Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 12/07/2009 10:14:03 AM PST by TonyInOhio
The EPA is about to announce that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare, something that has in many ways been inevitable since the boneheaded SCOTUS ruling in Mass. vs EPA (which essentially found that the Clean Air Act was always intended to be Kyoto-on-steroids.) With thanks to my colleague Will Yeatman, here's a brief summary of what this means, and why you should be appalled.
Under the Clean Air Act, an “endangerment” finding means that the EPA will have to grant a waiver to those states (such as California) that want to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions from automobiles. The EPA has already agreed to do so. When “pollutants” that “endanger” human health and welfare are regulated, the EPA must expand its regulatory program to include “stationary” sources. The EPA has already announced that it will do so.
This is where Obama wants to get off the “endangerment” train, with the ability to regulate stationary and mobile sources (i.e., industry and cars) with almost complete discretion. These “endangerment” powers give the president tremendous leverage in a number of complex negotiations.
For example, the Obama administration already has told Congress that it will regulate greenhouse gases unless lawmakers deliver a cap-and-trade bill to his desk. The “endangerment” prerogatives also are the president’s bargaining chip in Copenhagen, where he plans on scoring his first diplomatic victory since his election night.
The problem is that the president can't get off the train where he wants. He simply can’t stop what he has started. Under the statutory language of the Clean Air Act, the regulation of mobile sources tripwires regulations for all stationary sources that emit more than 250 tons of a designated pollutant. For greenhouse gases, that’s pretty much everything larger than a Gore-sized mansion. These stationary sources would have to get a Prevention of Significant Deterioration permit for any significant modification, as would any new source. They would also have to get operating permits. The upshot is that millions of buildings would be subject to regulations. Small businesses will similarly be affected, as millions of businesses emit that amount of greenhouse gases. Fast-food franchises, apartment blocks, hospitals — you name it — will find themselves subject to EPA bureaucracy.
To get around this, Obama’s EPA proposed a “tailoring rule” that would change the language of the CAA so that the threshold would be 25,000 tons. The legality of this is very much in doubt, as it amounts to the executive branch legislating, and is therefore a violation of the separation of powers.
Also under the Clean Air Act, any “pollutant” that “endangers” human health and welfare, and which is regulated for stationary and mobile sources, becomes subject to National Ambient Air Quality Standards. As described above, the Obama administration is in the process of fulfilling all these NAAQS criteria.
Last week, two environmentalist groups petitioned the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases under NAAQS. Soon the EPA will have no choice. Once the NAAQS kicks in — and it will — the American economy is, not to put too fine a point on it, screwed. The government won’t be able to permit anything larger than a mansion. Taken to the extent mandated under the Clean Air Act, the EPA would probably have to order the shut-down of most industrial suppliers and users of conventional energy.
There’s only one remedy for this otherwise inevitable regulatory nightmare. The Congress must pass H. R. 391, legislation offered by Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R., Tenn.) that prohibits the EPA from using the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions.
“Stroke of the pen, law of the land.”
NOT what the Founding Fathers intended.
BTTT!
We have to get these leftist democrats out asap.
Attack, attack attack....Repeal the Clean Air Act !!
To get around this, Obama’s EPA proposed a “tailoring rule” that would change the language of the CAA so that the threshold would be 25,000 tons. The legality of this is very much in doubt, as it amounts to the executive branch legislating, and is therefore a violation of the separation of powers.
Also under the Clean Air Act, any “pollutant” that “endangers” human health and welfare, and which is regulated for stationary and mobile sources, becomes subject to National Ambient Air Quality Standards. As described above, the Obama administration is in the process of fulfilling all these NAAQS criteria.
Last week, two environmentalist groups petitioned the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases under NAAQS. Soon the EPA will have no choice. Once the NAAQS kicks in — and it will — the American economy is, not to put too fine a point on it, screwed. The government won’t be able to permit anything larger than a mansion. Taken to the extent mandated under the Clean Air Act, the EPA would probably have to order the shut-down of most industrial suppliers and users of conventional energy.
WHAT IS GOING ON?
THIS IS MINDLESS REGULATION.
“There’s only one remedy for this otherwise inevitable regulatory nightmare. The Congress must pass H. R. 391, legislation offered by Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R., Tenn.) that prohibits the EPA from using the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions.”
Even if they manage to pass the regulations they want, “regulations” can be litigated, and will be. As with any so called, “climate treaty”, we will never allow them to go into effect.
July 2, 2009
Senate May Pass U.S. Climate Bill, Reject Treaty, Kerry Says
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601130&sid=aMs9V_EUxE0Y
By Jim Efstathiou Jr. and Daniel Whitten
....”Passing __ domestic __ climate-change legislation remains __ the most crucial step, Purvis said.
<>
Ironically, The “EPA” came out and said “There are no findings that Co2 is dangerous to the environment...” Funny.... 6
Internal Memo Confirms EPA Regulation of CO2 Will Hurt Economy!
http://patrioticmind.com/2009/05/internal-memo-confirms-epa-regulation-of-co2-will-hurt-economy/
by Patriot-in-Chief on May 12, 2009 ·
ABC News Correspondent Jake Tapper is reporting on an internal Obama administration memo to the EPA. The memo is warning that regulation under the clean air act will damage the economy, especially small business and communities.
“That nine-page memo voices “a concern that EPA is making a finding based on (1) ‘harm’ from substances that have no demonstrated direct health effects, such as respiratory or toxic effects, (2) available scientific data that purports to conclusively establish the nature and extent of the adverse public health and welfare impacts are almost exclusively from non-EPA sources, and (3) applying a dramatically expanded precautionary principle.”
If the EPA goes forward with a finding of endangerment for all six greenhouse gases, the document warns, “it could be establishing a relaxed and expansive new standard for endangerment. Subsequently, EPA would be petitioned to find endangerment and regulate many other ‘pollutants’ for the sake of the precautionary principle (e.g., electromagnetic fields, perchlorates, endocrine disruptors, and noise).”
This is of course directly the opposite of the Obama administrations message to the public that Cap-and-Trade would be an economic boon to our country. Read the orignial memo here: EPA memo http://patrioticmind.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/epa.pdf
More information on this whole ongoing scam can be found here. http://patrioticmind.com/2009/04/taxing-the-very-air-we-breathe/
Update: Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) blogs on the “Smoking Gun” memo at Heritage.org.
Read it here. http://blog.heritage.org/2009/05/12/guest-blog-senator-john-barrasso-r-wy-uncovers-epa-deception/
Guest Blog: Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) Uncovers EPA Deception
Posted May 12th, 2009 at 3.39pm in Energy and Environment, Ongoing Priorities.
EPA Holds ‘Smoking Gun’ Memo from the White House
VIDEO at link
Today I exposed a “smoking gun” White House memo to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The memo warns that regulation of small CO2 emitters will have “serious economic consequences” for businesses and the overall economy. I was questioning EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson during the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee budget hearing.
I received the memo this morning, that’s marked ‘Deliberative: Attorney-Client Privilege’. In this memo Counsel for the White House repeatedly, repeatedly suggests a lack of scientific support for this proposed finding. This is a smoking gun, saying that the EPA findings were political and not scientific.
The EPA has failed to release the memo and has ignored the advice.
The nine-page White House memo undermines the EPA’s reasoning for a proposed finding that greenhouse gases are a danger to public health.
This misuse of the Clean Air Act will be a trigger for overwhelming regulation and lawsuits based on gases emitted from cars, schools, hospitals and small business. This will affect any number of other sources, including lawn mowers, snowmobiles and farms. This will be a disaster for the small businesses that drive America.
To quote from the memo to the EPA, “making the decision to regulate carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act for the first time is likely to have serious economic consequences for regulated entities throughout the US economy, including small businesses and small communities.”
The memo is an amalgamation of findings from government agencies’ sent from the Office of Management and Budget to the EPA.
This smoking gun memo is in stark contrast to the official position presented by the Administration and the EPA Administrator.
Despite the findings in the memo, the White House has given the EPA the green light to move ahead with regulation under the Clean Air Act.
According to government records, the document was submitted by the OMB as comment on the EPA’s April proposed finding that greenhouse gases are a danger to public health and welfare.
The memo - marked as “Deliberative-Attorney Client Privilege” - doesn’t have a date or a named author. But an OMB spokesman confirmed to news agencies that it was prepared by Obama administration staff.
BACKGROUND: The White House brief questions the link between the EPA’s scientific technical endangerment proposal and the EPA’s political summary. Administrator Jackson said in the endangerment summary that “scientific findings in totality point to compelling evidence of human-induced climate change, and that serious risks and potential impacts to public health and welfare have been clearly identified…”
The White House memo notes, the EPA endangerment technical document points out there are several areas where essential behaviors of greenhouse gases are “not well determined” and “not well understood.”
It warns about the adequacy of the EPA finding that the gases are a harm to the public when there is “no demonstrated direct health effects,” and the scientific data on which the agency relies are “almost exclusively from non-EPA sources.”
The memo contends that the endangerment finding, if finalized by the administration, could make agencies vulnerable to litigation alleging inadequate environmental permitting reviews, adding that the proposal could unintentionally trigger a cascade of regulations.
The views expressed by guest bloggers on the Foundry do not necessarily reflect the views of the Heritage Foundation.
There is an excellent chance the election of 2010 won’t mean anything.
Obama will take everything he wants by fiat.
If a bunch of RINOs go up there and continue their civil war with the conservatives, expect more of this type of stuff.
You wanted “Change” America. Now bend over and get ready to take it.
It's called a COUP.
Green is the new tyranny.
That's a great tagline, right there.
Obama will take everything he wants by fiat.
Well, with govt motors and stimulus bills and porkulus continuing, EPA rulings, Obamacare regulating doctors, I wouldn’t be surprised if he has the army in the streets next.
“There’s only one remedy for this otherwise inevitable regulatory nightmare.”
B.S.
I can think of a few more Remedies.
We’re done- We’re finished- the LIES have won, and the TRUTH has lost- with htis announcement, there is absolutely nothign that can be doen to stop this fraud- I’ve said right along that now that it has been discovered that ‘man-caused global wamring’ is a criminal fraud, that they were simply goign to change their wording to now say ‘CO2 is a pollutant which we must act now to reverse’ before ‘it’s too late to reverse it’
The EPA now has the legal power to enforce laws, and to extract taxes and fines, to control CO2 because it is now concidered a ‘dangerous greenhouse gas’, and it doesn’t matter if the earth warms, cools, or remains the same- they feel it’s their duty to enforce laws taxes and fines to control the gas- it’sa no logner about ‘climate change’, and is now only about ‘pollution control’
These freaking criminals have suceeded in scamming us all- defrauding us of trillions of dollars- all based on a lie that CO2 creates and environmental crisis that ‘needs to be fixed imediately’ accordign to hteir alarmism- I knew damn well these criminals were just simply goign to change the wordign to ‘pollution control’ to keep their criminal fraud alive
Well the answer is to STOP FUNDING THE EPA.
There that solves the problem.
[[To get around this, Obama’s EPA proposed a “tailoring rule” that would change the language of the CAA so that the threshold would be 25,000 tons. The legality of this is very much in doubt, as it amounts to the executive branch legislating, and is therefore a violation of the separation of powers.]]
It doesn;’t matter if it’s a violation of hte seperation of powers- this administration is continually violating the constitution because he knows he can, because he knows noone will seriously stand up against it- by all rights, he shoudl be immediately thrown out of office for violating his sworn duty and oath of office to proetect us from these kinds of fraudulent acts, and the democrats shopuld be immediately thrown out of office for failing to represent our best itnerests by scamming us- criminal charges shoudl be filed, and the government sued for deriliction of duty and engagign in a criminal act agaisnt hte people
But nope- NOONE is goign to stop these criminals, and so they don’t really care whether somethign is agaisnt hte law or not
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