Did The “Best And Brightest” Just Do Another Stupid Thing?
Kimberley Strassel at the Wall Street Journal thinks they did. In a big way.
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?”
Obama is trying to legislate through the executive branch. This is going to backfire. Meanwhile, Congress has now got zero incentive to try and pass Crap and Tax legislation. And anything the EPA does will simply result in massive increases in the cost of energy with zero revenue for the government.
And do please read the whole thing. Because there is ever so much more. Industry is champing at the bit to unleash their lawyers – as is the environmental left. So were are about to see dueling lawsuits on a biblical scale.
Expect an administration with virtually no members who have served in the military to fail to grasp the concept of throwing the grenade after the pin is pulled. So they just held the grenade and threw the pin. The administration, such as it is, is rapidly descending into farce.
Appalling, Obamantics | Gaius December 12, 2009
By Maggie, December 12, 2009 @ 5:34 pm
Here ya go, Gaius. Seems that whole geothermal drilling thingy Algore was spewing about on Conan a couple weeks ago ain’t all it’s cracked up to be (pun intended for the old 1960s sci-fi flick “Crack In The World”)
http://tinyurl.com/ybv33mb
And here’s the Gore-speak from Conan to go along with it:
http://tinyurl.com/yl4g2s4
By Gaius, December 12, 2009 @ 5:47 pm
I’ve spent my entire professional career in the energy field, Maggie. It never ceases to amaze me at how utterly clueless the advocates of some of these “magical” projects are as to the basic laws of physics.
Just wishing it so does not make it so.
By dorf, December 12, 2009 @ 6:44 pm
I only repeat what I read. …the first president to be a lame duk in the first year…
By Mwalimu Daudi, December 12, 2009 @ 7:56 pm
It will only backfire if the GOP stands up to the Won, or if the courts intervene to stop this power grab.
By feeblemind, December 12, 2009 @ 10:24 pm
I sure wouldn’t count on the courts to fix this. I think it will take an act of Congress to rein in the EPA.
By ropelight, December 13, 2009 @ 9:05 am
feeblemind, we can’t count on the Democrat Congress we now have to buck the usurpers in the White House and the EPA. This Congress opposes the interests of the American public.
Unfortunately, the next election is almost a year away, so we’re just going to have to stop this Obamanation ourselves. Get ready for Tea Party-II, Washington DC, April 15, 2010.
Stand up for America, or get on your knees for Obama. The choice is yours.
By feeblemind, December 13, 2009 @ 9:34 am
Re ropelight: I didn’t mean to imply that the dem congress would fix this. I am saying an act of Congress prohibiting the regulation of CO2 by the EPA is what it will take. In other words, I don’t see it getting fixed until we have a Congress (and POTUS)that will address the issue. One of the things about EPA and OSHA in particular,that seem blatantly unconstitutional to me is that these unelected bureaucrats can enact laws (disguised as regulations) that the rest of us must comply with. Legislating is the job of Congress. At the very least any proposed regulations should be voted on by Congress and signed off on by the POTUS before going into effect, but that does not happen. Anyway, the courts have ruled that the present procedure for enacting laws by regulatory agencies is constitutional, so we are likely SOL, at least for the time being.
By ropelight, December 14, 2009 @ 8:12 am
feeblemaind, I recall reading about Robert W Wood who invented both Infrared and Ultraviolet photography back in 1910. If memory serves, he built identical greenhouses to find out if CO2 could hold heat, and thus influence his heat related photographic efforts.
One greenhouse was kept at normal levels, while the other had elevated CO2. He found that internal temperatures remained essentially equal. Thus, he concluded that CO2 did not hold heat.
Actually his associated experiments indicated that temperatures in greenhouses are directly related to the materials used it their construction, that is, how much light and heat are allowed to enter the greenhouse and are trapped inside the enclosed space increases the internal temperature, and is thus unrelated to the concentration of CO2.
His conclusions refute the fundamental assumptions which underlie Global Warming: That since man’s activities emit increased levels of CO2, and that CO2 is a “greenhouse gas” which traps heat in the atmosphere, it follows that man is responsible for a global increase in temperature.
If Wood was correct, then CO2 isn’t a so-called “greenhouse gas,” and Global Warming is exposed as a hoax.
BTW, October 2010 will be the 100 year celebration of the publication of Wood’s first infrared photographs. I’d like to see a few real scientists have a forthright look into Wood’s greenhouse experiments, we may have more than his photographic discoveries to celebrate.
By ropelight, December 14, 2009 @ 8:34 am
fm, my next to last paragraph overstates the case. My point is:
It’s not that GW is thus a hoax, it’s the role of CO2 as the agent of temperature change which is unsustainable. Warming may well occur because of factors unrelated to CO2, fluctuations in solar activity for instance.
AWG, or warming caused by man’s emission of Carbon Dioxide is the hoax. There is no such thing as a “greenhouse gas.”
By Sam, December 14, 2009 @ 5:35 pm
Remember that all it takes is one sentance inserted into any bill that Congress passes to shut down the EPA. Something along the lines of “The EPA shall expend no funds on the enforcement or regulation of CO2.”