An open letter supporting the nomination of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt for U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator organized by The Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation has attracted some very famous signers. U.S. Senate Environment & Public Works Committee Chairman Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) introduced the letter into the official record of Pruitt’s confirmation hearing January 18. Probably the highest name recognition worldwide would go to German … [Read more...]
What Would the Precautionary Principle Imply for Ethanol?
In 2007 Congress passed a law requiring the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to study and report every three years to Congress on the environmental impact of EPA’s ethanol mandate. And in the intervening nine years, EPA has complied with the law once—in 2011. Now it says it’ll be 2024 before it can manage it again. So by the time it should have filed five such reports and be working on its sixth, EPA expects to file its second. Meanwhile, multiple studies not done by EPA have … [Read more...]
A Ground-Level View of the Cost of Unwarranted Regulation—and How to Reduce It
Many complaints of the costs of environmental (and other) regulations give us the view from 30,000 feet. In his new article "The Long Arm of the European Community," at American Thinker, Norman Rogers paints the picture at ground level---and it isn't pretty. It's not just that the regulations impose enormous costs but also that they often are based on complete, or nearly complete, ignorance of the activities being regulated. From his 25 years of experience heading a small electronics … [Read more...]
Can We Defend Liberty against a Militarized EPA?
Did you know that the federal Environmental Protection Agency spends millions of dollars on guns, body armor, camouflage equipment, unmanned aircraft, amphibious assault ships, radar and night-vision gear, and other military-style weaponry and surveillance activities? You read that right—EPA, not the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marines. Why? Because EPA regulations are so ubiquitous, so onerous, and so contrary to the spirit of our freedom-loving nation that ordinary Americans find … [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...]
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...]
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...]
Ethanol: A Federally Mandated Killer
Terry Scanlon of the Capital Research Center leads his latest email this way: When you gas your car with 10% ethanol, you're dragged into the Renewable Fuel Standard morass run by the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency). This environmentalist policy is so terrible, even the greens have turned against it. But as a government program, it's immortal. Our latest "Green Watch" documents how this disaster funnels money from consumers to crony capitalists, reduces your car's mileage, raises food … [Read more...]
Bringing a Little Sanity to the Environmental Protection Agency
Scientist and economist Dr. Alan Carlin was a model civil servant for nearly forty years, serving as a science analyst in the federal Environmental Protection Agency. But in 2009, he made a bad career move. He told the truth. As one of the EPA staff members assigned to assess the warming effect of added CO2 in the atmosphere preparatory to formulating emissions regulations, Carlin deviated from the EPA's play book of accepting as gospel the pronouncements of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on … [Read more...]
American Lung Association in Cahoots with EPA
A new American Lung Association (ALA) television ad supports the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposed new rule requiring a 30% reduction in CO2 emissions from power plants by 2030, pushing the lie that CO2 emissions are harmful to human health. The ALA ad, entitled “a mother’s instinct,” shows a child’s toy, a baby monitor, and a sleeping baby, then cuts to a shot of a power plant and states, “The Clean Air Act stops polluters from poisoning his air with arsenic, lead, and mercury. … [Read more...]
