Winning! “Enshrining the Trump administration’s hobbled approach to climate regulation as the only reasonable approach under the law” and…

“Slamming the door shut on any later attempts to recreate Obama’s handiwork”!

Guest spiking the football in the end zone by David Middleton

Neil Gorsuch + Brett Kavanaugh = slamming the door shut on any later attempts to recreate Obama’s handiwork.

Trump issues rollback of Obama’s biggest climate rule

By ALEX GUILLÉN 08/21/2018

The Trump administration rolled out its proposal for gutting former President Barack Obama’s most sweeping climate change regulation Tuesday — a move that could also block any future Democratic president from trying to put it back together.

The proposal from the EPA goes to the core of the criticisms that the coal industry and conservatives lodged against Obama’s 2015 regulation, which used a novel reading of the Clean Air Act to require states to cut greenhouse gas pollution from the power sector. The replacement from President Donald Trump’s EPA would give states far more leeway to meet more modest climate goals — or even to opt of the program entirely.

But the new rule’s biggest impact could come from the inevitable lawsuits that environmental groups and Democratic-leaning states will file against Trump’s proposal. If they lose, the result could be a court decision enshrining the Trump administration’s hobbled approach to climate regulation as the only reasonable approach under the lawslamming the door shut on any later attempts to recreate Obama’s handiwork.

At the very least, experts say, the proposal from Trump’s regulators would mean years of delay in curbing one of the world’s most dire problems — the greenhouse gas pollution that causes climate change.

[…]

Politico

At the very least, experts say, the proposal from Trump’s regulators would mean years of delay in curbing one of the world’s most dire problems — the greenhouse gas pollution that causes climate change.

Here’s the ACE that Trumps Obama…

EPA Proposes Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) Rule

08/21/2018

Contact Information:

(press@epa.gov)

WASHINGTON – Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed a new rule to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from existing coal-fired electric utility generating units and power plants across the country. This proposal, entitled the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) Rule, establishes emission guidelines for states to use when developing plans to limit GHGs at their power plants. The ACE Rule replaced the prior administration’s overly prescriptive and burdensome Clean Power Plan (CPP) and instead empowers states, promotes energy independence, and facilitates economic growth and job creation.

Pursuant to President Trump’s Executive Order 13873, which directed Federal agencies to review burdensome regulations, the EPA undertook a review of the CPP. Many believed the CPP exceeded EPA’s authority under the Clean Air Act, which is why 27 states, 24 trade associations, 37 rural electric co-ops, and three labor unions challenged the rule. Additionally, the Supreme Court issued an unprecedented stay of the rule.

“The ACE Rule would restore the rule of law and empower states to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provide modern, reliable, and affordable energy for all Americans,” said EPA Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler. “Today’s proposal provides the states and regulated community the certainty they need to continue environmental progress while fulfilling President Trump’s goal of energy dominance.”

“EPA has an important role when it comes to addressing the CO2 from our nation’s power plants,” said Assistant Administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation Bill Wehrum. “The ACE rule would fulfill this role in a manner consistent with the structure of the Clean Air Act while being equally respectful of its bounds.”

The proposal will work to reduce GHG emissions through four main actions:

1. ACE defines the “best system of emission reduction” (BSER) for existing power plants as on-site, heat-rate efficiency improvements;

2. ACE provides states with a list of “candidate technologies” that can be used to establish standards of performance and be incorporated into their state plans;

3. ACE updates the New Source Review (NSR) permitting program to further encourage efficiency improvements at existing power plants; and

4. ACE aligns regulations under CAA section 111(d) to give states adequate time and flexibility to develop their state plans.

The proposed ACE Rule is informed by more than 270,000 public comments that EPA received as part of its December 2017 Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM).

EPA’s regulatory impact analysis (RIA) for this proposal includes a variety of scenarios. These scenarios are illustrative because the statute gives states the flexibility needed to consider unit-specific factors – including a particular unit’s remaining useful life – when it comes to standards of performance. Key findings include the following:

• EPA projects that replacing the CPP with the proposal could provide $400 million in annual net benefits.

• The ACE Rule would reduce the compliance burden by up to $400 million per year when compared to CPP.

• All four scenarios find that the proposal will reduce CO2 emissions from their current level.

• EPA estimates that the ACE Rule could reduce 2030 CO2 emissions by up to 1.5% from projected levels without the CPP – the equivalent of taking 5.3 million cars off the road. Further, these illustrative scenarios suggest that when states have fully implemented the proposal, U.S. power sector CO2 emissions could be 33% to 34% below 2005 levels, higher than the projected CO2 emissions reductions from the CPP.

EPA will take comment on the proposal for 60 days after publication in the Federal Register and will hold a public hearing. More information including a pre-publication version of the Federal Register notice and a fact sheet are available at https://www.epa.gov/stationary-sources-air-pollution/proposal-affordable-clean-energy-ace-rule

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Nick Schroeder, BSME, PE
August 22, 2018 5:55 am

And what was the EPA Clean Power Plan supposed to accomplish? A 32% reduction in CO2 output from US power generation (not just coal). The US is responsible for about 16% of the world’s CO2 output. Power generation represents about 31% of US CO2 production. Therefore – 16% * 31% * 32% = 1.6%. CPP will reduce the global CO2 output by 1.6%.

(Hey, I actually downloaded and read it!!)

China and India will cancel that out with their next dozen coal fired power plants.

Screw up the entire power industry, increase the price of electricity and not remotely solve the imaginary climate change problem. Nothing but political posturing! Wasting resources on a pointless exercise is truly harmful to the environment.

BTW since the utilities have been retiring older inefficient coal fired generators with more efficient combined cycle designs power generation’s share of CO2 is now less than that of the transportation sector.

kenji
Reply to  Nick Schroeder, BSME, PE
August 22, 2018 12:53 pm

But, but, but … aren’t we supposed to “allow” developing countries to “enjoy” a period of unbridled polluting? You know, just like all the Western Capitalist nations “enjoyed” from 1840-1960 ? Isn’t that the “logic” applied by the UN? To allow India, China, Brazil, et.al. to pollute with impunity … to catch-up with capitalism? You know … “level the playing field”? Proving that this entire global warming nonsense has NOTHING to do with a clean environment … nothing.

John V. Wright
Reply to  Nick Schroeder, BSME, PE
August 22, 2018 2:09 pm

Nick, good point. But isn’t the US responsible for 16% of human-caused CO2 production? If so then the CPP would reduce global human-caused CO2 by 1.6% (not global CO2 production). And isn’t human-caused CO2 production something like 0.01% of total global CO2 production?

That being the case – how many angels can dance on the head of that pin again?

Onehalfmvsquared
Reply to  Nick Schroeder, BSME, PE
August 22, 2018 7:03 pm

I was recently consulting at a combined cycle natural gas plant: 830 MW on 40 acres run by a total staff of 25 people! Show me a “renewable” that can do that!

Derg
Reply to  Onehalfmvsquared
August 23, 2018 1:40 am

One-
In MN, they cut 40 acres of trees in North Branch, I believe, to install solar panels….in MN 🙁

I can’t imagine the power generated from that debacle

drednicolson
Reply to  Derg
August 23, 2018 7:03 am

*gets magnifying glass*

*gets microscope*

*gets electron nanoscope*

“I still can’t see it, man.”

Kristi Silber
Reply to  Derg
August 24, 2018 5:01 pm

Most solar installations in MN are on farmland, and much of that farmland is marginal. 40 acres of trees is very little in the scheme of things.

comment image

This is the North Star solar project near North Branch. 100 MW, enough to power 20,000 homes.

Phil
Reply to  Kristi Silber
August 25, 2018 10:35 pm

Enough to power 20,000 homes… Day and night? Winter and summer? When it’s raining?

drednicolson
August 22, 2018 5:55 am

Still not tired of winning.

Kristi Silber
Reply to  drednicolson
August 24, 2018 5:24 pm

Is this a game? A battle? Americans vs. Americans? What happened to the days when we could work together, rather than become ever more divided and antagonistic? Is winning more important than the health of the nation as a whole? Does it make economic sense to have everything change with each new administration? Or having the courts forever involved in political fights?

I may not appear to be a (left-leaning) centrist from my comments, but that is because I so often play devil’s advocate (and I hate the way mainstream scientists are portrayed by many skeptics). I am sick of both liberals and conservatives forever fighting, and their self-righteous vilification of each other. We absolutely need more conservatives in academia, for instance – but that won’t happen if academia is constantly demonized. And the bias in the media is shameful, sickening.

Tom Billings
Reply to  Kristi Silber
August 26, 2018 12:46 pm

“Is this a game? A battle? Americans vs. Americans?”

No. It is a game of progressives against industrial society. America has been the greatest defender of industrial freedoms, so the assault is hottest here.

“What happened to the days when we could work together, rather than become ever more divided and antagonistic?”

Those days passed when academia, including its administrators, began to be sure that America itself was the problem, during the 1970s. Continuing “purification” of academia, and its devoted media outlets for “the movement” in the last 40 years has yielded in Portland an honest chant that is finally: “No More Border, No More Wall, No More USA At All!”

“We absolutely need more conservatives in academia, for instance – but that won’t happen if academia is constantly demonized.”

It won’t happen till academia is completely “deconstructed”, and replaced by intellectual networks no longer poisoned by the massive self-interested agency costs of progressivism.

Jimmy Finley
August 22, 2018 5:56 am

Can’t stand all this winning! /sarc

Latitude
August 22, 2018 5:56 am

Love the dem campaign so far…..raise taxes…while the democrazies do nothing but try to impeach Trump…and the whole country goes to sh1t

kent beuchert
August 22, 2018 5:59 am

All of these carbon lowering plans fail to acknowledge the 800 pound low carbon energy gorilla
that will mow down all alternatives in about 6 years when they come online – molten salt small modular nuclear reactors. No one can criticize this technology from any standpoint: safety, economics, environmental footprint, speed of construction, etc

Jax
Reply to  kent beuchert
August 22, 2018 6:17 am

No one can LEGITIMATELY criticize it. Greens (watermelons) still will.

2hotel9
Reply to  Jax
August 22, 2018 7:45 am

Watermelons have already decreed all forms of nuclear to be evil. No matter how safe or effective they will fight it, tooth&nail.

Richard of NZ
Reply to  2hotel9
August 22, 2018 1:15 pm

They also are confused when, here in supposedly nuclear free NZ, it is explained that NZ is 100% nuclear powered. After spluttering they attempt to name non-nuclear power sources such as wind, hydro and geothermal. Wind and hydro are powered by the sun, a thermonuclear reactor, and geothermal by nuclear fission deep underground. Their convolutions trying to deny these facts are amusing to observe.

pureabsolute
Reply to  Richard of NZ
August 23, 2018 7:37 am

Interesting — I believe that makes them “non renewable resources”, an anathema to the left.

Richard Patton
Reply to  Jax
August 22, 2018 11:41 am

They will for this reason: “providing cheap energy to society is like giving a machine gun to a 2-year-old.” I don’t know which watermelon said that but it is an accurate quote. They want to keep the poor of the world poor while they live in their “castles.”

kenji
Reply to  Richard Patton
August 22, 2018 12:55 pm

I hear Al Gore lives a … very simple … lifestyle in Montecito (among his other mansions). Yep. A real stripped-down, low-carbon, footprint. Uh huh.

John F. Hultquist
Reply to  kenji
August 22, 2018 5:24 pm

The ocean-view house you speak of went with Tipper when she and Al separated. He may have never lived there.
Al had a house in Nashville and an apartment in San Francisco.
Nothing much has made the news in recent years, for good reason – no one cares about either one of them.

John Endicott
Reply to  kenji
August 23, 2018 12:13 pm

LOOK OVER THE DESCRIPTIONS OF THE FOLLOWING TWO HOUSES AND SEE IF YOU CAN TELL WHICH BELONGS TO AN ENVIRONMENTALIST.

HOUSE # 1:
A 20-room mansion (not including 8 bathrooms) heated by natural gas. Add on a pool (and a pool house) and a separate guest house all heated by gas. In ONE MONTH ALONE this mansion consumes more energy than the average American household in an ENTIRE YEAR. The average bill for electricity and
natural gas runs over $2,400.00 per month. In natural gas alone (which last time we checked was a fossil fuel), this property consumes more than 20 times the national average for an American home. This house is not in a northern or Midwestern “snow belt,” either. It’s in the South.

HOUSE # 2:
Designed by an architecture professor at a leading national university, this house incorporates every “green” feature current home construction can provide. The house contains only 4,000 square feet (4 bedrooms) and is nestled on arid high prairie in the American southwest. A central closet in the house holds geothermal heat pumps drawing ground water through pipes sunk 300 feet into the ground. The water (usually 67 degrees F.)
heats the house in winter and cools it in summer. The system uses no fossil fuels such as oil or natural gas, and it consumes 25% of the electricity required for a conventional heating/cooling system. Rainwater
from the roof is collected and funneled into a 25,000 gallon underground cistern. Wastewater from showers, sinks and toilets goes into underground purifying tanks and then into the cistern. The collected water then irrigates the land surrounding the house. Flowers and shrubs native to the area blend the property into the surrounding rural landscape.

John Endicott
Reply to  kenji
August 23, 2018 12:13 pm

HOUSE # 1 (20 room energy guzzling mansion) is outside of Nashville, Tennessee. It was the abode of that renowned environmentalist (and filmmaker) Al Gore.

HOUSE # 2 (model eco-friendly house) is on a ranch near Crawford, Texas. Also known as “the Texas White House,” it was the private residence of the former President of the United States, George W. Bush

Ian W
Reply to  Richard Patton
August 22, 2018 1:42 pm

It was a Quote from Paul Ehrlich in 1976:
“Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.”

Richard Patton
Reply to  Ian W
August 22, 2018 9:08 pm

Thanks, I found it after the edit window was closed.

Reply to  kent beuchert
August 22, 2018 8:17 am

Six years? I hope that you are correct.

Ben of Houston
Reply to  Retired_Engineer_Jim
August 22, 2018 9:07 am

Fusion power has been 10 years in the future for the past 50 years. I’ll believe it when I see the construction permit.

Roger Graves
Reply to  Ben of Houston
August 22, 2018 9:29 am

Ben, fusion power obeys Einstein’s relativity theory – to any observer it is always ten years in the future.

Kalifornia Kook
Reply to  kent beuchert
August 22, 2018 8:27 am

I want to believe that 6 year estimate. Can you provide sources? It would be a game changer if true. I’m just tired of being disappointed when it comes to promises about nuclear. It is the future – but not sure it is the future in my lifetime. Too much opposition from Malthusians.

drednicolson
Reply to  kent beuchert
August 22, 2018 8:34 am

You know what they say about things that sound too good to be true.

At this point, after reading similar posts of yours for years, it’s the Duke Nukem Forever of energy tech. Except they finally did make Duke Nukem Forever.

Alan Watt, Cliamate Denialist Level 7
Reply to  kent beuchert
August 22, 2018 8:51 am

Reminds me of the time when ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) was set to take over the telecom world. But time went on and somehow the ISDN juggernaut failed to achieve any significant market penetration. There was a running series of jokes on what the acronym “ISDN” actually stood for. I can’t remember all of them, but these stand out:

It Sounds Darn Neat
It Still Does Nothing
I Still Don’t Know

Thorium MSRs do indeed sound darn neat, so where are they? Show me a working example with actual performance and cost numbers and I’ll join the parade. Until then I’ll just brush up on my “Planning and Deployment Guide: 16 Megabit Token Ring”.

David Thompson
Reply to  Alan Watt, Cliamate Denialist Level 7
August 22, 2018 11:10 am

Nixon canned MSRE in favor of the breeder. The technical issues were overwhelming what with the breeder work in California and MSRE in Tennessee.

John F. Hultquist
Reply to  kent beuchert
August 22, 2018 5:38 pm

Arthur4563 wrote:

in about 6 years when they come online – molten salt small modular nuclear reactors

Name one that is “shovel ready?”

Post something here when the dignitaries appear with gold painted shovels and the local mayor and press photographer are attending – for the start of the 50th one of these.

Duncan Smith
August 22, 2018 6:33 am

This will make the greens heads explode, not because it won’t work but because it gives decision making back to the State’s while promoting the idea of (energy) independence. Alas, the biggest reason will be because it is Trump’s idea.

Severian
August 22, 2018 6:56 am

Ah yes, let’s examine this…the old plan accomplishes nothing but making life worse for the average American, which is right in line with Green Orwellian Socialism (GreenSOC): Imagine a sandal, stomping on a human face, forever.

John Garrett
August 22, 2018 7:10 am

I will not rest easy until the Endangerment Finding on CO2 is reversed.

Until such time, Mann-made climate change will continue to be usurped by watermelons as a means to achieve political goals that would otherwise be unobtainable.

Reply to  David Middleton
August 22, 2018 9:41 am

Justice Thomas may retire next summer so that President Pence can replace him with a conservative. With a bench of 5 “youngish” conservatives, it wouldn’t matter what happens to Ginsberg or Breyer.

Tsk Tsk
Reply to  David Middleton
August 22, 2018 5:05 pm

The fact that this still mandates CO2 reduction targets doesn’t feel like much of a win to me.

pureabsolute
Reply to  David Middleton
August 23, 2018 8:01 am

The other way the SCOTUS could have ruled was that the CAA was unconstitutional..

Tom Halla
August 22, 2018 7:18 am

If only the Trump administration would bite the bullet and directly do away with the CO2 endangerment finding. As it was an administrative ruling , it should be fairly simple to reverse, and would remove the rationale behind most of the lawfare trying to impose some version of the CPP through the courts.

JimG1
August 22, 2018 7:20 am

David,

“The replacement from President Donald Trump’s EPA would give states far more leeway to meet more modest climate goals — or even to opt of the program entirely.”

I think he meant opt OUT…..
JimG1

JimG1
August 22, 2018 7:35 am

The only negative I see in the new EPA statement regarding the proposed changes in regs is the implicit logic that any reduction in co2 resulting is somehow good. But then I suppose we need to take a lesson from the left wing play book and just chip away at what we don’t like. Saturday night specials, cop killer bullets, assault rifes, etc. are all good examples of how they chip away.

2hotel9
August 22, 2018 7:50 am

Pennsylvania governor Tom Wolfe has already declared he will keep all Obama era enviro regs in place and add to them. His re-election platform is to shutdown gas, oil, coal and manufacturing, raise taxes and expand government subsidies. Also, declare PA a sanctuary state for all illegal aliens, especially muslim illegal aliens. He expanded the number of muslims brought into PA during Obama Admin’s push to increase numbers of ME “refugees” and he is proud of it.

JimG1
Reply to  2hotel9
August 22, 2018 8:08 am

2hotel9,
One would think that such a platform might cause him to lose even in PA. But then the question becomes, where does his ultimate opponent stand on these issues.

2hotel9
Reply to  JimG1
August 22, 2018 8:34 am

Guy named Scot Wagner, pro-business, pro-gas, pro-oil and pro-coal. Anti-illegal immigration. Started a trash collection company in York county and has grown to operate in a large portion of the state. He won state senate race with a write in campaign, something that had never happened before in PA. He was heavily opposed by PARepublican Party. Ate their lunch then wiped his hands off on their pretty blue silk ties then commenced to smack them and Democrats around. Supports anyone running against incumbents and has had quite a bit of success, using a lot of his own money.

JimG1
Reply to  2hotel9
August 22, 2018 8:46 am

A Trump supporter I hope? Are there any polls on him vs his leftie opponent of which you are aware? Sounds like a really good guy.

2hotel9
Reply to  JimG1
August 22, 2018 5:03 pm

His first support was for Scot Walker because of he took on public employee unions, then turned to Trump. The metro papers in Philthydelpia and Allegheny county are 100% in the bag for Wolf so I believe nothing from them. They called the election for Shrillary at 5:00 so you can guess how reliable they are.

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  2hotel9
August 23, 2018 6:36 am

“Guy named Scot Wagner, pro-business, pro-gas, pro-oil and pro-coal. Anti-illegal immigration.”

He probably looked at someone wrong when he was 15, so he’ll be run out on an SJW rail.

2hotel9
Reply to  Jeff Alberts
August 25, 2018 7:19 am

They already trotted out all the dirt they could find when he ran for state senate, all it did was drive up his numbers.

2hotel9
Reply to  JimG1
August 22, 2018 5:20 pm

Well, well! Tomee boy has finally agreed to debate. Funny, he has only been doing public appearances where he could block press who may ask unwanted questions. Wolf’s plan to take all school district taxes and “pool” them and redistribute from state level is really pissing people off, it will effectively take money from rural districts and give it to the eastern metro corridor. Wagner wants to kill that idea and set up and investigatory commission to find out where all the money collected has been going, it damned sure has not been going to education.

JimG1
August 22, 2018 7:57 am

My biggest fear is that Mueller’s play book is to dig deep enough into anyone connected to Trump and find some dirt then offer them a deal to get them to connect the dirt to Trump for high crimes and misdemeanors for impeachment should they get enough swamp dwelling Congress persons and lefties elected in November. Collusion seems out of the question. Conservative Trump style agendae are moving on many fronts simultaneously and the lefties are frantic to stop this any way they can. I hope the Donald has good secret service guys.

What we are seeing may end up being an historical level coup, depending upon who writes the history.

gbaikie
Reply to  JimG1
August 22, 2018 9:37 am

Mueller’s play book has fired 1/2 dozen top level FBI guys- and there is more to come. The wacko Left will in the end, imagine Mueller was working for Trump.

hunter
Reply to  gbaikie
August 22, 2018 11:26 am

Mueller is firing no one. He is the face of bureaucratic coup.
The IG of the DOJ is the only one countering the coup, and he is reluctant slow walking etc.

Simon
Reply to  JimG1
August 22, 2018 12:40 pm

“Collusion seems out of the question. ”
We might just have to wait and see about that.

Reg Nelson
Reply to  Simon
August 22, 2018 1:49 pm

How long do we have to wait? It been over a year and half now. It’s clear Mueller has nothing on Trump and collusion. He just wants to string this out past the midterms,

Simon
Reply to  Reg Nelson
August 22, 2018 5:31 pm

Wrong. It was always stated that this would be a long process. And to say they have nothing is blind. His son met with the specific aim of getting dirt on an opponent from the Russian government. The only link missing now is whether Daddy Trump knew (which defies belief that he didn’t).

Alcheson
Reply to  Simon
August 22, 2018 8:43 pm

Such BS. Agreeing to meet with someone because they claim to have dirt on your political enemy is not collusion. Maybe a little unethical, but not even illegal. Also, that said meeting was a setup arranged by Fusion GPS… being paid for by Clinton campaign money. Now, just exactly what do you call it when someone funnels millions in campaign dollars to a private law firm to pay a former spy to fabricate enough dirt on your political opponent to fill a complete dossier by colluding with Russians? Then proceed to pass that information off to the FBI as legitimate intel in the hopes of framing your opponent for a crime they didn’t commit?

Simon
Reply to  Alcheson
August 23, 2018 11:37 am

All I’m saying is there is enough dodgy stuff around that meeting to warrant investigating further, which is what is happening. Don’t you want to know if DT worked with a foreign government to alter the out come of the election? I sure do.

Simon
Reply to  Alcheson
August 23, 2018 11:41 am

HC hired a company to look for dirt (that is entirely usual in politics), where as DT (possibly) worked directly with a government who is the enemy of the US, and that is not usual, in fact it is potentially treasonous. And we still don’t know how much of the dossier is true?

Simon
Reply to  Alcheson
August 23, 2018 11:44 am

And… aren’t you concerned by the puss flowing from the friends/associates of DT. How can Trump (if he is an honest man) say Manafort is a good guy when he has robbed the American people of millions of dollars? That alone should send up alarm bells to his supporters.

Tom Abbott
Reply to  JimG1
August 22, 2018 1:19 pm

Trump should get a list of all the documents that Congress has requested from the Executive Branch over the last ten years, set up a panel in the White House to handle the issue and declassify every one of these documents.

Let the sun shine in on what the Deep State has been doing all these years and let the chips fall where they may.

The president has the authority to declassify all these documents and it is time he did so in the ongoing effort to drain the Swamp and hold the gulty accountable.

Use the weapons at your disposal, Donald, and the
“light of truth” is your most effective one. Show the People what these scoundrels have been doing in secret to undermine the Rule of Law and our freedom of choice.

Simon
Reply to  Tom Abbott
August 23, 2018 5:29 pm

“…..set up a panel in the White House to handle the issue ”
You mean like the one he set up to handle voter fraud that silently disbanded when they found nothing?

John M. Ware
August 22, 2018 8:21 am

The biggest issue is still whether to try to limit CO2 at all. It is not a pollutant, but plant food. It contributes a vanishingly small amount of warming, if any (in some respects, apparently it can bring about cooling). Further, a slightly warmer earth would be a kinder, less dangerous, and more productive earth, since cold kills far more people and animals than warmth. I think it is high time for the EPA to publish–and then stand behind–a strong statement exonerating CO2 from what it has been blamed for, and getting back to the EPA’s true mission of reducing actual pollution.

Med Bennett
Reply to  John M. Ware
August 22, 2018 10:14 am

Exactly. The endangerment finding must be reversed.

Mickey Reno
Reply to  Med Bennett
August 22, 2018 11:01 am

The Supreme Court didn’t say the EPA must regulate GHG emissions under the CAA, it said they COULD. This would be easy for Congress to fix, right now, by way of a modification bill to the Clean Air Act, forever prohibiting the EPA from treating CO2 and water vapor as pollutants. This could happen fast IF the House and Senate Republicans had any guts. McConnell could threaten the end of filibuster rules and pass it fast before the fall elections if Democrats tried to block such a bill via that route.

Time to play some political hard ball and stand up for those Americans who want cheap, reliable energy and stand against those wacked-out Americans who want expensive, unreliable, economy-killing energy.

Tom Anderson
Reply to  John M. Ware
August 22, 2018 12:15 pm

John M. Ware: “It contributes a vanishingly small amount of warming, if any (in some respects, apparently it can bring about cooling).” Hold that thought along with the question of endangerment.
Warming by CO2, the world’s most notorious “solar infrared radiation” active gas, is as a passive spectral line (grey body) absorber/emitter. Basic quantum mechanical principles limit its activity overwhelmingly to infrared light (energy) at the 15-micron wavelength. It is active there because that is just the right size integer of energy to occupy the difference between the molecule’s ground and excited states. That is the infrared energy (light) it holds for 6 nanoseconds before emitting it. (There are a few minor far less influential spikes of activity.) The temperature of light (energy) at 15 microns has been calculable since the early 20th century by Wilhelm Wien’s displacement law, a variant on the Einstein-Planck relation. Wien’s displacement law puts the temperature of the infrared 15-micron energy that CO2 absorbs/retains/emits at 193K or -80°C.
The gas reportedly cools in the upper troposphere and a paper reported on here recently observed CO2 having a cooling effect in the Antarctic. https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/07/15/important-new-study-from-awi-cooling-discovered-in-antarctica-enabled-by-carbon-dioxide/

hunter
August 22, 2018 9:00 am

Never before have we had a Presient so right on the issues and also so incredibly naive and self destructive.

JimG1
Reply to  hunter
August 22, 2018 9:44 am

Hunter,
I think he knows exactly what he is doing and the pros and cons and risks involved. The key will be the results of the November elections. His approach is very different from Obama who always tried to act as if he were fighting for the people against the government he controlled while being idolized by the left wing media and dirtbags in Hollywood. The Donald is doing the same thing plus adding all of the media and swamp dwellers to the mix of who he is fighting. Is he a flaming butt hole lots of the time? Well, yes, but he has accomplished more in a shorter period of time than most all of his predecessors and the more they beat on him the more he wins.

hunter
Reply to  JimG1
August 22, 2018 11:27 am

Sorry, but I believe you misperceive how motivated the lefties are in multiple ways.

Tom Abbott
Reply to  JimG1
August 22, 2018 1:32 pm

Trump does give the political opposition a lot of ammunition to distort and lie about, but unlike other Republicans, Trump fights back and exposes the MSM as the partisan hacks they are. This is one of the more important jobs he does with his “Trump Unchained!” routines.

Simon
Reply to  Tom Abbott
August 24, 2018 12:42 am

Translation” Trumps lies are easy to lie about.

John Endicott
Reply to  Simon
August 24, 2018 5:04 am

Apparently they are as the Marxstream Media insists on continually lying about them, when, ironically, they’d do much more harm to Trump if they’d simply tell the truth and let Trump’s own words, unfiltered by the MSM’s hysterical lying, distorting and editorializing, speak for themselves. And even more harm to Trump if they simply ignored his every tweet and inane comment. It was by amplifying Trump’s every utterance with their own brand of lying and distorting that got him elected by sucking out the oxygen from all the other primary candidates, it became the 24/7 Trump show on the Marxstream Media outlets – all without Trump having to spend a dime for the coverage. He played the MSM like a fiddle and they kept coming back for more.

Alan Watt, Cliamate Denialist Level 7
August 22, 2018 11:03 am

I wouldn’t celebrate yet. The same people who overstate the threat of CO2 are likely overstating the threat of Trump’s EPA to their regulatory wet dreams. I’m sure this is part of a fund-raising plea. The NRA does the same thing.

Still, it’s certainly not bad news …

August 22, 2018 11:32 am

All okay, but becomes superflous if EPA does the most important thing: a sound reassessment of the external value of CO2, which would show it to be unambiguously net positive, not negative.

There are good reasons to conserve our dwindling stocks of fossil fuels by switching over nuclear as much as possible but they have nothing to do with CO2.

BernardP
August 22, 2018 12:53 pm

What remains fundamentally wrong with the new approach is that it perpetuates the myth of CO2 being at the source of man-made climate change. Nobody in the political apparatus is willing to say openly that the Emperor has no clothes.

Jeff Alberts
August 23, 2018 6:27 am

Still laboring under the misapprehension that CO2 is “dirty”.