Thursday, February 10, 2011

Defund the EPA

February 10th, 2011 Steve Milloy, The Washington Times

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has hit the ground running with its greenhouse-gas regulations. But congressional Republicans are just getting around to introducing well-intended, but futile legislation to stop the agency.
There is another way. The GOP could rescue us from the EPA as soon as March, but it won’t.
Does the GOP have a secret strategy? Has it forgotten the election? Or is it afraid of the EPA?
Senate and House Republicans just announced plans to introduce legislation stripping the EPA of its authority to regulate greenhouse gases (GHGs). That sounds encouraging, but the reality is that even if such a bill winds up on President Obama’s desk, he’ll veto it, and there aren’t enough Republicans to override a veto.
At best, these bills are political theater intended for impact in 2012. But the EPA isn’t waiting until then.
Its emissions-permitting program went into effect on Jan. 2 and by Jan. 7, the agency was already interfering with job creation and economic recovery. Its first target is the planned Nucor steel facility in St. James Parish, Louisiana.
When the permitting process being handled by the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) strayed past Jan. 2, the EPA exercised its new authority and told the LDEQ that it didn’t like the proposed permit’s emissions provisions.
The permit that LDEQ proposed issuing to Nucor required the company to implement “good combustion practices” as a means of controlling GHG emissions.
This sort of energy-efficiency strategy is about all that can be reasonably expected to be done at this point to reduce emissions, short of not emitting them at all. Moreover, it is an approach the EPA said it would allow in a November guidance document.
Read more.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.