According to Breitbart.com, the Environmental Protection Agency is taking the first step toward regulating greenhouse gases in order to prevent climate change. They have decided that greenhouse gases endanger pulbic health and welfare, thus making them subject to regulation under public health laws. This is actually rather clever. It will be cap and trade that will cost everyone tons of money, but since it’s for ‘public health and welfare’, unless we have an informed public, it will be suicide for a pollitician to vote against it (assuming it actually gets voted on rather than just declared as law!). He (or she) will be accused of endangering the public health!
The plan is to limit carbon dioxide and five other gases. According to the article:
“In announcing the proposed finding, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said it “confirms that greenhouse gas pollution is a serious problem now and for future generations.” She reiterated that the Obama administration prefers that climate change be address by Congress through broad, economy-wide limits on climate-changing pollution. But the EPA finding of endangerment prepares for possible regulatory action if Congress fails to act.”
Wow. If Congress won’t vote it in, we’ll can declare it a public health issue and enact it anyway. One of the important things to notice here is where the EPA is getting the power to do this. The article explains:
The EPA action was prompted by a Supreme Court ruling two years ago that said greenhouse gases are pollutants under the Clean Air Act and must be regulated if found to be a danger to human health or public welfare.
The Bush administration strongly opposed using the Clean Air Act to address climate change and stalled on producing the so-called “endangerment finding” demanded by the high court in its April 2007 ruling.
The court case, brought by Massachusetts, focused only on emissions from automobiles. But it is widely assumed that if the EPA must regulate emissions from cars and trucks, it will have no choice but to control identical pollution from power plants and industrial sources.
Congress is considering imposing an economy-wide cap on greenhouse gas emissions along with giving industry the ability to trade emission allowances to mitigate costs. Legislation could be considered by the House before the August congressional recess.
The ruling comes out of a court case–it does not come out of legislature. This is the reason the selection of judges who do not take on more power than the Constitution gives them is so important. This is more regulation than we want or need. Please understand, I am not in favor of pollution–I am in favor of not crippling the American economy based on science that is not yet proven. I would like cleaner air, but not at the cost of jobs and the financial well-being of our country. Recently I posted an article on what ‘green jobs’ have meant to the Spanish economy. For every ‘green job’ they have gained, they have lost two and a half other jobs. I would hate to see that happen here.