Why Is the EPA Out Of Control? Because They Succeeded.

Ever since travel writer Anne Royall regaled early 19th century audiences with tales of environmental destruction in the Kanawha Valley salt works, there has been concern about pollution and destruction.  Ronald Lewis' Transforming the Appalachian Countryside chronicles the effect of the later 1800s timber industry on the landscape, eroded mountains, streams devoid of fish, and other disasters. In 1969 came the seminal environmental event, when pollution in Ohio's Cuyahoga River caught fire.

Modern conservatives blame Richard Nixon for the later sins of the Environmental Protection Agency that he created.  Nixon, however, knew that systematic abuse of the environment had become standard operating procedure in many industries.  This was the problem that the EPA was created to address. The Industrial Revolution brought prosperity, education, higher living standards, and longer lives.  It also set a river on fire.  Nixon created the EPA to reduce pollutants and enforce new environmental standards to encourage conservation and protect the environment. 

And what came of it?  The EPA succeeded.  According to their own statistics, carbon monoxide levels in the air dropped 83 percent from 1980 levels, from 178 million tons to 51 million. Much of the drop in carbon monoxide emissions came between 2001 and 2009, the years of the George W. Bush presidency.  Airborne lead dropped 91 percent. Aggregate emissions of six common pollutants dropped 67 percent.

Percentages and raw numbers dropped even though the US has more people, producing more goods and services, and driving more vehicles than ever. 

So the EPA actually succeeded in its most important primary task.  It brought reasonable standards into being and provided an enforcement mechanism to ensure that the air and water did not harm us.  In any group of people, accidents and even disasters will happen.  But they do not have a serious long term impact because industries generally abide by EPA standards.  

If the story ended here, we'd call it a government success story.  Most people understand, however, that it did not, that the EPA now uses flimsy evidence and bad science to justify destroying industries.  Worse, they work at the behest, as Heritage's Stephen Moore describes, of green energy moguls who have a vested interest in its work.  So-called green energy cannot replace coal, gas, or oil.  It also requires enormous amounts of resources to build and ship which limit their benefit to the environment. 

A lot of politics and money have energized the EPA to attack the cleanest coal mining and power production that has ever been seen anywhere in history.  But why do they also go after farms?  Why, for example, as Delegate Kelli Sobonya said last week, has the EPA gotten so obsessed with limiting "bovine emissions" (that's cow farts to the rest of us.)

Another aspect fuels EPA lunacy.  They succeeded and now the agency has little real justification for crusading.  Going after bogeymen, real or false, gives bureaucrats a sense of purpose.  Secular Saint Georges slaying the mean and nasty pollution dragon, saving the world from global warming, err climate change.  This all sounds like much more fun than a scaled down agency administering reasonable regulations that maintain a successful status quo.  

The EPA achieved its original goal beyond what was likely expected in 1972. It eventually hit a balance between the needs of a dynamic economy and the needs of a protected environment.  Now, to justify itself, it goes out looking for new empires to battle and conquer.

It's human nature to want to matter and have a strong sense of purpose.  But this agency level self-fulfillment should not come at the cost of real jobs, real standards of living, and real lives.

 

Calling Out the Mob

Last winter, as biting winds whipped snow around the federal capital, chilling news on energy was released.  The moratorium on coal fired power plants, combined with a number of forced closures, would force energy prices to rise 70 to 80 percent.  The Obama Administration last week tried to cushion the blow of higher prices with an apocalyptic prediction of climate destruction.

Ignoring Congress, the EPA manufactured a regulatory interpretation that allowed them to force plants to use sequestration technology to capture carbon.  This technology does not even exist.  Enforcing this rule will start shutting down plants whose output was necessary to maintaining power levels in the Northeast during the record cold winter.

This is, of course, done to prevent global warming.

The Heritage Foundation's Stephen Moore and Joel Griffith researched all of the climate claims used as "proof" of climate catastrophe.  Every single weather phenomenon was debunked by the article. Temperatures have neither increased, nor dropped on average in ten years.  Tornadoes do not happen with any increasing frequency.  Hurricanes have actually happened less often.

Moore and Griffith also examined Jimmy Carter's own apocalyptic climate report, predicting oil shortages and starvation in 2000.  None of the fearsome claims made by the scientists of the 1970s ever came to pass.

And they wonder why Americans view politicized science with more skepticism now.

The EPA's War On Common Sense

I rarely post something in the first person, but sometimes it's needed.

A couple of days ago, I was warming up my wife's car.  I didn't check the gas when I started the car and it ran out.  I figured, no problem, I'll just go get a gas can, get a gallon of gas, then put it in, right?

I go to the store and buy a gas can.  They are a lot more expensive than they used to be, but I chalked it up to inflation.  Then I get to the gas station and open it up.  It looks like some kind of system that belongs on the space shuttle, I mean, that used to belong on the space shuttle when we used such things.  I put the gallon in anyway.

When I got home, I tried using the can.  The nozzle system was more complicated than I ever dreamed and all I accomplished was spilling about a pint of gasoline onto the ground.

At this point, I figured out that this must be the EPA's fault.  The private sector is best known for selling products that are easy to use and get easier over time.  The gas can used to be simple, a nozzle and a vent in the back.  It operated on the same principle as canned juice.  Open both ends for a smooth and easy pour.

Now it works on impossible to discern engineering principles.  As sure as I had just ruined my leather gloves by accidentally spilling gasoline all over the place, I smelled an EPA rat here.

Sure enough, I was right.  Long story short, the EPA forced mind numbing, California originating, standards on gas cans to do what?  Prevent spillage.  Apparently, all over the country, people are spilling gas from these stupid things.  I spilled more gas with the new can than in 40 years of life combined.

They also have a tendency to inflate in hot weather and rupture, spewing gas everywhere.  Why?  They are airtight.

And I still couldn't get gas in my car.  But my daughter came to the rescue.  She and her friends had run out of gas months before.  They also couldn't work the gas can, so they came up with a good solution.

Cut the bottom off of a water bottle and get a coat hanger.  Use the upside down bottle as a funnel while the coat hanger opens the tank.  Take the entire nozzle apparatus off the can and pour the gas out directly.  No muss, no fuss.  And try to find a safe place to dispose of the bottle and hanger.

Or, figure out where racing teams buy their gas cans.  They still use the old style.

Thanks EPA.  One more thing that you have done to make everyone's life a little more frustrating.  Now I will have to remember you more often than when my low flow toilet backs up.

Putting Too Much Trust In Flawed Science Can Bring Bad Consequences

Sometimes science based on incomplete knowledge causes no harm.  Not too long ago, the Mid-Atlantic braced for what experts predicted would be a massive and destructive storm of wind, heavy rain, hail, and dangerous lightning.  Some changed travel plans while others stocked up.  The front passed with less sound and little fury, but residents were relieved at the mistake.

Science will always suffer from errors because it springs from the mind of humanity.  Nothing worldy exists in a state of perfection and no human or collection of people cannot account for every variable.  Science at best is the most educated guess possible based upon years, decades, centuries, or even millenia of analysis, experience, and observation.  That being said, sometimes science proceeds with less tested and known ideas.

This Forbes piece describes what happens when agendas take over in science.  The pressure to not be wrong creates situations where even lives may be lost because of the reluctance to admit failure.  In this case, the head of a study on ways to protect the heart during non cardiac surgery screwed up the results and covered up the dangers.  Many lives were lost to standards and practices based on bad medicine.

Obviously the researchers had agendas above and beyond truth and patient safety.  That is the other variable in science.  People bring in worldviews and goals that have little to do with scientific fact.  Drug companies have an incentive to push pills, so their motives should always be examined.  Those benefiting from huge grants for studies have to answer for money that they get from advocacy groups.

The general public and the media optimally should examine variables and incentives for certain results that can skew science.  Also, one must look at the possible harm caused by making decisions based upon flawed studies.

In the case of the controversial research on climate change, too many scandals, agendas, and bad research have clouded the results.  Leftist politicians want people to accept new regulations that hurt jobs, productivity, and wealth production.  They want the US to accept even more economic disadvantages even while the future is threatened by accelerating debt and rising prices. 

Any war needs a solid cause, not a constant shifting of reasons.  The War on Coal was launched on the supposed certainty of global warming.  Now that the Earth has been shown to not be warming over the past 15 years, they switched to "climate change."  This absurdly ignores the fact that the main climactic constant is change, showed by the Little Ice Age of 1350-1750 (dates approximated), for example.

Science is not shamanism.  It relies on imperfect minds and sometimes imperfect motivations.  When shown to be beneficial, we should use it.  But when we have reason for skepticism, we must ask science to study further.

David McKinley Fires Back At Michigan Congressman Who Seeks to Shut Down Coal

Rep. McKinley’s Statement on Rep. Conyers’ Out of Touch Claims on West Virginia’s Coal Industry

Washington, D.C. –Rep. David B. McKinley, P.E. (R-WV) issued the following statement after Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) claimed from his limited understanding that “there is no such thing as clean coal,” during an Environmental Protection Agency conference. Conyers went a step further to disgrace West Virginians by calling for a shutdown of the coal industry.

"The comments made by Rep. Conyers are very disappointing,” said McKinley. “As lawmakers we should be encouraging job creation and expansion, not fighting to end American industries. West Virginia's lifeblood is coal, which means jobs for many hard working people throughout our state. As Americans are struggling to make ends meet and our nation is facing record high unemployment, I would encourage Rep. Conyers to focus his efforts on job creation and less on tearing down our industries in West Virginia."

Rep. McKinley is on the Energy and Commerce Committee as well as a member of the Congressional Coal Caucus. McKinley has also introduced and championed many pieces of pro-coal legislation in his short time in Congress.

Kudos also to Senator Joe Manchin for firing back int he strongest possible terms.

Environmental Protection Agency Continues Its March to Irrelevance By Cracking Down on Farm Dust

Farm dust. Yup. Dirt stirred up by men and women working in the ground. The EPA is considering calling dust a pollutant and enacting stringent new regulations to harm our nation's farmers. As usual, this is something that will drive the little man out of business and benefit the big conglomerates.

I live right beside the Potomac State College farm. Yes there is a little bit more dust there than you would normally see. But is it really a pollutant? It is no more a pollutant than pollen that comes from certain flowers or crops. Will the EPA go after that next? I'm not joking. If they are going to regulate dust, the sky is the limit on stupid laws eminating from this agency. Will they next require states to pave every little country road in existence? What is the point of this and where will it stop? Seems to me that those who live by a farm simply have to buy a little bit more Pledge or move. Farmers have a right to use their property to make a living without so much government interference that they cannot operate.

At some point, the EPA will regulate itself into complete irrelevance. Bureaucrats who have never seen a farm are trying to force insane regulations onto teh backbone of this nation. It is constitutionally questionable whether or not the EPA actually has the authority to regulate anything. Just because we have allowed it to does not mean that it has the constitutional authority to do so.

We need to make our state legislators aware of this movement. It would not be hard to get a bipartisan group of West Virginia legislators together to petition our senators and representatives to halt this insanity.

Story below

http://www.news9.com/Global/story.asp?S=12899662

An Image of Environmental Authoritarianism: The Green Police of the Audi Commercial

Audi is a German company and, if they were trying to portray themselves as environmentally conscious, they should probably have known better.

Certain images have a context and advertsisers ought to always be aware of what they are. Audi during the Super Bowl last night created a commercial that portrayed a police state run by environmentalists hwere the enforcement arm is known as the "Green Police."

During the height of the Nazi terror before and during World War II, much of the law enforcement in Nazi Germany was handled by the Order Police, also known as the "Green Police" because of their distinctive uniforms and their flag, portrayed on the left.

Interestingly this image created in the commercial does speak to the most extreme fears about environmentalism, that its concern for the environment is merely a stalking horse for a wide variety of political and social controls. Don Surber of the Charleston Daily Mail tabulates the slow creep of environmental authoritarianism in Great Britain and notes that left wingers want to bring the same draconian laws here that would force old ladies from their homes for not being energy efficient enough. Their desire to intrude and destroy natural rights is as chilling as almost any totalitarian movement one can think of.

Audi may have been parodying the fear of environmentalism or the environmental movement itself. What it succeeded in doing was giving conservatives and libertarians a frightening image that they can combine with the words of most extreme of environmentalists. With this, we can attack cap and trade and a host of other insane proposals brought about by enviro-authoritarianism. Some of these people, like Ed Begley Jr., want to see this world come about. A picture is worth a thousand words. How many is a short clip worth?

Thanks Audi, whether you meant it or not, you helped American natural rights supporters out tremendously!

Obama Urged to Violate Constitution

The United Nations Climate Fraud Conference in Copenhagen has an understated theme that might cause havoc in the United States. It wants Barack Obama to use his executive powers to sidestep the Constitution and Congress and impose UN generated emissions regulations.

Senator Jim Webb (D) VA issued Obama a harsh rebuke yesterday, warning him to not circumvent the US Senate in imposing international standards on the United States. Only a treaty ratified by the Senate can do this according to the Constitution.

Webb's public warning exposes the fear and anger felt by Senators at this possible attack on their Constitutional powers. Obama already has ignored the Senate in his appointment of over fifty czars with regulatory powers. What is to stop him from doing the same to curry the love of Europe.

This issue is not about the climate. No raw scientific data backs up global warming theories. Europe adopted these harsh and costly rules that prevent their manufacturing from competing effectively with the US. They want us to voluntarily harm our own competitive abilities in the name of a disgraced theory. Meanwhile China, India, and Russia will not face the same restrictions. Obama himself said that climate regulation will make all of our electric bills "skyrocket."

This is a recipe for electoral disaster for the Democrats and long term economic disaster for the rest of us.