For Power, Not The People

This article in the Wall Street Journal seems to make clear that the EPA considers themselves an equal branch of government to congress. The very notion that this new policy puts pressure on elected law makers to craft a law to deal with CO2 or the agency will and is prepared to do it itself. How and under what constitutional authority do they derive such power? All branches of government are out of control and do not believe they need answer to the people any longer. This is evidenced by the forced passage of healthcare reform in the House despite numerous polls that suggest the people do not support the current legislation.

Now, emboldened by the examples set by Congress and the Judiciary with a sense of new found empowerment, even the Federal Agencies are stepping up and assuming power they do not process by law.

How long will the American people tolerate this? Do we have the fortitude to get this fixed in 2010 and can we hold off much of the intended destruction in the mean time?


EPA Poised to Declare CO2 a Public Danger

The Wall Street Journal, Dec. 6, 2009

WASHINGTON--The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will early next week, possibly as soon as Monday, officially declare carbon dioxide a public danger, a trigger that could mean regulation for emitters across the economy, according to several people close to the matter.
Such an "endangerment" decision is necessary for the EPA to move ahead early next year with new emission standards for cars. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has said it could also mean large emitters such as power stations, cement kilns, crude-oil refineries and chemical plants would have to curb their greenhouse gas output.
The announcement would also give President Barack Obama and his climate envoy negotiating leverage at a global climate summit starting next week in Copenhagen, Denmark and increase pressure on Congress to pass a climate bill that would modify the price of polluting.
While environmentalists celebrate EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gases, it has caused many large emitters to cringe at the potential costs of compliance.
According to a preliminary endangerment finding published in April, EPA scientists fear that man-made carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are contributing to a warming of the global climate. Senior EPA officials said in November the agency would likely make a final decision in December around the time of the summit.
Joe Mendelson, Global Warming Policy Director for National Wildlife Federation, said the endangerment decision, would happen at "absolutely the right time."
"With House legislation passed, a bipartisan Senate bill in the works, and strong EPA action a virtual certainty, the president goes to Copenhagen with a very strong hand to play," Mr. Mendelson said.
The EPA declaration would also ratchet up the pressure on U.S. lawmakers to pass legislation that analysts say would cut emissions in a more economically efficient way. Although the House has passed a climate bill, movement of similar legislation in the Senate has faced much more resistance and passage becomes more difficult in an election year.
The EPA's Ms. Jackson and President Obama's energy and climate czar Carol Browner have said they would prefer Congress to take action but are prepared to move ahead in the absence of lawmakers crafting their own law.
Industry experts say the Clean Air Act--under which the EPA is making its endangerment finding--was designed to regulate more regional and localized air pollution, and would be a much more blunt tool than Congress could craft. Critics, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, say the endangerment declaration could spark a cascade of litigation and regulation that could harm the economy.
The EPA, meanwhile, says it would regulate in a sensible way. The agency has already moved forward on two rules that would guide regulation of greenhouse-gas emissions, primarily through a proposal to set the threshold level at 25,000 tons a year and requiring such large emitters to report their emissions.
If the EPA decided to move ahead with emission regulations for stationary sources such as utilities, new rules would likely be in place by 2012 and could set stringent emission standards to require firms to install the best available technology.
Two people close to the matter who met with White House officials earlier this week said one change between the proposed endangerment finding issued earlier this year and the final announcement expected next week is the inclusion of the potential cost to society of no emission regulations.

Is the World Warming?

How is it that a major scandal like that involving the climate change group can be brushed aside? I fully understand why NBC won’t report on it. Their parent company, General Electric, is fully invested in climate change as they are who stands to gain the most from it by selling wind turbines and solar panels that will not stand on their on economic merits.

That does not explain why other networks and media outlets won’t report on it. Could it be that they have so bought into the rhetoric in the past, that to admit they were wrong now would damage their credibility. Perhaps, but it is likely far more simple than that. It might simply be that the political ideology and the candidates that they support have all bought into the program and therefore to report negatively on the subject is tantamount to disagreeing with the left wing liberals who stand to gain the most or who believe the best way to gain and maintain control is to redistribute wealth using the climate change format as justification.

There appears now to be no credible evidence that the change in our climate is anything more that the natural cyclical changes that have evolved on this earth for millions of years. Since the change appears to be natural and consistent with historical changes, we must conclude that the existence of man on the planet is merely coincidental and that man has had no impact on global climate.

Americans have done more to improve the lives of the world’s people than any other civilization in history. Yes, we have benefited the most as well. People around the world want what we have and somehow think the way to get it is to make the American’s pay for it. The idea is to raise the standard of living for the rest of the world while Americans will be forced economically to lower theirs. In essence, Americans will subsidize the world economy through climate change legislation.

As the world sends their representatives to the United Nations Summit on climate change, one has to wonder how many arrived in private jets and what is the carbon footprint of the meeting itself.