President Obama and his EPA appear to be thoroughly un-chastened by the midterm elections and more determined than ever to impose their executive and regulatory agendas, from immigration to climate change and ozone. As my article points out, the much lower ground-level ozone standards that EPA is about to propose could cost the US economy a whopping $1 trillion per year and kill 7.3 million jobs by 2020, for what many experts say would be no measurable health benefits… and many adverse health effects.
Just as bad, the proposed standards are the product of yet another collusive sue-and-settle lawsuit this one involving the American Lung Association, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club and EPA. That’s the clever but sleazy tactic in which agitator groups meet with government officials behind closed doors and agree on new rules or standards. The agency then conveniently misses a deadline, “forcing” the activists to sue. That leads to a court hearing (from which impacted parties are excluded), and a judgment “forcing” the agency to issue new regulations and even pay the agitators’ attorney fees!
My article examines this practice and its harmful results in detail and offers solutions that the new Republican Congress might want to consider.Trillions of dollars in ozone compliance and economic stagnation costs, for fabricated benefits
Looming Environmental Protection Agency ozone regulations personify the Obama administration’s secrecy, collusion, fraud, and disdain for concerns about the effects that its tsunami of regulations is having on the livelihoods, living standards, health and welfare of millions of American families.
Virtually every EPA announcement of new regulations asserts that they will improve human health. Draconian carbon dioxide standards, for example, won’t just prevent climate change, even if rapidly developing countries continue emitting vast volumes of this plant-fertilizing gas. The rules will somehow reduce the spread of ticks and Lyme disease, and protect “our most vulnerable citizens.” It’s hogwash.
But Americans naturally worry about pollution harming children and the poor. That makes it easy for EPA to promulgate regulations based on false assumptions and linkages, black-box computer models, secretive collusion with activist groups, outright deception, and supposedly “scientific” reports whose shady data and methodologies the agency refuses to share with industries, citizens or even Congress.
It was only in May 2012 that EPA decided which US counties met new 2008 ozone standards that cut allowable ground-level ozone levels from 80 parts per billion to 75 ppb. Now EPA wants to slash allowable levels even further: to 70 or even 60 ppb, equivalent to 70 or 60 seconds in 32 years.
The lower limits are essential, it claims, to reduce smog, human respiratory problems and damage to vegetation. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy says a 600-page agency staff report strongly recommends this reduction, and her Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee agrees. They all say the lower limits are vital for protecting public health, especially “at-risk populations and life stages.” Her decision will ultimately involve “a scientific judgment” and will “keep people safe,” Ms. McCarthy assures us.
Under terms of a convenient federal court settlement, EPA must issue its proposed new standards by December 1 of this year, and make a final decision by October 2015. The process will be “open and transparent,” with “multiple opportunities” for public hearings and comment throughout, she promised.
EPA has offered little transparency, honesty or opportunity for fair hearings and input by impacted parties thus far, and we should expect none here. But other problems with this proposal are much more serious.
If the 60 ppb standard is adopted, 85% of all US counties would likely become “non-attainment” areas, making it difficult to establish new industrial facilities or expand existing plants. Even in Big Sky, clean-air Wyoming, Teton County could be out of compliance mostly due to emissions from pine trees!
A Manufacturers’ Alliance/MAPI study calculated that a 60 ppb ozone standard would cost the US economy a whopping $1 trillion per year and kill 7.3 million jobs by 2020. A Louisiana Association of Business and Industry and National Association of Manufacturers study concluded that a 60 ppb rule would penalize the state $189 billion for compliance and $53 billion in lost gross domestic product between 2017 and 2040. That’s $10 billion per year in just one state.
But the standard would save lives, EPA predictably claimed, citing 2009 research directed by University of California-Berkeley School of Public Health Professor Michael Jerrett. The study purportedly tracked 448,000 people and claimed to find a connection between long-term ozone exposure and death.
Other researchers sharply criticized Jerrett’s work. His study made questionable assumptions about ozone concentrations, did not rely on clinical tests, ignored the findings of other studies that found no significant link between ground-level ozone and health effects, and failed to gather critically important information on the subjects’ smoking patterns, they pointed out. When they asked to examine his data, Jerrett refused.
Michael Honeycutt, chief toxicologist for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, says Jerrett and EPA exaggerate health risks from ozone. The Texas Public Policy Foundation told EPA the agency needs to consider “the totality of studies on this issue, rather than giving exclusive weight to a single study,” the foundation emphasized. Unfortunately, EPA almost always focuses on one or two analyses that support its regulatory agenda and ignores any that might slow or derail its onrushing freight train.
Even worse, those lost jobs and GDP result in major impacts on the lives, livelihoods, liberties, living standards, health, welfare and life spans of millions of Americans. And yet, EPA steadfastly refuses to consider these regulatory impacts: for ozone, carbon dioxide, soot, mercury and other rules.
Then there is the matter of outright deception, collusion and fraud at EPA, via these and other tactics.
One such tactic is sue-and-settle lawsuits. Agitator groups meet with EPA officials behind closed doors and agree on new rules or standards. The agency then conveniently misses a deadline, “forcing” the activists to sue. That leads to a court hearing (from which impacted parties are excluded), and a judgment “forcing” the agency to issue new regulations and even pay the agitators’ attorney fees! American Lung Association, NRDC, Sierra Club and EPA sue-and-settle collusion resulted in the new ozone proposal.
This clever sue-and-settle tactic was devised by none other than John Beale the con artist who’s now in prison for bilking taxpayers out of $1 million in salary and travel expenses for his mythical second job as a CIA agent. It defies belief to assume his fraudulent propensities did not extend to his official EPA duties as senior policy advisor with his boss and buddy Robert Brenner, helping Ms. McCarthy and her Office of Air and Radiation develop and implement oppressive regulations. Indeed, his own attorney says he had a “dysfunctional need to engage in excessively reckless, risky behavior” and “manipulate those around him through the fabrication of grandiose narratives.” A US Senate report details the sleazy practice.
As to the “experts” who claim lower ozone limits are vital for protecting public health, there’s this.
The American Lung Association supports the EPA health claims but neglects to mention that EPA has given the ALA $24.7 million over the past 15 years. Overall, during this period, the ALA received $43 million via 591 federal grants, and Big Green foundations bankrolled it with an additional $76 million. But no one is supposed to question the ALA’s credibility, integrity or support for EPA “science.”
EPA also channels vast sums to its “independent” Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, which likewise rubberstamps the agency’s pollution claims and regulations. Fifteen CASAC members received over $181 million since 2000. CASAC excludes from its ranks industry and other experts who might question EPA findings. Both EPA and CASAC stonewall and slow-walk FOIA requests and deny requests for correction and reconsideration. Even congressional committees get nowhere.
As Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), Chairman of the House on Science, Space and Technology Committee, noted in a letter, 16 of the 20 CASAC members who “peer-reviewed” the ozone studies also helped to write the studies. That makes it even less likely that their reviews were “independent.”
That Senate report, The Chains of Environmental Command, also notes that the Obama EPA has been deliberately packed with far-left environmental activists who work with their former Big Green colleagues to shape policy. They give radical groups critical insider access and also funnel millions of taxpayer dollars through grants to their former organizations, often in violation of agency ethics rules.
These arrogant, unelected, unaccountable, deceitful, dictatorial elites think they have a right to impose ozone, carbon dioxide, ObamaCare and other diktats on us, “for our own good.” They are a primary reason American businesses and families are already paying $1.9 trillion per year to comply with mountains of federal regulations $353 billion of these costs from EPA alone. The damage to jobs, livelihoods, liberties, living standards, health and welfare is incalculable.
The next Congress should review all EPA data, documents and decisions, root out the fraud and collusion, and defund and ultimately reverse all regulations that do not pass muster. The principle is simple: No data, honesty, transparency or integrity, no regulation, and no taxpayer money to impose it.
Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org), author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power Black death, and coauthor of Cracking Big Green: To save the world from the Save-the-Earth money machine.
When this report was first introduced in July of 2013, a number of important assertions were being made in the public forum, particularly on Capitol Hill, that were wholly factually and scientifically inaccurate. The original version of the report, as well as the expert scientific testimony provided to Congress in the interim, was meant to be helpful in limiting some of the more egregious claims that were being perpetuated. Unfortunately, much of the public discourse on important issues related to climate science has devolved into name-calling, including terminology such as “denier” or “dirty denier. Melissa Harrison, Daily Dirty Denier$, NRDC ACTION FUND (July 28, 2014),
Both have connotations which frequent use of is counter-productive to an honest public discussion involving a matter of such incredible scientific and economic importance. No scientific discussion that requires precision, particularly when it relates to issues as complex as climate science, should utilize means to limit debate and understanding when critical evaluation is necessary.
Additional events that have transpired since the first version of this report was introduced clarify the need for providing some basic level scientific facts that are important to understanding
carbon dioxide’s (CO2) role in our environment. Certain media figures have gone so far as to try and discredit the basic science of photosynthesis and our understanding of the impacts of
anthropogenic CO2. Such mischaracterization does an additional disservice to the understanding of this important greenhouse gas and related policy making.
To rectify some of the challenges in ensuring additional factors based on empirical evidence were understood, this report has been updated to include the following:
1. A new section has been added on the benefits of CO2.
2. Wildfires and forestry management have garnered additional public attention of late, and so was split into its own section with additional information.
3. A new section has been added on the impacts European countries have seen as a result of their climate regulations.
4. A new section has been added on Polar Bear populations and claims of mass extinctions.
5. Nearly all sections have been updated with new information.
6. An addendum was added to provide examples of how the Obama Administration’s
National Climate Assessment report ignores critical scientific evidence when submitted by top researchers and scientists.
Four former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrators testified before the EPW Committee in 2014 and provided important answers to questions for the record as it relates to basic CO2 science, economics, and EPA regulations:
1. CO2 is necessary to life on earth. It is in fact plant food, and makes possible the process of photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is the process whereby plants using light energy from
the sun convert carbon dioxide and water to glucose sugar and oxygen gas through a series of reactions. The general equation for photosynthesis is:
carbon dioxide + water = light energy => glucose + oxygen
6CO2 + 6H2O =light energy=> C6H12O6 + 6O2
2. Humans exhale CO2 at a rate of approximately 40,000 parts per million (ppm). Humans inhale CO2 at the rate it currently exists in the atmosphere, which is just below 400 ppm.
Accordingly, humans exhale CO2 at a much higher rate than they inhale. Not a single former Administrator could answer a question on these rates.
3. As all four EPA Administrators made clear, EPA’s decision to regulate CO2 is the first time the agency has ever regulated a gas that is necessary to and makes life on earth possible. As well, it is also the only gas the federal government has ever tried to regulate that humans exhale at a greater rate than they inhale. Given both these facts, the claim that CO2 is a “pollutant” deserves further scrutiny.
4. Finally, all four former EPA Administrators were unable to name even a single product that could be made out of wind and sunlight. Everything in modern society, from computers, laptops, solar panels, iPads and flat screen televisions, to advanced medical equipment and all our nation’s critical infrastructure is built out of fossil resources and their derivative products.
An important note that bears repeating is the clear and simple fact that the climate has always and will always be changing. That is an indisputable scientific fact that should be the starting point of any honest discussion on the state of climate science and our understanding of a very complex system that is impacted by everything from solar radiation and ocean currents, to volcanic activity, cosmic rays and a number of greenhouse gases. Some of the false claims that seem to have largely been eliminated from the public discussions, at least on Capitol Hill, since the introduction of the first version of this report (and the expert testimony noted) include:
1. That hurricane activity is increasing in either frequency or intensity.
2. That the impact from human emissions has turned out to be worse than was predicted even as recent as ten years ago.
3. That drought and heat wave conditions are getting worse.
4. That a warming trend has been continuous over the last fifteen years.
5. That economic benefits will certainly accrue from regulatory policies to address theoretical impacts from CO2 production.These claims are demonstrably false and have been rejected by expert testimony and largely abandoned in discussions on Capitol Hill. As well, the fact that the climate has not been notably warming for at least the last 15 years has received considerable attention: multiple theories have
been proposed as to why the climate models failed to foresee this trend, again highlighting our lack of understanding of a very complex system.
Important events have occurred internationally since the report was first released that are worth noting:
1. Australia repealed their carbon tax after the economic consequences of such regulation was recognized.
2. Australia is now investigating serious concerns with corruption of the temperature records to artificially produce a warming trend that did not exist. It is important to note that similar charges and concerns have been raised with the UK Met office as well as the U.S. data.
3. The economic impacts in European Union countries that adopted climate regulations, including Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdomhave been disastrous. Serious concerns are now being raised over the economic viability of their manufacturing sectors as well as budget and energy poverty concerns. The poor and elderly are suffering the worst consequences from these policies.
4. India has since identified Greenpeace as an economic threat, with Greenpeace long having a record of making significant, scientifically implausible claims, while simultaneously having executives who fly jets to work.
5. China and India are now indicating that they will not attend the UN summit conference in New York City this year.
6. Only 11 of the 144 original parties to the Kyoto Protocol have thus far signed an extension.
7. Most importantly, it appears President Obama is attempting to force an international agreement that would not require Senate ratification as a way of “shaming” countries into implementing carbon emissions reductions. Rather than adhering to the prescribed ratification process, Obama is attempting to do an end-run around the Constitution.
Read the full report with charts that support the complete failure of the greenhouse theory here.