The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) endangerment finding gives the agency justification to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, most notably carbon dioxide (CO2), under the Clean Air Act (CAA). The EPA already began targeting motor vehicles last year and will start regulating emissions from new power plants and major expansions of large greenhouse-gas-emitting plants (more than 25,000 tons of CO2 per year) this year. Several Members of Congress released or plan to release bills to either delay or prohibit the EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gases. Some ideas are better than others; …
Since President Obama took office, there has been very little wiggle room for Members of Congress to reach a bipartisan agreement. This week the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee granted the President’s push for bipartisanship, ironically by creating a bipartisan oil spill commission that would compete with the Administration’s Obama-appointed one. The Hill reports: Five Democrats joined all 10 Republicans on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in agreeing to create a new bipartisan panel whose members would mostly be appointed by Congress. The proposal—offered by Sen. John …
The House of Representatives is prepared to pass the President’s energy tax, also known as the American Clean Energy and Security Act – or “ACES”. ACES is a fitting name for this particular bill, because it gambles with the future of the American people. In Blackjack, the dealer might have an ace showing, but one card in the dealer’s hand is always hidden. In this case, the hidden card is the real costs of this bill to the American taxpayer. What the taxpayer doesn’t know is that the odds for …
EPA Holds ‘Smoking Gun’ Memo from the White House [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-SvGLPjm5w[/youtube] Today I exposed a “smoking gun” White House memo to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The memo warns that regulation of small CO2 emitters will have “serious economic consequences” for businesses and the overall economy. I was questioning EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson during the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee budget hearing. I received the memo this morning, that’s marked ‘Deliberative: Attorney-Client Privilege’. In this memo Counsel for the White House repeatedly, repeatedly suggests a lack of scientific support for …
The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder reports that the environmental lobby is on red alert over an amendment to Obama’s Trillion Dollar Debt Plan from Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY). Ambinder says Barrasso is still a firm ‘no’ on the package, but is proposing an amendment that would exempt any project funded by the plan from a normally mandatory National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review. Normally it takes a federal construction projects an average of 4.4 years to complete a NEPA review. Throw in the Clean Water Act’s section 404 requirements, and before …
