Free Republic

Junk Science: Hacked e-mails from Britain's Climate Research Unit are only the latest evidence of climate fraud. Just ask NASA's James Hansen about the faking of climate data or EPA employees about the suppression of climate fact. For years, noted scientists and other global warming skeptics have been accused of being on the take, their research tainted and funded by grants from Big Oil and other fossil-fuel interests. Now, it turns out, it's the warm-mongers who are fudging the numbers and concealing the inconvenient truth. We don't know who "Deep Throat" is. But according to an interview in Investigate Magazine's...

A more assertive Environmental Protection Agency is demanding that Texas tighten its pollution rules, drawing the ire of companies and some of the state's political leaders. At the heart of the dispute is an EPA threat to void some of the state's air-quality regulations, which it says break federal law. The agency also is studying whether oil refineries -- of which Texas has many -- emit dangerous amounts of toxins. Texas is the top carbon-dioxide-emitting state in the nation. State regulators say they have built a system that simplifies the permitting process, for example by regulating emissions from entire facilities,...

“Delta Smelt, What’s that (Dead) Flower You Have On…” By justinwashingtontheblogger “Could it be a Faded Rose from Days Gone By?” Lyrics (Polluted) by Justin Washington and Tribute to Tanya Tucker As the plaintiff song wafts in the air, so goes California’s golden dream — because of a small, silver fish resembling a minow with small, beady eyes (somewhat similiar in appearance to US Senate Leader Harry Reid). The EPA, as the teeth behind the Endangered Species Act, has turned off the water spigot to the agricultural Central Valley of California which has been likened to the “bread basket of...

23 projects statewide affected by bill. The 2010 Interior and Environment Appropriations Bill that was signed into law on Oct. 30 by President Barack Obama has reached the Western Slope, and has brought the Glenwood Springs wastewater treatment facility project, and many more around the state, to a screeching halt. the word came last week that the project would have to be put on hold, indefinitely, awaiting further clarification from the Environmental Protection Agency. Hecksel said that he was unsure as to why the Glenwood project would be included because the project was not seeking federal funding... The intent of...

More than a decade after Congress directed the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to carry out assessments of endocrine disrupting chemicals, the agency has announced the first set of compounds to be screened under its Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program (EDSP). Endocrine disruptors are chemicals that can affect hormones produced by the endocrine system, which regulate growth, metabolism and reproduction.The EPA has requested that manufacturers screen seven compounds under this  first round, including atrazine - a widely used herbicide that may be associated with birth defects, low birth weight and menstrual problems. Although banned in Europe, atrazine remains prevalent in the US, with...

Alleged scientific misconduct and academic dishonesty at Barack Obama's Environmental Protection Agency Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) has already put it on record in her letter to the Wall Street Journal that the real purpose of so-called greenhouse gas regulations, such as government-mandated cap and trade regulations, is to enrich Barack Obama's campaign contribution bundlers at J.P. Morgan Chase (six figures in bundled contributions) and Goldman Sachs (almost a million dollars in bundled contributions). Bundled contributions are entirely legal but the thing nonetheless speaks for itself; Barack Obama is dancing the cap-and-trade with the fat cat climate profiteers who brought (or bought)...

Not exactly sure what I can post since it is from Bloomberg but if you go the site one of the lead articles is the EPA threatening coal mining in Applachia over a insect. What the Spotted Owl did to the timber industry in the Pacific Northwest this bug will do to coal mining.

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...

Click on the link to watch the video

Here is video the Obama Administration does not apparently want you to see. It is a devastating critique of Obama's "Cap and Trade" idea, by two lawyers who work for the EPA. They say clearly in the video that the video only contains their views, and in no way represents the views of the EPA or the Obama Administration. The lawyers do seem to buy into the whole "man-made Climate Change" philosophy, which I would not agree with. But that is one reason the video is so devastating to the Cap and Trade policy. They believe in man-made Climate Change...

To appreciate the extent to which the Environmental Protection Agency under President Obama is a regulator reborn, consider this: EPA officials have begun to cut air pollution by invoking the Clean Water Act. Long quiescent under President George W. Bush, the agency is churning out initiatives and regulations at a pace that pleases its friends in the environmental movement and frightens many in the business community. In the past eight months, the EPA has proposed eight major new regulations for air pollutants that would strengthen the nation's clean air laws almost overnight. In contrast, in the first eight months of...

WASHINGTON — All Republicans except one are boycotting the start of committee debate on a bill to curb greenhouse gases in a protest that the bill's economic costs have not been fully examined. Republican Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio attended the session to explain the GOP's argument for staying away. He said the tactic "is not a ruse" to block the bill, but concern that is widespread impact on the country has not been made clear. Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, the panel's chairman, argued the EPA already has provided "a full blown economic analysis" and that Majority Leader Harry...

Long-standing 'canary in the coal mine' role questioned.Frogs aren't always the first to suffer from pollution.Digital Vision The health of amphibians is commonly used to give a rough assessment of pollution levels in an area, but an analysis of more than 20,000 toxicity studies now suggests that these creatures are relatively resilient and not well suited to the task.The finding could have a significant effect on the way that the environment is assessed. Conventional wisdom suggests that if an amphibian population is thriving, the area is probably clear of pollutants. But the survey shows that other species, such as shelled...

The Environmental Protection Agency is taking steps to regulate greenhouse gases, even though the issue remains far from settled in Congress, where a key Senate committee is debating a major climate change bill. In hearings before the Senate Environment and Public Works committee Tuesday, several moderate Democrats expressed concerns that the EPA is jumping the gun in mandating new curbs on greenhouse gas emissions across a slew of industries. “There is a great deal to be gained by certainty so people can make plans,” said Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter. “If the EPA continues to have flexibility we don’t know...

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Max Baucus said Tuesday he has "serious reservations" about climate legislation newly unveiled by his Democratic colleagues, signaling that lawmakers may have to pull back from some ambitious goals in order to line up needed votes. "I have some concerns about the overall direction of the bill," Mr. Baucus (D., Mont.) said at the start of hearings in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. "I have serious reservations with the depth of the mid-term reduction target in the bill and the lack of preemption of the Clean Air Act." Mr. Baucus -- who's also chairman of...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A Senate committee on Tuesday launches three long days of hearings on a Democratic climate bill in a bid to further convince an international summit in December that Washington is serious about tackling global warming. The Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee will kick off Tuesday's hearing at 9:30 a.m. EDT with a panel of heavy-hitters from President Barack Obama's Cabinet: the secretaries of energy, transportation and interior and the head of the Environmental Protection Agency. Joining them will be the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. According to an EPA statement, the officials will focus...

While campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination, Barack Obama said his cap-and-trade tax plans would "bankrupt" anyone building a coal-fired power plant. Although those taxes haven't materialized, the Environmental Protection Agency has put the brakes on 79 surface mining permits in four states since he was elected. The EPA says these permits could violate the Clean Water Act and warrant "enhanced" review. But the agency went even further last week, announcing plans to revoke a permit for the Spruce No. 1 Mine in West Virginia - a move that has caused anxiety among coal-state Democrats about the future of the...

Almost two years ago, Barack Obama told the editors of the San Francisco Chronicle that anyone who wanted to open a new coal-burning electrical plant would get “bankrupted” by his policies. They may not even get the coal to burn, thanks to the EPA. The Washington Times’ Amanda Carpenter reports that the agency has held up scores of surface mining permits in an action that will get the attention of coal-producing states — and their Senators: While campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination, Barack Obama said his cap-and-trade tax plans would “bankrupt” anyone building a coal-fired power plant. Although those...

Earth: An environmental writer mainstreams an idea floating around the green fringe — save the earth by population control and give carbon credits to one-child families. Are we threatened by the patter of little carbon footprints? New York Times environmental writer Andrew Revkin participated in an Oct. 14 panel discussion on climate change with other media pundits titled "Covering Climate: What's Population Got To Do With It?" People who need people they are not. In a recently rediscovered book, "Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment," co-authored with Malthus fans Paul and Anne Ehrlich, Holdren wrote that families "contribute to general social deterioration...

Politics: Move over, John McCain and Olympia Snowe. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina is fast becoming the Democrats' favorite Republican as he partners with John Kerry to push cap-and-trade through the Senate. Earlier this year, eight Republican congressmen made it possible for Waxman-Markey, the 1,400-page job- and economy-killing cap-and-trade legislation, to barely pass the House of Representatives. At the time it seemed dead on arrival in the Senate if it was brought up there this year. Once again, as with their medical plan, the Democrats seek to better the odds by putting a GOP hood ornament on a Democratic clunker....

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed tough new measures to reduce the health toll from air pollution around the Great Lakes by forcing lake freighters to stop burning dirty bunker fuel. But the plan has an unusual opponent: The Canadian embassy in Washington has quietly asked the EPA to weaken the measures, arguing that they could harm trade. It wants ships to be allowed to continue using the high-polluting fuel and to instead install smokestack scrubbers that would clean up their emissions. The Canadian recommendation, if accepted, could delay the clean-air measure for years, because the technology for the...

Yesterday, the US News & World Report published an essay, "Michelle Obama, Teachers Are Key to a Successful Economy." It begins: Michelle Obama: Teachers Are Key to a Successful Economy By Michelle Obama Posted October 15, 2009 Michelle Obama is the first lady of the United States. That's a lot of Michelle Obamas Anyway, after personalizing Michelle and the kids, Michelle's ghost-writer inserts the boiler-plate about the challenges and lack of rewards of teaching, which has been eternally true, and spring-boards into the reason for the exercise -- placing community organizers into the public schools -- Michelle refers to them...

A new U.S. EPA analysis requested by Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) is spawning a lobbying frenzy among Midwestern utilities that claim the document shows they will be treated unfairly under federal climate legislation. They say the assessment (pdf) reveals that states like California will receive a financial windfall under a global warming bill, while states like Wisconsin will not get enough help and will have to spike electricity rates as a result. "The EPA document just confirms the formula will disadvantage Midwest states for decades to come while the coastal states will hit a 'federal jackpot' every year over the...

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...

In a striking change of direction, the California Coastal Commission Wednesday voted 8-4 to give San Diego its third exemption from pollution standards set by the federal Clean Water Act. Just two months ago, commissioners overwhelmingly to deny the five-year waiver from “secondary” treatment levels at the Point Loma Wastewater Treatment Plant. The facility processes sewage from more than 2.2 million people in and outside of the city's limits. The commission's reversal saves San Diego from having to retrofit the facility at a price tag of up to $1.5 billion. The last major step is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,...

Apple has left the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the fourth company to end its membership over the business group’s climate change stance. A fifth company, Nike, quit the Chamber’s board of directors but remains members of the group. In a letter sent to Chamber CEO Tom Donohue on Monday, an Apple executive said the company “strongly” objects to the Chamber’s comments opposing the Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to limit greenhouse gases. “We would prefer that the Chamber take a more progressive stance on this critical issue and play a constructive role in addressing the climate crisis,” Apple Vice President for...

'In recent years, many Americans have had cause to wonder whether decisions made at EPA were guided by science and the law, or whether those principles had been trumped by politics," declared Lisa Jackson in San Francisco last week. The Environmental Protection Agency chief can't stop kicking the Bush Administration, but the irony is that the Obama EPA is far more "political" than the Bush team ever was.

Now that the Senate has returned from its August recess, its members have many issues with which to contend. Although health care reform has received much of the attention in recent weeks, another bill, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (H.R. 2454) or more widely known as Waxman-Markey or “cap & trade,” is equally deserving of scrutiny. This is because most major economic impact studies demonstrate that the “cap & trade” scheme proposed in the Waxman-Markey bill will create massive consumer costs with undefined environmental benefits. In June, the Waxman-Markey bill narrowly passed the U.S. House 219-212...

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...

There's more than one way to get cap-and-trade, President Obama's energy czar said today. Carol Browner, the former Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) administrator who now serves in the Obama administration's newly created role of energy czar, floated the possibility today of the EPA implementing cap-and-trade energy policies, during an interview at The Atlantic's First Draft of History symposium in Washington, DC. "We also have the reality of EPA, under current law, moving forward...to start the traditional regulatory clock," Browner said when asked, during an interview with Atlantic Media Political Director Ronald Brownstein, about the difficulties of passing the stalled energy/climate...

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...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — President Barack Obama's administration put the brakes on 79 applications for surface coal mining permits in four states Wednesday,saying they would violate the Clean Water Act. The action is the administration's latest attempt to curb environmental damage from a highly efficient but damaging mining practice known as mountaintop removal. Each permit likely would cause significant damage to water quality and the environment, the Environmental Protection Agency said in a statement.

Lowell Vos believes in playing fair. The rural Kingsley man also believes in standing up for his rights, even when the odds are against him. Vos waged a David versus Goliath battle last year when he refused to pay a fine levied on him by Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). His problems began in January of 2007. That's when he received notice that manure from his cattle yard was supposedly running off into Elliot Creek, a charge he knew was unfounded. "I told my wife 'This isn't right. I did everything right,'" he explained. He was one of four Iowa cattle...

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) plans to introduce an amendment Thursday morning banning the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating carbon dioxide. The proposal is fiercely opposed by the administration, which sees EPA action as a way to pressure the Senate into passing cap and trade legislation curbing greenhouse gas emissions. Prospects for the bill have dimmed in recent weeks, as the health care debate has taken center stage. “We don't think the amendment is a good idea,” White House climate advisor Carol Browner said on Tuesday. “It could get you a situation where activities that should go forward — like...

Former Vice President Al Gore and current White House climate change czar Carol Browner are warning companies and lawmakers that the courts will step in to regulate greenhouse gases if Congress fails to act. "All of the discussion has been about the president and the Congress," Gore told journalists at a U.N. press conference Tuesday. "We have a third branch of government: the courts."

Cap-and-trade energy tax legislation appears stalled, at least for now, in the U.S. Senate. But that doesn’t mean the cap-and-trade energy tax isn’t imminent. Senate Environment Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer hasn’t even introduced the bill yet; new Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Blanche Lincoln has declared the House bill dead on arrival; and there are several other cross-cutting controversies that divide Democrats on the bill. The Obama administration is unfazed. They are moving full steam ahead with an even more costly regulatory scheme in the name of global warming—shoehorning the regulation of greenhouse gases into the 1970 Clean Air Act, a...

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}

President Obama’s risky perseverance on health care is running over another of his pet government expansions—the cap-and-trade bill sent by the House on June 26 for Senate consideration. Recall that cap-and-trade is complex legislation with a very simple premise: make energy so expensive to consume that Americans use less of it, and “greenhouse gas” emissions are thereby curtailed. But even though it’s now clear the bill is not getting out of Congress, look for the Obama Administration to saddle our economy with this huge new energy tax through other means. First, a brief flashback: The blowback against Obamunism began over...

WASHINGTON (AP) - 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. "This is one of the most important protection measures we can take to safeguard our health and our environment," said EPA...

WASHINGTON (AP) - For the first time in nearly 30 years, the Environmental Protection Agency plans to strengthen standards for water pollution from coal-fired power plants. The agency said Tuesday that equipment required to reduce air pollution has increased the harmful contaminants in water discharged by power plants. It also said that existing regulations are not enough to protect water quality and wildlife.

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...

EPA will also pursue a ban on the manufacture and distribution of lead tire weights in response to a 2009 petition from the Ecology Center, the Sierra Club and other NGOs requesting that the agency establish regulations prohibiting the manufacture, processing, and distribution of lead tire weights.

In 2007 Justice Anthony Kennedy decided that what we exhale every second of our lives, carbon dioxide (CO2), is a pollutant. As a result of this one man's opinion, Americans will be subjected to government regulations that will change their world. In a 5-4 decision written by Justice John Paul Stevens the U.S. Supreme Court said the language of the Clean Air Act, defining "air pollutant" is a "sweeping definition, and the greenhouse gases", namely carbon dioxide, "fit well within the definition of air pollutant." It was the vote of Anthony Kennedy, who joined with the liberal block that decided...

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.

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...

REMEMBER “peak oil”? It’s the theory that geological scarcity will at some point make it impossible for global petroleum production to avoid falling, heralding the end of the oil age and, potentially, economic catastrophe. Well, just when we thought that the collapse in oil prices since last summer had put an end to such talk, along comes Fatih Birol, the top economist at the International Energy Agency, to insist that we’ll reach the peak moment in 10 years, a decade sooner than most previous predictions (although a few ardent pessimists believe the moment of no return has already come and...

(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...