Going After the EPA

Boehner, Barton Introduce Proposal To Halt EPA Ruling on CO2

Resolution of disapproval would prevent back door attempt at national energy tax

WASHINGTON – Republican leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, and 84 other Republicans today introduced H.J. Res. 77, a resolution of disapproval on the Environmental Protection Agency’s move to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant.

They said that under the endangerment finding – and the regulatory and legal red tape that flow from this expansion of government into our economic lives – the pace of U.S. economic growth will be stifled by the EPA and its controversial enforcement of environmental laws. American business owners and workers, they noted, want a clear and quick path to a robust, growing economy, not a thicket of new job-destroying regulations.

“The endangerment finding that EPA put out last year is fatally flawed,” said Barton, ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. “We want to send a very clear signal that what the EPA has done is wrong and it should be overturned by the elected members of the House and the Senate.”

In time, the new permitting and pollution control rules would potentially slam millions of very small sources of GHG emissions – office buildings, hotels, restaurants, hospitals, churches, farms and other small businesses. EPA admits that, without regulatory action, the rules flowing from the endangerment finding would subject millions of entities to new permitting requirements, would cost hundreds of billions of dollars just to do the paperwork and processing, be administratively impossible, and do little to protect the environment. This resolution clears away this barrier to job creation.

EPA recently wrote to Barton confirming that it has not fully assessed the costs of impacts on jobs or employment of moving forward with greenhouse gas rules. The agency also confirmed that it has no evaluations prepared of possible job loss or shifts in employment that may occur because of the new or future rules.

While recognizing the total costs are unknown, EPA declined to provide assurances that the endangerment regulations would not cause major job losses.

A copy of the resolution can be found here.

Virginia AG Puts His Foot Down

EDITORIAL: Cuccinelli fights the EPA
Virginia attorney general questions global warming red tape

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli took a gutsy and intelligent step Feb. 17 when he petitioned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider its ill-advised "finding" that carbon dioxide creates an endangerment for human health.

The endangerment finding would let the EPA battle alleged global warming by regulating emissions of CO2, which of course is the gas that every animal and person exhales with every breath. The finding was ludicrous from the start, and now Mr. Cuccinelli makes a reasonable case that it also was unlawful.

"Attorney General Cuccinelli believes that the EPA acted in an arbitrary and capricious fashion and failed to properly exercise its judgment by relying almost exclusively on reports from the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an arm of the United Nations] in attributing climate change to [human-caused] greenhouse gas emissions," the AG's office explains. "The IPCC is an international body that is not subject to U.S. data quality and transparency standards and the IPCC prepared their reports in total disregard to U.S. Standards."

Since the EPA finding was issued, the IPPC's reports have become subject to scandal on multiple fronts. Those scandals reached a crescendo when a British newspaper, the Daily Mail, reported Feb. 14 that "The academic at the centre of the 'Climategate' affair, whose raw data is crucial to the theory of climate change, has admitted that he has trouble 'keeping track' of the information. ... And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no 'statistically significant' warming."

Obviously, if the EPA were relying on bad data like all of the other climate-change fanatics, it ought to reconsider its plans to further strangle our struggling economy with more unnecessary red tape.

Mr. Cuccinelli argues that the EPA failed to meet its responsibility to conduct appropriate cost-benefit analysis, and that the economic harm to American citizens - including Virginians - would outweigh any purported benefits of the new regulations.

As the AG put it, "We cannot allow unelected bureaucrats with political agendas to use falsified data to regulate American industry and drive our economy into the ground." Of course, he's spot on.

This Is Why We Elected Him

Virginia Attorney General Challenges EPA Power Grab on Carbon Emissions
BY John McCormack

Virginia's attorney general Ken Cuccinelli filed a petition yesterday to challenge the Environmental Protection Agency's December 7 ruling that it would regulate greenhouse gases as it would air pollutants under the Clean Air Act--a back door attempt to accomplish what Congress can't through cap and trade. Cuccinelli argues that the scandal surrounding "climate change" reports should force the EPA to reconsider its ruling. He said of the Climategate scandal at a press conference today: "This wasn't the pursuit of truth. It was political science, not science in the typical sense of the word."

As Steven F. Hayward wrote in THE WEEKLY STANDARD in December on "The EPA's Power Grab":
The greatest irony of the EPA's entry into the fray is that it may reopen the supposedly "settled" question of climate science itself, which has new salience because of the firestorm over the "climategate" scandal involving the leaked emails from the University of East Anglia. There is in addition a separate tale of leaked emails from the EPA itself that has received surprisingly little attention.

Designating carbon dioxide as a Clean Air Act "pollutant" involves a finding that CO2 is a hazard to human health. Common sense suggests this is a stretch. Unlike ozone, which burns lung tissue and harms plant growth, or airborne lead, which harms brain development in children, human beings exhale carbon dioxide--800 pounds per person per year according to the EPA--and CO2 is the primary nutrient for plant life on earth. Since the EPA can't make the case that CO2 is toxic like other air pollution, it based its endangerment finding entirely on indirect or secondary effects, specifically the possibility of more deaths from heat waves, higher ozone levels (ozone tends to rise with temperature), more insect-borne diseases and allergies, and higher vulnerability to extreme weather events such as hurricanes and tornadoes. Each of these claims rests on dubious or contested scientific findings.

In general, human health in the United States keeps improving. Deaths from heat waves in this country have been steadily declining. The EPA's own models project falling ozone levels for the next generation. Vector-borne disease rates (think malaria) correlate much more closely with wealth and poverty than with temperature, and recent research casts doubt on the super-hurricane scenarios.

But according to the Washington Post, the global warming reports have been "questioned for mistakes ranging from typographical errors to problems with sourcing." You know, a typo here, a bad footnote there--nothing so scandalous as "hid[ing] the decline" in a set of global temperature records.

Cap and Trade Fraud Investigation

DC Protest Warrior: Cap and Trade Fraud Investigation

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- U.S. legislators have obtained a court order unsealing documents in a case involving a multi-million-dollar cap-and-trade fraud.

Republican legislators say the records--due to be opened to the public in early January--could shed light on the potential challenges of policing a new, trillion-dollar commodities market that would be created under climate legislation that Congress is considering.

In a rare filing by House lawyers, Reps. Joe Barton (R., Texas) and Greg Walden (R., Ore.), the ranking members respectively of the Energy Committee and the Oversight Subcommittee, asked a federal district court in California to unseal all the closed records regarding the successful prosecution for fraud of Anne Masters Sholtz, a former California Institute of Technology economist.

A Message From FACES of Coal

As 2009 draws to a close, we would like to thank you for your support of FACES of Coal and your efforts to ensure that lawmakers and the American people understand that coal energizes our nation and fuels our economy.

Since we launched our campaign in August,

• 40,000 individuals have registered as members of FACES of Coal;
• 104 organizations, including chambers of commerce, fiscal courts, manufacturers and retailers, support our coalition; and
• 1,349 lawmakers representing 44 states have received 30,000 e-mails and letters in support of coal.

Washington bureaucrats have still taken no action on dozens of mining permits that have been arbitrarily stalled. Our legislators have still not delivered the balanced energy and economic policy we need and deserve.

The future of coal mining in America remains uncertain, and we need you to continue writing and calling your elected representatives (you can do so now by clicking the link below).

Remind them our holiday lights are shining bright because of the affordable electricity generated by coal. And we can provide good food and gifts to our families and friends in our warm homes, because of the good jobs sustained by coal.

Thank you for your efforts to protect our jobs and secure our future.

We wish you and yours a happy holiday season and a prosperous New Year.

Federation for American Coal, Energy and Security(FACES of Coal)

Click the link below to log in and send your message:
http://www.votervoice.net/link/target/faces39210323.aspx

100 Reasons Why Global Warming Is Natrual

** EXPRESS NEWS: 100 REASONS WHY GLOBAL WARMING IS NATURAL**


HERE are the first 10 reasons, released in a dossier issued by the European Foundation, why climate change is natural and not man-made:

You can read the rest of them here.

1) There is “no real scientific proof” that the current warming is caused by the rise of greenhouse gases from man’s activity.
2) Man-made carbon dioxide emissions throughout human history constitute less than 0.00022 percent of the total naturally emitted from the mantle of the earth during geological history.
3) Warmer periods of the Earth’s history came around 800 years before rises in CO2 levels.
4) After World War II, there was a huge surge in recorded CO2 emissions but global temperatures fell for four decades after 1940.
5) Throughout the Earth’s history, temperatures have often been warmer than now and CO2 levels have often been higher – more than ten times as high.
6) Significant changes in climate have continually occurred throughout geologic time.
7) The 0.7C increase in the average global temperature over the last hundred years is entirely consistent with well-established, long-term, natural climate trends.
8) The IPCC theory is driven by just 60 scientists and favourable reviewers not the 4,000 usually cited.
9) Leaked e-mails from British climate scientists – in a scandal known as “Climate-gate” - suggest that that has been manipulated to exaggerate global warming
10) A large body of scientific research suggests that the sun is responsible for the greater share of climate change during the past hundred years.

How Cap and Trade Works

From www.congress.org:

As world leaders meet in Copenhagen to discuss global warming, the U.S. Senate is considering a bill to create a cap and trade system.

The measure under debate would put a cap -- or limit -- on the amount of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States in a given year.

It would also allow polluters to trade their permits for emissions.

But how would it work exactly?

Watch a brief video explaining cap and trade on Congress.org.

End Run To Circumvent Constitutional Requirement

The key word in this article is "toxic". CO2 is going to be placed in the same category as mercury and lead. CO2 is NOT a toxic substance. If it were, plants would be dead. This is an end run by the administration to avoid the required Senate ratification of a treaty. In other words, its a Marxist tactic. Hows that hopey-changey thing working for ya so far?

Wall Street Journal -- Business Fumes Over Carbon Dioxide Rule

With the chance for a global treaty on carbon dioxide looking unlikely and the U.S. Senate not interested in taking up the president’s cap and trade plan, the Obama administration is about to take the next step in regulating greenhouse gasses in the same way they restrict emissions of mercury and other toxic substances.

Writers Jeffrey Ball and Charles Forelle look at the EPA’s move to finalize it’s carbon-dioxide “endangerment” finding today or Tuesday, a move that advances the policy business people see as the worst possible outcome.

“The spokeswoman said that the EPA is confident the basis for its decision will be "very strong," and that when it is published, "we invite the public to review the extensive scientific analysis informing" the decision.

EPA action would give President Barack Obama something to show leaders from other nations when he attends the Copenhagen conference on Dec. 18 and tries to persuade them that the U.S. is serious about cutting its contribution to global greenhouse-gas emissions.”

Its A Crime OK, but the Victim Is Fighting Back

How Much Longer Before Climategate Explodes?

"You call it 'Climategate,' I call it 'E-mail-theft-gate. ...This is a crime." -Senator Barbara Boxer

Well, Barbara "Call Me Senator" Boxer, at least got the crime part right.

The Lame Stream Media (LSM) are doing their best to ignore Climategate,while they desperately try to come up with some consensus on how to spin it.

Well guess what bozos, you can't spin this one, it's too big. You keep standing in its way, and it'll squash you like a steam-roller going over amarshmallow. This isn't just the biggest story of the 21st century. This is the biggest fraud in world history. Good luck spinning this one away.

As Jonah Goldberg points out in a recent article, the fact that the LSM is covering up Climategate, is a scandal in its own right. The LSM is practicing CYA, by either (like Boxer) building a "strawman" to attack, or trying to dismiss it as something beneath their notice-some inconsequential blip on the radar screen.

The LSM are not covering Climategate because;
(1) they are directly, or indirectly connected to the scandal; like New YorkTimes reporter Andrew Revkin, or
(2) the company that they work for, has huge investments in "green technology" based on the global warming fraud-like the NBC/GE connection, or
(3) they don't want to get "egg on their face," for having so vociferously and doggedly promoted, what has turned out to be a Big Lie, and
(4) they have ideological blinders on-they don't care what the truth is, they only want to push Agenda 21-style programs. It is this last reason that is the most dangerous and troubling.

Agenda 21, as you no doubt know, is the UN's effort to place all of the world under its control (at the behest of a Global Elite). I won't bother to go into its history with The Club of Rome, the Rockefellers, and the UN's Earth Summit in 1992, et al. It's enough to be aware that Agenda 21 is designed to destroy America's middle-class, ruin America's economy, steal America's sovereignty, and abolish America's freedom.

One can only hope that a number of reporters in the LSM, wake up and say,"Hey wait a second, I didn't sign on for THAT." They need to realize that they have been duped, and used as "useful idiots"by Far Left puppet masters. The LSM are moving like a horde of lemmings, in thrall to some herd instinct-humming "Deutschland Uber Alles," as they blindly march-step off a cliff.

By being good little "greenie weenies" they have been cutting their own throats, and America's. In spite of the LSM's silence, Climategate has been rapidly taking on a life of its own. Phil Jones has resigned as the head of the Climate Research Unit (CRU) atthe University of East Anglia. Michael "Hide the Decline" Mann, author of the infamous "hockey stick graph," is under investigation by his employer, Penn State. (Personally, I think Penn State's "Joe Pa" Paterno ought to march over to Mann, and kick his butt-on second thought, Joe should send over one of his Nittany Lions).

Cap and Tax-NewsMax

Nobel Prize-Winner: Cap-and-Trade Could Ruin U.S. Economy

With climate change legislation under consideration by Congress, an environmental expert with a Nobel Prize-winning organization warns that the cap-and-trade bill supported by Democrats could destroy the American economy.

Dr. Steve Running, Director of the University of Montana’s Climate Change Studies program, is on the board of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with global warming crusader Algore.

During a Wednesday interview with a radio talk show host in Montana, Dr. Running said efforts to deal with climate change will fail unless they involve all nations.

"If the U.S. passed cap-and-trade and other countries did not, it wouldn’t work," he declared.

"It would ruin the U.S. economy and it wouldn’t save the climate either. So this is a global issue, the global climate statistics are global in nature, global carbon emissions are global in nature, and we really have to have an international consensus of what to do. That is going to stretch our international diplomacy to its limit, there’s no doubt about that."

Running called on the U.S. to show leadership on the climate change issue, saying other countries will follow suit. But China and India, two nations that produce large amounts of greenhouse gases, are not expected to adopt cap-and-trade measures like those being debated in the U.S. Congress.

Sen. James Inhofe, the ranking Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, has voiced sentiments similar to Dr. Running's. He told Newsmax in a recent interview that cap-and-trade won't work because "it doesn't matter what we do in America — if we drive our manufacturing base off to places like China, India, and Mexico, places where they don't have any emissions standards or restrictions, then it's going to have the effect of increasing and not deceasing CO2."

He also said cap-and-trade would amount to the "largest tax increase in the history of America."

Reminder: Dick Armey and FreedomWorks in Richmond

Reminder: Armey Event in Richmond Thursday

This is a quick reminder about the FreedomWorks Virginia event in Richmond on Thursday, October 29th at the Europa Cafe (1409 E Cary St.) at 6pm.

FreedomWorks Chairman Dick Armey will be discussing the Tea Party movement, healthcare, cap and tax, among other relevant issues. The event will also feature Doc Thompson of WRVA-Richmond and John Taylor of The Virginia Institute and Tertium Quids. John Taylor will focus on issues central to Virginia - a critical state in the upcoming election.

This will be a great chance to meet other area activists and talk strategy on the big state and federal issues we're facing.

In the meantime, make sure you've seen the latest in our Health Care Online War Room and a new tool we launched last week to stop Cap and Trade, the next big government bailout.

While there is no charge for this event, we appreciate any help with expenses.

I hope to see you there!

Another RINO That Needs To GO ASAP

The Seduction Of Lindsey Graham
Nancy Morgan
RightBias.com
October 17, 2009

This article was first published by American Thinker on October 16, 2009

According to most conservatives in South Carolina, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has officially gone over to the dark side. Under the guise of 'bipartisanship,' Graham has signed on to one of the left's most ambitious plans to impose a socialist agenda in America - government control of the formerly free market through implementation of cap-and trade, the 1,400 plus page Waxman-Markey bill approved earlier this year by the House.

The main (scientifically unproven) premise of cap and trade is that the earth is melting and government must step in to save the world. Of course, it will be expensive, but hey, this is Mother Earth we're talking about. And its urgent and essential that the government immediately establish a $700 billion "market" for business to buy and sell "steadily declining number of permits for creating carbon emissions."

In a New York Times Op-Ed Graham co-authored with Sen. John Kerry (did you know he served in Viet Nam?) cutely entitled 'Yes We Can' (get it?) Sen Graham states "..we agree that climate change is real and threatens our economy and national security."
Huh?

Reasons 7 Thru 10 of "10 Reasons to Oppose Cap and Tax"

7. It prevents market forces from working for the environment:

The market distortions imposed by a cap and trade system would be significant. Recently, major energy companies such as ExxonMobil and Shell have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in technologies that capture and store carbon as well as lower carbon alternative energy sources. A cap and trade system however, sets up perverse incentives that will distract these and other companies from market-based solutions to curb carbon output. Resources instead will be funneled to the artificial market for carbon allowances that cap and trade sets up.

8. It threatens to put the U.S. at a competitive disadvantage with other countries:

Though the E.U. and the United States may be buying into cap and trade, industrial giants like China and India are not. Remember the lost jobs we talked about in point #4? In addition to China and India, nearby Mexico (another country where cap and trade is not even a remote possibility) are more than willing to pick up the U.S. slack and bolster their already robust manufacturing sectors.

9. It opens the door to massive fraud and corruption:

As energy companies look to game the system, cap and trade would open the door wide for fraud and corruption that could devastate U.S. investors and the economy as a whole. This has been seen already in the UK, a country currently participating in cap and trade. In a recent article by the British-based Guardian newspaper they report: “Britain’s biggest polluting companies are abusing a European emission trading scheme (ETS) designed to tackle global warming by cashing in their carbon credits in order to bolster ailing balance sheets.”

In the United States we have seen what happens when companies engage in creative accounting measures to hide losses and the staggering domino effect it can have on Wall Street investors and the larger economy. If you need more proof of this threat, look no further than this report by The Competitive Enterprise Institute that discusses Enron’s support for a cap and trade scheme that would allow them to dominate this new, made-up market for carbon.

10. It threatens to bust the federal budget at a time when the United States can scarcely afford it:

Federal spending continues at a breakneck pace. The recent passage of the trillion-dollar stimulus bill along with even more taxpayer funded bailouts looming on the horizon add to U.S. budget woes and sink us deeper into recession. And as if times weren’t tough enough, the CBO reports that cap and trade would heap additional undue pressure on our fragile budget.

According to their report, government would face the same challenges with higher energy costs that consumers do. Additionally, the fall in production for U.S. industry would lead to a loss of federal government tax revenues. Further increasing spending while decreasing revenues makes cap and trade a tough sell in the current economic climate.

Reasons 5 and 6 of "10 Reasons To Oppose Cap and Tax"

5. It is in effect a hidden regressive tax:

We’ve talked about how cap and trade causes energy prices to goup. That doesn’t just hit American industry, but American consumers as well. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) correctly notes that as these prices go up in the form of higher gasoline, heating oil, and electricity, the poor are hit hardest with what is in effect a hidden regressive tax.

President Obama promises to return revenues to vulnerable communities, families and businesses, but that leaves taxpayers at the whim of government to redistribute income rather than letting taxpayer keep their hard earned dollars.

6. It sets a dangerous precedent:

While extremist environmentalists and their liberal allies have been whining about climate change for years, most stop short of declaring cap and trade the silver-bullet solution.

Environmental groups like the Sierra Club and the National Resources Defense Council are generally supportive of the concept of cap and trade.

However, as The Heritage Foundation has pointed out, these groups have found fault with actual proposals such as America’s Climate Security Act of 2007, criticizing them for not going far enough and willing only to endorse them as “a good first step.”

As much damage as a cap and trade scheme would cause in its own right, this posture by extreme environmental groups foreshadows even more draconian regulations in our future.

Reasons 3 and 4 of "10 Reasons To Oppose Cap and Tax"

3. It doesn’t work where it has been tried:
Speaking of Europe, let’s take a closer look at how cap and trade is fairing. As mentioned earlier, the EU is watching carbon emission levels rise despite the fact that they have had a cap and trade system since 2005.

Furthermore, the Heartland Institute reports that 12 of the 15 EU nations taking part in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, a program that sets greenhouse gas reduction targets and serves as a precursor to cap and trade, are failing to meet their reduction targets, with three going over by more than 10 percent and another three going over by more than 20 percent.

In fact, emissions for all EU countries went up on average 2.1 percent between 2000 and 2004. Compare this with the United States where currently no such regulatory regime exists and yet emissions went up only 1.3 percent during the same time period. Nonetheless, President Obama has announced an aggressive set of targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, promising to “work expeditiously with key stakeholders and the Congress to develop an economy-wide emissions reduction program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions approximately 14 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, and approximately 83 percent below 2005 levels by 2050.”

4. It will cost Americans jobs:
This calculation is a pretty simple one. For U.S. industry to comply with a cap and trade scheme, they have to reduce their carbon emissions. There are two ways to do this:

(1) produce less – this obviously hurts jobs as companies would seek to streamline their workforce to compensate for a drop in production, or

(2) buy carbon allowances in order to keep production up – this, too, would threaten jobs as companies would be forced to devote more internal resources to allowances, negatively effecting their bottom lines and potentially putting workers on the chopping block.

In either case, the rising costs of energy under a cap and trade system, as mentioned earlier, only add to the problem. An analysis conducted by Charles River Associates in 2007 estimated anywhere from 1.2 million to 2.3 million jobs would be lost under a cap and trade scheme.

FreedomWorks 2 of 10 Reasons To Oppose Cap and Tax

Nancy Pelosi has repeatedly stated that Cap and Trade will be a priority for the 111th Congress. Embraced some years ago in Europe and a few other countries, cap and trade creates an artificial market for various industries to buy, sell, and trade allowances that permit a certain amount of carbon output. It has long been on the wish list for American liberals and extremist environmentalists.

And with Democrats now in control of Congress and the White House, pssage of this monstrosity is almost a certainy. In fact, in the 2010 White House budget, President Barack Obama calls for a sweeping cap and trade program that would raise $646 billion in new revenues.

Here are FreedomWorks’ Top 10 reasons why they shouldn’t…

1. It will raise energy costs: While different nuanced approaches continue to surface, any analysis of any cap and trade scheme comes to the same conclusion; energy costs will go up. The latest serious attempt to enact cap and trade in the United States, America’s Climate Security Act of 2007 sponsored by Sens.Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and John Warner (R-VA), serves as a good example. An analysis of this legislation cited during a Senate hearing held by the Committee on Environment and Public Works estimated the costs to the average American household would be between $800 and $1,300 by 2015, and then increasing to $1,500 to $2,500 by 2050.

2. It doesn’t help the environment: If energy costs are going to go up for Americans, shouldn’t there be significant environmental benefit and progress towards reversing climate change?

You would think so. But even if the most aggressive of cap and trade schemes were properly adhered to, scientists that both advocate and oppose a cap and trade program widely agree that the maximum drop to the earth’s temperature would be no more than 0.07 degrees Celsius by the year 2050.

To give some sense of just how negligible this decrease would be, we cannot even estimate the absolute mean surface temperature of the earth within 0.07. What’s worse is that cap and trade actually provides incentives to emit more carbon, not less.

An article by the Christian Science Monitor explains: “By turning carbon emissions into commodities that can be bought and sold, cap-and-trade policies could remove the stigma from producing such emissions.”

In other words, if industries understand they are working within a legal framework when they output carbon, the public pressure for them to cut down is weakened.

Evidence of this can be seen in Europe where most countries have seen carbon emissions go up, even though the European Union has had a cap and trade regime in place since 2005.

Two From the Weekly Standard

By my all-time favorite conservative Lady, The Hammer.
Funny smart and beautiful.

The MSM Fails Me Once Again With Irresponsible Coverage of Shirtless Obama
(Caution Ladies: Gratuitous Beefcake Ahead)

If there were any objectivity in political journalism, there would be far more (or at least equivalent) coverage of shirtless Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) as there is of the less impressively shirtless President Barack Obama.

As it is, we will have to make do with the Washington Post's story on Flake's cast-away vacation, and the accompanying slideshow. Flake's physique is not destined to be swooned over by tabloid mags and celebrity blogs, or hailed by Chris Matthews as a testament to his supreme discipline. Because only Obama's pecs bespeak such leadership qualities, dontcha know?

The story of his solo island adventure—the fruition of a childhood dream to live the Crusoe life— is a great read. I'm trying to picture Harry Waxman spearing fish for lunch among the black-tip sharks, and I'm coming up empty.

Now, I don't post this picture for ogling. Just like Goldfarb's post about the pageantry of the ChiCom military parade, this is meant as a serious, timely political observation.

I'm just bringing you the truth no one else will. Who you gonna believe? The Washingtonian or your lying eyes?

Photo comparison below the fold:
Continue reading "The MSM Fails Me Once Again With Irresponsible Coverage of Shirtless Obama" »

Mary Katharine Ham at 03:30 PM


Obama Speaks About Creating Jobs,
CBO Says Cap-and-Trade Will Kill Them

Barack Obama, speaking at a stimulus-sponsored construction project in Fairfax County, Va. today:
"Our goal is not just to rebound from this recession, but to start building an economy that works for all Americans, where everyone who's looking for work can find a job; and not just a temporary job, but a permanent job that lasts from season to season; where our stock market isn't only rising again, but our businesses are hiring again."

CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf speaking to a Senate panel about cap-and-trade legislation today: "The net effect of that we think would likely be some decline in employment during the transition because labor markets don't move that fluidly," Mr. Elmendorf said, testifying before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Obama: "You know, hardworking Americans have borne the brunt of this recession. They've been laid off in historic numbers, they've seen their hours trimmed and their wages cut, they've lived in fear of being the next ones to be let go. And that's not right."

Elmendorf: "The fact that jobs turn up somewhere else for some people does not mean there aren't substantial costs borne by people, communities, firms and affected industries," he said.

Obama: "And we are going to keep on going until we make sure that every single American in this country who's looking for work is going to be able to get the kind of well-paying job that supports their families."

Elmendorf: The CBO estimates that the House-passed climate legislation, a template for the Senate version, would reduce gross domestic product by up to 0.75% by 2020 and 3.5% by 2050.

Mary Katharine Ham at 05:15 PM

Cap and Trade-A Federal Leviathan

and we have an update, courtesey of the DC Examiner:

Wall Street Journal -- Senators to Unveil Draft Climate Bill

The global warming bill from senators Barbara Boxer and John Kerry is either a real effort to rekindle climate legislation in the Senate or just a vanity project. Based on the sponsors, you certainly can’t rule out the latter.

Writers Ian Talley and Stephen Power outline the ideas behind the Boxer-Kerry plan to be introduced in happy generalities today. But the lack of specifics and hugely optimistic estimates make it unlikely that any action will be taken soon.

“Unlike the House bill, the Senate's draft bill would preserve the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency to use the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases. Because that law generally gives the EPA limited flexibility to consider costs when setting regulations, some business groups and many lawmakers fear the agency's regulation of greenhouse gases could lead to onerous, new rules on business.

In a bid to gain support from moderates within the Democratic Party and potential Republican votes, the Boxer-Kerry draft also includes provisions to fund training of workers in the nuclear industry and development of technology that could reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from coal-fired power plants.”

Not Everyone Won the Cap and Trade Lobbying Battle

This bill is so bad, I've decided to rename it the Wacky-Marxist Energy Bill.

The cap and trade bill introduced by Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Edward Markey (D-MA) and passed in the House is 1,427 pages and includes much more than a cap and trade system to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. We’ve been detailing these economically harmful provisions in our cap and trade calamities, but Kathleen Hartnett White at the Texas Public Policy Foundation provides a tremendous synopsis of the entire bill and asks many tough questions in her policy paper, A Federal Leviathan: The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009.

One particularly revealing part of the paper is the graph on the bottom of page three. Approximately 2,340 energy lobbyists worked on the cap-and-trade bill to do what President Obama said we shouldn’t – hand out allowances costs to utilities and other industries direct revenue to them. Opposition to this huge energy tax bill wheeling, dealing and arm-twisting to eke out the narrowest of majorities. They promised generous handouts for various industries and special interests but not everyone came out winners. The blue indicates the emissions by industry and the red indicates the allowances allocated by the government.

As shown by the graph, the refining and petroleum products industry, responsible for much of the carbon emissions from energy, receive the very little allowance allocations. White writes,

“Under the aggressive carbon caps, many U.S. industries could not compete with foreign products manufactured in countries without binding carbon limits. And increased import of goods manufactured elsewhere without carbon limits would
increase global carbon emissions. To address this “carbon leakage,” the bill provides for “carbon emission allowance rebates” to industries which meet specified levels of “trade intensity” or “energy intensity.” Petroleum refining, oddly, is excluded from those eligible.”

The other loser is, of course, me and you. The disguised energy tax will cost a family of four an additional $3,000 per year. When all the tax impacts have been added up, we find that the average per-family-of-four costs rise by almost $3,000 per year. In the year 2035 alone, the tax impact is $4,600. And if you add up the costs per family for the whole energy tax aggregated from 2012 to 2035, the years in which we modeled the bill, it’s about $71,500.

Giving away allowances are not an exception to the “no free lunches” adage. Giving away allowances does not lower the costs of cap and trade; it merely shifts the costs around.

Waxman-Markey is Robin Hood in reverse: it takes a lot of money from regular Americans and funnels it to Washington bureaucrats and the corporations with the best lobbyists.

Impact of the Waxman–Markey Climate Change Legislation on Virginia

This paper, in its entirety, can be found at:
www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/wm2585-VA.cfm


On June 26, a 1,427-page climate change bill introduced by Representatives Henry Waxman (D–CA) and Edward Markey (D–MA) passed the House by a narrow margin. The bill, also known as Waxman–Markey, includes a number of alarming provisions, chief among them a cap-and-trade program that would attempt to curb global warming by imposing strict upper limits on the emission of six greenhouse gases, with the primary emphasis on carbon dioxide (CO2).

The mechanism for capping these emissions requires emitters to acquire federally created permits (or “allowances”) for each ton of greenhouse gas emitted. Because these allowances carry a price—and because 85 percent of the United States’ energy needs come from carbon-emitting fossil fuels—Waxman–Markey is best described as a significant tax on energy use. Since everything Americans use and produce requires energy, the tax hits U.S. pocketbooks again and again. The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis forecasts severe consequences, including skyrocketing energy costs, millions of jobs lost, and falling household income and economic activity—all for negligible changes in the global temperature.

Workers and families in Virginia may be wondering how cap-and-trade legislation would affect their income, their jobs, and the cost of energy. Implementing Waxman–Markey would put a chokehold on Virginia’s economic potential, reducing gross state product by $14.75 billion in 2035.

Consumers would be hit hard. Between 2012 (when the restrictions first apply) and 2035 (the last year of this analysis), the prices of electricity and gasoline will rise sharply when compared to prices in a world without cap and trade. By 2035, Americans living in the state of Virginia will see their electricity prices rise by $1,031.73 and their gasoline prices rise by $1.31 per gallon solely because of Waxman–Markey.

The Waxman–Markey Effect
For the state of Virginia, over the 2012–2035 timeframe, on average the Waxman–Markey bill would:
• Lower gross state product by $8,762 million
• Reduce personal income by $3,247 million
• Destroy 26,604 jobs
• Raise electricity prices by $532.18 per household,
• Raise gasoline prices by $0.64 cents per gallon
Source: Heritage Foundation calculations based on the IHS/Global Insight U.S. Macroeconomic and Energy models.

If You're Not Getting The Patriot Post, You're Not Getting It

I've been reading Mark Alexander since forever; back when it was the Federalist Digest.
If you don't get this delivered to your email box every week, three times a week, you're woefully under-informed.

THE DEMO-GOGUES

The Waxman-Malarkey cap and tax bill is bad news
Biggest Big Lie of the Year: "Just last Friday, the House of Representatives came together to pass an extraordinary piece of legislation that will finally open the door to decreasing our dependence on foreign oil, preventing the worst consequences of climate change, and making clean energy the profitable kind of energy. Thanks to members of Congress who were willing to place America's progress before the usual Washington politics, this bill will create new businesses, new industries, and millions of new jobs, all without imposing untenable new burdens on the American people or America's businesses." --President Barack Obama on the cap and tax bill
**In January 2008, Obama said, "[U]nder my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket ... because I'm capping greenhouse gasses, coal power plants, natural gas ... you name it ... whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, they would have to retro-fit their operations. That will cost money. ...[T]hey will pass that money on to the consumers." He was right then.

Queen Nancy patting her own back:
"We passed transformational legislation, which will take us into the future. For some it was a very difficult vote because the entrenched agents of the status quo were out there full force, jamming the lines in their districts and here, and they withstood that." --House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on cap and tax

Projecting Demo faults on the GOP:
"[Republicans] want to play politics and see if they can keep any achievements from being accomplished that may be beneficial to the Democrats. They're rooting against the country and I think in this case, even rooting against the world because the world needs to get its act together to stop global warming." --Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA)

How many politicians does it take to change a light bulb: "The first step we're taking sets new efficiency standards on fluorescent and incandescent lighting. I know light bulbs may not seem sexy, but this simple action holds enormous promise because 7 percent of all the energy consumed in America is used to light our homes and our businesses. Between 2012 and 2042 these new standards will save consumers up to $4 billion a year. We're going to start here at the White House. Secretary Chu has already started to take a look at our light bulbs and we're going to see what we need to replace them with energy efficient light bulbs." --Barack Obama