Congress trying to take away EPA's ability to control industrial emissions

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Bad Week for the EPA: Its Ability to Regulate Greenhouse Gas Is Under Threat
BEN JERVEY
Contributing Editor, Environment
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February 10, 2011 ? 6:30 am PST 18 responses

Lisa Jackson, Administrator of the EPA, got a pair of boxing gloves for her birthday Tuesday. As Lisbeth Kaufman from the Center for American Progress Action Fund tells the story, she was presented the mitts at the Good Jobs, Green Jobs Conference by the president of United Steel Workers Union, as he warned her that she'll need to put up a tough fight to defend the EPA's authority against attacks from big polluters and their friends in Washington.

The timing of the gift was perfect. This week is proving to be one of the most event, outrageous, and head-slapping in the agency's history. The past three days have been a whirlwind. Let's recap.

Monday: The chair of the House oversight committee, Darrell Issa (R-CA), released a beefy packet of 100 letters from industry leaders, trade groups, and business associations that broke down what regulations they'd like to see relaxed. (Earlier this year, Issa had asked business leaders which rules they like to see axed.) In Kate Sheppard's words, "The letters make clear that the Environmental Protection Agency is corporate America's top target."

We get it: businesses that profit off polluting don't like pollution controls.

The letters attack existing regulations, and the prospects of the EPA setting limits to greenhouse gas pollution under the Clean Air Act. (I'll spare you a lengthy explanation of why the EPA is actually legally obligated to take steps to limit greenhouse gas pollution, for now.) Meanwhile, Fred Upton (R-MI), chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and his henchman Ed Whitfield (R-KY), who chairs the Energy and Power Subcommittee (bear with me; this is wonky, but it's important wonk), released a draft bill that would essentially strip out the Clean Air Act provisions that allow the EPA to regulate carbon pollution. They set a hearing on that draft legislation, the ridiculously titled "Energy Tax Prevention Act," for Wednesday. But before we get to that...

Tuesday: Ranking Member Henry Waxman (D-CA) released a private letter that former EPA head Stephen Johnson sent then President Bush in early 2008, which basically said that the science was clear and that the EPA had the responsibility to regulate greenhouse gases. Johnson, a Bush appointee, wrote to the president:

the latest science of climate change requires the Agency to propose a positive endangerment finding, as was agreed to at the Cabinet-level meeting in November...[T]he latest climate change science does not permit a negative finding, nor does it permit a credible finding that we need to wait for more research.

Make no mistake: this is a bombshell. Bush's own EPA chief said that the science necessitated action on greenhouse gases. He even laid out the very plan that Lisa Jackson's EPA is now running with.

Unfortunately, as Politico reported, Johnson's pleas were for naught. "Bush overruled him after hearing counter-arguments from the office of Vice President Dick Cheney, the Office of Management and Budget, the Transportation Department and Exxon Mobil Corp.

So on the eve of these "Energy Tax Prevention Act" hearings, Waxman wrote to Upton:

As Administrator Johnson?s letter makes clear, both Republican and Democratic Administrations have had the same view of the science: carbon emissions are a serious threat to our nation?s welfare. I urge you to leave the science to scientists and drop your effort to use legislation to overturn EPA?s endangerment finding.

Wednesday: As if Johnson's and Waxman's letters were figments of a gas huffing hallucination, Upton and Whitfield's hearing went on unimpeded, and the ranking Republicans marched out a parade of climate deniers and fossil fuel industry shills.

The hearing was a joke. (I'm still aching from banging my head repeatedly on my desk while watching online.) But there's nothing funny at all about the Act itself. It very literally dismisses science in favor of personal opinion.

NRDC's Dave Hawkins said it best:

The novel idea in this bill is that Congress can simply vote out of existence, scientific facts that a majority does not like. That?s what this bill would do. It would ?repeal? (yes, the bill really says ?repeal?) a scientific determination by the US EPA that carbon dioxide and other ?greenhouse gas? pollutants are a threat to human health and welfare. Interesting concept: EPA scientists, after studying the work of thousands of other scientists, conclude that global warming pollution threatens our health and welfare. And Congress responds, ?no it doesn?t and we have the votes to prove it!

To better understand the truly novel, and utterly illogical, legislation that is "The Energy Tax Prevention Act," read Hawkins' whole post. It's depressingly cynical politics. And stupid governance too.

Thursday: The bell rings, Lisa Jackson spits in the bucket, and comes out punching. (I hope.)
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Now regardless of what one thinks of the science behind man made climate change, this is plain retarded. While one can argue that climate change has nothing to do with us it is hard to argue that EPA should be able to regulate industrial emissions....
 
environmental responsibility is anti freedom -> anti freedom is anti american => environmental responsibility is anti american.

the thought process is really simple. now if only the environment had a gun...
 
environmental responsibility is anti freedom -> anti freedom is anti american => environmental responsibility is anti american.

the thought process is really simple. now if only the environment had a gun...
It has plenty of ways of wiping us out :p
1269440808-volcano.jpg
 
It has plenty of ways of wiping us out :p
Just ask the Australians... :(

Anyway, in the midst of all this climate change and greenhouse gas controversy, I'm always left wondering why on Earth it should be a bad idea to improve energy efficiency and make the oil reserves that we can exploit last a little longer. It's not like the stuff is infinite and there are so many better ways to use it than to blow it through the exhaust of an X5 on the way to work. If we run out of oil before we've got alternatives up and running, all this "politicians are taking our freedom to be wasteful away" malarkey will be shown to be as ridiculous as it really is because we won't have anything left that cocks in road tanks could waste.
 
Monday: The chair of the House oversight committee, Darrell Issa (R-CA), released a beefy packet of 100 letters from industry leaders, trade groups, and business associations that broke down what regulations they'd like to see relaxed. (Earlier this year, Issa had asked business leaders which rules they like to see axed.) In Kate Sheppard's words, "The letters make clear that the Environmental Protection Agency is corporate America's top target."

We get it: businesses that profit off polluting don't like pollution controls.
:lol: ORLY?


I don't really care about global warming and won't get into that discussion right now but I sure don't want smokestacks pumping shit into the air that I breathe, so this legislation is some serious bullcrap.
 
Just ask the Australians... :(

Anyway, in the midst of all this climate change and greenhouse gas controversy, I'm always left wondering why on Earth it should be a bad idea to improve energy efficiency and make the oil reserves that we can exploit last a little longer. It's not like the stuff is infinite and there are so many better ways to use it than to blow it through the exhaust of an X5 on the way to work. If we run out of oil before we've got alternatives up and running, all this "politicians are taking our freedom to be wasteful away" malarkey will be shown to be as ridiculous as it really is because we won't have anything left that cocks in road tanks could waste.

:lol: ORLY?


I don't really care about global warming and won't get into that discussion right now but I sure don't want smokestacks pumping shit into the air that I breathe, so this legislation is some serious bullcrap.

You both hit the nail. Even if we disagree on climate change (I even disagree with myself on that one), local pollution isn't something whos reality needs debating. It's easily apparant.

Ask victorian Londoners about smog, ask people in industrial Germany about acid rain, ask people who get sick from contaminated drinking water, ask people who eat radio active fish and ask people who get asthma from particles in exhaust.

They're all real, and they're all doing bad things. As for saving petrol, I'm flabbergasted at how some people can make a really good idea sound like the whip of marxism. "Freedom is getting 10mpg", fuck that. Even if the price of petrol was the same, you'd still save big money if your car used less fuel. Heck, if you go from 20mpg or 25mpg to 40mpg or 50mpg, which are both quite possible numbers, you'd save big on fuel.

Sure, American roads are very straight, but you still just turtle along at 65mph, it's not like you've got some de-restricted autobahns hidden away. If you want a performance car, then it'll use more fuel, fair enough. But most Americans don't drive performance cars. I fail to see how a really thirsty engine in an ineffective motor vehicle makes you more free, it just means you're burning more fuel.

Why is it that you sometimes get the impression that some Americans think that burning fuel is good, climate change or not? As stated above me, oil supplies aren't infinate.

Oh, and if Detroit learned to make really fuel efficiant cars, plus screwed together the interiors properly using proper materials, they'd sold enough cars in Europe to survive.

/Rant
 
:lol: ORLY?


I don't really care about global warming and won't get into that discussion right now but I sure don't want smokestacks pumping shit into the air that I breathe, so this legislation is some serious bullcrap.

But decreasing pollution would cut into profits or even *gasp* require investments into better forms of power generation.
Anyway, in the midst of all this climate change and greenhouse gas controversy, I'm always left wondering why on Earth it should be a bad idea to improve energy efficiency and make the oil reserves that we can exploit last a little longer. It's not like the stuff is infinite and there are so many better ways to use it than to blow it through the exhaust of an X5 on the way to work. If we run out of oil before we've got alternatives up and running, all this "politicians are taking our freedom to be wasteful away" malarkey will be shown to be as ridiculous as it really is because we won't have anything left that cocks in road tanks could waste.
It's not like we can't be wasteful with other things. Instead of burning dinos in my RS6 I could be putting hydrogen through a material and generating electricity. I would still have a lead foot planted firmly on the floor with the throttle underneath it going 200mph the car will just use something else to make power...
 
And who wanted the Republicans back in control? I would like to chain them to the top of one of the unregulated stacks to see if they like to breathe it in. All you have to do is look at how miserable it is in China to understand that regulation is not all bad.
 
Neither party is very bright, its not just the Reps
Republicans are bat shit crazy and Democrats are too chicken to stand up to them. And both are big business puppets.
That's the same as it has always been, except worse. (Ronald Reagan would probably be declared a communist in today's republican party for example.)
I'm a fiscal conservative, but I've grown to dislike the republicans more than the Dems by a fair amount.
 
You need to relax a little. Neither party is very bright, its not just the Reps

I am very relaxed. But ESPNSTI said it best:

Republicans are bat shit crazy and Democrats are too chicken to stand up to them. And both are big business puppets.

I am not a fan of either party, but the Republicans are really scary at times. They are not only in the pocket of big business, they don't even know the history that lead to many of those laws that regulate emissions.
 
It's not like we can't be wasteful with other things. Instead of burning dinos in my RS6 I could be putting hydrogen through a material and generating electricity. I would still have a lead foot planted firmly on the floor with the throttle underneath it going 200mph the car will just use something else to make power...
If the hydrogen was obtained using electricity from regenerative sources, your emissions would be zero. Well, theoretically you could factor in what was emitted during the buildup of the infrastructure to support hydrogen filling stations, but the extraction, transportation and refining of crude oil aren't exactly zero-emission either.

All you have to do is look at how miserable it is in China to understand that regulation is not all bad.
Agreed. Some people just take it for granted that, despite all the polluting activities, they usually have rather clean air to breathe and clean water to drink. They flat out ignore how we got there, even though there are still oodles of examples of what happens without (enough) regulation.
 
If the hydrogen was obtained using electricity from regenerative sources, your emissions would be zero. Well, theoretically you could factor in what was emitted during the buildup of the infrastructure to support hydrogen filling stations, but the extraction, transportation and refining of crude oil aren't exactly zero-emission either.

...which is why many hate electric cars - the CO2 emissions for an electric car powered by our national power grid is slightly higher than the the tailpipe emissions of a petrol car, but that only tells half the emission story.
 
From the local pov, electric does make a lot of sense. Not only are there less air pollution from exhausts, there are no exhausts.

It's not perfect, though.
 
The article is a good example of why I gave up politics; they seem to have gone insane. It it is like politicians are listening to pundits (who go to extremes to get ratings) and get their idea from them.

Seriously, this almost cartoonish, like something out of Captain Planet.
 
If the hydrogen was obtained using electricity from regenerative sources, your emissions would be zero. Well, theoretically you could factor in what was emitted during the buildup of the infrastructure to support hydrogen filling stations, but the extraction, transportation and refining of crude oil aren't exactly zero-emission either.
Emissions or no emissions you'd still be wasteful with fuel, it's just a different type of fuel :)

I am not a fan of either party, but the Republicans are really scary at times. They are not only in the pocket of big business, they don't even know the history that lead to many of those laws that regulate emissions.
Republicans... Democrats... this country (and most of the world) is run by big business and big business alone, politicians only care about their contributions and staying in power...
 
Emissions or no emissions you'd still be wasteful with fuel, it's just a different type of fuel :)
Under certain circumstances, I don't have a problem with wastefulness for entertainment purposes. If you only do it occasionally or if the thing you're wasting is regenerative or if you're not harming anyone else with your waste and so on, I don't really care. Institutionalised or self-righteous waste on the other hand makes me angry.
 
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Under certain circumstances, I don't have a problem with wastefulness for entertainment purposes. If you only do it occasionally or if the thing you're wasting is regenerative or if you're not harming anyone else with your waste and so on. Institutionalised or self-righteous waste on the other hand makes me angry.

I suppose thread is derailed anyways :p So I take the train to work (paring in Manhattan, forget about it) you can buy unlimited metro cards for a month or just pay for a number of rides. The latter can be replenished on the same card (they are not quite credit card type plastic but very sturdy nonetheless), the former you have to throw the old one out and get a new one. Ridership on NYC subway is in millions per day and a very large number of those use unlimited monthly passes. That's A LOT of wasted plastic (there are no recycle bins for the cards either so that they could be reused you just toss em in the trash)
 
I suppose thread is derailed anyways :p
Yeah... sorry about that, I guess. :blush:

So I take the train to work (paring in Manhattan, forget about it) you can buy unlimited metro cards for a month or just pay for a number of rides. The latter can be replenished on the same card (they are not quite credit card type plastic but very sturdy nonetheless), the former you have to throw the old one out and get a new one. Ridership on NYC subway is in millions per day and a very large number of those use unlimited monthly passes. That's A LOT of wasted plastic (there are no recycle bins for the cards either so that they could be reused you just toss em in the trash)
Metro Cards! I shall now reminisce about NYC for half an hour.

What you describe is the sort of thing I find annoying. Overpackaging, discarding items that are perfectly reusable, portion sizes that in one way or another result in throwing food away; it's all nonsensical and could so easily be avoided.
 
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