Legislation without representation: Murkowski resolution fails in Senate

By a 53-47 vote, the Senate defeated a resolution that would have effectively reversed the EPA's greenhouse gases endangerment finding.  From The Washington Times:

Environmentalists scored their first major Senate victory regarding climate change Thursday as Democrats gave a green light to the Environmental Protection Agency to impose strict new rules on greenhouse gas emissions.

Senators voted 53-47 to let the Obama administration proceed with its rules. But with all 41 Republicans and six Democrats voting to try to block the EPA, climate change remains a poisonous issue on Capitol Hill and the deeply divided tally likely heads off any chance the chamber could pass a broad climate policy this year.

Still, it's a high point for environmentalists, whose fortunes have improved dramatically since 1997, when the Senate voted 95-0 to tell President Clinton not to bother submitting the Kyoto Protocol climate treaty for ratification.

"Today, the Senate chose to move America forward, toward that clean energy economy - not backward to the same failed policies that have left our nation increasingly dependent on foreign oil," President Obama said, praising senators for giving his administration leeway to act.

More at The Wall Street Journal.

Putting aside my own considerable skepticism of the validity of the anthropogenic global warming premise on which all this insanity rests, this is a dangerous precedent for our republic.  If  Congress can abdicate its responsibility to govern on a matter with such grave consequences for the U.S. economy, and leave us all at the mercy of unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats, then what, pray tell, is next?

Senate to vote on Obama's power grab

Tomorrow the Senate will vote on a resolution to stop an egregious power grab by the executive branch.  Chris Horner has been on the case at The Daily Caller and Big Government.  From the former:

On Thursday, the Senate will vote on S.J.Res.26, a resolution to block EPA from usurping powers never delegated to it by Congress. Failure means allowing EPA to go forward, apparently in flagrant violation of our constitutional traditions simply because too many in Congress desire, but can’t bear to take responsibility for, more of the Obama agenda.

EPA’s breathtaking Power Grab raises questions critical to our form of governance. The powers EPA has claimed for itself include staking out national policy on the contentious “climate” issue, and even amending the Clean Air Act on its own initiative and authority.

S.J.Res. 26 was originated by Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). It is co-sponsored by 40 others, mostly Republicans but including three Democrats (the math of which also tells you that three Republicans are not on board: Sens. Brown, Collins and Snowe). It seeks to exercise, for just the second time, the Congressional Review Act passed in 1996 as part of the “Contract with America”. That law allows legislators to check bureaucrats gone wild by vetoing a “major rule” within 60 days of an agency publishing it.

In this case, the rule is the Obama EPA’s effort to delegate to itself inherently legislative powers. These include Congress’s authority—wisely eschewed to date—to regulate carbon dioxide as a “pollutant” under the Clean Air Act, which would make EPA an economic regulatory agency despite having been caught as complicit in promoting scandalous “climate science” in the push to spectacularly expand its budget and powers.

When the White House dispatched EPA chief Lisa Jackson to the Huffington Post to slam Murkowski's resolution, Horner was quick to point out how the administration's justifications for relegating what should clearly be a legislative matter to an unelected body of bureaucrats, keep changing to suit the political flavor of the day.  From Big Government:

So. The White House sent EPA chief Lisa Jackson over to HuffPo to slam (smear?) the Murkowski resolution set to be voted on in the Senate on Thursday, which is designed to block a Power Grab by EPA and thereby to maintain our Constitution’s separation of powers.

The White House then followed this by threatening to veto the resolution if it passes.

In both cases, Team Obama tie S.J.Res. 26 to the Gulf oil spill and argue that, by blocking EPA’s claimed authority to regulate greenhouse gases, this exercise of the Congressional Review Act would cruelly block the administration’s diligent and dedicated campaign to reduce our dependence on oil and reduce the risk of such spills in the future.

Huh? Far from sounding familiar (at least, before this newest revision of the reasons for the “global warming” agenda was rolled out last week), this should sound somewhat newfangled.

In fact here we see that the “global warming” agenda — that had already morphed into a “climate change” agenda before it was an energy tax to create new jobs (because we all know that’s what tax increases do, silly) — is actually aimed at stopping oil spills. And we’ve always been at war with Eastasia, Winston.

What we have now is a pristine case study of there being no good reason for an agenda, as proved by the fact that the reason for the agenda (read: excuse) keeps changing.

In what was surely little more than an exercise in cynicism, I performed a quick search to see just how deeply embedded are these real reasons for what has for years been a “global warming” regulatory agenda. It turns out that EPA forgot to cite them as the reason for, or even related to, its “Endangerment Finding” (that the Murkowski Resolution would block).

OK. To be generous beyond a fault, let’s say they cited these real reasons one half of one time. In 52 deathless pages of background and “global warming” hysteria.

Go ahead. Perform a word-search yourself. You’ll see the following:

“warming” — 82 invocations

“temperature” — 117 invocations

“climate change” — 259 invocations

“dependence” (or “independence”; or “depend” in any relevant way) — 0

“spill” — 0

“drill” or “drilling” — 0

“oil” — 1 relevant usage, but which, well… refers to a different rulemaking altogether, as part of EPA’s lengthy discourse of the regulatory context (see very bottom of page 5 of 52).

“automobile” — see “oil”, above; the same discussion dragged “fuel economy” into the mix.

It turns out that at the time, in promoting the “Finding” that the Murkowski resolution seeks to block, the administration actually forgot to make what are now apparently its marquee arguments for the thing. At least, to listen to their keening in opposition to the measure.

Zing!

Senate puts lipstick on cap and trade; states not impressed

I have written extensively about climate change legislation over the last two years, and you can easily search this site by entering "cap and trade" "climategate" or "EPA carbon" to read those entries, if you are so inclined.  The conventional wisdom in recent months has been that cap and trade legislation is permanently stalled in the Senate in the wake of leaked emails from the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit (aka Climategate), multiple erroneous or fraudulent data citations from the U.N. IPCC, and the worst economy since the Great Depression.  Don't believe it.  From The Financial Times (UK):

Three senior US lawmakers are piecing together a sweeping bipartisan energy and climate bill, which looks set to include sweeteners to galvanise support among Republicans and industry groups.

The proposed legislation, encouraged by President Barack Obama, dilutes a climate bill that stalled last year in the Senate. The senators have hosted meetings with industry groups over the past two weeks, revealing details about their plan that would cap carbon emissions while expanding offshore oil drilling and nuclear power generation.

Nearly six months have passed since the Senate’s last climate bill failed to win over conservatives and moderates, a political stalemate that cast a shadow on America’s presence at the Copenhagen climate summit. But some Democrats say the passage of healthcare reform has opened the door for climate change legislation, while acknowledging tradeoffs will be needed to secure 60 Senate votes. “They know that to pass a comprehensive bill they will have to ease concerns of some special interests and mid-western senators whose states have manufacturing-oriented economies,” said Daniel J. Weiss, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, a liberal think-tank.

Environmental groups are divided over the bill, with some decrying the push to pre-empt existing state and federal greenhouse gas regulations. But many moderate groups are withholding judgment until the bill is introduced, saying concessions to industry bodies will be necessary. According to people briefed by the senators, the bill aims to cut carbon emissions from 2005 levels by 17 per cent by 2020 and 80 per cent by 2050, largely by implementing separate caps on utilities and manufacturers. The federal government would sell separate pollution permits to each sector, using a “hard price collar” to limit greenhouse gas allowances to between $10 (£6.70) and $30 per ton, and committing to flood the market with credits if the price ceiling is exceeded.

The bill’s sponsors – John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat, Joseph Lieberman, the Independent from Connecticut, and Lindsay Graham, the South Carolina Republican – said the new sectoral approach would begin imposing carbon caps on utilities in 2012 and manufacturers in 2016.

If legislative initiatives fail, the Obama administration will certainly fall back to its backup plan of using the unelected regulatory agencies of the federal government to do his bidding.  Thankfully, the States are already mobilized to block this statist effort:

Illinois state Rep. Dan Reitz, a Democrat and a former coal miner, is worried that pending federal climate change rules will cripple the economy, and he wants Congress to step in and stop it.

Reitz, who represents the 116th District in southern Illinois, launched his own assault against U.S. EPA climate rules when he introduced a resolution urging Congress to postpone greenhouse gas regulations for factories, power plants and other so-called stationary emission sources. The Illinois House approved his resolution earlier this month.

"I believe that Congress should adopt legislation if we're going to regulate greenhouse gases from stationary sources," Reitz said in an interview. "We should be able to do that within the context of a bill and not do it within the regulatory measures that are out there right now."

Reitz is among at least 25 legislators in 17 states who have introduced measures aimed at blocking or limiting EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gases. Five of those bills came from Democrats.

At least seven such measures have been adopted. In addition to Reitz's resolution in Illinois, legislators in Alabama, Kansas, Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah have passed measures encouraging Congress to step in and block EPA climate rules or for the agency to halt its regulatory plans.

EPA this week is planning to issue the first national greenhouse gas standards for automobiles, a rule that will ultimately require the agency to regulate stationary sources' emissions of the heat-trapping gases. The Supreme Court ordered EPA in 2007 to determine whether greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health. EPA did so last year, paving the way for new emission rules.

The Obama administration and environmentalists argue EPA is compelled by the law and by science to begin clamping down on the emissions. EPA officials insist that they can do it in a way that won't cripple the economy.

Reitz, an elected Democratic legislator and former coal miner from the President's home state of Illinois has the audacity to challenge federal climate change regulations.  That shows personal courage and gives me hope for our Republic.

Call your Representatives and Senators and tell them to vote "no" on the new and improved cap and tax.

FCC: Taking title to the internet

From The American Spectator:

In the fight over the Obama Administration and Federal Communications Commission's attempts to regulate the Internet via a policy known as "net neutrality," a court case involving a cable company and an online company that enables Internet content sharing is forcing the Obama Administration to look for new ways to gain control of Internet networks.

Last month a federal court raised doubts about whether the FCC had jurisdiction over Internet Service Providers (ISPs), such as the company in question, Comcast, and AT&T and Verizon, when the FCC made a 2008 ruling that Comcast had illegally blocked the Internet content-sharing application BitTorrent. The court's questioning of the FCC authority now has many -- including senior FCC staff -- believing that the federal court will side with Comcast and rule that the agency has only "ancillary jurisdiction" over broadband services.

But already, the FCC is strategizing on how it can gain regulatory control of the Internet and the broadband networks that connect to it, if the courts rule against them. According to FCC sources, the agency is considering "reclassifying" broadband Internet services under rules that were once used for rotary phone service. To do this, the FCC would categorize broadband networks under Title II, or common carriage rules. Broadband networks have thus far been regulated under Title I, a section for "enhanced communications services."

"You have one set of rules, Title II, that were used for rotary phones, before there was a lot of competition in the communications space, like wireless and the like, and then you have Title I, which has rules more in line with the high-tech world," says an attorney who until recently worked at the FCC. "Common sense says, keep broadband and the Internet under rules for the modern world, not the rules that applied to a technology that was obsolete two decades ago. This just shows how desperate these people are to regulate the networks."

So, essentially, if the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rules that the FCC does not have the authority to regulate ISP's, then the FCC will just unilaterally reclassify internet service as Type II rotary phone service so it can regulate them?  What happened to the balance of powers and the three branches of government?  Isn't the executive branch supposed to execute the law?

Taken as a whole, the egregious overreaching of the unaccountable regulatory agencies of the Obama administration is frightening.  The Congress can't pass cap and trade legislation, so the Environmental Protection Agency will circumvent the legislative process by declaring that carbon dioxide is a toxic substance, and can therefore be regulated under the Clean Air Act.  And don't forget, the Food and Drug Administration has declared that raw oysters are also toxic, so no more oysters on the half shell, unless they have been "pasteurized."  And as Mark Steyn observed in a recent column, the Consumer Product Safety Commission has forced many resorts to shutdown their hazardous hot tubs:

In Canada, Karen Selick told readers of The Ottawa Citizen about her winter vacation in Arizona last month: "The resort suite I rented via the Internet promised a private patio with hot tub," she wrote. "Upon arrival, I found the door to my patio bolted shut. 'Entry prohibited by federal law,' read the sign. Hotel management explained that the drains in all the resort's hot tubs had recently been found not to comply with new safety regulations. Compliance costs would be astronomical. Dozens of hot tubs would instead be cemented over permanently." In the meantime, her suite had an attractive view of the federally-prohibited patio.

I often ponder what our Founding Fathers would think of this madness.

EPA declares carbon dioxide a danger to our health and welfare

From the Wall Street Journal:

The Environmental Protection Agency said greenhouse gases are a danger to public health and welfare in a decision that could eventually lead to new emissions regulations.




The so-called "endangerment finding" announced Monday by EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson is necessary to move ahead on new emission standards for cars, while potentially opening up large emitters such as power plants, crude-oil refineries and chemical plants to limits on their output of carbon dioxide and other gases.


"These long overdue findings cement 2009's place in history as the year when the U.S. government began addressing the challenge of greenhouse-gas pollution and seizing the opportunity of clean-energy reform," Ms. Jackson said in a statement.


The controversial decision, which the Obama administration indicated it would make earlier this year, comes as a global climate summit opens in Copenhagen, Denmark.


The move has been opposed by many business groups and lawmakers who fear it will place a burden on the economy.


The endangerment finding sets up regulation of greenhouse gases through the Clean Air Act, which some experts warn would be much more blunt than climate-change legislation crafted by Congress.

The "long overdue" description seems a bit disingenuous to me.  In light of the roadblocks to passing cap and trade in the Senate, recent revelations of possible climate data fraud in the East Anglian email scandal, and the high profile opening of the Copenhagen climate conference yesterday, I'd say Ms. Jackson's announcement was timed just perfectly for the Obama administration.  The President cannot afford the appearance of another defeat in Copenhagen.

The National Petrochemical & Refiners' Association (NPRA) also questioned the timing:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Charles T. Drevna, President of NPRA, the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association, today questioned the basic foundation and timing of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) greenhouse gas endangerment finding given the lack of scientific clarity and the international politics involved with the United Nations Climate Change Conference opening this week in Copenhagen.


“The implications of today’s action by EPA are far-reaching,” Drevna said. “Individual American consumers and businesses alike will be dramatically affected by this decision that, frankly, is based on selective science, a weak legal and policy foundation, and a failure to account for numerous uncertainties and assumptions in the models it relies on. This is yet another example of federal policymakers failing to consider the long-term consequences of a regulatory action for consumers and the economy as a whole.


“Given the remaining uncertainties over the extent to which China and India will meaningfully engage in the Copenhagen negotiations, it is hardly the time the risk the remainder of the U.S. industrial sector in an attempt to achieve a short-term international public relations victory.”

In a statement to the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce expressed concern about how resulting EPA regulation will hurt businesses.

An EPA endangerment finding "could result in a top-down command-and-control regime that will choke off growth by adding new mandates to virtually every major construction and renovation project," U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue said in a statement. "The devil will be in the details, and we look forward to working with the government to ensure we don't stifle our economic recovery," he said, noting that the group supports federal legislation.

The National Association of Manufacturers released a statement on the finding which said, in part:
 

The NAM is concerned that the EPA did not seriously take into consideration any of the thousands of comments manufacturers made on this proposal. The endangerment finding will have a cascading effect on the ability of all manufacturers to grow and prosper. By declaring GHG emissions a threat to public health and welfare through its endangerment finding, the EPA is paving the way to begin regulating carbon emissions across the board, including large stationary sources such as manufacturing plants, hospitals and libraries under the Clean Air Act.


Let me be clear: the NAM supports cost-effective efforts to address climate change but believes the appropriate authority to address this should be Congress. The EPA is moving forward with an agenda that will put additional burdens on manufacturers, cost jobs and drive up the price of energy. This finding comes when unemployment is hovering at 10 percent, and many manufacturers are struggling to stay in business. It is doubtful that this endangerment finding will achieve its stated goal, but it is certain to come at a huge cost to the economy.

There is something positively Orwellian going on here.  The President sponsors a "job summit" reminiscent of a college sociology seminar, while pushing full steam ahead with legislative and extra-legislative initiatives that will destroy the U.S. economy.

More censorship thuggery at the EPA

Fox News reports more censorship from the Environmental Protection Agency.

Laurie Williams and husband Alan Zabel worked for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for more than 20 years, and they know more about climate change than most politicians. But when the couple released a video on the Internet expressing their concerns over the Obama administration’s plans to use cap-and-trade legislation to fight climate change, they were told to keep it to themselves.

Williams and Zabel oppose cap and trade -- a controversial government allowance program in which companies are issued emissions limits, or caps, which they can then trade -- as a means to fight climate change.

On their own time, Williams and Zabel made a video expressing these opinions. [snip]

"Cap-and-trade with offsets provides a false sense of progress and puts money in the pockets of investors," Zabel said in the video. "We think that these restrictions might not be constitutional," he said.

Their bosses in San Francisco approved the effort by Williams and Zabel to release the tape, but after an editorial they wrote appeared in the Washington Post, EPA Director Lisa Jackson ordered the pair to remove the video or face disciplinary action.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibity (PEER) takes exception to the treatment of the two long-term federal employees.  You can read their news release here.  It says in part:

“EPA is abusing ethics rules to gag two conscientious employees who have every right to speak out as citizens,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, who has re-posted the original video and its script. “EPA reversed itself because someone in headquarters had a tantrum about their Washington Post essay.”

Williams and Zabel, who are married to each other, go to great lengths in the video and other writings to provide disclaimers affirming that their views are personal and do not represent the agency. However, EPA now objects to them even referring to their on-the-job experience as the basis for their views.

“How is government supposed to be transparent when public servants are forbidden from discussing the nature of their work?” asked Ruch. “EPA and every other federal agency should have simple, clear guidelines so that government workers can express themselves freely without political prior restraints.”

The video has been reposted on YouTube by many others since Williams and Zabel removed it.  You can watch it here.

Remember Alan Carlin?  He is a senior analyst in the EPA's National Center for Environmental Economics and a 37-year veteran of the agency.  He received the message that dissent was not welcome at EPA earlier this year.

In March, the Obama EPA prepared to engage the global-warming debate in an astounding new way, by issuing an "endangerment" finding on carbon. It establishes that carbon is a pollutant, and thereby gives the EPA the authority to regulate it -- even if Congress doesn't act.

Around this time, Mr. Carlin and a colleague presented a 98-page analysis arguing the agency should take another look, as the science behind man-made global warming is inconclusive at best. The analysis noted that global temperatures were on a downward trend. It pointed out problems with climate models. It highlighted new research that contradicts apocalyptic scenarios. "We believe our concerns and reservations are sufficiently important to warrant a serious review of the science by EPA," the report read.

The response to Mr. Carlin was an email from his boss, Al McGartland, forbidding him from "any direct communication" with anyone outside of his office with regard to his analysis. When Mr. Carlin tried again to disseminate his analysis, Mr. McGartland decreed: "The administrator and the administration have decided to move forward on endangerment, and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision. . . . I can only see one impact of your comments given where we are in the process, and that would be a very negative impact on our office."

He was subsequently ordered to spend no more EPA time on climate change.

More from the Wall Street Journal here.

Obama's War on Coal

During the presidential campaign, Senator Obama bragged to the San Francisco Chronicle that anyone planning to build a coal burning power plant in the United States during his administration would go bankrupt. But you wouldn't find that quote in the Chronicle.  Thankfully someone leaked the audio.  Remember this?




And what about the admission that electricity prices will necessarily skyrocket under his plan?



Well last month, true to his word, and without waiting for cap and trade legislation, the Obama EPA put the breaks on 79 applications for surface coal mining in four states.  Via AP:

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.

And last week, the EPA went even further, 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 industry under the Obama administration.  The people of West Virginia probably saw this coming, because John McCain carried the state in the 2008 election, but the governor seemed quite surprised:

Although his favored cap-and-trade bill hasn't yet been passed, West Virginia's Democratic Gov. Joe Manchin III, who supported Mr. Obama's candidacy, called the EPA moves part of a stealth campaign to stifle the industry.

"Right now, my belief is that they're trying to kill off surface mining through regulation what they cannot get done through legislation," Mr. Manchin told MetroNews Talkline, a West Virginia call-in radio program, earlier this month. In West Virginia, 23 permits are being held up, with other affected states being Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee.

Senator Rockefeller (D-WV) doesn't like it either:

But Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, West Virginia Democrat, who also backed the Obama presidential bid, is outraged that the EPA is revoking a permit in his state. "I am angry with the EPA's announcement that they will use veto power to revoke the authorized Spruce Mine permit in Logan," he said. "It is wrong and unfair for the EPA to change the rules for a permit that is already active."

And this from the West Virginia Register-Herald:

Coal is under attack by the Obama administration. And now, even those who supported the Obama-Biden ticket in 2008 have come to that realization.

In this case, I guess Obama meant exactly what he said.  Unfortunately nobody was listening.