EPA: The Economic Punishment Agency

Michigan Capitol Confidential ^ | 5/6/2010 | Tom Gantert

[MichCapCon]

If President Barack Obama can't get his controversial "cap-and-trade" energy legislation passed, some experts feel he'll turn to the Environmental Protection Agency to get the same results.

The concern over the growing power of the EPA was the focus of a forum last week during the "Defending the American Dream" summit in Clarkston.

Keynote speaker Sarah Palin said that EPA stood for "Economic Punishment Agency."

Others talked about the EPA's growing power since it ruled carbon dioxide was a pollutant last year. The EPA can control through the Clean Air Act how much carbon dioxide is emitted.

Cap-and-trade legislation refers to the government controlling emissions that are tied to energy production. Companies would be allowed a certain level of emissions and then have to purchase or trade for the ability to exceed their limit.

President Obama told a San Francisco newspaper that under cap-and-trade, electricity rates would "necessarily skyrocket" and "that if someone wants to build a coal power plant, they can, it is just it will bankrupt them because they're gonna be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that is being emitted."

But cap-and-trade legislation has died, according to an analysis by The New York Times.

Now, free enterprise supporters fear President Obama may go the route of the EPA to get his agenda enacted.

Tim Phillips, national director of Americans for Prosperity, said when he was at the U.N. climate change conference in Copenhagen, one of the most chilling things he heard came from Lisa Jackson, administrator of the EPA.

Phillips said that Jackson, an Obama appointee, said the EPA would "transform the way the American economy works."

EPA officials said Jackson's quote was, "As a start, we are working to revitalize and refashion the U.S. economy for the low-carbon, clean energy future." ...

[Noumenon]

They’re pushing for open rebellion.

[AbeKrieger]

Nobody has demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that ther has been warming, that CO2 is the cause of warming, that increasing CO2 directly increases warming, that manmade CO2 is largely the cause of the allegede warming, or that these remedies will have any impact whatsoever.

If all of the above were true and the circumstances this dire, the only prudent thing to do would be to halt all industrial and economic production, worldwide.

[steelyourfaith]

The following comes courtesy of

by Nicole Ciandella
May 5, 2010 Washington, D.C., May 4, 2010 – How does Big Government help you? The Environmental Protection Agency wants to know. Today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute has the answer.

Less than a week after CEI Vice President Wayne Crews released his Ten Thousand Commandments report—an annual “snapshot” of the costs of federal regulation—the EPA announced it was having a video contest.  Their press release stated:

“Almost every aspect of our lives is touched by federal regulations. [. . .] Create a short video, not to exceed 90 seconds in length, explaining why rules are important, why the average American should care about federal regulations, and how people just like you can participate in the rulemaking process.”

The EPA is offering a prize of $2,500 of taxpayers’ money to whoever creates the most effective pro-government propaganda for them.

Using Ten Thousand Commandments as our inspiration, CEI Studios today submitted a video entry to the EPA’s contest.  Watch A Day in the Life of the Regulatory State to see how federal regulations do, indeed, touch “almost every aspect of our lives” . . . but not in a good way.

 

CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government.  For more information about CEI, please visit our website, cei.org, and blog, OpenMarket.org.  Follow CEI on Twitter! Twitter.com/ceidotorg.

 

Beam me to Planet Gore !