By David Wojick
The infamous Inflation Reduction Act is best known for throwing hundreds of billions of dollars at green causes. Along the way it also says repeatedly and falsely that carbon dioxide and the other greenhouse gases (except water vapor) are pollution.
This is important because it is the first time Congress has said such a thing in law. Alarmists are now claiming that this saying somehow certifies the bogus EPA CO2 Endangerment Finding and requires EPA regulation of GHGs. Technically this is not true but a Court might think it is so we need to get that language out of the law.
Fortunately this false language occurs in ways that make it relatively easy to erase. Repeal of major provisions of the IRA, while highly desirable for other reasons, is not necessary. Repeal is hard but making small changes in language might not be especially difficult when these do not affect the cash flow.
Most of the worst green language occurs in a small part of the bill called “TITLE VI — Subtitle A — Air Pollution.” There are 16 sections and a few refer to actual pollution but they are mostly about GHGs so the “Air Pollution” title is already wrong. It should be changed to something accurate like “Greenhouse Gas Money For Nothing.” Such a change would have no effect on the ridiculous law.
The primary wrong is in a definition that appears in a lot of different sections. It says this:
‘‘GREENHOUSE GAS.—The term ‘greenhouse gas’ means the air pollutants carbon dioxide, hydrofluorocarbons, methane, nitrous oxide, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride.”
None of these airborne chemicals acting as GHGs are pollutants so here is the obvious, corrected replacement:
‘‘GREENHOUSE GAS.—The term ‘greenhouse gas’ means carbon dioxide, hydrofluorocarbons, methane, nitrous oxide, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride.”
This is easily done and it has no effect on the law except to stop calling GHGs pollutants. It would be even more correct to add water vapor to the list but there are no billions for reducing water vapor emissions just the listed harmless GHGs.
Another bit of name calling occurs when both GHGs and actual air pollutants are referred to. Here we repeatedly find locutions like this
“…reduce greenhouse gas emissions and other air pollutants…”
Here the word “other” implies that GHGs are also pollutants. Phrases like this are easily corrected to this:
“…reduce greenhouse gas emissions and air pollutants…”
Simply taking out “other” does not change the substance of the law.
It would not be that hard to find every incorrect instance of the words pollutant, pollutants, pollution, etc., and write a simple amendment that corrects their misuse. Careful reading might find other cases that need corrected.
Since this simple change has no effect on the hundreds of billions of wasteful dollars being given away by the IRA it might actually be passable. It would go a long way on the road to reversing the bogus Endangerment Finding.
In fact it would clearly signal that Congress does not consider GHGs to be pollutants.
Change ‘‘GREENHOUSE GAS.—The term ‘greenhouse gas’ means carbon dioxide, hydrofluorocarbons, methane, nitrous oxide, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride.” to
‘‘GREENHOUSE GAS.—The term ‘greenhouse gas’ means water vapor, carbon dioxide, hydrofluorocarbons, methane, nitrous oxide, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride.”
I refuse to use the ‘Greenhouse’ term any more. There is no ‘Greenhouse effect’, its entirely misleading and scientifically wrong. Congress can easily amend the law to start even correcting this terminology by changing this definition to:
“The term ‘greenhouse gas’ means any Infrared absorbing and emitting molecule in earth’s atmosphere in the form of a gas, some examples of which are water vapor, carbon dioxide, hydrofluorocarbons, methane, nitrous oxide, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride. The term “Infrared absorbing gas” may be used throughout to refer to these gases.”. Heck if it was me and its now only used to list ‘examples’, I’d stop after water vapor just to kick the purveyors of this nonsense in the teeth.
And than go about replacing all instances of ‘Greenhouse gas’ with ‘Infrared absorbing gas’.
This term needs locking up, spit upon, burned in a fiery pit and its ashes strewn in a volcano.
I don’t know if the term was introduced innocuously by some early scientists studying the climate but its led to untold damage in terms of representing an entirely incorrect view of how the planet remains warm & it allows for segregating H20 from other IRA gases (CO2 etc.) to make the latter seem harmful & somehow H20 is magically just ‘good’.
The concept of IRA&E is not at all hard to explain or teach to kids and actually represents science not pseudo-science.
Also the term “greenhouse gas” is scientifically wrong. Greenhouses don’t work by trapping radiation, they work by trapping warm air. How appropriate that the term AGW is based on wrong science!
Chris
Greenhouses are environmental control systems. Similar to car cabins, your living room, and the space shuttle.
The early scientists did not call them greenhouse gasses. They observed their experiments produced results similar to a greenhouse and given the construction of their experiments, that observation was reasonable.
The only time CO2 is a greenhouse gas is when it is put into a greenhouse to help the planets flourish.
“The only time CO2 is a greenhouse gas is when it is put into a greenhouse to help the planets flourish….”
Wow, CO2 really is a powerful gas!
Seriously, assuming you meant to type “plants”, that’s an excellent point.
Chris
Interesting idea, and given the sausage-making nature of Congress, maybe it can work. It’s worth a try, separate from the more desirable but difficult full repeal or partial repeal of the funding and tax incentive aspects.
No mercy, if the republican majority don’t repeal it immediately, let it be known that the holdouts will be primaried, and then follow through relentlessly. The country is in a debt death spiral. The technique seems to be working for the confirmations, for everyone, although they did not start it until after Matt Gaetz.
Tulsi Gabbard is through ! 🙂
When you can honestly say that the DNI is a hot, Hawaiian surfer girl; the Golden Age has truly begun! Smart, well spoken Lt. Colonel just improves the picture!
Why is a repeal so difficult. The bill which repeals an existing law is just another law to be passed. Also change where it says “… greenhouse gas and other pollutants…” To just “pollutants.”
The major actions of this Congress should be not Amend, but Repeal of, oh, I dunno, maybe 80% of all laws.
A law need not be permanent. This Congress can make new law. And, can simplify if they want to by, yes, Amendments removing or modifying bad law, and repeal of outdated rarely used or obsolete laws.
The Congress can change _anything_.
Full repeal is difficult because the IRA is pork barrel on steroids — something the Congress loves to dispense with unrestrained ardor. When all Republicans opposed the IRA’s passage in 2022, they did so knowing it was 100% certain to be enacted into law. Now the ball is in their court to see if they will do what is necessary and vote for a full 100% repeal.
In the US a law that isn’t passed under ‘budget reconciliation’ will need a 60% majority in the Senate. If the Republicans try to pass a law to just change this usage it wouldn’t pass the Senate easily no matter that the changes are entirely regulatory & legally ‘valueless’.
But since Congress is about to use ‘budget reconciliation’ anyway (requiring only a majority vote) it should in fact be ‘easy’ to change this usage in the new bill. It would only require that ‘Pubs to actually take notice & want to do it. And frankly from what I’ve read recently I don’t trust the ‘Pubs at all to take on this monster of a scam.
Many Republican high-dollar donors are making stupid amounts of money off the IRA money & they aren’t going to want that gravy train to stop.They are putting up a stink to their Congressional ‘friends’ in the Republican party to not gut the IRA. If Trump wants to demonstrate leadership & the MAGA spirit he needs to put a stop to such talk ASAP with a statement such as, “I don’t care where the money is being wasted or who is getting it, we’re not wasting this money on stupidly foolish unreliable and anti-scientific programs”.
I’ve previously warned about not just cheering on the things Trump, Elon etc. are doing without thought. It should be expected from a leader to do the easy things, its the hard stuff that really matters and calling out the Green scammers in all forms isn’t going to be easy. Fortunately Trump has the personality to do it, I have my doubts he truly wants to though.
Yes, it gets dicey when you have very small majorities of Republicans in both the House and the Senate.
Republicans don’t vote in lock-step like Democrats do. Republicans are more independent than Democrats. Sometimes this is good, and sometimes this is bad.
It only takes a few Republicans to throw a monkey wrench into the works.
Let’s hope all Republicans see the Big Picture: The Democrats are an existential threat to the freedoms of all of us, and Republicans have to stand together to prevent the Democrats from regaining majorities in Congress. A unified Republican Party, voting to advance Trump’s and the American people’s agenda will serve that purpose.
Republicans who break this unity are doing great harm to our nation. And are doing great harm to their political careers because they will be challenged in their next primary election by a well-financed Republican challenger, and the challenger will point out how your vote stymied part of Trump’s/American people’s agenda and assisted the Democrats in further damaging the United States.
We’ll write Mitch McConnell’s vote off to TDS and senility. He’s not going to run for Senate next time anyway. That’s why he feels free to exercise his TDS. But you are hurting the nation, Mitch! Oh, that didn’t occur to you? You only consider your personal petty grievances?
The Old Guard is just about gone. Good riddance!
We need Republicans who can see how dangerous the radical Democrats really are, not those that vote with the Democrats. You voted with the Democrats, Mitch! Shame on you!
The bigger the change, the more people who will oppose you.
It’s not like everybody in congress is going to vote the way the president tells them to vote.
All it will take is a budget reconciliation that DEFUNDS the IRA.
Most every appropriations bill I have read, and that is not a small number, includes the clause:
Subject to available funding. Other phrases with the exact same meaning are somethings used.
Just reduce the funding. Then the President gets to choose which of the items in the IRA to continue.
I agree, the misused language must be corrected. Just as important is the matter of whether CO2 is capable of catastrophically raising the average global temperature. I say it isn’t and until it is proven that CO2 acts as the control knob for earth all measures taken to stop using fossil fuels must be stopped. We are throwing money at a lie.
But, but, Algore said that the debate was over!
We have a consensus based on the abstracts of some 317 unidentified Google hits.
Even better would be to use correct scientific terminology and stop using the “climate agenda” definition
CO2 is a radiatively active gas.
It just happens to be used in a greenhouse to enhance plant growth
In the atmosphere it does not act like a “greenhouse” in any way what so ever.
Calling CO2 a “greenhouse gas” has zero atmospheric meaning, only a biological one.
It was never about saving the planet for the climate changers-
‘Students Against Nazi Extremism’ warn Tesla owners to sell their cars – or else
That should be: Student Nazis Extremists warn Tesla owners. . .
If the radical Democrats don’t get their way, they are more than willing to commit violence over it. They truly are deranged.
We can hope that the American people, those 72 million who voted for Democrats, will see how deranged their party leaders really are and will reject the Democrats in the future.
Democrats will destroy our nation, if given the chance. Republicans will prevent them from doing so if given the chance.
There was an article yesterday about a group of trans men testifying before some city council somewhere up in New England. The trans men told the council that they were afraid of Trump, and that if the city council didn’t vote to make the city a sanctuary city, that they would make sure that the city council would fear them.
Yes, I saw that. It was in Worcester, Mass. They want a Sanctuary City for Trans people.
As if anyone is out hunting them down, or cares what they do. They are a bunch of drama queens. They want special privileges.
I agree with you, but what got to me was the spokesman threatening the city council that if they didn’t give the activists what they wanted, that the members of the city council would never feel safe again either.
I always thought that extortion was frowned upon.
We do not live in a Democracy (or Liberal Democracy).
We live in a Constitutional Federal Republic.
Fun. A down vote.
My comment was toward the “students” claiming they wanted to save our democracy.
It is quite well noted they used Hitler Youth tactics to make their “point.”
The new definition of Nazi is, anyone the socialists don’t like.
The old definition of Fascism being a form of socialism, wasn’t to there liking.
When the party in power at that time put that language into the “Inflation Production Act” they knew what they were doing. They are still in a very powerful position to resist changing that wording, though it makes perfect sense to do so. They’ll fight any changes and the fight will be costly. So, why not go upstream and stop the problem at its source? CO2 is not a pollutant but was labeled so at a whim of the Executive Branch of a previous administration. The current Executive Branch has the same power to declare CO2 a life-supporting component of the atmosphere, hence not a pollutant. Make it so.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This!
Why spend time on grammar? You’re at best pulling up a few weeds when the whole field needs to be mowed. The EPA needs to be exposed like USAID got exposed, and then shut down, with every regulation that depended on its corrupt and bogus science suspended until Congress can pass some laws based on facts and logic.
I know, I know, its more complicated than that Dave.
Oh yeah? Have you watched the last 22 days of the Trump admin? He’s got 1,438 days left.
The President cannot shut EPA down. He cannot even cut their budget. Only Congress can do that.
Congress sets the target and defines the appropriation. Then it goes to the administration to execute the funding and the chief executive has flexibility of staffing, organization, and timing, so long as the funds are spent during the current fiscal year.
It should be much easier than you think to change this wording in the next bill passed under ‘budget reconciliation’ rules as the changes to the wording do not have an obvious impact on the budget of the US, if they did they wouldn’t have been allowed in the IRA. So the OMB or whichever ‘agency’ (*) is responsible for allowing wording in a ‘budget reconciliation’ bill can have no objection to changing it any more than they did when they allowed it in the first place.
(*) I read an article recently describing the budget reconciliation process (specifically in reference to the IRA). Unfortunately I can’t recall which unelected group of referees it is but they get to say whether a clause, phrase etc is allowed in a bill to be passed under ‘budget reconciliation’ processes.
I think the House Parliamentarian enforces the Byrd Rule. Certainly not OMB.
Sorry, I’m not so much devoted to political manipulation as I am to scientific truth and the well-being it continues to bring to humanity. The labeling of CO2 as a pollutant was a dastardly, harmful lie that came from the Administrative branch of government. Trump can simply direct the EPA (which serves under him) to tell the truth about CO2. I think a lot of the scientists in this group would support that.
It was the SCOTUS that said CO2 is a pollutant under the CAA in Mass v EPA. But Congress never said it until IRA hence this issue.
David, you’re right. I was unaware of that decision but it makes all the difference. The EPA (Administrative branch) cannot, without consequence, declare CO2 to not be a pollutant because it has been ensconced in law by that decision. Further, changing language in any Congressional bill as is being discussed here would be moot. Any lawsuit regarding CO2 as a pollutant can rely on Mass v. EPA. So, we’re stuck with it unless or until the Supreme Court reverses. Dang!
Story tip: Lee Zeldin, EPA Admin, just announced that the Biden administration sent $7 Billion to Climate United Fund on this video [here] shared by @elonmusk. This was only a piece of $20 billion heaved out the door in the waning days. The money went to fake NGOs. Lots of names named in the X thread.
Yes, I think the audit of the EPA is going to make the USAID waste, fraud and abuse, look like amateur hour.
You can bet the Biden administration was shoveling money out the door as fast as they could, and most of this money, just as in the USAID case, was not specifically approved by Congress, but was approved by bureaucrats in the EPA.
All the spending approved by bureaucrats is subject to review by President Trump, who is the boss of all the Executive Branch bureaucrats, and if they approve a particular spending item, Trump can disapprove it, without having to consult Congress.
Concerning the major questions doctrine as was enuciated in West Virginia vs EPA, the IRA wording David Wojick cites in his article was carefully chosen in 2022 as a means of allowing the EPA and the climate lawfare activists to make the claim that Congress has clearly expressed its opinion about the alleged dangers of carbon GHG’s and has given the EPA explicit authority, backed by funding, to reduce emissions of those carbon GHG’s.
In the next several months, we should expect to see a series of lawsuits being filed against the Trump administration which invoke the language of the IRA to force the retention of the EPA’s Biden-era anti-carbon regulatory framework.
IMHO, there is a more than even chance these lawsuits will succeed in keeping Biden’s anti-carbon framework alive. At least on paper, anyway. The only way to ensure that these upcoming lawsuits fail is for Congress to enact a full repeal of the IRA. Something the Congress has to do anyway if it is to do its proper part in getting federal spending under control.
So what part of the “Inflation Reduction Act” reduces inflation ?
As a non USA person, this sounds like a scam !!
It is a scam. It’s typical Democrat propaganda. They lie about everything. The Truth is not in them.
You nitpick at minutiae and suggest a solution that will never be implemented, and if it were, would have as much effect on federal policies as the UK’s “net-zero” policies will have on reducing global temperatures: none whatsoever. The massive fraud, waste, and financing of leftist grifters and their causes, and the devastating debt incurred are the big deal. The wording of “greenhouse gases” is completely irrelevant. Trump and Musk are doing the most significant work to reduce the waste, the effect of the leftist policies, and the power of leftists that the IRA intends to finance, but it’s Congress that has the power to stop it completely, and not by rewording the definiton of greenhouse gases, copied and pasted dozens of times in the IRA. They need to repeal it completely and stop further payments. More specifically, Republicans in Congress will have to do it, because Democrats are the ones who created the monstrosity, aided and abetted by cowed Republicans, and will never reverse their leftist madness no matter how unpopular it is with Americans. Will they? I have yet to see a Republican Speaker of the House with anything close to the force of will of Donald Trump. Newt Gingrich did some great things, but none since have.
“I have yet to see a Republican Speaker of the House with anything close to the force of will of Donald Trump.”
I think Donald Trump is unique.
Leaders like Trump are few and far between. We are very lucky to have such a leader. His force of will, and his common-sense thinking, is changing the whole world for the better.
Take it as analysis of one alternative.
The wording issue is related to killing the endangerment finding. It has nothing to do with spending.
The 2022 IRA made the continued existence of the 2009 endangerment finding for carbon a moot point.
This was done deliberately by the authors of the IRA in order to bypass the messy business of having the EPA develop a NAAQS for carbon and then to spend a lot of time and money creating a CAA Section 112 regulatory framework for carbon.
The wording of the IRA allows the EPA and the climate lawfare activists to make the claim that Congress has clearly expressed its opinion about the alleged dangers of carbon GHG’s and has given the EPA explicit authority, backed by funding, to reduce emissions of those carbon GHG’s.
The IRA left it to the EPA to decide how to regulate carbon. The EPA’s decision to go with a Section 111 approach based on carbon capture and storage, as opposed to a Section 112 criteria pollutant approach, was exceptionally savvy from an environmental lawfare perspective.
Under the Biden era CAA Section 111 approach, enabled by implicit authorization from the IRA’s wording, state PSC’s and the power utilities have every incentive to cave in to pressure from the EPA to spend many billions of dollars attempting to implement carbon capture and storage, or else face the shutdown of their power plants if they don’t.
For one example, we have seen the effects of this lawfare strategy in Wyoming. PacifiCorp can make a lot of profit expanding its asset base by spending money on CCS in Wyoming — knowing full well the technology will never work. The PSC in Wyoming is apparently on board with this scam and with the financial rape of the ratepayers in Wyoming.
I say go for it. Changing the wording exposes the absurdity and lies in the IRA. They will, of course, fight it tooth and nail.
Bring it out of the closet, yes.
Do so and hopefully a few more people will begin to start thinking again.
Words matter-
TV host calls out countries for missing UN emissions deadline
95% of the countries do not view the “climate crisis” as sufficiently significant to act on.
Most of them are begging for handouts, mostly from us.