by Michael Bastasch, Daily Caller
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sent its proposal to repeal the Obama administration’s global warming regulation on power plants to the White House for review.
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) received EPA’s proposal to repeal the Clean Power Plan (CPP) on Wednesday, according to the office’s website. A repeal is expected to be finalized by the end of the year.
The Obama administration imposed the CPP in 2015 with the goal of cutting carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. The CPP would have forced more coal plants to shut down, but a coalition of states, businesses and unions got the Supreme Court to issue a stay in early 2016.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announced the agency would begin the process of repealing the CPP in October, but Pruitt will not be around to see the repeal effort through as he recently resigned amid a flurry of ethics investigations.
Pruitt spearheaded state resistance to the CPP while attorney general of Oklahoma. Former Senate staffer and coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler has taken over as acting administrator. It’s not clear when President Donald Trump plans on nominating Pruitt’s successor.
Wheeler is not expected to deviate much from Pruitt’s agenda. The EPA had already settled on a plan to replace the CPP with a less stringent rule on CO2 emissions before Pruitt’s departure.
Full story here
“A repeal is expected to be finalized by the end of the year.”
Why so long?
Government always takes a long time with these things. The end of the year is actually very fast by their standards.
The paths of least resistance for governments all lead to the easiest way to screw something up. The paths toward doing what is best are always a mountain which are laborious, time consuming climbs for governments. (And, by the way, it is not just highly politicized democracies that suffer from that lack of character characteristic.) Governments, by their nature are error-prone institutions.
Maybe he meant by the end of the federal fiscal year, which is Oct. 31, IIRC.
Sep 30
Thanks.
Doing it right involves a long comment period, publication in the CFR, and then enacting it. It’s not exactly a quick process. We don’t want to be like Obama and just start ignoring laws without actually changing them.
Great news!
Whooo Hoooo!!!!
Another Obama deceit being eliminated!
Congress needs toget involved and send legislation to Trump to forever put a stake through the heart of this economic CPP vampire. Without that it’ll get resurrected one day, just as it’s foolish to think there won’t be a Democrat President again one day.
And even that would be no guarantee as Congress can and does reverse legislation, but the bar would be much higher to overcome, especially with a Conservative, constitution- and law-abiding Supreme Court majority.
Maybe after January when the new Congress is sworn in. With the super majority in the Senate, not much chance. Which is why folks need to be really fired up this November to vote Trumpers into office.
At this point, the Democrats have a solid lead in the polls. link
On the other hand, before we panic, we have to remember how well the polls worked last time. 🙂 That said, we need fired up Trump supporters and apathetic/lazy Democrats.
One consistent grumble I have is the constant framing of conservative support as “Trump support”.
We don’t need “Trumpers” or “Trump supporters” to get fired up about CONGRESS. We need liberty loving, American conservative patriots to be fired up about their representative to our federal government.
I find it particularly distasteful to keep framing everything in the context of Trump vs the world. Enough already. It’s like he’s become the new Messiah for a whole class of Americans.
Respectfully,
rip
Hear hear!
Trump gives voice to the Silent Majority. Noone has represented them in a long time.
I can understand if you don’t like Trump’s “Bedside Manner” but if you are a conservative, you have to like the direction he is taking the nation.
We need more people who see the world like Trump sees it. Trump is looking at the real world. We should all do that, too.
” Trump is looking at the real world.”
Oh really? Trump see the world in black and white terms. His starting a tariff war is a perfect example. It’s a macho gesture that ignores the unintended consequences.
Let’s not equate Trump’s testosterone-infused instincts with the “real world” in any form or fashion.
I say this although I certainly agree with his approach to “climate”, though his approach appears fueled by his America-first instincts rather than any real interest in climate. Our climate policy is pretty much “us against the rest of the world”, and I guess I’m thankful that U.S. politics has blocked serious climate action.
Funny, from someone who was ignoring all the intended consequences from unfair practices those countries had in place to hurt our exports for decades.
It’s the same as the abuses from our NATO “partners” like Germany. It’ll be bumpy, reality always is, but sticking up for the USA against abusive nations is an unalloyed good. At least, it is here in the real world.
These so called unfair practices exist mostly in myth.
To the extent they do exist, the US participates in them as well.
Did foreign countries force US companies to turn over the keys to unions?
Did foreign countries force the US government to strangle businesses with regulations?
Did foreign countries force the US to institute minimum wage and then increment it to the point where millions can no longer be hired?
Trump has stated up front … his goal is NO TARIFFS.
I don’t relish a trade war … but I think we need to be patient and see how this plays out. I think he’s playing a long game … of chicken.
He has a history of coming up with what seems like a bad idea, then somehow it all works out … successfully. Starting with Primaries, then the general election. Who’da thought he would ever pull that off? Not me, and I voted for him.
Since then, nothing but W I N N I N G !
So, be patient and see where this leads. His instincts always seem to pan out … so far.
The tariff war is a just bargaining chip to bring the trade deficit with China under control:
https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d517a4e334d7a4d/share_p.html
Ah, you mean like the polls in 2016?!?
Seems to me I read somewhere that due to gerrymandering and other structural advantages of the incumbent GOP lawmakers that a 7% lead by the Dems going in is necessary to have any chance at all.
Until very recently the Democrats controlled way more state legislatures than did the Republicans.
In recent years the Democrats have been successful at getting liberal judges to invalidate any changes that seek to undo previous Democrat gerrymanders.
Bob, seldom since the advent of the “generic Congressional poll” have Republicans ever held a lead or if they have was it ever substantial. The generic ballot poll is a little more accurate during Presidential election years but as we saw last election polling in general has become less and less accurate. We also have to appreciate that many polls we see in the MSM and then summarized at sites like Real Clear Politics are Democrat Party biased. At least one group doing generic Congressional ballot polling pulled more of its sample from Democrats than Republicans. Even if I don’t stratify by sample by political party I can bias the results by what geographic location I sample, e.g. west coast v middle of the country, northern big city v small midwest town.
What is fascinating is that many of the polling “establishment” are sort of like Hillary either they believe they really didn’t get it wrong the last election. They just misinterpreted the results or it was somebody else’s fault that they did.
It is extremely difficult today, even for the least bias of pollster to get an accurate poll results, even when the answer has only two choices. Also, without research we don’t know who actually owns a polling group or that it has changed hands and therefore policies.
The bottomline in any election is honest turnout.
Hillary was expected to beat Trump by a landslide according to “polls” or was it trolls or maybe moles?
Off Topic slightly, but this morning the BBC broadcast what almost amounts to an ultimatum to Germany from Donald Trump. Get your energy policy sorted out or you won’t enjoy the benefit of the USA’s military protection.
He’s using the payments of Bn’s of $’s to Russia for gas as an example of double dealing.
And whilst I have little doubt there is no thought to climate change, the implications are enormous. If Germany stops buying Russian gas, they’ll have to fundamentally alter their energy policy, which means building (more) coal, and/or gas fuelled power stations. If they are coal, emissions will go haywire, and if they’re gas, Germany must start fracking.
Germany’s squeaky clean energy image within the EU will be shattered and their credibility in demanding EU countries comply with national, regional and continental targets, and the Paris Accord, destroyed.
Just when Brexit was going badly, The Donald kicks the EU in the guts. Not that I think Brexit has anything to do with his motivation either, but I’m certain he understands the implications.
US LNG cannot compete against Russian pipelined gas. Ukraine is the problem. Trump is reported only to demand more NATO euro’s – linking that to Nordsteam II looks like a Brit ploy, maybe the last gasp of No. 10’s current occupant? And in fact Russian LNG saved UK frozen subjects in spite of sanctions.
NATO has become useless, expensive, irrelevant. I presume Trump will give them the G7 treatment.
Hey, the Cold War is over, the next foot is dropping, and boy will it land hard!
bonbon
I don’t think I suggested US LNG could compete with Russian gas, but German coal and fracked gas might. The UK has relaxed planning consent for fracking at the local level so we will start to see fracked gas coming on stream over the next few years. Our reliance on Russian gas will fall.
Even if Germany, or the EU pay more into NATO, Trump maintains Germany is in thrall to Russia because of it’s energy policy. No amount of NATO funding will make that go away. It appears Trump is using NATO to expose Germany’s contrived EU stranglehold.
US gas cannot compete , that is why Trump is disengenuously trying to use strategic arguments to abandon Russian gas. The result is clear, Germany and EU will have to pat up to 3 times more for US LNG.
Germany is no longer the front line against Russia since NATO have have moved into Baltic states and attempted to annex Ukraine by fomenting a coup d’etat. The neo-nazis too power but the rest did not quite go to plan.
US is not protecting anything but its own global strategic interests at this point.
“US is not protecting anything but its own global strategic interests at this point.” So?
In your mind, the only two options are US gas or Russian gas?
Sheesh.
If Germany increased nukes, started fracking, and continued coal, Russian gas would be a minor part of the mix.
Misrepresenting Trump, parsing him and attributing bad motives seems to be the only tools in the haters bag of tricks.
In Germany there is no chance of fracking. It belongs to Old Nick or the Evil one.
German Coal is really cheap, It can produce for 2 €ct/kwh.
Therefore we emit 9 tons of CO2 per capita and year, while the EU average is 6.5
BTW the US number ist 15 tons, canada and Russia is 12 and France is 4 tons.
Johannes S. Herbst
I’m not sure I understand your remark “It belongs to Old Nick or the Evil one.”
Are you saying that Germans believe fracked gas belongs to the devil?
But coal doesn’t?
After consuming the Movie “Gasland”, Germans think that Fracking belongs more to the devil than coal.
The socialist party SPD stands to brown coal, because it guarantees jobs.
Johannes S. Herbst
Interesting.
It’ll be worth waiting to see what happens with energy prices in the UK if fracking takes off, which I expect it will. Germans might feel differently if they are exposed to reality, although the American reality is here now.
“The socialist party SPD stands to [supports] brown coal, because it guarantees jobs.”
In July 1989 I stood at one end of the Hambach Mine in West Germany with the Mine Manager. He lit a small cheroot and we surveyed his empire. Over a mile away, the largest bucketwheel excavators in the world exposed and mined the brown coal that was a keystone of West Germany’s energy supply and its economy.
The magnitude and orderliness of the operation were very impressive. It felt good. After a while, I observed: “Big toys for big boys.” He smiled and we continued to observe this impressive scene.
German brown coal probably has marginal economics due to low caloric content and high stripping ratios, and yet it seemed to work for them then, and may still work now.
It is extremely foolish for Germany to be so dependent on Russian natural gas. Russia has a deep hatred for Germany because of WW2. The Soviet dead from WW2 are hallowed in every city in the FSU, and people have their wedding photos taken beside the WW2 memorials. The WW2 dead are a huge part of the Russian national religion.
The official Russian death toll from WW2 is ~27 million, although some estimate it as high as 40 million. More than half were civilians. Most are unidentified, buried in mass graves. The pre-war Soviet population was ~200 million. Every family was devastated.
On that same 1989 trip I travelled through Checkpoint Charlie into East Berlin and East Germany. More on that trip here:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/01/09/hewlett-packard-report-includes-planned-penal-colonies-for-climate-skeptics/#comment-2254514
If anyone seriously believes that socialists form nice, well-meaning governments, a trip to Honecker’s East Germany or Fidel’s Cuba (I’ve also been there) would have quickly dissuaded you of this delusion.
Hitler, Stalin and Mao killed about 200 million people in the 20th Century, mostly their own citizens. Do we really have to do this all again?
Regards, Allan
Ahh! More CO2 for the crops and forests! France has to get with the program.
“BTW the US number is 15 tons”…
and whata you get?
another day older and deeper in debt,
sayin’ Barack don’t ya call me, cause I can’t go,
I owe my soul to the company store.
Canada is 12 ! Yea Canada! We’re almost Number 1!
Doing our bit to replace severely-depleted CO2 in the atmosphere, and as usual, carrying the free-loading French, just like we did in WW1 and WW2!
In what century are you tadpoles going to start pulling your own weight?
🙂
Germany was reliably supplied with LNG all through the “cold war” – the Soviet was always a partner. Russia tnow oo. Ukraine tried to disrupt that with Victoria Nuland cookie Maidan nazies. Backfired, just like the Skripal caper.
So back to business, not Number 10’s Mayday geopolitics.
“What exactly did Trump say about Germany?
Germany has the EU’s biggest economy and has long been accused by US administrations of failing to contribute its fair share to Nato operations but Mr Trump was particularly stinging.
“Ultimately Germany will have almost 70% of their country controlled by Russia with natural gas, so you tell me – is that appropriate?” he asked at Wednesday’s breakfast meeting with Mr Stoltenberg.
“Germany is totally controlled by Russia because they will be getting from 60 to 70% of their energy from Russia, and a new pipeline, and you tell me if that’s appropriate because I think it’s not and I think it’s a very bad thing for Nato.””
So no ultimatum.
But the problem is: Nuclear and Fracking is bad, Coal is bad, and NG, which is not so bad is controlled by Russia.
In Bavaria, we are building new power plants to replace Nuclear plants.
If we get it from the US or Arabia, we will head to 40 or 50 ct/kWhr for lectricity.
Merkel grew up and was educated under the Soviet system in East Germany. PhD in chemistry. Perhaps she doesn’t see Russia as that much of a threat?
Her predecessor, Schroeder, on the Gazprom or Rosneft Board, knows Russia is a reliable partner, Merkel and Vladimir chat in fluent German.
Trouble is, Trump asks why the US should fund NATO to defend against such a reliable partner? Good question. Right now there must be some discussion!
Here’s the debate raised by Trump in easy to understand terms.
1. NATO is supposed to be a defense against Russia. The U.S. pays most of the expense for this defense. If Russia is an enemy of Germany this defense cost is necessary, but Germany should pay more for its own defense. While after WWII it was in America’s interest to pay the cost of NATO as Germany couldn’t be trusted with an army, and couldn’t afford one anyhow, things are no longer true. Germany has plenty of money.
2. Germany is economically dependent on Russian gas. If there were a conflict with Russia, Germany could quickly be economically defeated, without resort to military force, simply by shutting off Germany’s gas supplies. If Russia is an enemy of Germany, the dependence on gas from an enemy is foolish to the point of being suicidal.
Either Russia is an enemy or it isn’t. If Russia is an enemy, then Germany should both contribute more to its own defense and stop being critically dependent on supplies from them. If Russia is not an enemy and therefore a reliable supplier of gas, why on earth should the United States be carrying the costs of a defense against them?
” If Russia is an enemy of Germany, the dependence on gas from an enemy is foolish to the point of being suicidal.”
I think this is the crux of Trump’s argument.
Germany should become energy independent by building enough new nuclear power plants to accomplish that goal.
That way they protect themselves from outside forces/influence and cut their CO2 production to boot. Win/Win!
Suicidal as in immigration policy?
Lokki, I would add to your good analysis. Why shouldn’t Germany and other NATO countries live up to their NATO TREATY obligations? The USA got blasted for rejecting two agreement that were not even formal treaty, i.e., Paris Climate and Iran nuclear.
The rest of the world is angry at Trump because he is finally saying enough is enough. The USA is no longer going to foot the bill for defense of world peace while at the same time getting ripped off in trade.
“Lay down with dogs, Get up with fleas!”
US Commander in Chief Trump is stating the bare facts to our NATO allies. Will our allies collude against US and lay down with the Russians and Chinese? The EU appears to be doing that now with Iran….
Merkel seems to not be able to see a lot of threats that surround her and Germany. She seems rather oblivious to danger.
Merkel has been oblivious to the negative consequences of allowing unlimited immigration into Germany of so many hundreds of thousands or millions of people from Islamic countries, but she is now being forced politically to take steps to reduce it or lose control of the government to her rivals. History shows that cultural, religious, language, or tribal diversity can cause serious or violent political conflict and tear a country apart or make it extremely difficult to keep it peaceful and unified, e.g., British India, Yugoslavia, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Sudan, Northern Ireland, Soviet Union, Philippines, even Canada, etc. Diversity is not necessarily as good a thing as we are constantly told that it is.
HotScot. You are “certain he [Trump] understands the implications”? Show me one instance where that is, or was, the case. Trump thinks bluster and intimidation will get him what he wants. But wait a minute….just what does he want? his tough talk about Russia may not help him with his bromance with Vladimir Putin.
spalding craft
Stupid question.
Go away.
What Trump wants is a strong NATO. That’s why he wants the NATO nations to fulfill their committments.
Trump has now requested that NATO nations spend 4 percent of their GDP on defense instead of the previous 2 percent target.
Trump is right. It is Peace Through Stength. You get strong enough that bad guys won’t dare attack you. NATO is not there yet.
Germany depending on Russia for 70 percent of its energy supplies is a huge weakness.
Germany needs to spend the money required to get out from under this dependency on Russia. And windmills and solar are not going to get that job done. Nuclear power plants are what Germany needs.
Some would complain that this would cost a lot of money, but I would ask, “what is your freedom of action worth to you”? You need to spend what it takes to maintain your freedom.
Hot Scot. If Trump wants a strong NATO he might consider being tough with Vladimir Putin and respectful of our allies. Publicly insulting our friends while drooling over attention bestowed on him by Putin is indicative of someone who hasn’t a clue what he’s doing. And that’s assuming he’s not currying favor with Putin to boost his business empire.
According to the article, there is no intent to overturn the scientifically invalid endangerment finding. CO2 is still a pollutant rather than plant food. Unfortunately,this leaves a time bomb for future administrations to play with.
This may be the first step. He is baiting the left to take this to court, by which time he will have another conservative on SCOTUS. Ultimately endangerment has to go to SCOTUS to be killed off once and for all.
Pruitt was driven out by direct threats to family, not the ethics media. Combined, that is regime change in action.
The New York Mag headline “PRUMP TUTIN” shows how insane, hysterical the British Empire is over the Helsinki meeting. They are babbling!
This is what will end the entire CPP green blob.
The entire AGW light brigade is simply being overrun on the field.
They are not going to find Wheeler any more amenable. They will live to regret have pushed Pruit out.
bonbon
The New York PRUMP TUTIN was even ridiculed by no less than David Icke.
A conspiracist theorist, of unimaginable imagination, poking fun at a conspiracy theory.
Man, it must be bad.
🙂
…that or hard Brexit
It’s a start I guess. Baby steps. The CPP is an abomination, and needs to be repealed. Even the name, the “Clean Power Plan” is a complete lie, implying that CO2, which they like to call “carbon” is somehow dirty.
I am disappointed that there is no push to eliminate the “endangerment finding”. As long as CO2 is defined as a pollutant, abominations like the CPP will seem reasonable.
I’m guessing that unraveling that monstrosity will rake a much bigger effort. Frustrating, but it could take years. Maybe in Trump’s 2nd term.
Is this not the problem?
As I have read it explained, the Supreme Court cannot simply revisit their earlier ruling without due cause, even if they were individually minded to do so.
Sure, the ruling was based on utterly fraudulent science from the EPA, but it is now set in legal stone. Who can now free us from this bind without an improbable political super-majority in both houses?
Meanwhile, the next best thing is reform of the regulator, the EPA. It has been captured by political activists and does not even pretend to serve either the Constitution or the American people. It must be reformed and pruned, root, branch, and twig.
The Supreme Court merely affirmed EPA’s right to make an Endangerment Finding. It did not set that Finding in stone. The EPA can reverse the FInding if they wish.
Trump needs to fund science that shows CO2 is safe.
When published it is there for ever, Trump will only last another 7 years.
CAGW MUST be destroyed utterly given the chance.
They could raise a lot of money for charity with bids for the site for the signing ceremony—SF, Portland, Seattle, Sacramento, Boston, or NY would be fun to watch. Or doing the signing in the congressional room where Hansen testified would be good too, complete with fact checking charts along the walls.
They need to put out TV adverts telling the truth – that CO2 is the most essential gas in the atmosphere. Without CO2, everything on the planet dies. (Except fungi, if my memory serves me correctly, but even they only get a temporary reprieve until all the vegetable matter decays.).
Then they need a catchy strapline, something like “CO2 for Life”…
R
Quite true. Simple photosynthetic plants and anaerobic bacteria was for most of Earth’s history the major life-forms. Some of the specialty bacteria used other, esoteric chemical reactions, but the vast bulk of life used CO2/photosynthesis. Oxygen wasn’t present or required (even poisonous at first). Most of Earth’s oxygen then CAME from photosynthetic reaction-products via CO2. So CO2 is even more basic/vital to life than oxygen. CO2 starvation might be the true end of life except for tiny pockets of specialty bacteria.
So the concept of CO2 being “pollution” is patently absurd, unless someone is anti-life.
CO2 IS life !
Congrats. The Netherlands on the contrary are dreaming up a whole new set of Co2 curbing measures. I wouldn’t be surprised if a breath exhaling tax would be established. Sigh.
CPP is likely unconstitutional. No less a leading legal light than Harvard’s Larry Tribe wrote a brief explaining why. That is easy.
The endangerment finding is very hard given Mass. v EPA. Only way to avoid years of litigation under current Clean Air Act process is to rewrite its definition of a pollutant. That might be possible after 2018 or 2020 elections. Or not.
There will undoubtedly be lawsuits to block any changes to the CO2 regulations, so don’t expect any resolution of this until well into the next administration.
The past administration had no legal grounds to control CO2 emissions, especially in the methods they used. Fifty years experience in the electric utility industry, Majority in the construction and modification phase of the power plants. Never during that time were any laws, rules written or invoked that meant that an existing power plant operating in conformance with existing laws/rules could be forced to comply with new rules/laws. They could continue to operate as-is provided that no major modification, refurbishment was performed on the plant. For the remainder of the plants life as long as only standard maintenance was performed. I have worked at plants that operated with 50 to 60 year old technology to avoid being subject to new rules. Obama Changed this in the Faux CO2 rule.
The FBI should be looking into the Russian meddling in the Climate Change propaganda generating network. The Russians were part of and provided funds to protesters to get rid of Nuclear in the EU to help increase their need of the Russian NG. IMHO the same has been done in the usa by Russia providing financial aid to the Enviro Whackos and their “Renewables” Agenda
I didn’t know why I was hearing so many loud bangs. It was liberal minds exploding when they heard this news.
Thank God for that.
Repeal Obama’s anti-CO2 Regulations ASAP!
These anti-CO2 Regulations are the most costly, counterproductive and imbecilic statutes imposed in the entire history of the USA.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/05/15/globalization-could-undermine-efforts-to-reduce-co2-emissions/#comment-2355921
[excerpts]
The global cooling period from ~1940 to 1975 (during a time of increasing atmospheric CO2) demonstrates that climate sensitivity to increased atmospheric CO2 is near-zero – so close to zero as to be insignificant.
This and other evidence strongly supports the conclusion that there is NO global warming crisis, except in the fevered minds of warmist propagandists.
There is overwhelming evidence that the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere and the oceans is not dangerously high – it is dangerously low, too low for the continued survival of life on Earth.
ON CO2 STARVATION
I have written about the vital issue of “CO2 starvation” since 2009 or earlier, and others including Dr. Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace, have also written on this subject:
https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/moore-positive-impact-of-human-co2-emissions.pdf
Summary
1. Atmospheric CO2 is not alarmingly high; in fact, it is dangerously low for the survival of terrestrial carbon-based life on Earth. Most plants evolved with up to 4000 ppm CO2 in the atmosphere, or about 10 times current CO2 concentrations.
2. In one of the next global Ice Ages, atmospheric CO2 will approach about 150ppm, a concentration at which terrestrial photosynthesis will slow and cease – and that will be the extinction event for much or all of the terrestrial carbon-based life on this planet.
3. More atmospheric CO2 is highly beneficial to all carbon-based life on Earth. Therefore, CO2 abatement and sequestration schemes are nonsense.
4. As a devoted fan of carbon-based life on this planet, I feel the duty to advocate on our behalf. I should point out that I am not prejudiced against non-carbon-based life forms. They might be very nice, but I do not know any of them well enough to form an opinion. 🙂
_________________________________________________________________________
Test. Previous legal comment disappeared. Required fields all filled.
Prof. Pat Michaels for EPA Administrator!