Post by Ryan Maue
EPA Deputy Administrator Mathy Stanislaus should be given credit for showing up Thursday to an Environment and Energy subcommittee hearing, but may not be returning any time soon. Let’s just say his performance was cringe-inducing as he spun like a top attempting to deflect the very pointed, and basic yes-or-no questions of Rep. Cory Gardner (R – Colorado). An exasperated Stanislaus even resorted to a face-palm maneuver to regain his rhetorical footing. Of course, YouTube video exists…see below.
It’s clear that the GOP wants to eliminate the EPA’s current attempt/ability to regulate greenhouse gases (CO2) and, here, coal-ash, and is using its newly acquired power in the House to call hearings, demand/compel Obama administration officials to testify, and expose the job-killing nature of the EPA’s regulations. In other words, this is how politics works. The liberal media’s lack of coverage of this “inconsistency” in word versus deed with the Obama EPA demonstrates how in-the-tank the media is for the ’12 re-election. Ideology is more important than jobs.
Right wing outlets are hyping the performance of the EPA deputy as a victory and tacit admission that the EPA greenhouse regulations will kill (civility alert!) jobs. From the DAILY CALLER:
“We have not directly taken a look at jobs in the proposal,” Stanislaus said, referring to a regulation that would govern industries that recycle coal ash and other fossil fuel byproducts.
Coal ash is commonly used to make concrete stronger and longer lasting, make wallboard more durable and improve the quality of roofing shingles…
Gardner pressed Stanislaus as to whether or not EPA had done a direct economic analysis on how the rule would affect jobs, to which Stanislaus replied saying that EPA had not included jobs in its cost-benefit analysis of the rule.
“Do you feel an economic analysis that does not include the complete picture on jobs, is that a full economic analysis?” Gardner asked. “I think it is really a yes or no question.
“To me, I don’t see how you can talk about economic analysis without talking about jobs… and you said that you would not promulgate a rule where the costs would exceed the benefits,” Gardner continued. “But if you are not taking into account jobs, I don’t see how that goes.”
Gardner’s line of questioning had Stanislaus visibly dumbfounded, and he repeatedly told the congressman he would have to get back to him with the answers to his questions.
“I’d like to see a list of all of the rules that you have proposed that haven’t taken into account jobs,” Gardner said. “We need to know if the EPA considers jobs in their analysis and whether you have, and whether EPA’s position is to consider jobs when it does an economic analysis.”
Stanislaus then replied saying EPA considers jobs in all of its economic analysis, but that the form of the analysis is driven by the requirements rules that are under consideration.
The EPA official’s testimony has generated negative reactions from pro-business advocates who say Stanislaus’s testimony shows the agency is out of touch with reality and is indifferent to job creation.
The painful testimony reaches a crescendo at the 3:00 minute mark, when the EPA bureaucrat appears to be looking for an exit. At least Stanislaus showed up. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson is unavailable for testimony with a fully booked schedule, including her speech Saturday night at the Socialist Youth Climate Conference in Washington D.C. From POLITICO:
House Republicans aren’t happy that top EPA officials are skipping hearings on efforts to roll back the agency’s regulations.
“We could call them the Evaporating Personnel Administration, I guess,” Texas Republican Rep. Joe Barton said Friday. “They don’t seem to ever show up and be accountable.”
“I do find it troubling once again that Lisa Jackson once again is a no show at a very important hearing that she’s had every opportunity to be in attendance,” Barton said. “The MACT truck is about to run us over all and she’s not even here to comment on those regulations.”
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Truly embarrassing (and I’m in the UK). The contempt shown toward the real economy is criminal.
You can bet that the EPA will have done a full assessment regarding all the extra staff and funding that they will require.
I must say, I’m surprised that Lisa Jackson is able to avoid the hot seat by heading off to a greenshirt rally.
Our governance tool box is full of tools rusted by non-use excepting for the three most often used – Omnibus bill legislation is convenient to disguise the aroma of a particular hidden-pork-favoritism provision. Czars are not accountable to Article 1 Section 8, in a democratic republic? Executive Orders have the ability to legislate outside of Congress, with time in existence creating a non legislated law (these alone should stand no longer than 90days-? without provision to renew outside of Congress).
Congress alone has the authority and power to impeach. This is quite profound in any proceeding that ‘investigation’ is part of governance. The ‘caught in the craw’ syndrome is political power subdivided into committee’s. Congress in the past 100 years has in most part only given ‘warnings’ for passing a school bus blinking red lights.
By ignorance or perhaps most useful deceit by Congress to clarify that citizens do not have the understanding of complex matters. This is perpetual in that Latin/old Hebrew is spoken to a citizen of a Maidu village 1850.
Some have said that there is not a more powerful addiction (drugs) than political power over another person-society.
Luther has it
This, from Mr. Stanislaus gives it away:
This is the famous Spanish stufy of green jobs: 2.2 lost for every green job.
http://www.juandemariana.org/pdf/090327-employment-public-aid-renewable.pdf
With the EPA’s loving help, some wonderful not-commercials are showing up on the local TV stations as presumably-shown-for-free PSA’s (public service announcements) for this organization:
SAVE WATER TODAY
http://www.savewatertoday.org/
Wow, just one year and about eight months away, 36 states with serious water shortages. What is “serious” and how many currently have these shortages?
For a 30-day month, that’s over 5 1/2 US gallons an hour, almost 1 1/2 cups of water a minute. They must be using very large pins to gauge those holes, or figuring very high pressure.
Fortunately, most people are smart enough to notice when over five gallons an hour are dumped in their ceilings, in their walls, even when dumped in their basements, wherever the interior plumbing exists that has that single pinhole spewing that much. Unfortunately, these people, helped by the EPA, apparently don’t agree with that.
Wow, that could be over 20,800,000 of those pinhole leaks.
According to the US Census Bureau (ref), in 2000 there were 105,480,101 households. So basically 1 in every 5 households could have one of those 4000 gal/month leaks, and not even know it!
If that 1 trillion gallons a year were evenly spread out among all of those households, that’s about 9,480 gallons lost per year per household, about 25 gallons a day.
So everyone go around their household, and look for pinhole leaks that are spilling at least 25 gallons a day. If you don’t have them, then you have neighbors that have them. Go check out their households. If they won’t let you, report them to the EPA. 36 states will be facing serious water shortages in less than two years. This is serious. You have to report them. The Administration will be grateful.
About the PSA’s:
Finally found a bio of the director/writer. Her 2002 Emmy was for directing and writing some PSA’s that aired on PBS. Very impressive.
Celebrities donating their time for a worthy cause, with an award-winning writer/director. With help from the EPA. What could go wrong with such noble Green-ish sentiments? (Clue available here.)
TC – The irony that american readers may not appreciate is that in the late seventies British Columbia proudly implemented the harshest drunk driving laws in North America, giving police unprecedented powers to punish drivers (without due process) they accused of drunk driving.
For me, this marks a key turning point in the shift we have seen over the last 30 years away from due process for the sake of expediency. In this case, as in the current discussion with the EPA, due process is sidestepped for a “clearly” noble cause.
Wow, now that’s the way to question these birds. Kudos to Rep. Gardner.
Chris Watson says:
April 17, 2011 at 12:39 am
“I think the questioning is kind of silly. If jobs are lost it will be as an indirect result of costs being added to energy production and industry. If the EPA analysed the cost to industry accurately (unlikely), an economist could estimate its effect on jobs. Whining that this wasn’t doesn’t done for them is kind of irrelevant.”
No, your argument is made in terms of economics. The EPA has authority to kill jobs by fiat. They can classify various work activities as no longer meeting EPA standards. In other words, they can put companies out of business because they are not Green. You do remember what the ozone scare did to service station employees and independent contractors who did refrigeration and air conditioning work, don’t you?
Anyway, you should not assume that EPA has done even a minimally competent economic analysis. If they have, where did they get the staff? My guess is that they have a stable of geniuses like Mathy. Across the board, EPA does not have the staff to do the job that Lisa Jackson has decided to do. It will have to expand ten-fold. Then it will be duplicating work done elsewhere in the government.
ben says:
April 17, 2011 at 1:07 am
“But I have to say I think the Congressman is misguided: “jobs” is not a unit of economic analysis. Dollars of cost or benefit is. Converting that to jobs could be done I guess, but it isn’t standard in economic analysis, and it would be arbitrary.”
You are overlooking the fact that EPA can kill classes of work activity with a single ruling. Remember the ozone scare and the millions of service station employees and private contractors who saw their refrigeration and air conditioning work totally altered by government fiat?
Curiousgeorge says:
April 17, 2011 at 4:30 am
“I would like to know why Lisa Jackson is speaking at the Socialist Youth Climate Conference, and what she said. Was this some sort of suck up speech? Is she coming out of the commie closet? WUWT?”
You gotta be kidding! Lisa has never been anything but a hardcore communist Warmista.
That was painful, like watching bad karaoke. Originally, I kind of felt bad for Mr. Stanislaus. Rep. Gardner was just using him as a pinata….it was like watching Mike Tyson beat up Tex Cobb. I figured he was some kind of nice, harmless ecology professor who didn’t know what he was getting into when he was appointed.
But then I read his biography. Mr. Stanislaus is a lawyer. And he’s been around the EPA and politics for a long time, even dealing with Congress before. He should have been better prepared than that, and known when to say “I’ll provide a full written report on our economic methodology blah blah blah.”
http://www.epa.gov/aboutepa/osweraa.html
And for those of you who miss the old Mike Tyson, here’s your link:
great Bio for this Bozo. A real political activist.
Prior to assuming the position of Assistant Administrator for EPA’s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, Mr. Stanislaus co-founded, and co-directed the New Partners for Community Revitalization, a NY not-for-profit organization whose mission is to advance the renewal of New York’s low and moderate income neighborhoods and communities of color through the redevelopment of Brownfields sites. In collaboration with community, commercial, government and nonprofit partners, Mr. Stanislaus led the development of policies, programs and projects aimed at achieving the remediation and sustainable reuse of Brownfields sites in New York.
He is a former counsel for EPA’s Region 2, senior environmental associate in the environmental department of the law firm Huber Lawrence & Abell, and director of environmental compliance for an environmental consulting firm. He has served on the board of the NYC Environmental Justice Alliance. Mr. Stanislaus has also been an advisor to other federal government agencies, Congress and the United Nations on a variety of environmental issues. He chaired an EPA workgroup in 1997 that investigated the clustering of waste transfer stations in low income and communities of color throughout the United States. In June 1994, as a member of United Nations Environment Programme – Environmental Advisory Council, he served as counsel to the United Nations’ summit that examined environmental issues affecting New York’s indigenous communities of the Haudaunosaunee Confederacy, as part of United Nations’ International Year of the Indigenous Communities.
Bottom line, he stated it is the president’s policy the EPA was supporting when they did not directly do a study on jobs. The witness confirmed the democrats belief they can do anything regardless of the people.
That is some mighty fine steppin’. Perhaps he should try out for Dancing With The Stars.
Of course, Lisa Jackbootson would have outdone him by a mile, but she’s too busy propagandizing to the brainless Greenie Socialist Youth pep rally. Where do her loyalties lie, I wonder? Certainly not with the U.S.A.
Socialist Youth Climate Conference
Redistribution of warmth?
I have published research in the Economist in the 70’s. Having said that, to be called an economist with this regime is a smear or slur to the profession.
In CO2 and warming, there are long lists of variables.
In our economy, many variables contribute to inflation, unemployment (employment) and financial pain. The EPA is a few steps removed from high food costs. Fertilizer, fuel and freight will help us see some foods rise 40% in price this year. Gives you less money to spend at Walmart for stuff from China. Too many of our energy dollars go to the middle east and are not recycled here. High energy prices cut into home construction. From the cost of materials on one hand to the lack of disposable income to qualify for more debt.
If I spend 30 dollars more a week to fill my tank, I have 30 dollars less for increased house payments.
This video illustrates the all to common occurrence of gross incompetency that is replete throughout government bureaucracies. Government has become the dumping ground for incompetents. On balance it is what it is, until one of the incompetents gets involved in something that actually affects the productive sector. That is what we are witnessing here.
For what it’s worth I do believe that Lisa Jackson should be made accountable for the USEPA’s regulatory malpractice. If she doesn’t respond to a subpoena then maybe she should be arrested by US Marshals to deign us with her views on this subject.
It sounds as if Greenpeace is in control of the EPA… I guess they are.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
April 17, 2011 at 6:06 am
Thanks, Kadaka, that was a hoot! Locally, some people have been killed by high pressure leaks from pin holes in water lines. Others have seen the foundations of their houses entirely eroded. (The people who put out these ads really should move to California and smoke medical marijuana constantly.)
On a more serious note, I guess it never occurs to the makers of these ads that 36 states having water emergencies would constitute a serious decline in the number of water emergencies. It’s their reality problem, don’t you know. Of course, I guess none of them have operated a working farm. Water emergencies are a way of life on farms. Once upon a time in my youth, I moved an electric pump four times in two days to support 13,000 chickens. Yes, that included stringing the electric lines. Of the three wells and one creek that I used, the creek was the better solution. Of course, at all times I had ready a two-and-half ton flatbed with a 500 gallon water tank on it. No doubt all of this is now illegal by EPA standards.
The EPA’s solution to all this? Easy! Everything will be corporate. You will no longer buy a house, farm, or anything; rather, you will lease it from a corporation that has the staff and economy of scale necessary to file all the EPA forms for daily operation. So much for “Live Free or Die.”
The aforementioned conference???
A little late and a carbon footprint short, but here’s the website and schedule of focus groups::
http://www.powershift2011.org/electives?type=Panel
Amongst them you’ll find a discussion of “The Republican War on Science”…….
(curious, in that many of the republican scientists would be confused by the implication that republicans aren’t scientists..)
SCIENCE UNDER SIEGE: SHOULD POLITICIANS DECIDE SCIENTIFIC TRUTH?
One of the key power levers on energy and environmental issues is who determines the facts. The efforts to address climate change or prevent action depend on the ability to establish or overturn accepted scientific truth. Is scientific credibility a quaint, outdated notion? Or is it something upon which the survival of our society depends? Our experts are national leaders in this field, including author Chris Mooney, whose book “The Republican War on Science” laid bare the concerted campaign on the right to discredit science and scientists. They’ll tell you where we are today and where we’re headed on this critical topic.
Dave Hamilton, Sierra Club
Chris Mooney, Author, Lecturer, Blogger
Michael Halpern, Union of Concerned Scientists
I almost feel sorry for Mr. Stanislaus. Almost. Their little fiefdom is under siege and they seem totally unprepared for the hard questions.
The testimony also included an admission that costs of energy would increase. I don’t know if this point was returned to, but it might have made for a couple more swift kicks to the bureaucrat’s tender spots before returning to the jobs issue.
Stanislaus has obviously risen to his level of incompetence.
ew-3 says:
April 17, 2011 at 7:10 am
great Bio for this Bozo. A real political activist.
Prior to assuming the position of Assistant Administrator for EPA’s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, Mr. Stanislaus co-founded, and co-directed the New Partners for Community Revitalization
====================================================
We have a government of irresponsible immature community organizers…….
…..and not a one of them can balance a check book
I left the UK for a country that is more mellow to its people after seeing the extremely poor quality of political leaders and bureaucrats pretending to lead the U.K.
After watching Deputy Administrator Mathy Stanislaus I await my friends in the U.S. joining me! If that is the best that a country the size of the U.S. can put second in charge of a government department…well, my heart bleeds!
Imagine, he cannot answer a straight question and even worse (for a bureaucrat!) he cannot even filibuster! Sir Humphrey Appleton would die of shame!