The Hill E2 wire reports:
House GOP spending bill prohibits funding for EPA climate regs
A government spending bill unveiled Friday night by House Republicans would prohibit funding for Environmental Protection Agency climate regulations through September of this year.
The continuing resolution, which would fund the government through the end of the fiscal year, is the latest attempt by Republicans to stop EPA from regulating greenhouse gas emissions. Republicans argue that pending EPA climate rules will destroy the economy and result in significant job losses. GOP lawmakers, including House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.), have introduced legislation to permanently block the agency’s climate authority.
The bill would block funding for all current and pending EPA climate regulations for stationary sources.
Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), the chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee on interior and the environment, said he worked closely on the language with Upton. He said the language would give Upton time to move forward with his legislation.
“It has become clear to me in talking to the job creators in this country that allowing these regulations to go into effect would prevent job creation and inhibit economic growth at a time when our economy is still struggling,” Simpson said in a statement. “It should be up to Congress, not the Administration, to determine whether and how to regulate greenhouse gases, and in attempting to do so without congressional authority, I’m concerned that EPA has overreached.”
The continuing resolution makes massive cuts to the EPA’s budget. The legislation cuts EPA funding by $3 billion, 29 percent below fiscal year 2010. Overall, Simpson cut $4.5 billion from his subcommittee’s budget.
Full report here: House GOP spending bill prohibits funding for EPA climate regs
It wasn’t all that long ago something like this was unimaginable. I wonder if the people putting the bill together read WUWT, ClinateAudit, RealScince, Musings from the Chiefio, JeffIdAirVent, etc?
Exactly, where’s the cuts to non-space related endeavors at NASA? Or at least re-direct all non-space funding at NASA back into the space program. How many buffoons and scientists do we need telling us the same thing every few days, I get your point already now STFU and lets get down to real science, not real climate!
Great idea but who’s going to watch the EPA to insure they don’t cheat? Can the WH divert funds from other sources to keep the EPA alive to regulate CO2? Can the Republicans in the House completely defund the EPA so they all have to be laid off?
So R. Gates seems to support the destruction of the US economy, unless he’s being sarcastic?
The weather is not a problem, those who try to make money out of it IS the problem and should not be given a penny to them.
crosspatch says:
February 11, 2011 at 10:45 pm
“1. Nobody has shown that current global climate variation is unusual in any way.
2. Nobody has shown that current global climate variation is due to human CO2 emissions.
3. Nobody has shown that any regulations proposed by EPA would have any measurable impact on global CO2.
4. Nobody has shown that EPA has authority over global climate to begin with.
Bottom line: waste of money.”
Exactly! Just like healing. You invent some “disease”, and then you “heal” it.
When everyone understands that “Back-radiation” is imagination, the house of cards falls.
close the EPA down and put all staff on the roads breaking up rocks
At last! A glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.
“These folks are working hard to ensure that terrorists are not able to contaminate your drinking water.”
Put bluntly, there is jack squat that a band of bureaucrats in DC can do to prevent someone from contaminating my drinking water. My water doesn’t come from Washington DC and EPA doesn’t provide physical security for my well.
That comment is what we in the tech industry call “FUD” for “Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt”. It implies that EPA can somehow prevent someone from contaminating a water supply by applying ink to paper and producing regulations. They can’t. People who contaminate water supplies don’t pay any attention to EPA regulations. It implies that if you eliminate EPA you will be less safe and more likely to have your water contaminated.
In fact, water contamination is probably the last thing I would worry about. What is more likely is something like softdrink contamination in a way that is completely undetectable until well after all the contaminated product has been consumed and is deadly.
The notion that a bunch of desk jockeys in DC can keep you safer than your own state health department can is nuts, in my opinion. In fact, in the face of a determined actor who doesn’t care about losing their own life in the process, there is nothing either one of them can do.
Whilst it is difficult to see why EPA has such a large budget to begin with, this is a good start provided that the President does not scupper the plan by vetoing. Perhaps someone is beginning to smell the smelling salts and lets hope the President gets a whiff of these.
Now if only the UK could take note and act in similar fashion, but unfortunately, we seem to have ring fenced our budget for climate change action such that no cuts are being made despite the UK being bankrupt and unable to afford the project.
Don’t try to rewrite history. The recession was caused by the meltdown of the financial markets. The Bush administration left the foxes in charge of the chickenhouse.
This buys us time in the sense that IF we enter a prolonged cooling phase the debate in the House has to hot up [pun intended]. Damage to the US economy will be minimized.
Well, I heard on the news that Barack has proposed a cut in low-income heating assistance. I wonder what this implies, if anything, about his beliefs regarding global warming?
I can see his re-election slogan for next year already:
“Save the earth! Wear a sweater!”
Folks
I;m not familiar with the detail of the US political process. So please explain exactly what this means in practice:
Is it likely that by tabling this motion it will become law?
How long will it take to do so?
Can the Senate or Pres. Obama veto it?
Or is it a ‘done deal’, as in the UK where government bills are very rarely not passed.
Sorry to be ignorant – since the insurrectionists started their political experiment in 1776 their process is all a bit mysterious 🙂
If they refuse to listen to democratically elected politicians then take the money away. Better still remove their ability to operate- close them down!
‘When everyone understands that “Back-radiation” is imagination, the house of cards falls.’
I will disagree with you here. I believe it is pretty well-established that CO2 does absorb some wavelengths of IR and that it does radiate a portion of that back to the surface. That isn’t the question. The question is if it is significant.
H2O is a much more efficient IR absorbing molecule and radiates so much that any increase in CO2 is likely to go unnoticed. There is so much water vapor in the atmosphere that it is already nearly opaque at the frequencies absorbed by CO2. If you paint a window black with a thick coat of paint, and then add one more thin coat, does it really make a difference?
A photon is much more likely to hit a molecule of H2O than CO2. CO2 only absorbs radiation over a small portion of the spectrum that H2O absorbs. There is so much “back radiation” from H2O that any additional radiation from CO2 is likely to be immeasurable. In other words, removing every bit of CO2 from the atmosphere isn’t likely to make any measurable difference because the primary greenhouse gas is water and we can’t get rid of water.
“Don’t try to rewrite history. The recession was caused by the meltdown of the financial markets. The Bush administration left the foxes in charge of the chickenhouse.”
Please, that is not true. His administration began warning about the problem as early as 2001 but it was called a “figment of the Republican imagination” by Democratic members of Congress. Twice legislation was proposed to more tightly regulate the GSEs. The Senate Democrats refused to go along and the legislation never got the 60 votes needed for cloture.
Even if the EPA is downsized, the fat cat bureaucrats at the top will survive.
Bureaucracy’s motto everywhere has always been: “Better to sacrifice the many in order to preserve the privileged few.”
So don’t expect EPA lunacy to end, but at least their outbursts supporting these policies will become ever more shriller and therefore progressively easier for Joe Public to recognise them as BS.
Nothing like getting out of a warm bed on a very cold morning to get the blood circulating and the brain functioning. It seems that three cold winters are returning sanity and clearer thinking to the political classes. It just hasn’t been cold enough in the UK to wake up the looney Hunes yet!
Awesome, awesome news!!!
The results of global cooling are coming in;
“Houston – The cold weather experienced across much of the US in early February made its way deep into Mexico and early reports estimate 80-100 percent crop losses which are having an immediate impact on prices at US grocery stores with more volatility to come.
Wholesale food suppliers have already sent notices to supermarket retailers describing the produce losses in Mexico and the impact shoppers can expect. Sysco sent out a release(pdf) this week stating the early February freeze reached as far south as Los Mochis and south of Culiacan, both located in the state of Sinaloa, along the Gulf of California. The freezing temperatures were the worst the region has seen since 1957.”
According to Sysco’s notice sent out this week:
“The early reports are still coming in but most are showing losses of crops in the range of 80 to 100%. Even shade house product was hit by the extremely cold temps. It will take 7-10 days to have a clearer picture frome growers and field supervisors, but these growing regions haven’t had cold like this in over half a century.”
“Supplies of tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and other vegetables from Mexico will be severely limited until at least March following an early February freeze.”
Jerry Wagner, sales and marketing director for Farmer’s Best, based in Nogales, AZ, said: “The end of February and the first half of March, there will be even worse shortages of product” than during the first part of February, The Packer reports.
Wagner called it “a miracle” if 20 percent of the cucumber crop survives. Yellow, green and grey squash took the biggest hit. “Some plants will come back but the vast majority is lost,” Wagner added.
Sysco called the Mexico freeze an “unprecedented disaster” and noted the volatility of the matter in its release:
“With the series of weather disasters that has occurred in both of these major growing areas we will experience immediate volatile prices, expected limited availability, and mediocre quality at best.”
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/303583
Ted says:
February 11, 2011 at 7:43 pm
Having read a little more I’m putting the cork back in the Bubbly bottle maybe/ yes we definitely do we need a lot tougher medicine, it’s time to play hard ball.
I just read Steve Milloy, ………
========================================================These are two very different pieces of legislation. As pointed out by others, what Anthony posted refers to a spending bill. What Steve Milloy was referencing was something entirely different. Milloy is right, if the bill passes, it will be vetoed. But, a funding bill is a bit different. The House of Representatives are the ones that hold the purse strings to this country. All spending bills go through them. You can’t force them to create a spending bill they don’t wish to. All presidents hate this part, but there’s not much they can do about it. Of course, the president can veto, but then he won’t have any money to play with. Essentially, this comes down to a test of will and media message. If house repubs can hang in there and weather the image storm, they will win. If this is all they offer, then eventually, the president will have little choice but to sign the bill. There’s still a long way to go though. And I’m not entirely impressed by the repubs in this congress to this point. There’s very little time.
Phew!
Now we need the right wing commonsense republican party and tea party movements to influence Australian policy makers, of whom many (left) including the unellected PM are pushing for carbon pricing.
The standard msm and mainstream political commentary down here is that we are behind the rest of the world for failing to do this where the reality is that by implementing a carbon price we would be showing ourselves to be uniquely gullible and naive when most advanced economies have walked away from or stalled such action.
This profound elitest stupidity would undermine one of Australia’s key economic strengths of having some of the largest coal reserves in the world and with it the ability to produce energy at some of the cheapest rates comparable to other developed nations.
Latimer Alder says:
“Is it likely that by tabling this motion it will become law?
How long will it take to do so?
Can the Senate or Pres. Obama veto it?
Or is it a ‘done deal’, as in the UK where government bills are very rarely not passed.”
The Republicans will negotiate with the Democrats, to negotiate a compromise on the budget. The big picture is that the Republicans (led by the House, which is controlled by Republicans) want to cut $100 billion from the USA federal budget this year. So $3B is a small cut in the big picture. Obama is ramping up for the 2012 election and is presenting himself as a kindred spirit of Reagan. My guess is that Obama will fold and tell the EPA to hold off on regulating CO2 for this year (in exchange for getting something that he wants more).
EPA regulating CO2 is generating lawsuits and civil disobedience (Texas flat refuses to recognize the feds right to regulate CO2) and is not going to help the economy (Obama’s biggest hurdle to get reelected).
Obama probably loudly blames this on neanderthal Republicans but may (secretly) be happy to have this particular squabble off the plate.
In the event that that an agreement is not reached, the Republicans will offer a continuing resolution to keep critical government operations going. The Democrats will go along with it because they are not going to shut down government. The Republicans have the edge in this conflict so long as they carefully craft small, well defined spending bills. All spending bills originate in the House.
And the sad part is that we have had a wonderful spring in California … but the government has turned off the water and there are no crops in the central valley this year.
Isnt it kinda cool to think how websites such as this have played a part in such monumentous action and helped to at least stall the ecoloon juggernaut. I’m sure this website along with climate audit have played no small part.
Thx Anthony…/no sarc