Ron Arnold details the story of how industry, environmentalists, and regulators are working together to overcome a paradoxical EPA rule that allows PCBs in products but bans the disposal of wastewater containing PCB residues. This story, sadly, is atypical of today's EPA, especially as it applies to energy and water issues.
Nero fiddled while Rome burned, we are told. Will President Obama be playing golf when terrorists attack the U.S. power grid so as to force a massive, multi-state blackout? Or will he and colleagues like Secretary of State Kerry and EPA Administrator McCarthy remain wholly focused on their own efforts to shut down the power grid through regulations and (as they did with BenGhazi and the Fort Hood shooter) refuse even to brand such an act as terrorist?
Just as the Obama Administration, the EPA, the UN, and the compliant media are pumping up futuristic global warming horror stories, many of the world's top scientists are speaking out ever more sharply against this fraud. Among them: Greenpeace co-founder Dr. Patrick Moore, German environmentalist Dr. Fritz Vahrenholt, Gaia promoter Dr. James Lovelock, and Nobel Laureate physicist Dr. Ivar Giaever. All the while, some of their former colleagues are now calling for the heads orf such skeptics on a silver platter.
Secretary of State John Kerry actually stated that climate change was the most terrifying "weapon of mass destruction" and that it is all our fault. But a look back at history shows that Senator Kerry voted against the Kyoto Protocol even after his pal, Canadian billionaire Maurice Strong, had declared in 1992 that the world was on a "climate course" leading to a tragedy. Strong later fled to China after his role in the oil-for-food scandal was revealed as just another scam involving the Bill Clinton Administration. And the show goes on.
Ron Arnold says it is time to end the "secret science" that is the underlying justification for many of its costly, anti-business, and anti-citizen regulations. As Rep/ David Schweikart (R-AZ) said, “For far too long, the EPA has approved regulations that have placed a crippling financial burden on economic growth in this country with no public evidence to justify their actions.”
What with national oil and gas revenues in decline, and the lack of incentives for exploration by the state-owned company Pemex, Mexico's new President Enrique Pena Nieto has pushed through legislation that will allow profit- and production-sharing contracts and licenses to find and develop new oil and gas reserves in the nation to our south. Mexico has traditionally relied on oil and gas revenues for a third of its federal budget -- and yet many Mexicans are fearful of the new arrangement that promises to lower energy prices and create jobs and economic growth. Coupled with reforms in energy policy, these changes could signal a major expansion of the Mexican economy -- if the President can win the political battle to bring these reforms from paper to production.
To justify their steady stream of anti-fossil fuel “climate change prevention” regulations, the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Energy and other federal agencies have invented the “social cost of carbon” concept. It attaches arbitrary monetary values to the alleged impacts of using hydrocarbons and emitting carbon dioxide – and thereby enables government agencies to say the energy that powers 80% of our U.S. economy imposes enormous costs on society … which expensive, punitive regulations will prevent. However, the entire exercise is arbitrary, of questionable merit and validity, illegal, and even fraudulent. Most ridiculous of all, in violation of an important 1993 executive order, the federal methodology does not even consider one single aspect of the countless benefits that hydrocarbon energy provides to modern societies. In fact, if they considered both costs and benefits of carbon and carbon dioxide, federal officials would find that the benefits of carbon outweigh the costs by as much as 500 to 1!
Isle of Wight County (Virginia) officials decided to play rough with a local farmer whose "crime" was kindness to a disabled friend who wanted to go hunting. County goons swarmed in and declared the presence of his friend's RV made his farm an unauthorized "campground.' Landowner Joseph Ferguson then called the Rutherford Institute for help. The case is pending.
The Endangered Species Act does not save endangered species very often. Instead, the law tends to have the opposite effect: anyone who spots an endangered or threatened species on his/her property has the perverse incentive to eliminate the predator who is destroying the value and use of his/her property. Reforms are in the works, but it will take a miracle to get the bill through Congress and signed by the President.
CFACT testified today at EPA's hearing on proposed emissions regulations for new power plants. These regulations will make it nearly impossible to create a new coal-fired electricity plant in the United States at a time when China, India and even Germany are expanding their use of coal.
The EPA may as well have declared war on rural America, given the inflexibility of its new rules that heavily restrict the use and purchae of wood stoves. Fellow Greens are also imposing bans and restrictions on fireplaces that burn wood -- even in rural areas. Much of this dirty work is the result of "Sue and Settle" lawsuits, in which friendly Green groups sue the EPA over some technical point in the law knowing full well that a deal has already been struck for the EPA to settle the lawsuity and be thus "forced" to impose heavy burdens on the American people -- who have not had their day in court to defend their longstanding practices. Star Chamber or Kangaroo Court -- take your pick.
When it comes to science policy, the EPA has one simple rule: Don't let the truth get in the way of our political intentions. Perhaps the primary example of this hostile attitude toward the American people is the new EPA proposal to demand that coal-fired power plants reduce harmless carbon dioxide emissions by at least 50% more than is currently technically feasible (and achieving that level is not necessarily commercially feasible). Moreover, the EPA and other federal agencies are also waging war on oil and gas drilling through a variety of mostly indirect methods.
Energy expert Marita Noon notes that the U.S. economy has an awful record for jobs creation under President Obama, and gives "kudos" to the President and the U.S. Forest Service for their work in keeping people out of work -- whether it is the long-delayed Keystone Pipeline project or the FInley Basin Exploration Projecty in Montana, the strategy is delay, delay, delay -- so they cannot be blamed for saying No but will never say Yes.
The Obama Administration, in particular via the EPA, is intentionally setting out to destroy the U.S. coal industry and to make Americans pay a whole lot more money for electric power. This affects people's quality of life and the very ability of businesses and industries to operate at a profit. The arrogance is such that they intentionally set barriers for compliance that are far out of the range of human possibility and state-of-the-art technology -- far above the old "Best Available Control Technology" which has been the EPA standard for decades.
President Obama's appointment of George Soros-backed activist John Podesta sends a clear signal that the White House is tired of being restrained by Congress and intends to govern by Executive Order on a wide range of economic and environmental issues. With a compliant mainstream media and an ineffective GOP opposition, he is likely to dramatically limit the possibilities for economic growth in the name of saving the planet.