JLF takes stand against EPA Tailoring Rule

by Dr. Roy Cordato

Senior Economist Emeritus

December 21, 2010

The newsletter highlights relevant analysis done by the JLF
and other think tanks as well as items in the news.

1. JLF takes stand against EPA Tailoring Rule

Most people know that the EPA has declared carbon dioxide
(CO2) a pollutant to be regulated under the Clean Air Act. The Supreme Court
declared this to be within the EPA’s authority. What most people are not aware
of is that the EPA is taking on the task of amending the Act as it goes about
implementing regulations.

The EPA has decided unilaterally to change the
maximum emission requirements applying to all other gasses determined to be a
pollutant by the Act. The EPA is actually loosening the standard. It is doing
this because to apply the standard to CO2 that is dictated by the Clean Air Act
will cripple the economy. To a reasonable person — or in this case a
reasonable government agency (if that’s not an oxymoron) — this circumstance might
suggest that the writers of the Clean Air Act were not intending that a gas as
pervasive and as ubiquitous as CO2 be regulated under the Act. But since the
ideologically driven EPA is intent upon pursing these regulations regardless of
what the Act says, they are ignoring the law and going rogue — devising what
it is calling the "tailoring rule." I guess the EPA believes it can
simply "tailor" the law to fit its own agenda. The word
"tailor" is being used as a euphemism for ignoring the law.

North Carolina’s Department of Environment and Natural
Resources is now beginning the process of implementing the "tailoring
rule" by developing an "implementation plan." We believe that
North Carolina should follow the lead of Texas and refuse to go along with this
illegal maneuver being perpetrated by the EPA. The details of this are
explained by my colleague Daren Bakst in his weekly
newsletter on regulatory issues.

2. Cold and snow is a thing of the past. Not!

A decade ago the global warming alarmists were arguing that children
are likely to never see snow again. This
UK Independent article from 2000,
"Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past," reported:

According
to Dr. David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit
of the University of East Anglia, within a few years winter snowfall will
become "a very rare and exciting event"…"Children just aren’t
going to know what snow is," he said…The effects of snow-free winter in
Britain are already becoming apparent. This year, for the first time ever,
Hamleys, Britain’s biggest toyshop, had no sledges on display in its Regent
Street store. "It was a bit of a first," a spokesperson said…Fen
skating, once a popular sport on the fields of East Anglia, now takes place on
indoor artificial rinks…Michael Jeacock, a Cambridgeshire local historian,
added that a generation was growing up "without experiencing one of the
greatest joys and privileges of living in this part of the world – open-air
skating".