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.
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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.
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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.
Venezuela will have to carry on without us.
EPA Chief’s strategy sounds familiar. I had read it before in “Comstock Lode”, partial review here:
Louis L’Amour – 2004 – Preview – More editions
“Look about your room! Here there is a chair, there is a table, a lamp! Study your room and the house where you live! Learn to know every room. Tip a chair in front of your pursuer, then hit him with anything when he falls! You can throw wine into the eyes! Or hot tea! . . .”
So what are the Electorial College vote totals??
62 to count
Trump on 304
Clinton on 166
6 Faithless
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/12/19/us/elections/electoral-college-results.html
Oh the dulcet tones of poetic justice…. Irony, the delicious irony.
High burden of proof to repeal but none to implement bs regulations in the first place.
If she is referring to the same “standards of proof” required for the green blob then it should be a doddle!
Where was the enormous “burden of proof” that supported the current EPA regs?? I dont think she should go down that path. I am no scientist but the manipulation of data and the amount of ideology injected into the scientific process is not healthy.
Quick call 199 we need a waambulance! The Electoral College just elected Trump! Only one last hurdle, Congress has to count the votes next month. Quick! Write your congressman and offer money to have the sum changed. Why not, Michael Moore offered money to electors to change their vote…(Huffpost) Ummm, is that a bribe? Oops!
Actually she is wrong. It will be very easy for Trump to “disassemble” CO2 legislation…. and even easier to defund the EPA.
“EPA chief says Trump has limited room to scrap climate rules” Easy. Have congress declare Co2 a non-pollutant.
the EPA was created by executive order, and thus it can be eliminated the same way.
President Trump just needs to sign one Executive Order and whole EPA goes away.
But it would leave a grin behind. That’s what darling Gina means.
The whole EPA isn’t rotten. It’s how do you cut the rotten parts out without affecting the good parts. We enjoy a clean environment in the US in a good part because of the EPA. When it became politicized it developed the spots of rot.
No, it cant. It is much deeper, do some research.
“The President has no such power to dissolve agencies created by law passed by Congress”… The EPA was not a “law passed by Congress” as near as I can tell from my research. It was an agency created under the Executive Branch approved by the Senate and the House which means nothing legally. What are you referring too?
Really? I actually remember when EPA was created, by Executive Order. Do you remember? I remember the wailing and gnashing of teeth over that particular President over reaching his authority. Do you remember who he was?
Amen to that.
I’m sure the CIA hasn’t given up their regime change plans. If all else fails, they’ll use the method they used to stop JFK.
Strategy #1 “must be scientifically justified under Clean Air Act.” Apply this to every one of the EPA rules.
Just eliminating the suppression of skeptical voices a lot of rules that were rubber stamped can undergo a real review.
Strategy #2 Congress uses the Congressional Review Act http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/law-backed-by-harry-reid-will-haunt-dems-in-2017/article/2609786
Well knock me over with a feather. McCarthy says any attempt to change EPA policy towards CO2 must be “scientifically justified”? Like the existing policy was? She wouldn’t even know the meaning of the term. In fact, does she know what CO2 is?
She certainly didn’t know the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere.
The EPA regards CO2 as a pollutant! What an absurd and unscientific opinion!
We don’t need these morons.
I wonder why water is not a pollutant.
indeed, Curious George , EPA should ban that nasty diHydron monoxide. 😉
Myron CEI does a snappy job of explaining. Much of the BO style of governance has been to create policy procedure and guidance which does NOT have the weight of statute. Mr Pruitt is separating the wheat from the chaff as we speak. A lot of Ginas style was overreach and he knows it.
Gina is waxing poetic much in the projectionist style of a drunk with power Marxist.
That’s because she likely is a drunk-with- power Marxist, just like HER boss.
@ur momisugly Bryan A,
“To deconstruct the EPA rulings
1) Hire, appoint new Scientists to key roles within the EPA department…………………….”
Keep it simple…………abolish the EPA and return its powers to the states as the tenth amendment to the US constitution says.
According to the law quoted earlier, the co2 endangerment finding depends only on the Opinion of the administrator. New administrator, new opinion. No science required. As I recall, DDT was banned by the administrator without the backing of the scientific staff.
A starting point has to be not funding research into proving CO2’s role in climate change as the way qualifications are awarded makes the proof likely to be produced. Instead fund research into proving that CO2 is NOT the cause of any climate change and into the weakness of the science to date. Firstly we need an assessment of what is the normal progression of climate change as the trend produced by by the climate scientists is inadequate given the clear cut cyclical nature of all weather and climate patterns. Secondly there needs to be proper assessment of the reliability of the subsequent conclusions based on the error range of measurements and ignored data. If the top and bottom quartiles do not produce very similar projections then the case is clearly based on a wrong assumption unless proved otherwise beyond question to an outside test group.
Finally since climate scientists are pre tested to find the case proven they should only be allowed to produce evidence with the examination and conclusions overseen by other professionals from engineering and other professions that use similar techniques in their work like quality control departments and marketing professionals.
and
“It’s going to be a very high burden of proof for them,” said Ms McCarthy, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, –
– reversing the fact who is to proof ‘CAGW’.
Exactly. the morons now fully accept the premise that CAGW is the null hypothesis – you know because of the overwhelming scientific case for it. That the ‘overwhelming case’ consists of nothing more than computer models written expressly to demonstrate an a priori conclusion seems to entirely escape them. It will not escape those who come now with questions though.
Yep.
“cephus0 on December 20, 2016 at 5:47 am
Exactly. the morons now fully accept the premise that CAGW is the null hypothesis.”
What’s left only is to defeat CAGW – again and again.
Cheers
The EPA is an executive agency which operates under specific laws passed by congress and signed by the President. All of it’s authority is subject to laws which can be changed or eliminated at any time by new laws. The US Senate has rules which can make changing or eliminating laws difficult; but not insurmountable. The President and congress can effectively kill EPA in it’s tracks if they want to.
The delicious irony will be if the Trump administration uses the sue & settle tactic to gut the Alarmists agenda.
The EPA erroneously asserts GWP is a measure of “effects on the Earth’s warming” with “Two key ways in which these [ghg] gases differ from each other are their ability to absorb energy (their “radiative efficiency”), and how long they stay in the atmosphere (also known as their “lifetime”).” https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gwps.html
The EPA calculation of the global warming potential (GWP) of a ghg erroneously overlooks the fact that any effect the ghg might have on temperature is also integrated over the “lifetime” of the gas in the atmosphere so the duration in the atmosphere cancels out. Therefore GWP, as calculated by the EPA, is not a measure of the relative influence on average global temperature of a ghg. The influence (forcing) of a ghg cannot be more than determined by its concentration.
There is a quote from the 19-century literary croitic, Vissarion Belinsky, well-known in Russia:
“The advantage of a scoundrel over a decent man is that a scoundrel treats decent people like scoundrels, while a decent man treats scoundrels like decent people.”
Why should we give this advantage to those who oppress us, who steal fruits of our labor and time of our lives? Why remain “civil” while discussing scoundrels? I hear many voices on WUWT saying, in essence, that “we must remain civil because…” [add your favorite argument]. Moderators here also seem to uphold this appalling, erroneous notion.
Civil to each other? Yes, by all means. But are our persecutors, all those green socialist multiculturalist unelected bureaucrats drunk on power, civil to us? No, they are not. They are robbing us blind, they are feeding us lies, they insult us in any which way they want.
I disagree with the one-sided “civility” requirement. You hurt me? I’ll hurt you twice. That’ how civilization works. Civility toward criminals is submission to criminals.
Thermite. If it can make its way through an engine block, it’ll probably get through those climate initiatives in no time.
There a several legal ways to abolish some CO2-Theory-founded laws. But for the public it should not be an act of simple politcal power.
There must be an open scientific discussion.
Serious schentists like Dr Roy Spencer state that we just don’t know. Donald Trump says he is open to science. So the discussion process is to prove it, that CO2 is dangerous.
CAGW proponents have to prove:
– that there is any observalble influence of CO2 to temperature.
– that computer models are able to reflect reality
– that the present state of a slightly higher temperature is dangerous to humans.
– that short hot temperatures say anything about climate
-that the slight warming is not to natural influences.
NOOA and NASA Giss should explain in detail how they came to their much higher temperatures than satellites, weather baloon und former surface temperate data show.
And than is there the problems that people are waving with some data sheet to prove something. It proves only something, if the data are explained in detail.
On both side of the discussion there is often the attempt to explain everything in one round-up action, with any possible arguments.
Better there would be a discussion for some weeks about only one point. So even the media have to stick to that point and to discuss only this, and not other topics.
It should possibly shown that the shortened IPCC reports for decision makers are not made from scientists, but from activists and politicians.
It would be good, if the public will get a deeper understanding, how complicated it is and,that scientists often have no clue. The discussion should be done from scientists of both (or morse) sides, and the administration just waiting to get a prove in all this points, or an agreement of both sides.
Absolutely!! An educational process, and a discussion process, are proper. And they’re necessary in this political environment.
The leaders of the EPA illustrate why the Democrats lost the election . They bi- passed the public to serve green lobbyist’s and their hedge fund banker puppet master . In doing so also they sold a lot of honest hard working EPA employees down the road .
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Democrats were so so arrogant they thought executive orders and fake treaties were going to last because they assumed they were going to win . Now they and their bag men can’t even accept responsibility
for a historic screw up . It’s the Russians , it’s the FBI , it’s Podesta’s E mails ,
Podsesta is right about one thing … this isn’t over . …. Just for at least 8 years .
Maybe the Russians have been running the EPA ?