The question is, are we a country of laws made by our representatives, or a country of laws made by bureaucrats? The constitution provides only one answer, and Ms. Jackson would do well to read it.
Latest News release from the EPA:
CONTACT:
EPA Press Office
February 9, 2011
Administrator Lisa P. Jackson, Opening Statement Before the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy and Power
As prepared for delivery – Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me to testify about Chairman Upton’s draft bill to eliminate portions of the Clean Air Act, the landmark law that all American children and adults rely on to protect them from harmful air pollution.
The bill appears to be part of a broader effort in this Congress to delay, weaken, or eliminate Clean Air Act protections of the American public. I respectfully ask the members of this Committee to keep in mind that EPA’s implementation of the Clean Air Act saves millions of American children and adults from the debilitating and expensive illnesses that occur when smokestacks and tailpipes release unrestricted amounts of harmful pollution into the air we breathe.
Last year alone, EPA’s implementation of the Clean Air Act saved more than 160,000 American lives; avoided more than 100,000 hospital visits; prevented millions of cases of respiratory illness, including bronchitis and asthma; enhanced American productivity by preventing millions of lost workdays; and kept American kids healthy and in school.
EPA’s implementation of the Act also has contributed to dynamic growth in the U.S. environmental technologies industry and its workforce. In 2008, that industry generated nearly 300 billion dollars in revenues and 44 billion dollars in exports.
Yesterday, the University of Massachusetts and Ceres released an analysis finding that two of the updated Clean Air Act standards EPA is preparing to establish for mercury, soot, smog, and other harmful air pollutants from power plants will create nearly 1.5 million jobs over the next five years.
As you know, Mr. Chairman, the Supreme Court concluded in 2007 that the Clean Air Act’s definition of air pollutant includes greenhouse gas emissions. The Court rejected the EPA Administrator’s refusal to determine whether that pollution endangers Americans’ health and welfare.
Based on the best peer-reviewed science, EPA found in 2009 that manmade greenhouse gas emissions do threaten the health and welfare of the American people.
EPA is not alone in reaching that conclusion. The National Academy of Sciences has stated that there is a strong, credible body of evidence, based on multiple lines of research, documenting that the climate is changing and that the changes are caused in large part by human activities. Eighteen of America’s leading scientific societies have written that multiple lines of evidence show humans are changing the climate, that contrary assertions are inconsistent with an objective assessment of the vast body of peer-reviewed science, and that ongoing climate change will have broad impacts on society, including the global economy and the environment.
Chairman Upton’s bill would, in its own words, repeal that scientific finding. Politicians overruling scientists on a scientific question– that would become part of this Committee’s legacy.
Last April, EPA and the Department of Transportation completed harmonized standards under the Clean Air Act and the Energy Independence and Security Act to decrease the oil consumption and greenhouse gas emissions of Model Year 2012 through 2016 cars and light trucks sold in the U.S.
Chairman Upton’s bill would block President Obama’s plan to follow up with Clean Air Act standards for cars and light trucks of Model Years 2017 through 2025. Removing the Clean Air Act from the equation would forfeit pollution reductions and oil savings on a massive scale, increasing America’s debilitating oil dependence.
EPA and many of its state partners have now begun implementing safeguards under the Clean Air Act to address carbon pollution from the largest facilities when they are built or expanded. A collection of eleven electric power companies called EPA’s action a reasonable approach focusing on improving the energy efficiency of new power plants and large industrial facilities.
And EPA has announced a schedule to establish uniform Clean Air Act performance standards for limiting carbon pollution at America’s power plants and oil refineries. Those standards will be developed with extensive stakeholder input, including from industry. They will reflect careful consideration of costs and will incorporate compliance flexibility.
Chairman Upton’s bill would block that reasonable approach. The Small Business Majority and the Main Street Alliance have pointed out that such blocking action would have negative implications for many businesses, large and small, that have enacted new practices to reduce their carbon footprint as part of their business models. They also write that it would hamper the growth of the clean energy sector of the U.S. economy, a sector that a majority of small business owners view as essential to their ability to compete.
Chairman Upton’s bill would have additional negative impacts that its drafters might not have intended. For example, it would prohibit EPA from taking further actions to implement the Renewable Fuels Program, which promotes the domestic production of advanced bio-fuels.
I hope this information has been helpful to the Committee, and I look forward to your questions.
____________________________
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h/t to WUWT reader Michael C. Roberts
The letter states: “Last year alone, EPA’s implementation of the Clean Air Act saved more than 160,000 American lives; avoided more than 100,000 hospital visits; prevented millions of cases of respiratory illness, including bronchitis and asthma; enhanced American productivity by preventing millions of lost workdays; and kept American kids healthy and in school.” I would like to see a list of names that goes along with these numbers otherwise it’s just useless conjecture once again being passed off as fact.
Notice she did not mention the IPCC, though the Endangerment Finding relied upon it literally hundreds of times.
I hope they hold hearings on the science, or lack of, on AGW. Done correctly, this could expose a lot of fraud and show that the science is NOT settled.
Well what can you say to such well intentioned but misguided people…
http://rossmckitrick.weebly.com/ontario-energy-policy.html
I recommend the following article at the bottom of the page.
“I also did a review of the Ontario Cost-Benefit Analysis for the Power Workers’ Union in 2004.
* McKitrick, Ross R. (2004). “Power Plants, Air Quality and Health: The Case for Re-examining Ontario’s Coal Policy” Prepared for the Power Workers Union, May 2004.
A related paper is my 2004 paper on particulates and affluence, published in the Fraser Forum.”
Ross has written a number of papers and articles and made presentations on how the stats simply don’t support the models. A conclusion I am sure will not surprise most of you…
First question: Administrator Jackson, can you please read into the record the first ten names on the list of 160,000 people who would be dead today if not for the Clean Air Act.
Second question: Administrator Jackson, what percentage of the Earth’s atmosphere consists of man-made CO2 and how much lower does the EPA want that percentage to be?
“The Clean Air Act, which was last amended in 1990, requires EPA to set National Ambient Air Quality Standards (40 CFR part 50) for pollutants considered harmful to public health and the environment. The Clean Air Act established two types of national air quality standards. Primary standards set limits to protect public health, including the health of “sensitive” populations such as asthmatics, children, and the elderly. Secondary standards set limits to protect public welfare, including protection against decreased visibility, damage to animals, crops, vegetation, and buildings.” (http://www.epa.gov/air/criteria.html)
The US Supreme Court ruled in April, 2007 that EPA had the authority to regulate the emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act of 1970, as amended. The Supreme Court decision was based on the potential endangerment which could be caused by climate change driven by CO2 and other GHG emissions, rather than on direct human endangerment resulting from exposure to these gases.
EPA issued an Endangerment Finding regarding greenhouse gases in December, 2009. (http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/endangerment.html) The language reproduced above states that EPA must now set an NAAQS for CO2 as well as the other listed greenhouse gases. The contemporaneous EPA Cause or Contribute Finding was limited to new motor vehicles, though they are obviously not the only sources of CO2 and other GHG emissions of concern. For example, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (UN FAO) has determined that “the livestock sector generates more greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalent – 18 percent – than transport.” (http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2006/1000448/index.html)
EPA has already been petitioned to set the NAAQS for CO2 at 350 ppm. (http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/climate_law_institute/global_warming_litigation/clean_air_act/pdfs/Petition_GHG_pollution_cap_12-2-2009.pdf) Dr. James Hansen of NASA-GISS and others assert that 350 ppm is the maximum safe atmospheric concentration of CO2. This assertion is based on the outputs of climate models, rather than on any rigorous experimental demonstration of endangerment. EPA could elect to set the NAAQS at some other atmospheric concentration.
Fortunately, the NAAQS process includes an “escape hatch” for exceedances resulting from “pollution” from non-state sources, including non-US sources such as China and India. Unfortunately, each US state would have to comply with the NAAQS, with the exception of “pollution” from non-state sources, even in the face of continuing increases in emissions from those non-state sources.
An NAAQS set at 350 ppm would arguably require not only the total elimination of CO2 emissions by each US state, but also the installation of facilities deemed capable of reducing atmospheric CO2 concentrations by ~40 ppm below current levels during the compliance period. Presumably, the capacity of the US facilities to remove existing CO2 from the atmosphere would be limited to the capacity to remove CO2 from “state sources”.
Historic NAAQS compliance periods have been less than 10 years. A similar compliance period for CO2 would make the “83% by 2050″ touted by the Obama Administration pale in comparison. This would be the case, not only because the required investments would have to be made over an extremely compressed time frame, but also because many potential technologies, which might have become economically viable both for producing energy without CO2 emissions and for removing CO2 from the atmosphere, would likely not be commercially available during the dramatically shortened compliance time frame.
Regardless, absent a dramatic change of course by the developing world, the actual atmospheric concentration of CO2 would continue to increase, though arguably at a somewhat slower rate than would otherwise have occurred. That means that an NAAQS set at 350 ppm could not possibly be achieved in reality without rapid and coordinated action by all of the nations of the globe to both halt current emissions and to install and operate facilities to remove CO2 already in the atmosphere. The discussions at COP 15 in Copenhagen in December, 2009 suggest that such action is highly unlikely, absent some cataclysmic event(s).
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has estimated that the investment required to stabilize atmospheric carbon concentrations at ~450 ppm by 2050 would be ~$45 trillion over and above the business as usual scenario; and, could be more than double that amount if technology advances do not occur as rapidly as they project. (http://www.iea.org/techno/etp/fact_sheet_ETP2008.pdf) The investments required to stabilize atmospheric carbon concentrations at ~350 ppm by 2050 are not estimated, but would certainly be more than $100 trillion, since the emissions reductions required would double and additional investments would be required to remove carbon already in the atmosphere. A dramatically shortened compliance time frame would increase these investments significantly.
I remain convinced that the ultimate intent of the AGW CO2 “mitigation” effort is the total elimination of anthropogenic carbon emissions. Should EPA actually establish an NAAQS for carbon dioxide at a concentration at or below ~400 ppm, that intent would be confirmed; and, the timeframe for compliance would be dramatically shortened compared with the timeframes contemplated in the various House and Senate bills proposed in the US.
The FACT that the atmospheric concentration would not actually be stabilized at that level, since accomplishing that is clearly beyond the capability of the US, would have no bearing on EPA’s enforcement of the NAAQS. The only advantage of an NAAQS which is clearly unachievable in reality would be its susceptibility to being overturned by the courts, which still appear to retain the ability, if not the willingness, to separate fantasy from reality.
I feel that the whole release can be summed up with: “I hope this information has been helpful to the Committee, and I look forward to your questions.” Information not at all helpful and she looks forward to answering questions like looking forward to a root canal sans novacane.
If these people are serious about cuting CO2, they should make an example with their own lives. Stop driving, stop flying, stop using electricity, stop heating their homes, and most importantly stop breathing. People that would do those simple things would show some real commitment to the cause.
A classic case of a bureaucrat spinning unfounded scare stories in a hopefully futile attempt to keep funding at record high levels for his or her now largely pointless bureaucracy.
The EPA was once a great idea, which enforced beneficial policies and programs. Once its original goals were achieved, it should have been downsized. Unfortunately it was allowed to morph into a cancer-like organism, concerned only with its own growth and totally ignorant of the damage it was causing to its host.
CO2 and water vapor are not pollutants!
Fire Jackson. Now.
She is spoiling for a fight. I hope someone explains to her that she is not a peer of Congress but a servant of Congress.
Excuse my apparent ignorance here but isnt the issue hand here specifically CO2 regulation?
The submission seems shy away from specifically stating that C02 is the harmful pollutant in question and seems to mention everything else except Co2.
Ms Jackson:
This tells you everything you need to know about governmental mentality. Removing mercury, etc. from powerplant emissions is a noble societal goal, but will not and cannot “create” jobs. It will add to the price of electricity, which is a basic economic input into……..everything. It will reduce manufacturing competitiveness driving actual productive jobs overseas or even better, north, it will reduce disposable income for consumers, reducing demand and jobs. Government (BO) talking about creating jobs is laughable. Getting help from a rent seeker like Jeff I’llmelt GE down to a shadow of itself is even funnier. That clown couldn’t run a lemonade stand. They just don’t get it.
The absurd part is reducing CO2 output isn’t even useful.
The attempt to regulate CO2 is only one aspect of out of control lunacy at the EPA. They have also proposed regulating milk spills at dairies and “agricultural dust.” Apparently these people, with their “superior,” “elite” educations don’t understand how a plow works. The EPA did a lot of good, but emphasis should be on the past tense: “did.” Time to shut them down completely.
It’s shocking the way “carbon” appears to be used interchangeably to refer to soot, along with its unquestioned health hazards, and CO2 which hasn’t been shown as a cause of anything.
Double-think at its best.
Does anyone anywhere doubt that enforcing clean-air standards is a very good thing? (assuming you get rid of the very odd idea that fizzy water contains something dirty!)
Well I would have no quarrel with improving energy efficiency and reducing emissions of POLLLUTANTS, but something’s got to be done about this CO2 sham. They are ramming this stuff through as the global temp is cooling and all the dire predictions of the past 30 years have failed to materialize. The political activists haver been getting more and more anxious, desperate and dangerous.
It would be the best thing that could happen for the EPA to have to back down. BUT rest assured that result, will send the whole climate change push into an overdrive frenzy with much gnashing of teeth, foaming at the mouth and the usual doomsaying.
But it needs to be done. Good Luck!
Bait….
… and switch!
My impression of the EPA over the years is that it is a typical growing bureaucracy which started with mostly good intentions for a more responsible approach to caring for our national environment. I witnessed the transformation of some of our polluted waterways to noticeably cleaner conditions. Same with the air. The problem is they never seem to know when to quit. As with most of our bureaucracies, they morphed into a self-serving entity with an insatiable appetite for more control and funding.
Over the years they have produced ever more stringent requirements for more control over an ever expanding array of human activities. In my opinion, we are well past the point of a reasonable return on our investment as each cycle of regulations are now producing very marginal, even questionable, returns at greater and greater cost. We could spend the entire GDP trying to achieve “perfection in protection.” and not succeed. We need some reasonable people to say what needs to be “managed” by the EPA, what does not, and what level of protection is enough. GHG should not be an EPA responsibility.
Last year alone, EPA’s implementation of the Clean Air Act saved more than 160,000 American lives; avoided more than 100,000 hospital visits; prevented millions of cases of respiratory illness, including bronchitis and asthma
And this has what to do with CO2 exactly?
“Based on the best peer-reviewed science…”
Really? I’d hate to see the worst.
1. I think the lightbulbs with mercury pose a bigger threat than CO2.
2. How can EPA further regulate mercury and meanwhile promote the use of it?
“two of the updated Clean Air Act standards EPA is preparing to establish for mercury, soot, smog, and other harmful air pollutants from power plants”
Strange…
None of which can be blamed on CO2 emissions.
Time for some defunding.
Start with NASA/GISS . . . then go for the Big Kahuna . . the EPA itself.
Push comes to shove.
She simply uses the tried and true Alarmist ploy of conflating real, as in smog-producing pollutants, which can cause some health problems given the right conditions with what she coyly refers to as “carbon”, but really means carbon dioxide, which can only cause health problems at extremely high (as in thousands of ppm). Does she really think she can get away with that?
The environmentalist Left (in the guise of the EPA) is out of control, because the “best peer-reviewed science” is demonstrably incompetent (e.g., “CO2 is a pollutant”). This shows how corrupted peer-review is, in the age of federally-funded science — it is a feudal system of fief lords, perpetually funded “principle investigators”, jealous of their privileges and hence closed to outsiders, no matter how expert. The underlying problem is that people are too divided to provide common sense and a tight rein on the processes at work, in both politics and science (or rather, to elect a President with the necessary common sense and leadership ability). People are accustomed to this in politics, and apathetic; they cannot imagine it is just as bad in science now — but it is, and it is a crisis of incompetence in science.
Lisa Jackson’s statement is all spin and no substance, an enormous bubble of hubris, factoids (which are built to superficially resemble facts but are not facts themselves, think humanoids v humans) and hot air. The US Congress desperately needs a full-time Repeal Commission to get rid of overblown and out-of-control elements components of the Civil Service such the EPA.
@Bob Barker; Yep, spot on. It reminds me of when I worked on the lawn crew at a government hospital back in my college days. They had a whole pile of insecticide that they had not used and had no reason to use. But, of course, if they did not use it, they would not get as much next year. Solution: Send a bunch of teenagers without protective clothes on to spread the insecticide all over the lawn and use it up. Not that this is confined to government, but still.
Facts are irrelevant. This is/was a budget meeting.
As you know, Mr. Chairman, the Supreme Court concluded in 2007 that the Clean Air Act’s definition of air pollutant includes greenhouse gas emissions.
Did the court establish which gases were being emitted by greenhouses?
If the Administration via the EPA were truly concerned about “CO2 pollution” then they would ban the use of gas powered autos and trucks ….. oh wait, that is their underhanded goal now isn’t it?
She’s spinning it, trying to claim and make it look like they want to regulate all pollutants and kill the children….
…no one has even gotten sick, died, or even gagged from CO2
Yup, the fatalities from air pollution are so numerous in Toronto (thank you, Ohio Valley), we have to stack the bodies like cord-wood in the streets until spring arrives. (sarc.)
Ross McKitrick (of Hockey Stick fame) wrote an article about over-hyped air pollution fatalities in the Financial Post in 2004. Here are some excerpts:
“…….a new, peer-reviewed paper just published in the respected Journal of Environmental Economics and Management. The authors, economist Gary Koop and environmental scientist Lise Tole, are both at the University of Leicester in the U.K., but luckily for us, they used data from Toronto. The title of their paper is the very model of British understatement: “Measuring the Health Effects of Air Pollution: To What Extent Can We Really Say that People are Dying from Bad Air?” If I’d found the results they got, I’d have chosen a title like: The Death Rate from Air Pollution in Toronto is a Big Fat Zero.
The key problem: Many researchers report results from their statistical models without properly accounting for the uncertainty in the specification of the model itself.”
There’s that word “models,” again…
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/smogdeaths.pdf
For those interested, the UMass/Ceres report mentioned in the text:
http://www.ceres.org/epajobsreport
Ceres (pronounced “series”) is a national network of investors, environmental organizations and other public interest groups working with companies and investors to address sustainability challenges such as global climate change.
Are these people really so myopic and uni focused? The hubris is unbelievable. Touting the fact that new regulations means new jobs! Of course, but at the expense of untold multiples of jobs lost and better opportunities missed. The EPA’s stance is the same as the IRS’. Obviously if the federal government eliminated income tax and switched to a Fair Tax or similar scheme, we would eliminate thousands, probably millions of jobs of tax prepares and IRS agents and accountants. While that would be bad for those few, the rest of us would save billions of dollars NOT spending on compliance and unimaginable hours saved NOT preparing our tax returns nor assembling the mountains of records required to do so.
Yes, Ms. Jackson, eliminating horses as required transportation will hurt the buggy whip industry, but we will all be better off due to the commensurate loss of horse manure in our streets.
The most dangerous substance to our children is administratium, and your organization is full of it. EPA and its oppressive regulation is far more harmful to our children than pollution ever was.
Look at your own information, Ms. Jackson, http://www.epa.gov/airtrends/images/comparison70.jpg
(Note the change in the time scale before the dashed line.) Note that we have made continuous gains in air quality and cleanliness. We have passed the point of diminishing returns, and now what you do causes more harm than good.
Regarding CO2 as a pollutant, well, O2 is far more harmful. Corrosion costs the US approximately twice what you claim the “environmental technologies industry and its workforce” makes for us–your inflated, exaggerated claims, for an industry required by law rather than actual human needs. An industry, that no doubt, would still exist, but be more efficient and consumer driven if not for the government meddling. http://www.nace.org/content.cfm?parentid=1011¤tID=1045 http://events.nace.org/library/corrosion/Principles/Cost.asp
And, that does not even count fire! Please tell me, Ms. Jackson, how many lives would be saved if you could eliminate fire. Remember: fuel, oxygen, and heat. If the EPA will simply ban oxygen, we can rid ourselves forever of the horrors and devastation of fire and corrosion!
Of course, water plays its role, and it accounts for thousands, sometimes tens of thousands, of direct deaths each year as well.
Why do you not regulate H2O and O2, Ms. Jackson? The finding of harm to our citizenry is undeniable! All science agrees; all practical experience of everyman agrees! We all know how dangerous water and oxygen are! Why not regulate and ban? Of course, there is the small matter that these compounds are essential ingredients of life itself, as is carbon dioxide!
Please stop playing us for fools Ms. Jackson. We know you are simply a bureaucrat, trying to protect your job, no your kingdom. Conflict of interest.
Again, please, disband the EPA. Our children’s lives and welfare depend on it!
Yeah, that nasty CO2. From the climate is not made from weather events department:
… Record low temperatures fall across the area for February 10th…
Wichita Kansas mid continent airport: the temperature plunged to a
record low of -17 degrees during the morning of February 10th. This
shatters the previous record of -5 degrees set in 1980.
Salina kansas: the temperature plunged to a record low of -15
degrees during the morning of February 10th. This breaks the
previous record of -11 degrees set in 1905.
Russell kansas: the temperature fell to a record low of -10 degrees
during the morning of February 10th. This breaks the previous record
of -7 degrees set in 1981.
Chanute kansas: the temperature plunged to a record low of -15
degrees during the morning of February 10th.. this shatters the
previous record of -7 degrees set in 1980.
Note: the record low temperatures are preliminary and will not be
official until midnight. Temperatures could go a little lower around
sunrise today… or possibly this evening.
This is exactly the sort of illogical, political, non-scientific, sorry excuse for reasoning posing as science that we get these days.
“The bill appears to be part of a broader effort in this Congress to delay, weaken, or eliminate Clean Air Act protections of the American public. I respectfully ask the members of this Committee to keep in mind that EPA’s implementation of the Clean Air Act saves millions of American children and adults from the debilitating and expensive illnesses that occur when smokestacks and tailpipes release unrestricted amounts of harmful pollution into the air we breathe.”
The strawman. Sorry, EPA. In telling you non-scientific bureaucrats that you cannot ply your politics on atmospheric CO2, you are being directed back to your proper duty regulating pollutants that cause illness and harm ‘the children’. Not away from, back to.
CO2 is not a pollutant, and no poor defenseless children are getting any illness from breathing in an increase in atmospheric CO2 that is orders of magnitude smaller than what they are already breathing out with every precious, cherubic exhalation.
On the contrary, when EPA wastes their limited budget tilting for windmills over CO2, they are failing to protect the children from actual pollutants.
Shame on you for trying to conflate the issue of global warming with illness causing pollution!
Oh, and by the way – Chairman Uptons bill does not repeal any scientific findings. What is being repealed is not a proper EPA finding, and it is not scientific.
You’ve heard of pigs flying, well if these guys keep on waving there hands around faster and faster i’m sure one or two of them will get a bit of a chicken flight going soon.
You could see Gore at one of his closed to the public and journo’s presentations waving his arms around so much he flys of the stage.
Although for the true shop stopper someone has to shed a crocodile tear at some point.
My question would be if CO2 concentrations in greenhouses is elevated to 1000ppm is there any peer reviewed studies of health problems in workers who have to work in these areas.I also understand naval submarine crews work in elevated CO2 environments.
There are two key powers that Congress has that the EPA and the Administration need to be made acutely aware of: Impeachment and Removal from Office, and the Power of the Purse. If Congress is serious about who and what governs this country there’s going to be a shoot out at the OK Corral that’s going to make history.
Give us a break Lisa, these two organizations are Soros funded astroturf set up in 2008 to counter long established organizations representing small businesses.
A simple Google search of their names revels they were very big in supporting Obamacare and Cap ‘n Trade since the 2008 elections.
The EPA is only the (very large) tip of an iceberg. National and state pols and ‘crats have been inserting “decarbonization” language into hundreds of bills and regulations, and cities are in on the act, too. My own city, Vancouver Canada, has an official goal of becoming the Greenest City on Earth, to which end they have or are contemplating a plethora of very expensive and frequently goofy regulations and projects.
And don’t get me started on the perversion and pollution of school curricula with “no pressure” New Truths and assumptions!
There’s going to need to be a long, thorough “unwinding” process when the CO2-is-good verity finally is driven home. And “Oops!” should not be an acceptable excuse by those who are doing it to us with the necessarily economy-crushing regs and remedies.
No charge? Defunding should not be a problem then.
As I understand it, the Supreme Court rejected requests for it to determine the science and emphasized EPA authority based on their determination. The problem, the court overlooked the fact that Congress never gave EPA authority to act on GHGs.
“Based on the best peer-reviewed science, EPA found in 2009 that manmade greenhouse gas emissions do threaten the health and welfare of the American people.”
Does anyone happen to know what “peer-reviewed science” EPA used to make the determination regarding CO2? I search later today to see if I can find it but thought someone might know.
If Congress is going to ask questions, it makes sense to start with the validity of the “peer-reviewed science” EPA is apparently using for the determination.
Frankly, it doesn’t matter if the Supreme Court ruled that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. The SC wasn’t ruling on that issue, they were ruling along the lines if the EPA could legally declare anything unhealthy under the Clean Air Act(CAA). The court ruled that the CAA gave the EPA that authority. If Congress decides that the EPA cannot deal with CO2 it just passes legislation that says so, we’ll skip the circus that would ensue for now, and it will be Constitutional. Congress gave the power to the EPA to do as it pleases, it can also take it away.
From the department of pulling numbers out of the air (I think the Clean Air Act has a provision)….
“Last year alone, EPA’s implementation of the Clean Air Act saved more than 160,000 American lives; avoided more than 100,000 hospital visits;…”
So at least 60,000 Americans would have died without visiting the hospital.
I’m sorry I thought our healthcare system was more efficient.
All the ‘new’ jobs she thinks will be created will be among the ‘Jobsworths’ and paper shufflers in the Bureaucracy. There won’t be a single ‘productive’ job arising from what she wants at all. As for her baloney about ‘lives saved’ – how were these calculated? Where were they calculated? I’m pretty sure a close examination will show that they are ‘numbers’ picked a random and probably closely related to areas where industries have been wiped out by these policies and regulations.
No industry, no pollution, no jobs – and maybe fewer deaths as well because the population has fallen as people moved in search of jobs.
This is what happens when well intentioned and probably useful and necessary Agencies fall into the hands of activists. They turn them into things they were never intended to be and make them the instrument of their own political and ideological agendas.
Jobs, jobs, jobs. The administration seems to think that government make work jobs will solve our unmployment woes. You shouldn’t complain, citizen, three times your current expenditures on energy should create a lot of jobs. Just think of the boon to the bicycle and coat industries. Morticians will make out like bandits during winters like this one.
Link to EPA proposals which are currently in various Rule Making stages: http://yosemite.epa.gov/opei/RuleGate.nsf/content/topicsair.html?opendocument
Regulations related to GHG vehicle emissions is in the proposal stage.
– 27 degrees in Bartlesville Ok Former world headquarters for Phillips Petroleum. If it wasn’t for the lovely strong hands of this woman, It would have been 50 below and frozen every water pitpe in Oklahoma.
We are so lucky. Now explain why we need little cars to increase auto deaths by 4,000 per year. will she fess up that every thousand pounds removed from a new cars weight increasees death rates geometrically?
“Last year alone, EPA’s implementation of the Clean Air Act saved more than 160,000 American lives; avoided more than 100,000 hospital visits; prevented millions of cases of respiratory illness, including bronchitis and asthma; enhanced American productivity by preventing millions of lost workdays; and kept American kids healthy and in school.”
Well, last year there were no major EPA rules in force for GHGs, so rolling back EPA adventurism in this area will have no effect on those 160,000 Americans.
I cut back on chiliheeseburgers and went to oatmeal. What a life of regrets. It was the air. She saved me. I was raised on a farm and ingested fugitive waste (formerly known as dust) Worked in unventilated grain bins. I am surrounded by many relatives that live into their 90’s that inhaled soot from tractors and dust. We all do much better healthwise on raw milk, pork and butter than city people that do whole Foods organic.
Last year alone, EPA’s implementation of the Clean Air Act saved more than 160,000 American lives; avoided more than 100,000 hospital visits; prevented millions of cases of respiratory illness, including bronchitis and asthma; enhanced American productivity by preventing millions of lost workdays; and kept American kids healthy and in school.”
Just like the stimulus saved all those millions of jobs.
Australia again promotes uneducated cre###s
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/flannery-comes-in-from-cold-to-head-panel-20110210-1aol4.html
This is the person who said (and published) that Queensland would no longer see any rain.
The UK is now ruled by regulators and councils that do the dirty work politicians cannot or will not do and get reelected.
The power of regulators and councils destroy the value of the vote of citizens and the representation expected from each individual vote. And like regulators here they are off the rail on common sense and respect for the people paying their salary.
The entire opening statement was no more than a complaint that the congress is attempting to interfere in the operation of the EPAs rogue agenda to destroy the coal, oil and natural gas industry and to promote green energy. She does not seem to have a clue that the American people don’t want what she is promoting as reflected in the last election.
Bottom line people do not want nor do they like contrived sacrifice.
How many deaths have been caused by asbestos and lead paint removal? How many deaths have been caused by malaria? How many deaths have been caused by poverty that is the result of a failing economy? Good job EPA.
She wants to regulated GHG’s, but never mentions the the number one gas: Water Vapor. Nor the second: Methanes…
Nope, ONLY the 3% of .03% of Co2 in the atm is “causing” the 1/2deg per century rise in temps, an we’re all gonna die.
Idiot.
Senators should take turns playing good cop, bad cop with her. She should be treated like the perpetrator she is. Creating jobs works like this: the price of everything goes up, especially gasoline and electricity. More people go below the poverty line and so we need to hire more bureaucrats for things like food stamps. Then we need more inspectors of businesses to make them “compliant” with the new rules. Then we need more enforcers, etc. Then revenues to government increase (Lisa is deluded to think) because of all the fines, so they can hire new union workers to watch the others work.
Americans, write your Senators and Representatives! Specifically, argue that we should:
* Exclude so-called ‘greenhouse gases’ from EPA regulation.
* Introduce ‘sunset’ provisions into the EPA enabling legislation, which will require that cost-benefit analyses be done for any regulatory activity, and require that the Agency desist if diminishing returns render the regulation moot.
• Abolish the EPA altogether, and devolve any essential functions to agencies specifically charged with overseeing waterways, industries, etc.
We might get somewhere in the current House of Representatives. The Senate will be a tougher nut to crack.
/Mr Lynn
So the EPA’s implementation of the clean air act has saved millions of adults & children from debilitating illnesses. Millions? Really? To be sure, some environment regulations are necessary, but don’t con me. And don’t tell me the EPA has added to the economy. If that were the case then let’s make all federal agencies 10 times larger & watch the unemployment rate ‘skyrocket’ downward, & this feeble recovery ‘skyrocket” upward. Think that’d happen? Don’t insult us, Liss.
I wonder if those are 300,000 “good” jobs? At $100K per good job, that’s about $300 billion in salary alone. If those people consumed office supplies, electricity, or attempted to actually make something, you’d need to add in those costs. Wonder where the money comes from?
Dear reader:
As you know, the children are our future. We protect children from evil. Children are happier now than children ever were. Because of our child protection of children, your children will be children for children. Child children, youth, protection and child. Child is the rallying children cry of the children.
Anyone who doesn’t agree with children and child, or doesn’t want to protect children and their children must be some kind of horrible child killing monster. Are you a child killing monster? If not, then children must be protected using child and children.
(Jackson’s shameless plea to position anyone who disagrees with her political agenda as a child hating monster is one of the most repulsive things I’ve ever seen.)
The EPA is a scam. Public preasure on congress and business regarding a real threat to the environment would accomplish the same results. Dismantal the EPA just like was done to the Civil Aeronautics Board.
“Based on the best peer-reviewed science, EPA found in 2009 that manmade greenhouse gas emissions do threaten the health and welfare of the American people.”
Notice she can’t say that the best peer-reviewed science finds that greenhouse gas emissions threaten the health and welfare of the American people. It’s only her take on what spin the EPA can put on their warped reading of the literature. It’s jobs for the boys, and a one way street. The EPA are looking for bogeymen, and CAGW just seems to be the easiest one to find at the present.
“EPA is not alone in reaching that conclusion. The National Academy of Sciences has stated that there is a strong, credible body of evidence, based on multiple lines of research, documenting that the climate is changing…”
Hang on, the EPA conclusion she just mentioned was her own take about deleterious effects on “the health and welfare of the American people”. She can’t say that others are reaching that conclusion. And to wheel out that the NAS says there is a strong body of evidence that climate is changing still does not support her conclusion. She is deliberately conflating two separate issues and the evidences therefor.
I do hope all her hearers can see what cheap and nasty rhetorical tricks this woman is using.
“The question is, are we a country of laws made by our representatives, or a country of laws made by bureaucrats? The constitution provides only one answer, and Ms. Jackson would do well to read it.”
Anthony, this is ridiculous. The Constitution charges Congress to pass laws and the executive to implement them. Congress passed the Clean Air Act with explicit language that upon an endangerment finding the EPA “shall” do a number of things, including setting New Source Performance Standards and requiring Best Available Control Technology.
If you want to attack the endangerment finding that is one thing, but EPA is statutorily mandated by Congress to create these GHG rules. Read the CAA for yourself if you don’t believe me. And if the EPA didn’t follow the language of the CAA which they are charged with administering, they would be enjoined in court. Stop misleading your readers into thinking this is some out of control unitary executive.
Those standards will be developed with extensive stakeholder input, including from industry.
Okay, then We The Free People “stakeholders” need to get rid of the Anti-Constitutional Totalitarians, Anti-Evolutionary Death Worshippers, Luddite Ignoramuses, and Congenital Parasites such as Lisa Jackson.
She actually thinks being underdeveloped as a country and enslaved as a people is “healthy”?
Circular reasoning written down in black and white.
So the notion that Phil Jones as lead author for the IPCC is now meaningless? It’s agenda driven from here.
This is absolutely UNACCEPTABLE!
The LOADED language of “generalities” coming from these folks to justify their fat salaries.
They sound worse than demogogs of the right or left on political issues.
“Pollution killing children”…May they ROT IN HE-double toothpicks for this sort of thing.
Sorry, my 58 year old body recalls flying into Washington DC in 1970. Over the BROWN low lying stratus clouds. Brown because of the emissions from PA/VA/NY, etc. Flights into DC and out off these days…100 mile plus visibility!
I don’t want to get on my high horse too much, but let’s go over a list:
1. Since post WWII, in the northern climes, we have transitioned from SOFT COAL for heating to fuel oil, electric and natural gas. Strike ONE for staring clean up of the “atmopshere” in a dramatic way.
2. No ONE runs a smelting, blast furnace, power generation plant without precipitators and scrubbers. Strike 2 for air quality VASTLY IMPROVED from 1970.
3. From the mid 80’s on autos transitioned to FUEL INJECTION. Fuel formulations changed too. Now the output from most cars you can breath without killing you! (Pure CO2 and H2O, a little NOx) Strike three.
AIR POLLUTION? You’re OUT! Cleanest air in about the last 300 years in populated areas of the USA.
Now let’s get to the lakes and streams. Public Law 9200, 1979. By 1989, no legal discharge of any non-treated liquid (i.e., other than essentially pure water) into all lakes, streams and oceans, from Muni’s, industry, in the USA.
Mostly accomplished! (Some problems with run off from farms, being addressed now.)
TRANSLATION, what we DRINK and eat, clean…clean…clean.
NOW about 300 million people PRECEEDED us in the USA. They lived full and useful lives. Where there some damaged by “pollution”? Probably.
Are we “dying like flies” right now from “pollution”? NO, heck NO, absolutely NO!
But these idiots want to use the “crisis mentallity” to maintain their power, and their $$$. Time to put them on the DOLE, once and for all.
Max
America … land of the free
… unless you produce CO2, in which case the whole economy and anything to do with running that economy (basically anything anyone does) is controlled by a few bureaucrats.
here’s a few other things they could regulate:-
war … all that nasty toxins from high explosives.
buildings … polluting the environment
Herbicides, pesticides, i.e agriculture!
Population numbers … all those humans polluting the planet
The food you eat … it all comes out and it’s got to be regulated to stop you polluting the planet
Drugs … polluting the body
Ideas … polluting the young.
Sounds to me, there’s no longer any need for congress or the senate!
Satire Mode = On
In light of the EPS’s findings that CO2 is a dangerous pollutant, all citizens of the US, except for people in office and the wealthy who donate to these people in office, will be required to hold their breath for the rest of their lives.
We hope this won’t be an inconvenience to you.
😉
Well to the extent that we have an EPA, in the first place, I don’t have very strong objections to having such an outfit monitor the compliance with environmental laws.
BUT !!! I have a VERY STRONG OBJECTION to having ANY such outfit, monitoring compliance with ANY laws, that it itself actually wrote and created.
So Anthony; does this not smell to you, vey much akin to the abomination of having “Reviewer A” reviewing a paper that is critical of “Reviewer A’s” very own work.
In our Government, as it is duly constituted by the US Constitution, we actually have a Congress that is the “Legislative” branch that is authorized, and charged with writing our laws; and providing funds for their implementation.
Then we have an “Administrative Branch” that is NOT authorized to write any laws; but is empowered to “Administrate” as in implement those laws, which are properly written by “The Congress”.
And of course we have a “Judicial Branch” which is supposed to ensure that the other two branches obey the rules laid down for them in that Constitution.
So instead we have a system run amok, with the administrative branch writing laws concocted by an unconstitutional unelected bunch of beaurocrats; who are responsible to nobody.
Yes I think we need to have “Reviewer A” take a powder, and butt out of ANY involvement in writing laws, for which they have no Constitutional duty to be involved.
Defunding the EPA is a good place to start re-instating Constitutional Government in the USA.
Lisa Jackson says: “…to address carbon pollution…”
Texas already gave Jackson its answer.
I agree, knock the EPA’s budget back to 1980 equivalent dollars, mandate that they review and sunset any regulations that they cannot “prove” are still necessary.
Cut their staffing in half. Return them to an organization that deals with pressing issues that cause real harm.
One of the major problems with regulatory agencies is how they grow without limits over time. Set limits with automatic sunset provisions on all regulations. Make them prove that the limits set are relevant AND necessary under current conditions.
As technology changes we gain the ability to detect “pollutants” at ever lower levels or concentration. That improvement in detection frequently results in the regulatory agency tightening their allowable limits to the new detection threshold without the need to prove that the tighter limits are necessary and appropriate.
This “mission creep” in regulation limits gradually increases the scope, cost and intrusiveness in the regulatory oversight (bigger government) with no proven benefit of any kind.
Current efforts to knock $1.6 billion dollars off of the EPA budget in my view does not go far enough. They should have a mandatory reduction in head count as well as funding levels.
Get back to your real job, dealing with true hazards like chlorine leaks, and unsafe drinking water and quit doing — busy work regulations of edge of limits of detection, might potentially be a risk, to some sensitive population, if we take the worst case scenario, model projections of thinks we think could be bad stuff.
/sarc
Larry
Lisa Jackson … “Denier” !!
JD –
You say: “And if the EPA didn’t follow the language of the CAA which they are charged with administering, they would be enjoined in court.”
The *statutory* threshold in the Clean Air Act for subjecting an emitter to regulation is 100 tons per year (TPY).
EPA itself admits that applying this threhold to CO2 would be administratively impossible and absurd because more than 6 million new sources would be subject to regulation, including many small businesses.
So, what to do?
EPA decided to change the threshold for CO2 to 100,000 tpy, for now, so that the regulation will be administratively feasible. They did this in the so-called “Tailoring Rule”
Since the 100 tpy threshold is in the statute, EPA does not have authority on its own to change it through a regulation. But it did. Whether that was legal is in court now.
Some folks think that since it’s impossible to apply the Clean Air Act as it is actually written to CO2 then the most reasonable conclusion is that Congress didn’t intend to regulate CO2 under the Clean Air Act.
I trust this puts it in a different light for you.
Since atmospheric carbon dioxide readings are already above Hansen’s “safe” 350ppm value and CO2 is now in an “expert determined danger zone” that threatens life on the planet, an immediate change must be initiated :
1. Ban the import or manufacture of any product or produce that adds CO2 to the atmosphere in any phase of its production or distribution.
There, that will put an end to it…
JD says:
February 10, 2011 at 8:38 am
I’m calling shenanigans on you, JD. Anthony is not being misleading at all. Technically you are right about one thing – the EPA is mandated by Congress under the CAA to act upon an actual endangerment. The reason this whole debate is happening is because many members of the current Congress realize that this particular “endangerment finding” is not based in reality (no, models that only output the doom and gloom they were programmed to are not reality). Therefore the regulations must be stopped. The Clean Air Act does not simply give the EPA the authority to cook up a gigantic load of tripe and force every American to swallow it. But, as you’ve stated, the Congress gets to make the laws and since many of them are seeing serious flaws in the exercises of the EPA under the CAA, they have the authority to change or vacate the law or any part they see fit. They also have the authority to defund or refuse funding for any program for whatever reason they see fit.
Of course, if anyone has real-world empirical evidence that their endagerment finding on GHGs is true, please present it along with the methodology, raw data, and all other pertinent information so it can be carefully reviewed and replicated. Otherwise, let’s put a stop to all the speculative “science” and draconian measures to fight the phantom menace (sorry Star Wars fans :-))…
Quinn the Eskimo @ February 10, 2011 at 9:48 am
The Congress specifically intended NOT to regulate CO2 under the Clean Air Act. However, EPA no longer finds that congressional intention convenient.
Since the age of 6, I have suffered from asthma.Really cold weather brings it on for most asthmatics,so we like it warmer not colder.CO2 only starts to affect people when it’s concentration reaches about 2%.Controlling CO2 production is impossible – but when will that stop power mad regulators.
I can only think it is deliberate that Ms. Jackson et.al. confuse the carbon/CO2 issue. Ms. Boxer made a similar statement yesterday, as well. They also characterize the house legislation as “gutting” the Clean Air Act when all it does is limit its power over GHGs, the rest is fear mongering.
I saw part of the hearing yesterday and saw Rep. Inslee illustrate the “vanishing” Arctic ice cap with a picture. I quickly went to the Sea Ice Page (thanks, Anthony!) and was able to verify his diminished sea ice picture had to be from the summer melt, it was in no way like the current ice extent. More dodging and misinformation from the AGW crowd.
*ahem* As a practicing environmental scientist for the past 30 years, I’ve seen the vast improvements made in the environment, thanks to initiatives from the EPA as well as their partners at the state and local level. (EPA sets the regs, and states implement & enforce them).
You like your clean water & air? It wasn’t like this in the early 1960’s, when Lake Michigan and other Great Lakes were essentially dead, the US auto fleet ran on leaded gas, and life expectancy was more than 10 years less than it is today. You have much to thank President Nixon for!
Upgrading sewage treatment and drinking water plants to modern standards is why you can drink tap water anyplace in the USA, but cannot anyplace in China or Mexico.
I’m glad that we had the EPA to put pressure on US industry, ’cause they ALWAYS cry “poor.” Auto industry did it with seat belts, catalytic converters, air bags etc.
By taking such a broad swipe at the EPA through legislation such as Sen. Barrasso’s “Defending America’s Affordable Energy and Jobs Act,” the EPA will be unable to regulate chemicals identified as greenhouse chemicals, even if they are highly toxic. Nitric oxides (primarily produced from production of nitric acid) and CFCs are two in particular.
Be careful what you wish for.
Cut the EPA’s budget along with the 16000 new IRS agents required by Obamacare and we could start to make a dent in the deficit as well as the job killing activities in which these people are engaged. Let’s see, for just the new IRS agents, 16000 x $200,000 including benefits, travel, phones, computers, offices, etc.=$3,200,000,000 without any downsizing of EPA or IRS! Let me at that budget! The $1.5 trillion planned deficit for the coming year could easily be eliminated, create private sector jobs and reduce government created private sector expenses substantially.
If you haven’t read the Supreme Court decision that rendered CO2 a pollutant subject to regulation by the EPA via the Clean Air Act, I would recommend you do so.
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/06pdf/05-1120.pdf
I must admit that I have a special place in my heart for the footnote in Scalia’s dissenting opinion on page 63 of the document, which points out the lunacy of the majority’s logic in determining that CO2 is a pollutant, concluding with the following observation:
‘It follows that everything airborne, from Frisbees to flatulence, qualifies as an “air pollutant.” This reading of the statute defies common sense.’
Lisa Jackson can look forward to dancing to the tune of the GOP chop. Budget Axe.
Under her leadership, the EPA stands astride job recovery.
Now, we do need an EPA, we simply can do without her, or like-minded agendists, on a mission that hold promise only of crushing America.
Pink slip or Budget Axe, choose wisely.
This isn’t true.
The Supreme Court concluded that the EPA Administrator was allowed to include anything she wanted into the definition of air pollutant – at her discretion.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with Congress telling her.
ok, YOU have the discretion to define air pollution – fine.
WE have the discretion to define how much money you get.
Ms Jackson included the following:-
“The Small Business Majority and the Main Street Alliance have pointed out that such blocking action would have negative implications for many businesses, large and small, that have enacted new practices to reduce their carbon footprint as part of their business models. They also write that it would hamper the growth of the clean energy sector of the U.S. economy, a sector that a majority of small business owners view as essential to their ability to compete.”
Surely those businesses, large and small, that have enacted new practices to reduce their carbon (dioxide?) footprint should be laughing. If they are right about C, or CO2 or whatever it is, and continue to believe the AGW proponents, they should reap the reward of their foresight. If they are wrong, then they can continue to be comforted
in the thought that they are going to be rewarded for their foresight – since as things are playing out, it will be a long time yet before before the scam is admitted by its supporters.
Charlie
PS. I have for a while now had the feeling that ‘Western’ civilisations are in the early stages of their own destruction. History is littered with such examples – the Egyptians, the Ancient Greeks, the Romans, the Moors etc. – some of which took their eye off the ball, or others which were simply by-passed by technology and/or accidents of geography e.g. the silk route. No doubt you have your own favourite exmaples.
It seems to me that here in the UK, our leaders are busy signing away the seeds of our own survival, at least in the material living standards that we have come to expect. Our own legislators are fixated about GHGs and are also keen to appease anybody who says ‘Boo’ in whatever field. The European Union is travel(l)ing the same path and it appears from Lisa P Jackson’s post (and lots of others on this site) that the US is trying hard to do the same. We will wake up when it’s too late – and what will Ms Goddard’s quoted children then have to thank us for?
Sorry to go on so!
Charlie
I hope somebody files a FOIA request for Jackson’s emails. Of course, she could have followed Browner’s actions and made sure to leave no electronic trail…
Last year alone, EPA’s implementation of the Clean Air Act saved more than 160,000 American lives; avoided more than 100,000 hospital visits; prevented millions of cases of respiratory illness, including bronchitis and asthma; enhanced American productivity by preventing millions of lost workdays; and kept American kids healthy and in school.
BUT – Medical Author: William C. Shiel, Jr., MD, FACP, FACR
Scientists and physicians have noticed that the rates of asthma have been increasing in recent decades. This has been especially true in developed countries such as the United States. In fact, the American Lung Association has reported that asthma prevalence has risen from 34 cases/1000 people in the general population in 1982 to 56 cases/1000 in 1994.
Seems like asthma rates have exploded on EPA’s Clean Air Act.
And from the Washington Examiner- http://washingtonexaminer.com/node/524737
A paper by the American Enterprise Institute-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, “Do Federal Regulations Reduce Mortality?” looked at the effect of 24 health, safety and environmental regulations passed in the 1990s.
The authors concluded that the EPA was responsible for six of the eight worst regulations. All six of these EPA regulations were intended to reduce exposure to carcinogens, yet the authors concluded they all actually raised mortality risks. On net, the EPA regulations examined may have actually cost 97 lives.
So EPA is in fact killing us.
Yesterday, the University of Massachusetts and Ceres released an analysis finding that two of the updated Clean Air Act standards EPA is preparing to establish for mercury, soot, smog, and other harmful air pollutants from power plants will create nearly 1.5 million jobs over the next five years.
I don’t think the cost for further reduction warrants the extra cost on my power bill.
This service is provided to you at no charge by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency .
Ms. Jackson, what exactly is your agency’s annual budget? Would you consider that number to constitute “at no charge”?
I’m sure Obama will give wavers to all his favorite companies. Crony capitalism at its best.
Rather than playing games with the EPA’s funding, which the bureaucrat’s will easily find methods to circumvent to continue to press their agenda, what is required is to change the language of the agency’s authorizing statute so that it is restricted to monitoring and restraining actual pollution. This is the only way to undercut the Supreme Court ruling which allows and indeed appears to demand that they act to control CO2.
CodeTech says:
February 10, 2011 at 8:16 am
Dear reader:
As you know, the children are our future. We protect children from evil. Children are happier now than children ever were. Because of our child protection of children, your children will be children for children. Child children, youth, protection and child. Child is the rallying children cry of the children.
================================
Beautifully put! Whenever I see ‘the chiiiildrun’ mentioned, I now invoke ‘Hansen’s Law’ and dismiss it out of hand………………..
Anyone bother to ask Ms. Jackson to provide a list of persons actually affected by mercury from power plants? CDC doesn’t seem to have anything related to that. Short of historic ingestion of organomecurials in Japan and the mid east and acute contact with mercury there isn’t much of a record of problems with mercury.
I’m glad to know Ms. Jackson is out protecting us from the non-existant threats of mercury and CO2.
There’s absolutely no hope for America and Europe so long as these lies continue.
Is that the intention?
I’d like to point out that the claimed dangers of CO2 merely come from a projected change in temperatures. There are two possible reasons for this. Either:
1) The current temperature at some site is safe, but the projected future temperature is unsafe and represents a threat to health.
2) The change in temperature from current to future represents the threat, even though a stable warmer temperature is in itself safe.
The first line of argument backs the EPA into the corner of saying that someplace like Death Valley is environmentally safe (otherwise they’d have to ban its existence), but a slightly warmer Death Valley is unsafe. But that means that everywhere that isn’t projected to get any hotter than Death Valley (the entire US) would also be safe in the future, and since nobody lives in Death Valley, nobody is endangered by higher future temperatures. Basically, if higher temps are dangerous to all of us shouldn’t we make Alabama, Arizona, and Mississippi illegal?
So the EPA would have to fall back to the second argument, that changing temperatures are unsafe. That would put them in the position of banning the morning sunrise, or banning solar cycles, or banning El Nino.
The EPA is babbling that they’re regulating an “air pollutant” that effects temperatures, which means they’re really setting temperature standards for the great outdoors.
I can’t wait for office workers to start suing their employers for the damage to their health caused by the excessive amounts of the nasty pollutant CO2 in their office environment.
What a bonanza!
I am still trying to determne what the negatives are with GHG – man made or not that the EPA wants to protect us from? I found a reference in her letter as to it being harmful:
Based on the best peer-reviewed science, EPA found in 2009 that manmade greenhouse gas emissions do threaten the health and welfare of the American people.
But, no where does she document what those specific quantifiable threats are.
I think I’ve found a place for the Republicans in the House to cut some serious money from the federal budget.
“”””” CRS, Dr.P.H. says:
February 10, 2011 at 10:20 am
*ahem* As a practicing environmental scientist for the past 30 years, I’ve seen the vast improvements made in the environment, thanks to initiatives from the EPA as well as their partners at the state and local level. (EPA sets the regs, and states implement & enforce them). “””””
Well I have no disagreement with your conclusion that the Clean Air Act may have resulted in cleaning up many different problems. I have no problem with the EPA continuing to implement the environmental laws.
I just don’t want them ususrping the Congressional powers, and actually making up their own environmental laws. How simple is that.
Americans vote for the members of the Congress, Congress makes the laws. If Americans don’t like the laws; they replace the members of the Congress with people that can write better laws.
If the EPA wasn’t wasting so much time and resources, in making up their own laws; they would be able to administer the laws made by Congress, on a far smaller budget, than they now waste.
EPA is not only useless, it’s harmful. Get rid of it. It’s a danger for USA.
In my opinion.
It appears to be some sort of announcement that we have become the Royal Subjects of the Queen of the Air, Empress of Energy, Redemptrix of America’s Power Plants and Oil Refineries, etc, etc..
These are the “real details” about that EPA-funded self-intersted “study” that she is citing from CERES…. Parts of the original are from Penn Energy’s web site
Enviro’s Claim: Emissions control rules to create 1.4 million new jobs (New EPA Regs->New Costs)
Penn Energy On-Line Reports ^ | 02-08-2011 | RACookPE1978
Posted on Wednesday, February 09, 2011 9:32:40 PM
http://www.freerepublic.com
Report: Emissions control rules to create 1.4 million new jobs
Emissions control rules being proposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will provide economic benefits and jobs across much of the U.S. in the next five years, according to a new report from Ceres, a network of investors and environmental organizations.
The report found that the power sector will invest almost $200 billion total in capital improvements over the next five years. Total employment created by these capital investments is estimated at 1.46 million jobs, or about 290,000 jobs on average in each of the next five years. Among the states that will see the biggest job gains from this construction activity are Virginia, Tennessee, Illinois, North Carolina and Indiana.
The study also finds that permanent operation and maintenance (O&M) jobs associated with pollution control installations and new generation construction will be created in all states. Although some O&M jobs will be lost because of projected retirement of older, less efficient coal plants, these losses will be offset by new O&M jobs, resulting in an approximately 4,200 net job gain across the 36 states studied.
The new report evaluates job impacts under two Clean Air Act rules expected to be finalized in 2011: the Clean Air Transport Rule, and the Utility MACT rule.
To download a copy of the report, visit http://www.ceres.org/epajobsreport.
Notice that this “study” – funded for and by the EPA and the environmental groups to “justify” the (very real) job losses and economic pain as energy costs are raised regionally to pay for these UNNEEDED changes in the emission control systems of existing power plants itself is propoaganda tool.
This 200 billion in “unneeded” new construction for unneeded new emission systems? Yet another Obama “tax” – that he hasn’t raised on businesses in the US.
Notice also that the new emission systems themselves waste money, time, fuel, power, and material and effort to build, but that they will ALSO cost money to operate, require more material to operate, and will waste power operating. Net efficiency of the plants goes DOWN!
She’s screaming for money and willing to lie AND KILL for it.
So, I have a better idea. Lewt us point our how DANGEROUS being wrong on all this could be. Latitude, people in the US have died from CO2–from alcoholic beverage fermentation, when enormous concentrations can be produced. That is not the issue here, but amounts between 300 ppm and 800 ppm. At those levels, increases are highly beneficial.
Letting the EPA get away with slpppy science like this could both starve and directly physically harm people. EPA needs to be directed to study the actual effects of 200 to 1000 ppm on humans and farm animals and wildlife. If we build animal and bird nest boxes, CO2 rises in them. Does this directly contribute to increased survival? Could we increase wildlife by encouraging schoolchildren to build birdhouses and animal nest boxes and install these in National Forests?
All this takes MONEY. I want some of that money for US, the skeptics (actual scientists).
If we don’t get this money, we might make mistakes that will not only sabotage the economy, but harm all life into the bargain. The danger there is actual and great. Truth to tell, it is far better established scientisfically than the warmist alarmism.
The warmist alarmists cheat. The CO2-loving alarmists don’t have to. The dangers I cite are real and the facts are on my side.
CRS, Dr.P.H.:
As a practicing realist for over 30 years, I take exception to your premise.
Many, or most of the claims you just made are exaggerations, in some cases outright misrepresentation. The Great Lakes were never “essentially dead”, thank you very much.
I am more amused than anything at claims by people that “if” the EPA or (insert name of greenie idealist organization) didn’t exist, we’d be awash in (insert pollutant: horse feces, mercury, acid rain, etc.)
That represents a fundamental belief that anyone NOT a self-described environmentalist is, by definition, a flaming MORON, and likely to destroy their immediate environment, and by extension, the planet. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
However, even putting that aside, remember that ABSOLUTE POWER CORRUPTS, ABSOLUTELY.
Give some government organization unlimited power to control something and you will find people taking advantage of that power to further their own personal agenda.
Ms. Jackson is a perfect example of an absolutely corrupt individual. This little screed is a blatant (amateur) attempt to push greenie buttons, especially with its unnecessary and ridiculous plea to “saaaave the chiiiilldren!”.
She should be embarrassed. As should anyone who backs even a tiny portion of this CO2 regulation farce.
Fortunately for us, Her Majesty is in Her Royal Good Mood, and will use her Absolute Scientific Fiat to favor her subjects with her Sovereign automobile designs, which are best; and she will create an atmosphere on earth conducive to life, and save us from ghastly deaths, and create millions of jobs for our undirected and lost lives to be occupied with.
But what if we make her mad? haha
I’m having a hard time taking the EPA seriously any more.
“Meanwhile coal production in China increases at an astonishing pace, and most of the operating coal plants in China lack modern scrubbers to remove gross air pollution. In this regard, concerns over CO2 may be misplaced. It could be that black soot that settles on arctic ice is warming the northern polar regions more than the CO2 that accompanies that soot. And the ill-health attendant to that soot is beyond debate. The costs to remove genuine pollution, nitrogen dioxide, sulpher dioxide, carbon monoxide, particulate matter and toxic metals – is far, far less costly than attempting to sequester the CO2 emissions. And the technology to do this is well established.”
http://www.ecoworld.com/energy-fuels/chinas-coal.html
After China starts actively participating in an easily achievable reduction is actual pollutants, then we can talk about global CO2. Until then KMFA.
If 160,000 were saved here in America then there must be millions dead in China.
In other words: “This bill would impede our attempts to gain centralized government control of the United States economy”.
“Based on the best peer-reviewed science, EPA found in 2009 that manmade greenhouse gas emissions do threaten the health and welfare of the American people.”
I wonder how much of that peer-reviewed science was paid for by the EPA? It’s trivially easy for a government agency to fund research papers that say whatever the agency wants.
If the EPA takes credit for millions of lives saved, how many lives have they ended? The price of food has gone up as a result of EPA encouraged use of corn as fuel. How many children at the bottom of the economic ladder have starved as a result of this policy? If the climate really *is* warmer as a result of CO2 emissions, how many people have not frozen to death? The EPA administrator is not doing her job if she doesn’t count the deaths caused by the EPA’s action.
Ms Jackson,
Can you explain the EPA’s mitigation plan for H2O and O3, both of which are greenhouse gases, with severe pollution potential ?
In particular, gasoline powered automobiles typically emit more of the H2O pollutant, than they do of the CO2 pollutant.
Shouldn’t your priorities be to clean up the most prevalent problem first ?
The EPA has become a “Great Machine”. Something we learned in the 60’s about organizations and how, as they grow, they take on a life of their own and they seek out work/projects that they perceive they have the skills and power to do so they can grow and survive. The Columbia River Treaty between the USA and Canada was said by many to be a result of the BC Hydro Authority having developed a huge expertise in dams and river works and therefore needed the government to develop policies that would allow them to carry on. The Tennessee Valley Authority and the US Corps of Engineers have/had the same characteristics. I wrote a term paper on this in the 60’s but I don’t see any good references on the Internet, although I see something a bit a similar called “Complexity Theory” which makes the comparison between organizations and life forms – they feed, they grow, they adapt, they fight for their lives … but it is different from the Theory of Great Machines if I could find it.
http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/management/Bun-Comp/Complexity-Theory.html
The EPA is what I would call a Great Machine that needs to keep feeding itself and growing in order to survive, but the result is they end up moving into areas where they really should not be. They have become so massive that its parts have no idea of the actual direction they are going, what their objectives are or the likely consequences of their actions while maintaining complete deniability as individuals or parts.
Great Machines must eventually fail under their own weight.
The argument that 160,000 lives were saved is completely specious. The number is derived something like this: If the atmosphere were replaced by solid soot to a depth of 1000 meters, six billion people would die. So, do some rectal plucking to come up with a curve between zero concentration and 100% soot and multiply the current point on the curve by six billion. Something like that, anyway.
They do the same kind of thing to come up with meaningless numbers for mortality to exposure to low levels of radiation. They ignore the fact that “harm” actually goes negative as you move away from the origin until you get well past the point of not being able to call it “low-level” any more.
Please if anyone can help, Chris Horner at CEI.ORG is litigating, “tangentially,” these issues as we speak. His organization can use all the support we can give.
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly.
But the traitor moves among those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.
For the traitor appears not traitor, he speaks in the accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their garments, and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men.
He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared.”
– Cicero, 42 B.C.
I wasn’t going to comment on this, but after reading so many diatribes about the EPA (which were all well deserved) I decided a few observations are in order.
First, the EPA is not going to set a National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) in ppm for CO2. NAAQS’s are set for “criteria” pollutants. IMO, the protocol for becoming a “criteria” pollutant is far too rigorous for CO2 ever to be declared a “criteria” pollutant. Instead, for mobile sources, the EPA is relying on section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act which states:
“(a) Authority of Administrator to prescribe by regulation
Except as otherwise provided in subsection (b) of this section—
(1) The Administrator shall by regulation prescribe (and from time to time revise) in accordance with the provisions of this section, standards applicable to the emission of any air pollutant from any class or classes of new motor vehicles or new motor vehicle engines, which in his judgment cause, or contribute to, air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare. Such standards shall be applicable to such vehicles and engines for their useful life (as determined under subsection (d) of this section, relating to useful life of vehicles for purposes of certification), whether such vehicles and engines are designed as complete systems or incorporate devices to prevent or control such pollution.”
Note that the Administrator can set emission standards (grams/mile or grams/HpHr) for motor vehicles for anything the Administrator decides is an air pollutant. No wonder the SC decided that the EPA had the power to set emission standards for CO2 for mobile sources. Since the carbon comes from the fuel, these emission standards will really be fuel economy standards in miles per gallon..
For stationary sources such as power plants and factories, the approach is different. The EPA is relying on its New Source Review (NSR) permitting authority. Congress established the New Source Review (NSR) permitting program as part of the 1977 Clean Air Act Amendments. Read about it here:
http://www.epa.gov/nsr/
The NSR was never meant to be a means of controlling a non-criteria pollutant. So the Administration is going through the backdoor to get a cap-and-trade system established.
The reality is, even if congress passes a bill restricting EPA from acting on CO2, the president will never sign it. Only a change in the President in 2012 will stop the EPA from controlling CO2.
George E. Smith says:
February 10, 2011 at 1:53 pm
“”””” CRS, Dr.P.H. says:
February 10, 2011 at 10:20 am
*ahem* As a practicing environmental scientist for the past 30 years, I’ve seen the vast improvements made in the environment, thanks to initiatives from the EPA as well as their partners at the state and local level. (EPA sets the regs, and states implement & enforce them). “””””
Well I have no disagreement with your conclusion that the Clean Air Act may have resulted in cleaning up many different problems. I have no problem with the EPA continuing to implement the environmental laws.
I just don’t want them ususrping the Congressional powers, and actually making up their own environmental laws. How simple is that.
———
George, the EPA was created BY Congressional powers, with the leadership and vision of President Nixon:
The EPA was proposed by President Richard Nixon and began operation on December 3, 1970, after Nixon submitted a reorganization plan to Congress and it was ratified by committee hearings in the House and Senate.[3](Wikipedia)
The Supreme Court made an independent determination that CO2 and other GHG were air pollutants and handed this judgement to the EPA, so the USEPA has no legal option but to move forward on some plan. EPA does not make up laws, they make up regulations with the blessings of Congress. Big difference.
If Congress wants to yank the EPA’s ability to regulate carbon dioxide, then fine. However, when they are including other hazardous materials including nitrous oxide (N2O) generated by the manufacture of nitric acid, as well as chlorofluorocarbons, I get pretty upset.
They’ve even worked water vapor into the act, which could backfire…I’ve worked with large paper mills that had to reduce fog generated from massive cooling towers that caused problems on rural highways, and the local authorities operated under federal guidelines. The paper company would not have done anything otherwise.
The proposed laws that Inhofe and others are recommending have the potential to backfire badly. If you want nicely polluted air, I suggest you try Shanghai.
EPA knows that their approach to regulating greenhouse gases through the Clean Air Act is unworkable; they are not interested in that. They are interested in finding vehicles by which they can initiate comprehensive regulation of the American economy. This is not a question of science, but of public policy.
There is, in my view, no competent evidence upon which EPA could make an endangerment finding. Using SCOTUS as an excuse to make such a finding is chintzy, sleazy politics at its worst. The litigation challenging their finding must continue, unless Congress enacts its ban on EPA’s regulation of greenhouse gases, which legislation should be passed forthwith. And if the President vetoes it, he will be held to account in 2012, and will be hoisted by his petard and out of the White House.
EPA calculates the AQI for five major air pollutants regulated by the Clean Air Act: ground-level ozone, particle pollution (also known as particulate matter), carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen dioxide. Carbon dioxide is not part of any AIR QUALITY INDEX. So why all the concern about carbon dioxide endangering human life ? STRANGE?
To CRS, Dr.P.H.,
In the hundreds of hours of reading I have invested in this issue, I have yet to hear an environmentalist decry the incredible WASTE of billions of dollars that were meant to clean up air and water directed to the sole purpose of eliminating carbon dioxide from our vast and chaotic atmosphere.
As carbon dioxide comprises .00035 of our atmosphere this is nothing but outrageous. Politicians worried by UN declarations of worldwide catastrophe funded this fear with a bottomless money pot. Unscrupulous universities and our own national science foundations followed that money and altered the scant and dubious “data,” backed by the good intentions of the common-sense and righteous willingness of Americans to do what we could to clean our air and water.
No one could have convinced me that there was a conspiracy here if I had not seen it myself. It is all there for you to find. The multiple statements made by NOAA, GISS, UN IPCC, James Hansen, Gavin Schmidt, Andy Revkin, Paul Krugman, Michael Oppenheimer and many others describe the immediate neccesity of de-industrializing the West, and reducing human population, sometimes by 90%.
If you choose to be ignorant of these readily available statements, then so be it. But it must be a choice you have made. There is no other explanation.
Saved 160,000 lives. It will produce millions of tons of CO2 to feed, house them and drive their autos.
Just to keep them unfrozen this winter will take a lot of petrol.
I am sure Browner and Jackson can’t detect contradiction in their mission or agenda.
“”””” CRS, Dr.P.H. says:
February 10, 2011 at 9:34 pm
George E. Smith says:
February 10, 2011 at 1:53 pm
“”””” CRS, Dr.P.H. says:
February 10, 2011 at 10:20 am
*ahem* As a practicing environmental scientist for the past 30 years, I’ve seen the vast improvements made in the environment, thanks to initiatives from the EPA as well as their partners at the state and local level. (EPA sets the regs, and states implement & enforce them). “””””
Well I have no disagreement with your conclusion that the Clean Air Act may have resulted in cleaning up many different problems. I have no problem with the EPA continuing to implement the environmental laws.
I just don’t want them ususrping the Congressional powers, and actually making up their own environmental laws. How simple is that.
———
George, the EPA was created BY Congressional powers, with the leadership and vision of President Nixon: “”””””
Sometimes I think I need to take courses in remedial English. I’m aware that the Congress created the EPA along with president Nixon; but I choose to disagree with those words “BY Congressional powers.” So just which of the 17 Congressional Powers did they use to create the EPA ?
And since we now have the EPA to make laws; why do we still need the Congress?
WE the People helped establish The Congress, and told it what they DO have the authority to do. Creating an EPA to replace them in making laws; was not one of the 17 things we authorised them to do.
I want ALL; as in each and every single law, to be written by, and voted on, by the elected members of the Congress; not by some otherwise unemployed and unemployable hacks; who answer to nobody.
We clearly made a mistake in providing for a Congress, if they aren’t going to write the laws we charge them with doing; but outsource them to Bangladesh or some other Constitutionally devoid of authorization amateurs.
There is an intellectual infection that is epidemic in our bureaucracy – equivocation. It is represented here as the confounding of “regulation” with “legislation” and elsewhere as the inability to distinguish ‘propaganda’ from ‘science.’ Symptoms include the use of poorly defined terms, facile shift of vocabulary in mid-stream, and “political correctness.’
CodeTech says:
February 10, 2011 at 2:21 pm
CRS, Dr.P.H.:
As a practicing realist for over 30 years, I take exception to your premise.
Many, or most of the claims you just made are exaggerations, in some cases outright misrepresentation. The Great Lakes were never “essentially dead”, thank you very much.
——
REPLY The Great Lakes were so heavily polluted before the Clean Water Act that vast areas were biologically dead, including Green Bay, Wisconsin. The lakes were full of coarse fish species, dead zones depleted of oxygen, and massive areas where PCBs and PBBs had been spilled for many years (Outboard Marine in Waukegan Harbor was a major polluter).
————
Here, let me teach you:
http://www.great-lakes.net/teach/pollution/water/water5.html
I’m alarmed at the tone on this thread of “SHUT DOWN THE EPA!” I work in countries that lack even the basics of air and water pollution, and it is not pleasant.
One refinery in Irapuato, Mexico caused my eyes to burn before it even appeared over the horizon.
Be careful what you wish for is all I ask. The direction Congress is heading may make the GHG arguments worse, by forcing them out of the regulatory control of the EPA and into the courts. “Noisome” pollution lawsuits are already being filed, and these will cause even greater harm.
The EPA’s finding, not the Supreme Court, classified CO2 as a dangerous pollutant. This was based upon the language of the “Clean Air Act”, which was found to be “Broad”, “Sweeping”, “Capacious” and covers everything airborne. Bottom line, the Congress defined CO2 as a pollutant, and can act to revise that act to reflect common sense.
The EPA relied upon IPCC, 2001 and ignored / suppressed and internal report urging caution. Alan Carlin wrote an EPA internal report:
Carlin, Alan. 2009. Comments on Draft Technical Support Document for Endangerment Analysis for Greenhouse Gas Emissions under the Clean Air Act (Based on TSD Draft of March 9, 2009). Scientific Blog. Carlin Economics and Science. March 16. http://www.carlineconomics.com/files/pdf/end_comments_7b1.pdf
Carlin took fire from the bureaucratic hierarchy. He later retired from government service.
Kazman, Sam. Letter to Environmental Protection Agency2009. Re: Proposed Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act, Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2009-0171. June 23. http://cei.org/cei_files/fm/active/0/Endangerment%20Comments%206-23-09.pdf
Here is the Supreme Court’s decision:
Justice Stevens. 2007. MASSACHUSETTS ET AL. v. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY ET AL. April 2.
Cite as: 549 U. S. ____ (2007) No. 05–1120. Argued November 29, 2006—Decided April 2, 2007.
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/06pdf/05-1120.pdf
Pp. 12–23.
Page 02 (Opinion): Specifically, petitioners asked us to answer two questions concerning the meaning of §202(a)(1) of the Act: whether EPA has the statutory authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles; and if so, whether its stated reasons for refusing to do so are consistent with the statute.
Page 04, 05 (Syllabus): #3. Because greenhouse gases fit well within the Act’s capacious definition of “air pollutant,” EPA has statutory authority to regulate emission of such gases from new motor vehicles. That definition— which includes “any air pollution agent . . . , including any physical,chemical, . . . substance . . . emitted into . . . the ambient air . . . ,” §7602(g) (emphasis added)—embraces all airborne compounds of whatever stripe.
…”EPA identifies nothing suggesting that Congress meant to curtail EPA’s power to treat greenhouse gases as air pollutants.
Page 05 (Syllabus): #4. On remand, EPA must ground its reasons for action or inaction in the statute. Pp. 30–32.
Page 20, 21 (Opinion): Causation
EPA does not dispute the existence of a causal connection between man-made greenhouse gas emissions and global warming. At a minimum, therefore, EPA’s refusal to regulate such emissions “contributes” to Massachusetts’ injuries.
EPA nevertheless maintains that its decision not to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles contributes so insignificantly to petitioners’ injuries that the agency cannot be haled into federal court to answer for them. For the same reason, EPA does not believe that any realistic possibility exists that the relief petitioners seek would mitigate global climate change and remedy their injuries. That is especially so because predicted increases in greenhouse gas emissions from developing nations, particularly China and India, are likely to offset any marginal domestic decrease.
Page 23 (Opinion): In sum—at least according to petitioners’ uncontested affidavits—the rise in sea levels associated with global warming has already harmed and will continue to harm Massachusetts. The risk of catastrophic harm, though remote, is nevertheless real. That risk would be reduced to some extent if petitioners received the relief they seek. We therefore hold that petitioners have standing to challenge the EPA’s denial of their rulemaking petition.
Page 24 (Opinion): The scope of our review of the merits of the statutory issues is narrow. As we have repeated time and again, an agency has broad discretion to choose how best to marshal its limited resources and personnel to carry out its delegated responsibilities.
Page 26 (Opinion): The statutory text forecloses EPA’s reading. The Clean Air Act’s sweeping definition of “air pollutant” includes “any air pollution agent or combination of such agents, including any physical, chemical . . . substance or matter which is emitted into or otherwise enters the ambient air . . . .” §7602(g) (emphasis added).
On its face, the definition embraces all airborne compounds of whatever stripe, and underscores that intent through the repeated use of the word “any.”[25] Carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and hydrofluorocarbons are without a doubt “physical [and] chemical . . . substance[s] which [are] emitted into . . . the ambient air.” The statute is unambiguous.
Page 32 (Opinion): In short, EPA has offered no reasoned explanation for its refusal to decide whether greenhouse gases cause or contribute to climate change.
VIII: The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
SCALIA, J. (Dissenting, Page 06): with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE, JUSTICE THOMAS, and JUSTICE ALITO join, dissenting.
Page 6 of dissent: If,” the Court says, “the scientific uncertainty is so profound that it precludes EPA from making a reasoned judgment as to whether greenhouse gases contribute to global warming, EPA must say so.” Ante, at 31. But EPA has said precisely that—and at great length, based on information contained in a 2001 report by the National Research Council (NRC) entitled Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions.
Page 8 of dissent, referring to the NRC report:
“I simply cannot conceive of what else the Court would like EPA to say.”
SCALIA, J. (Dissenting, page 08): “Air pollutant” is defined by the Act as “any air pollution agent or combination of such agents, including any physical, chemical, . . . substance or matter which is emitted into or otherwise enters the ambient air.” 42 U. S. C. §7602(g). The Court is correct that “[c]arbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and hydrofluorocarbons,” ante, at 26, fit within the second half of that definition: They are “physical, chemical, . . . substance[s] or matter which [are] emitted into or otherwise ente[r] the ambient air.” But the Court mistakenly believes this to be the end of the analysis. In order to be an “air pollutant” under the Act’s definition, the “substance or matter [being] emitted into . . . the ambient air” must also meet the first half of the definition—namely, it must be an “air pollution agent or combination of such agents.” The Court simply pretends this half of the definition does not exist.
The Court’s analysis faithfully follows the argument advanced by petitioners, which focuses on the word “including” in the statutory definition of “air pollutant.” See Brief for Petitioners 13–14. As that argument goes, anything that follows the word “including” must necessarily be a subset of whatever precedes it. Thus, if greenhouse gases qualify under the phrase following the word “including,” they must qualify under the phrase preceding it. Since greenhouse gases come within the capacious phrase “any physical, chemical, . . . substance or matter which is emitted into or otherwise enters the ambient air,” they must also be “air pollution agent[s] or combination[s] of such agents,” and therefore meet the definition of “air pollutant[s].”
SCALIA, J. (Dissenting, Page 10 footnote 2): Not only is EPA’s interpretation reasonable, it is far more plausible than the Court’s alternative. As the Court correctly points out, “all airborne compounds of whatever stripe,” ante, at 26, would qualify as “physical, chemical, . . . substance[s] or matter which [are] emitted into or otherwise ente[r] the ambient air,” 42 U. S. C. §7602(g). It follows that everything airborne, from Frisbees to flatulence, qualifies as an “air pollutant.” This reading of the statute defies common sense.
Government by Diktat
EPA is broken. It has become a tool of tyranny, unfit for service in a representative republic. Prune it.
A sloppily-written Clean Air Act is the root cause. Congress can and should fix it.
http://greenhellblog.com/2011/02/09/defund-the-epa/
CA is a bit farther along in implementing a cap and trade program for C02 then the federal government. A meeting was held http://www.energy.ca.gov/2011_energypolicy/notices/2011-01-19_Workshop_Notice.pdf last month (19 Jan) at the California Energy Commission (CEC) to obtain input on how the state of the economy will impact the the 2011 Integrated Energy Policy Report (IEPR). The agenda for the meeting noted “The California Energy Commission’s Electricity Supply Analysis Division and Fuels and Transportation Division will jointly conduct a workshop to solicit comments on the changing California economy and future economic outlook as part of the 2011 Integrated Energy Policy Report (2011 IEPR)”.
The Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA) had some interesting comments on the CA economy and how it will be impacted by CA’s version of CAP and Trade (AB 32 and the low carbon fuel standard)- http://www.energy.ca.gov/2011_energypolicy/documents/2011-01-19_workshop/comments/Western_States_Petroleum_Association_Comments_TN-59597.pdf
Of particular interest to me was this comment- “All sources agree that AB32, even when fully implemented, will have virtually no effect on global climate change. ” Page 4.
@CRS, Dr.P.H.:
So, what are you going to do?
You know the EPA is wrong in regulating “carbon emissions.” You should know they’ve been engaging in mission creep, tightening up regulations beyond the concept of “acceptable risk” and well into actively pursuing the Precautionary Principle as their guidepost, which is wrong. They’re reminding me of ads for multi-vitamin/mineral supplements, ‘Emerging science says this might help, so we’re tossing it in just in case (even though we don’t know yet for certain).’
We don’t want to go back to the pre-EPA days of polluted air, water, and soil, so we won’t. Period.
You know the EPA needs to be throttled back. If the proposed legislation isn’t the way, what is? Do you know of a method that will work, that this administration will allow to work?
You can keep going on about the EPA’s glory days and all the good it did back then, even how it still works. But it’s sounding like praising an old car you still drive, how you had your first whatever in it, drove your pregnant wife to the hospital during a blinding snowstorm with it, etc. Or your parents’ old house that you now live in, with its wood fireplaces, lack of central heating and insulation, and quaint outhouse.
It is not being proposed that you give up driving, or live outdoors. But it is time to admit the relative inefficiency, need of repair, high maintenance costs. Time to realize the need for renovation or replacement, for something more modern, more efficient, more capable, and more responsive. ‘Cause what we have right now, just ain’t working good enough anymore.
CRS, Dr.P.H.
Here, let me teach YOU.
The great lakes are about 5500 cubic MILES of water, with a surface area of about 94,000 square miles. Your little “dead zones” that seem to cause you great consternation were minuscule portions of this vast volume.
Also, you make the typical amateur mistake of confusing a small area in the US with the gigantic overall area that includes Canada.
Your claim was an exaggeration, but now you’re stretching it [snip ~ Evan]
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
February 11, 2011 at 5:17 pm
@CRS, Dr.P.H.:
You know the EPA needs to be throttled back. If the proposed legislation isn’t the way, what is? Do you know of a method that will work, that this administration will allow to work?
REPLY
Yup. Patents pending. I’ll give you a hint….carbon dioxide is a valuable material.
“Pollutants are misplaced resources.” By Jack Sheaffer, Ph.D. , an old friend of mine.
Last year alone, EPA’s implementation of the Clean Air Act saved more than 160,000 American lives ….. In 2008, that industry generated nearly 300 billion dollars in revenues and 44 billion dollars in exports.
Is that not double counting. Granting the ameliorative effects on lives (doubtful as I am of Govt;s auto-titillating number), all this cost us 300 billion, the lost opportunity of this amount never gets factored in. In fact it is presented as a wonderment to behold. In that case let’s increase regulations 10 perhaps hindered fold. We will save more lives and reduce joblessness at the same time.
Kate says:
February 11, 2011 at 6:07 am
To CRS, Dr.P.H.,
In the hundreds of hours of reading I have invested in this issue, I have yet to hear an environmentalist decry the incredible WASTE of billions of dollars that were meant to clean up air and water directed to the sole purpose of eliminating carbon dioxide from our vast and chaotic atmosphere.
—-
REPLY Um….do you live in the USA, or Belgium?
The USA hasn’t spent much money at all on carbon dioxide remediation. The amount of scientific funding to universities, NASA etc. for research into GHG mitigation is probably in the low billions, but the USA lags behind Europe and Japan, since we didn’t sign onto Kyoto.
My clients (major industries including electrical generating utilities) simply want a road-map so they can budget for the future, and they haven’t been fighting the proposed Title V PSD as much as oil & gas have. In fact, some like John Rowe, CEO of Exelon, are strong proponents of carbon mitigation. Here’s some of his speeches:
http://www.exeloncorp.com/newsroom/speeches/Pages/speeches.aspx#section_1
It will be interesting to see how this works out! Most of this will be dragged out in the courts, and utilities are now bracing for endless “noisesome pollution” lawsuits from green groups, native tribes etc. Believe me, they would rather this be settled by the USEPA, since EPA has presented a very long-range plan that they can live with.
CRS, Dr.P.H. wrote, “research into GHG mitigation is probably in the low billions”
Yes, billions per year.
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/112xx/doc11224/03-26-ClimateChange.pdf
And many multinationals and oil and natural gas companies have bought in, for one reason or another; that is correct.
What. An. Incredible. Waste.
As Mark Miller put it, ““All sources agree that AB32, even when fully implemented, will have virtually no effect on global climate change. ”