Environmental Protection Agency

EPA’s War on Transparency

by William Yeatman on January 10, 2012

in Blog, Features

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Barack Obama swept into the Presidency promising a new political order, one characterized by “transparency” and “openness.” Three years later, the President’s lofty campaign promises are belied by the Environmental Protection Agency’s record of suppression.

Federal agencies cannot issue regulations willy-nilly; rather, they are bound to rules stipulating administrative procedure, in order to ensure the voice of affected parties is heard. Obama’s EPA, however, evinces a troubling tendency to circumvent these procedural rules. Regulated entities are being subjected to controversial, onerous regimes, before they even have the opportunity to read the rules, much less voice an objection. The wayward Agency is exercising an unanswerable power, straight out of a Kafka novella.

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CEI Comments Submitted to EPA on the Agency’s Regional Haze Power Grab

by William Yeatman on December 16, 2011

in Blog

In a recent blog, I explained how the Environmental Protection Agency is hybridizing disparate provisions of the Clean Air Act in order to engineer greater regulatory authority for itself. EPA is using these “Franken-regs” to trump the states’ rightful authority on visibility improvement policy and impose billions of dollars of emissions controls for benefits that are literally invisible.

Yesterday, for example, EPA relied on this hybrid authority to impose a federal regulatory plan on Oklahoma over the Sooner State’s objection. (A copy of the federal register notice is available here). In February, Oklahoma submitted a visibility improvement plan that would require fuel switching from coal to natural gas at six power plants by 2022, but EPA rejected this approach in March. In its stead, EPA proposed a federal plan that would require almost $2 billion in emissions controls, in addition to fuel switching. EPA’s proposed plan was finalized yesterday.

Although the Clean Air Act clearly gives states primacy over EPA in decision-making for visibility improvement, Oklahoma is one of three states subject to a federal plan. In August, EPA imposed a plan on New Mexico that costs $740 million more than the state’s plan. In September, EPA proposed a federal plan for North Dakota. All three states are challenging EPA in federal court.

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Irony Alert! Greens Regret Not Having Played “Hardball”

by William Yeatman on May 31, 2011

in Blog, Features

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Recently, an environmentalist special interest group engendered a political backlash in Massachusetts after running a particularly sleazy television advertisement that equated baby abuse with Sen. Scott Brown’s (R) admirable vote for excellent legislation that would have reined in the Environmental Protection Agency’s runaway regulatory regime for greenhouse gas emissions. I wrote about it here; suffice it to say, Sen. Brown turned lemons into lemonade by painting himself as a sympathetic father-figure under attack from unscrupulous sleazebags.

In the immediate wake of this blowback, I find it interesting that Politico’s Morning Energy Report (I recommend signing up here) reported today on how the greens feel that they have failed to achieve a cap-and-trade energy rationing scheme because they have been too timid. According to the Politico writeup,

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Obama Administration Pretends To Cut Regulations

by Myron Ebell on May 27, 2011

in Blog, Features

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After a five-month review, the Obama Administration announced this week that it had gotten rid of, was going to get rid of, or was considering getting rid of several dozen unnecessary regulations. The total savings could add up to several billions of dollars a year.

As part of the rollout, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it was reviewing 31 regulations for elimination.  EPA also announced that it had suspended the new rules regulating milk spills under the Clean Water Act.  That will save dairy farmers an estimated $146 million a year.  Ending another regulation will save gas station owners $67 million a year.

This exercise indicates the level of contempt that President Barack Obama and his Administration have for the American people.  They think that we are so stupid that they can fool us with some piddling trimming while they push full speed ahead with their regulatory onslaught.  As Wayne Crews of CEI shows in Ten Thousand Commandments: an Annual Snapshot of the Regulatory State, the Obama Administration has over 4000 new regulations in the pipeline.  The EPA is trying to raise energy prices for all Americans and destroy jobs by regulating greenhouse gas emissions.  And EPA is also targeting specific industries, such as coal, with job-killing regulations.

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Next Generation Fuel Economy Sticker – To Boldly Label What No Agency Has Labeled Before

by Marlo Lewis on May 25, 2011

in Blog, Features

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Today, the U.S. EPA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) proudly unveil their new, improved, long-awaited, supah-dupah, “next generation” fuel economy sticker. All model year 2013 vehicles will have to display the redesigned stickers.

“The new labels, which are the most dramatic overhaul to fuel economy labels since the program began more than 30 years ago, will provide more comprehensive fuel efficiency information, including estimated annual fuel costs, savings, as well as information on each vehicle’s environmental impact,” EPA’s press releaseenthuses. Only in the makework world of bureaucracy central would this “overhaul” of a label be hailed as “dramatic.”

As my colleague William Yeatman joked when I told him the news: “Anyone can have a sticker, but a next generation sticker — the future is here, my friend!”

In their original August 2010 regulatory proposal, the agencies wanted the new label to include letter grades based on the car’s fuel economy and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids would get an A+; the biggest, heaviest, gas guzzling SUVs would get a D.

However, in December 2010, 53 House Members sent a bipartisan letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and DOT Secretary Ray LaHood protesting that letter grades would “unfairly promote certain vehicles over others.” Indeed, that was the point. Stigmatize SUVs and other politically-incorrect vehicles by giving them bad grades.

Worse, grading cars implicitly means grading the people who buy them. People who buy cars with super-low or zero emissions are caring and ahead of the curve. Those who buy gas guzzlers are yokels who voted for Bush and wear baseball caps in restaurants. The South Park spoof on the “Toyonda Pius,” Smug Alert, all-too-accurately depicts the greener-than-thou pretension of EPA and NHTSA’s proposed grading system.

Rebuked by those wielding the power of the purse, the agencies relented and the “next generation” sticker does not include letter grades. To view the current sticker, click here. To see what the scolds at EPA and NHTSA originally planned to replace it with, click here.

Clearly, these folks are into behavior modification. How potent will the redesigned label be in modifying your behavior? [click to continue…]

Whiny L.A. Times Editorial Evinces Environmentalist Character Flaw

by William Yeatman on May 23, 2011

in Blog, Features

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The Los Angeles Times editorial board last week penned a widely circulated thesis that “[t]he environment and public health will be thrown under a bus for the sake of his [President Barack Obama’s] reelection in 2012.” While I would love, love, love for this to be true, it isn’t; the L.A. Times editorial board’s contention that the president has abandoned greens to score political points is bunk.

In fact, this administration is waging a war on conventional energy supply and demand in this country, with very real repercussions for everyday Americans. Just ask the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, oil and gas drillers along the Gulf, or coal miners in Appalachia, all of whom have urged the Congress to roll back the president’s regulatory crackdown in an effort to protect their livelihoods.

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President Sets Sights on Re-election

by Myron Ebell on May 21, 2011

in Blog, Features

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The 2012 presidential election is starting to bend some of the Obama Administration’s environmental and energy policies.  I have noted previously that the White House realizes that gas prices are a huge threat to President Barack Obama’s re-election.  Consequently, the President is trying to shift the blame to oil companies and speculators while at the same time talking up what his Administration is doing to increase domestic oil production.  The reality, of course, is that the Obama Administration has moved across the board to decrease oil production in federal lands and offshore areas.

Another sign of the Administration’s focus on the President’s re-election is that the Environmental Protection Agency has suddenly started paying attention to the concerns of industry.  The timetables for new regulations of coal ash disposal and of surface coal mining in Appalachia have been extended.  EPA announced last week that it was reconsidering, but not delaying, some parts of its new Clean Air Act rule for cement plants.  This week EPA suspended indefinitely a similar rule for industrial boilers that it had promulgated in February.  EPA said that it will conduct more analyses and re-open the public comment period for the boiler rule.

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Why Is the EPA Spending Thousands of Dollars To Help Green Radicals Break the Law?

by William Yeatman on May 20, 2011

in Blog

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America is in the midst of a budget crisis, yet the Environmental Protection Agency found $25,000 to help a radical green group break the law. According to the Heritage Foundation’s Robert Gordon,

“…the agency awarded the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization [LVEJO] a $25,000 environmental justice grant, which was to be directed to ‘…work[ing] in coalition with their partners to implement 3 areas of Climate Change Mitigation…’ The first ‘area’ is to ‘…conduct a grassroots Clean Power Campaign in the Chicago Region to address coal power plant emissions’…After getting the grant, a half dozen activists from LVEJO and other groups were arrested after climbing the fence to a coal-fired power plant and unfurling a banner that read: ‘Close Chicago’s Toxic Coal Plant.'”

Read the entire excellent post here.

EPA’s Utility MACT Overreach Threatens To Turn out the Lights

by William Yeatman on May 18, 2011

in Blog, Features

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Three of the Congress’s most influential energy policymakers this week “urged” the Environmental Protection Agency to delay an ultra-costly regulation targeted at coal-fired power plants, the source of 50 percent of America’s electricity generation.  For the sake of keeping the lights on, all Americans should hope the Obama administration heeds these Congressmen’s request.

Senate Environment and Public Works Ranking Member James Inhofe (R-OK), House Energy and Commerce Chair Fred Upton (R-MI), and House Energy and Power Subcommittee Chair Ed Whitfield (R-KY) yesterday sent a letter to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson demanding a longer comment period for a proposed regulation known as the Utility HAP MACT

[The HAP stands for “Hazardous Air Pollutant,” and the MACT stands for “Maximum Achievable Control Technology”; to learn what these terms entail, read this summary of the regulation, Primer: EPA’s Power Plant MACT for Hazardous Air Pollutants.]

The EPA issued the Utility HAP MACT in mid-March, and it gave the public 60 days to comment. The Congressmen “urge the agency [to] extend the comment period to a minimum of 120 days to allow adequate time for stakeholders to assess and comment on the proposal.”

The extended comment period is well warranted. For starters, the EPA included a number of “pollutants” in the proposed regulation that shouldn’t be there. The EPA’s authority to regulate hazardous air pollutants from power plants is derivative of a study on the public health effect of mercury emissions. The EPA’s proposed regulation, however, would regulate acid gases, non-mercury metals, and organic air toxins, in addition to mercury. Yet the EPA’s evidence only pertains to mercury. The EPA’s authority to regulate these non-mercury emissions, despite their not having been a part of the aforementioned study, will be challenged, and the DC Circuit Court ultimately will decide.

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MSM Loves Bipartisanship…Unless the Issue Is Environmental Policy

by William Yeatman on May 16, 2011

in Blog, Features

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In this era of hyper-partisanship, the mainstream media thinks that bi-partisanship is beautiful…unless both parties agree on an environmental policy, in which case the media invariably recasts the story such that it’s the Green Democrats versus the Dirty Republicans.

On cap-and-trade policy, I’ve noted in a previous post how the media willfully ignores that both parties oppose energy rationing. Instead, you’ll read or hear about the “Republican War on Science,” whenever Congressional climate policy gets rejected by a bipartisan, bicameral vote.

There was another example of this phenomenon last Wednesday. The Energy and Water Subcommittee of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee held a hearing during which there was unanimous bipartisan agreement that the Environmental Protection Agency had overstepped its bounds on a controversial policy regarding  mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia.

To me, at least, unanimously bipartisan opposition to a major Presidential policy on an ultra-divisive issue is newsworthy. But there was no mention of it in any of the stories on the hearing that I read. Readers of the stories that I read would have thought that the Democrats and Republicans clashed.

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