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EPA Plan to Ban Coal Hits Major Roadblock
Townhall.com ^ | May 23, 2015 | Phil Kerpen

Posted on 05/23/2015 6:36:52 AM PDT by Kaslin

The EPA proposal to impose a de facto ban on new coal-fired power plants received more than two million comments from the public - but it looks like it was just one five-page comment from the Energy and Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal) that sent EPA scrambling back to the drawing board.

The draft rule mandated the use of so-called carbon capture and storage, a technology that would inject carbon dioxide underground but which has so far proved to be little more than a white elephant experiment. To mandate this technology, the law required the EPA to prove it was "adequately demonstrated" and "commercially available." Thanks to E&E Legal, they failed.

Dawn Reeves at Inside EPA broke the story that carbon capture and storage has apparently been dropped from the agency's final rule regulating greenhouse gas emissions. She also, curiously, reports that the White House may not allow the EPA to back down, instead forcing the agency to defend the legally indefensible in court.

But whether they win now or not until the issue is litigated, E&E Legal has scored a huge victory for the rule of law and economic common sense.

I reached out to Chris Horner, their lead author on the comment that carried the day.

"We submitted comments for the record explaining that EPA had made a mockery of the interagency review process, ignoring the government's own experts in order to push an ideological agenda," Horner said.

That's a crucial point because if the EPA is demonstrably not serving as an expert but an ideological actor, it would not warrant deference in court, making its whole global warming agenda vulnerable.

E&E Legal obtained information proving that expert analysis from the Department of Energy actually concluded the opposite of what the EPA claimed when they asserted that carbon capture and storage had been "adequately demonstrated."

"The truth is that the experts had persuasively argued the opposite, in effect, that carbon capture and storage has been demonstrated to be not viable," Horner said. "Making this more egregious, the Department of Energy had paid a quarter of a billion taxpayer dollars to learn this information and lesson that EPA ignored and even misrepresented."

The EPA was caught red-handed faking science and ignoring expert opinion, in effect requiring a technology that they knew did not practically exist. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that their actual intended purpose was indeed to impose a de facto ban on coal-fired power plants. And they might have gotten away with it if E&E Legal hadn't busted them.

The stakes are enormous because the rule on new power plants is also the legal predicate for the EPA's proposed rule regulating existing power plants. That rule establishes numerical emissions reduction targets for the states and coerces states to meet those targets by adopting cap-and-trade tax schemes and other policies that EPA cannot impose itself. All to achieve President Obama's goal of fighting global warming by making electricity prices "necessarily skyrocket."

If the EPA cannot, because of this now-exposed legal vulnerability, rely on carbon capture and storage, then the new source numerical targets will have to be revised up significantly, a major victory.

Unfortunately, the political activists who control the EPA see this as only a necessarily tactical retreat, with retooled rules still certain to impose steeply higher prices on consumers for emissions reductions that will have no impact on global carbon dioxide levels or global average temperatures.

That's why Horner hopes that the biggest impact of E&E Legal's depantsing of the EPA on carbon capture and storage, through a transparency campaign that continues regardless of EPA's rumored move, will be to discredit the EPA enough that Congress will step in to put a stop to the misuse of the 1970 Clean Air Act to do all of this. I couldn't agree more.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: climatechange; coal; energy; epa; globalwarming; globalwarminghoax; popefrancis; romancatholicism
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21 posted on 05/23/2015 12:48:19 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (Brian Moore was an exemplary cop. Let his conduct be the example for Baltimore police to follow.)
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To: Kaslin

Let me guess, storing dry ice under. And how are we going to freeze the dry ice other than burning more fuel to compress it?

This is beyond ridiculous.


22 posted on 05/23/2015 3:01:12 PM PDT by lavaroise (A well regulated gun being necessary to the state, the rights of the militia shall no)
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To: Kaslin

Alinsky: manufacturing hurts and grievances and opposite pleasure cults, in order to sue the nation into the ground for doing anything and control it all.


23 posted on 05/23/2015 3:03:05 PM PDT by lavaroise (A well regulated gun being necessary to the state, the rights of the militia shall no)
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To: Kaslin

Not the first time they failed! Wish they would go away, or at least return to the original mission and help America and industry succeed in a responsible manner.


24 posted on 05/23/2015 4:48:53 PM PDT by vpintheak (Call the left what they are - regressive control-freaks)
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To: Ben Ficklin
I have used ozone generators to make ozone gas to sterilize apple storage rooms. I have used the same generators to make ozone gas to kill bacteria in and on apple packing lines.

Ozone does a better job of sterilizing than any bactericide or chlorines could ever do and it is much safer since the MDS is far less demanding than any chemicals that can be used.

25 posted on 05/23/2015 8:08:06 PM PDT by Parmy
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks; Nachum

Oh, my! Did Hillary! finally figure out that she needs EVIL ELECTRICITY to run her numerous cellphones and secret servers so she can continue to sell America to foreign interests?

*SMIRK*


26 posted on 05/23/2015 8:10:30 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin (I don't have 'Hobbies.' I'm developing a robust Post-Apocalyptic skill set...)
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To: Parmy
Could it be that no matter what is done, CO2 is still less than .04% of the air we breathe. This whole idea of capturing CO2 is like trying to capture a 'will o' the wisp' which doesn't even exist.

CO2 is captured by plants but that requires enormous amounts of energy. Manmade CO2 can be captured "more easily" because it is captured at the exhaust pipe at much higher concentrations. Still hard but not nearly as hard. If man tried to pull some of the 0.04% from the air, that would be prohibitive in terms of energy, and pointless in terms of earth science.

27 posted on 05/23/2015 8:24:13 PM PDT by palmer (Net "neutrality" = Obama turning the internet into FlixNet)
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To: Kaslin

Unelected bureaucrats shouldn’t have the power to ban anything.


28 posted on 05/23/2015 9:01:38 PM PDT by Impy (They pull a knife, you pull a gun. That's the CHICAGO WAY, and that's how you beat the rats!)
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To: palmer
CO2 is captured by plants

Couldn't they dissolve it in water to grow a huge algae crop, which would feed fish, that we could barb-au-que?

29 posted on 05/23/2015 9:16:44 PM PDT by ROCKLOBSTER (Celebrate "Republicans Freed the Slaves Month")
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To: Impy

Exactly


30 posted on 05/24/2015 4:36:37 AM PDT by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him, and he got them. Now we all have to pay the consequenses)
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To: Parmy
Ozone is a "trivial name". It can mean different things. Likewise, "organic" can mean different things. Likewise with names like "green", "renewable", or "clean".

For your use it is a good "cleaner", "purifier", or oxidant.

Make sure your machine is working properly because it can give you respiratory problems

31 posted on 05/24/2015 4:39:15 AM PDT by Ben Ficklin
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To: Ben Ficklin
Ozone is a "trivial name". It can mean different things. Likewise, "organic" can mean different things. Likewise with names like "green", "renewable", or "clean". For your use it is a good "cleaner", "purifier", or oxidant.

How is ozone a trivial name? It is O3. That is what the generator makes. It is used in minuscule amounts. It is controlled in the same manner that a Nitrogen generator is used to flush ambient atmosphere out of a storage room to put apples into a Controlled Atmosphere situation.

32 posted on 05/24/2015 7:21:51 AM PDT by Parmy
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To: palmer
CO2 is captured by plants but that requires enormous amounts of energy. Manmade CO2 can be captured "more easily" because it is captured at the exhaust pipe at much higher concentrations.

Ok. What about all of the CO2 that is generated from volcanoes? What about all of the CO2 that we humans generate? There are 7 plus billion of us. Do you advocate strapping on a catalytic converter at the mouth to capture that CO2? Plus, what about the 3 plus liters of methane that the average adult human generates each and every day? How is that to be dealt with?

33 posted on 05/24/2015 7:26:08 AM PDT by Parmy
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To: Parmy

trivial means it is not systematic nomenclature


34 posted on 05/24/2015 7:33:57 AM PDT by Ben Ficklin
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To: Ben Ficklin
Ozone is a "trivial name".

Ozone is a specific molecule with three atoms of oxygen.

35 posted on 05/24/2015 7:35:11 AM PDT by ROCKLOBSTER (Celebrate "Republicans Freed the Slaves Month")
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To: Parmy
"Do you advocate strapping on a catalytic converter at the mouth to capture that CO2"

The regulatory threshold of CO2 is 100,000 tons per year, which means it applies to power plants, cement kilns, steel mills, etc.

36 posted on 05/24/2015 7:40:35 AM PDT by Ben Ficklin
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To: Ben Ficklin
"organic" can mean different things.

Also a specific chemistry term...carbon chain molecules...the substance of life.

No, words mean things. The green-weenie/junk scientoligists/communists have used "political correctness" to pervert the language.

37 posted on 05/24/2015 7:43:17 AM PDT by ROCKLOBSTER (Celebrate "Republicans Freed the Slaves Month")
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To: Ben Ficklin
The regulatory threshold of CO2 is 100,000 tons per year, which means it applies to power plants, cement kilns, steel mills, etc.

And, why 100,000 tons? Why not 1,000,000 tons? Or, why not any tons?

Once again, a single volcanic eruption far exceeds the total output of CO2 generated by industrialization since industrialization began. And the earth and life are still here.

And, again, what about those nations that aren't even concerned about their CO2 emissions? The smog in certain cities in China is so think it can nearly be cut with a knife. Pictures from space of Asia have shown a black pall that lies over certain parts of Asia.

38 posted on 05/24/2015 7:48:10 AM PDT by Parmy
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To: ROCKLOBSTER
"carbon chain molecules"

Any carbon containing molecule. Organic Chemistry is the study of carbon containing compounds, as opposed to inorganic chemistry.

Acetic Acid is an organic acid while sulfuric acid is an inorganic acid.

But if you look it up in the dictionary, you can find definitions for organic, organic compounds, organic food, organic soil, etc.

39 posted on 05/24/2015 8:00:25 AM PDT by Ben Ficklin
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To: Parmy
"And, why 100,000 tons?"

Because, Obama/EPA wanted to stay out of the way of Congress.

In 2009, Congress made an attempt to regulate CO2 with a cap and trade program, so EPA set their CO2 threshold at 100,000 tons because that was less stringent than what Congress was contemplating with the cap and trade program.

40 posted on 05/24/2015 8:07:09 AM PDT by Ben Ficklin
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