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Obama Sidesteps Hill With EPA Carbon Limits
NewsMax.com
is reporting that the Obama administration will use government
agencies and the Clean Air Act to push through its global warming agenda
after failing in Congress. FoxNews.com reports that on January
2nd, new carbon limits will be set and the Environmental Protection
Agency will then draw up regulations requiring companies to get permits
to release greenhouse gases.
Fox said the administration, which
points to a 2007 Supreme Court ruling for its authority, plans to have
preliminary rules in place by the summer with final rules set for 2012.
American Enterprise Institute scientist Ken Green told Fox the
regulations are "job killers."
"Regulations, period -- any kind
of regulation is a weight on economy," he said. "It requires
people to comply with the law, which takes work hours and time, which
reduces the profitability of firms. Therefore, they grow more
slowly and you create less jobs."
Fox also cited a Wall Street
Journal op-ed by Rep Fred Upton, R-Mich., and Americans for Prosperity
president, Tim Phillips, that called for "Congress to overturn the EPA's
proposed greenhouse gas regulations outright. If Democrats refuse
to join Republicans in doing so, then they should at least join a
sensible bipartisan compromise to mandate that the EPA delay its
regulations until the courts complete their examination of the agency's
endangerment finding and proposed rules."
Obama’s EPA Pushes UN Socialism -- Err,
"Environmental Justice"
Susan Stamper Brown
says the United Nations’ (UN) current plan to discuss a treaty
proposal granting more rights to "mother earth" than humans is nothing
more than an elaborate attempt to re-market the climate change program
in a neatly wrapped package called "environmental justice."
The
UN proposal, drafted by Bolivian socialist president Evo Morales (the
same guy who claims that eating chicken causes male baldness and
homosexuality), is similar to a new Bolivian law which elevates trees,
animals, insects and "living things" to the same level as humans.
Raised to this new level, mother earth and her "living things" would be
assigned an authorized representative to hear complaints brought on
their behalf and would have the right to seek financial compensation for
damages.
All bug-stomping humans beware: Morales’ proposal does
not stop at financial compensation but goes a step further to execute
judgment upon the guilty by organizing a "tribunal for climate justice."
During an interview at the 2009 Climate Change Summit, Morales said
his plan to save the planet included ending luxury and consumerism,
while destroying capitalism and forcing rich nations to settle their
"climate debt" to the poor. Morales said capitalism is "the worst
enemy of humanity.
It may be just me, but does it seem that the
human race has gone stark raving mad that some would think it is
reasonable to ascribe human rights to grass and bugs? One can only
hope that someone will also provide delegates with a clean sandbox to
play in during recess, provided someone is there to monitor the rights
of the sand fleas. It is tempting to dismiss this plan by Morales
as ridiculous as the UN naming Iran to a women’s rights panel last
month, but it seems Morales has ready and willing partners in the U.S.
administration.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Administrator Lisa Jackson spoke last week at the Power Shift 2011
conference assuring an audience of young, impressionable minds that the
EPA has "restored science to its rightful place as the backbone of
everything the Environmental Protection Administration does, and that
includes the science of climate change. We are using that science
to take action on climate change."
Layman terms: Cap-and-Trade
legislation based on junk science failed, so the Obama administration
used the EPA to go through the back door. No wonder some prefer
the EPA be defunded.
Highlighting her list of accomplishments,
Jackson revealed her crème de la crème was expanding "the conversation
on environmental justice" -- that "unfinished business" -- in "low and
minority neighborhoods." Jackson reassured the activists that
Obama needed them to stay focused on promoting their beliefs that "there
is no difference and choice to be made between a healthy economy and a
clean and healthy environment."
Van Jones, the past Obama White
House "Green Czar" who resigned in 2009 after his "green
socialism/environmental bias" leanings surfaced, also spoke.
During the conference, Jones placed an Atlas-sized burden on the
shoulders of these easily influenced kids when he told them that "the
entire planet, the children of all species are banking on you."
Jones assured the audience that although he loves "rich people," he
intends to cash in on their money to fund the green movement cause.
In a January 30, 2005, Miami Herald editorial, former Greenpeace
co-founder and president, Dr. Patrick Moore said he left his own
organization because "much of the environmental movement, made a sharp
turn to the political left and began adopting extreme agendas that
abandoned science and logic in favor of emotion and sensationalism."
It’s only gotten worse. The once wholesome and worthwhile goal to
protect the planet was hijacked and turned into a pseudo religion -- by
some who care more about transferring America’s wealth than they do the
environment.
Obama's Other Hand
Investors Business Daily
says that while we were distracted by Obama's birth certificate
show-and-tell, his EPA releases its guidelines, expanding federal power
over the nation's waterways, ponds and puddles, under the Clean Water
Act. America's economy and freedom are at stake.
These
guidelines will take effect after a 60-day comment period and will serve
as a reference for environmental agencies in determining their
jurisdiction over a particular body of water, large or small. They
will eventually morph into binding regulations as damaging to our
economy and freedom as the EPA regulation of carbon dioxide emissions.
The 1972 Clean Water Act was originally intended to protect the
"navigable waters of the United States" -- you know, the kind boats
travel down. It was broadly and quickly interpreted to any pool of
water in America capable of supporting a bathtub-variety boat. The
word "navigable" was forgotten and ignored, and the act's scope expanded
to the point that water that collected after a rainstorm was considered
a "wetland" worthy of environmental protection. A 2006 U.S.
Supreme Court case from Michigan produced five different opinions and no
clear definition of which waterways were covered. This essentially
left the government with a clean slate on which to write its own
interpretation -- which was just about everything.
House
Agricultural Committee Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., says the expanded
EPA guidelines would let the government "regulate essentially any body
of water, such as a farm pond or even a ditch." A bipartisan group
of 170 congressmen wrote a letter to the EPA and the Army Corps of
Engineers urging them not to issue the expanded guidelines.
The
American Farm Bureau Federation said in a statement that the guidelines
"take an overly broad view of 'waters of the U.S.' It would serve
as a road map for EPA and the Corps to designate nearly all water
bodies, and even some on dry land, as subject to federal regulations
that dictate land-use decisions."
Not just agriculture but energy
production is affected. The EPA recently revoked the coal mining
permit for Arch Coal's Spruce Mine No. 1 in Logan County, W.Va.
The permit was issued four years ago and since then Arch Coal, which
provides 16% of America's supply, has followed every jot and title of
the rules it was told to operate under. It didn't matter -- after
an investment of $250 million in the mountain-top mining operation,
which when fully operational would have employed 215 miners directly and
300 indirect jobs in support services, it was ordered to shut down.
These were, no pun intended, "shovel-ready" jobs.
As we have
warned, the EPA said it was acting under the authority of the Clean
Water Act, saying the mine employed "destructive and unsustainable
mining practices that jeopardize the health of Appalachian communities
and clean water on which they depend."
The EPA is currently
suspending 79 such surface mining permits in West Virginia, Kentucky,
Ohio and Tennessee. It says these permits could violate the Clean
Water Act and warrant "enhanced" review. EPA Administrator Lisa
Jackson says she's not against coal mining, but wants to see it "done in
a way that minimizes impact to water quality."
This is not about
clean water any more than cap-and-trade is about climate change.
It's about increasing government power over our every aspect of our
lives. The power to regulate is the power to destroy, and part of
the administration's goal of raising energy prices to the point green
energy looks acceptable if not attractive.
Obama said the whole
"Birther" controversy was a distraction from other more important
things. That's just the way he wanted it.
