Political Climate
Apr 10, 2017
Petition to EPA to begin a formal Reconsideration of its January 15, 2009 CO2 Endangerment Finding

Joseph D’Aleo, CCM, AMS Fellow


Update: James Delingpole has also posted on the EF invalidity and the need for the EPA to revoke it based on peer reviewed scientific findings. The Endangerment Finding is the basis for all the EPA’s overreaching regulations.

The story below was picked up by Michael Bastasch at the Daily Caller.

Immediately below you will find a summary of the rationale for our Petition to EPA to begin a formal Reconsideration of its January 15, 2009 CO2 Endangerment Finding:

The Concerned Household Electricity Consumers Council Calls on President Trump and EPA to Revisit and Revoke the Scientifically Invalid CO2 Endangerment Finding

Key Points:

1. If the Endangerment Finding is not vacated, whether the current administration likes it or not, it is certain that electric utilities and many other industries will face ongoing EPA CO2 regulation.

2. This regulation will raise energy prices thereby reducing economic growth and jobs.

3. New research findings make it all but certain that CO2 is not a pollutant but rather a beneficial gas that should not be regulated.

As you may recall, recent research findings have now made it very clear to many climate scientists, not blurry-eyed by funding issues or their own past published alarmists claims, that there is no mathematically proper validated proof that CO2 has had, or ever will have, a statistically significant impact on global average surface temperatures. This means that until proven otherwise, CO2 MUST BE considered a beneficial gas. Distinguished climate scientists, such as Will Happer of Princeton and Dick Lindzen of MIT, have recently publicly endorsed CO2’s overall beneficial properties as have many other scientists.



The failure of the Trump Administration to move immediately forward with a formal reconsideration of the Endangerment Finding has left a very dangerous opening for bad ideas to now be given very serous consideration by members of the Trump Administration, ideas such as Carbon Taxes and the U.S. remaining committed to the Paris Agreement. Because of the extremely negative consequences of the U.S. staying on the Green Train to Energy Poverty (amply demonstrated by skyrocketing electricity prices and blackouts or near blackouts in today’s Germany, UK and Southern Australia,) we think this topic is of critical importance to the American People - right now. We hope you agree.

Note that CA and many Northeastern States have already gotten on this Green Train and the impact in their well above average electricity prices is evident in the table below.

image
Enlarged
Source: EIA

The Trump administration has put out a guidance letter telling States they are not obligated to abide by the Clean Power Plan while the Supreme Court’s Stay remains in effect. Ironically, CA, 10 of the Northeast States and 6 others are now suing before the DC Circuit Court to preserve their rights to continue on a path to even higher energy prices and to force all other States to do the same. States continuing to follow CPP CO2 emission reduction goals, using Germany as an example, would find their average electricity prices 2 to 3 times higher than States that choose not to enforce the regulations and instead treat CO2 as the beneficial gas that it is. Another taxpayer cost relates to the higher taxes required to pay for the subsidy payments for renewables, a double whammy.

A very recent Rasmussen poll reported that “The emphasis on stopping global warming is the highest it’s ever been since regular surveying on the question began in 2014.” and that “45% of Likely U.S. Voters now think taking steps to stop global warming is more important than creating jobs.” But do they have the facts?

This research report as all the comments, analyses and petitions were done pro bono and peer reviewed by 11 distinguished scientists. 

The entire Press Release and its URL may be found here:

The Concerned Household Electricity Consumers Council Calls on President Trump and EPA to Revisit and Revoke the Scientifically Invalid CO2 Endangerment Finding

Key Points:

1. If the Endangerment Finding is not vacated, whether the current administration likes it or not, it is certain that electric utilities and many other industries will face ongoing EPA CO2 regulation.

2. This regulation will raise energy prices thereby reducing economic growth and jobs.

3. New research findings make it all but certain that CO2 is not a pollutant but rather a beneficial gas that should not be regulated.

April 9, 2017

The Concerned Household Electricity Consumers Council today praised President Trump for his recent Executive Order on climate and energy policy. However, the Council further called on the President and EPA, as part of the process initiated by the Executive Order, to revisit and revoke the scientifically invalid Endangerment Finding on which Obama-era greenhouse gas regulations are based.

On Inauguration Day, January 20, 2017, the Council submitted a Petition to EPA, (here) demanding that it revisit and revoke the Endangerment Finding because that Finding has been scientifically invalidated. The Petition demonstrates that the Endangerment Finding is nothing more than a scientific hypothesis that has been disproved by the best empirical evidence from the real world.

The Endangerment Finding is the fundamental foundation on which all greenhouse gas policy and regulation of the Obama era rest - including the Clean Power Plan and U.S. involvement in the Paris Climate Accord. The Endangerment Finding purported to “find” that human-generated greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, constitute a “danger” to human health and welfare because of their effect in warming the atmosphere. However, the Endangerment Finding has been invalidated, and with it the foundation for regulation.  As a result, there exists no scientific basis for any of ex-President Obama’s greenhouse gas-restricting policies or regulations.

The Council Petition to EPA is based in part on the September 21, 2016 Research Report by James Wallace, John Christy and Joseph D’Aleo. That Report demonstrated by clear scientific proof the invalidation of each of the three lines of evidence on which EPA relied in the Endangerment Finding to attribute global warming to human emissions of greenhouse gases.  The Research Report can be found here.

The Research Report was peer-reviewed by eleven eminent and highly qualified scientists, engineers and economists, all of whom agreed with its conclusion. Those conclusions are definitive and unequivocal.  As stated in the Research Report itself, “[T]his analysis failed to find that the steadily rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations have had a statistically significant impact on any of the 13 critically important temperature time series data analyzed.”

In testimony before Congress on March 29, 2017, Dr. Christy reiterated the key findings of the Research Report. Dr. Christy stated:

The IPCC climate models performed best versus observations when they did not include extra GHGs [anthropogenic greenhouse gases]. . . .  The basic result of this report is that the temperature trend of several datasets since {1959/} 1979 can be explained by variations in the components that naturally affect the climate [that is, excluding anthropogenic greenhouse gases] . . . .”

The scientific invalidity of the Endangerment Finding is now obvious, undeniable and easily demonstrated. It is time for an honest and rigorous scientific re-evaluation of this Obama-era political document. We have been taken down a tragically foolish path of pointless regulations and wasteful mal-investments to “solve” a problem which does not actually exist. Our leaders must summon the courage to acknowledge the truth and act accordingly.

The Council brought its Petition because the Obama-era greenhouse gas regulations threaten, as President Obama himself conceded, to make the price of electricity “skyrocket.” All Americans will benefit from a new era of regulation where the cheapest sources of energy can also compete and prevail in the marketplace.

For more information, contact:
Francis Menton
Law Office of Francis Menton
85 Broad Street, 18th floor
New York, New York 10004
(212) 627-1796
fmenton@manhattancontrarian.com



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