The EPA’s current gas attack…

Personally, I think that most of this current spate of double-speak about carbon dioxide is a bad case of bureaucratic alchemy — they’re trying to find a way to turn carbon into gold.  From the AP story:

“An Environmental Protection Agency proposal that could lead to regulating the gases blamed for global warming will prove costly for factories, small businesses and other institutions, according to a White House document.

The nine-page memo is a compilation of opinions made by a dozen federal agencies and departments during an internal review before the EPA issued a finding in April that greenhouse gases pose dangers to public health and welfare.

That finding could set in motion for the first time the regulation of six heat-trapping gases from cars and trucks, factories and other sources under the Clean Air Act.

The document, labeled “Deliberative-Attorney Client Privilege,” says that if the EPA proceeds with the regulation of heat-trapping gases, including carbon dioxide, factories, small businesses and institutions would be subject to costly regulation.”

Editor’s note: Here is a direct link to the full nine page document provided by ABC News. Note the following… now that the memo is out, the Obama administration is brushing it off as something written by a “Bush holdover” … therefore, it must be completely invalid right? (Can’t argue the message, destroy the messenger.)

An administration official says the specific comments were written by a Bush holdover in the Office of Advocacy in the Small Business Administration, but did not identify the individual.

Now back to Wyndeward’s great post…

I work in auditing, so I have a skewed perspective on some of these things.  Usually, when something gets labeled “Attorney Client Privilege,” it is short-hand for “we really don’t want anyone to see this until it is too late.”  Sometimes there are perfectly legitimate reasons for doing this… but, seeing as the EPA has nothing to do with national security, criminal law enforcement or the like, I’m not sure what legitimate desire they would have to not want the people to see what use the government is doing on their nickel…  unless they were casually bandying about unfortunate truths that might rile the locals and prevent them from doing their “experiments.”  Fortunately, the OMB was on the ball. (H/T

The memo specifically takes issue with the EPA’s April 17 decision to issue a “proposed endangement finding” stating carbon dioxide and five other gases threaten public health and welfare by triggering global climate change. The document also said emissions from motor vehicles contribute to global warming.

New regulations governing greenhouse gas emissions from car and trucks are “likely to have serious economic consequences for regulated entities throughout the U.S. economy, including small businesses and small communities,” the OMB memo said. And should EPA extend its finding to so-called stationary sources, such as power plants, “small businesses and institutions would be subject to costly regulatory programs”

Now, a quick question for the class at large… Before any wisenheimer gets the silly notion that electric Obamautomobiles will be brought forth to save the day, who knows just how much of the US electrical supply is generated through some sort of carbon producing process?  Here are Wikipedia’s two takes on the topic, which, while not identical, paint a pretty similar picture — something on the order of 70% of US electricity would suddenly find itself under the EPA thumb — *LOTS* of CO2 to be turned into gold.

This is a naked power-grab from a collection of bureaucrats operating under the rules of political orthodoxy, not science.  This is the same collection of folks who brought you the first Earth Day and its warnings of the “Coming Ice Age.”  Allow me to share a *cold* blast from the past:

“Telltale signs are everywhere —from the unexpected persistence and thickness of pack ice in the waters around Iceland to the southward migration of a warmth-loving creature like the armadillo from the Midwest.Since the 1940s the mean global temperature has dropped about 2.7° F. Although that figure is at best an estimate, it is supported by other convincing data. When Climatologist George J. Kukla of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory and his wife Helena analyzed satellite weather data for the Northern Hemisphere, they found that the area of the ice and snow cover had suddenly increased by 12% in 1971 and the increase has persisted ever since. Areas of Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic, for example, were once totally free of any snow in summer; now they are covered year round.”

Familiar, yet different.

The EPA’s comment?  Predictable…

EPA administrator Lisa Jackson responded by saying the EPA’s finding in April was required by law, stemming from a 2007 Supreme Court decision that said the agency should classify greenhouse gases as pollutants. Jackson also said the agency’s determination was preliminary and would not necessarily result in regulation.

“I have said over and over, as has the president, that we do understand that there are costs to the economy of addressing global warming emissions, and that the best way to address them is through a gradual move to a market-based program like cap and trade,” Jackson said.

Don’t think “a gradual move to a market-based program like cap and trade,” think “We plan on gradually boiling you like proverbial frogs.”  That’s a step up from the greenie response to questions… they’re practically tearing their tinfoil bonnets as they throw toys from the pram…

“Environmentalists called the memos a “direct attack” on the EPA decision from federal bureaucrats.

“It is very clear from this that the Obama administration contains people who are trying to sabotage the administration’s climate strategy,” Frank O’Donnell, the president of Clean Air Watch, said in an e-mail.”

The problem, Frank, is that the strategy has nothing to do with climate, save, perhaps, for a climate of fear — the faster they seek to move, the more impassioned their speeches, the more purple their prose, the more *fear* they seek to use, the more likely this is just another flim-flam.

Science, ideally, should be demonstrable, observable and repeatable.  The same folks trying to sell us on “global cooling,” I mean “global warming“… Pardon me, I meant “climate change,” are the same folks who can’t give us a decent five day forecast and try to sell us every year on an “active” hurricane season.  This is public relations posturing, throwing mud against the wall to see what sticks and how much power they can garner with it.

From Hot Air … here’s video of the showdown between Senator Barrasso, armed with the OMB Memo and EPA chief Lisa Jackson.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-SvGLPjm5w&feature=player_embedded

Posted in ,

Dave in EH

2 Comments

  1. Lazybum on May 13, 2009 at 11:31 pm

    Will the LameStreet Media discuss this like they discuss  other important issues such as how PC the Miss America is?

    Not bloody likely.



  2. Dimsdale on May 14, 2009 at 4:26 am

    No, they will just redouble the greenhouse gas indoctrination in schools.

    Anyone scientist who says there is "consensus" in the AGW debate is not a real scientist.

    What a concept: a political pollutant!



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