EPA Agrees to Limit Emissions From Power Plants, Refineries
From the NY Times: the headline would make it sound like there was some sort of debate going on inside the EPA…
First paragraph: “Threatened with lawsuits from environmental groups, the Obama administration has agreed to issue another round of greenhouse gas limits for both power plants and refineries — this time through a provision of the Clean Air Act that allows U.S. EPA to require pollution controls at both new and existing facilities.”
I’m sure the Obama administration was quaking in its boots under the unrelenting pressure of environmentalists who threatened to rain down lawsuits. At least we know now that the polar bear will not longer be a political pawn in this “power grab”.
You can read the story and get worked up, but, on second thought, why ruin your Christmas.
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Folks, I’ve been watching & waiting for this for a while….Pres. Obama did warn Congress that, if they didn’t act, he would. Here’s the US EPA website news release, and this has other links for your review:
http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/d0cf6618525a9efb85257359003fb69d/d2f038e9daed78de8525780200568bec!OpenDocument
Don’t let this ruin your holiday, but please realize that the USEPA comes armed with a Supreme Court ruling, and unwinding this mess will not be easy, as all federal government components are in on this together. DOE, DOD, DHS, DAg, DOT, DInt, NASA, you name it, this is like a quarterback sneak over the goal line….everybody is lined up and pushing in unison!!
When contacting political representatives (Senate, House etc.), use their fax machine. It is by far the best way to get attention from the staff. Address your fax to “Chief of Staff, Rep./Senator XYZ”.
Happy Holiday Wishes to you all, Charles the DrPH
Wow – those pictures of “Death Trains” are scary!!!
On the other hand, Lisa Jackson is scarier. Much scarier.
I miss the old days, when the EPA was an idealistic possible force for good, instead of the cynical, politically driven force for evil it has become.
Lisa Jackson: These are garments, silly peasants. Garments were invented by the human race as a protection against the cold. Once purchased, they may be used indefinitely for the purpose for which they are intended. Coal burns. Coal is momentary and coal is costly. There will be no more coal burned in this office today, is that quite clear, you rabble?
Rabble: Yes, Sir.
Lisa Jackson: Now please get back to work before I am forced to conclude your services in the new economy are no longer required.
This all sounds very familiar. What about all the people that can hardly afford electricity now? Are there no prisons? No workhouses? Let them die and decrease the surplus population?
I’m just glad my local power company is expanding their nuclear plant. The plant is getting one of the old Three Mile Island reactors, which caused the anti-nuclear, anti-progress, pro-ignorance environuts to go crazy; but fortunately for us, they ran out of money. The plant is also seeking to install two new reactors. My electricity costs went from $0.098 per KWh to $0.096 per KWh. And since the nuclear plant is expanding that provides electricity to me, I don’t expect a big jump in electricity costs.
Bring on the defunding of the EPA. These Left wing wack nuts will not be happy until they set us back 200 years!!!!
Remember, most things are treated as a debate in a vacuum until it hits the pocket books of the populace. We may just have to feel this pain point until it hurts, which is stupid as all get out…
Since H2O is the dominant GHG, water vapor is the next EPA target. Hmm … maybe a lawsuit demanding exactly that would be educational!
kramer says:
December 23, 2010 at 12:09 pm
““The existence of an artificially cheap energy system leads to an economy which grows to rapidly relative to what it would be if we had efficient pricing and a full cost ”
~1:50 in the following video:
”
Interesting. She correctly points out that higher energy prices leads to less demand of labor (but uses different words than me; saying it would lead to less hours worked per year, which is economically the same thing). Calling the energy in America “artificially cheap” is of course a distorted worldview – as if energy naturally has to come with taxes that are twice as high as the value of the energy (in Europe, tax on gasoline is usually about 70% of the price at the pump). So, she has a kind of a working brain, but one where up is down and down is up.
Well, the House will pass a bill in January taking CO2 regulation away from EPA. The Senate with15 or so Dems (Manchin from WV, Rockefeller WVa. Webb Va., Nelson Neb, Nelson Fla. Landrieu La. Durbin Ill. etc etc) jumping on board, will make it law, then Barry O will veto it an demand cap and trade. Good bye Barry in 2012 when he loses Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, Wisc Iowa even possibly Ill..
And more impacts from our friends who “are here to help.”
http://www.edn.com/article/511914-Energy_Star_turning_into_black_hole_technology_companies_fear.php
From yesterday:
“”I think we’re going to have a very amiable and frankly enjoyable time addressing these things,” said a confident Republican Senator James Inhofe”
Ouch! Popcorn. Get some. Could be a three bagger.
(via Tom Nelson)
Surprisingly even-handed for the Grey Lady.
And while readers here already knew, how many of the Times’ readers even now noticed “But while carbon capture could someday become the norm for power plants and refineries, EPA has admitted that it isn’t a viable technology.” Yep – EPA knows the tech does not exist (at least in any practical form) but will fine those who do not install it.
The Irish government just published a Climate Change bill for consideration.
They propose 2050 emissions be 80% below 1990 levels. I almost feel like laughing.
http://www.irisheconomy.ie/index.php/2010/12/23/climate-change-response-bill-2010/
Coincidently, a new carbon trading business has just started up in Kahleefoahnya. Or is it a coincidence?
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/dec/17/local/la-me-1217-climate-cap-trade-20101217
Lets hope your SETI programme comes up with something soon.
Time to mobilize the Tea Parties nationwide. There will be no rule by bureaucratic fiat. March on their regional offices. Inundate your Congressmen with letters and calls. Get the appropriate committees to go after the EPA budget with a machete.
kramer says:
It’s actually much worse than that.
The EPA is run by “Czar” Carol Browner, a Commissioner of the Socialist International, which advocates world government as it’s stated goal. And as we see, even without world government, the U.S.A. is already being assessed $100 Billion – per year – as “reparations” for “climate change”. Naturally, this is only the beginning.
Under a world government, where each nation gets an equal vote, the wealth earned by the U.S. will quickly be taxed away to nothing. This is not a wild-eyed rant, but a sober reporting of what is going on right now, and what has led up to the present situation.
I can’t access youtube from work, but a YouTube search for “History of Political Correctness” shows that the EPA is implementing its part of the plan (and so is the FCC with net neutrality, which is simply the first step in eventually restricting of electronic free speech via government agency decree). The basics of the plan were put in place, not by the hippie generation of the sixties, but prior to WWI. The goal, as you might suspect, is totalitarian world government.
Congress has abdicated its legislative responsibilities to unelected appointees and “czars”, who now legislate by decree. This was kept under control in the past, by former Presidents who accepted that straightforward and uniform regulation is necessary. But under President Obama, these czars are being actively used to subvert the rule of law by legislating new laws without a vote of the Legislative branch.
The unscientific demonizing of co2 by a Commissioner of the S.I. was a watershed, with no substance behind it at all. Co2 is emitted naturally, in huge quantities compared to the very small amounts emitted by humans. But the Commissioner decreed co2 to be a pollutant, in order to take control of those emitting it. She is now doing exactly that, as this article shows.
Next year will tell us if the new majority in Congress has what it takes to stand up to this usurping of their Constitutional authority.
Merry Christmas!
The gutting of the EPA will take several years. Within the next two it will lose its teeth. During the following two it will be stuffed and put on display in the lobby of the Tulip Bulb Museum.
As they like to say on SDA….”the world is run by crazy people”.
Many (most?) of the regulations the EPA enforces make sense (e.g. RCRA, NPDES, CWA)……but this one act of legislation by regulation will shred their credibilty.
This insanity must be stopped by discrediting the endangerment finding.
“Why are the Republicans NOT stopping this agenda?”
Err…because they don’t officially take over the House until January…
I guess there goes the EPA’s funding!
Nobody else stated the obvious, so I will:
“Those whom the Gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.”
How comes that what we have considered 20 years ago as stupid green dreams is now brought to action even by conservative governments?
In Germany, under conservatice chancellor Merkel, we have
– potentially poisoning products in out living rooms (energy saving lightbulbs)
– special waste on our rooftops (solar cells)
– thousands of windmills damaging our landscape
and all of it with extreme costs and of course zero effect on climate.
Even worse, online edition of German conservative newspaper WELT, is censoring readers’ comments like in a communist country.
Each hint (not even a link) to “1010 video” was removed within 10 or 20 minutes.
Ridiculous, but not funny anymore.
However, all of you a Merry Christmas.
Tracking back a bit, I followed the National Ass’n of Wheat Growers “related” link above, and saw their resolution a year ago was to oppose EPA regs. http://www.wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/04/national-wheat-growers-association-reverses-policy-on-climate-change-opposes-epa-regulation/
But the link to that regulation is now dead, and they have a new president. Hmmm. So I wrote that past president Karl Scronce as follows:
It will be interesting to see if he responds.
The question asked above was why Republicans don’t come out and “stop this agenda”.
Two reasons–first, there is no mechanism right now for stopping the EPA once it decides it wants to do something under the Clean Air Act or the Superfund Law, outside of action in court.
Second, why should they? This is the best voting issue yet presented by Obama and the Democrats to the Republicans. Better than healthcare. Americans, in general, don’t believe this stuff. More than many in the rest of the world, American voters of all stripes know when they are being conned, and when there are greedy hands in their pockets feeling for their wallets.