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E-mails obtained from the Environmental Protection Agency show that Harvard University, Syracuse University and two of their researchers appear to have falsely claimed a study supporting EPA’s upcoming global warming rules was conducted “independent(ly)” of the agency. In early May, a study published in the journal Nature Climate Change purported to support a key EPA claim about its forthcoming global warming rules aimed at coal-fired power plants. The New York Times’ headline, “EPA Emissions Plan Will Save Thousands of Lives, Study Finds,” typified the media coverage.

Americans are just going to have to trust the EPA’s 44 years of experience dealing with environmental issues when it comes to figuring out ways to cope with man-made global warming, says the agency’s chief. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy told Big Think in an interview that while there are limits to how much the federal government can do for issues like global warming, the public needs to trust how the EPA translates the “complicated” science into real-life actions. “Well I think we all have to recognize the strengths and limitations of government action,” McCarthy said. “But here’s what I think...

The Obama administration is set to announce that it will require new rules to cut emissions from airplanes, expanding a quest to tackle climate change that has included a string of significant regulations on cars, trucks and power plants. The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to report as early as Friday its conclusion that greenhouse gas emissions from airplanes endanger human health because they significantly contribute to global warming, although people familiar with the agency’s plans said the announcement could slip into next week. That announcement, known in legal parlance as an endangerment finding, will prompt a requirement under the...

Environonsense pretty well covers the gamut from the moronic to the vile that eco-politics now exemplifies Begin with brainwashed college students absurdly demanding their institution of ‘higher learning’, Western Washington University, rescind the masters degree awarded a state senator for admitting being a “climate agnostic.” Sen. Doug Ericksen, who holds a degree in political science and environmental policy, seems to have used the term to illustrate how man-made climate change has become a religion rather than science-based theory. Evidently, that, along with his removing verbiage from legislation referring to climate change as being a threat to the state, was enough...

Is there any way to reverse the trend toward ever more intrusive, bossy government? Things have gotten to such a pass, argues Charles Murray, that only civil disobedience might -- might -- work. But the chances are good enough, he says, that he's written a book about it: "By the People: Rebuilding Liberty Without Permission." Murray has a track record of making seemingly outlandish proposals that turn out to be widely accepted public policy. His 1984 book "Losing Ground" recommended the radical step of abolishing all welfare payments. A dozen years later, the federal welfare reform act took a long...

OPINION/ANALYSIS:Farmers are now the bad guys. President Obama’s administration last week claimed dominion over all of America’s streams, creeks, rills, ditches, brooks, rivulets, burns, tributaries, criks, wetlands — perhaps even puddles — in a sweeping move to assert unilateral federal authority. The New York Times had a wonderful take on the power grab, saying the move “opened up a broad new front for attacks from business interests like farmers, property developers, fertilizer and pesticide makers, oil and gas producers and golf course owners, who contend that the rule would stifle economic growth and intrude on property owners’ rights.” Those, according...

Three coal-fired power plants in West Virginia have shut down operations. Media outlets report that Appalachian Power's Kanawha River Power Station at Glasgow, the Kammer Power Station near Moundsville and the Phillip Sporn Power Station at New Haven were closed Sunday. Appalachian Power had announced in 2011 that it planned to close the plants, along with three coal-fired plants in Virginia, Ohio and Indiana. The company had said it would be cost-prohibitive to equip them to comply with new federal emission standards for mercury and other hazardous air pollutants. Another coal-fired plant in Virginia is being converted to natural gas....

The Obama administration’s move last week to increase the amount of ethanol and other renewable fuels that must be blended into gasoline supplies left virtually everyone unhappy, casting new doubt on the future of the government’s long, contentious Renewable Fuel Standard. The RFS, codified with 2007 legislation written before the U.S. energy boom, has become increasingly unpopular and its targets difficult to achieve as domestic oil-and-gas production levels have gone through the roof in recent years. The RFS was written at a time when blending ethanol into fuel supplies seemed a worthwhile complement to an effort to both lower prices...

US investment in biofuels are to be expanded under proposals advanced by the US EPA. Under the proposed rule announced Friday, the amount of ethanol in the gasoline supply would increase in coming years, just not as much as set out under federal law. That approach drew criticism from ethanol and farm groups that have pushed to keep high volumes of ethanol in gasoline. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton has called for a robust renewable fuels standard while campaigning in Iowa, host of the leadoff presidential caucuses next year. … In a bid to ethanol producers, the administration also...

Control the water, control the land This is the largest, illegal, private property land grab in U.S. history Good EPA “laws” (read: “rules”, “regulations”) are long extinct, but if you had to pick one it would be the 1972 Clean Water Act (CWA) passed by congress four years after the Cuyahoga River in Ohio caught fire (Images for cuyahoga river fire burning—it wasn’t the first time) because of the pollution in it. The Act authorized the clean-up of this kind of mess in America’s navigable lakes, rivers, and streams, and prohibited further dumping of dangerous industrial chemicals, waste, and other...

In a White House statement released on May 26, President Obama stated: “I called on the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to clear up the confusion and uphold our basic duty to protect these vital [water] resources.”Obama went on the explain that the two federal bodies will provide businesses and industry with the “clarity and certainty” they need to determine which waters are protected by the Clean Water Act, and ensure that polluters “can be held accountable.”During a “press gaggle” the next day aboard Air Force One, AP’s White House press correspondent Darlene Superville asked...

The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday released a much-delayed proposal for the amount of biofuel that must be blended into conventional vehicle fuel. The proposal, which would become final by the end of November, would set levels for last year at what producers actually made but increase the total volume of renewable fuel required by 1.5 billion gallons, roughly 9 percent, by the end of 2016. That would bring the volume to 17.4 billion gallons[.]

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration's latest plan on ethanol, the corn-based renewable fuel, probably will not have a major effect on pump prices, but could have political reverberations in Iowa and other farm states in the 2016 presidential campaign. Under the proposed rule announced Friday, the amount of ethanol in the gasoline supply would increase in coming years, just not as much as set out under federal law. That approach drew criticism from ethanol and farm groups that have pushed to keep high volumes of ethanol in gasoline. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton has called for a robust...

Actually, it was for Cellulosic Ethanol, but those Projections are Equally Unrealistic WASHINGTON — American Energy Alliance President Thomas Pyle issued the following statement on EPA’s proposed volume requirements for the 2014, 2015, and 2016 Renewable Fuel Standard: “Once again, EPA has deluded itself into thinking it can simply mandate the commercial cellulosic biofuel industry out of thin air. EPA’s unrealistic projections for cellulosic biofuel underscore the incompetence of federal bureaucrats and the arrogance of Washington politicians who think they know what’s best for the economy and the American people. “The RFS has been broken from the beginning. It distorts...

State regulators approved Minnesota's first industrial-scale solar energy project Thursday, a mammoth 21-site setup that will dot the Twin Cities exurbs and beyond with acres of solar panels. The unanimous vote by the Public Utilities Commission advances the ramp-up phase of large-scale solar energy in Minnesota, with this single $250 million project promising up to 100 megawatts of power by 2016. Currently, fewer than 15 megawatts of solar power are estimated to be generated in Minnesota -- so the swift addition of 100 megawatts would represent more than a six-fold increase, with other huge projects on deck. The project is...

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has signaled in a letter to President Obama that his state might not comply with a forthcoming rule limiting carbon emissions from power plants. The likely GOP presidential candidate told Obama in the May 21 letter that he has "deep concerns regarding our ability to develop a state plan to comply with" the proposed Environmental Protection Agency targets. The implicit threat makes Walker the highest-profile governor to consider endorsing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's strategy of undercutting the regulation through states refusing to submit a compliance plan, though he ultimately stopped short of doing so. "The...

The Obama Environmental Protection Agency rewrote the Clean Water Act from 88 pages to 2,200 pages.The new regulations will put the EPA in control of muddy farm puddles and prairie potholes. (video at link)The Wall Street Journal reported, via Instapundit: The Clean Water Act limits the federal government to regulating the “navigable waters of the United States” like the Colorado River or Lake Michigan. In 1986 the EPA expanded that definition to seize jurisdiction over tributaries and adjacent wetlands. Now it is extending federal control over just about any creek, pond, prairie pothole or muddy farm field that EPA says...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers followed through with the finalization of a rule regulating waterways of the United States, which some in the GOP fear could turn into a land grab. In Kentucky, U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell and GOP candidates running for statewide office have voiced concerns with the proposed rule and the harm it may pose to farmers in the state. ... According to The Hill, EPA head Gina McCarthy said those fears are unfounded under the finalized rule announced Wednesday. ... Rep. Ryan Quarles, R-Georgetown, is running against Jean Marie Lawson Spann in...

The Obama Environmental Protection Agency rewrote the Clean Water Act from 88 pages to 2,200 pages. The new regulations will put the EPA in control of muddy farm puddles and prairie potholes. The Clean Water Act limits the federal government to regulating the “navigable waters of the United States” like the Colorado River or Lake Michigan. In 1986 the EPA expanded that definition to seize jurisdiction over tributaries and adjacent wetlands. Now it is extending federal control over just about any creek, pond, prairie pothole or muddy farm field that EPA says has a “significant nexus” to a navigable waterway....

Now that Big Guy has personally taken control of all of America’s waterways and puddles: President Obama’s administration on Wednesday claimed dominion over all of America’s streams, creeks, rills, ditches, brooks, rivulets, burns, tributaries, criks, wetlands — perhaps even puddles — in a sweeping move to assert unilateral federal authority. – Washington Times How long before the Republicans accuse him of causing the floods in Texas and Oklahoma? Because, you know, he hates white people.   Butt the good news is – “this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to...