With days where they come off like this, who needs enemies? Two things happened on March 1st that make me question how this government organization can function reliable and serve the people of the United States. First was a Carl Sagan moment; instead of “billions and billions” we have millions and trillions. That was followed by “uh, what was the question about again Mr. Barton?”. /sarc
EPA’s Clean Air Act: Saving millions and making trillions?
By Steve Milloy JunkScience.com
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency claimed today that it is saving millions of lives and making the U.S. trillions of dollars through the Clean Air Act.
JunkScience.com has prepared a response to the agency’s fanciful claims. Though it is still in draft form, we are posting “EPA’s Clean Air Act: Pretending air pollution is worse than it is” early in response to the EPA’s wild assertions.
The full story with links is at JunkScience.com.
(worth a click for the sheer simplicity – Anthony)
And then there’s this:
Shocker: EPA air chief ignorant of atmospheric CO2 levels
By Steve Milloy
March 1, 2011, JunkScience.com
At today’s House Energy and Power Subcommittee hearing on EPA’s job killing greenhouse gas regulations, Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) asked panel witness Gina McCarthy – chief of EPA’s air programs, including the agency’s greenhouse gas regulation – whether she had any idea of what the atmospheric level of carbon dioxide is, she responded that SHE DID NOT.
The full story is at JunkScience.com.
That EPA release is genuine Ministry of Truth material.
Nevertheless, the business percepts it in a different way:
http://www.american.com/archive/2011/february/industry-has-spoken-will-the-president-listen/
“…she responded that SHE DID NOT.”
Wow.
I cannot even begin to describe how thoroughly surprised I am at this totally unexpected revelation.
This compares with the absolute shock and surprise I felt when I found out that a whitewash committee composed of mates of those to be investigated and using evidence selected by the same people came to the conclusion that everything was just fine!
I really will have to protect my weak heart fro these sudden surprises….
Sounds like she needs your climate widget. Even I would negligently toss off “around 390 ppm” without having to think too deeply about the question, and I am not a climate scientist. What gives at the EPA… shortage of qualified personnel?
Greenness and knowledge are incompatible.
I would say I am shocked, but I am not. You can’t expect much from political appointees that are there only because they believe the way they are supposed to believe. That is kinda embarrassing though.
I bet even Al Gore could answer that question. He might not understand the answer, but I bet he could answer it.
John Kehr
http://theinconvenientskeptic.com/
Are we surprised..?
Ms McCarthy’s response is unsurprising. Must be following the UK’s format, put someone in charge of the BBC who knows nothing about broadcasting, tv/radio. Put someone in charge of the Wet Office who knows nothing about climate or weather (but a whole whopping lot about advocacy). It’s satandard practice here in the PDREU!
EPA has a MESSAGE for congress.
Not only can’t you fix stupid it seems like we can’t beat it either lately.
Re-read your intro, Anthony… ‘reliably’ not ‘reliable’, and please forgive my impertinence, but I really appreciate what you’re doing and want it to look good!
Typical Green “cherry-picking”.
And over here in the U.K.
New Study: Green Sector Costs More Jobs Than It Creates
BBC News, 28 February 2011
Government support for the renewable sector in Scotland is costing more jobs than it creates, a report has claimed. A study by consultants Verso Economics found there was a negative impact from the policy to promote the industry. It said 3.7 jobs were lost for every one created in the UK as a whole and that political leaders needed to engage in “honest debate” about the issue.
That word “honesty” is key and there has been far too little of it from the Environmentalists and greedy Politicians.
Was this the same lady who said Co2 is a pollutant?
A lesson in how to price yourself out of the manufacturing market, and make everyone unemployed.
In fact, the Clean Air Act will INCREASE world pollution. You can be sure that China is not passing such a law, and will continue polluting and making cheap goods. So all the expensive but relatively pollution-free industries in the USA will move to China, where they will spew out ten times as much pollution.
So the US goes bankrupt, and we increase world pollution. Does this make any sense?
(The UK did this 15 years ago, so we know the consequences. We now have salmon swimming in the Tyne and Thames, and a bankrupt economy. We don’t produce anything, the balance of trade is shot to pieces, and if the world refused to give us any more goods until we paid back our debts, we would be stuffed.)
.
The EPA is not fit for purpose. Unless you redefine its purpose.
What this shows is: you don’t need facts to believe.
The EPA: home of the Megalodon Hurdlers Association…
when Ms. McCarthy said I Don’t Know did a bucket of green slime fall on her?
The air became substantially clean about 20+ years ago, since then the EPA has been essentially a waste of space.
I’ve had the “pleasure” of working for various overgrown introverted companies and agencies before. Making bafflegab over the top self promotional pieces is one of the sure giveaways that they are in the make-work business.
Oh, and while filling up with $4 / gallon gasoline, realize that Coal-To-Liquids could make it for about @2.75 / gallon (That’s about what it is selling for in South Africa where they make their gas from coal and it’s running about $2.62 / gallon per these folks):
http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lists/global_gasprices/
Thank you EPA, for making my fuel costs about 50% higher than needed…
Global warming is driven by two major components – CO2 and stupidity. The EPA attempts to regulate one while setting no limits whatsoever on the other.
Could we make that, “job-killing greenhouse gas regulations”? I thought for a moment that the EPA’s new job is to kill regulations about greenhouse gases.
Why do people that are out to save the planet always end up turning into a cheap Dr Evil knock off?
And at what point does bending the truth or holding back all the information amount to lieing?
Oh well the way the elite of the world are taking us it will not be long before we’re burning goverment buildings down for heat.
Ralph says:
March 2, 2011 at 2:05 am
Yes, Ralph, it most certainly does, to those who would like to see the demise of western democracy. There are enough anti-US/UK/Europe/capitalists living among us to make this happen. It is thanks to the vigilance of people like McIntyre – breaking CAGW – and Molloy – breaking the news on the EPA – that we can possibly save our way of life.
I read Molloy’s rebuttal analysis of the EPA’s plans for CATR over at Junkscience: it is a ‘must read’. It shows what non-democratic agencies in our governments have lined up to replace their failing AGW scams. What the EPA have proposed is truly an eye-opener and shows that the AGW ‘scientific process’ (computer models and hypotheses) is alive and well within the EPA.
I urge you read Molloy. “EPA’s Clean Air Act: Pretending air pollution is worse than it is” (link above in main article)
Don;
3.7 real jobs killed for every greenwash job created? Not tea bags! That beats the Spanish record of 2.2 kills handily. Shows how much more competent the Scottish gov. is than Spain’s, obviously!
Anthony: Is there a new system for posting? I just wrote a long comment, pressed the ‘post comment’ button and it disappeared…….
[nothing has changed]
Does anyone have a link to the House Energy and Power Subcommittee hearing on EPA?
That would be kind of helpful. Thanks in advance as I continue to search for this link myself, if I find I’ll post it here.
Not know atmospheric CO@ levels …
priceless
🙁
Further to my comment about disappearing comments, when I tried to resubmit it I got a msg saying ‘duplicate comment: you’ve already posted this’. Very odd.
OK I’ll answer my own question just posted.
The committee hearing can be found here;
http://energycommerce.house.gov/news/PRArticle.aspx?NewsID=8286
Please disregard my previous post.
“EPA’s job killing greenhouse gas regulations”
For years the UK/Scottish government have been spreading the lie that spending on renewables creates jobs, well now research in the UK has shown that 3.7 jobs are lost in the economy from each renewable energy job gained.
http://scottishsceptic.wordpress.com/2011/02/28/the-lies-about-green-jobs/
Just another instance of:
“Don’t confuse me with the facts, my mind is made up.”
This should be the mantra of the climate alarmist cult.
Shocker? The Administration has politicized the DOJ to the largest extent, ever, and the lesser agencies are perhaps supposed to be the paragons of virtue, truth and morality. It’s enough to move to North Korea to get some truth for a change.
Regardless, these figures are all maybe, might be, could be, sorta and we think it looks good. Compare them to the real numbers of those that have their heartbeats ended through the abortion mills. Trillions indeed.
I’m currently conducting research for my PhD dissertation, which is focused upon investigating the effect that local climate and atmospheric contaminants has upon corrosion rates. My source of pollution data is the EPA. Just yesterday, I noticed that 2008 was the last year they updated their pollutant database, which has been updated regularly for many locations since around 1980.
I have to wonder if they’ve diverted resources used for nearly 30 years of pollution monitoring and applied them to ‘other’ purposes…
Who cares for all you deniers. We have our models, made in MANNHASENIA, and they tell us we saved millions of lives and trillions of dollars.
“whether she had any idea of what the atmospheric level of carbon dioxide is, she responded that SHE DID NOT.”
The UK once had a Minister of Transport (Barbara Castle) who couldn’t drive….
Anthony,
You missed that on March 1st they also delayed the reporting deadline for the first Mandatory GHG Reporting report (for 2010). A small thing, but it could be added to their “banner day” list.
http://www.ccdsupport.com/confluence/display/help/Extension+of+Reporting+Deadline+for+2010+GHG+Emissions
EPA officially states: “This extension would allow EPA to further test the system that reporters will use to submit data, and give industry the opportunity to test the tool, provide feedback and have sufficient time to become familiar with it prior to reporting.”
This could have been shortened to: The reporting software development is behind schedule (as is often the case with new software systems).
Gina McCarthy is a “Manager”. The job description does not include having to know anything technical or scientific. She has “People” for that. Besides, if she actually had known the answer to any technical question we would not be able to make fun of her. And where’s the fun in that? Besides, I think she has actually done us a favor by embarrassing herself and her part of the EPA.
Here is the direct link to:
EPA’s Clean Air Act: Pretending air pollution is worse than it is
By Steve Milloy
http://junksciencecom.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/epas-clean-air-act-021411-draft.pdf
Not knowing how much CO2 there is in the atmo just shows that the real objective has nothing to do with saving the world.
Hank Hancock says:
March 2, 2011 at 2:39 am
Global warming is driven by two major components – CO2 and stupidity.
But not necessarily in that order.
Just an observation.
Dave @ March 2, 2011 at 3:44 am
Not entirely sure what emissions 2009-2011 data you are looking for, however, most can be found at:
http://camddataandmaps.epa.gov/gdm/index.cfm?fuseaction=emissions.wizard
I use this database fairly regularly. It takes a bit of playing with to tease-out specific data. I have gotten 2009 data from the database. Note the 2010-2011 data is preliminary.
Also I would be cautious of the EPA’s “prepackaged” data sets. I have found these sets have not been updated with corrections and can lead to erroneous conclusions.
Also, depending upon the amount of data you need you may need to grab the data in small bits, as the site will time-out or crash when one attempts to take-out large data sets.
Regards, D. A. Kelly (AKA Kforestcat)
Email the EPA the link to WUWT, where the handy “World Climate Widgit” (still free) tells me that CO2 level is 390.92 ppm.
Imagine how impressed Rep. Barton would have been if Ms. McCarthy had given that precise value (/sarc).
Their competence is as elusive as their proof.
D. A. Kelly (Kforestcat) says:
March 2, 2011 at 6:38 am
Dave @ March 2, 2011 at 3:44 am
Not entirely sure what emissions 2009-2011 data you are looking for, however, most can be found at:
http://camddataandmaps.epa.gov/gdm/index.cfm?fuseaction=emissions.wizard
D.A.
Thanks for the tip. I did a quick review of the site you referenced but couldn’t find annual mean concentrations of SO2 for individual sampling locations. I’ll look a little deeper though.
The data I’ve been using is found at the link below. This site provides a wide variety of individual data including annual mean averages.
http://www.epa.gov/air/data/geosel.html
Dave
It looks like we are talking about different emissions data sets. You are looking for data from the EPA’s air monitoring sites (ambient air quality data). Whereas I was looking at emissions data from specific sources (unit emissions data).
I’m not that familiar with ambient air quality data; other than evaluate it’s use in the proposed Transport rule via a rebuild of the EPA’s Air Quality Assessment Tool (AQAT).
I’m afraid I won’t be much help with your specific issue. Best of luck
Regards, D. A. Kelly (Kforestcat)
I read the EPA news release in defense of the Clean-Air-Act and noticed CO2 was never mentioned. It appears to be saying, without admitting fault, “Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.” I question the validity in the economic analysis since one of their best economist(Alan Carlin) retired last year because the administration would not take his advice with regards to the CO2 findings. If EPA had followed the guidelines given in the Clean-Air-Act, they would not have found it to be a pollutant. I did atmospheric research at EPA for over 20 years working within the guidelines of the Clean-Air-Act and observed how politics side-tracks objective science research. The CO2 findings was a completed derailment.
We’re not at all surprised at the EPA’s revelations, are we? Their funding is under attack, so they’re desperately grasping at straws to justify their existence.
Same thing is happening here in Reno, where UNR issues results of a study it did (no bias there, huh?) that points out how the college athletics’ program benefits the local community by $18.5Mil /yr. How? By employing 89 people.
89 people employed at a university that don’t teach a thing, some with salaries stretching well beyond a quarter million dollars, and there’s not one single degree that comes from their efforts.
They even claim that $4.5Mil of the total comes from tourists coming to see games…but conveniently not a mention of how many locals take the equivalent money OUT when they go on the road with a team for away games…..Like Hawaii or S.F.?
The timing is what got my attention. The study was released at the beginning of Nevada’s legislature going into session and higher education budgets are facing the axe. Not a surprise that academic sections are facing still more cuts, but athletics is hiring and giving raises quietly behind the scenes.
I’ve got no beef with athletics, as long as their existence isn’t contrary to the U’s mission, which it has now become…it’s become a top-heavy pyramid scheme and muscled its way into a position of unwarranted power.
Just like the EPA.
http://www.ctlng.state.ct.us/mccarthy.htm Tells you all you need to know. McCarthy is a life-long bureaucrat.
@Dave ward.
I remember Barbara Castle. Didn’t she require a lorry for personal transport?
Is there a transcript of the Q&A? All I see there is her prepared remarks.
[[[ Snotrocket says:
March 2, 2011 at 2:58 am
Anthony: Is there a new system for posting? I just wrote a long comment, pressed the ‘post comment’ button and it disappeared…….
[nothing has changed] ]]]
kbray suggests:
I use the edit feature to copy my comment just before I post it.
I highlight and copy.
I have had several posts disappear, but I just repost them from the copy, no sweat.
It avoids the headache and loss of all that effort.
It must be a brief pulse or flicker in the signal somehow and gets lost in the queue.
It happens.
Remember the top 3 rules for using computer successfully…
1) Backup
2) Backup
3) Backup
Most of us have (tragically) learned “the hard way”.
Brian H. says: Greenness and knowledge are incompatible.
MarkW says: But that is the way to bet.
Sorry. BS, pure BS. And my congress critter voted against some of the EPA budget restrictions. Shame on him.
http://www.american.com/archive/2011/february/industry-has-spoken-will-the-president-listen/
As the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council warned:
The general regulatory thrust of the Administration with regard to energy and the environment will lead to less energy, higher energy prices, a disincentive to manufacture in the U.S. and massive job loss. Our energy sector is being forced into a regulatory vice—caps and restrictions are being imposed on how much America can use and produce, while excessive regulation on energy use and the industry are driving costs higher. Anti-energy activists in the regulatory bureaucracies seem accountable to no one. Unfortunately, small business owners and their workforce will bear the brunt of higher costs and widespread job loss if initiatives at the Environmental Protection Agency move forward.
Good Forbes article here on this inept Administration.
Actually they are using the same sort of Obama math that was used for the jobs gained from the “stimulus.” They meant to say that the EPA has “saved or created” trillions of dollars for the US economy!
If there wasn’t the EPA then we would’ve lost trillions – and you can’t prove otherwise.
Attention EPA:
PPM abbreviates – Probably Preposterously Minute
That is all you need to remember! GK
I’m not sure how anyone who lived in Los Angeles in the 50’s through the early 80’s can possibly have a problem with the Clean Air Act (as originally implemented).
Likewise, the Cuyahoga river comes to mine.
Adding CO2 as a pollutant is silly, of course, but as someone who personally experienced several second stage smog alerts[*] in Pasadena in the late 70’s and
early 80’s, I find the idea of controlling certain pollutants very attractive.
[*] Couldn’t even make it from the batter’s box to first base without needing to stop to catch ones breath.
@Snotrocket & kbray in california:
If you “Post Comment” and it disappears, don’t assume it was lost. What very very exceptionally most likely happened was the spam filter grabbed the comment for some reason. Check the address bar. If the URL now ends with the comment #, then the system received it, even if it doesn’t show up on your end with the “awaiting moderation” notation.
Just be patient, the moderators regularly check the spam bin and will recover lost posts. If you feel it’s been too long, you have the option of posting a (polite) request that the moderators check the spam bin for your lost post. It is an exceptionally rare event that a post is well and truly lost on this site.
DonS says:
March 2, 2011 at 8:21 am
@Dave ward.
I remember Barbara Castle. Didn’t she require a lorry for personal transport?
—————————————
No, she was quite skinny; the giant of the time was Cyril Smith, Liberal MP for Rochdale:
“Smith’s larger-than-life personality (and stature — he is believed to have been the heaviest British MP ever, having had a peak reported weight of 29 stone 12 pounds, about 190 kilograms) and popular television appearances made him one of the most recognisable British MPs of the 1970s. His nickname, “Big Cyril”, was also the title of his autobiography. A common joke on the size of the Parliamentary Liberal Party in the early 1970s was that only one taxi would be needed to transport the entire party; after Smith’s election, the party could fill two taxis.”
see Wikipedia
scott says:
March 2, 2011 at 10:46 am
Scott, agree with you 100% about the past. However, at what point do you agree that we need a sunset provision with all these federal agencies? Is there a diminishing returns criteria with the EPA? Everyone loves clean air. That’s not the contention. When do you think that they need to leave everyone alone?
(sarcasm)
Now the problem with improving air quality and thus reducing health costs in the USA, is that it is just bad for the GDP. Think for a moment that the “health” of the US economy is, generally speaking, measured via the “GDP”, as it is with most modern democractic Corporatocracies.
Because health care in the Unites States is a “for profit” industry, it actually contributes to the overall GDP of the United States. So if a person were to do reduce the amount of sick people, you would also be reducing the GDP of the overall country. More sick people = more profits = healthier economy (GDP)
Making people healthy and depriving an important sector of the US economy makes about as much sense as fighting the true causes of crime, thus depriving the private “for profit” prison system from valuable bottom line assets, like murderer’s, thieves and junkies.
But aside from all that, yeah the EPA has some pretty hair-brained ideas on how to waste your tax dollars.
Being a Canadian though, it is all neither here nor there for me. Unless of course I was concerned about how my country makes decisions via our Prime Minister pointing his finger at your President and saying “Uh, whatever he said….that sounds about right.” Then this EPA stuff might give me real pause……
(end sarcasm)
The EPA head, Lisa Jackson, says “….greenhouse gases are pollution”. That would mean all greenhouse gases, including H2O. So according to the EPA H2O is pollution.
See Lisa Jackson say greenhouse gases are pollution in this 0:31 second video:
hstad.
You’ve hit the problem with government departments. If they actually solve a problem people ask why are they still in existence. So a dept. is required for their very survival to continue to find more and “worse” problems to justify themselves. It’s how the system works so don’t blame the EPA for working the system. Get rid of the EPA and I guarantee you that air and water quality will go down.
With the big problems basically solved it might be better to try to shift the focus of the EPA from a regulatory body to a monitoring and advisory one. You’ve got a system of monitors across the nation that require upkeep and new monitors will be needed in the future.
But change the focus to the EPA using the best open science available to advise Congress as to the needed laws and to collecting information needed for the courts to prosecute those who then flout those laws.
With a little bit of retraining those who currently write the mutinae of regulations can become basic field officers collecting water and air samples for the labs. A win/win situation. Less time spent on regulation means more available man hours for testing and prosecution (if needed).
The argument that since the air and water are now reasonably clean and therefore the EPA is no longer needed is the same one that killed NASA funding after Apollo. NASA were given huge funds to “put a man on the moon before the end of this decade”. Of course once they actually did it, the funding stopped.
Well of course she wouldnt know how much CO2 is in the atmosphere!
She’d have to learn how to spell it first! 😉
The economy that the EPA will cost us is inversely proportional to the percentage of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere.
It’s like someone, who after spending a Wall Street fortune in a casino, finally wins a hand of 21 with $2 on the line.
Lisa Jackson’s EPA is like that, transfixed on the $2.
How does the EPA know how many lives their regulations have saved? With computer models of course!
Back in the early ’80’s, when I was working as a contractor to EPA, their cancer causing model was called a “one hit, no threshold” model. Thats right: one exposure to any level of that particular pollutant would cause some number of cancers. These models took high level exposures and linearly projected them down to the origin (0 ppm, 0 cancers). I doubt if the models have changed.
So, if an emission regulation is projected to cause a decrease in the ambient level of the pollutant, it will always result in some cancer decreases (unless the ambient level is zero). Multiply this by ten years or whatever, and the EPA says “We have prevented “x” thousands of cancer deaths over the past 10 years (or whatever year span)
From over on Junkscience:
Dave says:
March 2, 2011 at 3:44 am
Dave,
In 2008 there was an administration change with different politically motivated priorities. The old established pollutants are probably getting “short changed” in favor of a new “pollutant” they think they can control.
Your interest in atmospheric corrosion and EPA data prompted me to reply. My research at EPA was in the effects of pollutants on materials, including SO2 corrosion of metals. Check out the materials chapters in criteria documents if you haven’t already.
For Dave @ March 2, 2011 at 3:44 am
On further inquiry with a local air quality expert, I found other sources for the Air Quality data that may be helpful to you. See the following EPA sites for a more complete listing of available EPA Air Quality databases:
http://iaspub.epa.gov/enviro/datafinder.html?pType=2&pLevel=2&pItem=1006
My best guess is you probably want access to the: “Air Now”, “Air Data”, “AQS Data Mart”, “Clean Air Status and Trends Network”, or the “Air Quality System (AQS)” databases. Use of the “Air Quality System” will require registration.
As Fred indicated; above the “current” EPA isn’t exactly playing by the rules & is more than a little out of control. Never-the-less I hope this helps
Regards, D.A. Kelly (Kforestcat)
RE McCarthy’s testimony at
http://energycommerce.edgeboss.net/wmedia/energycommerce/energy/ep030111.wvx
and Barton’s questions around 3:01-3:05, McCarthy claims that CO2 affects atmospheric ozone, and thereby is a health hazard.
I hadn’t heard this one before. What’s she talking about?
In 2010 alone, the reductions in fine particle and ozone pollution from the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments prevented more than:
160,000 cases of premature mortality
130,000 heart attacks
13 million lost work days
1.7 million asthma attacks
Now quantify them.
Hu McCulloch says:
March 3, 2011 at 11:26 am
RE McCarthy’s testimony at
http://energycommerce.edgeboss.net/wmedia/energycommerce/energy/ep030111.wvx
and Barton’s questions around 3:01-3:05, McCarthy claims that CO2 affects atmospheric ozone, and thereby is a health hazard.
I hadn’t heard this one before. What’s she talking about?
@@@@
Maybe this is a new form of McCarthyism?