CONTRIBUTOR
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) pushed several aggressive climate regulations in 2023 that could seriously harm the American economy, energy policy experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The agency proposed or finalized rules that would spur the electric vehicle (EV) transition, decrease power grid reliability by imposing costly restrictions on power plants, tighten air quality standards and more in 2023. Under the Biden administration, the EPA has made considerable efforts to further regulations that would nominally help to counter climate change, often at the expense of the American economy, energy policy experts told the DCNF.
“The EPA took a disturbing trend to a new level in 2023: a willingness to use its regulatory power to kill off industries, dictate or influence what businesses can operate and limit what goods and services are available to the public,” Daren Bakst, the director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Center for Energy and Environment, told the DCNF. “Congress never envisioned the agency’s authorized regulatory power would be used as a tool for the agency to engage in central planning, reshape industries and limit consumer choice.” (RELATED: EPA Bureaucrats Can Rake In Six-Figure Salaries While Mostly Working From Home, Report Finds)
The “Clean Power Plan 2.0″
The EPA’s May proposal to slash greenhouse gas emissions from power plants would require fossil fuel-fired generation facilities to adopt expensive developing technologies, such as carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) and hydrogen blending, in order to come into compliance over the coming decades. If finalized in its current form, the regulations— which the EPA contends are legal under the auspices of the Clean Air Act— would significantly raise the chances of blackouts in a massive swath of the Midwest while imposing costs to stakeholders totaling nearly $250 billion, according to analysis conducted by the Center of the American Experiment (CAE).
Power the Future, an energy advocacy organization, dubbed the proposal the “Clean Power Plan 2.0” in a November report because of its strong resemblance to the Obama administration’s “Clean Power Plan” proposal, which the Supreme Court struck down in its landmark decision in West Virginia v. EPAin 2022.
The EPA is moving forward with the proposal, despite the North American Electric Reliability Corporation and a key official for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission warning that the premature retirement of fossil fuel-fired baseload generation and increased reliance on intermittent green energy, like wind and solar, threatens future grid reliability.
“The proposed rule does not require that plants go offline,” an EPA spokesperson told the DCNF in August. “The proposed rule would require plants to install proven technology to abate greenhouse gas emissions. The proposal provides owners and operators of power plants with ample lead time and substantial compliance flexibilities, allowing power companies and grid operators to make sound long-term planning and investment decisions, and supporting the power sector’s ability to continue delivering reliable and affordable electricity.”
However, CAE and one of its leading grid experts, Isaac Orr, are not convinced.
The agency “does not appear to have the expertise necessary to enact such a sweeping regulation on the American power sector,” CAE wrote in its August comments in response to the agency’s proposal.
“This is the regulatory equivalent of studying the structural integrity of the top floor of a 100-story building without doing so for the preceding 99 floors,” Orr told the DCNF.
Tailpipe Emissions Standards
In April, the agency unveiled its proposal for new tailpipe emissions standards in an effort to curb emissions attributable to transportation. The proposed standards would be historically stringent if finalized and they would effectively mandate that 67% of all light-duty vehicles sold after model year 2032 are EVs, according to the EPA.
Under the proposed rules, 46% of medium-duty vehicle sales and 25% of heavy-duty sales will be EVs, according to the agency’s projections.
The proposal could be “tremendously damaging for the American people,” Diana Furchtgott-Roth, the director of the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Energy, Climate and Environment, told the DCNF. “The reason the agency is pushing these rules is because Congress would never pass these as laws … this rule would be very damaging for Americans and get rid of an iconic means of transportation.”
The administration has spent billions to facilitate its ambitious EV push, and other agencies, such as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, have promulgated their own similar rules as well. Despite these efforts, the American EV market is on tenuous footing: consumer demand is not growing as rapidly as anticipated, companies are losing large sums of money on their EV product lines, auto executives are starting to back away from short-term EV production targets and the nation’s EV charging infrastructure remains inconsistent and unevenly distributed across the country.
Notably, the House passed a bill that would effectively nullify the proposal earlier in December by a bipartisan vote, but it is unlikely to make it through the Senate, and the White House has suggested that President Joe Biden will veto the bill if it lands on his desk, according to The Hill.
Fine Particulate Pollution Standards
In January, the EPA proposed to tighten the existing National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for fine particulate pollution (PM 2.5) in order “to better protect communities, including those most overburdened by pollution,” the agency announced in a press release.
More than 70 industrial executives penned a letter to White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients warning him that it could lead to massive swaths of the nation falling out of compliance with the rule, which would in turn choke economic development and complicate key goals of Biden’s own green industrial agenda, according to its text.
The states that would be most directly impacted by a finalized PM 2.5 NAAQS update would be Texas, California, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona and Illinois, according to the letter’s text.
“PM 2.5 is the most demonstrable science fraud going on at the EPA,” Steve Milloy, a senior legal fellow for the Energy and Environment Legal Institute, previously told the DCNF. “There is more than enough scientific research to demonstrate that what EPA is doing here is fraud, and it is really a testament to the corruption of the scientific community.”
If finalized, the proposal would kill jobs and put the EPA in a position to deny local economies the right to develop, because states that can not comply with the tightened standards would have to receive approval from the agency to develop new industrial factories and power facilities, Milloy told the DCNF.
The EPA projects that the policy would generate up to $43 billion in net health benefits in 2032, as well as prevent 4,200 premature deaths per year and restore 270,000 lost workdays per year by reducing the current standard of allowable fine particle pollution by up to 25%.
Waters of the United States
In January, the agency proposed a regulation that would define the “Waters of the United States” (WOTUS) under the EPA’s regulatory purview as “navigable waters” to include lands containing small streams and wetlands. A federal court blocked the January proposal in April, finding that the 24 states that sued the agency had “persuasively shown that the new 2023 Rule poses a threat to their sovereign rights and amounts to irreparable harm.”
Then, in May, the Supreme Court limited the EPA’s authority under the Clean Water Act — which it had cited as the enabling statute for the January proposal — in its decision in Sackett v. EPA, a case brought by a couple whom the EPA tried to stop from constructing a house on their land in Idaho.
In August, the agency “finalized amendments to its January rule, which are just a half-hearted and incomplete set of corrections to try and fix the flawed rule,” Bakst told the DCNF. “These amendments don’t properly comply with the Sackett opinion and fail to provide needed clarity to implement the opinion. And they did so without seeking public comment.”
The EPA exhibited a “complete disregard for private property owners and the rule of law” in its proceedings pursuant to WOTUS regulation in 2023, Bakst told the DCNF.
Neither the EPA nor the White House responded immediately to a request for comment.
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The Biden administration holds Supreme Court decisions in contempt. West Virginia v EPA or Sackett should encourage them to actually try to pass actual bills, not relying on regulation. But the Democrats in Congress do not want to take actual responsibility for these policies, even if they support them.
If people aren’t waking up yet to what’s happening to America’s governance they never will until they lose their personal property and descend into poverty.
The clock is ticking.
https://www.usdebtclock.org/
Constitution ARTICLE. I. SECTION 1. All legislative Powers herein grant- ed shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.
Note that EPA, FDA, BATF ETC are not mentioned. So these organizations have no authority to write rules that carry the force of law. If we just followed the constitution it would solve a multitude of problems. But if we allow unelected bureaucrats to write laws we transform our representative republic into a tyranny.
Amendment 28
Section 1
Congress shall make no law to regulate,
tax, sequester or license atmospheric
carbon dioxide.
The right of the people to freely emit
carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from
any source, from any place at any time
in any amount shall not be interfered with.
Section 2
All activity commercial or private within
the United States and all territory subject
to the jurisdiction thereof for the purposes
of altering climate is prohibited.
The Congress and the several States shall
have concurrent power to enforce this article
by appropriate legislation.
______________________________________
Or something like that.
Done, and done. We have allowed unelected bureaucrats to write laws, and we have transformed our representative republic into a tyranny.
The 1970 Clean Air Act, passed by Congress, authorized the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to establish National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) to protect public health and the environment.
No one working for the EPA, which established the NAAQS, and which now wants to tighten up those standards beyond reason or the ability to comply, was elected. Nope. Just a bunch of hired bureaucrats.
Think about this. Digest this. Reconcile this with the Constitution if you can. But ACCEPT this: Congress passed a law – the 1970 Clean Air Act – which gave legislative power to the EPA, an agency of the administrative branch of government, which reports only to the President.
Fact: for many, many years the Congress of the United States has been giving away its power to legislate to the President of the United States.
From the EPA’s website, page on regulations:
“EPA is called a regulatory agency because Congress authorizes us to write regulations that explain the technical, operational, and legal details necessary to implement laws. Regulations are mandatory requirements that can apply to individuals, businesses, state or local governments, non-profit institutions, or others.”
Every word of Title 40 of the Code of Federal Regulations was written by bureaucrats at the EPA, NOT by Congress.
In spirit, Yes, in black letter, No.
Congress cannot “give” to even “loan” legislative powers to the administrative branch. Congress passes laws and executive agencies apply those through regulations. This has always been the case, and must, by design, always be the case. This is how the executive branch ‘checks’ and ‘balances’ the powers of the legislature — exactly as the inspired, noble, and brilliant Founding Fathers designed.
However, you are spot-on that something else is afoot. With an administrative state and legislative branch peopled with ‘useful idiots’, treasonous and prevaricating fools, we have a destructive collusion, which manifests as ‘ceding legislative power’, that was not unforeseen by the Founding Fathers.
As Frank from Fairfax notes, the main line of defense against this was for a godly, virtuous people internally governed, guided, and checked by a spirit of decency, independence, and generosity. This has been destroyed to the extent that even folks on this site are incompatible with the original design of our government. However, foreseeing this, the Founders gave us the second amendment.
“This is how the executive branch ‘checks’ and ‘balances’ the powers of the legislature — exactly as the inspired, noble, and brilliant Founding Fathers designed.”
What you leave out is the Founding Fathers designed the system to have Senators appointed by their State to put a check on the federal government. The 17th Amendment changed that to a direct election by the people,something the Founders were against. Now, Senators are beholding to special interest groups who fund their campaigns rather than to the state that put them their. Repealing the 17th would be a good start to taming the growth and power of the federal government.
Ditto!
If the 2016 election TRUMP! won 30 states. If the states selected the Senators, he would have had 60 Senators, and would not have needed to deal with the foot dragging of the RINO congress, especially in the Senate.
The other part of the 17th is THERE IS NO WAY TO RECALL A SENATOR!
Well said. As for the last part, foreseeing this, the Founders also gave us Article V of the Constitution, whereby the states, rather than Congress, could call for a constitutional convention to amend the Constitution. That provides a peaceful way out of any bad situation, without having to resort to the 2nd Amendment.
Two thirds of the 50 states, i.e. 34 states, are required to call a constitutional convention. So far the legislatures of 19 states have signed on to the call for an Article V convention of states.
‘Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.’
– John Adams
“…could seriously harm the American Economy…”
The Iluminating Side needs to be more declarative! It’s deadly certain it will ruin the American Economy and set aside The Constitution as well, taking away Free Enterprise and Individual Freedoms, and it was designed to do this.
If we ever get out of this nightmare, it is of the utmost urgency to go through the Constitution from first sentence to last to add two feet of boiler plate to it. It was written for people who wanted democracy, individual freedom, free enterprise, free speech…..
Weren’t you folk supposed to get “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”, a well-known phrase from the United States Declaration of Independence.”
The phrase gives three examples of the unalienable rights which the Declaration says have been given to all humans by their Creator, and which governments are created to protect. Treason has become respectable!
True climate changers should stink more than they do already-
This is why washing your clothes less can help save the planet | World Economic Forum (weforum.org)
climate changers are such nags!
The PM 2.5 rules are literally insane. Take a look at these web pages:
22nd – Smoke from Canadian forest fires
6th – Smoke from Canada and Alaska
There is nothing that the U.S. can do about that!
Salute!
Seems to me that Congress could severely limit powers of the EPA and other agencies, even some authority of a few cabinet positions, maybe eliminate one or two.
But Nooooooo!
EPA, FwS, USDA, etc have gone way beyond what Congress envisioned. If you go back and actually read the “Obamacare” verbiage, every other sentence says something like “as determined by the Secretary”. I read first three versions and nearly cried. Then, when we had a chance to do a clean sheet version, a single Senator acted as “the conscience of the Senate” and a self-appointed moderator.
Oh well, until we gat another amendment, there is still hope. And we have repealed an amendment or two since the original document was enacted.
Gums sends…
I’ll ride this horse again:
PM 2.5 rules (among many regulations) depend on application of the discredited, unscientific Linear, No Lower Threshold rule of thumb developed as a “better safe than sorry” guideline during atomic testing in the 1950s.
Virtually NO natural phenomenon behaves linearly and we know there are many substances that in large quantities are fatal but in very small amounts are required for life on earth.
Does anyone else see the irony here?:
“…the House passed a bill that would effectively nullify the proposal earlier in December by a bipartisan vote, but it is unlikely to make it through the Senate, and the White House has suggested that President Joe Biden will veto the bill if it lands on his desk,”
The “administrative state” (under the Executive branch) bypassed the House of Representatives (IMO unconstitutionally) to enact regulations that have “spending” impact; and then when Congress passes a bill to rescind that regulation the President vetoes it!
The current US government and it’s bloated bureaucracy have dedicated themselves to protecting Americans from prosperity, freedom, innovation and longevity, while refusing to take action against real threats such as crime, addictions, poverty, uncontrolled invasion and economic sabotage by enemy states. It would appear to any unbiased observer that this government is working on behalf on someone other than those who voted them in. The ballot box was designed as a cure for this ailment. Hopefully Americans will use it intelligently for that purpose.
The REAL problem with the EPA, and almost all federal departments is that the lifelong employees are 90% liberal. All these “new” regulations were being developed at the end of the Obama administration. The regulations, by law, take TIME to be put in force. Under TRUMP! the current regs were just filed away pending the next Communist, oops, Democrat, administration. They were pulled out THE DAY AFTER BRANDON WAS ELECTED, and the process to put them in force started ON THE DAY OF HIS INAUGURATION.
The problem for Republicans is that W never started the shutdown of those liberals, did not clean out the DOJ and FBI of the Hillary Clinton appointments and the hiring of liberal hack agents and management, and have no one in the bureaucracy looking out for the interests of American citizens, just of the LEFT.
The only solution if for the next Republican POTUS and Congress to terminate the DOJ and FBI and almost every federal department as part of a “reconciliation” bill to balance the budget. All employees to be terminated, not allowed to bump to other departments. Such a bill written to score as a budget balancing measure when evaluated by the Congressional Budget Office, only needs 50% +1 vote in both the house and the senate. Also legislation such as the Waters of the US to be redefined to include only as originally written, only Navigable waters. Not seasonal streams, and any lawfare agreements exceeding the original authority of any and all acts to be null and void.
Then when the necessary departments are recreated, the POTUS appointees will do all the hiring, and all the lawyers and agents that have been involved in the Jan 6 persecutions, TRUMP! persecutions, Brandon NON prosecutions, and Hunter Obstruction of justice actions, etc. need not apply..
Once some decent agents and prosecutors are hired, interview ALL of the above mentioned treasonous actors, in a county of more than 80% republican voters, empanel a grand joury and begin prosecution for all their political illegal acts.
Example, the DOJ Assistant Federal Attorney allowed at least 2 felony tax evasion charges to expire although the evidence is overwhelming. Claiming “prosecutorial degression” is not a defense against obstruction of justice, which waiting out the statute of limitations is.
“effectively mandate that 67% of all light-duty vehicles sold after model year 2032 are EVs”
I’m curious how any mandate that “x% of sales be EVs” would be enforced? Require dealerships to sell a certain quota of EVs before they’re allowed to sell anything else?