Empowered to impose sweeping restrictions on GHG emissions from all manner of human activity, the EPA has been free to impose unreasonable demands on electric generation, transportation, manufacturing and agriculture – just to name more prominent targets. Under the Obama and Biden administrations, with CO2 emissions being the focus, fossil fuels in general and coal in particular were hammered by this regulatory cudgel.In the last decade, regulations have contributed to the closing of more than … [Read more...]
A Coalition Letter Opposing the Confirmation of Joseph Goffman as EPA’s Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation
Washington, DC26th July 2022Dear Chairman Carper, Ranking Member Capito, and Members of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works:The undersigned organizations and individuals write to express and explain our opposition to the confirmation of Joseph Goffman as Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation in the Environmental Protection Agency.Mr. Goffman served in the EPA’s Air and Radiation Office during the Obama administration as Senior Counsel 2009-17 and in addition as Associate … [Read more...]
Why “Green Energy” Isn’t “Clean Energy”—or a Good Substitute for Fossil Fuels
Remember President Obama’s “Clean Power Plan”? It aimed to reduce global warming (aka climate change) by cutting American emissions of carbon dioxide from electricity generation. It never got very far, and the Trump Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) killed it.But now President Biden has his own version. He announced his “Energy Efficiency and Clean Electricity Standard” in March. The Washington Post reported it would “turbocharge the country’s transition from fossil … [Read more...]
Can Space.com Teach Us Anything Useful about Climate?
I saw a Space.com article today entitled, Can Venus teach us to take climate change seriously? While Space.com writers should know quite a bit about the other planets, the article was a fount of misinformation and gross exaggeration. The obvious purpose of the article was scare us into taking increasing carbon dioxide levels seriously, following on the Fourth National Climate Assessment (NC4) report (which I’m still trying to digest). After repeating the NC4 claim that “10 percent of the U.S. … [Read more...]
What’s Behind the Rhetoric of ‘Climate Change’ and the Demonizing of Skeptics?
Emily Holden is a well-trained rhetorician. In her Politico article “Climate change skeptics run the Trump administration,” she writes of President Trump and his appointees’ “disbelief in the scientific evidence for climate change,” which of course is spin in multiple ways. Holden depends from the start on the fact that skepticism of “climate change” is now widely considered anti-scientific. Yet as the philosopher of science Robert K. Merton wrote 80 years ago, “Most institutions demand … [Read more...]
Has Scott Pruitt Brought Armageddon to the EPA?
According to two former Administrators, current federal Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt has set the agency back by anything from several years to as much as three decades due to “regulatory rollbacks, mass attrition and budget cuts.” That sounds ominous. It isn’t. At present EPA is operating under FY2017 funding levels. While projected FY2018 funding cuts will be substantial, they have not yet taken place. The FY2018 budget’s 28% reduction for the Superfund program … [Read more...]
Time for the Clean Power Plan to Go, Endangerment Finding Should Be Next
Even before the ink was dry on former President Barack Obama’s signature mandating the creation of Clean Power Plan (CPP) regulations, state governments and industry were rushing up the courthouse steps to challenge the plan and block its implementation. Despite the fact CPP is just two years old, it has already traveled a long and winding road to its final oblivion (one hopes)! CPP required states to reduce their electric power sector carbon-dioxide emissions by 32 percent below 2005 levels … [Read more...]
Monckton Writes to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt on Clean Power Plan
We're delighted that our friend Viscount Christopher Monckton, one of the leading critics of climate alarmism, allowed us to publish this letter to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, with which we wholeheartedly agree. We encourage citizens to make their own opinions known to Administrator Pruitt. By the way, what comes out of the "smokestacks" in the photo below is not smoke but water vapor (the white condensing steam) and carbon dioxide, not a pollutant but an … [Read more...]
Cornwall Alliance Celebrates Rollback of Clean Power Plan
For Immediate Release Burke, VA, October 10, 2017—The Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation yesterday celebrated the success of its petition “Forget ‘Climate Change,’ Energy Empowers the Poor,” signed by thousands of Americans, asking government officials to repeal the Clean Power Plan (CPP). Federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt announced yesterday that the Trump Administration will withdraw the CPP. “The regulation was ill advised from the … [Read more...]
Trump’s Rollback of EPA Overreach: What No One is Talking About
President Trump’s actions yesterday (March 28) to rein in the EPA on a number of fronts involves the usual tension between environment and prosperity. Trump has rightly asserted that we can have both a relatively clean environment and prosperity, but this falls on deaf ears in the environmental community. His actions are painted as Republican’s desire to harm your children, because a more polluted environment is claimed to be worse for human health and welfare than achieving a cleaner … [Read more...]
