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"Carbon and Democracy"

WSJ:

Yesterday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee began debating a bill that would prohibit the EPA from abusing the clean air laws of the 1970s to impose the climate regulations that Congress has refused to pass despite President Obama’s entreaties. As EPA chief Lisa Jackson put it with her customary reserve at a hearing last week, the measure “would presume to overrule the scientific community on the scientific finding that carbon pollution endangers Americans’ health and well-being. Politicians overruling scientists on a scientific question . . .”

We’ll spare you the rest, though Ms. Jackson mentioned “science” a few more times in case anyone didn’t get the drift. But the real presumption is that an unaccountable bureaucracy should use its self-assigned powers to make inherently political choices that will be a colossal drag on economic growth.

The bill, which the committee will likely approve today and the House will likely pass later this spring, would restore the plain regulatory meaning that “pollutant” held for decades until the EPA decided in 2009 that all of a sudden it also applied to carbon. John Dingell helped write the Clean Air Act and its 1990 revision, and the Michigan Democrat has repeatedly said that neither was ever meant to address climate.

Other critics of the EPA’s carbon agenda include Senate Democrats like West Virginia’s Jay Rockefeller and Ohio’s Sherrod Brown, neither of whom is otherwise known for business sympathies. But they understand that the EPA is about to unleash an economy-wide deluge of new rules and mandates that is already costly and destructive, and it has barely begun.

Mr. Rockefeller is sponsoring a Senate bill that would freeze regulation for two years, but the House bill is a better approach because it is a permanent solution. The EPA’s carbon putsch has been arbitrary, politically driven and frequently illegal, and it won’t be any less reckless two years from now.

Whatever Ms. Jackson’s appeals to “science,” as if democracy doesn’t matter, her conception of an autonomous regulatory state should offend any elected politician. The harm the EPA is inflicting is bad enough, but let’s start with such basics as the rule of law and representative government.

Well, I’d start with teaching the EPA what “science” actually is, but I take your point.

Question: how do you suppose it is possible, linguistically speaking, that a court can take the wording of legislation never intended to address climate and never intended to allow for the categorization of human exhalation as a “pollutant” and declare that the legislation in fact does allow for such a thing?

Your answers should be one paragraph or less. And phrased in the form of a question.

(h/t TerryH)

26 Replies to “"Carbon and Democracy"”

  1. JD says:

    WTF?

    Is that a concise enough answer? :-)

  2. Joe says:

    Question: how do you suppose it is possible, linguistically speaking, that a court can take the wording of legislation never intended to address climate and never intended to allow for the categorization of human exhalation as a “pollutant” and declare that the legislation in fact does allow for such a thing?

    Penumbras!

  3. What is, because they are Proggie assholes?

    I’ll take government douchbags for 500 Alex…;-)

  4. Blake says:

    Jeff, I’ll take scientific illiteracy for $2 billion, please.

  5. BuddyPC says:

    Ms. Jackson and her ilk picked the wrong week to insist that any of we non-resident-Japanese are “Saving” anything.

  6. Entropy says:

    What is intentionalism?

    Who is John Galt?

    What is the average flying velocity of an unladen swallow?

    Boxers or briefs?

  7. LTC John says:

    “Your answers should be one paragraph or less. And phrased in the form of a question.”

    Did you see what the #$%& the Ninth Circuit did today?!

  8. LBascom says:

    A consensus of reasonable regulators will need decide the intent of the legislation, since it is impossible to understand because it’s decades old?

  9. eleven says:

    And isn’t it really just Republican carbon that anyone’s concerned about? I’d like to outlaw Michael Moore’s carbon with extreme prejudice cause I’m raciss ‘n’shit.

    (I have this recurring mental image of Michael Moore being thrown into a volcanoe)

    (Does volcanoe have an “e” at the end?)

  10. LBascom says:

    Well eleven, it’s even money the ugly, clueless, ass is a virgin.

    I understand volcanoes are picky.

  11. mojo says:

    “Why Satire is Dead”, Part XMVLIII:

    The most popular choice for the building in an online poll was the “Harry Baals Government Center.” The second-place finisher was “Thunder Dome.”

    http://dailycaller.com/2011/03/15/indiana-city-chooses-not-to-name-building-after-harry-baals/#ixzz1GhPDFZeL

  12. mojo says:

    Oh, the question: easy

    They’re assholes?

  13. Alarm1201 says:

    What is Living Constitution?

  14. zino3 says:

    Could it be that the EPA (and especially this little snot nosed prig of a woman/child) need a good slap upside the hay-ed?

    Would these smarmy m****rf****rs know “science” if it bit them on the ass?

  15. Entropy says:

    The science does not bite them in the ass. The science is settled. Settled science does not unsettle. It is like communism and islam.

    Mostly it just rocks back and forth in the sewing room at the nursing home.

  16. proudvastrightwingconspirator says:

    “Question: how do you suppose it is possible, linguistically speaking, that a court can take the wording of legislation never intended to address climate and never intended to allow for the categorization of human exhalation as a “pollutant” and declare that the legislation in fact does allow for such a thing?

    Your answers should be one paragraph or less. And phrased in the form of a question.”

    Are you serious?
    – Speaker Nancy Pelosi

  17. SteveG says:

    They fucking won the fucking election because everyone got all fucking dreamy eyed over bullshit like hope and change and fucking diversity?

  18. Blitz says:

    JD, LTC JOHN and PVRWC beat me to my good answers.

    What is “WE WON” for a cupla trillion Alex?

  19. vermontaigne says:

    How is it that a department formed out of the bits and pieces of other agencies can have no charter, yet acquire such a mandate?

  20. Blitz says:

    Dan? THEY WON….and are about to lose badly.

  21. Bob Reed says:

    What is “back-door comminist statism”, for all the marbles, Alex?

  22. Pablo says:

    Question: how do you suppose it is possible, linguistically speaking, that a court can take the wording of legislation never intended to address climate and never intended to allow for the categorization of human exhalation as a “pollutant” and declare that the legislation in fact does allow for such a thing?

    What is Progressivism?

  23. Swen says:

    so.. Can we defund the EPA right after we defund the BATF?

  24. Stephanie says:

    IF we defund the BATF we might have enough folks that could qualify for the exams in Dayton and solve their little lack of qualified police problem. Black BATF need only apply, of course. The whites could apply in Houston, Atlanta, and Detroit where I am sure disparate impact would prove the lack of white applicants have applied for jobs. Not sure about the latinos, but at a guess, Maine, Vermont and Rhode Island probably aren’t swimming in latino applicants so their disparate impact is probably worrisome, too.

  25. Rupert says:

    If we pumped the carbon dioxide int Ms. Jackson’s office, could she separate the good gas from the bad? Isn’t it possible that some of the gasses had a bad home-life or faced other institutionalized bias?

Comments are closed.