Administrator Gina McCarthy’s Orwellian Climate Speech Heralds Humungous EPA Mission Creep

EPA administrator Gina McCarthy gave her first public speech in her new role yesterday, before the Harvard Law School. In it, she explained that there’s a big misunderstanding among the American people about Obama’s authoritarian climate policies. A lot of us—myself included!—had presumed that the purpose of EPA regulations is to “do something” about global warming.

Wrong!

Administrator McCarthy told Harvard law students that EPA regulations to control greenhouse gas emissions have a purpose altogether distinct from global warming.  “The truth,” she said, “is we need to embrace cutting carbon pollution as a way to spark business innovation. We need to cut carbon pollution to grow jobs. We need to cut carbon pollution to strengthen the economy.”

OK….Climate regulations aren’t about the climate; rather, they’re about “growing jobs” and “strengthening the economy.”  Which makes sense only in newspeak.

As an aside, McCarthy’s use of Orwellian language is apt. Any cog of authoritarianism worth her salt will tell you that propaganda is paramount. In a June 25 speech unveiling an authoritarian climate plan, President Obama announced that Congressional inaction on policy is a pretext for the Executive to enact that policy by administrative fiat. Administrator McCarthy was quick to follow orders.

This economic stimulus, moreover, is to be executed not by the Federal Reserve, nor the Treasury Department, but by the Environmental Protection Agency. Talk about mission creep!

As reported by GreenWire’s Jason Plautz, McCarthy said the President’s climate plan was ‘an opportunity to “bend the curve” and could “fuel the complementary goals of turning America into a magnet for new jobs and manufacturing.”’

Of course, she’s got it backwards. Since 2009, EPA has been “bending” the curve in electricity markets by breaking the back of coal, thereby destroying jobs*and manufacturing.

*Jobs are a poor metric relative to wealth creation, but it’s always an affront to common sense whenever the executive branch imposes politicized regulations that destroy jobs.