Feb 20th, 2009 at 11:43 am
The EPA, Climate Change, and You
Two great Dave Roberts posts at Grist, one here and one here help us understand the significance of yesterday’s announcement that the Environmental Protection Agency is going to start following the law and regulating CO2 emissions under the Clean Air Act. Joe Romm at Climate Progress also has more on this.
32 Responses to “The EPA, Climate Change, and You”
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February 20th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
If this signals carbon pricing is now taking a back seat to regulation it’s a major, major mistake.
February 20th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Again, I think you’re letting your policy preference for CO2 controls slide into sloppiness with the facts, something you ought to avoid while you correctly ream the Post for its inaccuracies. The law does not require EPA to regualte CO2 until it makes an endangerment determination and EPA has defensible grounds for making that decision either way. There isn’t a deadline for that decsion, and it’s fair for EPA to take time to develope a position. Too many people are claiming that the Agency is just willfully violating the law, and that just isn’t true.
February 20th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
Matt has never been known to be scrupulous with facts when he is demagoging an issue.
February 20th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
In McCulloch v. Maryland, within the unanimously joined opinion (but not in the finding), Chief Justice Marshall stated that the power to tax involves the power to destroy. If the government can regulate co2 emissions they can tax them. It gets tricky, though, because taxation must originate in Congress.
The EPA does have the ability to levy fines, which I believe was approved by congress. It could institute a standard set of fines based on CO2 emissions. However, if a court decided that these fines were a revenue measure rather than a regulatory enforcement measure, they would be overturned. The sums involved would be very large. I think they would be deemed a revenue measure.
February 20th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
Whatever happened to “global warming?” Why the increasing references to the non-falsifiable “climate change”?
February 20th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
the Environmental Protection Agency is going to start following the law and regulating CO2 emissions under the Clean Air Act. Joe Romm at Climate Progress also has more on this.
It doesn’t say that at all. It says merely that the EPA will “reconsider” a prior memo regarding CO2 emissions from coal plants and that this is a “first step” towards regulating such emissions.
February 20th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Steve –
My guess is that relying on the overwhelming scientific consensus about global warming is just not tenable when it’s cold outside. Hence “climate change.”
February 20th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
Good thinking! So if this global warming thing doesn’t work out, you can still be right about “climate change.”
It’s kind of like Obama’s campaign slogan: “Change.” “Hey,” he can say, “I didn’t promise ‘Change for the Better.’ I didn’t spend three years at Harvard Law School to get caught making actual promises.”
February 20th, 2009 at 10:21 pm
Matt, if you want to get a lot of comments and extra page views, it looks like environmental issues are the way to go. You should buy George Will a drink.
I hope the EPA gets it right. If they don’t, the consequences could be dire. It’s easy enough to use taxes to reduce emissions from automobiles. But it’s going to be a tricky policy area to reduce emissions from residential heating and air conditioning, especially during tough times.
What I really hope is that the EPA takes its own sweet time before coming out with prescriptive regulation. This is nowhere near as simple as people think.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:19 pm
Global Warming Theater presents:
http://www.hootervillegazette.com/globalwarming.html
February 20th, 2009 at 11:44 pm
It’s easy enough to use taxes to reduce emissions from automobiles.
You’ve got to be kidding. There would be enormous political opposition to an increase in gas taxes.
February 21st, 2009 at 1:11 am
Hi Davis,
There might be–but I think we’re in different times. After paying $4 per gallon for gas, now that it’s back down again, would people fight for 25 cents a gallon? I’m not so sure.
If it were staged increases presented as part of an overall package, I’m just not so sure. Might help a bit of it were staged asymmetrically with the bulk of the increase coming (hopefully) after the recession.
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