The US Chamber of Commerce is putting the full force of its polluter-funded war chest behind fighting limits on industrial carbon pollution set to be announced by the Environmental Protection Agency on Monday. Paul Krugman dives into their numbers and finds even by the Chamber's biased analysis, the cost of climate action would be just 0.2% of economic growth:
You might ask why the Chamber of Commerce is so fiercely opposed to action against global warming, if the cost of action is so small. The answer, of course, is that the chamber is serving special interests, notably the coal industry — what’s good for America isn’t good for the Koch brothers, and vice versa — and also catering to the ever more powerful anti-science sentiments of the Republican Party.Remember, this is the same U.S. Chamber of Commerce that has fought every single Obama administration effort to create jobs. Either the US Chamber's sudden concern for jobs is a fraud, or they only care about saving jobs in the polluting industries that fund the Chamber. But you will never hear a reporter point this out, because connecting the dots has a well-known liberal bias.
Finally, let me take on the anti-environmentalists’ last line of defense — the claim that whatever we do won’t matter, because other countries, China in particular, will just keep on burning ever more coal. This gets things exactly wrong. Yes, we need an international agreement to reduce emissions, including sanctions on countries that don’t sign on. But U.S. unwillingness to act has been the biggest obstacle to such an agreement. If we start taking serious steps against global warming, the stage will be set for Europe and Japan to follow suit, and for concerted pressure on the rest of the world as well.
Now, we haven’t yet seen the details of the new climate action proposal, and a full analysis — both economic and environmental — will have to wait. We can be reasonably sure, however, that the economic costs of the proposal will be small, because that’s what the research — even research paid for by anti-environmentalists, who clearly wanted to find the opposite — tells us. Saving the planet would be remarkably cheap.
Countless "objective" journalists advocate for mammograms to stop breast cancer.
The Environmental Protection Agency is doing a routine inspection to make sure Worcester's water system isn't poisoning anyone. Does Worcester Mag's Walter Bird, Jr. report on whether this will potentially keep people and the fish we eat healthy - maybe even save lives? No - he reports on how Worcester Public Works and Parks Commissioner Robert Moylan, Jr. thinks it's all a huge pain in the ass:Public Works and Parks Commissioner is not relishing a visit to the city Tuesday, Jan. 22 by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), saying inspectors likely will be looking for "faults" in the operation and maintenance of Worcester sanitary sewer collection system. That is the conclusion he reached after talking to colleagues in Portland, New Bedford and Holyoke, where the EPA conducted similar inspections. Visits were also made to Andover and Lawrence.FACKIN' EPA, ALWAYS BUSTIN' MY BALLS ABOUT MAKIN' SURE PEOPLE AHH NAWT DRINKIN' PISS!
"I have contacted my colleagues in Portland, Maine; New Bedford; and Holyoke who are responsible for the sanitary sewer system in their community," Moylan says in a Jan. 16 memo to City Manager Mike O'Brien. "Each of them is a seasoned veteran with extensive experience. Each stated unequivocally that the inspection was aimed at finding fault; this was not an inspection to assist, advise or to be helpful. The EPA team was not interested in what the community was doing right, they were only interested in finding what they believed to be failings and stated the same."
It's not that Mitt Romney doesn't have his facts straight about the Environmental Protection Agency. It's not that reasonable people can disagree with the Environmental Protection Agency about the best approach to solving a set of problems. Mitt Romney is choosing to lie about the Environmental Protection Agency because he thinks that will give him a political advantage.The GOP presidential nominee is telling voters in Colorado, Nevada, Ohio and Virginia that Obama’s EPA is to blame for wiping out the coal industry. Romney and his surrogates are warning Iowans of EPA plans to regulate for farm dust and railing against the agency for flying airplanes over livestock operations to spy for dirty water.Mitt Romney says something that's not true. Even after widely-available facts to the contrary are pointed out, Mitt Romney keeps saying it anyway. We'll have to leave it there.
In many instances, Romney’s EPA attacks stretch the boundaries of what the agency actually does or can do. The EPA has repeatedly denied any plans for new farm dust rules, and the planes have been used as a cost-cutting enforcement measure dating back to the George W. Bush administration. Energy experts say the coal industry’s problems are a byproduct of all-time lows in natural gas prices rather than new air pollution requirements that have been subject to legal battles for more than a decade.
Not only is Sen. Jim Inhofe's bill to block new Environmental Protection Agency mercury standards horrible public policy that would kill a lot of people, a new United Technologies/National Journal poll finds it's wildly unpopular with voters:A new United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll finds that 57 percent of the public supports a recently-finalized Environmental Protection Agency rule controlling mercury and other toxic air pollution from coal-fired power plants as long as companies are given more time to comply.Again, I'd ask Senators Mark Warner and Jim Webb: This is a hard call? Really? Which part is a tough call, the part where it lets corporate polluters profit by treating America's air and water like an open sewer? The part where people with asthma die? Or the part where it's incredibly bad politics?
The poll found that a similar majority—55 percent—thinks EPA should be able to control greenhouse-gas emissions that most scientists agree cause climate change. Just slightly more than one-third of the public—36 percent—said Congress should stop EPA from such regulation. A federal court is expected to rule soon on whether the agency is within its right to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions.
The poll’s findings put a majority of Americans out of step with Senate Environment and Public Works Committee ranking member James Inhofe, R-Okla., who is sponsoring a measure coming up for a vote on Wednesday that would nullify EPA’s mercury rule entirely. Just under 20 percent of survey respondents said the Senate should vote to uphold the rule as it stands now, while only 14 percent said the Senate should vote to get rid of it.
First, the short answer: Check out the FDA's advisory on mercury in fish & shellfish, then cross-reference the FDA's chart of typical mercury content in fish with your local Seafood Watch pocket guide.
But still, this sentence stood out:Collins noted that her bill would exempt some regulations needed to deal with emergencies, such as threats to public health and safety.So Sen. Collins is fine with 6,600 Americans dying prematurely as long as they do it in the quiet corner of a hospital out of the public eye. But if it's going to be a big news story, suddenly every life is precious.
Since the attempts of Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA) to protect Shawn M. Garvin, the agency's regional administrator for the mid-Atlantic, described the plan as "the largest water pollution strategy plan in the nation" and possibly "number one or number two" in the world. He noted that it will affect "basically every drop of water that gets to the bay" from as far north as Upstate New York.It's saving the Bay that could be costly? Damaging the Bay has cost the economies of Virginia, Maryland & DC more than $4 billion over the last 30 years. Hopefully the EPA's plan is the first step towards real leadership on restoration - something that's been lacking in a generation worth of elected officials from both political parties.
The legally enforceable road map, which runs roughly 200 pages along with 800 pages of appendices, will help determine everything from how pig farms in West Virginia will dispose of waste to the way Pennsylvania copes with stormwater runoff. Environmentalists hailed it as the most promising plan the United States has ever adopted to revive an estuary plagued by low oxygen and struggling fish and oyster populations, while some critics warned it could be costly and hard to execute.
President Obama stood by and watched as clean energy & climate legislation died in the Senate. His administration claims EPA regulation of global warming pollution is coming, but a new court case has conservationists questioning President Obama's commitment once again:At a time when the effects of global warming continue to accelerate, it's mystifying the Obama administration wouldn't take every possible route to cut carbon pollution. And while the Obama administration says it would veto attacks on the Clean Air Act, we have yet to hear that promise from President Obama himself.Administration officials said the Environmental Protection Agency's regulatory moves to restrain carbon dioxide emissions made the lawsuit unnecessary, and the acting solicitor general asked the Supreme Court to return the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit.
But environmentalists said that the administration had talked about - but not imposed - limits on emissions from existing power plants.
Moreover, environmental groups said, the government's brief went beyond that, employing arguments that threatened to undercut a basis for legal action that have been used for a century, since Georgia sued over damage a Tennessee copper smelter was inflicting on Georgia's forests.
"We're very angry and very disappointed that they would take this tack," said David Doniger, policy director of the climate center at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Some presidents would react to news their popularity was at a historic low by trying to do things that were, y'know, popular. Not President Bush. He's apparently decided to take the opposite approach, instead trying to set a new low for popularity that will stand the test of time, much like the consecutive games streak of Cal Ripken, Jr. The Environmental Protection Agency yesterday limited the allowable amount of pollution-forming ozone in the air to 75 parts per billion, a level significantly higher than what the agency's scientific advisers had urged for this key component of unhealthy air pollution.Here in Virginia, even the new weak Bush standard would mean Richmond, Hampton Roads, Roanoke, and outer DC suburbs Caroline and Stafford Counties will be in violation.
Administrator Stephen L. Johnson also said he would push Congress to rewrite the nearly 37-year-old Clean Air Act to allow regulators to take into consideration the cost and feasibility of controlling pollution when making decisions about air quality, something that is currently prohibited by the law. In 2001, the Supreme Court ruled that the government needed to base the ozone standard strictly on protecting public health, with no regard to cost. [...]
With Democrats in control of Congress, the proposal to rewrite the Clean Air Act appears to face long odds. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) called the move "outrageous," adding in a statement, "The Bush Administration would have us replace clean air standards driven by science with standards based on the interests of polluters."
Is global warming a major crisis facing the planet? [Sanders] wanted to know.Read all about it at TPMMuckraker or watch this clip:
"I don't know what you mean by major crisis," Johnson responded.
"The usual definition of the term 'major crisis' would be fine."
