Tomorrow the DC Circuit Court will hear, en banc, a case in which 28 states are suing the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), alleging that it lacked statutory authority to impose President Obama's landmark environmental regulation, the Clean Power Plan (CPP), on the states. EPA claims the authority under an obscure piece of the Clean Air Act, Section 111(d), but a straight reading of that section in context with the rest of the Act implies otherwise. Congress never intended to … [Read more...]
Why You Should Mourn Implementation of the Paris Climate Agreement
The climate agreement reached in Paris last December will become effective on Earth Day, (Friday, April 22) with a ceremony at the United Nations headquarters in New York City. We’ll all hear of heroic world leaders who joined together in Paris to ensure the planet’s survival. The Obama administration will try to enforce the agreement (which meets all the legal criteria of a treaty though the President chooses not to call it that to evade Senate disapproval) by imposing the Environmental … [Read more...]
Do AGs Bent on Prosecuting Climate Skeptics Have a Political Agenda?
You can’t make these things up! A small group of attorneys general, led by New York AG Eric Schneiderman, held a press conference Wednesday, March 30, to announce their determination to track down and prosecute for fraud (knowingly conveying false information to enrich oneself or harm others) evil skeptics of climate change. One look at this photo tells you everything you need to know about their real agenda. It just so happens that the fate of the Obama Administration's most … [Read more...]
Never Underestimate Your Opponent—Coming to Grips with the Paris Climate Agreement
Master Sun [Tzu] talks often about deception and therefore warns against being deceived by the enemy and underestimating their ability. ‘He who exercises no forethought but makes light of his opponents is sure to be captured by them.’ It’s important to properly assess your opponent without prejudice or assumption. Many skeptics of catastrophic, anthropogenic global warming (CAGW) and therefore opponents of a legally binding treaty to limit carbon dioxide emissions to fight it, including me, … [Read more...]
Unelected, Unaccountable Greens Dictated Clean Power Plan to EPA
Emails obtained by the Energy & Environment Legal Institute under FOIA demonstrate that EPA almost certainly violated federal law by using private email to correspond with the Natural Resources Defense Council, correspondence in which NRDC essentially drafted critical parts of the "Clean Power Plan," or even, as the Wall Street Journal puts it, "the rule," not just critical parts. Imagine if some pro-coal organization(s) had done the same in the preparation of an EPA regulation. The Left … [Read more...]
Petition: Forget ‘Climate Change’, Energy Empowers the Poor!
The computer climate models that are the only reason for fears of dangerous, manmade global warming have proven wrong. They predict warming at twice the rate actually observed since the 1970s, and they failed to predict the complete absence of warming since January 1997. There remains, therefore, no good reason for the fears. It follows that policies to fight global warming fight a non-problem. They waste trillions of dollars needed instead to help the world’s poor meet much more urgent needs. … [Read more...]
Senate Committee Issues Damning Report on EPA’s “Sue and Settle” Practices
The Senate Environment & Public Works Committee last month issued a damning 73-page report, by the Committee's Majority Staff, exposing the widespread and corrupting use of "sue and settle" practices by the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), under the Obama Administration, to form and promote its policies. It's not pleasant reading, and citizens who favor transparency, accountability, and equal access and oppose secrecy, autocracy, and favoritism in government agencies need to be … [Read more...]
Attacking fossil fuels doesn’t help the poor
In the debate over climate change, as in most things, it makes sense for politicians to appeal to a higher power. To wit: President Obama recently sent Environment Protection Agency administrator Gina McCarthy to visit the Vatican. Her mission was to convince papal officials, who are currently drafting a climate-change-focused encyclical for Pope Francis, that the president’s anti-climate change policies will help the poor and are thus a blueprint for similar international efforts. Hopefully … [Read more...]