Elsewhere, I’ve described two fronts the Obama administration is waging against coal production in Appalachia (see here and here).
Since the President took office, environmentalists have been urging the administration to open a third front against Appalachian coal. This one pertains to the so-called “fill rule.” Here’s how the Sierra Club describes it: “In 2002, the Bush administration changed a key Clean Water Act rule to allow mining companies to dump their waste into waterways. Known as the “Fill Rule,” it allows mountaintop removal coal mine operators to bury Appalachian streams with their waste.”
As I demonstrate below, virtually the whole of the Sierra Club’s characterization of the “fill rule” is incorrect, starting with the fact that the rule originated with the Clinton administration, not the Bush administration. In fact, the “fill rule” is a relatively innocuous regulation that acts primarily to allow the EPA’s long held definition of “fill material” to trump that of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The “Fill Rule”: A Tortuous History
The Clean Water Act prohibits all pollution discharges into navigable waters, unless the “polluter” obtains a permit. Generally speaking, there are two such variances: (1) Section 402 permits, for “point source” discharges (like a pipe), which are issued by the EPA or by a state agency whose guidelines are EPA-approved and (2) 404 permits, for “dredge and fill” projects (such as filling a swamp to create a new housing development), which are issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in accordance with guidelines set by the EPA.
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My colleague Iain Murray today has an interesting post at the Washington Examiner, about the surprisingly green salaries enjoyed by climate scientists. This excerpt aptly sums his point,
So global warming professors are the tenth highest paid profession in the nation and the third highest paid profession in the public sector. In terms of median earnings, they are paid as much as the average private sector CEO.
Mothers, have your daughter marry a global warming professor!
Read the full post here.
I’ve been a vehement critic of the Department of Energy’s Loan Guarantee Program (see here and here). In a nutshell, I argue that the DOE has no business starting a bank from scratch. Even if it could cobble together the necessary expertise and infrastructure, the U.S. government has a long history of picking losers in the energy market (see: breeder reactors, synfuels).
My case against the DOE’s green bank has been made persuasively by the Government Accountability Office, the top federal watchdog. In 2007, 2008, and 2010, the GAO released reports concluding that the program is being not being run well.
My case was further made by the pending collapse of the first recipient of a loan guarantee. In September 2009, the DOE issued a $535 million loan guarantee to Solyndra, a company that you may recall from reports of it being a total financial disaster. It canceled an IPO after a PriceWaterhouse Cooper audit found that the company’s shaky finances “raise substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern.” Evidently, Solyndra already has lost $557 million. In November, the company announced that it would shutter a plant and lay off 170 employees.
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Today, my friendly neighborhood Potbelly Sandwich Shop posted small flyers along the ordering line, asking: “Where are the tomatoes?” The flyer explained:
The recent cold weather across North America has had a severe impact on the availability, quality and cost of tomatoes.
Due to these factors, we will temporarily cease to offer tomatoes on your sandwich. As soon as the tomato crop returns to normal we will add them back to your sandwiches.
We apologize for this inconvenience. We do not want to compromise on the quality or value of our sandwiches.
More evidence — if any were needed — that winter endangers public health and welfare. Tomatoes are a great source of anti-oxidents and other health-enhancing nutrients. And they are delish!
Besides ruining tomatoes, winter is strongly correlated with cold and flu. Winter can also cause or contribute to power outages, travel disruptions and delays, traffic accidents, and injuries from slipping on ice.
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Louisiana
Three weeks ago, a federal judge in Louisiana found the Department of the Interior in contempt for its moratorium on oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico enacted in the wake of last year’s BP spill. As a result of the ruling, the government will have to pay the plaintiff’s legal fees, but it didn’t impact the moratorium, which was lifted on October 22, 2010. Despite the end of the de jure moratorium, the Obama administration has kept in place a de facto moratorium through bureaucratic foot-dragging.
Two weeks ago, the same U.S. District Judge, Martin Feldman, lifted this de facto moratorium, by granting a preliminary injunction requiring that the Interior Department act within 30 days on five pending permit applications. According to Judge Martin’s ruling, “Delays of four months and more in the permitting process, however, are unreasonable, unacceptable and unjustified by the evidence before the court.”
New Hampshire
By a 246 to 104 vote, the New Hampshire House of Representatives last week passed HB 519, legislation that would withdraw New Hampshire from a regional energy-rationing scheme known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Governor John Lynch (D) promised to veto the bill before it was introduced, but this week’s vote is veto-proof. The State Senate is expected to pass HB 519 with enough votes to overturn the Governor’s promised veto.
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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.
In the News
Time To Put the REINS on EPA
Marlo Lewis, GlobalWarming.org, 25 February 2011
Interview with Freeman Dyson
Steve Conner, The Independent, 25 February 2011
EnviroPoll: Global Warming Is “Overblown”
Paul Chesser, American Spectator, 24 February 2011
The Gore Effect Strikes Canada
Greg Pollowitz, Planet Gore, 24 February 2011
IG Report Sheds New Light on Climategate Scandal
Steve McIntyre, ClimateAudit.org, 23 February 2011
Industry Has Spoken…Will the President Listen?
Kenneth Green, The American, 23 February 2011
She’s Leaving, on a (Surely) Private Plane
Chris Horner, AmSpecBlog, 22 February 2011
Hiding the Decline
Judith Curry, Climate Etc, 22 February 2011
Don’t Overreact to Possible Global Warming
Jay Ambrose, Detroit News, 21 February 2011
News You Can Use
Alarmist Myth Debunked
Global warming alarmists long have warned that rising temperatures would destroy the ocean’s coral reefs. But World Climate Report this week notes a new study in the peer-reviewed journal Geophysical Research Letters demonstrating that warming oceans expand the range of tropical corals northward along the coast of Japan. At the same time, the corals are remaining stable at the southern end of their ranges. That is, corals are expanding, not contracting.
Inside the Beltway
Myron Ebell
Late last Friday, the House of Representatives passed a Continuing Resolution to fund the federal government for the remainder of the 2011 fiscal year, which ends on September 30. H.R. 1 makes significant but not huge cuts in federal spending.
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“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…]
New Hampshire
Legislation that would withdraw New Hampshire from a regional energy-rationing scheme gained momentum last week. HB 519, which would pull New Hampshire out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a cap-and-trade for 10 northeastern States, was approved by the House Science Technology and Energy Committee and endorsed by House Speaker William O’Brien. Two weeks ago, Governor John Lynch (D) preemptively threatened to veto the bill, but Republicans have a veto-proof majority in the State Legislature, so if they stick together, they can end this energy tax.
Kentucky
Outrage at the EPA’s campaign against coal is bipartisan in Kentucky. Last month, a top Democratic lawmaker, Jim Gooch, called for “secession” from the green regulatory state. Last week, by an overwhelming bipartisan vote, the State Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee passed a bill that would make Kentucky a “sanctuary state” out of reach of the EPA’s “overreaching regulatory power.” The symbolic legislation is expected to easily win passage in the full Senate.
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