Let’s finally review Endangerment Finding used to justify trillions in climate and energy costs
Paul Driessen
In December 2009, the Obama Environmental Protection Agency issued its Endangerment Finding (EF) – decreeing that carbon dioxide (CO2) and other “greenhouse gases” (GHGs) endanger the health and welfare of Americans. In the process, EPA ignored the incredible economic, health and welfare benefits of fossil fuels – and the fact that (even at just 0.04% of the atmosphere) carbon dioxide is the miracle molecule that enables plants to grow and makes nearly all live on Earth possible.
EPA turned CO2 into a “dangerous pollutant” and ruled that fossil fuels must be eradicated. The agency subsequently used its EF to justify tens of billions of dollars in climate research, anti-fossil fuel regulations, and wind and solar subsidies; President Obama’s signing of the Paris climate treaty; and proposals to spend trillions of dollars a year on Green New Deal (GND) programs.
And yet, despite multiple demands that this be done, there has never been any formal, public review of the EF conclusion or of the secretive process EPA employed to ensure the result of its “analysis” could only be “endangerment” – and no awkward questions or public hearings would get in the way.
Review, transparency and accountability may finally be on the way, however, in the form of potential Executive Branch actions. If they occur – and they certainly should – both are likely to find that there is no valid scientific basis for the EF, and EPA violated important federal procedural rules in rendering its predetermined EF outcome. (One could even say the EF was obtained primarily because of prosecutorial misconduct, a kangaroo court proceeding, and scientific fraud.) Failure to examine and reverse the EF would mean it hangs like Damocles’ sword over the USA, awaiting another climate-focused president.
To the consternation and outrage of climate alarmists, keep-fossil-fuels-in-the-ground radicals, and predictable politicians and pundits, President Trump may soon appoint a Presidential Committee on Climate Change, to review “dangerous manmade climate change” reports by federal agencies.
Meanwhile, the Competitive Enterprise Institute has filed a formal petition with EPA, asking that the agency stop utilizing and relying on the EF – and instead subject the finding to a proper “high level” peer review, as required by the Information Quality Act. The reasoning presented in CEI’s succinct and persuasive petition is compelling. Its main points are these.
* EPA’s Endangerment Finding and the Technical Support Document (TSD) that supposedly justifies it did not meet Information Quality Act (IQA) requirements for how the work should have been done.
* The agency’s evaluation of the then-current climate change and related science was clearly a “highly influential scientific assessment” (HISA), which triggered important IQA and OMB rules governing rulemakings that have “a potential impact of more than $500 million in any year” … or present “novel, controversial or precedent-setting” changes … or would likely raise “significant interagency interest.”
* EPA’s “Clean Power Plan” to shut down coal-fired power plants alone would cost $2.5 billion in annual compliance costs, EPA admitted. Its motor vehicle rules would cost tens of billions. The Paris agreement and GND would add trillions per year in costs to the US economy. All are based on the EF. And all were certainly controversial and generated significant interest by multiple other government agencies.
* EPA deliberately downplayed the significance of its review and decision, ignored the IQA and OMB requirements, and refused to allow citizens, independent energy, climate and health experts, or even scientific and professional societies to nominate potential reviewers or participate in the EF analysis.
* Instead, the agency utilized an entirely internal review process, designed and conducted entirely by its own federal employees. Those employees had substantial conflicts of interest, because they were reviewing their own scientific work; would be writing, implementing and enforcing regulations based on that work; and had jobs and professional status that might be affected by the outcome of their review.
[The review team even summarily dismissed one of EPA’s most senior energy and economic experts, because his probing analyses and comments “do not help the legal or policy case” for the EF decision.]
* EPA never allowed the general public or scientific, energy, health or economic experts to review its draft scientific assessment; never sponsored any public meetings; and never let its internal peer reviewers see any of the public comments that outside experts and organizations submitted to the agency.
* In fact, none of the EPA peer review panel’s questions and responses have ever been made public.
Each of these actions violated specific IQA and OMB peer review guidelines. Indeed, two years after the Endangerment Finding was issued, even EPA’s own Inspector General found that that agency had violated rules governing all of these matters. And yet even then nothing was done to correct them.
The entire Obama EPA process smells like a crooked prosecutor who framed CO2 and was determined to get a conviction. The agency built its entire case on tainted, circumstantial evidence, and testimony from agency officials who had conflicts of interest and their own reasons for wanting CO2 convicted of endangering Americans. EPA reviewers ignored or hid exculpatory evidence and colluded to prevent witnesses for the CO2 defendant from presenting any defense or cross-examining agency witnesses.
A full reexamination now is essential, and not just because the Obama EPA violated every procedural rule in the books. But because EPA ignored volumes of climate science that contradicted its preordained EF finding. Because real-world climate and weather observations consistently contradict alarmist computer models and headlines. Because science is never settled … must never be driven by ideology … and must be reevaluated when new scientific evidence is discovered – or evidence of misbehavior is uncovered.
We know far more about Earth’s climate and have far more and better data than a decade ago. But climatologists still cannot explain why our planet experienced multiple ice ages and interglacial periods, Roman and Medieval warm periods, the Little Ice Age, or Anasazi, Mayan and Dust Bowl droughts.
And yet some of them insist they can accurately predict calamitous temperatures, weather events and extinctions 10, 20, 100 years from now – based on computer models whose temperature predictions are already a degree Fahrenheit above what satellites are measuring … and that rely primarily or solely on carbon dioxide, while downplaying or ignoring fluctuations in solar energy and cosmic ray output, the reflective properties of clouds, El Niño events, ocean current shifts, and other powerful natural forces.
And then, in the face of all that uncertainty and politicized science, they demand that the United States slash or eliminate its fossil fuel use – and that the poorest nations on Earth continue to forego fossil fuel development, and instead remain wracked by joblessness, misery, disease, malnutrition and early death.
Thankfully, poor countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America are building or planning more than 2,000 coal and gas-fueled generating plants. They deserve to be freed from dictatorial carbon-colonialism and eco-manslaughter – and to become as wealthy, healthy and vibrant as modern industrialized nations that also relied on fossil fuels to develop … and are still 80% dependent on those fuels today.
But if those countries are building fossil fuel power plants, driving millions more cars and trucks, and emitting multiple times more CO2 and other GHGs than the United States – why should the USA slash or eliminate its coal, oil and natural gas? Why should we roll back our job creation, living standards, health and welfare, based on the IPCC’s junk science and EPA’s fraudulent Endangerment Finding?
For unfathomable reasons, a few White House advisors still oppose any PCCS or IQA-triggered review of the EF or junk/fraudulent science behind it. Perhaps they are too closely tied to the Deep State or invested financially or ideologically in the $2-trillion-per-year Climate-Industrial Complex. But whatever their reasons, they must be ignored in favor of science and the national interest. Let’s get the job done – now!
Write to President Trump: Ask him to appoint his Presidential Committee on Climate Science – and instruct the EPA to agree to the CEI petition and review the 2009 Endangerment Finding forthwith!
Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of many articles and books on energy, environmental and human rights issues.
It is a pity the Endangerment Finding has not already been repealed. Of course, the green blob will tie anything up in the court system, another system requiring reform.
What could be done is undoing Jimmy Carter’s executive order on enforcing the various environmental laws, and oppose any awards of fees to intervening green blob groups.
Salute!
In all fairness, the problem was the wimpy Bush administration response before the Supreme Court re: carbon dioxide is a pollutant that the EPA can regulate.
In my wildest dreams, I could not believe the administration lawyers could not make a coherent and logical and scientific argument. Apparently, most folks were like me. No need to make a big deal, and the Supremes would rule that C02 is a naturally occuring gas and even if we humans emitted some, then how could we regulate forests and gardens and crops and……
Even Ruth commented that they ( the black robes) should not be makng scientific rulings.
In short, the science community lost due to bad lawyers on the real science side of the lawsuit.
Gums sends…
Maybe that is the reason why Ruth is at “room temperature”!!😃
The issue in that case wasn’t whether CO2 was a pollutant. The sole issue was whether the EPA had the power to call it a pollutant (whether or not is actually was one). The Supremes said that yes, the EPA had that power.
Yes. There was so much that needed doing on day one. So much time lost, even if he gets a second term.
“The entire Obama EPA process smells like a crooked prosecutor who framed CO2 and was determined to get a conviction. The agency built its entire case on tainted, circumstantial evidence, and testimony from agency officials who had conflicts of interest and their own reasons for wanting CO2 convicted of endangering Americans. EPA reviewers ignored or hid exculpatory evidence and colluded to prevent witnesses for the CO2 defendant from presenting any defense or cross-examining agency witnesses.”
Is that not exactly what happened with the nothingburger Russiagate, called by Trump, a treasonous hoax?
President Trump told Sempra energy workers in Hackberry, Louisiana May 14. The Green New Deal “is a hoax like the hoax I just went through,” he said.In fact, it may even be a bigger hoax than Russiagate, and that “was the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the people of this country.” If the GND becomes law, “every body in this room gets fired,” he told the energy workers. “Everybody go home, you just lost your job.”
That’s good enough reason to dump the EF right now!
The Carbon Cycle of Life cannot complete without atmospheric Carbon Dioxide.
Organic Carbon is created when Carbon is extracted from atmospheric Carbon Dioxide by photosynthesis/phytoplankton.
CO2 feeds life.
This guest blogger who came up with this FICTION on Obama EPA findings is obviously working for Trump. You can hear it all through this fictitious article. Surely, this is another attempt to cover his ass on environmental issues. He wants people to believe that there is not a CO2 problem (when there truely is-you live here-you can see the changes and effects- you don’t have to be a scientist to have common sense). There are many reasons he would like people to believe this fiction, first being that he does not want the money spent on our environment, when he wants it for other things (that do not benefit Americans). Second, he wants people to believe that it is okay to burn fossil fuels, mine for coal, etc., so that he can attempt at starting up more of these kinds of jobs (so that he can say he created work in the US). But the fact is, if we don’t monitor and protect our environment, and go backward to more pollution, with what he proposes, then it will be too late to fix the disaster that this “one man destuction machine” is in the process of implementing on us. Yes, there is natural CO2 in the atmosphere at very low levels, not harmful and needed. But what humans put out is growing along with the population to dangerous levels. And if he has his way, there will be more pollution, more destruction of the earth like our oceans and trees (which naturally help cleanse the earth of CO2. This article is BS. He offers no proof of anything he says. Don’t be fooled by this idiot. Count on your own common sense, and what you are witness to in the world we live in. The ice is melting, the climate is getting hotter and hotter further north, there are more and more natural disasters, the animals habitats are changing and the animals are dying both on land and in the oceans, etc. Do you really think that it is a smart idea to forgo plans to create a cleaner environment, and instead, burn more fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas), more drilling in the oceans, destroy more forrests and river with mines. How long do you think it will take before the animals are no longer the only (obvious) living things effected. Do you think that maybe the extremely high volumes of people with cancer that has climbed from minimal, to now everyone nows people with it over the last decade, and the increasingly high numbers of people with respiratory diseases, like COPD and asthma, can be contributed to our many forms of pollution?… This article is a distracting tool set out there by trump (attempting to make people think that what we have known and trusted all of our lives for decades, is now suddenly wrong, and he is the only one who knows the truth or something like that). Common sense people. Look around you. Don’t fall into the gaudy greedy trump trash trap.
WTF?
Nice sarcasm.
Another thing to watch is, just like Russiagate, the investigator left the lie that the DNC was hacked by Russia on the table, even while clearing Trump of collusion. This is causing even more craziness. It was in fact a usb leak.
So to repeal the EF it must be made clear why and who did the deed – the driving policy. Leave no fake door open to let the madness back in to gaslight us all over again.
Why rely on IQA? Use your IQ.
I know that this is a scientific approach, not a legal approach. B. Hussein Obama is a lawyer, not a scientist. To make a real mess, you need a lawyer.
Appoint federal climate panel? Hasn’t this already happened? Trump is a bit of a brinksman. He’s leaving all this a bit late. I have no doubt, given that dems are still reacting to the last election in the wrong way by doubling down, like Australian Left who just lost the ‘unloseable’ election, that Trump is going to win by a landslide.
He might, but the left will certainly start the next “civil War” soon after.
Endangerment Finding that turns human & animal respiration byproducts in prohibited polluant.
Depopulation becomes a legal requirement. Sober up people ! Survival instincts, anyone ?
The EF did do some good, it spawned many CAGW skeptics such as myself.
Paul Driessen
” that enables plants to grow and makes nearly all live (life) on Earth possible.”
Great job as always…
There is a second decision by the EPA this should be investigated at the same time. It qualifies on the same basis as the EF. I refer to the equitoxicity ruling in which they declared that all particles suspended in the air (with an aerodynamic diameter of 2.5 microns or less) are equally toxic based on the assumption that, they are, “because we have no proof that they are not.”
Well, it is trivial to demonstrate that all particles are not “equally toxic”. On the basis that they are, projections of “lives lost” and invention of the metric “disability-adjusted life years (DALY) they have created a whole industry that makes claims for “life years lost to air pollution” and “deaths caused by poor air quality” based on models of models of models of models of models of models (I kid you not – 6 layers deep!) that spit out these ‘deaths from coal fired power stations emissions” and similar “statistics”.
There is a third unsavoury decision made within the EPA which is the Linear no-threshhold model (LNT) which says that everything that is toxic is toxic down to zero exposure in a linear fashion. A quick refresher is available here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model
It is this model which combined with the equitoxicity rule that is the foundation upon which the CO2 endangerment finding rests. The LNT model is where one gets the emissions of an entire vast nation like the USA “killing 4 people per year”, which is to say, if it is toxic at almost zero concentration, then statistically speaking 4 people can be said to have “died”, even if no one get sick for 10 minutes.
All three of these have to be reviewed properly so valid conclusions can be reached.
“with an aerodynamic diameter of 2.5 microns or less”…
I haven’t gotten into this at all, but it seems that when the definition of the perceived problem (“with an aerodynamic diameter of 2.5 microns or less”…)
is phrased with priority of the ability to test for the problem, there is something pretty stinky going on.
… similar to the 2 degree limit
It is quite reasonable actually. The problem was PM10, which was introduced a long time ago, was selected because there is usually a lot of it and the issue became, what if the test apparatus measures 9.8 microns and another measure 10.2? There is a significant difference in the ratings given by different labs.
PM2.5 was selected because there is nearly none. Nothing much makes 2.5 micron particles so a 5% difference in the size selection produces nearly no difference in the reading and therefore the rating. Problem solved. <PM4.0 will settle in the lungs. Combustion particles are much smaller, peaking in the 0.6 micron region and nearly none above PM1.6. Flyash can be quite large if there are fans involved.
Below PM0.1, the effect on people is quite small because they do not stick in the lungs – they float in and out – particularly in the 0.05 micron range and lower (<50 nanometers).
The term "aerodynamic diameter" is used because if a particle looks like a hot dog or a sphere or a square box, they had to have some sorting method. The area (shadow size) is used, and converted to a circle. So an area equivalent to a 2.5 micron sphere is the standard measure.
There are real health consequences from inhaling particles which can get embedded in the lungs. The idea that they are equally toxic is laughable. You have heard of cigarette smoke? Asbestos? Pollen? Wood dust? Sand? It is well known that these are not equally toxic to anyone.
Some particles in low concentrations may confer resistance or immunity or health benefits – no one is really certain. Some are not toxic below a certain concentration. Some have a large effect initially and as the concentration increases, there is virtually no additional effect. This whole matter needs review: toxicity, dose, and any findings for endangerment.
Cilia (‘motile ‘hairs’ in the lungs) move fine particles upwards into the bronchial tubes where they can be coughed out. This is true even with cigarette smoke (2 microns). However, with cigs, if you keep smoking, you eventually render the cilia inoperable.
We evolved with airborne loess, dust forest and geassland fires, pollen, plant aerosols and the system worked admirably. Size of particles is less an issue than shape. Acicular particles prick lung tissues and become stuck.
Of course, where particles can become dissolved ( fine silica) or are chemically toxic, this is dangerous.
In early studies of asbestos in lungs of miners at Thetford Mines, Quebec, they found that the nonsmokers tended to not succumb to asbestosis and that smokers were more affected than smokers outside this environment. This apoarentlt didnt make the cut in final reports! So, it is many factors and combinations but, like a lot if things these days, the science ‘has been unlearned’
“There are real health consequences from inhaling particles which can get embedded in the lungs.” – yes.
Size matters, shape matters, shape relative to size matters, but my guess is that shape is more important than size with respect to damage.
Just guessing again here, but I don’t think a person or an entity is going to be fined because of a regulator looking at a particle surface cross section area, somehow converting to an equivalent sphere, and proving a violation.
The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District in California has been arguing for speciation of PM2.5 for several years, primarily because the majority of the PM2.5 they deal with is ammonium nitrates from agriculture and not, by any reasonable sense, likely to be high on the list of PM2.5 chemical species that are dangerous. In other words, rather than taking a mass-based approach in which a pound of PM2.5 is a pound of PM2.5 regardless of what’s actually in it, they’ve been trying to get EPA to adopt a risk-based approach.
In a Paris air pollution study in 2014, it was estimated that 62% of PM2.5 was from agriculture. UK air finds similar numbers.
Of course, the law of unintended consequences makes an appearance when banning cars from downtown areas to reduce pollution, which encourages more motorcycles, which increases PM2.5
Linear Threshold Dose Limit declares that if 100 aspirin tablets will kill a person, then if you give 100 people 1 tablet each, 1 person will die. It is statistical BS.
I’ve used that exact analogy with dozens of people and virtually no one believes that Linear – No Threshold is that stupid. Some bad ideas are “protected” by their own absurdity.
It will take more than one term for Trump to stop the AGW madness.
markl: Trump has been in office for 28 months now, and he has done very little to discredit the climate scare with the refuting evidence. What is he waiting for?
This should have been looked long before now.
Jimmy: Ageed. As I asked above, what is Trump waiting for?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3546819/
Ozone and Short-term Mortality in 95 US Urban Communities, 1987-2000
Michelle L. Bell, PhD, Aidan McDermott, PhD, Scott L. Zeger, PhD, Jonathan M. Samet, MD, and Francesca Dominici, PhD
Classic example of bad emperical medical studies
1) no control cities with no increase in ozone
2) several cities with negative correlations relative to other factors, ie other factors having much higher correlations than ozone
3) recording biases
4) cities with levels of ozone way below levels that could possibly have any measureable effect.
Get yourselves a bucket of water and a heat gun and try putting raw heat through the surface of water and good luck with that. That is what is at the centre of this whole silly argument.
have you tried that with 100% humidity & a bit of wind (or sloshing of the bucket)?
I don’t know why people keep spouting this incorrect analogy. Put the bucket in an oven – that’s still not a great analogy, but it’s closer. And what the hell is “raw heat”? While I agree that a slightly warmer atmosphere will have an immeasurable impact on the temperature of the oceans, you won’t convince anybody by using inaccurate analogies and bogus terms.
Unless that bucket in the oven is a very good insulator, most heat impacting the water would be coming through the bucket.
SR
Which is why it is still an incorrect analogy. I suppose if you specify an insulated bowl instead, it would be closer. Note that even in that case, the oven would have to be quite a bit warmer than the water starts out at in order to detect a change. A few degrees difference would take a very long time to make a measurable change. BUT – the water would warm; it is not impossible for air to warm water. When considering the entire planet, there is a large air-water interface, however the mass of the water is so huge and the temperature difference so small that any warming of the oceans is theoretical only. Even over human timescales it would not be measurable.
https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/97959/how-does-a-canvas-water-bag-cool-water
Hot desert air surrounding a water filled canvas bag is a better analogy. The water will cool – governed by factors such as wind speed & humidity! I used to hang beer cans into a wet sock and hang it out of the trains window in order to chill them down.
The water in the canvas bag will cool, but at the expense of losing water to evaporation (the canvas being porous to water). The evaporation is what causes the water to cool. The phase change from liquid to gas requires an extra bit of energy, and mostly that comes from the water.
1st paragraph: …all live on Earth… Should be life
…”a few White House advisors still oppose any PCCS or IQA-triggered review”…
Names and job titles, please.
For much of the public, the global warming scare has been disproven. The problem is that the public is constantly bombarded by propaganda – from headline seeking media and politicians. No better informed are federal courts, who have upheld the EPA’s Endangerment Finding on CO2. The one-sided perception exists because contradictory evidence has been shuttered.
https://dailycaller.com/2018/12/30/michael-bloomberg-climate-change/
It’s shuttered for a reason: The contradictory evidence is DAMNING.
https://edberry.com/blog/climate-physics/agw-hypothesis/what-is-really-behind-the-increase-in-atmospheric-co2/
The only hope for the public to grasp the truth and for the CO2 Endangerment Finding to be repealed is an independent review of the alleged science which keeps ringing the alarm bell. That’s what was recommended by technocrats and the previous EPA director.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-deceptive-new-report-on-climate-1509660882
If Trump gets around to acting, this is what would be conducted by the proposed Happer commission. An independent review would undermine the basis of the Endangerment Finding, rendering the court’s decision immaterial. If Trump doesn’t act, the alarmists will simply hibernate, waiting for the next opportunity to reinvigorate the scare.
If the problem to date in not already doing what needs to be done, is that some influential members of the Trump Administration are global warming advocates, then the Australian election should help change some minds.
Some politicians may not be interested in learning what should be learned about climate science, but all politicians are interested in being re-elected. Australian voters demonstrated that it is not only OK to be skeptical about catastrophic warming, but that will help get you elected.
Remember, though, Obama’s ‘climate deception’ was only the tail of the dragon.
Finding that CO2 is a “danger” is like finding that N2 is a “danger”.
It’s not this silly “may not be harmful” – it’s not “it needs reviewing” – it is that it simply isn’t harmful at all.
“Instead, the agency [EPA] utilized an entirely internal review process, designed and conducted entirely by its own federal employees. Those employees had substantial conflicts of interest…”
My immediate thought was the similarity to police department reviews of a LEO’s harm-causing action, including death of (often) an unarmed individual. Frequently only local citizen uproar motivates city/state officials to widen/replace the “review” with outside parties.
Uproar now getting the review warranted from the start?
Individual states have environmental protection laws enacted by their people.
The federal EPA is strictly unconstitutional.
All powers not defined in the federal US constitution are forbidden at the federal level.
The states should have NEVER permitted any federal interference regarding internal matters.
The federal constitution defends the border, holds power to interact with other countries, and may arbitrate inter-state disputes.
Paul Driessen,
Thank You for the compelling summary of the fraudulent construction and implementation of the EPA’s Endangerment Finding! I urge all WUWT readers to utilize the link Paul provided ( https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ ) to petition the Trump administration to act on removing this travesty of Obama socialist democrat ‘non-science’.
If our SCOTUS has the temerity to determine FORCED compliance with a Federal Healthcare program is “legally” justified as a “tax”, and that the gubment has the constitutional RIGHT to levy taxes … then that same SCOTUS could determine the gubment has the RIGHT to “tax” carbon use.
You see … ! It’s easy! Any action the gubment wants to take that is … in your best interest (like Obamakkare), can be justified by the gubment’s RIGHT TO TAX.
It doesn’t matter that the entire underpinnings of Obamakkare were fraudulent. It didn’t matter that Obama LIED to “sell” the public on Nationalized Health Care (although he still never received majority support). It doesn’t matter whether the EPA violated all the rules of evidentiary process. It doesn’t matter that the EPA lied. Because the EPA is trying to SAVE THE PLANET. The EPA is using YOUR TAXES … to “save” you!! How could the SCOTUS overrule such a warm and fuzzy gubment action?!
Sorry to be so cynical … but Robert’s cynical Obamakkare ruling has shattered all faith in our “institutions”. Now, the Deep State is just making it up as they roll along with unchecked POWER.
Bottom line, you just need someone in official office to say so.
Driessen writes: ” and ruled that fossil fuels must be eradicated.”
…
This statement shows that Driessen is clueless about the EPA’s finding.
…
The EPA’s Endangerment finding does not apply to ALL fossil fuels.
…
“These findings do not themselves impose any requirements on industry or other entities. However, this action was a prerequisite for implementing greenhouse gas emissions standards for vehicles. In collaboration with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, EPA finalized emission standards for light-duty vehicles (2012-2016 model years) in May of 2010 and heavy-duty vehicles (2014-2018 model years) in August of 2011.”
….
refrence: https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/endangerment-and-cause-or-contribute-findings-greenhouse-gases-under-section-202a-clean
Mike Borgelt, the Clean Air Act Section 202 Endangerment Finding written in 2009 was a prototype document intended to test the legal waters for declaring carbon dioxide and other carbon based GHG’s as atmospheric pollutants. The process used by the EPA to develop and publish the Section 202 finding has been upheld in the courts.
If the climate activist’s original plan from 2009 as first outlined by 350.org had been followed, once the Section 202 finding had been upheld in the courts, a follow-on CAA Section 108 finding would have been developed and published using the Section 202 finding as a template.
That didn’t happen. Instead of following up on their successful defense of the CAA Section 202 endangerment finding with a complementary Section 108 finding, in 2013, the Obama Administration chose instead to go forward with the Clean Power Plan (CPP), an approach targeting coal as the primary focus of America’s GHG reduction efforts.
At best, the CPP could have achieved roughly one-third of Obama’s target of an 80% reduction in America’s GHG emissions by 2050. The Clean Power Plan also had the seeds of its own failure built directly into it, because it unfairly singled out coal’s GHG emissions for reduction while ignoring other major sources of carbon emissions which are ubiquitous throughout the American economy.
IMHO, the Clean Power Plan would have been struck down in the courts simply for the fact that if the burdens of reducing our carbon emissions are to be imposed in a fair way, the regulatory burden must apply equally across the board to all major sources of our GHG emissions. Those who wrote the CPP in 2012 and 2013 must have known full well that it was not likely to survive a serious challenge in the courts. But they went ahead with it anyway.
“Miracle molecule” is an understatement. Every carbon atom in your body (and mine) was once atmospheric CO2. Every molecule of O2 that you breathe (me too) was once atmospheric CO2.
Atmospheric CO2 is the essential (necessary, requisite, indispensable) building block of Life. CO2 is the opposite of toxic — it is (along with H2O) the life-enabling substance.
Any action plan offered by climate activists which greatly reduces America’s carbon emissions between now and 2050 must rely heavily upon the authorities granted by Congress to the President and the Executive Branch under the Clean Air Act and under existing national security legislation.
Congress might well enact a massive new spending program for achieving a green energy future, but that program cannot produce the quick reductions in America’s carbon emissions climate activists say are necessary. Quick reductions can only come about if the federal government intervenes in the energy marketplace to directly raise the price of all carbon fuels and to directly limit their production and distribution.
Congress will not put a price on carbon, nor will it adopt a carbon trading scheme. It will most certainly not act to place direct caps on the production and consumption of carbon fuels. As a practical matter, if quick action is to be taken against America’s carbon emissions, it must be done by the president using authorities already granted by the Congress to the Executive Branch.
Historically, the EPA has been the agency of government charged with managing and reducing emissions of substances identified as pollutants. It could not be otherwise simply because the pollutant in question is carbon. If climate activists ever get truly serious about reducing America’s carbon emissions, the EPA’s current and future endangerment findings will play a central role in justifying full application of Clean Air Act provisions to our carbon emissions.
Donald Trump will not always be president. Sooner or later, a climate activist Democrat will replace him in the Oval Office and will use Executive Branch authorities to quickly undo everything Donald Trump did while he was president, including all of his environmental and climate change policies.
Over the next several years, the Green New Deal’s goal posts will shift towards President Obama’s original target of an 80% reduction in America’s carbon emissions by 2050. Even with a target date of 2050, it is impossible to reach an 80% reduction without imposing considerable sacrifice on the American people in the form of strictly enforced energy conservation measures combined with steep increases in the cost of all forms of fossil fuel energy.
Furthermore, it is impossible to reach 80% by 2050 without a massive commitment to nuclear power, and to manage the energy market transition in a way which leaves no choice but to sacrifice the benefits of market competition with natural gas in keeping a lid on nuclear’s costs.
If a climate activist Democrat takes office in 2021, the Democrats will then be forced to put real meat on their Green New Deal energy policies. Will the Democrat’s 2021 plan be something new and different, or will it be a rehash of Barack Obama’s plan from a decade earlier updated with Green New Deal rhetoric, but containing little else of real substance?
If a quick reduction in America’s carbon emissions is the actual goal, then everything which climate activists want done in greatly reducing America’s carbon emissions can be done by the President and the Executive Branch. As an example of how such a plan might be written and eventually implemented, I am outlining a plan to reduce America’s GHG emissions 80% by 2050 using the Clean Air Act augmented by existing national security legislation.
This plan is similar to the one that was being pushed a decade ago in 2009 by 350.org and by other environmental activist groups. More recently, activist groups allied with 350.org have filed a petition with the EPA to have carbon emissions declared as Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAPs) under Section 212 of the Clean Air Act.
In this new version of 350.org’s 2009 action plan, one geared to a Democratic Party takeover of the Executive Branch in January, 2021, the original 350.org plan is augmented by a system of carbon pollution fines which is the functional equivalent of a legislated tax on carbon. Moreover, if carbon pricing combined with massive new spending on green energy projects doesn’t prove to be fully effective, the updated plan adds a provisional system for imposing direct government control over the production and distribution of all carbon fuels.
Here are the major phases of the revised plan. The start and end dates listed for each major phase assume a climate activist Democrat is elected president in 2020.
Phase I: Establish a legal basis for regulating carbon dioxide and other carbon GHG’s as pollutants. (2007-2012)
Phase II: Expand and extend EPA regulation of carbon GHG’s to all major sources of America’s carbon emissions. (2021-2022)
Phase III: Establish a fully comprehensive EPA-managed regulatory framework for carbon. (2023-2025)
Phase IV: Implement the EPA’s carbon pollution regulatory framework. (2026-2050)
Phase V: Implement the provisional system for direct carbon fuel rationing. (Start and End dates contingent upon Phase IV progress.)
Phase VI: Declare success in reducing America’s carbon emissions 80% by 2050. (If complete by 2050 or earlier.)
These are the details of the plan, organized by phase:
Phase I: Establish a legal basis for regulating carbon dioxide and other carbon GHG’s as pollutants. (2007-2012, i.e. Complete.)
— File and win lawsuits to allow regulation of CO2 and other carbon GHG’s as pollutants under the Clean Air Act.
— Publish a CAA Section 202 Endangerment Finding as a prototype test case for regulation of carbon GHG’s.
— Defend the Section 202 Endangerment Finding in the courts.
Phase II: Expand and extend EPA regulation of carbon GHG’s to all major sources of America’s carbon emissions. (2021-2022)
— Issue a presidential executive order declaring a carbon pollution emergency.
— Publish a CAA Section 108 Endangerment Finding which complements 2009’s Section 202 finding.
— Declare carbon emissions as Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAPs) under CAA Section 112.
— Establish a National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for carbon pollution.
— Use the NAAQS for carbon pollution as America’s tie-in to international climate change agreements.
— Defend the Section 108 Endangerment Finding, the NAAQS, and the Section 112 HAP Declaration in the courts.
Phase III: Establish a fully comprehensive EPA-managed regulatory framework for carbon. (2023-2025)
— Publish a regulatory framework for carbon pollution under Clean Air Act sections 108, 111, 112, 202, and other CAA sections as applicable.
— Establish cooperative agreements with the states to enforce the EPA’s anti-carbon regulations.
— Establish a system of carbon pollution fines which is the functional equivalent of a legislated tax on carbon.
— Establish the legal basis for assigning all revenues collected from these carbon pollution fines to the states.
— Research and publish a provisional system of direct carbon fuel rationing as a backup to the carbon fine system.
— Defend the EPA’s comprehensive system of carbon pollution regulations in the courts.
Phase IV: Implement the EPA’s carbon pollution regulatory framework. (2026-2050)
— Commence operation of prior agreements with the states for enforcement of the EPA’s anti-carbon regulations.
— Commence the collection of carbon pollution fines and the distribution of fine revenues to the states.
— Monitor the effectiveness of the EPA’s carbon regulatory framework in reducing America’s GHG emissions.
— Monitor the effectiveness of renewable energy projects in reducing America’s GHG emissions.
— Monitor the effectiveness of energy conservation programs in reducing America’s GHG emissions.
— Adjust the schedule of carbon pollution fines upward if progress in reducing America’s GHG emissions lags.
— Assess the possible need for invoking the provisional system of direct carbon fuel rationing.
— Defend the EPA’s system of carbon pollution regulations against emerging lawsuits.
Phase V: Implement the provisional system for direct carbon fuel rationing. (Start and End dates contingent upon Phase IV progress.)
— Issue a presidential proclamation declaring that Phase IV anti-carbon measures cannot meet the 80% by 2050 target.
— Initiate the provisionally established system for imposing direct government control over production and distribution of all carbon fuels.
— Apply the Phase IV system of carbon pollution fines in escalating steps as needed to incentivize Phase V compliance.
— Defend the government-mandated carbon fuel rationing program in the courts.
Phase VI: Declare success in reducing America’s carbon emissions 80% by 2050. (If complete by 2050 or earlier.)
— Assess the need for continuing the EPA’s anti-carbon regulations and the US Government’s mandatory fuel rationing program beyond 2050.
— Defend the government’s anti-carbon measures against emerging lawsuits if these measures continue beyond 2050.
Remarks:
Some history concerning 350.org’s previous efforts at pursuing climate action lawsuits through the courts is in order.
Phase I of the plan outlined above, establishment of a legal basis for regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant, was complete in 2012. The legal foundation needed to impose aggressive across-the-board regulation of all major sources of America’s carbon emissions remains in place awaiting the appearance of a president willing to use it.
When Barack Obama was Chief Executive, his Clean Power Plan and his other anti-carbon measures might have achieved possibly one-third of his Year 2050 GHG reduction goals. But the remainder depended upon a highly uncertain combination of accelerated technological advancements and raw unvarnished hope.
And yet, when President Obama had the opportunity and the means to move forward with the 350.org plan, he refused to go through with it. Nor were 350.org itself and the other climate activist groups willing to push hard for adoption of their 2009 plan after their initial victories in the courts.
From 2012 onward, climate activists could have worked closely with the EPA using the ‘sue and settle’ process to put their 2009 plan into effect. If the dangers of climate change are as severe as they claim, then why didn’t the activists go forward with it while they were still in control of the federal government?
As previously noted, activist groups allied with 350.org have now filed a petition with the EPA to have carbon emissions declared as Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAPs) under Section 212 of the Clean Air Act.
Would climate activists make full use of a HAP declaration if they had a sympathetic president in the Oval Office in 2021? Or is their 2019 petition nothing more than a public relations gimmick intended to build support for their climate action policies among environmentally conscious voters?
There needs to be retribution. Jobs need to be lost, people sent to gaol (jail). When fear stalks lawyer land some will change sides, some will recant and the unravelling will begin. It isn’t about revenge. It’s about winning. For that it’s essential to be ruthless. We need to see a quickening.
They didn’t baulk at blowing up a perfectly good power station in East Tilbury (and waking me up) and saddling us in the UK with expensive, unreliable electricity for decades to come. And this is but a tiny smidgen of the harm they have inflicted across the Western, and (mainly), English-speaking world. They are dangerous and they mean business. They must be stopped as soon as politically possible or they will continue destroying entire economies.
So, let the dark heart of the global warming zombie be riven by a carbonaceous stake inscribed by mystical lawyerly runes, let the whole fetid mess implode and render all its adherents, both witting and unwitting, permanently discombobulated, revealed for all the world to see, the prattling goons that they really are.
The analysis behind the endangerment finding lacked any kind of benefit consideration. If one is dreaming up doomsday scenarios there is some possibility that a late spring (such as we are having now) could get paired with a September frost. It’s fine to look at climate averages but weather chances should also be thought about. The 20th century did not have the kind of weather that there was in the 19th century. If we had a freeze such as there was then the consequences would be pretty dire. Climate analysis is not enough. You also have to think about actual weather if Doom is your thing.
Having the Obama EPA’s Endangerment Finding repealed by a Trump-appointed Committee just might get the Donald re-elected.
It would certainly send sparks flying!
I’m sorry to say, PDT is a committed Greenshirt panderer. He could just as easily permitted “Red Team Blue Team” to go forward under Pruitt but he stays away from the Greenblob only playing defense to the most extreme measures.
We could exit the UN Climate Protocol, have an executive science team denounce the underlying junk science culture. That hasn’t happened. It’s political calculus that leaves the core left with their hobby horse and the climate war is like the abortion (eugenics) debate, never ending.
It’s the Roe Vs. Wade equivalent of Greenshirt authoritarianism and rationalization. It has to fall but the massive infrastructure and culture created by decades of brainwashing culture are everywhere.
The Soviets were beaten but somehow the peace has absorbed their inclinations in the west. Is there enough of rational science academic base left to support the repeal? Decades of socially purging the climate science enclave of dissent and critical thinking leave me with doubt.
“For unfathomable reasons, a few White House advisors still oppose any PCCS or IQA-triggered review of the EF or junk/fraudulent science behind it.”
If the EU-wide elections on thursday, two days away, result in wins for climate-skeptic candidates, it should lessen fears that such a position is a vote-loser.
I attended a meeting shortly after the EPA announced their endangerment finding where Gena McCarthy spoke. During the Q&A I asked her upon which body of knowledge did the agency rely to make their determination. Her answer was quick…”the IPCC, the preeminent voice on this matter.”
So it’s just the trace gas amount of human generated C02 that’s a pollutant eh ?
If Co2 is a pollutant and we could magically eliminate the pollutant why would the virtue signalers want to kill trees and plants by staving them of that pollutant ?
Hmm… me thinks they have another agenda . Like money and power fed by a $7 trillion dollar con -game .
The electorate are revolting and the promoters better look for new non extraditing countries to count their bags of money .
Even allowing for previous Presidents with I am sure the best of intentions in
bringing in Clean Air Acts, it seems to me in Australia that President
Obama was doing his best to destroy the American economy.
Or was he like King Charles 1st, who it was said only listened to the last
person who spoke to him ?
Hitler too was said to be the same, which is why he probably lost the War in
940.
MJE VK5ELL
In the period for public comment on the EF I submitted a comment to the EPA. I commented that the EF was not falsifiable thus being unscientific. In making the EF a public policy, the EPA claimed that it had addressed all of the public comments it had received but it had not addressed my comment. In a letter to the EPA administrator, Lisa Jackson, I pointed out that the EPA’s claim was inaccurate. She did not return my letter.