The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is on a mission to further unilaterally expand its already vast regulatory powers in the name of “sustainable development.” Congress should take action to rein in the agency before it’s too late. An EPA-requested report issued in August by the National Research Council (NRC), a private nonprofit, lays out “an operational framework for integrating sustainability as one of the key drivers within the regulatory responsibilities of EPA.” The NRC and the EPA held a meeting on the report just last week. The exact meaning of …
President Barack Obama’s $814 billion stimulus has been a tremendous objective failure. The White House promised that unemployment would never rise above 8%. But this month the unemployment rose to 9.8 percent, marking the 19th consecutive month that our nation’s unemployment rate topped 9 percent, a post–World War II record. The failure of Obama’s economic stimulus is so evident that now even the left is beginning to ask why. Former Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee member and Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson notes in his op-ed today: When Democratic senators and …
The Department of Interior and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEM) announced that blanket environmental exemptions, such as the one granted to BP, will not be given until “it undertakes a comprehensive review of its National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) process and the use of categorical exclusions for exploration and drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf.” The government should use this time to enact smarter regulations, not unnecessary regulations that make it too costly for projects to move forward. The NEPA process was originally set up to …
The New York Times reports today that only 8.4% of the $3.2 billion Congress included in President Barack Obama’s failed stimulus to create green jobs by improving energy efficiency has been spent through July. From the NYT: The program was to provide money for the purchase of better lighting or heating and cooling equipment for buildings like city halls and schools. But it is off to the same slow start as a bigger program that was initiated at the same time to weatherize the homes of low-income people around the …
An “angry” President Barack Obama lashed out at those he feels are responsible for the Gulf oil spill Friday, telling reporters in the Rose Garden: “You had executives of BP and Transocean and Halliburton falling over each other to point the finger of blame at somebody else. I will not tolerate any more finger-pointing or irresponsibility.” But as CBS News‘ Chip Reid points out: “Mr. Obama’s been president for nearly 16 months. Does he get at least a little piece of the blame?” Pointing to President Obama’s staunch defense of …
In a plan that was intended to be quick and temporary, Congress passed a $787 billion stimulus plan, which included large sums of money to fund infrastructure projects. Never mind the fact that the stimulus bill was a bad idea, the amount of environmental regulatory tape standing in the way will prevent it from ever getting off the ground. Normally it takes a federal construction project an average of 4.4 years to complete a National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) review. Throw in the Clean Water Act’s section 404 requirements (where …
Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) sponsored an amendment last week that would have exempted any project funded by the stimulus plan from costly, and mandatory National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) reviews. The amendment would have allowed any project whose NEPA review takes longer than 270 days to be exempt from the review requirement. Worried that one of their most powerful weapons for killing economic growth would be undermined, environmentalists rallied to gut the amendment. The stimulus bill now only requires: (a) Adequate resources within this bill must be devoted to ensuring …
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 …
Last week the House of Representatives approved a funding bill that reversed a quarter-century ban on drilling for oil off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. While this is a major victory for American consumers, it is only the beginning. The left and their environmental allies have constructed a massive web of bureaucracy between America’s natural resources and American consumers. The Institute for Energy Research has detailed the cumbersome and inefficient process energy producers must go through before a drop of oil or a cubic foot of natural gas can be …
