House Subcommittee Moves To Ban EPA GHG Regulation

Edward Niedermeyer
by Edward Niedermeyer

House Republicans took the first steps towards banning the EPA’s regulation of greenhouse gases, as the Energy and Power Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee approved HR 910, the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011. In their statements today, Republican committee leaders cited rising gas prices and negative impacts on American businesses as the main reasons for attempting to strip the EPA of its ability to regulate emissions of

Water vapor, Carbon dioxide, Methane, Nitrous oxide, Sulfur hexafluoride, Hydrofluorocarbons, Perfluorocarbon and any other substance subject to, or proposed to be subject to, regulation, action, or consideration under this Act to address climate change.

Intriguingly, subcomittee Chairman Ed Whitfield’s statement [ PDF] names a number of industry groups who support HR910, including the National Association of Manufacturers, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, American Farm Bureau Federation, National Mining Association, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, National Petrochemical and Refiners Association, and the National Association of Realtors… but no auto industry group was named as a supporter of the bill (current regulation of GHGs only cover power stations and large-scale emitters). HR910 has been fast-tracked to the full Energy and Commerce Committee, which will begin hearings on Monday. According to Bloomberg, Senate Democrats are vowing to block the bill, arguing that Republicans attempts to link the bill to gas prices are misleading and that if passed, it would increase harmful pollution.


Edward Niedermeyer
Edward Niedermeyer

More by Edward Niedermeyer

Comments
Join the conversation
9 of 29 comments
  • Junebug Junebug on Mar 11, 2011

    First off - DDT was banned without any proof that it ever harmed anything but insects, and about a million people die each year due to malaria - but dey be ova in Aff-ri-ka so dey don't count. Folks, they do count and I'm one old white redneck that thinks it's more than a sin that we buy into this whole enviro -weenie bull squeez. And, this whole global warming crap is nothing but a scam - if you are to stupid to follow the money trail then you deserve to rot in hell.

    • See 2 previous
    • Philosophil Philosophil on Mar 12, 2011

      I always make an effort to look at these kinds of things objectively. The fact that many people have turned 'environmental' concerns into another marketing scam does not entail that these concerns are not legitimate. The prevalence of these marketing scams likely says more about the nature of the market than about the legitimacy of the concerns on which they rest. I don't know what you people mean by 'proof,' but proof in science is not like the demonstrative kinds of proof found in mathematics or deductive logic. Scientific 'proofs' usually involve some appeal to the general weight of evidence taken overall, and if new evidence comes to light, then conclusions may be revised or the theory abandoned. In general, however, in science a conclusion doesn't need to be demonstrative to count as a 'proven' scientifically. All that is needed is that the general weight evidence be sufficient to support the theory or claims being made. To use a legal analogy, the best you can generally hope for in a scientific proof is that the conclusion is supported by the general weight of evidence within a reasonable level of doubt. You will often find scientists supporting or accepting theories that they may still have some doubts about precisely because the general weight of evidence supports it, but not enough to attain the level of consensus needed to declare something to be a 'fact.' In general, scientific proofs are provisional with varying degrees of confidence in the conclusion, depending on the general weight of evidence supporting them. As far as I can tell, there seems to be a relatively high degree of confidence among scientists that the earth is going through a period of global warming, and a lower degree of confidence regarding the extent to which this is humanly induced, but enough, nonetheless, for many scientists to conclude that humanly-induced global warming may be a real problem that we should make real efforts to address. While many people have a tendency to draw absolutist conclusions from this, on both sides of the fence (from 'life is doomed' to 'global warning is a scam' or 'we should regulate the sun'), the real truth about global warming seems to be that if global warming is indeed humanly-induced (or humanly-accelerated), then the nature and scale of the changes that are likely to result are such that we have an obligation to future generations to do something about it now.

  • PeteMoran PeteMoran on Mar 12, 2011

    Dumb Americans.

  • Thornmark Thornmark on Mar 12, 2011

    >>WRONG WRONG SO WRONG....I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had. Let's be clear: The work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period. . . . I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way. . . . To an outsider, the most significant innovation in the global warming controversy is the overt reliance that is being placed on models. Back in the days of nuclear winter, computer models were invoked to add weight to a conclusion: "These results are derived with the help of a computer model." But now large-scale computer models are seen as generating data in themselves. No longer are models judged by how well they reproduce data from the real world -- increasingly, models provide the data. As if they were themselves a reality. And indeed they are, when we are projecting forward. There can be no observational data about the year 2100. There are only model runs. This fascination with computer models is something I understand very well. Richard Feynman called it a disease. I fear he is right. Because only if you spend a lot of time looking at a computer screen can you arrive at the complex point where the global warming debate now stands. Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we're asked to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future? And make financial investments based on that prediction? Has everybody lost their minds? 'Aliens Cause Global Warming' From a lecture delivered by the late Michael Crichton at the California Institute of Technology http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122603134258207975.html AGW is religion at best, not science. The models have been wildly off, the Earth has been cooling for 15 years. So now it's "climate change". Why do the usual suspects support AGW? It's about new tax revenue and special interest rent-seeking, supported for those reasons, not science or saving the planet. Like ethanol, once the stupidity happens, it is very hard to undo as the special interests protect what they gain from the public. The Dems were too cowardly to pass legislation to regulate GHG so they're having the EPA do it. That's their undoing because once the EPA acts it goes to the courts and so-called "climate science" will go on trial. That is something the AGW scammers can't win because it's not science, it's politics.

    • See 1 previous
    • Inside Looking Out Inside Looking Out on Mar 12, 2011

      thornmark, thank you for citing Michael Crichton. very excellent piece that explains very well the essence of science and how science is different from religion, alchemy and other pseudoscience like GW. It explains why ancient Romans, Greeks and Muslims succeeded in mathematics but failed to move forward science and technology. If decisions made by society were based solely on consensus human race would still live in dark ages and extreme poverty. But thankfully Christian faith somehow instigated scientific method, something other religions and societies were not capable of. And after scientific methods came to existence no amount of pressure from consensus among pseudo-scientists or religious leaders, no amount of terrorism was able to stop scientific progress. Now does anyone seriously believes that new attempts from modern incarnation of pseudo-scientist,so called GW advocates, to put Genie back into bottle and stop and even reverse the progress will succeed? I can hardly believe it. Western societies may choose to commit suicide and eventually terminate themselves and follow Romans, but other cultures eventually will take their place and make commitment to continue progress and move Human race forward applying scientific methodology.

  • Thornmark Thornmark on Mar 12, 2011

    re: PETEMORAN denier - what a cliche Strawman? Even a simple person should know that regulation and taxes redistribute wealth. That's just one reason "climate change" is losing.

Next