Free Republic

Control: The House and Senate climate bills contain a provision giving the president extraordinary powers in the event of a "climate emergency." As chief of staff Rahm Emanuel says, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste. If you thought the House health care bill that nobody read has hidden passages that threaten our freedoms and liberty, take a peak at the "trigger" placed in the byzantine innards of both the House-passed Waxman-Markey bill and the Kerry-Boxer bill just passed by Democrats out of Sen. Barbara Boxer's Environment and Public Works Committee. As Nick Loris of the Heritage Foundation points...

Warming: After stifling a report questioning the science behind climate change, the EPA is censoring two of its lawyers for saying the proposed solutions are also problematical. The debate isn't over. It's being suppressed. In the proud tradition of EPA whistle-blower Alan Carlin, whose leaked study blew the lid off the EPA's hyped and flawed science behind climate change, two EPA lawyers, Laurie Williams and Allan Zabel, have produced a Web video titled "A Huge Mistake." In it they say cap-and-trade in general and the Waxman-Markey bill in particular are the wrong answers anyway. Williams and Zabel do not deny...

WASHINGTON (AP) - A controversial e-mail message buried by the Bush administration because of its conclusions on global warming surfaced Tuesday, nearly two years after it was first sent to the White House and never opened. The e-mail and the 28-page document attached to it, released Tuesday by the Environmental Protection Agency, show that back in December of 2007 the agency concluded that six gases linked to global warming pose dangers to public welfare, and wanted to take steps to regulate their release from automobiles and the burning of gasoline.

Public Discourse: Our energy secretary applauds and encourages companies to leave the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over its position on climate change. Should any Cabinet secretary, with the powers of government behind him, be threatening U.S. companies? Part of the climate-change mantra is that the debate is over and the science is settled. Just to make sure, environmental groups have sought to pressure businesses to go green or at least keep silent. Now it would appear the whole weight of the federal government is being thrown behind this campaign to coerce and silence real and potential opposition. On Thursday, Steven...

TWIN FALLS, Idaho -- The Humane Society of the United States and other groups are petitioning the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to start regulating confined-animal feeding operations under the Clean Air Act. The groups submitted the 69-page petition late last month asking that emissions of hydrogen sulfide, ammonia and other gases be curbed. EPA spokesman Dave Ryan said the agency will review the petition and respond within 120 days. The EPA is wrapping up a study of emissions at 24 U.S. feedlots, but doesn't have enough information yet to decide whether confined-animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, need more regulation. "We...

The Environmental Protection Agency announced a proposed rule Wednesday to begin regulating greenhouse gas emissions from thousands of power plants and large industrial facilities. The proposed rule would require polluters to install the best available technology to capture greenhouse gases whenever a new plant is opened or significantly changed. The rule applies to any industrial plant that emits at least 25,000 tons of greenhouse gases a year. When the rule is final, the EPA said operators of as many 14,000 sources of pollution would have to get additional permits. The proposal, long anticipated and highly controversial, marks the first government...

The Obama administration signaled Wednesday that it would scrap a controversial Bush-era rule that set stricter limits for smog but fell short of scientific recommendations. In a notice filed Wednesday in a federal appeals court, the Justice Department says there are concerns that the revision made by the Bush administration does not adhere to federal air pollution law. The Environmental Protection Agency will propose revised smog standards to protect health and the environment in late December.

President Obama doesn’t want to run the auto industry, but he had to, temporarily of course, to save the economy. And Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency Lisa Jackson doesn’t want to regulate carbon dioxide, but the EPA seems intent on moving forward regardless. Fortunately, Congress could shorten the EPA’s long, regulatory leash by amending the Interior-Environment appropriations spending bill early next week.The Environmental Protection Agency issued a proposed endangerment finding in April, saying that global warming and climate change pose a serious threat to public health and safety and thus almost anything that emits carbon dioxide and other greenhouse...

The EPA is looking to change the landscape of America, quite literally with its "water conservation program," reports Wendy Bounds, The Wall Street Journal. {video at link after a brief ad}

The Environmental Protection Agency announced Friday that 79 applications for surface coal-mine permits in Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio and Tennessee might violate the nation's Clean Water Act and require closer scrutiny. Many of the 79 applications would remove mountaintops and dump debris in valley streams. The EPA's action was an abrupt shift from the last big batch of surface mining permits that it's considered during the Obama administration. In May, the agency said it had no concerns with 42 of 48 permits, and blocked six. The latest decision is in line with the Obama administration's call in June for a...

Today, EPA chief Lisa Jackson delivered what she says is a final draft of the fuel economy rules for 2016 to the Obama administration. This will be Obama’s first move to regulate greenhouse gas emissions through the EPA.... Today, EPA chief Lisa Jackson delivered what she says is a final draft of the fuel economy rules for 2016 to the Obama administration. This will be Obama’s first move to regulate greenhouse gas emissions through the EPA....

The Environmental Protection Agency is expected in the next few weeks to declare that carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases are pollutants, a move that would require the federal government to regulate them -- even without legislation.

The Environmental Protection Agency is expected in the next few weeks to declare that carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases are pollutants, a move that would require the federal government to regulate them -- even without legislation. Don't exhale. That advice may need heeding if the Environmental Protection Agency declares carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases dangerous pollutants, a move -- expected in the next couple weeks -- that would require the federal government to impose new rules limiting emissions. But some skeptics say regulating carbon dioxide, a byproduct of burning fossil fuels, may be a difficult task,...

Don't Exhale. EPA Expected to Declare Carbon Dioxide a Dangerous Pollutant The Environmental Protection Agency is expected in the next few weeks to declare that carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases are a pollutant, a move that would require the federal government to regulate them -- even without legislation. FOXNews.com Friday, August 28, 2009 Don't exhale. That advice may need heeding if the Environmental Protection Agency declares carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases a dangerous pollutant, a move -- expected in the next couple weeks -- that would require the federal government to impose new rules limiting emissions....

Junk Science: The EPA may be considering closing the watchdog office that exposed the flimsy evidence of man-caused warming. So much for the administration's promise to "restore science to its rightful place."Recently we commented on the plight of Dr. Allen Carlin, the EPA senior research analyst at the National Center for Environmental Economics who dared to say, in essence, that emperor Al Gore and his environmental sycophants at the Environmental Protection Agency wore no clothes. The EPA had been working on an "endangerment finding" that would say carbon dioxide, rather than being the basis for all life on earth, was...

It appears that the EPA, under the "RFS2 - Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007," is going to cause problems with how biodiesel will be viewed as a source of pollution, rather than as a means to reduce it. According to the National Biodiesel Board, the EPA has wrongly calculated the negative impact of biodiesel. As a result, the Board would like to enlist the help of supporters of biodiesel in a mail campaign to the EPA and, I assume, others. The points they most want to drive home are mentioned in the following letter: Honorable Lisa Jackson Administrator...

(CNSNews.com) – Less than a week after the Environmental Protection Agency restarted a controversial dredging project on the Hudson River, dredgers operated by the General Electric Company dislodged wooden beams that are the last remnants of one of the largest British forts in the American colonies. The EPA now says that the beams are contaminated with potential carcinogens known as PCBs and therefore must be buried in a landfill. The dredging operation is being conducted to remove sediments containing PCBs from the river about 40 miles north of Albany, N.Y. Fort Edward, where the dredging damage occurred, was one of...

(CNSNews.com) – Less than a week after the Environmental Protection Agency restarted a controversial dredging project on the Hudson River, dredgers operated by the General Electric Company dislodged wooden beams that are the last remnants of one of the largest British forts in the American colonies. The EPA now says that the beams are contaminated with potential carcinogens known as PCBs and therefore must be buried in a landfill

This spring we wanted chicken manure spread on the pastures because it is incredibly rich in nutrients, the best “natural” fertilizer known to man, and quite inexpensive, comparatively speaking. So I asked one of my truck driver friends, who cleans out houses for Sanderson Farms affiliates, to bring me several dump truck loads. “No can do, because they aren’t having it done, this year,” quoth he. How odd. I mulled that over off and on for months, and today I got the answer. The greenies are at it again! THIS time they are claiming that litter (sawdust and, ah, processed...

For years, the Bush administration was criticized for not cleaning up enough of the nation's most contaminated waste sites. The Obama administration plans to do even less. Environmental groups and some Democratic lawmakers railed against President George W. Bush's cleanup record. But this time, they're shying away from speaking out against a popular president who's considered an ally in the fight to clean up the environment. Associated PressFewer EPA cleanups are planned under the administration of President Barack Obama, above. In Obama's first two years in office, the Environmental Protection Agency expects to begin the final phase of cleanup at...

The car you're trading in must be less than 25 years old -- made in the summer of 1984 or later (you can find the manufacture date on a sticker found on the frame of most vehicles' drivers' doors). The vehicle must be listed by the government as getting combined highway/city fuel efficiency of 18 miles per gallon or less. The vehicle must have been insured and registered to you for the past year, and it must be in drivable condition. If you trade it in for a car that improves your fuel economy by four miles per gallon or...

EPA Secretly Changing MPG Numbers Ahead Of Cash For Clunkers, Screwing Consumers By Matt Hardigree, 3:30 PM on Mon Consumers hoping to trade in their old "clunkers" for new vehicles through the Cash for Clunkers (or CARS) program are discovering the EPA changed fuel economy numbers for some cars last week, making it impossible to trade them in! New Jersey resident Jeff Chase was considering trading in his 1989 Mazda 929 for a new car and checked the government's FuelEconomy.gov website and it said it met the 18 MPG threshold to be considered a gas-guzzling clunker. He went back later...

he news is depressing these days as people fear losing their homes or jobs and worry about family members deployed in military operations overseas. So what are members of Congress worried about? They fear the “grave” threats posed by--bottled water. Now that’s crazy. Supposedly consumers are at risk from, or are being duped about, bottled water quality. Lawmakers think the solution is more detailed labeling mandates that include listing the traces of chemicals that water might contain. We don’t ask other food producers to list every possible contaminant in their products. In fact, FDA regulations actually allow a certain level...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) has called for a Senate investigation into the silencing of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials and Small Business Administration lawyers by the Administration. "It is clear that there is a culture of intimidation in the EPA. They have ignored, and willfully blocked warnings from their own scientists, their own economists and their own lawyers," Barrasso said. This spring, the Obama Administration strongly reacted to revelations that their own attorneys had serious concerns about regulating climate change using the Clean Air Act. "These concerns were both economic and scientific and were ignored by top...

Climate Change: Channeling King Canute, G-8 leaders agree to wreck the world's economy, and ours, by pledging to prevent temperatures from rising more than 4 degrees by 2050. What if the Earth has other plans?Canute was the legendary king whose sycophantic followers praised his power and wisdom. He was The One of his time. He once stood on the shore and commanded the waves to halt. As the story goes, he was exercising his ego when in fact he was giving his followers a dose of reality — the power of man over nature is finite and inconsequential. We were...

Carol Browner, former Clinton administration EPA head and current Obama White House climate czar, instructed auto industry execs "to put nothing in writing, ever" regarding secret negotiations she orchestrated regarding a deal to increase federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-WI, is demanding a congressional investigation of Browner's conduct in the CAFE talks, saying in a letter to Rep. Henry Waxman, D-CA, that Browner "intended to leave little or no documentation of the deliberations that lead to stringent new CAFE standards." Federal law requires officials to preserve documents concerning significant policy decisions, so instructing participants in...

Czar is the perfect title for Carol Browner, the person President Obama chose to rule over climate policy. The woman runs her kingdom like an autocrat, taking no prisoners and she has a history of demanding secrecy for example.....When working for the Clinton Administration, Browner had her files erased Against a court order, As Michele Malkin reported back in January: According to testimony in a freedom of information lawsuit filed against EPA by the Landmark Legal Foundation, a Virginia-based conservative legal watchdog group, Browner commanded a computer technician on Jan. 19, 2001: “‘I would like my files deleted. I want...

You may want to think twice before taking your next deep breath. Every time you exhale, you’re supposedly endangering the planet -- by contributing to global warming. The Environmental Protection Agency says global warming poses a “serious threat to public health and safety.” That sets the stage for the EPA to regulate, through the Clean Air Act, almost anything that emits carbon dioxide. CO2, of course, is a naturally-occurring gas. It’s produced whenever a person breathes and, yes, whenever we use any sort of fossil fuel. Driving a car, mowing a lawn, boiling a cup of water, even flipping on...

Saying global warming poses unprecedented threats to Americans' way of life, four of President Barack Obama's top environmental and energy officials urged the Senate on Tuesday to pass legislation to reduce the pollution linked to the planet's rising temperature. The heads of the Energy Department, Agriculture Department, Interior Department and Environmental Protection Agency told a Senate panel it should pass a bill similar to one the House narrowly cleared late last month. That legislation would impose the first limits on greenhouse gases, eventually leading to an 80 percent reduction by mid-century by putting a price on each ton of climate-altering...

EPA fugitive who shot at officers expected to change plea A Utah fugitive critically injured March 10 during a shoot-out with law enforcement officers in a Marathon trailer park is expected to avoid a trial by pleading guilty today.Larkin Baggett, 54, formerly of Salt Lake City, was shot in the neck and buttocks after he allegedly pointed an assault rifle at a Monroe County Sheriff's Office deputy and three U.S. Environmental Protection Agency agents.Baggett was the first man shot by EPA officers in that organization's history.A change of plea hearing is scheduled today in the courtroom of U.S. Judge Michael...

As research for an upcoming column on the many drawbacks of the cap-and-trade bill now before the Senate, I spent some time speaking with Christopher C. Horner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Horner is author of "Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats Fraud and Deception to Keep You Misinformed." Our discussion went on at some length and Horner made many excellent points about the hype over the threat of anthropogenic (man-made) global warming. That discussion can go on forever and I can't include much of it here. But I will point to an interesting little item that's...

With the recent narrow passage of the controversial Waxman-Markey “cap and trade” bill in the House and the ongoing debate over global warming, one should expect balanced coverage of both sides of the issue. However, much of the media has neglected to report on the alleged “hush up” of an EPA research analyst whose report on global warming prompted his supervisor to warn it could have had a “very negative impact on this office.” At 8:45 a.m. EDT on the June 30 edition of "Fox and Friends," EPA Senior Operations Research Analyst Alan Carlin, told interviewer Steve Doocy that his...

Alan Carlin, the senior EPA research analyst who authored a study critical of global warming that was suppressed by agency officials, has broken his silence and spoken on Fox News about his situation. Carlin told "Fox & Friends" Steve Ducy and Gretchen Carlson that his most important conclusion in the study was that the U.S. should not rely upon recommendations of the UN in making policy decisions regarding global warming. "The most important conclusion, in my view, was that EPA needed to look at the science behind global warming and not depend upon reports issued by the United Nations, which...

A top Republican senator has ordered an investigation into the Environmental Protection Agency’s alleged suppression of a report that questioned the science behind global warming. The 98-page report, co-authored by EPA analyst Alan Carlin, pushed back on the prospect of regulating gases like carbon dioxide as a way to reduce global warming. Carlin’s report argued that the information the EPA was using was out of date, and that even as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have increased, global temperatures have declined. “He came out with the truth. They don’t want the truth at the EPA,” Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla, a global...

John Hinderaker of Poweline has alerted everyone to the release of the suppressed EPA Carlin/Davidson report along with incriminating emails by the Competitive Enterprise Institute.  President Obama and his administration have again been appropriately exposed. Obama’s intent can no longer be in question, and his deceptive activities are instructive as to the role the United Nations will play in his plan to address the use of American wealth.Because the American news media has not properly and openly questioned Susan Rice about her deliberations with the IPCC, nor the U.S. intentions concerning proposed international “monies” related to CO2, you are obliged...

By Richard Morrison Washington, D.C., June 26, 2009—The Competitive Enterprise Institute is today making public an internal study on climate science which was suppressed by the Environmental Protection Agency. Internal EPA email messages, released by CEI earlier in the week, indicate that the report was kept under wraps and its author silenced because of pressure to support the Administration’s agenda of regulating carbon dioxide. The report finds that EPA, by adopting the United Nations’ 2007 “Fourth Assessment” report, is relying on outdated research and is ignoring major new developments. Those developments include a continued decline in global temperatures, a new...

Climate Change: A suppressed EPA study says old U.N. data ignore the decline in global temperatures and other inconvenient truths. Was the report kept under wraps to influence the vote on the cap-and-trade bill?This was supposed to be the most transparent administration ever. Yet as the House of Representatives prepared to vote on the Waxman-Markey bill, the largest tax increase in U.S. history on 100% of Americans, an attempt was made to suppress a study shredding supporters' arguments. On Friday, the day of the vote, the Competitive Enterprise Institute said it was releasing "an internal study on climate science which...

Climate Change: A suppressed EPA study says old U.N. data ignore the decline in global temperatures and other inconvenient truths. Was the report kept under wraps to influence the vote on the cap-and-trade bill? This was supposed to be the most transparent administration ever. Yet as the House of Representatives prepared to vote on the Waxman-Markey bill, the largest tax increase in U.S. history on 100% of Americans, an attempt was made to suppress a study shredding supporters' arguments.

THE Obama administra tion doesn't want to hear inconvenient truths about global warming. And it doesn't want you to hear them, either. As House Democrats rush to pass a $4 trillion, thousand-page "cap and trade" bill that no one has read, environmental bureaucrats are stifling voices that threaten their political agenda. The free market-based Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington has obtained a set of internal e-mails exposing Team Obama's willful and reckless disregard for data that undermine the illusion of "consensus." In March, Alan Carlin, a senior research analyst at the Environmental Protection Agency, asked agency officials to distribute his...

Washington, D.C., June 26, 2009—The Competitive Enterprise Institute is today making public an internal study on climate science which was suppressed by the Environmental Protection Agency. Internal EPA email messages, released by CEI earlier in the week, indicate that the report was kept under wraps and its author silenced because of pressure to support the Administration’s agenda of regulating carbon dioxide. The report finds that EPA, by adopting the United Nations’ 2007 “Fourth Assessment” report, is relying on outdated research and is ignoring major new developments. Those developments include a continued decline in global temperatures, a new consensus that future...

Scientific findings at odds with the Obama Administration’s views on carbon dioxide and climate change are being suppressed as a result of political pressure, officials at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) charge. “This suppression of valid science for political reasons is beyond belief,” said CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman. “EPA’s conduct is even more outlandish because it flies in the face of the president’s widely-touted claim that ‘the days of science taking a back seat to ideology are over.’” The agency has never made the study public or included it in official reference materials, according to CEI. As part of...

WASHINGTON -- A deal on the climate bill has been reached with the head of the House Agriculture Committee, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi scheduled a vote on the legislation for Friday. Late Tuesday, Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D., Minn.) said the accord with House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D., Calif.) would allay the concerns of many Farm Belt lawmakers. Nancy Pelosi . The legislation had stalled last week because of opposition from Farm Belt Democrats who were concerned their states will face heavier costs under the proposed law to curb greenhouse-gas emissions. Under the agreement,...

After investing billions of taxpayer dollars in two domestic automakers to help them survive the dramatic downturn in car sales along with an enduring recession, Congress and the Obama administration want to help jumpstart the industry. The battery cables of choice for this operation — [1] HR2751 Consumer Assistance to Recycle and Save (CARS), also dubbed “Cash for Clunkers” — is roughly patterned after a similar automotive stimulus scheme in Europe. If it worked on the Continent, it must be a good thing, as the current beltway logic asserts. The idea of encouraging people to retire their old relics of...

Only a couple more days to let the EPA know what you think of its proposed war against CO2. Just click on the little yellow “add comments” balloon. The following is a comment (ending at "sincerely") that you can copy and paste. (If you choose to roll your own, feel free to leave it here too.) Dear EPA:There is overwhelming statistical evidence that the primary driver of natural temperature change is solar-magnetic activity, yet the solar flux is completely omitted as an influence on climate in all four IPCC assessments and in the Obama administration's new "Climate Change Impacts in...

WASHINGTON – One contributor to global warming — bigger than coal mines, landfills and sewage treatment plants — is being left out of efforts by the Obama administration and House Democrats to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Cow burps. Belching from the nation's 170 million cattle, sheep and pigs produces about one-quarter of the methane released in the U.S. each year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. That makes the hoofed critters the largest source of the heat-trapping gas. In part because of an adept farm lobby campaign that equates government regulation with a cow tax, the gas that farm animals...

Environmentalists and industry representatives pleaded their case with federal regulators Tuesday over rules that would slash toxic emissions from cement kilns, the top source of mercury emissions in California. The Environmental Protection Agency issued proposed regulations for Portland cement kilns earlier this year, after more than a decade of pressure from environmental groups. The rules aim to reduce the industry's mercury emissions by an estimated 81% to 93% annually, as well as cut emissions of hydrocarbons, particulate matter and hydrochloric acid.

Lisa P. Jackson, the woman chosen by President Barack Obama to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), told attendees at a conference on environmental justice that minorities and low-income people are the victims of pollution by U.S. companies and businesses. “There are too many places in this country where pollution and environmental degradation fall disproportionately on low-income and minority communities,” Jackson said via video at the third annual State of the Environmental Justice in America 2009 conference in Arlington, Va., on Friday. “People have fallen ill with diseases like asthma and cancer. Businesses won’t set up shop in those neighborhoods,...

At a time when our economy is in a severe recession, this proposed regulation would cost jobs and delay our country’s recovery. The EPA is attempting to use the Clean Air Act as a blunt instrument to regulate carbon. It is attempting to use the Clean Air Act to do something it was never intended to do. This regulation would take our country in exactly the wrong direction and cost many more American jobs.

The Environmental Protection Agency. The Same EPA who recently called CO2, a natural gas, a health risk, thereby helping to create the same situation they are now complaining about. According to an analysis of climate legislation performed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the cap-and-trade system favored by President Barack Obama and many congressional Democrats could potentially damage the U.S. manufacturing sector and force jobs to move overseas. The policy, under certain scenarios, for example, "can cause domestic production ... to shift abroad," reads the EPA analysis, and result in greater greenhouse gas emissions in countries that do not have...

According to an analysis of climate legislation performed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the cap-and-trade system favored by President Barack Obama and many congressional Democrats could potentially damage the U.S. manufacturing sector and force jobs to move overseas. The policy, under certain scenarios, for example, “can cause domestic production … to shift abroad,” reads the EPA analysis, and result in greater greenhouse gas emissions in countries that do not have similar cap-and-trade rules. Further, the EPA’s Apr. 20 preliminary analysis of the bill, sponsored by Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Edward Markey (D-Mass.), shows that the plan would reduce...