By Senator James Inhofe, EPW

Washington, D.C. - Today, following an investigation by the Republican staff of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works into the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) science panels on ozone and particulate matter, Senator James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member on the EPW Committee, called for the Obama EPA to put a halt to its plan to reconsider the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for ozone.  EPA is expected to announce within days its decision to tighten the ozone NAAQS, which is largely based on the recommendations of the Clean Air Science Advisory Committee (CASAC). Yet findings from a new Senate investigation put the impartiality of CASAC in question.

“Today I am calling on the Obama-EPA to halt its plan to move forward with the reconsideration of the ozone standard,” Senator Inhofe said. “EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has repeatedly said that she is basing her decision on the recommendations of CASAC. Yet an investigation by my staff has uncovered an apparent lack of impartiality and financial conflicts of interest among the members of EPA’s science advisory panels.  EPA is clearly politicizing the science, all in the name of an environmental activism that will destroy jobs.  This further undermines the scientific integrity of the Obama Administration, and in particular, the EPA.

“These findings cannot be taken lightly: EPA estimates that the cost of compliance for the ozone standard could be $90 billion a year, making it the most expensive environmental regulation in history.  Additional studies have projected that the rule could cost upwards of a trillion dollars and destroy 7.4 million jobs. With such an enormous price tag and so many jobs at stake, it is absolutely unacceptable for this rule to be based on dubious science.

“President Obama does not have to go through with this: his EPA is bound neither by science nor law to revise this standard.  In 2008, the Bush EPA tightened the standard significantly from 0.084 ppm to 0.075 ppm, and state and local communities are already making great strides in air quality as they work to meet that standard. Instead of acknowledging this progress, EPA is showing its decision to be purely political by further tightening the standard in order to appease the environmental left.

“Given that the Obama EPA is not obligated to act and is apparently basing its rulemaking on the advice of those who lack scientific objectivity, the Agency is showing itself to be bent on creating needless economic pain, killing jobs and stifling economic growth at a time when our nation can least afford it.  EPA should halt this agenda at once and make it a priority to restore the balance between environmental progress and economic growth.”

Senator Inhofe sent a letter to the Inspector General of the EPA Arthur A. Elkins asking him to investigate further whether EPA’s management of two Clean Air Act Advisory Committees has resulted in panels that lack impartiality and serve as a “rubber stamp” of EPA’s policy objectives, circumventing both the law and Administration policy.  Importantly, these committees played a key role in the advisory process for the pending tightening of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for ozone and particulate matter (PM). Senator Inhofe has requested that the EPA IG report back to Congress with its findings by September 19, 2011.

The investigation by EPW Republicans of EPA’s management of its advisory committees found:

- Lack of Impartiality: EPA has violated its own Peer Review Handbook by selecting members who have publicly taken sides on the issues in question and thus lack the required impartiality. In direct conflict with the recommendations of the National Academies, EPA has also repeatedly asked authors of key studies to opine on their own work by including them on panels that are reviewing reports based on their research.

- Failure to Balance Perspectives: EPA has also violated the requirements of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) by failing to assure the resulting panels are balanced in terms of the viewpoints presented. In the two cases examined, no experts with publications supporting a contrary view were selected to balance the 30 to 40 percent of the members included on the panels who have taken public positions.

- Failure to Rotate Members: EPA has disregarded Administration policy to rotate membership on standing panels to avoid creating “regulars”. On key panels, members are now serving 12 year terms.

- Financial Conflict of Interest: EPA has repeatedly selected panel members who are benefiting from millions of dollars in EPA research grants, creating both the appearance and likelihood of a conflict of interest. 

By Alan Caruba

The problem with the Environmental Protection Agency is that it has “protected” the nation into a place where corporations flee to other nations, exporting jobs no longer available here. When not doing that, it is destroying the ability of whole industries - particularly energy - and of our agricultural dynamo to function.

In late July, the Sacramento Bee reported that “There are fewer undocumented immigrants in California - and the Sacramento region - because many are now finding the American dream south of the border.” While America struggles to survive its regulatory juggernaut, “Mexico’s unemployment rate is now 4.9 percent, compared with 9.4 percent joblessness in the United States.”

What’s wrong with that equation? Everything!

Putting aside the debate over debt and wasteful spending, at the heart of the economic stagnation that has been occurring is the Environmental Protection Agency. It is an agency of pure malice and a place that arrogantly cites bogus health statistics while issuing rules and regulations that are strangling the economy.

James Hammerton of Freedom Works recently noted that “The EPA is in the process of completing and finalizing 30 major regulations and 170 major policy rules that would impose hundreds of billions of dollars of compliance costs on the economy.” Only Congress can stop this.

Long after the global warming hoax was exposed, the EPA continues to insist that carbon dioxide, a gas vital to all life on Earth, has to be regulated. Even after the administration’s failed effort to get Cap-and-Trade legislation passed, the EPA relentlessly pursues this policy.

In brief, the claim is that carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere is causing global warming. Therefore it must be reduced. Who produces CO2? Everyone! Humans exhale about six pounds of it a day. Every kind of energy use for manufacturing, for transportation, for the production of electricity, all this and more generates CO2 emissions. All this and more represent the core elements of our economy.

Why would you want to “trade” CO2? Well, by selling and trading “carbon credits”, millions of dollars can be made by the exchanges set up for that purpose. Utilities and manufacturing facilities would all have to buy the credits in order to stay in business. The whole global warming hoax was devoted to this scheme and, of course, those advocating it were all going to get obscenely wealthy while the cost of everything increased for the rest of us.

The problem for the EPA is that the Chicago exchange set up to trade carbon credits has long since closed its doors after revelations in November 2009 that a handful of climate modeling scientists had rigged the models to show a warming trend when, in fact, the planet had entered a cooling cycle in 1998!

Sensing that its ability to destroy the economy is slipping away, the EPA has been readying regulations allegedly based on the nation’s air quality. The problem they face is that the air over the U.S. is as clean as it has ever been. With the exception of places like Los Angeles, air quality has never been better. The EPA is literally trying to regulate dust that drifts in from Africa or airborne soot that arrives from Pacific volcanoes.

Regarding its proposed Ozone rules, John Engler, the president of the Business Roundtable, noted that “There’s nothing reasonable or balanced about the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal to tighten national air-quality standards for ozone emissions at this time. For one thing, it’s premature, coming a full two years before the EPA is scheduled to complete its own scientific study of ozone emissions in 2013.” Not surprisingly, 2013 is likely to be the year that the U.S. has a new president and a Congress made up primarily of politicians devoted to debt reduction and the elimination of waste.

There is not enough time, nor space to describe how crazed the EPA is, but let me share just one example. The EPA recently told New York City that it will have to build a $1.6 billion-plus cover of a reservoir to prevent contamination of cryptosporidium, a water-born pathogen that causes diarrhea, from getting into its water system.

As the Wall Street Journal noted, “There’s one problem. The pathogen hasn’t been found in the reservoir despite years of tests and is barely present in the city.” Never mind, the EPA is claiming that the cover would “prevent between 112,000 and 365,000 cases annually”!

It gets worse, “New York City has already spent nearly $15 billion since 2002 for federally-mandated water projects, with the feds chipping in less than 1% of the costs. Next year it will finish building a $1.6 billion ultraviolet facility - the largest in the world - to disinfect water even more than it already does.”

That is just a snapshot of the billions in costs the EPA is right now trying to impose on a nation that is already $14 trillion in debt.

Here’s a suggestion. Close down the EPA entirely. Let the States determine what should be done regarding their air, water, and other environmental standards. The nation could save itself trillions by just ridding itself of the crazies running the EPA.

Icecap Note: Don’t buy any of the EPA’s bad science based claims and the coordinated efforts by groups like the American Lung Association, LWV to imply the EPA is acting only to ensure health. The ads with the baby carriage and coughing child or girl with oxygen mask are total abominations. No one wants air pollution. Indeed our air is far cleaner than it was decades ago. The modern day EPA’s regulatory attack on America is about a natural non harmful gas, CO2 that has NO ill health effects. Remember with every breathe we take, we emit 40,000 pppm CO2 into air at 397 ppm. In our homes around the dinner table, in the classrooms and workplaces, CO2 levels can reach 2000 ppm. The slow increase of ambient levels of CO2 only benefits plant growth, which is why nurseries pump CO2 into the greenhouses.

By Mike Johnson, American Thinker

Cap and trade remains a key element in President Obama’s vow of a “fundamental transformation of America,” despite legislative branch setbacks.  Now he may have found a way around the Constitution’s checks and balances.

Obama knows the consequences of cap and trade; he promised skyrocketing electricity costs when he was elected in 2008.  To date, however, we have lucked out: Obama tried and tried and tried again to get his cap-and-trade bill through Congress, but so far, he has failed.

Obama has failed in large measure because the credibility and thus the hysteria of his science have eroded.  Obama has been stymied by a public made skeptical because of the shenanigans of the U.N.’s IPCC and the self-promoting climate experts in East Anglia and the United States.  Can Obama recover?  Not before the next election, but if he is reelected (bite your tongue), and if he can resuscitate the hysteria by co-opting NOAA, the cream of American governmental science, he has a good shot at it.  Bear in mind that Obama has a predilection for using regulatory agencies (e.g., the EPA) as weapons.

Dr. Jane Lubchenco, the environmentalist rock star and former vice chairperson of the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), was appointed as the administrator of NOAA by President Obama.  She has installed a team of eco-zealots, and they have a Climate Service Office ready and waiting to proceed—with only congressional approval standing in their way.

Dr. Lubchenco first proposed the Climate Service Office on 8 February 2010.  She presented it as a budget-neutral consolidation of existing capabilities.  Any such reorganization requires approval of Congress.  The recent FY2011 Continuing Resolution prohibits NOAA from expending any funds on a Climate Service Office in FY2011.  President Obama included the NOAA reorganization in his FY2012 budget issued in February 2011 and so ingloriously voted down (97-0) this spring.

Now, there is nothing wrong with a Climate Service per se.  Small-government advocates recognize government involvement as acceptable in certain activities; the NOAA National Weather Service is one of these and has a fine reputation.  A Climate Service seems appropriate in this day and age with the concerns about climate, climate change, and climate control.  NOAA would appear to be the logical organization to oversee such an effort.  In the author’s opinion, before embarking on a Climate Service, NOAA must show that they satisfy three criteria:

The Climate Service must be transparent and fully open to congressional oversight.
The Climate Service must have proven competent, apolitical management.
The Climate Service must be scientifically objective with no preconceived agenda.
On 21 June, the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee held a particularly contentious hearing on the proposed NOAA Climate Service Proposal.  The tone was set with the chairman’s opening remarks, which relate to the first of my three criteria.  The gavel reverberations had hardly died down before Mr. Hall (R-TX) chastised NOAA on their non-responsiveness and delinquencies.  This was the first but not the only volley on NOAA’s willingness to obey Congress.

A little history: at an 8 February 2010 press conference, Dr. Lubchenco said:

In summary, we are announcing the intent to create a new (mila) [sic] climate service to be led initially by Dr. Tom Karl, the creation of six regional climate services directors and a new Web portal at climate.gov.

Dr. Thomas R. Karl, the interim director of the NOAA Climate Service, briefed the new service in March 2010.

The six regional directors were appointed on 10 September 2010.  They are Ellen Mecray (Eastern Region), Doug Kluck (Central Region), David Brown (Southern Region), DeWayne Cecil (Western Region), John Marra (Pacific Region), and James Partain (Alaska Region).  The web portal, active since the 8 February 2010 announcement, can be found here.  All the elements promised by Dr. Lubchenco are in place.

Mr. Rohrabacher (R-CA) questioned Dr. Lubchenco extensively on the above (video here), suggesting that having these people in place is strongly indicative of a de facto up-and-running service, in contravention of the expressed desires of the Congress.  Dr. Lubchenco demurred, replying that planning ahead is simply good management.  Mr. Rohrabacher then quoted a December 2010 interview of Dr. Karl in ClimateWire where Dr. Karl said, “[W]e’ve moved in[.] ... [W]e’re waiting for the marriage certificate, but we’re acting like we have a climate service.” Mr. Rohrabacher suggested a “living in climate sin” metaphor.

It is not surprising that Congress does not trust NOAA.  The FY2011 Continuing Resolution also prohibits expending funds on specific fisheries management techniques.  NOAA’s response: issuing a legalistic lollapalooza of an interpretation based on parsing and hairsplitting.

Opaqueness, stonewalling, Machiavellian legal constructs—all of the onerous techniques a bureaucracy can use—are routine management with NOAA as currently constituted.  The following is from a previous American Thinker essay of mine:

Dr. Lubchenco did not introduce appalling mismanagement to NOAA, but she has made America acutely aware of it.  NOAA was ineffective on the Gulf oil spill, and NOAA fisheries has been an outright disgrace, given incompetent management (that word again), corrupt disposition of funds generated by fines and property seizures from fishermen, and vindictive enforcement of regulations.

NOAA as currently constituted flunks my first two criteria.  Let us move on to the “no preconceived agenda” criterion.

At the hearing, Dr. Harris (R-MD) chided Dr. Lubchenco in some depth on an article about sea level rise along the Maryland shore.  The article appeared in the Climate Watch Magazine, which is a feature of the NOAA Climate Service web portal (linked above).  Dr. Harris said the article was in a popular format, rather than a scientific format, in that it lacked the depth of citations normally found in peer-reviewed scientific papers.  The article’s conclusions were significantly alarming.  Dr. Harris asked if it was in NOAA’s interest to publish what could be called sensational articles without in-depth scientific foundation.  Dr. Lubchenco ducked the question.

Dr. Harris’s description of the article is accurate.  I examined other articles from the Climate Watch Magazine and they were similar: extreme, perhaps worst-case consequences, with limited citations to allow a reader to follow up on his own.  I found no articles by Richard Linzden, Lord Christopher Monckton, or Roy W. Spencer.  I didn’t really expect to, nor do I expect NOAA to use authors of their ilk in the future.

What I do expect is that Dr. Lubchenco will be true to her EDF roots.  She followed the EDF party line with the fisheries and can be anticipated to follow it on cap and trade.  In both cases, the EDF stances are the extreme environmentalist positions.

EDF’s fisheries position: “Fisheries are depleted and fishermen are losing their jobs.  Catch shares are the way forward.” Once given the power of NOAA, Dr. Lubchenco wasted little time in implementing the EDF tool of choice for fisheries, Catch Shares Management, sometimes derisively termed cap and trade of the fisheries.  It has been suggested that her implementation was reckless, too fast with too little study and training.  It has also been suggested that her implementation violated the intent and perhaps the letter of the governing Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA).  In any case, her actions were in lockstep with the goals of her EDF alma mater.

EDF’s global warming position: the science is settled, global warming is “accelerating at an alarming rate,” and the answer is cap and trade.  I have little doubt that Dr. Lubchenco and her henchmen will adopt and endorse the EDF posture, with all the sociological and economic disruptions it entails.

The current upper echelons of NOAA are remorseless eco-zealots.  They are not public servants in that they feel no need to answer to the American people.  They have their truth, and it shall be the truth for all, or else.  Congress must stick to their guns and not allow this callous cabal to reorganize before the 2012 election.

We, the American voters, must defeat Barack Obama in 2012.  We must take over the Senate and increase the margin in the House.  The new president and the new administration can then appoint a business-oriented secretary of commerce and a person with an open mind as administrator of NOAA.  The current arrangement clearly will not serve.

Mike Johnson is a concerned citizen, a small-government conservative, and a live-free-or-die resident of New Hampshire.  E-mail mnosnhoj@comcast.net.