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.

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.

The Year In Review

The Year in Moonbattery - 2009
Posted by Gregory of Yardale
December 31, 2009 6:56 AM

Let's take a quick look back at the first year in the new era of Hope and Change, shall we?

January - The Moonbat Messiah was inaugurated before a crowd that made rude chants at the departing President Bush and completely and utterly trashed the National Mall. And that was just the news media. The Moonbat Messiah immediately began filling his cabinet with tax cheats, dirty lawyers, radical communists, and eugenicists. One of his first acts was to sign a $787 Billion "Stimulus" package that promised to restore the USA to economic prosperity by the fall.

February - Obama's EPA began laying the groundwork to declare all human activity subject to Government regulation, via the human capacity for CO2 production, which the EPA designated a deadly gas despite the fact that plants need it to survive. The right-wing began to make jokes about Obama's Teleprompter dependency. It would be eight months before the left would do the same.

March - The Green Left designated polar bears the official iconic megafauna of the Global Warming Hoax, using a picture of some bears on an ice floe to claim that the big white beasts were facing extinction (when, in the real world, their numbers are increasing.) Lady M'Chel put in an appearance at soup kitchen and showed off her $540 kicks. Obama also rewarded his friends in Hamas with $900 Million in taxpayer dollars to thank them for their incessant rocket attacks against Israel.

Oh, and Keith Olbermann pitched a snit fit when Ann Coulter revealed that his prized Cornell degree actually came from Cornell's cow college affiliate.

April - It was discovered the Global Warmists were lying about sea ice melting away. Obama sent Air Force 1 to buzz lower Manhattan, just for kicks and giggles. Benedict Arlen Specter made a principled decision to become a Democrat when polls showed he was cheese toast if he ran as a Republican. Also, the totally free market "don't you dare call them socialists" government of B. Hussein Obama completed the nationalization of General Motors, with the Government and their union allies owning 80% of the company after telling investors who had loaned the companies billions "Be gone, Running Dog parasites! The means of production belong to the workers now."

In response to the predations of the Obamunists, a round of tea-parties were held to correspond with April 15th tax day. Distinguished journalists like Anderson Cooper and Rachel Maddow giggled like fifth graders at the word "tea-bag."

May -- The Progressive Left focused its rage and scorn on a person who represented the most serious threat to the American way of life in all the 233 years of the Republic's existence. I refer, of course, to Carrie Prejean; who received the kind of treatment from the mainstream media Hitler might have gotten had he been caught throwing puppies into a wood chipper.

June -- It was discovered that the EPA was burying memos that said Global Warming wasn't actually happening, per se. Also, 62 year old "comedian" David Letterman took a break from molesting the interns in his Manhattan production company to make some rape jokes about Sarah Palin's daughters; because it's just so funny when 62 year old men make lecherous jokes about young teenage girls.

President Barack Obama demonstrated his administration's commitment to transparency and the rule of law by firing an Inspector General who was investigating massive corruption on the part of one of M'Chel's cronies.

The Iranian Regime responded to pro-democracy demonstrations by brutally cracking down on protesters, murdering some in the street, and rounding up others for summary execution. To show his concern and support for democracy, President Obama went out and bought ice cream for his dog.

July --- Patriots celebrated the 4th of July with more tea parties to rouse a resistance against a president and a congress hellbent on tearing down the Republic the founding fathers fought so hard and sacrificed so much to bring into being. A West Coast blogger found a book co-authored by Obama's technology czar in which he advocated forced sterilizations and coerced abortions as a means of population control. Lefties defended him by saying, "It was the '70's." Not a reassuring defense given their moonbat messiah president's fondness for Jimmy Carter's policies. Meanwhile, crazy, lying, FoxNews personality Glenn Beck put up some crazy story about how Obama's (Ho!Ho!Ho!) Green Jobczar Van Jones was a radical communist 911 troofer. Beck was denounced as lying, insane, and dangerous. Within two weeks, Van Jones resigned in the middle of the night because ... well, because Beck was right. Keith Olbermann demanded that Beck be fired and threatened to engage in deranged, vituperative rants on his show every night until that happened.

Also, a racist Harvard professor got into a dispute with a white cop. PBO... who would later admonish Americans not to "jump to conclusions" about a mass murdering jihadist at Fort Hood and an attempting mass-murdering jihadist in Detroit... immediately declared in a press conference that the cop had "acted stupidly" while admitting he didn't know all the facts of the case.

And, a peer-reviewed article in the Journal of Geophysical Research confirmed that climate cycles are natural and Global Warming is a hoax.

August -- Democrat Congresspersons heard from their constituents on the Obama-Pelosi Health Care bill. Since they didn't like what they heard, they announced that all future contact with constituents would be limited to registered members of the SEIU. The SEUI responded by beating up black people and old ladies outside townhall meetings. One especially zealous thug bit off a guy's finger. Lefties responded with, "Under ObamaCare, people who have their fingers bitten off by Union Thugs will have them sewed back on for free," leaving out the word "eventually."

The infamous "Obama as Joker" poster appeared. Leftists went into apoplectic fits at this heresy against the Messiah, and pointed out that no president in history had ever been defaced in such a horrible, insulting, defamatory way.

The Government began a phenomenally successful program called "Cash for Clunkers" in which perfectly serviceable automobiles were destroyed and rendered inoperable in exchange for vehicles with marginally better fuel economy at an estimated cost of $24,000 per vehicle.Senator Ted Kennedy died, leaving John Kerry and Barney Frank to carry on the legacy of horrendously destructive far-left Democrat legislators from Massachusetts.

September --- PBO cancelled the US Missile Defense program for Eastern Europe, because he believed this show of "Smart Diplomacy" would convince Iran not to pursue its nuclear weapons program. In other news of smart diplomacy, Obama warmly welcomed Mo Qaddafi, Hugo Chavez, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejihad to the opening session of the UN. Not invited: The legitimate, constitutional leader of Honduras. Obama also declared the 9-11 should no longer be considered a day of remembrance, but instead a day in which the workers should offer the labors for the glory of the state.

During an address to Congress, Congressman Joe Wilson responded to one of Obama's many, many lies by shouting "You lie!" The left was again outraged, and pointed out that no president had ever, ever been heckled while giving a speech to Congress before.

California's farmers... driven to insolvency by a judge's edict to preserve a two inch fish... appealed to their senators to turn the water back on. The senators replied, "Sucks to be you, losers" and "Don't call me, Ma'am!"

NY Times columnist David Brooks revealed that he first fell in love with Obama while staring at the crease in his pants. A deranged Keith Olberman claimed he had the largest audience in cable news. If only Neilsen would count the voices in people's heads, it might be true.

Meanwhile, Glenn Beck... the man who always lies ... played tapes of ACORN offering to facilitate tax fraud, illegal immigration, and child prostitution. Democrats immediately demanded an investigation... of the two journalists who exposed ACORN's illegal activities.

Airstrip One officially recognized environmentalism as a religion. As soon as they designate economics a superstition, the transition to leftist belief will be complete.

October --- PBO was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. While admitting that he had accomplished nothing, the Nobel Committee said he deserved the award for being so "clean and articulate."
When word was leaked that Rush Limbaugh might become a 2% owner in the St. Louis Rams, the progressive left MSM publicized a number of racist quotations that... um... Limbaugh never actually said. When confronted, the MSM responded, "Who are you going to believe? Us, or a racist who wanted James Earl Ray to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor."

And Glenn Beck... the man who always lies ... played a video of Obama's Communications Director praising Chairman Mao and licking her lips like Mr. Ed going for the peanut butter. A few weeks later, she was gone.

November -- Republicans handily won the governorships in New Jersey and Virginia, and lost in a three way congressional race in NY in which no Republican was running. The left pointed to this as proof that conservatism was dead, dead, dead! Also, Sarah Palin sold about two million copies of her book, Going Rogue, which drove the left absolutely insane. David Letterman was hailed as a hero for not giving into a blackmailer who threatened to reveal the fact that he had sexually harassed many female interns. The interns were allowed to keep the Palin wigs after their encounters.

Also, leaked emails from Climate Scienticians proved that climate data were altered and deleted to artificially create "proof" of human-caused Global Warming. Progressive Leftists responded that the data that went into the Climate Change models were every bit as valid as the data that showed job creation under the Stimulus.

December -- An enormous contingent of moonbats flew to Copehagen in a veritable air force of private jets, generating as much CO2 in a week as an African country emits in a year, to save the planet from the dire consequences of wasteful CO2 production. And just to prove He has a sense of humor, God dumped half a foot of snow on them.

Senate Democrats finally passed a version of ObamaCare using last minute bribes to Senators Mary "Hello Sailor" Landrieu and Ben "Love You Long Time" Nelson.

On Christmas Day, a jihadist came within seconds of detonating a bomb on an aircraft with 278 people on board. The Secretary of Homeland Security declared that the system had worked perfectly, and the TSA would avoid future near-disasters by making it illegal for passengers to leave their seats during the last hour of a flight.

One year down, three to go... if we're lucky.

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.

There Are No Carbon Emissions In Copenhagen

This is why we affectionately refer to the Press Secretary as Baghdad Bob Gibbs.

Byron York - White House: EPA decision had nothing to do with Copenhagen; Climategate scandal will have no effect

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs is denying suggestions that the timing of the Environmental Protection Agency's decision to regulate carbon dioxide as a dangerous pollutant had anything to do with President Obama's upcoming appearance at the Copenhagen global warming summit. After all, Obama can now tell the summit that his administration will crack down on carbon dioxide emissions even if Congress fails to pass a cap-and-trade bill.

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.”

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."

Bob McDonnell Should Visit Dutch Gap

"I think it's a real concern, and we need to find ways to be able to reduce [carbon dioxide] emissions," Mr. McDonnell said in advocating development of technology to eliminate pollutants from coal-fired energy plants.

Hello!!! We have it and we are doing it.

Learn about it...talk about it.
We're one of the first, again.
Virginia has always been first.

Coal, National Security and Virginia Jobs

We have a petition opposing the Wacky-Marxist legislation.

It goes like this:

We, your constituents, have signed this petition against the passage of the Waxman-Markey bill and the Senate version of the Cap and Trade Bill and the trillions of dollars and the 100’s of thousands of jobs it will cost the Commonwealth and all of America.

This legislation will increase the cost of energy in the Commonwealth at a time when every feasible source of domestic energy should be explored and used, and at a time when Virginians can afford it least.

Virginia is a coal state. There are thousands of Virginians whose livelihood depends upon the production and use of coal; hard working, tax-paying Virginians who deserve better.

Coal is a reliable source of energy.

It is plentiful.

Clean coal technology works.

The theory of so-called “global warming”, or “climate change” is junk science.

CO2 is not a pollutant.

Ya'll know how I feel about domestic energy production and specifically, the use of coal. You know I help build clean coal facilities for Dominion Power. I've told people over and over, clean coal works its viable, and its cheap.

This is, IMAO, a states' rights issue. A 10th Amendment Issue. Its Virginia's coal. We should be able to use our resources as we see fit, within the guidelines of good sense and economic viability.

The current crop of new candidates seeking election to the House of Delegates and VA Senate would be well-served to address this issue now. Do not allow the radicals and outside agitators to dictate Virginia's economy. The future of Virginia jobs and her citizens depend on you for protection.

Thanks to one of my Facebook friends I found a link to a website supporting coal production in Appalachia. You'll see a new avatar on the left hand side of this website.

Go and sign the letter, please.

From the website:
Coal energizes our communities and the nation. It fuels our economy and powers our homes and businesses. It provides good jobs and an economic future for our families. But radical activists are determined to end coal in Appalachia. They don't care about our jobs, our communities or our future. Without coal, our thriving communities will not survive. Sign the letter today.

Dear Elected Officials,
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has arbitrarily decided to halt for further review 79 pending coal mining permits in the Appalachian states. These permits have been reviewed and approved by both state and federal regulatory authorities, after the EPA had commented, or chosen not to comment, on each of the permit applications.

Only when the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals wholly rejected the challenges by outside environmental activists, did EPA decide to intervene and reassert the same arguments the courts had already rejected.

EPA's action, or inaction, is threatening more than 100,000 jobs and further destabilizes communities that have been battered by the recession. Moreover, millions of Americans depend on coal for affordable electricity, and the Appalachian states depend on coal for tax revenue that keeps their budgets afloat.

When nationwide unemployment is at its highest level in years, the government should not stop Americans from going to work. When states are facing major budget shortfalls and even bankruptcy because of the weak economy, the federal government should not kill significant sources of revenue.

The consequences of the EPA's actions will be severe. Please take action today to pressure the EPA to lift these bureaucratic roadblocks. The future of families across Appalachia depends on you.

Thank you,

Global Warming - Explained?

Greenhouse gases are going to kill us all! Or not. Maybe. The science is settled.

This is a primer on The Greenhouse Effect. The author shows how the subject is settled, once and for all....

Except for the 280+ comments that can show otherwise....

Go get your brain tired. Very scientific discussion in the comments about this very interesting topic. Be prepared to learn some science.

And if you haven't exhausted your brain cells after that, Cold Facts on Global Warming, will fill in the science that the press and the advocates leave out of the newspaper. Notice that this was published in 2003. But, of course, there's no money in a "no greenhouse catastrophe" scenario...