EPA’s end-run around democracy is just the most egregious example of a more pervasive disorder. Regulation without representation — Congress’s delegation of lawmaking power to non-elected bureaucrats — is the malady. The cure is the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act, which would require congressional approval before major agency rules can take effect.
Or so I argue today in “Put the REINS on EPA,” at Pajamas Media.Com.
My column harks back to the political philosphy of the American Founders and one of their great teachers, the English philosopher John Locke, who said:
The legislative cannot transfer the power of making laws to any other hands, for it being but a delegated power from the people, they who have it cannot pass it on to others.
“Can electric vehicles change the game?” That’s the question Edison Electric Institute President Tom Kuhn poses this week on National Journal’s energy blog.
I answer in the negative, pointing out, for example, that even if electric vehicle battery prices drop by 65%, the five-year fuel savings would not offset the additional up-front purchase price unless oil hits $280 a barrel (according to Boston Consulting Group). You can read my response and those of other wonks and activists at NationalJournal.Com.
Here, I would like to share (with permission) the reaction of an industry expert who read the National Journal blog posts: [click to continue…]
The hand writing was already on the wall last December even though Congress extended the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit (VEETC) for another year.
As explained here, ethanol’s policy privileges lost their perceived legitimacy. Beef, hog, poultry, and dairy farmers objected that ethanol policy inflates livestock feed costs, making their products less competitive in global markets. Humanitarian organizations objected that ethanol policy aggravates world hunger by driving up grain costs. Environmental groups objected that corn ethanol production damages water quality and, on a life-cycle basis, probably emits more carbon dioxide than the gasoline it replaces. Budget hawks objected to Congress lavishing billions on a favored few in the midst of a budget crisis. Free market groups objected to the fleecing of consumers compelled to buy a product that delivers less bang for buck than gasoline.
The corn lobby could rally its congressional patrons one last time, but the ideological climate had shifted against them, with even Al Gore recanting his earlier support for ethanol subsidies. If the VEETC had come up for renewal in Dec. 2009, Congress would likely have extended it for five years, not just one. But in 2010 a broad-based Left-Right coalition arose to challenge King Corn, and the tide turned. [click to continue…]
Yesterday (Feb. 16), House Energy and Power Subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield (R-KY) engaged in a colloquy with Interior and Agriculture Subcommittee Chairman Mike Simpson (R-ID) on Sec. 1746 of H.R. 1, the One-Year Continuing Appropriations Act of 2011.
Sec. 1746 of H.R. 1 states:
None of the funds made available to the Environmental Protection Agency by this division or any other Act may be expended for purposes of enforcing or promulgating any regulation (other than with respect to section 202 of the Clean Air Act) or order, taking action relating to, or denying approval of state implementation plans or permits because of the emissions of greenhouse gases due to concerns regarding possible climate change.
Sec. 1746 would block EPA regulation of greenhouse gases from stationary sources for the remainder of fiscal year 2011, which ends on September 30. “The funding limitation will allow Congress to carefully and thoroughly debate a permanent clarification to the Clean Air Act to ensure it remains a strong tool for protecting public health by regulating and mitigating air pollutants, and that it is not transformed into a vehicle to impose a national energy tax,” explains Chairman Whitfield’s press release. Whitfield is a co-sponsor of the Energy Tax Prevention Act, which would overturn the legal force and effect of EPA’s Endangerment Rule, Tailoring Rule, and other rules imposing greenhouse gas permitting requirements on state governments and stationary sources.
In the colloquy, Chairman Simpson states: “EPA’s GHG regulations need to be stopped in their tracks, and that’s what section 1746 does – it provides a timeout for the balance of the fiscal year, during which time EPA will be prohibited from acting on them or enforcing them.” In Whitfield’s words: “This CR [Continuing Resolution] provision is Congress hitting the pause button during the very brief period of the CR, allowing time to go through regular order and pass the Upton-Inhofe bill.”
[click to continue…]
So-called “sustainability” advocates never tire of condemning fossil fuels as unsustainable. Their assessment is based on ideology, not facts, I argue in “Sustainability: Some Free Market Reflections” over at MasterResource.Org, the free-market energy blog.
By any reasonable definition, modern commercial energy (except for heavily subsidized renewables) is sustainable. Whether we consider air pollution, life expectancy, health of the elderly, vulnerability to extreme weather, per capita food consumption, or access to safe drinking water, the long-term trends show dramatic — and continuing — global improvement. Abundant, affordable, reliable energy from fossil fuels is a key factor driving those improvements.
The truly unsustainable energy sources are those that cannot ‘compete’ without special policy privileges. Clearly, subsidy-dependent enterprises are not self-sustaining. Chronic subsidy-dependence is an indication the value of the resources an enterprise consumes exceeds the value of the products and services it provides. So from both a business and environmental standpoint, wind and solar power do not deserve to be called sustainable.
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Rather than address the real issue of the hearing, namely, whether Congress or EPA should determine the content and direction of national policy, Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) accuses supporters of the Energy Tax Prevention Act of working to “disarm” America in the war on terror.
He reasons as follows. EPA greenhouse gas (GHG) regulations would limit U.S. oil consumption, hence reduce imports of foreign oil. That in turn would reduce the quantity of petrodollars flowing to the Mideast, which in turn would reduce Mideast governments’ support for Al Qaeda. Therefore, any bill blocking EPA’s regulation of GHG emissions from, say, heavy trucks, is objectively pro-Al Qaeda and can only be explained by the greediness of Oklahoma oilmen.
This is horsefeathers on many levels.
[click to continue…]
Rep. John Sullivan (R-Okla.) clarified that today’s hearing is not on climate science but on whether Congress or EPA makes climate policy and the cost of EPA’s greenhouse gas regulations. Right!
Somebody though needs to ask Administrator Jackson questions that flesh out Sullivan’s point:
- When will EPA respond to the environmental groups’ December 2009 petition to establish national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for CO2 set at 350 parts per million (ppm)?
- The Waxman-Markey “stabilization target” was 450 ppm by 2050. Yet the Clean Air Act requires states to attain NAAQS within 5-10 years. Wouldn’t a CO2 NAAQS thus require far more draconian cuts in fossil energy use than would Waxman-Markey, a bill Congress considered too costly to pass?
- Would EPA then have to issue a new “Tailoring Rule” re-imagining the Act’s 5-10 NAAQS timeline to mean, say, 50-100 years?
- What does it tell us about EPA and the Court’s reading of the Clean Air Act that EPA has to amend – or in bureaucrat-speak, “tailor” – the law in order to avoid “absurd results,” notably, an administrative quagmire that would both paralyze environmental enforcement and freeze economic development?
That’s the question Rep. Henry Waxman just asked EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson. She replied: “The Supreme Court said greenhouse gases fit into the Clean Air Act’s broad definition of ‘air pollutants.'” Or words to that effect.
Civics 101:
- Congress, not the Supreme Court, wrote the Clean Air Act (CAA).
- The Supreme Court is not infallible. If it were, Supreme Court decisions would always be unanimous. Massachusetts v. EPA, the case to which Administrator Jackson alludes, was a 5-4 decision.
- Congress and the Supreme Court are co-equal branches under the Constitution. Every Member of Congress takes an oath to “uphold the Constitution.” Therefore, every Member has a constitutional duty to exercise his own judgment as to what the Constitution means, what statutes mean, and whether agency actions under enacted statutes comport with or flout congressional intent.
- If Members think the Court messed up, or if they merely think that the Court’s decision leads to bad public policy, they have a constitutional duty to rectify the Court’s error by passing laws like the Inhofe-Upton-Whitfield Energy Tax Prevention Act.
As it happens, a strong case can be made that the Court erred when it decided, in Massachusetts v. EPA, that greenhouse gases are “air pollutants” within the meaning of the statute.
[click to continue…]
I’m watching the House Energy and Commerce hearing on the Inhofe-Upton-Whitfield draft legislation, the Energy Tax Prevention Act, to stop EPA from ‘enacting’ climate policy through the regulatory backdoor.
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) is off to his usual demagoguery, claiming that Messrs. Inhofe, Upton, and Whitfield are trying to “re-write the laws of nature.” He accuses them of trying to overturn EPA’s endangerment finding (which he equates with SCIENCE) by legislative fiat. The premise of the bill, he says, is that climate change is a hoax.
Poppycock. Read the draft legislation. It says nothing about climate science. The bill’s real premises are:
[click to continue…]
As noted previously on GlobalWarming.Org, Obama’s “Clean Energy Standard” would effectively impose the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill’s emission reduction target on the electric power sector.
Under Obama’s proposal, “By 2035, 80% of America’s electricity will come from clean energy sources” (i.e. from wind, solar, hydro, nuclear, “clean coal,” and natural gas). Similarly, an estimated 81% of U.S. electricity would come from such sources in 2030 in the Energy Information Administration’s “Basic Case” analysis of the Waxman-Markey bill.
There is one difference though. Emission reductions accomplished via Soviet-style production quota (mandates) such as a clean energy standard would likely be more costly than emission reductions accomplished via market-like mechanisms such as cap-and-trade. National Journal reporter Amy Harder spotted this issue last Friday:
“One of the things that happens implicitly when you set a standard is that you have in fact put a price on carbon, but it’s the clumsiest way to do it,” said Kevin Book, managing director at ClearView Energy Partners, an energy consulting company. “You’re not looking for an efficient, market-based solution. You’re looking for just enough to meet the standards solution.”
[click to continue…]
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