Outgoing Obama EPA Chief Gina McCarthy thinks President-elect Donald Trump will not be able to change EPA policy towards CO2, because it will be too difficult to undo her policy initiatives.
Guest essay by Eric Worrall
EPA chief says Trump has limited room to scrap climate rules
McCarthy says any attempt must be scientifically justified under Clean Air Act.
The chief architect of President Barack Obama’s climate change policies has warned the incoming Trump administration that US law and the scientific evidence of global warming will constrain any attempt to overturn her work.
With the outlook for global climate action uncertain after the US election, Gina McCarthy, the top US environmental regulator, told the Financial Times that climate change sceptics led by Donald Trump would have limited room for manoeuvre.
“It’s going to be a very high burden of proof for them,” said Ms McCarthy, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, outlining why US law would ensure that Mr Trump could not easily abolish climate change regulations.
…
To replace Ms McCarthy, Mr Trump has nominated Scott Pruitt, a politician who has repeatedly excoriated the EPA and made it his mission to try to scupper her signature achievements.
…
Read more: https://www.ft.com/content/e4759fea-c491-11e6-8f29-9445cac8966f
I can’t help thinking Obama appointees like Gina McCarthy are in total denial about the magnitude of their loss of support. President-elect Donald Trump has an enormous mandate to liberate America from the shackles of bureaucrats like McCarthy. In a few short years, nobody will remember who she was.
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Really? And yet her a$$ is in the street and facing investigation for malfeasance. Wonder how much evidence she ordered destroyed in the last few weeks?
Perhaps the landing team will ask about the status of the NAAQS for CO2 required under the CAA subsequent to the issuance of the Endangerment Finding. I realize that the concept of a NAAQS for a “globally well-mixed trace gas” is irredeemably silly, but the law is the law and 7 years is a long time.
Oh, there is all manner of legal ugliness coming down the pike, and the Obama Admin is throwing folks like her in front of it.
Obama prefers to lead from behind anyway. 😉
Obama is the behind.
Nice pic of her laid back laughing at all the deplorables no doubt, as she starts work jumping out of the 5.3 litre V8 Chevy Tahoe with her bottled water ready to harangue them all for their profligate, polluting ways-
https://www.flickr.com/photos/usepagov/14199084507/in/photostream/
Nice irony, observa. 🙂
If the head of the EPA had done her job correctly then clean drinking water would be available throughout the country – She carries a bottle of water.
If I look at the reactions to the Trump election and the reactions to today’s electoral decision, some reactions resemble a whistle in the very dark forest. For protection from the very bad wolf. Instead of going to Trump positive, he is “warned”. This will certainly make him (in an ironic reading), as I know the Donald. These people overlook these facts: Trump has won the election, the Republicans are in both houses in the majority and can turn the EPA into one One-man authority. Laws or regulations. The president has the power to do it. In addition, he is supported by a majority of deputies in the houses. In Germany there is also a decline in the intellectual capacity of left and AGW-friendly personalities. Thus, it is hoped, at least in the headings of many press articles, to enter the case that the electors will still prevent the election of Trump. Sick, undemocratic thoughts. But the mask has fallen, the enemies of democracy are suddenly clearly recognizable.
…and, laughably, they are Democrats.
Don’t forget the massive Democrat Party losses in State Legislatures. The times, they have-a changed.
Fully Half of this Country have badly mis-read the current zeitgeist in America. The Earth has moved.
Meanwhile, Califombia marches bravely into the future to the beat of a different kazoo-player, in a cloud of reefer smoke.
Okay, I am not an American, so I will simply pose a few questions that I think would apply in any country like the U.S. that operates under the rule of law and a legislative system. Does the U.S. Constitution not give the Executive broad discretionary powers to set policy and to implement or not implement programs that accord with that policy? Is the approval of the U.S. Congress not needed for authority to spend on programs, and the staffing of public institutions like those that implement programs and enforce regulations? If such spending authority is withdrawn, how can those programs and regulatory structures continue to operate? Is the approval of the U.S. Senate not needed to ensure ratification of international treaties and other agreements that provide authority for programs like those intended to reduce GHG emissions? Is the “endangerment finding” of the EPA with respect to GHG emissions, subsequently validated by the Supreme Court, not subject to revision if a different group of experts and a different group of Justices find otherwise? What makes an appointed official, no matter how senior, think that the policies she favours cannot be overturned by the decisions of the legally elected people?
Funny you should ask. 😉
Gina McCarthy displays overweening hubris on the “science,” as does most of the environmental left. This is evident in their constant scoffing and mocking of those who notice the gaping holes in the “consensus” view of climate science.
The Endangerment Finding rests on very shaky premises. The attribution of warming to human emissions is based on (1) physical understanding of climate (2) temperature records and (3) models.
All three are extremely dubious at best. In combination they are nonsense.
A new administrator could rightfully conclude (1) that the physical understanding is inadequate for attribution purposes, (2) that temperature records are too short, too incomplete, are of very low quality, and have been corrupted beyond recognition, and that we are clearly within the scope of natural variability, and (3) that models are worthless for attribution, prediction of climate, and for policy judgments. There is copious support in the scientific literature for each of these conclusions.
That finding would be entitled to a very high level of deference in court. The enviros would have a hard time overthrowing under the applicable standard of review it unless the Courts changed the legal standard in order to get the result dictated by the judges’ personal political preferences, which could certainly happen.
It’s not that hard to put these arguments together. What’s required is the courage to do so.
I read this as maintaining the lie.
Some people, maybe she even knows how many, will believe it. They will then scream “Foul” when Trump does move.
The Constitution does not give the President broad power to do anything. The authorizing legislation needs to come from Congress. The problem is that many Presidents, and Obama has been the most egregious example, use that authorizing legislation as a power grab.
A couple small items.
1) Any money spent on anything must be part of a budget that comes from the House of Representatives. Unfortunately the House has a tendency to write sloppy budgets, which allow lots of slush money to move around in the Executive Branch, and used for moronic stuff.
2) “Endangerment findings” are not validated by the Supreme Court, the Federal Courts have, historically, tried not to judge the scientific content of anything, but merely judge the regulatory process as codified in law. It’s up to the Agency to pass judgement on the scientific findings, and they are easily un-done by simply reviewing the evidence.
3) Finally, your question “What makes an appointed …. ???” many of Obama’s appointees are not very smart people, they are merely political activists, Gina McCarty, in particular, is clueless about most everything, I’m sure she believes what she says because she is not intellectually up to the task of objectively evaluating the work of her own agency, and she just listens to the echo chamber that exists in D.C.
If I remember correctly, when the endangerment finding was being litigated, one of the points i thought would in the day was that EPA had ignored there own mandates for requirements for the science supporting a ruling. But the Supreme court didn’t look at that. They just said that the EPA had authority to make the finding if they followed all the rules. EPA’s reply was “oops we’ll do more next time but this one is done for now.” I believe any revisiting of the endangerment finding that enforced the rules for the science would fail. The new Wallace paper finds error in every aspect of the “proof” that was used improperly without independent validation to support the finding.
DMA,
Would this be the Wallace paper which you mentioned?
https://thsresearch.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/wwww-ths-rr-091716.pdf
All that SCOTUS did was to find that EPA had authority to regulate CO2 if they so wish.
Under Bush they did not wish to do so. Under Obama they did.
Under Trump they could just as easily reverse their course.
Mark, I was disturbed that during his second term he continually used executive powers to circumvent congressional resistance. He was apparently hoping that HRC would be able to make all of it permanent. There is much undoing to do.
Could times be ripe for the birth of a ‘constitutional’ party?
Mark from the Midwest, Thank you for the clarifications.
Bob
As I understand it, in the supreme court “endangerment finding,” the court said it would not (or could not) rule on the science. Thus, to the court, the science is whatever the EPA says it is. If the EPA changes it mind on the science, then the new view of the science is what the court will accept. The CAGW crowd can’t argue the science in court. At least that’s the way I understand it.
That is directionally correct. Judicial deference to regulatory authority What the court rule on is whether the process to ‘redo’ the science was itself legal. And, in the case of CPP, whether the CAA eber gave regulatory authority to the EPA in the first place. (The SCOTUS CPP stay is because the majority found it likely NOT.)
For a non-citizen, you pose very valid questions that, unfortunately, most of our citizenry would not be able, or willing, to ask, given the current state of (mis)education here. The President can do what he likes with agencies within his branch of government, including dissolving those he feels are not relevant or useful. Actually, according to the Constitution, most of those executive agencies under fire now are misappropriating responsibilities that properly belong to the States, or to the People.
Is the approval of the U.S. Senate not needed to ensure ratification of international treaties and other agreements that provide authority for programs like those intended to reduce GHG emissions?
Ordinarily, Yes, but the latest agreement from Paris was claimed to be a modification of a ratified treaty from 1994, so it was claimed that no new Senate approval was necessary.
I expect Trump to send that agreement to the Senate and let them vote NO.
For a non-citizen, you pose very valid questions that, unfortunately, most of our citizenry would not be able, or willing, to ask, given the current state of (mis)education here. The President can do what he likes with agencies within his branch of government, including dissolving those he feels are not relevant or useful. Actually, according to the Constitution, most of those executive agencies under fire now are misappropriating responsibilities that properly belong to the States, or to the People.
The President has no such power to dissolve agencies created by law passed by Congress and signed by any President, current or previous.
“The President has no such power to dissolve agencies created by law passed by Congress”,,,, The EPA was created by Executive Order and although the Senate and House approved it there was no “law” passed creating the EPA. Am I wrong?
Ah, yea, he does. Perhaps you should take an elementary school level civics course and learn how it all works.
I Australia, it is common practice for legislation to give the responsible minister (the secretary in US practice) the ability to enact regulations that cover the actual operation of the act. These are usually (but not always) subject to veto by the Senate.
I hope these idiots have been updating their resumes. Trump could just do away with the EPA all together and start over from scratch.
I expect part of Trump’s infrastructure investments will be new federal buildings in Montana, North Dakota and Alaska. When all the transfers go out, some of them will relocate.
He’ll probably need only one building . . .
No, he cannot.
Yes, he can.
I have to think that among all the many hundreds of people working at EPA and other organizations there have to be a few honest ones who need their jobs so stay below the radar. We may see them revealed after the inauguration. Hopefully, they are busy keeping copies of incriminating emails, memos, and un-adjusted data to hand over to their new bosses.
PMK
Bring back Alan Carlin.
There is no need to keep copies of emails as the systems are multiply backed up. You can not delete an email from the records. That is why Clinton went to her own server. That is why so many of Obama’s department heads went to outside email accounts. In those ways, and in those ways only, are their emails to those outside of government “delete-able.” I am sure McCarthy, like her predecessor, emailed Obama and Clinton through outside email accounts to THEIR outside email accounts. This whole administration had been very good at avoiding the government controlled and backed up email systems. There is nothing that anyone needs to save since they are already saved.
I too am looking forward to the twin ‘defenses’ of “it wasn’t me” and “I was only following orders”. I’m quite sure it will rapidly come to resemble the trial of senior Schutzstaffel officers at Nuremberg during the second half of the 1940’s. Much like then the vast majority of guilty perps will escape punishment but the EPA in its current embodiment, like the Schutzstaffel before it, will be no more.
Not hundreds, thousands, over 15,000, in fact. This pales in comparison to the DOE, however.
15,000 useless eaters. Yep, huge up tick in minimum wage job applicants in the coming months. Hope that college education included how to operate a cash register and deep fryer, snowflake.
[It’s going to be a very high burden of proof for them,” said Ms McCarthy]
– We know that carbon is necessary for carbon based life forms (i.e. all life on Earth).
– We know that atmospheric Carbon Dioxide is the unique, single point of failure in the Carbon Cycle of Life.
– We know that atmospheric Carbon Dioxide is the base of the food chain for all life.
– We know that without the chemical transaction of extracting carbon from atmospheric CO2 via photosynthesis and phytoplanton, the carbon cycle of life ends.
Your turn Ms McCarthy, would you please provide your science? You can start with your working definition of “Carbon Pollution”.
Oop, there it is. Evedr’body cabbage patch!
Gina M: Um, well, ah, you see someone wrote a model and, er, gulp, can I take the 5th? …
How about Trump give grants to investigate the science to see what is wrong with it. Even Mike the hockey stick maker would reverse his field for cash if his university starts running short. The newly created NCEI would change it’s name to No Climate Emergency Indicated.
lol. +1
I’m getting there! Try +1776
I want to see a bit given to make highschool and undergraduate level experimental demonstrations teaching the most basic physics of heat transfer , particularly radiative transfer for colored bodies . That should end the nonscience that somehow an optical phenomenon “traps” the greater heat at the bottoms of atmospheres than their tops which still is the analytically and experimentally baseless claim for this entire GHG paradigm .
Anybody who disputes that please point me to the crucial equation .
Once scientists are allowed to publish their results without being tortured by the present guardians of climate change dogma I would think there would be all kinds of papers published that refute the stupid AGW nonsense. Might find some young shining stars that have been held back by threats of losing their positions. Also, would hope they have some stories to tell.
The problem I see is the near universal acceptance by all sides of the GHG cause for the temperature gradients in atmospheres without any analytical or experimental foundation . There is constant “studies” even here on just what the “sensitivity” to additional , eg : CO2 , is as if that is a virtually open ended effect beyond and separate from the small effect it may have on our spectrum as seen from the outside — that somehow it can change the gradient from the planets computed radiative equilibrium temperature and the surface . I have never seen an analytical derivation as I would expect at the undergraduate level in any other branch of applied physics .
I claim it’s not possible because any such phenomenon would violate the distinctly undergraduate Divergence Theorem . This is the mathematical expression of what many point out as the obvious violation of basic thermodynamics .
And at the same time , the obvious massive ( pun intended ) force , with its concomitant energy , gravity , is , almost with prejudice , omitted from consideration or equation . There is discussion of “lapse rate” , etc , but not direct acknowledgment and computation in terms of the force which maintains it . It can’t be left out of the energy balance equations .
It’s beyond just good guys vs bad . It’s a Kuhnian Paradigm where both sides play in their obviously incomplete and never analytically nor experimentally justified box .
Your ‘legacy’, “Gina”, will be Lies and Failure. Perhaps you’d do better as the dog breeder you resemble.
It is one thing to have an agenda. it is another to be sucked in by your own propaganda! The evidence is against her. She had to suppress most of it in order to justify her actions! All her replacement needs to do is bring out the “rest” of the evidence.
Simple, declare that the flimsy document that the EPA wrote justifying CO2 is a pollutant does not come to the level required by their own regulation. Then cancel all affected rules. Then let the Greenies sue and provide the PROOF.
There is also the matter of the Federal rule changes requiring an Economic Justification Study. Even a back of the envelope study would prove that these rules cause an adverse economic impact.
The political climate has changed. So who is in denial?
+1
Try +1776.
Oh, I can provide a lead to the requested evidence.
The EU chemicals law protecting human health and the environment lists harmless chemicals exempted from red tape also known as ‘registration’. See annex IV to REACH Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006. Carbon dioxide is among them.
Even better directly from the source
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:02006R1907-20161011&rid=1
Well done, jaakko!
More bad news for Ms McCarthy I suspect-
https://stopthesethings.com/2016/12/17/irish-high-court-finds-wind-turbine-maker-liable-for-noise-nuisance-7-irish-families-to-get-millions-in-punitive-damages/
observa
More on that here
http://joannenova.com.au/2016/12/irish-families-win-court-case-against-wind-farm-noise/
It appears McCarthy is not familiar with the Clean Air Act, which is what gave her the authority to designate CO2 a pollutant in the first place. From SKS’s “advanced” analysis of CO2 as a pollutant:
“””[Clean Air act] Title 42, Section 7408 states that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator must publish a list of certain air pollutants:
“emissions of which, in his judgment, cause or contribute to air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare”
“””
“In his judgment” can clearly change when a the administrator changes his mind, or the administrator changes.
The designation of CO2 was a judgment call, balancing the proven benefits of CO2 listed by the EPA (increased forest/marsh growth) with potential costs (risk of increased temperatures and thus risk of damage to society). That judgment was questionable, the scale tipping the other way is not unreasonable.
Yes, they can start by having the EPA declaring/designating CO2, Carbon Dioxide, as a non pollutant. They can have “selected scientists” debate the fact that CO2 is or is not a pollutant. That would be interesting…
On 2nd thought, why have a debate? They didn’t.
Ill be glad to see her go…
I’d rather see her leave, I’m not into that kind of thing.
Mark,
Very precise and too funny.
Collecting evidence is an art form, as both sides of the CO2-climate-change debate have well demonstrated.
If your “evidence” collectors change, then your research base changes, hence your foundation for proof that leads to laws changes .
… new people, new evidence, new amendments to laws. If, as a new leader, you know where the limits are, then you can change them to make the necessary “room” to maneuver. When limits can be changed, they are NOT absolute limitations, therefore.
From today’s Washington Times, as posted in http://www.FreeRepublic.com
:
Obama rushes out 11th-hour regulations targeting coal mining
Washington Times ^ | December 19, 2016 | Ben Wolfgang
(Rest of story at site.)
So, the EPA continues its dictatorial extremism and attacks on the US economy, industry, and energy.
Custer’sObamas Last Stand.And they thought regulating dust would stop the natives from surrounding them!
Just forgot to mention that Obama will be dead the next day (politically speaking).
It’s amazing that they think the best thing to do is scramble to pass all these regulations in the final hour, despite the fact that it’s this exact type of behavior that the citizens are pushing back against at the ballot box. That hole they’re continuing to dig is so deep they might just start mining coal themselves.
I’ve suspected for some time that an objective was for the coal mines to end up in the hands of China. We have huge coal reserves for future use…unless they are sold out from under us.
As these matters are not, as declared, “settled” and the evidence of the IPCC reports is weak to non-existent, it is not going to be the “high burden” Gina longs to see. If Pruitt is worth his salt, matters will be settled in a way McCarthy doesn’t like at all.
FT <>
Most of the rest of the world pledged to accept financial assistance. China pledged to increase pollution for 15 years. As a US taxpayer I would have felt very lonely indeed.
MIssing FT text – Noting that most of the rest of the world had pledged to keep cutting fossil fuel pollution despite Mr Trump’s vow to quit the Paris deal, Ms McCarthy said: “We’re going to be in the back. And we’re going to be in a very lonely place. I think it’s only us and Nicaragua that would be there. It’s sort of not the company you want to keep.”
Obama stands with the likes of Mugabe in Paris. It is not the company I want to keep.
Just require Validated Models and use the Scientific Method with the highest integrity
NASA’s Apollo program required using ONLY VALIDATED models.
Validated Models
Ex Apollo engineers and scientists formed The Right Climate Stuff
Since the IPCC models are NOT validated, The Right Climate Stuff formed and validated TRCS climate models.
BOUNDING GHG CLIMATE SENSITIVITY FOR USE IN REGULATORY DECISIONS
A Report of The Right Climate Stuff Research Team
http://www.therightclimatestuff.com
Lead Author: Harold H. Doiron, PhD, February 2014, Houston, Texas
Presentation at:
An Objective Look At The Global Warming Controversy (University of Louisiana-Lafayette) Sept. 21, 2015
Scientific Integrity
Fully apply Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman’s high standard of scientific integrity so eloquently explained in:
Feynman, Richard P. (1974) Cargo Cult Science. Engineering and Science, 37 (7). pp. 10-13. ISSN 0013-7812 http://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechES:37.7.CargoCult
She displays the same type of elitist arrogance that caused Hillary and the Democrats the election. I imagine there will be plenty of wiggle room and creative engineering that goes into dismatling her programs. Shes not as smart as she would like us to believe.
The solution would be to get ride of the EPA in it’s entirety then start again with a clean sheet. Drain the swamp completely.
And don’t forget to kill the alligators and leeches.
+10
Look at all her rules.
The Clean Power Plan etc.
She lost a court case where she refused to study and furnish a report on economic impact and job loss.
This new regime can freeze a lot of rules by declaring they are not backed by science studies, just IPCC rhetoric and have not posted the costs/reports of thousands losing their jobs.
She also is not an economist and able to justify the nasty impact of much higher energy costs on poor, retired and small business. She has no problem with granny’s water pipes freezing because she did give granny clean water and the Republicans don’t like clean air and water.
Hmm, now that I think about it, she may not even be smart enough to realize that the junk they’ve been jamming through has no scientific backing. They are, afterall, still pushing for higher ethanol mandates even now that the only ones left in that corner are the corn farmers and ethanol industry themselves.