How the West Was Done

I think we can now identify the precise moment at which we began our inexorable slide toward the death of our civilization.  It was the announcement this month that the EPA has made an endangerment finding vis a vis six Greenhouse Gases (GHGs). Hyperbolic? Unfortunately no. 

Let me see if I can do this is the unofficial 1Timmy4 word limit of 250 words:

Basically, in 2007 the SCOTUS determined in Mass v. EPA that states (along w/ private groups) had to right to sue the EPA to force it to regulate GHGs for motor vehicles under the Clean Air Act (CAA). The EPA had to make a determination that either: 1) GHGs are a danger to public health and welfare, 2) GHGs are not a danger, or 3) there is not enough information.

Unsurprisingly, Obama's EPA has chosen option number one.

They claim they will just regulate automobiles (already a bad decision, but that is a different topic). However, since environmental groups can now sue to make EPA regulate gases, they can make the EPA regulate GHGs not just for automobiles, but under ALL of the CAA. 

The CAA was written several decades ago, and revised most recently 20 years ago, with the distinct intent of regulating really terrible pollutants that like kill people. Concrete plants, smelters etc. It sets actual limits (100 tons in some cases, 250 tons) of gases before regulation kicks in, and for poison like CO, sulphur that causes acid rain this works well. But, it is insane for carbon dioxide (which we all breath out by the way, you are a pollution source now...)

Your average mid-size office building or large restaurant emits this much GHG, depending on how they are fueled. Making possibly millions of previously unregulated sites subject to EPA permits will not only grind the EPA to a halt, it will mean the end of development as we know it. Obama and his minions know this and are basically daring Congress not to re-write the CAA to include Kyoto style limitations or cap and trade. But Congress has not shown any desire to lose their seats doing this. 

So, essentially the EPA has said, 'Congress, you pass wildly unpopular legislation or we will grind the economy to a complete standstill.' Great. As Glenn Reynolds has become fond of saying, the country is in the best of hands.