Coal State Dem Moves to Block EPA From Regulating Carbon
| Mon Jan. 11, 2010 12:44 PM PST
The Environmental Protection Agency is preparing to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. But on Friday night, coal-friendly North Dakota Democrat Rep. Earl Pomeroy introduced a new bill that would block the agency from doing so. This isn't the first congressional attempt to prevent the EPA from doing its job: Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) is working on similar legislation in the Senate.
But Pomeroy's move is the first such ploy from a Democrat—and the wording of his measure is far more sweeping. While Murkowski has sought merely to delay EPA action by a year and cut off funds that would be used to regulate emissions, Pomeroy's bill would amend the Clean Air Act to exclude greenhouse gases altogether—a wholesale revision of the primary law governing air pollution in the United States.
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The Clean Air Act, passed in 1970 and updated in 1990, was designed to regulate airborne pollutants from automobiles, power plants, refineries, and other significant pollution sources. In 2007 the Supreme Court ruled in Massachusetts v. EPA that the agency not only could regulate greenhouse gases under the existing law if they were found to be a hazard to human health, but that the agency has an obligation to do so. Last month EPA issued a final rule that greenhouse gases do in fact imperil human health, triggering regulation.
The EPA is expected to release rules on automobile emissions in March, followed by rules for stationary emitters like power plants and factories. The agency has already issued a preliminary "tailoring" rule that narrow the scope of its regulations to the biggest polluters—those emitting more than 25,000 tons of greenhouse gas each year. Polluters would have to demonstrate that they have installed the best available technologies to control emissions in order to obtain an operating permit.
Pomeroy is arguing that such technologies are "unproven or incredibly expensive" and could effectively make "make new coal facilities impossible to build." (The rule would cover North Dakota's seven coal fired power plants and the Tesoro oil refinery, among other industries.) "Regulation of greenhouse gas emissions under the current provisions of the Clean Air Act is irresponsible and just plain wrong," said Pomeroy in a statement. "I am not about to let some Washington bureaucrat dictate new public policy that will raise our electricity rates and put at risk the thousands of coal-related jobs in our state."
It's true that the Clean Air Act wasn't originally intended to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. But the legislation also gave the EPA some flexibility to examine types of emissions and their impacts and regulate accordingly. There is pretty wide agreement among both advocates and opponents of climate action that the Clean Air Act is not the ideal method of regulating carbon emissions. But it is one legal tool available in the absence of a new law that tackles planet-warming pollution head-on. Environmental groups, the Obama administration and EPA administrator Lisa Jackson have argued repeatedly that Congress should pass a new law soon to avoid the prospect of the EPA going it alone.
While Pomeroy appears to be arguing that EPA regulations should be blocked to give Congress more time to pass a climate bill, that's not really what he wants. When given the opportunity to support the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill last June, North Dakota Democrat voted against the measure. He has exhibited little interest in any law that might crack down on the coal and oil industries.
Pomeroy's bill probably won't get a lot of traction in the House, but it does show that attacks on the EPA's authority to regulate emissions are coming from both Democrats and Republicans -- and there are probably only going to be more of them as the agency moves forward with regulations.
Comments
I can't wait for the first
Submitted by gomez (not verified) on Mon Jan. 11, 2010 1:57 PM PST.
I can't wait for the first lawsuit challenging the EPA to show that whatever number they come up with for limiting greenhouse gases was not arrived at in an arbitrary and capricious manner! Prove that a single coal power plant cannot emit more than X tons of CO2 per year in order to, DO WHAT??
Why Block Emissions?
Submitted by avannavon on Mon Jan. 11, 2010 2:43 PM PST.
Why wouldn't the sentient members of Congress step forward to block such insanity?
Aren't you paying enough for electricity already, without adding on another large and unnecessary TAX?
Want to prove once and for all whether or not Global Warming is real?
Okay, carbon dioxide makes up 0.04 of one percent of the total atmosphere.
Of that, 14% comes from human sources, so 0.14 times 0.04 = 0.0056 of one percent of the atmosphere is carbon dioxide from human sources.
About 25% of that amount represents an increase in carbon dioxide emissions by humans since the year 1900. So the total change in the amount of carbon dioxide attributable to humans since 1900 amounts to:
0.0056 X 0.25 = 0.0014 of one percent of the atmosphere.
Now, geniuses, ask yourselves if a change of fourteen thousandths of one percent of ANYTHING is likely to cause ANY kind of noticeable change in it?
U, duh, uh, uh....? You mean, the carbon dioxide emissions of humankind are less than a gnat's eyelash in Ma Nature's goulash? Yes, children, that is exactly what I mean.
Global Warming is a hoax, just like Global Cooling was---an obvious attempt by cynical leftist politicians to sop up more of your money and enslave you.
Cap and Trade would give them control over all the people on earth, including you "free" Americans. Think of it as an International Farm Bill, where Uncle Sam (YOU) pays the other countries not to work and develop.
In exchange for our money (literally our money) the Chinese and the Indians
were asked NOT to develop their industries and economies.
They told Obama three things you haven't heard from Mojo or other mainstream news sources:
1. Global warming is a hoax. People will figure that out and demand an end to Cap and Trade anyway. Why do it?
2. The United States is on the verge of bankruptcy. How could it possibly pay us enough to make up for the loss of the income we could earn ourselves?
3. Cap and Trade is immoral, because it would mean giving loathsome Third World dictators tons of money to play with, thus ensuring human suffering.
Okay, got the picture?
In light of that, instead of puerile assumptions about the Evil Monster of Big Industry Under the Bed, why SHOULD our government be spending any time or money on controlling carbon emissions? They'd be chasing around trying to regulate and control something that doesn't need to be controlled.
And COSTING YOU a very large increase in your monthly electrical bill to do it.
Better thank your lucky stars that a few Republicans are still holding the line against this crazy shinola.
Avannavon, you are a hoax
Submitted by Gary K on Tue Jan. 12, 2010 5:55 AM PST.
How many times are you going to keep posting this same old tired tripe?
Your arguments are fallacious. Go back to your Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, and Rush Limbaugh.
Your "small percentage" argument is a textbook example of "reductio ad absurdum." My proof of your fallacy can be shown by counter-example:
A lethal dose of Tetanus toxin for humans is 2.5 ng (thats 2.5 x 10^(-9) grams). Put that dose in a 150 lb person:
150 lbs = 68040 grams, so death is at a concentration of:
(2.5 x 10^(-9)/68040 = 3.67 x 10^(-14), or
.0000000000000367%
So, I dare you to consume .0014 of one percent of Tetanus toxin, or for that matter the same dose of Diptheria toxin, Ricin, LSD, Heroin, or Fluoride. Those are just a few I found with a quick Google search; I'm sure that .0014 of one percent of thousands of other substances would also kill you.
EPA
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon Jan. 11, 2010 2:55 PM PST.
My house is covered in a greasy sooty mess coming from the air in Southern Md. I am glad for the EPA. I just wish it had jurisdiction over the military as well. I don't know yet if this mess which is all over everything for miles around me, is from the jets or the coal powered power plant ten miles up the Potomac. With some more teeth in the regulations of the EPA, we can accomplish a lot in cleaning up our air and water, and thus reducing healthcare costs as well. I applaud the move by this administration in strengthening the EPA!
"I am not about to let some
Submitted by boredwell on Tue Jan. 12, 2010 1:25 AM PST.
"I am not about to let some Washington bureaucrat dictate new public policy that will raise our electricity rates and put at risk the thousands of coal-related jobs in our state." Odd that Pomeroy doesn't see the irony in his statement, ie, that he is, in fact, a Washington bureaucrat dictating new public policy. Arrrgh!
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