Free Republic

The Obama administration is set to roll out a series of climate and pollution measures that rivals any president’s environmental actions of the past quarter-century — a reality check for Republicans who think last week’s election gave them a mandate to end what they call the White House’s “War on Coal.” [Snip] The coming rollout includes a Dec. 1 proposal by EPA to tighten limits on smog-causing ozone, which business groups say could be the costliest federal regulation of all time; a final rule Dec. 19 for clamping down on disposal of power plants’ toxic coal ash; the Jan. 1...

Looming Environmental Protection Agency ozone regulations personify the Obama administration’s secrecy, collusion, fraud, and disdain for concerns about the effects that its tsunami of regulations is having on the livelihoods, living standards, health and welfare of millions of American families. Virtually every EPA announcement of new regulations asserts that they will improve human health. Draconian carbon dioxide standards, for example, won’t just prevent climate change, even if rapidly developing countries continue emitting vast volumes of this plant-fertilizing gas. The rules will somehow reduce the spread of ticks and Lyme disease, and protect “our most vulnerable citizens.” It’s hogwash. But Americans...

In a softball interview with Environmental Protection Agency administrator Gina McCarthy on Thursday, MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell teed up the Obama administration official to dismiss legitimate Republican criticism of the President's climate deal with China: "I wanted to ask you of course about this major breakthrough with China. And the criticism already from many Republicans....What are you facing as you approach climate deniers...now that you have, you know, the Republicans in charge?

The Clean Water Act prohibits certain discharges to “navigable waters” without a federal permit. The Act defines “navigable waters” as “waters of the United States” which the Corps and EPA originally took to mean traditional navigable waters that could be used in interstate commerce. This is important because the Clean Water Act is based on the commerce power. By definition, regulation of waters under the Act must be necessary to and in furtherance of interstate commerce. But it didn’t take long before the agencies started pushing the envelope on federal jurisdiction claiming regulatory authority over wetlands and other nonnavigable waters...

(CNSNews.com) – President Obama in Beijing on Wednesday declared far-reaching new targets for reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, and for the first time, China agreed to cut its emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for climate change. "This is an ambitious goal, but it is an achievable goal," Obama said. "It will double the pace at which we're reducing carbon pollution in the United States. It puts us on a path to achieving the deep emissions reductions by advanced economies that the scientific community says is necessary to prevent the most catastrophic effects of climate change."

It seems incredible, but a single missing word could turn a water law into a government land grab so horrendous even a U.S. Supreme Court justice warned it would “put the property rights of every American entirely at the mercy of Environmental Protection Agency employees.” The missing word is “navigable.” The Obama administration is proposing a rule titled “Definition of ‘Waters of the United States’ Under the Clean Water Act,” which would strike “navigable” from American water law and redefine any piece of land that is wet at least part of the year, no matter how remote or isolated it...

The writing should be on the wall for this one, particularly since the Democrats have essentially lost coal country entirely, as Ed pointed out this weekend. Energy – and the millions of jobs associated with it – was featured on the campaign trail and proved a winning issue for Republicans. And now, as reported by The Hill, the new GOP majority in the Senate is gearing up to finally do more than just talk about it.

This gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “noble” cause corruption. Documentation follows. From IceAgeNow - the American EPA has stunned observers, with a list of inert additives for pesticide formulations they intend to ban, which includes the noble gas Argon. Its hard to imagine a more inoffensive substance than Argon. As a noble gas, Argon is chemically inert – it participates in no chemical reactions whatsoever, except under exotic conditions – there are no known chemical compounds which can survive at room temperature which include Argon. Argon is not a greenhouse gas. But Argon is incredibly useful to...

We’ve had plenty of time for the discussion of the EPA’s new green energy initiatives and carbon restrictions to sink in to the American collective consciousness. (Even if it does get shoved out of the news on a daily basis.) It’s also been made clear that these regulations are going to affect the available energy pool on the grid and exert upward pressure on retail prices for fuel, heating and electricity. The greater goal, we are told, is to reduce the nation’s overall carbon footprint and, presumably, improve the climate change situation. So how generous is the public feeling about...

Recent polls put climate change low on the list of Americans' pressing concerns, but that's not how EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy sees it: "From all the recent public opinion work out there on climate change, what stands out to me is this: First, people overwhelmingly consider climate change a problem, and they want action. And second, what’s even more impressive, is the overwhelming support specifically for EPA action to curb carbon pollution from power plants."

A recent blog post on Sightline, an environmental blog in the Northwest, celebrated the gusher of dependable revenue to Washington State flowing from a steep carbon tax. The post showcases just why a carbon tax is a dangerous policy. As we at IER have been warning for years, the advocates of a carbon tax are fooling themselves if they think it will be calibrated to the “optimal” level reflecting the “negative externality” of greenhouse gas emissions. And in this debate the most foolish of all are the handful of vocal conservatives claiming that a new carbon tax will be used...

The Environmental Protection Agency's controversial water rule passed a crucial test Thursday, gaining the approval of the agency's internal review board. The EPA's Science Advisory Board noted in a peer review of the rule that there is "strong scientific support" for the agency's proposed Waters of the U.S. regulation. The panel was reviewing the EPA's draft report on the connectivity of waterways around the country. "The report should also clearly indicate that the definitions used for rivers, streams, and wetlands are scientific, rather than legal or regulatory definitions," the board wrote.

The Environmental Protection Agency took the first step toward regulating a chemical in the country’s drinking water on Monday. The EPA issued a preliminary determination to regulate the chemical called strontium, which is a naturally occurring element. At elevated levels strontium can impact bone strength in people who don’t consume enough calcium, the EPA said. Strontium has been found in roughly 99 percent of the public water systems in the U.S..

Have you ever seen some water runoff in your yard during a hard rain and attempted to put a boat in it for an afternoon cruise? I didn’t think so. Such a thing is almost as ridiculous as the continued actions by the Obama Administration, and such runoff isn’t far from the type of “water” it is trying to put under the EPA’s control. Earlier this year, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (CoE) proposed a new regulation under the Clean Water Act (CWA) that would sweep in, as “waters of the U.S.,” millions of...

The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an industry challenge to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations issued by Republican former President George W. Bush's administration that set standards for ozone pollution. By declining to hear the case, the court left in place the so-called primary air quality standards designed to protect public health, which Democratic President Barack Obama's administration defended. Those rules, which set air quality standards that U.S. states and the federal government must implement through regulations, had been challenged by the Utility Air Regulatory Group, which represents electricity-generating companies.

The EPA is poised to “do an IRS” — similar to what the tax agency had to do with dismissed top official Lois G. Lerner — and officially notify the National Archives that it may have lost key electronic records, according to a think tank that’s suing to get text messages under an open-records request. Justice Department lawyers told a federal court on Tuesday that the alert will be coming soon, in a case that’s shaping up as a significant battle over whether government agencies are required to keep cellphone text messages as “official” records. In this case, researcher Chris...

Two Utah congressmen say the public needs more time to weigh in on a "sweeping" proposal to designate more than a half-million acres as critical habitat for the Western yellow-billed cuckoo. Republican Reps. Jason Chaffetz and Chris Stewart are among 17 members of Congress who urged U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe to extend the comment period on the designation beyond Oct. 14. "While we oppose this listing proposal, we find it completely unacceptable that the (agency) has proposed only 60 days of public comment with no public hearings, effectively shutting out meaningful comment on a sweeping critical...

In the wake of increasingly successful divestment actions aimed at carbon-producing industries, coal has turned into the new tobacco. While even natural gas mining has its vocal supporters despite the dangers of fracking, the supporters of coal are shrinking as the “clean coal” touted by candidates of both political parties looks more and more like an oxymoron. But what about the people who live in coal country? What is happening to them as the institutional investors withdraw their assets from the companies topping the Carbon 200 list? As institutional investors including foundations pull their assets out of coal, are foundations...

EPA has proposed one of the largest, most expensive regulations in American history. These rules will impact our entire economy, hurt America’s diverse energy portfolio, and result in higher electricity prices while having little benefit to the environment. EPA is asking for public comment on this vast, regulatory overreach between now and December 1, 2014. We need you to share your views with EPA by sending the letter below, or using the open space to personally tell EPA how higher energy prices will impact you, your business, and your family.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is looking into how to ban passengers from riding four wheelers in the name of public safety. The agency issued a “request for information” on Monday to learn the feasibility of prohibiting more than one person from riding an all-terrain vehicle (ATV). The notice will be published in the Federal Register on Tuesday. “Since the 1980s, the CPSC has addressed ATV safety through various activities, including rulemaking, recalls, consumer education, media outreach following fatal incidents, and litigation,” Todd A. Stevenson, secretary of the CPSC wrote. “Despite these activities, ATV-related fatalities continue to be one...