The oppressive monster known as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is not just killing jobs these days -- it is intentionally avoiding transparency that may shed light on the political motivations behind the agency's actions.
Started in 1970 by President Richard Nixon, the EPA was a small agency that combined several anti-pollution and clean water agencies into one agency with 4,084 employees and a $1 billion budget. Today, it has 17,000 employees and has evolved from its narrow focus into an unconstitutional, blunt instrument with vast powers that the Obama Administration wields to promote a radical political agenda that is destroying prosperity and ruining lives.
In March, the U.S. Supreme Court decided unanimously in Sackett v. EPA against the agency. The Sacketts, a young married couple in Idaho, started building their dream home in 2005 but fell victim to an EPA compliance order that charged them with putting fill material onto a wetlands on their property.
When the Sacketts tried to appeal the EPA's decision, they were told that there was no appeals process unless the agency intended to file an enforcement action that would include significant civil and criminal penalties. While two lower courts ruled in favor of the EPA, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously for the Sacketts, declaring that decisions made under the jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act were subject to an appeal.
While that battle was won, the EPA's war on the free market and economic prosperity continues. Even though Congress did not pass legislation to limit carbon emissions or create a "cap and trade" scheme, the EPA has developed burdensome and often contradictory regulations specially designed to harm the same petroleum refining industry America must depend on for any semblance of energy independence.
EPA's politically motivated regulations aimed at the oil industry also hurt consumers. Just this week, the National Automobile Dealers Association released a study showing that EPA's new fuel economy standards will make cars so much more expensive that some 7 million working families and college students will not be able to afford them.
But perhaps most egregiously, EPA overreach was a major factor in why no decision on the Keystone XL pipeline will be made until after the 2012 elections. If approved, the pipeline would create tens of thousands of jobs while providing Americans access to as much as 800,000 barrels of Canadian oil for U.S. markets.
To find out what was going on behind the scenes in the Keystone XL decision, the Institute for Energy Research (IER) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to Obama's State Department and EPA. The goal was to understand if politics and special interest group pressure entered into the decision to delay the pipeline.
But while extreme environmental groups like Friends of the Earth, which opposes the pipeline, had no problem receiving similar information after its FOIA request, IER's request has been delayed. After four months and multiple submissions, the Obama administration has refused to comply, violating FOIA standards. The decision to delay the Keystone Pipeline was clearly so politicized that the agencies involved are willing break the law to cover their tracks. This can hardly be the transparent government that the president promised us when he ran for president in 2008.
EPA overreach, including that on the Keystone Pipeline, destroys the jobs that workers need to pay for the higher gas prices for which EPA is largely responsible. Everyone is in favor of cleaner air and a better environment, but EPA makes no attempt to strike a balance between economic opportunity and environmental gains.
Through greenhouse gas rules, unrealistic fuel economy standards, and now its opposition to Keystone, EPA seems hellbent on making oil -- the energy that powers our economy -- a fuel of the past. Right now, that philosophy is hitting Americans right in the wallet.
It is time to limit the tyrannical, unelected, and hyper-political bureaucracy. That starts with exposing the politics behind the EPA's Keystone XL position.
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Ken Blackwell, a fellow at the Family Research Council, is on the board of directors of the Club For Growth.
"...IER is a tax-exempt public foundation and is funded entirely by tax deductible contributions from individuals, foundations and corporations. No financial support is sought for or accepted from the government.[1] According to the liberal watchdog group, Media Matters,[2] since 1996, $110,000 of IER's funding has come from the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation, a trust set up by private energy company Koch Industries. IER also received over $300,000 in funding from ExxonMobil, [3], but Exxon has not given to IER since 2007.[4]
The Institute's CEO, Robert L. Bradley, Jr., was formerly a director of policy analysis at Enron, where he wrote speeches for Kenneth Lay. Bradley has written books indicting Enron's crony capitalism including "Capitalism at Work"[5] and "Edison to Enron..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_Energy_Research#cite_note-1
"...the article did not mention the Institute for Energy Research's ties to the oil industry or that Exxon Mobil Corp. has funded the organization..."
"...According to Internal Revenue Service data compiled by mediatransparency.org -- a website recently acquired by Media Matters Action Network -- the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation donated $85,000 in grants to the Institute between 1997 and 2005. According to its IRS Form 990 for 2006 (accessed from the GuideStar database), the foundation donated an additional $25,000 to the Institute that year. According to his bio page on the website of the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, of which he is president, Richard Fink is president and serves on the board of directors of the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation. The bio also states that Fink is "an executive vice president and member of the board of directors of Koch Industries, Inc., where he leads the legal, government, community relations and communication capabilities for Koch Industries." Fink is listed as "President/Director" of the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation on the group's 2004, 2005, and 2006 IRS Form 990...."
http://mediamatters.org/research/200901090013
It was a crass political deal made by Obama to get the endorsement of the Sierra Club and other environmental groups. They had stated publicly that canceling Keystone XL was a litmus test for them: They would not endorse Obama unless he canceled it. And they're holding him to that decision permanently--throughout his second term if he wins re-election.
POLITICO.COM has been following that story for months now.
They are not "American". They are International Corporations who must continuously feed their .01% owners, at the cost and suppression of the 99.9% of the rest of the world.
If you believe the Lies of the Republicans about this pipeline, just stop for a moment and think..
Who gets the money?
By the way , the bluster about the Canadians " threatening" to ream a pipeline straight west from Fort MacMurry AB to the Pacific Coast of B.C. over several mountain ranges across many watersheds across First Nation lands to develop a tanker port in a treacherous inlet to send oil to China instead...well, that just another political ploy and playing the China Card. If I were a betting man I would say that owing to China already being invested in the tar sand already , that the Gateway Pieline will also be built so Canada can sell oil to both pipes.
This is NOT an environmental debate nor is it a JOBS debate. It's just cheap dirty tarry partisan politics. Pretty much just like the tar sands the abominable oil is derived from.
The JOB creation issue. Per Keystone's revised estimates 2000 to 5000 temporary 6 month to 18 months jobs and 50 permanent. As opposed to multi-year infrastructure work. E.P.A. minimum wage clean up jobs like the Gulf WHEN a spill occurs. Which is better for AMERICA?
Who will be the contractor? Will it be Chinese steal and pipe? Are they obligated to use U.S. Labor. This is 1800 miles long do they plan to pay travel expenses or just get new local labor every 2 months?
Why does this pipe HAVE TO BE HEATED?
Who and what agency is responsible WHEN a spill happens in the future since this not AMERICAN oil and the pipe is owned by a multinational oil company? Google tar sands. Read this http://www.onearth.org/article/tar-sands-oil-plagues-a-michigan-community .
Check “eminent domain” and the property RIGHTS issues. This is like selling the Indiana toll road to foreign interest.
Where is all the “WASTE” going to go when it comes to Texas? Dump it in the gulf? Some estimates are as high as 92% solid waist from tar sands. Even at 50% that is a 1 for 1 barrel of waist to oil.
If this is so good for jobs Why isn't Canada building new refineries and just supply their own country with off market oil to keep the prices down for their own people buy reducing shipping cost of Tankers. (see their environmental laws in Canada)
oil market economics:
US farmers who spent $12.4 billion on fuel in 2009 could see those costs rise to $15 billion or higher if the pipeline goes through, he projects. At least $500 million of the added cost “would come from the Canadian market manipulation,”.
“Millions of Americans will spend 10 to 20 cents more per gallon for gasoline and diesel fuel as tribute to our ‘friendly’ neighbors to the north,” “The Keystone XL pipeline will move production from Canadian oil sands to where it can be exported.”
This, based on findings of the economic consultants hired by TransCanada – in their analyses of the pipeline’s impact in official testimony before Canada's National Energy Board.
As a result of those increases in the price of heavy crude in the Midwest and sales of higher-margin refined products shipped out from Gulf Coast refineries to other markets, Canadian oil producers could be expected to reap $2 billion to $3.9 billion more each year.
Koch Industries refines 25% of tar sands crude oil entering the U.S. and operates a terminal at the proposed pipeline's origin in Hardisty, Alberta. After 6 months of public insistence that Koch Industries had nothing to do with Keystone XL, news emerged that Koch's wholly-owned subsidiary Flint Hills Resources told Canada's Energy Board it has "direct and substantial interest.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46689167/ns/us_news-christian_science_monitor/
To find out what was going on behind the scenes in the Keystone XL decision, the Institute for Energy Research (IER) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to Obama's State Department and EPA. The goal was to understand if politics and special interest group pressure entered into the decision to delay the pipeline.''
But the IER say this:
''For the past three years, the Environmental Protection Agency has been working overtime to blockade domestic energy development and impose the agenda of environmental extremists on the country,” according to IER President Thomas Pyle. “
http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2012/03/16/ier-files-keystone-xl-foia-request-with-epa/
Do you really expect to be taken seriously when you associate with organizations that use rabid rhetoric like this? What is an ''environmental extremist'' ?
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/04/13/thanks-to-obama-regs-7-million-lower-income-consumers-will-be-cut-out-of-the-car-market/
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This study concerns purchase of NEW cars Not USED cars. How many students and poorer working class families currently purchase NEW cars? Are you serious?