We enter the age of "…or else"

The Environmental Protection Agency will soon begin regulating greenhouse gases factory by factory, power plant by power plant. That could be unwieldy, expensive and unpopular — even President Obama has said it’s not his preferred solution.
But for now, it’s his only option.

No it’s not his only option. Option 2 is to listen to the majority voters that stood against Cap and Tax and not try and implement regulations by Executive Fiat based on flawed science.

A Constitutional challenge will put an end to the EPA. SCOTUS left that door open by ruling the CO2 could be ruled as an air pollutant but said nothing whether or not the EPA has the constitutional power to control it—that, I believe, rests with the states.

In that case, may I suggest that Congress reads this paper;
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2010/08/paper-cosmoclimatology-is-real.html
Every time one shuts down a plant, its all for nothing………

PW Townsend says:
August 4, 2010 at 11:38 am
“As soon as the EPA institutes regulations it all goes to the courts. Get ready to rumble.”
Except the courts have already stated the EPA could treat GHG’s as pollutants.
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/06pdf/05-1120.pdf
So we’re stuck until either congress or the president changes. But likely, it’ll have to be both to force a change at the EPA.

This presidency and Congress can only be described as follows:
!! IT’S AMATEUR HOUR !!
They are not seriously going to force electricity rates to skyrocket and expect to gain popularity, are they? How politically imbicilic can one get?
They’re going to end up hurting a lot of poor folks.

The important information to take from this event is that pressure from private citizens has the incumbent politicians running for cover, as we enter the 2010 federal election cycle. The important actions to take now are directing our personal support (time, effort, and money) to 2010 candidates opposed to the AGW agendas… and making sure the politicians still supporting AGW know that your support is directed to their opponents.
In Washington State, the overt and pointed objections by a majority of citizens has even the like of Patty Murray, Maria Cantwell, and Dave Reichert (Senators and Representative, WA, respectively) reconsidering their obsession with AGW.
Patty “Cakes” Murray has seen her private citizen financial support dwindle to nearly nothing. She must rely now on big special interest groups (SEIU, ACORN, Soros shell PACs, etc) to fend off her challengers. That just makes her an even bigger target. Of the three noted above, she is the least penitent. It’s too early to tell if she is seriously threatened, but the initial polling seems to indicate so.
Maria Cant-Think-To-Well (Senator #2, WA) is not up for election until 2012 but she also has muted her vocal support of Cap and Tax. She has been clearly ‘put on notice’ that her constituents are not going to support her in 2012, if her AGW and socialist agenda crap continues.
Dave Reichert (Rep., WA, 8th Congressional District) is starting to waffle and dissemble about his support for Cap and Tax legislation. A serious challenger may help him clarify his perspectives and get him adhering to fact based science rather than his own poorly supported beliefs.
We have a scant 3 months left to ‘flip the House’ and assert some small measure of control on the Obama progressive socialism juggernaut. While venting on a blog may provide small relief, real change and improvement can only be had by kicking the incumbent AGW supporters out of office. That takes commitment in personal time, money and effort.
With just 3 months to go, Please…. Please do more than just talk.

Jack, should I ask “in what gauge?” 🙂

The EPA is hyperventilating on dust. If they rule against dust on dirt roads, we are stuck with paving all of them with asphalt or closing them. Bush was a get along with people even when they leaned to the irrational. This extremist craziness may be the tipping point. If either the House or the Senate changes majority, Browner will be in hearings explaining under oath all the science under CO2. It is impossible for her or any one to prove the greenhouse effect. They may try. Leaving out moisture and clouds will cause the EPA pain.
It only takes one judge to tell us the “agency” is acting in an unconstitutional way and restricting commerce.
If these eco wackos want to regulate the planet, why not make forrest fires illegal. With enough taxes they can regulate against even lightning.

I was aware of the EPA threat and figured we had to live with it for several years (until we could send the Community Organizer back to his community). However, in my short-sightedness, I forgot about an option on the table – Thank you WWS!
If (and that is asking a lot) the republicans have the cojones, they can cut the funding! I think a majority of Americans would love to see that happen – especially since the deficits have trippled in 12 months under this regime! It sure would not hurt to cut some spending instead of just snipping at the rate of growth.

I know this is supposed to be more about CAGW than politics, but the only reason the EPA has this power is because ever since regulatory agencies were “invented”, and accepted as constitutional by the political establishment, that same establishment has been desperately trying to pretend that new “regulations” are somehow different from new “laws”. A new law of course requires passage by the House and Senate, then signing by the President (and no subsequent overturning as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court). A regulation however is based on Congress’ supposed power to “delegate” its powers to regulatory agencies, which then can — all on their own — propose new regulations, hold hearings on their suitability, and finally, if they want to, enforce them. The President can presumably forbid new regulations as head of the executive branch, and Congress can threaten to withhold funds — but both of these procedures are obviously just a sort of veto power. Congress and the President are elected, of course, so if the voters want to overturn a regulation they have to elect sympathetic Congressmen and a sympathetic President, and then maybe the regulation will go away (possibly to come back later, when a more different Congress and President are in power). Looking at this general pattern of rule making from a historical perspective, what we have here are laws — excuse me, “regulations” — proposed and imposed by a civil-service oligarchy. Citizens may vote for representatives who can then try to overturn these laws, so it’s perhaps fair to say that citizens still have the right to veto them, using a cumbersome and complicated representative apparatus (i.e. Congress and the Presidency). The overall pattern is all too much like that of the later Middle Ages (before European parliaments had acquired supreme power) where the King and his Court could propose new edicts which would immediately go into effect, and if their subjects didn’t like it they could elect sympathetic parliamentary representatives to try somehow to subvert the King’s edicts. For both “regulations” now and the King’s edicts back then, it is much easier to put them into operation (without significant input from the voters) than it is for the voters to cancel them once they are in place. This is a serious loss of the power by the voters, and it came about by pretending that regulations are different from laws. Take away that pretense, and every new regulation proposed by any government agency would end up being treated exactly like other new laws — it would have to be explicitly passed by Congress and signed by the President before going into effect.