial. He/she is not allowed to criticise any bill brought by a member of the House.
Or is the US now run by the bureaucracy
Oh hang on we are as well from Brussels!!
The Murkowski resolution would gut EPA’s authority in the clean cars program
Isn’t that a good thing? And who gave it the “authority” in the first place?
Geoff Sherrington says:
June 9, 2010 at 4:43 am
EPA talks about the hazard of lead and how good it was to lower it.
Anyone able to report a single USA human death from lead poisoning in the last 50 years?
Discounting fast moving small pieces of it, nope. 😉
If THEY succeed, and they WILL, they will reach their goal: A few companies, a few people, will own all the means of production of the world. But let us think: What then?, What for?, Will they become inmortal?, for to look for such a power, for to wish for such an inexhaustible wealth and endless resources one should have to be inmortal.
Then, inmortality should be the supreme goal for any living being, to overcome entropy by reaching every time a higher energy level, a higher frequency and a corresponding lower density as to “vibrate” for ever, almost like light itself. Then alchemical transmutation of inner energies should be our supreme goal and not that mounstrous want for acquiring power and money; that´s crazy and it leads only to degeneration of the succesive generations. It is frankly incomprehensible, so, instead of fighting against them, let us encourage them to attain their walhalah, their golden garden of eden, full of cancer, drugaddiction, of bleeding and wormful ulcers. That is what they are after:The ultra-maximum entropy. Hurray for them!
“The clean cars program that we built will make American cars more fuel efficient than ever and cut oil consumption by billions of barrels. It will also mean new innovations.”
This has nothing to do with any program or ruling: low pollution “clean” cars are surely the result of scientific research and development, and that advances at its own rate – you can’t speed it up. In any case cars have never been so clean as they have been over the past few years. You can only legislate to ensure that the latest proven techniques are employed to that end – but Lisa, dear Lisa, there’s a hole in: your bucket: how can you make American cars more fuel efficient through legislation? You’re living in Fairyland.
So the EPA is all about American’s energy needs now? Don’t we have a Department of Energy? Energy is now the function of the EPA? If they are interested in “clean energy” why aren’t they exploring ways to clean up the use of fossil fuels rather than essentially ban them? It’s all about this nebulous “Clean Energy” nonsense. What’s clean energy? Solar panels? What energy is used to mine the silica and also make the solar panels? Corn? What energy goes into planting, growing, harvesting corn? It’s sad intelligence is so rare.
Dave Wendt says:June 8, 2010 at 1:20 pm
Good Lord, this BS is getting to be incredibly depressing.
Ditto.
John Wright says:
June 9, 2010 at 6:17 am
You are right: Never, never, ingenuity and innovation came into existence by decree, from upside down, it is always the other way around, it comes from FREE individuals and in free competition, upwards; so , remember, if ground begins to move under your feet, a new era is growing up like a volcano and no one can stop it.
RE: “Administrator Jackson discussed how this resolution would undermine EPA’s common-sense approach to addressing climate change…”
Sometimes ‘common sense’ is hard to distinguish from acquired popular nonsense.
Ed Murphy says: June 8, 2010 at 8:45 pm
I am pleased and grateful Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln moveon.org’d Lt Gov Bill Halter out of the way in the primary run-off election. Blanche is a proud Murkowski supporter.
She is also trying to be one of the few moderates up there in a sea of extremists with absolutely no horse sense!
What world are you living in. She voted for health care and every other socialist spending package put forth by Obamanation. Here is her National Taxpayers Union rating:
ARKANSAS
Lincoln, B……………F…………16%
Pryor, M………………F…………..9%
State Average …………………..13%
By the way, F is a failing grade.
If she supports Murkowski, you wouldn’t know it by her votes. Here’s HIS ratings:
ALASKA
Begich, M ……………F…………..7%
Murkowski, L ………B- ……….71%
State Average …………………..38%
Oh! I so trust that statement, “Under what we call the tailoring rule, small sources would be exempted from regulations for the next six years. That should be more than enough time for Congress to pass a law with permanent exemptions.” Which laws have been rescinded on average, compared to laws that remain on the books? Any greenie who falls for that line needs to learn my lesson. I voted for Obama and trust me, the ass he is kicking is MINE!
Last but not the least: All those nice jobs will be created where labor is cheaper, where NOW Ipods and Ipads and all electronics and even your underwear are manufactured, so do not hallucinate.
Chad Izier at 3:27 am wrote:
“At no point in our history has any problem been solved by waiting another year to act or burying our heads in the sand.”
Actually, that’s exactly how we solved the Bigfoot problem.
See, now that there is funny. +1 for the Bigfoot solution.
Henry Chance – please give us the source for your “40,000 will die” because of “tiny cars” comment?
This is a persistent and ridiculous meme to say that small cars are in some way unsafe. In Europe we have the NCAP ratings which actually measure a car on several safety parameters. I would recommend Googling that and checking the facts before coming out with what I suspect is unattributable scare-mongering.
There is a statement up front that this is about “Energy Independence”. That is way different from reducing carbon emissions. The trouble is that although America has sme oil, it does not have enough oil for energy independence. So the two ways to address this are: A) supply side – find other sources of energy and B) demand side, reduce energy usage.
So everybody who replied “bah – [snip]” to this post had not read the title and was addressing the wrong question.
Lisa Jackson said Senator Murkowski’s resolution would “ … take away EPA’s ability to take action on climate change.” My response: It’s about time.
The EPA wants to regulate anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions based on the argument that greenhouse gases in general and CO2 in particular are pollutants. The EPA’s justification for classifying CO2 as a pollutant comes from a Supreme Court ruling (EPA-HQ-OAR-2008-0318, July 11 2008) stating that greenhouse gases (GHGs) meet the definition of a pollutant under the Clean Air Act (CAA), and CO2 is a GHG. For the Supreme Court to so rule, either (a) the CAA definition of a pollutant is poorly written, or (b) the US Supreme Court wants to limit anthropogenic CO2 emissions for ulterior motives, or (c) both.
The EPA’s position can be described by taking literary license with the Cinderella fable. Cinderella’s all-knowing stepmother seeks power and money principally for herself but also to save the kingdom from its know-nothing inhabitants and to raise revenues to cover her profligate spending. She connives to acquire the power/money she craves by pushing one of her daughters to marry the Prince. Being fully aware that the Prince is unlikely to court her rather plain-looking daughter, Cinderella’s stepmother convinces her daughter to attend the royal ball wearing a mask that transforms her daughter’s homely appearance into beauty beyond description. When the Prince rejects Cinderella’s stepsister as his true love because the glass slipper doesn’t fit, Cinderella’s stepmother sues the Prince on the grounds that (a) according to the Comfortable Clothing Act (CCA) [enacted by the king to prevent clothing manufacturers from dumping uncomfortable clothing into the kingdom], the CCA’s definition of a “clothing fit” is: “the body part being ‘fitted’ can be ‘snugly and comfortably’ placed inside the article of clothing,” and (b) by that definition the slipper fits Cinderella’s stepsister. The case eventually winds its way to the Supreme Court, where the Court asks the Prince to describe the events of the “trying on of the glass slipper.” The Prince testifies that “To get the stepsister’s foot entirely inside the slipper, the toes had to be scrunched up something awful, and the skin on the top, sides and heel of the foot had to be scraped off.” The Supreme Court asks the Prince if the stepsister screamed during the fitting. The Prince says “No, but she sure grunted and grimaced a lot.” Dazzled by the beauty of the stepsister (with the mask on), the Supreme Court rules in favor of Cinderella’s stepmother arguing that (a) scraped skin and scrunched toes are proof of snugness, and (b) screaming, not grunting and grimacing, is the legal test of being uncomfortable.
For anyone (including the Supreme Court) to label atmospheric CO2 a pollutant is ludicrous beyond comprehension. CO2 occurs naturally in the earth’s atmosphere, and more importantly is essential to life as we know it. Without CO2, photosynthesis can’t take place. Without photosynthesis there would be no plant life. In fact, to promote plant growth many greenhouses are flooded with CO2 at levels three times normal atmospheric CO2 levels. Without plant life, there would be no animal life. The only rationale for calling CO2 a pollutant is to argue that too much CO2, not CO2 itself, is a pollutant. Since it can be argued that too much of anything is a pollutant, anything and everything qualifies as a pollutant. Somehow I think giving the EPA the authority to classify ‘fill-in-the-blank’ as a pollutant and thereby the authority to regulate “fill-in-the-blank” is an overextension of the EPA’s charter. Why, it could be argued that the EPA itself is a pollutant because EPA personnel exhaling CO2 contribute to “too much atmospheric CO2.” I won’t hold my breath (pun intended) waiting for the EPA to call itself a pollutant, much less pass regulations that limit either the size or the authority of the EPA.
Energy is critical to society; and it’s been argued by many economists that restricting the means of energy production will send the world’s economy into a tailspin. Not only is there risk to the world’s economy, there’s risk to the EPA itself. For example, assume, as some scientists believe, that the sun controls global temperatures, and that the recent historical and near-future projected period of a “quiet sun” imply we’re headed for global cooling, not global warming. If we’re at the start of a global cooling period and the EPA acts of the basis of UN IPCC CO2-driven computer models which predict increasing temperatures, the computer models will be equated with the stepsister’s mask, and the unmasking won’t be pretty for the UN IPCC, the Supreme Court, or the EPA. After all, who wants to finance an agency that enacts regulations that (a) worsen not alleviate adverse natural phenomena, and (b) destroy the world’s economy in the process. Given the cost associated with maintaining the EPA and the damage to the economy contemplated by the EPA, I believe the EPA has not justified its existence. As such, if I were king, I’d abolish the EPA right now. However, if (a) natural global cooling is our future, and (b) to retard or prevent nonexistent global warming the EPA enacts regulations that have an ancillary effect of contributing to a downturn in the economy, it won’t be just me and a few others calling for abolition of the EPA, it will be an army.
Addiction? The only addiction I can see going on here is the addiction to autocratic power on the part of unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats like Lisa Jackson.
Speaking of an “addiction to oil” is just Lackoffian “control the framing of the issue” doublespeak.
Veronica says:
June 9, 2010 at 9:51 am
Henry Chance – please give us the source for your “40,000 will die” because of “tiny cars” comment?
This is a persistent and ridiculous meme to say that small cars are in some way unsafe. In Europe we have the NCAP ratings which actually measure a car on several safety parameters. I would recommend Googling that and checking the facts before coming out with what I suspect is unattributable scare-mongering.
Passing a set of standardized tests does not make something safe. All those crash tests mean nothing when you run a red light in your Smart Car and get broadsided by a 5500-lb Suburban at 50 mph. Accidents like that happen every day and the big guy usually wins. People die in cars with 5-star crash ratings every day. Increasing the number of small cars on the road may actually save lives, but it will be the lives of those in the ‘burbs and crew-cab dually pickups, not the small cars.
Yes, we’re addicted not just to ‘fossil fuel’ but ‘addicted’ to everything it’s ‘done’ to us for over the last 150 years like improve our living standards for all social classes, increase life expectancy, improve working conditions, extend leisure time, make long distance travel affordable.. etc.
Lisa Jackson doesn’t know it but she and the EPA have an addition as well but to one that cannot be claimed to afford us any such benefits as the above – an addition to POWER. That is all she cares about, her POWER over us little people who are supposed believe her fear mongering and give up our God given liberty.
If I had to pick a speech from any bureaucrat in DC to exemplify the problem with failing to observe the intention of our US Constitution to limit government – this one is at the top of the list.
Lisa Jackson, it’s We the People who are supposed to be trusted to insure our destiny … NOT YOU!!!!
Yes Veronica. Using the term “Energy Independence” makes her statement and future plans for us MUCH more trust worthy, and makes me forget all about carbon emissions regulations and the hand rifling through my change purse.
“That work earned the Dull Homestead the small business environmental stewardship award.”
Sounds like those little red flags “Best worker of the week” got in the USSR.
(sheesh am I lame at writing – ‘addiction’ not ‘addition’! thanks for the prior fix BTW)
JimBob
“when you run a red light in your Smart Car and get broadsided by a 5500-lb Suburban at 50 mph.”
Well then, it’s the BIG car that’s causing the problem, right? LOL
Pamela
I don’t disagree that some of these quangos are power-crazed. I’m just saying that if this was an exam, most people posting here would have answered the wrong question.
DirkH says:
June 8, 2010 at 3:19 pm
“Stephen Melinger says:
June 8, 2010 at 1:55 pm
We have plenty of wind and sunlight. We should be focusing on renewable energy instead of drilling for more oil.”
You have no storage facilities.”
Plenty of sun and wind? Stephen obviously doesn’t live in Pa. By the way, were’s the global warming? They turned the heat back on at work. It’s mid June!!!!!
Pace Brian John, I’m surprised that more people here aren’t offended by this bureaucrat, acting in an official capacity, openly attempting to influence legislation.
Tim Clark,
Arkansans and Other Stakeholders Applaud Lincoln Effort to Block Heavy-Handed EPA Regulations
http://lincoln.senate.gov/newsroom/2010-1-26-1.cfm
http://wwwwakeupamericans-spree.blogspot.com/2010/03/arkansas-lt-governor-bill-halter-to.html
Primary money providers for Halter:
Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Democracy for America, MoveOn.org, Daily Kos, AFL-CIO, and the Service Employees International Union
You need not be concerned, she will lose to John Bozeman in Nov.
Geoff Sherrington says:
June 9, 2010 at 4:43 am
Part 2 of the lead (Pb) story and reverse causation.
The unproven scare about lead as a poison caused the removal of teraethyl lead from gasoline, and resulted in more gas being needed for the same number of car miles. This, of course, caused more GHG to go into the air. On a large scale.
A very effective way to lower GHG emissions would be to reverse the ban on leaded petrol.
This is an example of a seemingly small error having a huge economic effect. But nobody wants to raise it, because the science on lead is settled. The medical research grants institutions saw to that.
For the benefit of Henry Chance and friends, who believe that big SUVs are inherently safer than small cars, here is some data. It’s rough and ready because I spent all of five minutes Googling it but here we are:
In the UK we have smaller cars than you do in the US (the Mini, the Smart car, the Vauxhall Corsa, the Ford Fiesta, and other small “compact” and economy vehicles). We might also be said to have more dangerous roads because motorway speed limits are 70mph, rural roads are often narrow, and population density is greater, leading to more extreme traffic conditions than in the US.
However here are the statistics on car accident fatalities per head of population, as recent as I could find.
UK: population = 62.04 million. Fatalities in 2005 from road accidents = 3201. Fatalities per thousand population = 0.0516
US: population = 309.5 million. Fatalities in 2003 from road accidents = 42643. Fatalities per thousand population = 0.1378
I cannot correlate these figures absolutely with the presence of large cars, but you have to admit that they DO NOT suggest that places where smaller cars are the norm have more fatal accidents.
AHA say the warmistas! More vehicle CO2 emissions = more road deaths! The oil addiction – it kills us!
And of course, if you say – well fine, but I won’t be the first on in my town to get a small, fuel efficient car while everybody else still has a large, dangerous SUV, well, that’s the argument that exacerbated the Cold War and cost all our economies billions – Mutually Assured Destruction.
Ever google Jamaica’s vehicle accident rate? Now that is one scary country to drive in. It was such a scary ride from Mo Bay to Kingston that when the driver let us out, I wanted to pay to go back on the ride again! Beats the best roller coaster ride EVAH!
Brian John says:
June 9, 2010 at 5:36 am
Over on this side of the pond, a civil servant is not allowed to be partial. He/she is not allowed to criticise any bill brought by a member of the House.
Or is the US now run by the bureaucracy
Oh hang on we are as well from Brussels!!
Many moons ago, when I was stationed at Andrews Air Force Base (Morningside, Maryland), an officer for whom I’d worked informed me that regardless who gets elected to whatever office, that it is the bureaucracy which actually controls what happens on a daily basis.
I questioned that assertion, and he reminded me that even though the top gives orders for things to get done, that it was the mid structure which determined when and how such would happen, and indeed, whether it would happen at all.
The only time things happen quickly is when there is a perception of the fan being hit with fecal matter in the worst way!
Veronica says:
June 9, 2010 at 2:25 pm
JimBob
“when you run a red light in your Smart Car and get broadsided by a 5500-lb Suburban at 50 mph.”
Well then, it’s the BIG car that’s causing the problem, right? LOL
Be telling that to a 10 ton semi tractor-trailer rig, when one of the lightweight idiots decides to change lanes and then jambs on the brakes because she was going too fast and almost rear-ended the other driver, but then get creamed by the semi because she used up all of his braking space!
Veronica says:
June 10, 2010 at 1:36 am
[–snip–]
However here are the statistics on car accident fatalities per head of population, as recent as I could find.
UK: population = 62.04 million. Fatalities in 2005 from road accidents = 3201. Fatalities per thousand population = 0.0516
US: population = 309.5 million. Fatalities in 2003 from road accidents = 42643. Fatalities per thousand population = 0.1378
You are guilty of misusing statistical data in order to finesse your argument.
One could easily declare that the people in the UK are far more prone to automobile accidents than U.S. citizens by the numbers alone!
Here, using your own numbers:
UK: population = 62.04 million
US: population = 309.5 million
The U.S. population is 4.98 times larger. If the UK had that same population, its accident rate would be .0516 * 4.98 = .256, effectively making UK thoroughfares a death trap.
You’ve also neglected remark that the distances traveled by people in the U.S. is by far leaps and bounds greater than that traveled by ANYONE in the UK.
There are more roads, more people, more automobiles and greater distances in the U.S. than in the UK.
In essence, you’ve compared apples to oranges in the worst way.
899 – You might want to review your remark; I think you shot yourself in the foot – the numbers Veronica provided were already normalized per 1000 population. The actual sophistry of her remark lies in the fact that far fewer people in the UK own automobiles. A fairer statistic would have been fatalities per million registered vehicles not 1000 population. Her statistic using just population would make driving in Russia, (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wO2sApvTXc"the unsafest place to drive in the world), look safe compared to the US – and we know it is not.
Your point concerning travel distances though does seem very likely to be a big part the reason for the difference. People in the US drive faster on bigger roads with way more cars and spend more time in them.
Lisa Jackson speaks with a forked tongue. The EPA’s CO2 endangerment finding was nothing but an unconstitutional, anti-democratic power grab by an arm of the government. As such, the Resolution of Disapproval threatens that power. All of Jackson’s talk about small business, “clean” energy “clean” cars, “oil addiction”, energy independence, pollution, jobs, etc. etc. is nothing but hand waving. The only thing the EPA’s so-called endangerment finding will result in is much, much higher energy costs, and a poorer, weaker America.
I shudder to think that not 4 years ago I not only would not have seen this, but I probably would have applauded this speech. Although, I may have been puzzled as to why the head of the governmental agency which was supposed to be concerned with the environment was talking about energy policy, jobs, etc. There most certainly would have been cognitive dissonance going on (and most likely was, at the time).
Bruce Cobb says:
June 11, 2010 at 5:18 am
Lisa Jackson speaks with a forked tongue. [–snip–] Although, I may have been puzzled as to why the head of the governmental agency which was supposed to be concerned with the environment was talking about energy policy, jobs, etc. There most certainly would have been cognitive dissonance going on (and most likely was, at the time).
Two words: Con Job.
Can you dig it?
Far fewer people in the UK have cars:
Well, isn’t the internet wonderful?: yes you are right http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_per_capita
but it does not explain ALL of the difference in road fatalities. Also it does not count the gazillions of foreign owned trucks slogging up and down our major roads, I don’t suppose you have a lot of those in the US, and the European tourists driving on the opposite side of the road from their norm. You do have a few of those.
And I spend a minimum of 2 hours in my car every working day so it doesn’t feel like I drive less than an American. Tell me you don’t all commute further than that!
Veronica says:
June 11, 2010 at 12:57 pm
[–snip–]And I spend a minimum of 2 hours in my car every working day so it doesn’t feel like I drive less than an American. Tell me you don’t all commute further than that!
Would it help you to know that from 1989 until 1991, that I traveled 75 miles to work and back (150 miles total)?
On average, it took 1.5 hours each direction due to traffic conditions. On some days it was over 3.5 hours. Mind you, I was working 12 hour shifts.
Then, from 2004 to 2006, that same situation happened again, due to a change in employment.
In one extreme case, a fellow employee was on the road —to and from work— for 5 hours daily.
So then, I will consider that you have nothing on us.
One of the best sources of highway safety information is the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. IIHS clearly states that heavier vehicles are safer to drive: http://www.iihs.org/externaldata/srdata/docs/sr4404.pdf Edmunds.com agrees: http://www.edmunds.com/ownership/safety/articles/106748/article.html Note the much higher death rates in small cars. The clown cars that Obama and his EPA administrator want us all to drive will be death traps.
Mkelley says:
June 12, 2010 at 4:11 pm
[–snip–]Note the much higher death rates in small cars. The clown cars that Obama and his EPA administrator want us all to drive will be death traps.
Now you’re catching on: Less protection = more death = less humans.