Heliogenic Climate Change

“The simmering conflict between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Texas officials over air quality requirements has reached the boiling point with EPA seizing control of a key permit governing the Lone Star State’s fifth-largest refinery.

In what could lead to further escalation of the row, a high-level EPA official has threatened to strip Texas of its power to issue such permits, unless the government in Austin bows to Washington’s regulatory demands.

Attention is currently focused on the Flint Hills Resources East Corpus Christi refinery. EPA says the refinery operates under a permit issued by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) that violates the Clean Air Act.

In a May 25 letter to Flint Hills Resources, which is owned by Wichita, Kansas-based Koch Industries, EPA said the company must submit a permit application to the Washington agency by September 15 or face potential fines. More ominously, the agency threatened to take similar action on more than three dozen other facilities in Texas, most along the Gulf coast where the state’s oil and gas industries are located.

The bone of contention between EPA and TCEQ is Texas’ decade-and-a-half-old practice of issuing “flexible” permits to refineries. Flexible permits place limits on emissions from an entire refinery. EPA claims emissions permits are required for each of the dozens of production units within a refinery. It is not known which of the two systems results in lower emissions, but the route preferred by EPA would undoubtedly lead to more paperwork.  …

Texas Governor Rick Perry (R) blasted EPA’s move.

“The Obama administration has taken yet another step in its campaign to harm our economy and impose federal control over Texas,” he said in a press statement. “With their decision to take control of a permitting process that the Clean Air Act allows to be delegated to the states, the EPA is on the verge of killing thousands of Texas jobs and derailing a program that has cleaned Texas’ air.”  …

John Dunn, M.D., a Texas-based emergency services consultant, says there is more to the fight over air quality than meets the eye. He points out Texas Attorney General Greg Abbot is one of several state attorneys general suing EPA over the agency’s plan to regulate manmade greenhouse gases. According to Dunn, EPA may be seeking payback in its recent focus on Texas air quality.

EPA, Dunn says, has declared Texas a “rogue state” as part of a strategy to “intimidate states into submission.””  “EPA and, Texas Clash Over Air Quality Permits“

“President Barack Obama today issued a memorandum directing federal agencies to develop tougher new fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks beginning in the 2017 model year and to develop fuel economy standards for medium and big trucks for the first time. This follows the new standards announced in April that will begin with the 2012 model year.  It’s not clear to me that consumers are going to want to buy the models that the Congress and the Obama Administration have decreed will be offered in 2012, but the automakers are now resigned to taking orders from their federal masters rather than their customers. My prediction is that another massive bailout of the automakers is inevitable.”  “Obama Wants To Raise CAFE Again”  Cooler Heads Digest 21 May.

EPA’s proposed tailoring rule originally had a threshold of 25,000 tons of CO2 per year to trigger regulation.  EPA seems to have realized that the rule would ensnare far too many businesses in costly and futile CO2 reduction schemes.  EPA may be raising the threshold:

“The new [EPA tailoring] rules would “tailor” the emission thresholds to ensure the agency’s carbon rules would apply only to major emitters, such as power plants and factories making glass or cement. Otherwise, the Clean Air Act would require regulation of smaller businesses, overwhelming the agency’s resources.  …

The EPA has yet to finalize the emissions threshold for the rule. In the past, the agency said it would only likely consider regulating plants that emit 75,000 tonnes per year or more of carbon dioxide.”  “EPA Tailoring Rule May Slip To May“

“It has been three years since the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, 549 U.S. 497 (2007).  But the significance of this case requires that it be exposed and discussed.  The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in this case that the EPA “abdicated its responsibility under the Clean Air Act to regulate the emissions of four greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide.”  In this case the Supreme Court sided with speculation over scientific evidence, as it endorsed the man-made global warming fanatics, whose purposes attack America’s economic strength based upon unsupported speculation.

This is a ruling of profound significance for America.  The Supreme Court by a slim majority leaped forward to conclude that man-made C02 emissions (a) cause global warming, (b) are increasing too rapidly, and (c) that America will suffer catastrophic damages if the EPA does not do something to stop these increases.  The problems with the Massachusetts v. EPA opinion are fundamental and far-reaching.  This opinion stands with Lawrence v. Texas and Boumediene v. Bush as examples of a slim majority of five Justices who abandoned established constitutional principles and echoed politically popular themes to reach a pre-determined result.   The legal processes and analysis of the majority represents a departure from intellectual honesty and disciplined analysis, and stands as a blatant example of judicial activism.”  Continue reading here:  “Supreme Court “Global Warming” Ruling — A Monument to Bad Science and Judicial Activism“

“President Barack Obama’s overbearing EPA is holding hostage thousands of coal-mining jobs in Appalachia in order to protect an insect that lives for a day.

The EPA claims that trading jobs for bugs is part of its proper oversight role, but the evidence suggests that politics are at play. Environmentalists are a very important voting bloc for the Democratic Party, and they earnestly believe that coal is evil, despite the fact that it generates half of the country’s electricity. That’s why President Obama promised, while campaigning for the Oval Office, to “bankrupt” the coal industry. He has since unleashed the EPA to fulfill that promise.  …

It started in June, when the EPA announced that it would use its veto powers under the Clean Water Act to hold up the permitting process for surface coal mining in the steep terrain of the Appalachian Mountains. This is the first time that the EPA has used these powers since the act was passed by Congress in 1970. Also, the EPA has waged a letter-writing campaign to state environmental officials warning them that their standard for water quality is insufficiently onerous for surface coal mining operations. Thus, the EPA has held up 79 permits.

These regulatory intrusions are unprecedented, so the EPA must have a good reason, right?

Wrong. In fact, the EPA is intervening on behalf of a bug.

Recent EPA research suggests that discharge from “fills” — piles of dirt and rock moved in the process of mining coal — hurts populations of mayflies, an insect that typically lives for less than a day. Other research suggests that populations of hardier insect species grow in the wake of the mayfly’s decline, but this doesn’t deter the EPA.

During testimony before the Senate last summer, John Pomponio, an EPA official with jurisdiction over surface-coal-mining permitting in Appalachia, said that it is “critical that EPA re-invigorate its oversight role” in light of the mayfly study.

In practice, a “re-invigorated oversight role” means that President Obama’s EPA has outlawed surface mining practices that had been acceptable for decades. In this business environment — beholden to capricious and arbitrary EPA rules — coal-mining companies can’t raise capital. After all, you can’t mine without a permit.  …

In the short term, people are losing their jobs.

There are more than 60,000 coal miners in Appalachia. Just this month, Consol Energy announced that it would lay off 500 workers at a West Virginia mine idled by the EPA’s actions. As such, antipathy for the EPA runs deep in coal country. Rallies this summer in West Virginia and Kentucky drew scores of thousands of miners and their families.

In the long term, electricity consumers are the big losers. Appalachian coal provides inexpensive fuel for power plants along the Ohio River. It’s the reason that Mid-Atlantic states have some of the cheapest electricity rates in the country.”  “Obama’s EPA Delivers a Lump of Coal to Appalachia“

“At least 15 U.S. states have sued the Environmental Protection Agency seeking to stop it from issuing rules controlling greenhouse gas emissions until it reexamines whether the pollution harms human health.

Florida, Indiana, South Carolina and at least nine other states filed the petitions in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, states said.

They joined petitions filed last month by Virginia, Texas and Alabama.  …

The state petitions call for the EPA to reopen hearings on the so-called “endangerment finding” the agency issued last year declaring the emissions dangerous to people.

“If EPA doesn’t reopen the hearings we will move forward to try to stop them from regulating greenhouse gases,” said Brian Gottstein, an assistant to Virginia’s Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli.

The states have complained that the EPA relied too heavily from reports by the U.N.’s climate science panel which included information that exaggerated the melting of Himalayan glaciers.

The EPA said it was confident it would withstand legal challenges on the issue. “The question of the science is settled,” spokeswoman Adora Andy said. The science “came from an array of highly respected, peer-reviewed sources from both within the United States and across the globe, and took into consideration hundreds of thousands of comments from members of the public, which were addressed in the finding,” she said.”  “States Sue EPA To Stop Greenhouse Gas Rules“

“EPA is also considering a modification to the ["tailoring"] rule announced in September requiring large facilities emitting more than 25,000 tons of greenhouse gases a year to obtain permits demonstrating they are using the best practices and technologies to minimize GHG emissions. EPA is considering raising that threshold substantially to reflect input provided during the public comment process.

EPA does not intend to subject smaller facilities to Clean Air Act permitting for greenhouse gas emissions any sooner than 2016.“  “Administrator Jackson Sends Letter to Senators“

“The US Environmental Protection Agency has created a toll-free tip-line for citizens to report non-emergency suspicious activity related to oil and gas development. Called “Eyes on Drilling,” the number for the tip-line, which EPA’s Philadelphia regional office announced on Jan. 27, is (877) 919-4EPA. Tips may be provided anonymously, it added.

The agency, which also is accepting tips by e-mail at eyesondrilling@epa.gov, said it will accept information from people who observe what appears to be disposal or wastes or other illegal activity. “While EPA doesn’t grant permits for oil and gas drilling operations, there are EPA regulations which may apply to the storage of petroleum products and drilling fluids. The agency is also very concerned about the proper disposal of waste products, and protecting air and water resources,” it continued.  …

The information collected may also be useful in investigating industry practices, it indicated.  …

EPA’s regional office in Philadelphia clearly issued the notice because of growing interest in the Marcellus Shale natural gas formation. Production of gas from it will require hydraulic fracturing, which it said results in 20-30% of the fluid used flowing back to the surface with produced brines which contained dissolved materials from the formation, it said in the notice.  …

The service adds another government element to an already complicated situation …  It won’t be surprising if opponents use it to cause trouble.”  “EPA invites citizens to keep ‘Eyes on Drilling’“

“Now the Obama administration has allowed vastly more money to be poured down the gullet of this insatiable creature, with the EPA making an official finding that corn-based ethanol and biodiesel made using other stocks produce vastly less greenhouse gas emissions displacing conventional gasoline or diesel fuel.

That’s news to some outside researchers, who find quite the opposite; that these fuels require far more energy (carbon-based energy) to produce than they create.

For example, Cornell agricultural ecologist David Pimental and colleagues in a paper last year concluded that no crop produced more fuel than the energy used to grow it and convert it to ethanol or biodiesel. They found a negative energy return of 46 percent for corn ethanol, 50 percent for switchgrass, 63 percent for soybean biodiesel and 58 percent for rapeseed. Even the most promising palm oil production results in a minus 8 percent net energy return.”  Michael Fumento on the EPA finding

“It’s hard to believe, but the Obama administration’s energy policies just keep getting further and further removed from reality.  …

[On Wednesday] EPA issued a ruling which claimed corn-based ethanol can provide significant reductions in carbon dioxide when compared with conventional gasoline or diesel fuel. That finding, would be controversial on its own, particularly given the many studies that have been done that show exactly the opposite. But here’s the real whopper: the EPA’s own data shows that using more ethanol-blended gasoline will make air quality worse. For people who have been following this issue, that finding is not surprising. The agency has already admitted that ethanol is bad for air quality.

But on Wednesday, the agency published a statement which said that ethanol-blended gasoline will degrade air quality enough to “lead up to 245 cases of adult premature mortality.”

[The statement] says that emissions of “hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides (NOx), acetaldehyde and ethanol” are expected to increase … [and] that the emission changes are “projected to lead to increases in population-weighted annual average ambient PM [particulate matter] and ozone concentrations.”

Think about that for a moment. The EPA has just passed a rule on renewable fuels which plainly says that it will make air quality worse.

Thus, the EPA is now enforcing rules on renewable fuels that run directly counter to its stated goals. The agency has declared that “Reducing emissions of NOx is a crucial component of EPA’s strategy for cleaner air.” And the agency’s web site makes it clear why it wants to reduce NOx emissions: NOx can cause ground-level ozone, acid rain, increases in particulate matter, cause water pollution, unleash toxic chemicals, reduce visibility, and cause climate change. The agency also explains in very clear terms that VOCs lead to the creation of ground-level ozone, one of the most dangerous urban pollutants. Ozone is created when NOx and VOCs are mixed in the presence of sunlight.”  “Corn and Coal: The Cornerstones of Obama’s Energy Policies“

“The [EPA endangerment] Finding and the TSD [technical support document] are highly influential scientific assessments that relied on assessments carried out by parties external to the EPA, including the IPCC. In order for EPA to use an assessment with external party peer review, EPA Guidelines require that IPCC submit the assessment report together with a complete peer review record to EPA and that EPA officials evaluate the assessment and peer review record for compliance with EPA (and OMB) Guidelines. It is highly doubtful that either such a submission or such an evaluation ever happened. In addition, there is considerable evidence that IPCC peer review procedures fall well short of the “rigorous” standard required for highly influential scientific assessments including non-compliance with standards on data availability, due diligence and transparency.  … The peer review of the TSD itself did not comply with relevant guidelines.”  “Submission to the EPA on endangerment finding“

“The solution to this bureaucratic dilemma was proposed by Lisa Jackson’s EPA on September 30, 2009 in the form of the Agency’s “tailoring rule”. Under this regulation, USEPA would do away with the 100 ton per year threshold [mandated by the Clean Air Act] when it comes to greenhouse gases and replace it with a much more manageable threshold: 25,000 tons per year. The reason for taking this action is clearly stated in the preamble of the proposed rule:

Without this tailoring rule, permitting authorities would… be required to issue title V permits for approximately some six million sources – currently, their title V inventory is some 15,000 sources.

[But] … Congress never gave the USEPA (or any other regulatory agency) the authority to modify the legislation which empowered the regulatory agency in the first place.

This is tenuous legal ground, equivalent to granting the police department the power to decriminalize behavior based on their work load. If Republicans want to derail global warming hysteria, here’s a first step: challenge the tailoring rule. Demand that USEPA regulates the 6 million major sources of greenhouse gas emissions that an Act of Congress says they should.

Why would any advocate of small government support such a course? For the very same reason that USEPA says it needs the tailoring rule in the first place: because greenhouse gas regulation under the Clean Air Act is absurd.  …

Those 5,985,000 new major sources would include – among other entities – churches, schools, small businesses and (how ironic is this?) celebrity homes like Al Gore’s and Brad Pitt’s palatial estates.  … Is there any doubt how church-goers, parents and small business owners would react if they were suddenly informed that they were “destroying the planet” along with the coal-fired power plants? Such an initiative on the part of USEPA would, I submit, cause millions of Americans to re-examine their beliefs regarding so-called “global warming,” and that would be a good thing.”  “Bluff and bluster:  the real story behind EPA regulating greenhouse gases (Part 1)“

“Congressman Earl Pomeroy [D-ND] today announced introduction of H.R. 4396, the Save Our Energy Jobs Act, legislation which would prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from regulating greenhouse gases. This legislation has been introduced in response to a recent EPA announcement that it was moving forward on new rules to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. This action, if not prevented, could dramatically increase energy rates as well as end up costing North Dakota jobs.

“Regulation of greenhouse gas emissions under the current provisions of the Clean Air Act is irresponsible and just plain wrong. That is why I introduced the Save Our Energy Jobs Act which would stop the EPA from moving forward with its proposal,” said Congressman Pomeroy. “I am not about to let some Washington bureaucrat dictate new public policy that will raise our electricity rates and put at risk the thousands of coal-related jobs in our state.”“  “Pomeroy Announces Introduction of Legislation to Prohibit EPA Regulation of Greenhouse Gases“

“A growing number of state regulators are urging the Obama administration to slow the rollout of proposed federal rules curbing industrial greenhouse-gas emissions, saying the administration’s approach could overwhelm them with paperwork, delay construction projects and undercut their own efforts to fight climate change.

The concerns echo some criticisms that business groups — including the American Petroleum Institute and the National Association of Manufacturers — have voiced about the potential consequence of new regulations …

South Carolina regulators, in a letter to EPA dated Dec. 23, said the proposal will cause chaos and warned that many construction projects — and jobs — are at risk.  …

“We are gravely concerned that EPA’s current proposal will likely create a huge administrative burden,” said Melissa Jones, the [California energy] commission’s executive director. While most states stop short of predicting job losses, California says the proposed rules would cause “gridlock” on the construction of power plants.  …

The EPA declined to comment about the criticisms raised by state regulators. “We are still reviewing the comments. No decisions have been made about the final rule,” an EPA spokeswoman said.  …

[William] Becker [executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies] said that during a recent conference call organized by his group and involving more than 100 state and local air-quality agencies, “most, if not all, said EPA is seriously underestimating the number of sources” that would be subject to regulation under its proposal.  …

In comments filed with the EPA last month, the Office of Advocacy at the U.S. Small Business Administration said the EPA’s proposed rules “are likely to have a significant economic impact on a large number of small entities.”"  “States Want Delay on Emission Rules“

“The “finding” of the [EPA] administrator was not made under Title I [stationary source programs]. In fact, its legality is highly questionable even under Title II [motor vehicle programs]. I seriously doubt the EPA can escape a duty to develop national air quality standards under Section 108(b) of the Act based on statutory history and the case law. Promulgating such standards requires consideration of “all relevant science” before it can occur. In short, if this is made into a fight over genuine science, with rules in play about the competence of evidence and witnesses, I have little doubt that the skeptic view will win.

People need to see the wolves in green clothing for what they are: charlatans. Honest environmentalists need to stop their unquestioning clamor, revisit the science, and recognize the truth, lest the very good cause they serve be seriously harmed.

Americans and American business should not knuckle under to this cynical and corrupt power grab. Before new policy and rules are made, we must demand a thorough airing of the climate science with a fair and honest process by a reliable investigating team. It will not be that hard to root out the fudging and falsification of data.

This is the fight that will define the twenty-first century as either a time when mankind advances due to honest enterprise, quality science, and technical achievement…or we are subjugated by government micro-regulation from manipulative control freaks based on false and slanted data from grant recipients with no scruples.” “Clearing the Air on the Clean Air Act and Climate Change“
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One Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Anthony Kennedy, sided with the four liberals against the four conservatives and ruled that CO2 was a “pollutant” within the meaning of the Clean Air Act, leading to EPA’s endangerment finding, leading to EPA’s coming regulatory strangulation of the U.S. economy. That was 2 April 2007. Given all that has been learned in the last 2+ years about the manipulation of data and the enforcement of consensus, would he rule the same today? I think not.
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“In the high-stakes game of chicken the Obama White House has been playing with Congress over who will regulate the earth’s climate, the president’s team just motored into a ditch. So much for threats.

The threat the White House has been leveling at Congress is the Environmental Protection Agency’s “endangerment finding,” which EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson finally issued this week. …

From the start, the Obama team has wielded the EPA action as a club, warning Congress that if it did not come up with cap-and-trade legislation the EPA would act on its own—and in a far more blunt fashion than Congress preferred. …

The thing about threats, though, is that at some point you have to act on them. …

President Obama, having failed to get climate legislation, didn’t want to show up to the Copenhagen climate talks with a big, fat nothing. So the EPA pulled the pin. In doing so, it exploded its own threat.

Far from alarm, the feeling sweeping through many quarters of the Democratic Congress is relief. Voters know cap-and-trade is Washington code for painful new energy taxes. With a recession on, the subject has become poisonous in congressional districts. Blue Dogs and swing-state senators watched in alarm as local Democrats in the recent Virginia and New Jersey elections were pounded on the issue, and lost their seats.

But now? Hurrah! It’s the administration’s problem! No one can say Washington isn’t doing something; the EPA has it under control. The agency’s move gives Congress a further excuse not to act.

“The Obama administration now owns this political hot potato,” says one industry source. “If I’m [Nebraska Senator] Ben Nelson or [North Dakota Senator] Kent Conrad, why would I ever want to take it back?” …

Then there are the rules stemming from the finding. Not wanting to take on the political nightmare of regulating every American lawn mower, the EPA has produced a “tailoring rule” that it says allows it to focus solely on large greenhouse gas emitters. Yet the Clean Air Act—authored by Congress—clearly directs the EPA to also regulate small emitters.

This is where green groups come in. The tailoring rule “invites suits,” says Sen. John Barrasso (R., Wyo.), who has emerged as a top Senate watchdog of EPA actions. Talk of business litigation aside, Mr. Barrasso sees “most of the lawsuits coming from the environmental groups” who want to force the EPA to regulate everything. The agency is going to get hit from all directions. Even if these outsiders don’t win their suits, they have the ability to twist up the regulations for a while.

Bottom line: At least some congressional Democrats view this as breathing room, a further reason to not tackle a killer issue in the run-up to next year’s election. Mr. Obama may emerge from Copehagen with some sort of “deal.” But his real problem is getting Congress to act, and his EPA move may have just made that job harder.” “The EPA’s Carbon Bomb Fizzles“

The first thing a responsible Congress would do when threatened like this by the executive branch is remove EPA’s jurisdiction over greenhouse gases. Then fight over whether to enact an economy-wrecking Ration & Tax bill which would accomplish nothing climatically. But we don’t have a responsible Congress.

“The Obama administration is warning Congress that if it doesn’t move to regulate greenhouse gases, the Environmental Protection Agency will take a “command-and-control” role over the process in a way that could hurt business.

The warning, from a top White House economic official who spoke Tuesday on condition of anonymity, came on the eve of EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson’s address to the international conference on climate change in Copenhagen, Denmark. …

[T]he economic official who spoke with reporters Tuesday night made clear that the EPA will not wait and is prepared to act on its own.

And it won’t be pretty.

“If you don’t pass this legislation, then … the EPA is going to have to regulate in this area,” the official said. “And it is not going to be able to regulate on a market-based way, so it’s going to have to regulate in a command-and-control way, which will probably generate even more uncertainty.”" “Administration Warns of ‘Command-and-Control’ Regulation Over Emissions“

“Who needs tanks on the lawn when you have the Environmental Protection Agency? Barack Obama’s use of the EPA to pressurise the Senate to pass his climate change Nuremberg Decrees shows his dictatorial mentality. He wants to override Congress, which is hostile to his climate gobbledegook because it is representative of the American electorate, and sideline the nation’s elected Senators by ruling by decree, courtesy of the EPA. This is a coup d’état.

And what is the justification for this undemocratic action? The allegedly imminent threat from “Anthropogenic Global Warming”. There is always a supposed threat, when tyrants take the stage. The President of the United States has just reduced his moral authority to the level of any Third World dictator heading a “Government of National Emergency”. Fortunately, the world’s leading democracy, which he is trying to subvert, has guarantees of liberty so deeply embedded in its Constitution that US citizens are well placed to fight back.” “Climategate: Barack Obama’s rule by EPA decree is a coup d’etat against Congress, made in Britain“

“The EPA aims to bully Congress and business with its carbon ruling.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said yesterday that her ruling that greenhouses gases are dangerous pollutants would “cement 2009′s place in history” as the moment when the U.S. began “seizing the opportunity of clean-energy reform.” She’s right that this is an historic decision, though not to her or the White House’s credit, and “seizing” is the right term. President Obama isn’t about to let a trifle like democratic consent impede his climate agenda.

With cap and trade blown apart in the Senate, the White House has chosen to impose taxes and regulation across the entire economy under clean-air laws that were written decades ago and were never meant to apply to carbon [dioxide]. With this doomsday machine activated, Mr. Obama hopes to accomplish what persuasion and debate among his own party manifestly cannot.

This reckless “endangerment finding” is a political ultimatum: The many Democrats wary of leveling huge new costs on their constituents must surrender, or else the EPA’s carbon police will inflict even worse consequences.

The gambit is also meant to coerce businesses, on the theory that they’ll beg for cap and trade once the command-and-control regulatory pain grows too acute—not to mention the extra bribes in the form of valuable carbon permits that Democrats, since you ask, are happy to dispense. …

For now, this decision moves into the courts, and years if not decades of litigation. Yet the decision really is historic: The White House has opened a Pandora’s box that will be difficult to close, that is breathtakingly undemocratic, and that the country, if not liberal politicians, will come to regret.” “An Inconvenient Democracy“
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