Tag: EPA

New EPA ozone regulations based on fantasy

4:46 pm

We’re here to help you: New proposed EPA regulations for reducing ozone are expected to cost trillions to enforce, even though there is no evidence that the regulations will do anything to improve health.

In the name of fighting asthma, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requested permission to decrease the ozone standard  — the amount of ozone allowed in the atmosphere — to a level some scientists say is physically impossible to achieve. One organization estimates the cost to implement these new rules will be $1.1 trillion. Even worse, data shows that as ozone levels in the U.S. have decreased, asthma cases have increased.

This regulation may be the most expensive in history, and bring absolutely no health benefits.

Worse, there is absolutely no scientific basis for these ozone regulations.

While average levels of ozone have decreased 33 percent since 1980, the number of asthma patients has increased over that time. The Global Asthma Report for 2014 lists environmental factors which lead to asthma, but never mentions smog or ozone. The National Institutes of Health does not list climate change or ozone as a cause of asthma mainly because the exact causes are unknown. Excessive hygiene once was considered the primary cause, but this view has been mostly refuted. “The World Health Organization report “Ambient (Outdoor) Air Quality and Health” does make the argument that ozone may trigger asthma, but it does not refute the negative correlation between improving air quality and the worsening Asthma epidemic in the US.”

While proposing the new standard, the EPA cited a study of which the agency itself had previously said “it is convenient for fitting the model, but it is not accurate.” As Tony Cox pointed out, “there is abundant historical data on ozone levels and asthma levels in U.S. cities and counties over the past 20 years,” so it is relatively easy to see if decreasing ozone has positive effects on respiratory health. It does not.

Read the whole thing. The only reason the EPA is going to try to impose this regulation, which by the way is so stringent that it will likely be impossible for anyone to meet it, is because they can. It is a power play, pure and simple, imposed by appointed fascist bureaucrats who have an ideology that they intend to force on everyone else, regardless of the harm it does.

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EPA violated Endangered Species Act in Colorado

1:18 pm

The law is for the little people: The EPA violated the Endangered Species Act when it began work on the Animas River spill without first consulting with the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Turns out that it is very illegal, as in, criminal and civil charges illegal, when someone does not consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service prior to undertaking a project that poses a threat to endangered critters. In this case, downstream fish.

But, but, but, we didn’t mean to spill all of that acid and lead and whatnot into the river, stammered EPA Chief Gina McCarthy.

That didn’t satisfy GOP Rep. Rob Bishop of Utah who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee, and reminded her repeatedly that the EPA had been warned for more than a year that a blowout was imminent, and therefore consultation on endangered species was required by law before work began at the mine. [emphasis in original]

It turns out that the EPA did not begin the process, required by law, until last night, more than a month after the spill and well after their work began. I wonder how they would treat a private landowner or business who so cavalierly ignored the law.

Also, the head of the Interior Department, Sally Jewell, refused to appear for Congressional hearings, while the EPA head, Gina McCarthy, demanded that she not have to sit next to other witnesses, all of whom were there to describe the disaster her agency has brought down upon them. Moreover, during McCarthy’s testimony she said that no one at the EPA would be held criminally responsible for the spill.

But hey, isn’t the government’s the best way to do things? That’s what Democrats keep telling us. And we believe them, of course, blindly, without question.

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Wyoming farmer defies the EPA

8:37 am

Defiant! A Wyoming farmer has filed suit against the EPA for demanding he disassemble a small stock pond he built on his own property, after following all the state’s rules and getting all the proper permits.

The EPA’s fines, $75K per day, have now accumulated to over $16 million. He is challenging the agency, saying that he followed all the rules, that the pond is on his own property, and that the EPA does not have jurisdiction.

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EPA withholds Colorado disaster documents demanded by Congress

3:58 pm

Surprise! The EPA, when ordered by Congress to release documents describing that agency’s planning prior to the toxic waste disaster it caused in Colorado, has failed to meet the deadline set by Congress for turning over those documents.

“It is disappointing, but not surprising, that the EPA failed to meet the House Science Committee’s reasonable deadline in turning over documents pertaining to the Gold King Mine spill,” said Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX). “These documents are essential to the Committee’s ongoing investigation and our upcoming hearing on Sept. 9. But more importantly, this information matters to the many Americans directly affected in western states, who are still waiting for answers from the EPA.”

Smith – who frequently spars with the EPA – is chairman of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee. EPA director Gina McCarthy has been asked to appear and answer questions about the agency’s role in creating a 3-million-gallon toxic spill into Colorado’s Animas River on Aug. 5. Critics say McCarthy and the EPA have been unresponsive, secretive and unsympathetic toward millions of people who live in three states bordering the river.

The word “coverup” comes to mind, though how could anyone believe that the Obama administration (the most transparent in history!) would do such a thing baffles the mind.

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“When EPA is not ignoring Supreme Court limitations on it, it is blithely disregarding rule-making laws required of it.”

9:00 am

The story that has the quote above outlines the EPA’s recent and past history of ignoring the law and court rulings to write and impose its regulations. It also details the many times the environmental agency has used its ability to impose fines to extort concessions from private landowners, including the recent Colorado mine disaster.

Like the IRS, the EPA has become an out-of-control agency, a haven for fascists eager to use their power to squelch anyone that opposes them. With the former, this power is used by partisan Democrats to help the Democratic Party and hurt its opponents. With the latter, this power is used to destroy private property rights in the name of leftwing environmental fantasies, even if that use of power ends up doing terrible damage to the environment.

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Obama threatens veto of House bill to limit EPA use of unpublished data

9:57 am

Here we go again: The House is about to vote on a Republican bill to require EPA to use only publicly available data.

The bills, introduced by a mostly Republican cast of sponsors in both the House and the Senate, would require that EPA use only publicly available, reproducible data in writing regulations and seek to remake the membership and procedures of the agency’s science advisory panels. Supporters, including industry groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, argue that the legislation would improve the transparency and soundness of how EPA uses science, making regulations less costly and more effective.

Opponents, however, are calling the bills wolves in sheep’s clothing. “I cannot support legislation that makes it easier for industry to implement their destructive playbook, because risking the health of the American people is not a game that I’m willing to play,” said Representative Paul Tonko (D–NY) at a 25 February committee meeting on the bills.

The White House has issued statements saying Obama will veto the bill. How hard to do you think John Boehner and Mitch McConnell will fight for this legislation?

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More crushing Obama regulation to come

9:12 am

Despite the just completed elections, where the voters clearly indicated their disinterest in the additional environmental rules supported by Democrats, Obama is gearing up for an “onslaught” of new regulations.

The Obama administration is set to roll out a series of climate and pollution measures that rivals any president’s environmental actions of the past quarter-century — a reality check for Republicans who think last week’s election gave them a mandate to end what they call the White House’s “War on Coal.”

Tied to court-ordered deadlines, legal mandates and international climate talks, the efforts scheduled for the next two months show that President Barack Obama is prepared to spend the remainder of his term unleashing sweeping executive actions to combat global warming. And incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will have few options for stopping the onslaught, though Republicans may be able to slow pieces of it.

If anyone has any doubt left that this president, and the left, doesn’t care what the American public wants, this story lays that doubt to rest forever. Barack Obama dislikes the idea of democracy, of following the will of the people. Instead, he wants to rule as a dictator, dictating the rules that he thinks are right. And the left that supports him supports this tyrannical approach.

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EPA threatens $75K per day fines to man who built pond on his own property.

6:11 pm

We’re here to help you: The EPA is threatening a man with $75K per day fines unless he tears down a homemade pond he built on his private property, using water from a 2-foot wide, 6-inch stream.

Johnson’s pond was created with a dam on a nearby creek in Fort Bridger, which he built about five years ago. He got the right permits from Wyoming state agencies. “I acquired a stock pond reservoir permit,” he said. “They said go ahead and build it. When I was done with the project, I got a hold of them again and did a final on it, and they sent me a paper back saying I’m in good standing, that my pond was exactly exercised as permitted.”

The EPA maintains Johnson broke a law by failing to obtain a federal permit before constructing the pond.

As Johnson himself notes, this is really a power grab by the EPA. The agency has wanted control over every piece of U.S. water for decades — no matter how small or temporary. In the late 80s they tried to claim that any temporary wet spot was a wetlands that they had jurisdiction over. Now, it is every minor creek. In both cases, the EPA never made any effort to document if any environmental harm was being done, only that they should have complete control over everything.

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EPA tells court it has lost text messages

3:21 pm

The most transparent administration ever: The EPA has admitted that text messages demanded in a lawsuit, which the agency is required by law to retain, have been lost.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) told a federal court that it may have lost the text messages at the center of a lawsuit by a libertarian think tank.The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) sued the EPA last year in federal court to compel the release of text messages to and from Administrator Gina McCarthy and her predecessor under the Freedom of Information Act. In the Tuesday filing to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Justice Department lawyers representing the EPA said the agency will soon file a notice that it may have misplaced records that it was legally required to retain.

It seems pretty clear that the Obama administration has decided to follow the same playbook with all its many scandals: stonewall and coverup, legally or illegally.

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The Feds steal cars

9:17 am

Theft by government: Homeland Security agents confiscate forty vehicles because they think they violate the Clean Air Act.

The story has this very interesting tidbit: According to the owner of one vehicle “had spent considerable money ensuring her vehicle would pass inspection laws and that it was in compliance with emission rules.” Nonetheless, the feds showed up at her door and took the vehicle.

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EPA “loses” emails like the IRS.

1:24 pm

Transparency! Subpoenaed emails at the EPA have been lost because of a hard drive crash.

The hearing also included a bit of deja vu for the committee when members grilled [EPA Administrator Gina] McCarthy on lost emails from a hard-drive crash (the same issue that wiped out emails from IRS employee Lois Lerner). In this case, the emails in question were from retired EPA employee Philip North, who was involved in the agency’s decision to begin the process of preemptively vetoing the Pebble Mine project in Alaska.

North, who declined an interview request by the committee, is retired, and committee staff say they have been unable to track him down. According to a committee aide, North’s hard drive crashed in 2010—which was around the same time that the committee is investigating the agency’s discussions of a potential veto—and the emails were not backed up.

This is all crap. The only way these emails get lost is if the people involved intentionally “lost” them.

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A science poster released at an American Geophysical Union conference this week finds again that the global warming climate models used by policy makers have all failed to predict what has actually happened.

3:38 pm

The uncertainty of science: A science poster released at an American Geophysical Union conference this week finds again that the global warming climate models used by policy makers have all failed to predict what has actually happened.

Some devastating quotes from the poster:
» Read more

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A researcher of fuel cells, manhandled and arrested because he used the wrong mailing labels in selling and shipping sodium to fund his research, was then targeted by the EPA because he wasn’t home to maintain his sodium supplies.

6:16 pm

We’re here to help you: A researcher of fuel cells, manhandled and arrested because he used the wrong mailing labels in selling and shipping sodium to fund his research, was then prosecuted by the EPA because he wasn’t home to maintain his sodium supplies.

On May 27, 2004, federal agents in two black SUVs, waving assault rifles, forced Krister’s car off the road. Manhandling him as if he were a terrorist, they arrested, interrogated, and jailed him. For what? Putting the wrong shipping label—with the correct instructions, mind you—on a box of raw sodium that he sold on eBay.

A jury saw that it was an honest mistake and found Krister “not guilty.” But while Krister was on trial, sodium from his experiments sat in steel drums at an industrial warehouse. The Environmental Protection Agency learned of the additional sodium, determined that Krister had “abandoned” it, and charged him with a federal crime.

Although Krister’s expert witness testified that the sodium was stored properly, a jury found Krister guilty. He served 13 months in federal prison and eight more in a halfway house.

So, what did he do that was morally wrong? Nothing. Not that this matters to our lovely federal government. He did not obey their rules to the letter, even when they themselves made it impossible for him to do so. Thus, he must be destroyed.

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Despite the failure of any climate model to predict the climate, the Obama administration is increasing the cost and strictness of regulation because of what it sees as the “social cost of carbon dioxide.”

10:57 am

Despite the failure of any climate model to predict the climate, the Obama administration is increasing the cost and strictness of regulation because of what it sees as the “social cost of carbon dioxide.”

[E]ssentially, the government is now incorporating newer climate models that capture the future damage from sea-level rise more explicitly. Those models also project that agriculture will suffer more heavily in a hotter world. So, in its central estimate, the federal government now assumes a ton of carbon-dioxide emitted in 2013 does roughly $36 in damage, rather than its previous estimate of $22, with the value rising each year.

Meanwhile, new data also suggests increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere might actually be beneficial, not damaging.

Shouldn’t the EPA and the Obama administration get their heads out of the sand?

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The EPA has acknowledged that it illegally released personal information of farmers to several leftwing environmental organizations.

8:53 am

The EPA has acknowledged that it illegally released personal information of farmers to several leftwing environmental organizations.

Mistakes do happen, but like the IRS scandal, this mistake was all one way, helpful to the left and harmful to their opponents. And like the IRS scandal, this one way harm suggests this was not a mistake, but quite intentional.

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After mandating the sale of 15% ethanol gasoline — that can damage engines and lower fuel efficiency — the EPA is now going to require that you buy at least 4 gallons in order to reduce the damage.

5:35 pm

How nice of them: After mandating the sale of 15% ethanol gasoline — which can damage engines and lower fuel efficiency — the EPA is now going to require that you buy at least 4 gallons when you fill your tank in order to reduce the damage.

The entire auto industry has made it very clear its opposition to 15% ethanol because that mixture is harmful to vehicle engines. So, does the EPA back off? No, it instead doubles down, increasing its regulatory control in a manner that is complex, unenforceable, and impractical.

And when this new regulation doesn’t work and vehicles begin to fail, don’t expect the EPA to pay for the repair. Instead, I expect we will soon have EPA regulators standing at every gas station, checking to make sure we use the right gasoline in the right amounts, ready to fine or arrest us if we dare to do something different.

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The EPA is attempting to enforce a regulation requiring ships to use low-sulfur fuel, despite the fact that the regulation has not yet been voted on by Congress.

10:27 am

The law is such an inconvenient thing: The EPA is attempting to enforce a regulation requiring ships to use low-sulfur fuel, despite the fact that the regulation has not yet been voted on by the Senate.

The treaty amendment at issue is a 2010 agreement under the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, or MARPOL. The United States has signed onto MARPOL, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has accepted the 2010 amendment. Domestic enforcement of the amendment is not permitted without ratification by two-thirds of the U.S. Senate.

And the Senate has not voted on this yet.

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The House Appropriations Committee has approved a $1.4 billion cut in the budget of EPA, also including 31 additional riders limited the agency’s regulatory powers.

1:57 pm

The House Appropriations Committee has approved a $1.4 billion cut in the budget of EPA, also including 31 additional riders limiting the agency’s regulatory powers.

That would make the 2013 EPA budget equivalent to its budget in the early 2000s, numbers that would hardly be crippling.

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The House yesterday proposed a spending bill that would cut the EPA’s budget to $7 billion, 17% less than what it received in 2012.

3:09 pm

Progress: The House yesterday proposed a spending bill that would cut the EPA’s budget to $7 billion, 17% less than what it received in 2012.

Considering the federal debt, this is a reasonable cut, as a $7 billion budget would be comparable to the EPA’s budget numbers in the early 2000s, and would hardly cripple that agency.

On a more depressing note, the Senate is moving forward on a bi-partisan deal to pass a massive farm bill, loaded with pork that would spend almost a trillion dollars over the next decade.

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A UCLA professor who exposed corruption while also challenging the legitimacy of certain California fuel regulations, has sued the university for firing him.

12:09 am

The McCarthyism of the environmental movement: A UCLA professor who exposed corruption while also challenging the legitimacy of certain California fuel regulations, has sued the university for firing him.

Enstrom charged in 2008 that his colleagues exaggerated the adverse effects of particulate matter in order to justify expensive diesel fuel regulations to the California Air Resources Board (CARB). Enstrom testified in the same year to the state Senate that the lead contributor to the CARB report, Hien T. Tran, paid $1,000 for his Ph.D. from a fake university, and members of a CARB panel had exceeded their mandated three-year term limits by decades.

Shortly after Enstrom revealed the misconduct, UCLA began sending him notices of termination and has refused to compensate him for more than a year’s worth of work….

Tran was eventually suspended for 60 days, and one professor who had served on the CARB panel for 26 consecutive years was removed and later put back on the panel. John Froines, who has publicly supported diesel fuel regulations, was on a committee that voted to dismiss Enstrom.

Read the whole thing. It illustrates why attending UCLA for a science education is clearly a waste of time. They don’t want to teach their students science. They want to teach them propaganda.

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