House Votes To Block EPA From Regulating Greenhouse Gases

The Republican-controlled House has voted to block the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases that scientists say cause global warming.

The 249-177 vote added the regulation ban to a sweeping spending bill that would fund the government through Sept. 30. The restriction is opposed by the Obama administration, which is using its regulatory powers to curb greenhouse gases after global warming legislation collapsed last year. The administration also says the ban would cost thousands of construction jobs.

EPA has already taken steps to regulate global warming pollution from vehicles and the largest factories and industrial plants. It is expected to soon roll out rules that target refineries and power plants.

Texas Republican Ted Poe pressed the anti-EPA measure. His Texas district is home to many oil refineries.

Comments

[StephenBP]

12:31 PM on 03/13/2011

The EPA and state environmental agencies provide critically needed jobs for thousands of chemists and biologist, and civil and chemical engineergs. With the increasing push to off-shore manufacturing and technology, the United States Republicans are pushing the USA over the cliff of technological superiority by their constant war against science.

With the dumbing down of US population through a wrecked education system, it is easy to get people excited about getting rid of needed regulations. Of course they are only needed if you like rivers and streams with clean water, lichens growing on rocks and trees, and lead free air to breath.

If money is your only goal, screw it, kill everything. Who cares?

Politics and religion strive for control over people, and the Republicans currently have a lock on the religio-political insanity of the day.

In the future, people will hide the fact that they had any Republican ancestors. It will be an embarassment to be descended from a Republican.

[Richard2]

11:52 AM on 03/08/2011

from an editorial in the Washington Times:

"As Congress looks for ways to trim the budget, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) represents an opportunity for up to $9 billion in savings. This outfit has become little more than an advocacy group for trendy leftist causes operating on the public’s dime. Many liberal policies being promoted are so unpopular that congressional Democrats can’t muster the votes to get them through the proper legislative process. So they go to the EPA instead.

That’s why the EPA announced Tuesday that it had revised the deadlines imposed on certain companies for reporting so-called “greenhouse gas” production. A facility that manufactures paper, for example, would have to determine whether it “emits 25,000 metric tons of carbon-dioxide equivalent (CO2e)” per year. The agency guesses that this covers about 10,000 businesses which would then be forced to measure their carbon-dioxide output, maintain detailed records and submit reports to EPA busybodies."

[StephenBP]

05:52 PM on 02/24/2011

What part of providing for the general welfare is served by allowing free rein to those who would despoil the health of the world for money?

The EPA serves an important purpose. A constitutionally mandated purpose.

Get over it.

[StephenBP]

05:45 PM on 02/24/2011

The professional hit job on climatologist seems to have originated in the former soviet union. Why would that not be surprising? Russia is, after all, the largest fossil fuel exporter in the world.

[Chris 1]

12:36 PM on 02/24/2011

Curry backs McIntyre on "Hide the Decline"

http://judithcurry.com/2011/02/22/hiding-the-decline/

The disinformation cartel is failing.

[Publicola]

02:12 AM on 02/25/2011

At least Curry acknowledges that she's not an authority in this area:

"paleoproxies are outside the arena of my personal research expertise"

In the bigger picture Curry supports the IPCC's overall assessment of climate science and global warming:

"The IPCC WGI report is a good summary of the overall state of the science."

-- Judith Curry, Oct .2010

[Richard2]

12:24 PM on 03/03/2011

But is hide the decline good science? Why don't any members of the consensus step up and seriously argue the point in front of the public? The silence is creepy.

[ILoveFiction]

09:42 AM on 02/23/2011

Somebody tell us an Al Gore story.

I never get tired of hearing those old classics.

[Junksciencecutecritters]

10:28 AM on 02/23/2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xf69EEL3WBk

[StephenBP]

01:15 PM on 02/23/2011

Hey ILoveFiction,

You love fiction. Here is a scene from a novel for you....

Psychiatrist is evaluating a patient..


"The subject cites “common sense” as the reason for his ability to see through a non-existent hoax. He claims that the hoax is being perpetrated by the world’s climatologists for the purpose of making themselves fabulously wealthy. He claims that people who hold views opposite to his are insane.

The subject appears to have been successfully indoctrinated through highly politicized junk science websites supported by various groups with a vested interest in the outcome of any public decisions made about the phenomenon of global warming. He gives evidence that at some subconscious or non-conscious level, he fully understands the reality of the situation, as he uses the words “junk” and “science” as part of his nickname.

His need to sort out the internal conflict brought on by conflicting inner values and by the realization of the enormity of the changes likely to be wrought by global warming, causes the individual to repeatedly and obsessively return to websites which examine the subject of global warming. There, he repeatedly defends his confused, highly emotional position with scraps of evidence gleaned from non-objective sources. As further evidence of his confused proselytizing, he tries to win others to his side of the argument by repeatedly insulting them. "

[pita143]

04:19 PM on 02/24/2011

You seem to not mention the simple fact that Exxon Mobile through their think tank, American Enterprise pays for ANY published papers against Climate Change to the tune of $10,000 per paper. Those same authors of those papers end up with offers through various Energy companies.
BUT, the fact is the scientists who have the EVIDENCE that Climate Change exists do not receive a pay check, unlike those who did not agree with Climate change and have NO evidence to the contrary.

[wdw808]

02:11 AM on 02/23/2011

too funny

[peterz]

10:20 PM on 02/22/2011

It's really odd...I work among a bunch of engineers.­...The electrical­s would never presume to say they know better than mechanical­s on a complex mechanical issue and visa versa.....­yet some are convinced that the various sciences and specialize­d studies which feed into the climate change hypothesis are simple enough for them to render a conclusive opinion on, an opinion that differs from the vast majority of the practition­ers....wei­rd......

[Junksciencecutecritters]

10:57 PM on 02/22/2011

It doesn't take any specialized training to see through the hoax, just common sense.

[ILoveFiction]

05:50 AM on 02/23/2011

Go get 'em.

[chrisd3]

06:04 AM on 02/23/2011

"It doesn't take any specialize­d training to see through the hoax, just common sense."

And the credulous nature required to believe that thousands of scientists from every corner of the globe have been lying through their teeth for decades for no apparent reason.

[StephenBP]

07:09 AM on 02/23/2011

Isn't it funny? An awful lot of engineers seem to have a very parochial view of the world. I worked in engineering for a number of years myself. I remember a younger engineer explaining to me that scientists just weren't "practical" enough, which was why engineers were superior. In order to get an engineering license, you have to be good at solving engineering problems, which takes a good brain. Engineering problems, however, tend to have specific, definable inputs, and they do not always scale or relate well to problems outside of the engineering box. Engineers I worked with were usually employed by industry, and any anti-industry sympathies would typically weed them out of the team, so there was not a lot of incentive for them to think about the world from a point of view which does not strive for short term profit.

I would point out to the engineers that they would probably be very good at working on the problems of global warming if they took a little more training.... probably another five or ten years worth of it. In the mean time, they can spout about it all they want. A lot of their spouting will be posturing for their co-workers.

Yeah team.

[reasonshouldrule]

10:13 PM on 02/22/2011

Can these industry-bought congress people be any more obvious? America, wake up. I'm sure most of us can see the destruction caused by these kinds of policies and vote these people OUT.

[CLASSWARWELOST]

07:45 PM on 02/22/2011

Can we act anymore stupidly.Republicans seemed to have forgotten they live on this planet too. All the money in the world is worth nothing if you can't breath, eat or drink water.

[peterz]

10:23 PM on 02/22/2011

they're waiting for the Rapture.....

PEW research polling suggests that 52% of republicans are creationists, believing Earth to be less than 10,000 years old and the universe made just for them...

[pita143]

04:21 PM on 02/24/2011

Don't forget the idea they also have that GOD put the dinosaur bones in the ground to Test everyone. I love that one.

[Junksciencecutecritters]

12:05 PM on 02/23/2011

We could hit the tipping point any day now. The oceans are gonna boil and we're all gonna die.

[wolshdog]

06:33 PM on 02/22/2011

as if we didn't know this already already... there are some major energy companies and utilities are funding the campaigns of the majority of the people who voted to block the EPA from regulating those very same entities

check it all out at www.opensecrets.org/

great.

[Bill Bushing]

06:58 PM on 02/22/2011

So the real question is... when do we get money for biased corporate and wealthy contributors out of the process completely (that would include those on all sides of the political spectrum)... about time our legislators voted on what was best for the country and its people, not what was best for Big Money.

It's no longer :"What;'s good for General Motors is good for the country." Heck, GM is off to China now.

[Bill Bushing]

02:52 PM on 02/22/2011

Many of these legislators can't even figure out how the economic system, an essentially human construct, works... much less global climate, a natural and highly complex system. Why is it they are so anti-science?

[peterz]

05:51 AM on 02/22/2011

The dishonesty is astounding­­...

3 guys and a shed
http://www­.oism.org/

a video on the fraud
http://www­.youtube.c­om/watch?v­=Py2XVILHU­jQ

[StephenBP]

07:14 AM on 02/22/2011

Can you rep;ost the second link? Doesn't seem to work.

[StephenBP]

07:46 AM on 02/22/2011

Found it.. in your earlier post. No need to repost.

It is about the 32,000 "Scientists" who signed the OISM petition.
OISM seems to be little more than a sounding board for right wing billionaires.

BTW, I had the misfortune of working for one of the "scientists" who signed that petition and he was a truly awful human being, one who was, incidentally, accused by some of his coworkers of ........ taking someone else's work from a previous employer and pawning it off as his own! The product line based on "his" work was strangely divested like a hot potato. Despite doing every bit of lab work for one paper he published I was given zero credit. He presented as a seriously imbalanced human being, who would wax moralistic and religious one moment, and then give lots of clues that he was trolling off site conferences to find opportunities for extra-marital "refreshers". A truly creepy individual...

A sample of one from a set of 32,000 doesn't have any significance statistically, but it sure doesn't give me any warm fuzzies about the others on that list...geh...

[Bill Bushing]

02:45 PM on 02/22/2011

Let's see, it a mere $100 per signature that would add up to only $3.2 million, for a more lucrative $1,000 a signature a paltry $32 million.. Signatures, like votes, can be bought.

[Risandy55]

12:03 AM on 02/22/2011

Decimate regulations on: Clean Air to breathe, Safe workplaces, Safe Food to eat, Clean water to drink, Consumer protections, Gun control, Wall Street,

Defunding Planned Parenthood, which will mean throwing women under the buss on Cancer screenings, PAP smears and Birth control.

It's like Humans are not dying off fast enough for Conservatives, they are trying to rush it at us
as fast as possible.