From the SPPI blog: DC Circuit Tosses Out EPA’s Pollution Rule
Source: Madison Project
Amidst Obama’s inexorable war on American energy, consumers, jobs, and prosperity, his EPA is in the process of promulgating 4 new pollution rules that will bury the coal industry and “necessarily” raise the price of electricity on American households. They are the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards for Utilities (MACT), the Cooling Water Intake Structures regulation, and the Disposal of Coal Combustion residuals. The former two have already been finalized while the latter two are close behind. Today, the D.C. Circuit Court struck down the EPA’s authority to implement the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule.
In August 2011, Obama’s EPA imposed a cap and trade style program to expand existing limitations on sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions from coal-fired power plants in 28 “upwind” states. They claimed that they had unlimited authority pursuant to the Clean Air Act to cap emissions that supposedly travel across state lines. The EPA admitted that the rule would cost $2.7 billion from the private sector and force many cole-fired power plants to shut down. Priorities USA might have even run an ad against Obama claiming that his superfluous regulations cause workers to lose their health insurance and die.
Luckily, several southern states decided to sue the EPA in federal court. In EME HOMER CITY GENERATION, L.P. v. EPA, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the EPA had exceeded its authority under the Clean Air Act in two respects:
First, the statutory text grants EPA authority to require upwind States to reduce only their own significant contributions to a downwind State’s nonattainment. But under the Transport Rule, upwind States may be required to reduce emissions by more than their own significant contributions to a downwind State’s nonattainment. EPA has used the good neighbor provision to impose massive emissions reduction requirements on upwind States without regard to the limits imposed by the statutory text. Whatever its merits as a policy matter, EPA’s Transport Rule violates the statute. Second, the Clean Air Act affords States the initial opportunity to implement reductions required by EPA under the good neighbor provision. But here, when EPA quantified States’ good neighbor obligations, it did not allow the States the initial opportunity to implement the required reductions with respect to sources within their borders. Instead, EPA quantified States’ good neighbor obligations and simultaneously set forth EPA-designed Federal Implementation Plans, or FIPs, to implement those obligations at the State level. By doing so, EPA departed from its consistent prior approach to implementing the good neighbor provision and violated the Act.
Judge Brett Kavanaugh, who wrote the majority opinion, created more jobs with that decision that Obama did throughout his tenure.
While this is definitely a big victory, and underscores the importance of putting conservatives on the DC Circuit Court (which has original jurisdiction over many federal policy issues), we still need to continue a robust legislative assault against these cap and trade style regulations. The Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act still serve as an albatross around the necks of job creators and can still be used to justify many of the impending regulations, even after the court’s decision.
When Republicans take back control of government, they must move to roll back most federal involvement in regulation of pollution. With the states more than happy to pick up the slack, especially the blue states, federal involvement in this regulatory scheme can only be harmful. Rules and regulations that could potentially affect the lifeline of local economies must only be debated and implemented on a local level.
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Pamela Gray says:
August 22, 2012 at 8:34 am
No one is saying that we should get rid of ALL pollution controls. At least I’m not. What this excellent ruling is saying is that no one should be bootstrapping new, unauthorized rules upon existing law, to carry out an agenda to destroy an entire industry, as in the case of the Obama administration trying to destroy the coal industry.
The Cross-State Pollution Rules are a difficult enterprise as it is without the bootstrapping. Considering how much background ozone there is everywhere (in the form of VOCs emitted by plants and other non-point sources, as EPA has often admitted), their efforts to directly address what contributions come from other states and what do not is often an exercise in guessing and political gamesmanship. At least the D.C. Circuit recognizes a rule of law that sets some limits on EPA’s political agenda.
Barbee says:
August 22, 2012 at 8:15 am
The IRS refers to its unilateral selection of court rulings to ignore as being in “a state of non-acquiescence”.
Pamela Gray
August 22, 2012 at 8:34 am
###
And all those places with horrible pollution have Marxist governments of the type the EPA is trying to bring to the US! The EPA did very little but take credit for something that would have happened anyway because we use to be a wealthy nation with the resources to take care of our environment, and a population who cared ( which is why the EPA exists in the first place) enough to do something about it. The EPA has always been just a tool to use environmental concern as an excuse to force policies designed to destroy capitalism. Once their goal of turning the US into a socialist utopia is achieved, there will no longer be the resources to protect the environment. It is candy coated cyanide.
Alan Watt, Climate Denialist Level 7 says:
August 22, 2012 at 10:59 am
Barbee says:
August 22, 2012 at 8:15 am
Now it’s up to the EPA to decide if it will recognize the court’s authority in this.
-I’m not holding my breath (pun intended)
The IRS refers to its unilateral selection of court rulings to ignore as being in “a state of non-acquiescence”.
It would be best if the occasional judge were to take contempt proceedings against the individuals in the agencies. However, it is amazing how fast the change in attention to rulings can be when Congress starts talk of defunding. Unfortunately,with the current (deliberately( stymied set up that will not occur. After January things may become different. Subject to the scorched earth actions to be expected from a lame duck session in November/December.
Pamela Gray says:
August 22, 2012 at 8:34 am
Pamela is correct, of course. AND, no, she is not advocating the roll back of pollution laws. Like me, I believe she is saying that pollution regs are a requirement of a modern industrial society and as such should be enforced. However, as with all regs, there needs to be flexible pollution management which, if it exceeds the limits preset, can still be controlled by the lawmakers.
The only fly in that ointment is finding a lawmaker anywhere in the world with anything other than cabbage between their ears and greed in their pockets.
jayhd says:
August 22, 2012 at 9:11 am
The only way to truly reign in the EPA and every other government…
Although not a leftist or liberal I have to somewhat disagree with your statement.
The only way to rein in the federal, state and local governments is to eliminate politics as a career and return it to what the founding fathers wanted which is more of a volunteer type set up (do your duty and then let the next group do theirs). The current political landscape with huge and un-sustainable retirement benefits makes once elected officials (of either party) only interested in becoming re-elected and appeasing only those who support their re-election. Thus you do not see many politicians tackling the big problems we face as a country. With the 2 party system as it is all the politicians do is try to divide and polarize instead of working together for all the people. Our officials tend to forget that they also represent those people in their districts that did not vote for them!
We need sensible risk-factors analysis rather than the precautionary principle when it comes to making anti-pollution laws.
Stop it!
It’s not Obama’s war, it’s EVERY president’s war against America, starting with Nixon.
EPA gained most of its budget and workforce during Reagan and Bush 1, and has been nearly constant since then.
http://polistrasmill.blogspot.com/2012/08/not-sure-what-i-was-trying-to-do.html
No candidate can get elected without first swearing to destroy the country. They’re all identically evil.
polistra says:
“They’re all identically evil.”
No, they’re not. The choice is always between the lesser of two evils. It is irresponsible to not make that clear choice.
US SO2 has been decreasing dramatically over time, despite the increase in Chinese SO2 upwind.
-Toby
http://www.epa.gov/airtrends/sulfur.html
http://www.epa.gov/cgi-bin/broker?_service=data&_program=dataprog.aqplot_2010.sas&parm=42401&stat=AMEAN&styear=1990&endyear=2010&pre=val&styeargraf=1990®ion=99
Voting for the lesser of two evils, whatsoever has it got us? but more evil?
I stand with Pamela … nothing wrong with running with natural gas as it looks now. Coal will always be there.
Personally, if somebody can show backbone and do something about this revolving slush fund, they’d get my vote. Too big to fail, now bigger than ever. They need busted up!
The only way you can ever really do anything with EPA overreach is to out spend this family.
http://walmart1percent.org/family-tree/sam-r-walton/
Nixon and Reagan were Alpha Kappa Psi brothers to Sam. This is how trade laws that protected our job producing businesses just fine for almost 200 years got compromised. Remember the famous trip Nixon made to China making the Communists a preferred trading partner? That was done for Sam. EPA was probably set up for Sam. They were all quail hunting buddies, Bushes and Clinton too. Look it up. Power and money. Sam practically made them all. Especially the Clinton’s public service careers.
Cheap abundant energy enabled the building of America.
America once again has the huge competitive advantage of cheap abundant energy.
You CAN rebuild your economy AND your manufacturing sector based on this cheap abundant energy.
However, you will have to counter the powerful forces that view this economic rebirth as a disaster for the environment*.
For example (and see below):
”Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?” – Maurice Strong, Founder of the UN Environmental Program
For the record, I don’t agree with this position, and I have a strong predictive track record in energy and the environment.
In comparison, the “forces of darkness” have a long history of failed predictions, and a pathological predisposition towards catastrophism and philosophical incompetence.
In contrast, I view the possible economic demise of America as the real disaster for humanity.
Despite its flaws, America is still the greatest hope for human rights in the world today.
I wish all of you a pleasant evening.
– Allan MacRae
************
* Source:
http://www.green-agenda.com
Excerpts:
“Complex technology of any sort is an assault on
human dignity. It would be little short of disastrous for us to
discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy,
because of what we might do with it.”
– Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute
“The prospect of cheap fusion energy is the
worst thing that could happen to the planet.”
– Jeremy Rifkin,
Greenhouse Crisis Foundation
“Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the
equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.”
– Prof Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University
“The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another
United States. We can’t let other countries have the same
number of cars, the amount of industrialization, we have in the US.
We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are.”
-Michael Oppenheimer,
Environmental Defense Fund
“Global Sustainability requires the deliberate quest of poverty,
reduced resource consumption and set levels of mortality control.”
-Professor Maurice King
“We’ve got to ride this global warming issue.
Even if the theory of global warming is wrong,
we will be doing the right thing in terms of
economic and environmental policy.”
– Timothy Wirth,
President of the UN Foundation
“No matter if the science of global warming is all phony…
climate change provides the greatest opportunity to
bring about justice and equality in the world.”
– Christine Stewart,
former Canadian Minister of the Environment
“The data doesn’t matter. We’re not basing our recommendations
on the data. We’re basing them on the climate models.”
– Prof. Chris Folland,
Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research
“The models are convenient fictions
that provide something very useful.”
– Dr David Frame,
climate modeler, Oxford University
“I believe it is appropriate to have an ‘over-representation’ of the facts
on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience.”
-Al Gore,
Climate Change activist
“It doesn’t matter what is true,
it only matters what people believe is true.”
– Paul Watson,
co-founder of Greenpeace
“The only way to get our society to truly change is to
frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe.”
– emeritus professor Daniel Botkin
“The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and
spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest
opportunity to lift Global Consciousness to a higher level.”
-Al Gore,
Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech
“We are on the verge of a global transformation.
All we need is the right major crisis…”
– David Rockefeller,
Club of Rome executive member
“We must make this an insecure and inhospitable place
for capitalists and their projects. We must reclaim the roads and
plowed land, halt dam construction, tear down existing dams,
free shackled rivers and return to wilderness
millions of acres of presently settled land.”
– David Foreman,
co-founder of Earth First!
Most coal burnt in the US is low sulphur coal which results in lower emissions without drastic alterations to the station smoke stacks.
Any limitations imposed on the EPA can only be good for America as a whole.
Perfection is the enemy of good. Good pollution controls cost very little. Perfect pollution controls are infinitely expensive and impossible to achieve.
The EPA and other government agencies are using this very basic economic reality to implement agenda based policies. By requiring perfection, the government can drive any sector of the economy out of business.
This allows insiders to invest ahead of the curve. Friends of government, the political backers know ahead of time where to invest, because they know where the money will flow ahead of everyone else.
Why else would politicians take jobs that cost millions to obtain, and return thousands in pay? Over time this corrupting influence robs the citizens of the country of their wealth, their pensions and their houses.
TC in the OC says:
August 22, 2012 at 12:07 pm
The only way to rein in the federal, state and local governments is to eliminate politics as a career and return it to what the founding fathers wanted which is more of a volunteer type set up (do your duty and then let the next group do theirs).
=========
We select jurors based on a lottery, for life and death decisions. Imagine if we selected jurors like we did politicians – would you trust the courts to rule fairly?
500 citizens selected at random every 4 years to govern would do a much better job than the current lot. Anyone that wants to be a politicians should be automatically disqualified from politics.
I think the EPA should be disbanded entirely. What’s a few government jobs compared to all the jobs the EPA has cost people across the country?
Don’t have the exact reference, but the 2010 Ig Noble Awards gave the Management research prize to a study that demonstrated the superiority of random selection of employees to promote into vacant management jobs over HR and “merit” systems — the firms do better!
ferdberple says:
August 23, 2012 at 7:02 am
TC in the OC says:
August 22, 2012 at 12:07 pm
We select jurors based on a lottery, for life and death decisions. Imagine if we selected jurors like we did politicians – would you trust the courts to rule fairly?
500 citizens selected at random every 4 years to govern would do a much better job than the current lot. Anyone that wants to be a politicians should be automatically disqualified from politics.
===========================================================================
I have been advocating exactly this for 20+ years – nice to see someone else recognises this as our (possibly last) best chance to answer the question ‘Who will guard the guardians’?
However I suspect that even this will not work unless we :
1/ Eliminate all Hard-left ‘entryists’ from all areas of public life – including NGO’s and ‘charities’
2/ Make citizenship a reward dor service (military or Labour/ both ?) and enforce political studies to enable all people from Junior school up to be able to recognise and combat ‘entryism’ when they see it.
Some of you will see Heinlein’s ideas in there I guess.
In 1991 we were all happily celebrating that the ‘ship of fools’ had finally run aground, we didn’t even notice the hard left cockroaches had scuttled into organisations like Greenpeace, WWF, The Greens etc, same as it was not recognised in the UK/Aus in the 50’s as they took over the Unions.
Unless we can find an answer to this they will just keep crawling back out of the sewers…