EPA to be challenged at SCOTUS over climate change

Tim Walker says:
October 15, 2013 at 10:58 am
If I was crazy I would look at how Europe has been wrecking their economies with stupid decisions based on the nefarious AGW scheme and look at how Obama is trying to establish the similar economy wrecking mechanisms and wonder who is pulling the strings of these idiots to wreck the western world’s power. Maybe China has perfected a form of mind control or then again maybe some people are just stupid money and power grabbers.

One of the many dirty little secrets plebes and proles like us aren’t supposed to know is the American economy used to be the envy of the European national leaders. They would have killed to have our economic growth, our tax base, our unemployment levels. But instead of bringing them up to our standards, we have brought ourselves down to theirs.
This is no accident. The cabal in power doesn’t believe in American exceptionalism, they don’t want America to stand above any other nation. They want a multi-polar world and they think it’s fundamentally unfair that our people have it so good while so many others aren’t as well off.
I’m torn between conflicting beliefs. Is Obama deliberately destroying the economy or is he just clueless?*
* Technically, this isn’t really an either/or question. These progressives are enamored with theory and ideology. Reality and results don’t get past the pinko-colored glasses they’re looking through.

“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.

more solyent green — “The court did not order the EPA to regulate CO2.”
Strictly true, sure. But that’s the blame game. Congress pushes it on the Executive. The Executive pushes it on the Judiciary. The Judiciary pushes it on scientists. And scientists can’t push it on reality, as reality pushes right back. So they push it on manufactured reality produced by people jiggering the instruments. Stating all the while that “Science cannot be denied!”
If and when that comes for a reckoning the instrument jiggerers state: “Science is never right or wrong as such. It is a self-correcting process that attempt to better approximate reality by jiggering instruments. Every fool knows this as they were taught this in the government curricula in government schools.” Pushing it onto the teachers.
The teachers take hearty note and blame the voters for being too ignorant to make an informed choice about the better candidate. And suggest that if you wish to make better choices, perhaps you should learn something. Have you tried attending a government university?
It’s all enough to get a face palm out of Kafka’s corpse.

Let’s hope that those legal savants don’t decide that H2O is also a dangerous GHG, even more powerful and scary than that evil CO2, and needs to be regulated by the EPA, sequestered, taxed, etc.

The EPA, under the direction of the Obama administration, seeks to regulate CO2 under the provisions of the Clean Air Act. One of the original authors of that act, John Dingel, congressional rep. from Michigan, stated quite clearly, after the EPA indicated its intention to regulate CO2 as a pollutant, that the CAA was never intended for that kind of purpose. That’s the potential straw that breaks the EPA’s camel’s back if its opponents are willing to hold their noses and use it.
I’m not certain what the maximum volume of a pollutant is before the CAA
kicks in and the EPA is required to regulate it. Just for sake of argument let me speculate that it’s 25 tons. Now CO2 is not really a pollutant in the classic sense of the word so that 25 tons (?) proves to be a very low threshold to hold it to. That is the Achilles heel for the EPA: Heck, animal life releases more CO2 in toto than industry. Because the 25 ton (?) threshold – as required by law in the CAA – would’ve been so onerous it would’ve forced the EPA to regulate, literally, thousands if not tens of thousands of sources (including office buildings, farms, schools, hospitals, churches, and so on), the EPA chose to rewrite the law, calling it, I believe, the EPA’s tailoring rule. They tailored the law to only restrict sources exceeding – I’m speculating here again – 250 tons annually, which only would’ve involved large industrial sources such as coal fueled power plants and others.
From a legal standpoint that is, as stated, the Achilles heel for the EPA. They can enforce a law written by Congress, they can interpret it, but they CAN’T REWRITE IT. That should be the principal argument before the SCOTUS. Federal agencies are not allowed to legislate: In our Constitutional system only elected representatives are.
It sounds counter productive: arguing that the EPA is not sufficiently enforcing their own onerous interpretation of a law but that’s how you strike the stake through its heart, and the legal argument is solid. For the EPA to selectively enforce its interpretation of the Clean Air Act is not only illegal, it’s discriminatory. It must be argued that they must enforce the 25 ton (?) rule.
Think about that. The NCAR’s computer facility in Wyoming will probably get clobbered; Hollywood will get hit hard; I’ll bet even some of those mansions won’t be in compliance; Oprah can relinquish her private jet; Travolta can relinquish all five of his; Obama’s campaign VoiceOver, Morgan Freeman, can say goodbye to his too; Gore can give up the highlife; Air Force One can fall under scrutiny particularly in regards to its Bermuda, Idaho, and Hawaii vacation use; the DOE can reconsider its 15,000 vehicles; and the schools that teach AGW can learn the true ABC’s of AGW; the Universities can learn their’s too. The list is endless. And it’s exactly the kind of tactic Obama, having learned from his community organizing days, is well versed at. Make your opponent live by his very own creed, and watch them howl when they have to. That’s how you defeat them – with the very own trump cards they’ve given you. A lowly two can beat an Ace. The EPA’s deliberately letting them off the hook. Draw your trump – pull their Ace.

READ AGENDA 21 that is all you have to do.

Whatever method was used to get Roberts to agree that a fine is a tax, and a tax originating in the Senate is legal, will be the same method to get Roberts to agree that we are heading into world catastrophe, that the earth will melt in 100 years, and the EPA has carte blanche to do what it wants.

Seems to me its not about what the Supreme Court says, as much as the extent the Supreme Being will listen and abide by it. There are many routes around a stubborn root, even if that root is known as freedom. One way or the other, US EPA will have its way over the rest of us.