Media can't be bothered with reporting when the Brookings 'man' bites the dog named 'EPA'

Washington Examiner ^ | June 18, 2014 | Mark Tapscott |

[Cincinatus' Wife]

It's often said in the journalism business that there's no news when a dog bites a man but lots of it when the man sinks his choppers in the dog.

But what happens when the dog named "EPA" finds itself on the wrong end of the man named "Facts" concerning the alleged benefits of President Obama's proposed climate change regulations?

Nothing, at least as far as the national media is concerned. Facts about EPA, as presented by the Brookings Institution, simply aren't news.

EPA word games

That's curious because Brookings is not the first place one would go to find critical analyses of the selling of the Obama/EPA climate change regulatory regime aka "the war on coal."

But that's exactly what the venerable think tank made public last week in an innocuously titled study on "Determining the proper scope of climate change benefits."

The study was conducted by Brookings Vice President and Economic Studies Director Ted Gayer and Vanderbilt University Law Professor W. Kip Viscusi.

Apples and oranges "benefits"

Washington Examiner columnist Ron Arnold zeroes in on the unexpected point of the Brookings study, noting that "the EPA cleverly selected an 'apples and oranges' methodology that overstates the benefits so the regulation looks more attractive.

"The 'apples' are $30 billion in benefits worldwide and the 'oranges' are the American taxpayers who pay the whole world’s bill."

Gayer and Viscusi were a bit more diplomatic, saying "EPA’s methodology for calculating the benefit represents a shift away from typical practice. A more traditional cost-benefit analysis would estimate climate benefits of only $2 billion to $7 billion – less than the estimated compliance cost of the rule."

Did you catch that?

In other words, EPA's method for calculating the costs and benefits of the proposed regulation isn't credible and the true costs far exceed the claimed benefits, according to a think tank nobody ever accused of being a tool of Hillary Clinton's vast right-wing conspiracy.

Sound like news? Not in the mainstream media. Searches of their websites on the study's title turned up zero results for the New York Times, Washington Post, CBS News, NBC News, USA Today, CNN and ABC News. No news stories and no opinion pieces.

The study was similarly missed by the Rightstream media, including National Review Online, Weekly Standard, Washington Times, Washington Free Beacon and Daily Caller.

Ditto in the Leftstream media, with nothing turning up in searches of the websites of The Nation, New Republic, Washington Monthly and the American Prospect.

Kentucky's Rep. Ed Whitfield will have something to say about the Brookings study Thursday when he convenes a hearing of a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on "Standing up for jobs and energy."

[pgyanke]

We’re going to approach the record high temperature today... set in 1944. Clearly... global warming is advancing...

[RipSawyer]

“We’re going to approach the record high temperature today... set in 1944. Clearly... global warming is advancing...”
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I was born in ‘44, five days before D-Day. In 2007 I took my wife to Niagara falls in October and was amazed to find myself wiping sweat as I stood and looked at the falls. I stood there mopping my brow and reflecting that we used to go the county fair in South Carolina in October and shiver! It was almost enough to make me think that maybe, just maybe there really was something to the warming rants. Then I watched the news on a Canadian TV station and they were saying that it was the warmest October in Niagara Falls since...wait for it...WORLD WAR ONE.

[CORedneck]

I remember back in the late 1970’s, we had some of the coldest, most miserable weather/ And we got dictated by Jimmy Carter to keep our houses cold and have them colder during the night. Glad we were sensible enough to vote his @$$ out of office in 1980. Too bad we weren’t sensible to vote obama out of office, even even less sensible to vote for him for his first term ! And our gasoline prices are cruel now. I had an old manager even talk to us how we should not drive any faster than 55 mph ! Hope it stays away for good !