The Washington Post asks Heritage analyst Ben Lieberman: “Do you think EPA’s finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health will prod Congress to agree on its own method for limiting emissions? If not, what do you think would be the environmental and economic impact of the EPA regulations? Will this convince other countries that the U.S. is likely to make deep cuts in carbon in the near future?”
Lieberman responds:
It says a lot that the only global warming policy with legs right now is the one least subject to public accountability.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s finding that greenhouse gasses endanger public health allows unelected bureaucrats to do what our elected officials have thus far declined to do – crack down on fossil fuel use in the name of addressing global warming.
This regulatory end run around cap-and-trade legislation, which is stalled in the Senate, is the only thing preventing President Obama from going to the Copenhagen climate conference completely empty-handed. Beyond encouraging treaty negotiations, the threat of EPA regulations is also being used as a stick to prod along domestic legislation.
Even EPA administrator Lisa Jackson has admitted that the Clean Air Act is not well set up to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, saying that legislation is the preferred route. A million or more small businesses, farms and property owners could eventually be hit with a costly, intrusive, and time-consuming regulatory burden, and for little benefit in terms of reduced emissions.
The threat of very bad regulations should not spur slightly less bad legislation or a treaty. Global warming policy that imposes costs well in excess of benefits should be rejected, no matter what form it takes.
The fact that EPA has relied heavily on the very same science implicated in Climategate — leak of e-mails and other documents showing gross misconduct amongst many key global warming scientists — is further reason why the regulatory process should not proceed.
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4 commentsUsing the threat of executive level regulation to compel the US Congress to enact some variation of Cap and Trade is just another example of a liberal government intent on forcing a job-killing regulation on the population.
The Obama administration came up with this plan to provide a reason to pass Cap and Trade even though it will mean an incredible reduction in employment and increase in costs to taxpayers. It will be the poor and lower classes hurt by Cap and Trade the most, though… and these are supposed to be the ones Democrats are most concerned for.
MAS Denver
http://conservativeblog.thewebinfocenter.com
Who in the world, with a reasonable, rational mind, would fall for this without solid evidence? Carbon dioxide existed before mankind. As did plants and animals. If co2 were poison, members of the EPA wouldn't exist.
I hereby declare the unelected bureaucrats at the EPA to be a danger to the Constitution and the American people. We must regulate them by replacing their masters with those who will stop this madness. I'd like to see an EPA about one tenth its current size, with limited powers, and run by somebody with some common sense. This would be good for the economy and liberty in general.
I'm not about to be crushed by Washington statism. I'm angrier than I've ever been about this, and all the other federal assaults on the common American.
I see bad times and violence just around the corner if they continue screwing us over while trampling on our Constitution. "..its only keepers, the people." — George Washington
[…] trying to pull regulatory shams that will cost you both liberty and currency. For example, the EPA hopes to begin intimately regulating every carbon dioxide-producing outfit, which technically includes you, […]
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