2011

By all accounts, President Barack Obama has embraced ‘fracking,’ a.k.a. hydraulic fracturing, the American-made technological breakthrough in natural gas production that has roughly doubled known North American gas reserves in only the last five years. However, the President’s assault on American coal production has been so pervasive that he has given environmentalists the tools to block fracking from being applied to the most promising gas plays, despite his apparent support for the drilling technique. By warring with coal, the President has boxed himself in on gas.

In his 2011 State of the Union Address, the President set a target for America to generate 80% of its electricity by 2035 from “clean” energy sources, including wind, solar, clean coal, and natural gas. Three months later, in March, the White House issued an energy policy strategy, titled “Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future,” in which it was stated that, “we must focus on expanding cleaner sources of electricity, including renewables like wind and solar, as well as clean coal, natural gas, and nuclear power…” In a speech to promote the Blueprint, the President noted, “The potential for natural gas is enormous.”

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On May 2, the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) and the United States Army Corps of Engineers (“USACE”) proposed new Guidance to clarify which waters of the United States are subject to regulation under the Clean Water Act (“CWA”). If implemented as is, this Guidance document would increase significantly the authority of the federal government and it also would have a major economic impact. That is, it’s a major new policy. Yet it was never approved by the Congress. So it is another Obama power grab. (My colleague Marlo Lewis has covered extensively the EPA’s global warming power grab. Another colleague, Chris Horner, wrote a book on the subject.)

Unlike President Obama’s other power grabs, which are largely unprecedented, the  history of federal jurisdiction under the CWA is characterized by the EPA and USACE seizing as much authority as they can. Therefore, the President’s Guidance document is taking a tradition of federal expansion to its extreme bounds. What follows is a primer that explains the context of President Obama’s Clean Water Act Guidance.

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The National Chamber Foundation’s Campaign for Free Enterprise has announced that Jeffrey Immelt will be the keynote speaker at their Jobs for America Summit on July 11 at the U. S. Chamber of Commerce.  Immelt, the CEO of General Electric, is America’s leading crony capitalist and promoter of cap-and-trade legislation.  No word on whether the speakers will include fellow cap-and-trade promoters Jim Rogers, CEO of Duke Energy, and John Bryson, former CEO of Edison International, whom President Obama has nominated to be Secretary of Commerce.  These proponents of energy-rationing polices are willing to raise energy prices and thereby make people poorer and destroy American jobs because they calculate that it will boost their companies’ profits.