Today I was a guest on the Liberty Week podcast, hosted by my CEI colleague Ryan Young. The subject of the show is EPA’s new climate plan for existing power plants. Click here for a listen.
June 2014
Cap and trade was just one way of skinning the cat; it was not the only way. It was a means, not an end. And I’m going to be looking for other means to address this problem. – President Barack Obama, Nov. 3, 2010
President Obama uttered those words the day after Democrats lost the House — a defeat in no small part due to their support for the American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R. 2454), better known as the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill.
The President did look for other ways of “skinning the cat.” For example, in his 2011 State of the Union Speech, he called on Congress to enact a national clean energy standard. By some strange coincidence, the policy would have restructured the electric power sector very much along the lines of the “basic” case in the Energy Information Administration’s analysis of the Waxman-Markey bill.
What President Obama neglected to mention, though, is that he – or his EPA – would also attempt to skin the cat in the same old ways.
| Cap-and-trade | CO2 Performance Standard/CCS Mandate | Renewable/Efficiency Standard | Demand Reduction | |
| Waxman-Markey | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| New Source Rule | ✓ | |||
| Existing Source Rule | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
EPA’s carbon “pollution” rules put back into play the potpourri of anti-fossil fuel policies that were core strategies of the Waxman-Markey bill.
Team Obama’s political chutzpah is off-the-charts.
The controversy over the Keystone XL pipeline is totally artificial, a fabrication of green politics.
Something like 2.5 million miles of oil and gas pipelines already crisscross the lower forty-eight.
How in the world would adding another 875 miles (the orange line in the map below) to that vast network push it over some kind of national interest ‘tipping point,’ endangering the economy or ecology of the U.S.? [click to continue…]
During yesterday’s roll out of the EPA’s climate plan for existing power plants, Administrator Gina McCarthy said something alarming, and I’m not talking about her global warming spiel. Rather, I’m referring to her evident flippancy regarding the potential for EPA’s rules to turn out the lights. Below, I’ve reposted the passage that raised my eyebrow:
The critics are wrong about reliability, too. For decades, power plants have met pollution limits without risking reliability.* If anything, what threatens reliability and causes blackouts is devastating extreme weather fueled by climate change. I’m tired of people pointing to the Polar Vortex as a reason not to act on climate.
Here, Administrator McCarthy is referring to the fact that coal saved much of the country’s bacon during last winter’s polar vortex. Due to logistical constraints, there weren’t adequate supplies of natural gas for both space heating and electricity generation in many areas of the northeast when temperatures plummeted. So coal power had to save the day. However, 90% of the coal capacity that was called into action to avert an energy crisis—only months ago(!)—will be retired next spring due to EPA’s outrageous, ultra–political Utility MACT.
According to FERC Commission Philip Moeller, rolling blackouts will be a “possibility” thanks to EPA’s nonsensical Utility MACT. But don’t bother Gina McCarthy about it! She’s “tired” of hearing about it.
Notably, an informal FERC analysis shredded EPA’s reliability analysis for the Utility MACT, which has since proven so unreliable. With this in mind, it shouldn’t be comforting to learn that the agency’s just-unveiled climate plan also was subjected to an EPA reliability analysis, and the rule passed with flying colors.
*This statement–“For decades, power plants have met pollution limits without risking reliability”–fails to account for the fact that the EPA has never been as politicized (ie, captured by green special interests) and power hungry as it has been since 2009.
In her speech today announcing EPA’s plan to cut power-sector carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions 30% below 2005 levels by 2030, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said agency critics who warn of dire economic impacts “sound like a broken record.” But what is more repetitive — or more misleading — than trying to sell EPA’s power grab as a childhood asthma remedy?
McCarthy began her speech as follows:
About a month ago, I took a trip to the Cleveland Clinic. I met a lot of great people, but one stood out—even if he needed to stand on a chair to do it. Parker Frey is 10 years old. He’s struggled with severe asthma all his life. His mom said despite his challenges, Parker’s a tough, active kid—and a stellar hockey player.
But sometimes, she says, the air is too dangerous for him to play outside. In the United States of America, no parent should ever have that worry. . . .Rising temperatures bring more smog, more asthma, and longer allergy seasons. If your kid doesn’t use an inhaler, consider yourself a lucky parent, because 1 in 10 children in the U.S. suffers from asthma.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, 1 in 11 children in the U.S. had asthma in 2010. That is a remarkable fact. I had severe asthma as a child, so was sensitized to the issue. Throughout elementary, middle, and high school, lots of other kids knew I had asthma — because hardly anyone else had it. In six years of summer camp in the New Hampshire woods, I had frequent asthma attacks — and was the only camper so afflicted. That was in the 1960s.
What happened since then? For one thing, childhood asthma rates increased dramatically. But during the same period, the air got dramatically cleaner.
Source: EPA
Yes, heat is a factor in turning ozone precursors into smog. But despite global warming — and, perhaps more importantly, the expansion of urban heat islands — urban air quality keeps improving. So whatever has increased childhood asthma rates, it’s not outdoor air pollution or whatever small increment of it might be attributable to global warming.
Executive agencies weren’t present at the creation. Rather, they are creations of Congress, and they enjoy no powers outside those that are delegated to them by Congress.
In delegating its authority, the Congress is quite literally granting a piece of its policy-making power to the Executive. In fact, such a delegation is a practical necessity: Congress can’t legislate every foreseeable scenario, so it must allow agencies the discretion to act within bounds established by the enabling statute (if it is to create regulatory regimes). Courts understand this; delegation is the basis of the judiciary’s deference to executive action.
Of course, a policy-making executive comports poorly with the Founding Father’s distrust of executive authority and also their view of the Congress as the primary policymaker. Simply put, policy in America should have a popular mandate. Accordingly, a federal agency’s exercise of its powers, especially when involving an expansion of authority, should have been a policy that the President campaigned on, or at least highlighted in some fashion when he or she is being vetted by the voters. That way, the American people have a say. No less an authority than the Supreme Court has identified the President’s popular mandate as a basis for deference to agency decision-making.
All this brings me to my point: the conspicuous absence of a popular mandate for EPA’s climate plan for existing power plants, which will be unveiled today. Consider:
- The President campaigned to the right of Mitt Romney on energy and environment. During the 2012 Presidential debates, Obama never once mentioned global warming.
- As noted by my colleague Marlo Lewis, the Congress explicitly considered the policies that EPA is now proposing to impose. As such, the people’s representatives have spoken to the issue, and they didn’t proceed with policy.
- As if that’s not enough, poll after poll demonstrates that the American electorate gives ultra-low priority to global warming.
Taken as a whole, the available evidence strongly indicates the President’s climate plan is illegitimate.
The McLaughlin Group: For the third time in recent memory, The McLaughlin Group devoted a segment to climate change. Panelists were: Pat Buchanan (American Conservative, paleo-conservative), Susan Ferrechio (Washington Examiner, mainstream conservative), David Rennie (Economist, European centrist), Mort Zuckerman (U.S. News & World Report, American centrist). At the outset of Friday’s broadcast, the eponymous host of the show tossed a climate change grenade to his guests:
What accounts for the increasingly alarmist tone of official climate change reports?
The ensuing debate was lively, and I thought all parties acquitted themselves well. See for yourself:
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