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States Set to Sue the U.S. Over Greenhouse Gases
dnormant writes to tell us The New York Times is reporting that more than a dozen states are gearing up to sue the Bush administration for holding up efforts to regulate automobile emissions. "The move comes as New York and other Northeastern states are stepping up their push for tougher regulation of greenhouse gases as part of their continuing opposition to President Bush's policies. On Wednesday, Gov. Eliot Spitzer's administration is to issue regulations requiring power plants to pay for their greenhouse gas emissions, part of a broader plan among 10 Northeastern states, known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, to move beyond federal regulators in Washington and regulate such emissions on their own."
The telling thing is that the various northeastern states are pushing the Bush administration for tighter emission regulations. Usually, it's the other way around - local politicians seek to fend off draconian federal policies that might cripple local industry. The amazing thing is that they're suing the EPA itself, and my professional experience is that many scientists associated with the EPA are incredibly concerned about the impact of greenhouse gases on the environment. They're forced to keep quiet and follow the mandate passed down by a perplexingly out-of-touch executive team in the White House.
Is there any special meta-meta-mod points out there for reading this with "Chevron... the power of human energy" above it? I wasn't aware humans consumed petroleum-based hydrocarbons and shit out CO2.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Why should there be an exception for "regular guys like you"? To the extent that you are contributing to the problem and enjoying the benefits of the power produced, it seems only logical that you should be required to help fund the solution. With any luck, requiring power companies to pay for the costs of the pollution they create (and presumably pass that cost on to their consumers) will motivate both the power companies and the consumers to switch to cleaner (and hence cheaper) methods of power generation... which is of course exactly what we want to have happen.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
This is a bad thing? Companies being forced to pay the full price of the pollution they cause and users being forced to absorb that price on the sticker of the choices they make. That's the free market at work.
It's a good thing if examined in a vacuum (assuming the ludicrous notion of CO2 being a pollutant, or that you could accurately figure out the damage caused by climate change within trillions of dollars).
When you consider China and India doing nothing to pass those costs on to their users, you don't have a free market. You have the US destroying their competitiveness (and their ability to innovate) while doing little to solve the problem on a global scale (it is called "global warming").
Guys like Spitzer are always the first to attack private business. A better solution would be to offer tax incentives to companies that want to replace coal plants with clean power sources, including nuclear. But you won't see Spitzer proposing that because it's a truly innovative idea. Suing the Feds and attacking business is the easy way out.
Good heavens Miss Sakamoto - you're beautiful!
But I think the more drastic changes that will help meet Kyoto targets are in the area of where power comes from. When the wealth redistribution costs to a country outweigh the cost of installing solar panels on every rooftop, then there will be change in that country. The same holds true for making more efficient cars or mass transit or wind farms, they will only ever be "the norm" when they cost less than just burning more fossil fuels. That Kyoto-carbon-tax is helping to push that day a little closer.
We are all just people.
It's because the Media has been mau-mau'd to death and is now afraid to look for the truth. Whenever they try to get to the heart of a matter, they are attacked for being "liberal".
I can understand that the Right has beaten the Media to death, but it doesn't excuse them losing their courage completely.
The good news is I have a feeling the BS isn't working as well as it used to. More and more, people I encounter from all walks of life and all ends of the political spectrum are ignoring the talk radio goons and Fox News and can see through the crap. Despite their best efforts, the assault on the middle class in America is bringing a lot of former political enemies back together.
You are welcome on my lawn.
You'll not be laughin' when Bush claims the lawsuit, if allowed to be open to the general public, would impose a national security risk.
As long as the power company can recoup most/all of the added expense from the customer, they won't have any impetus to switch anything at all.
Do you have the option on your power bill to purchase "clean energy"? Now if there is some oversight of the power company that prevents them from passing the pollution costs on to people purchasing the electricity from solar and wind farms, then you have a strong economic incentive for the consumer which is the fastest way to create any large scale change. If if doesn't hurt people in the wallet, then everything will stay status quo.
We are all just people.
Amusing. The party of "State's Rights" arguing against the right of states to make their own tougher regulations.
Ironic.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Except suddenly nuclear, wind and solar will have a competitive advantage over coal, oil and gas; there's no luck involved. Energy providers have to compete to provide the lowest cost per kWH, and if carbon costs money, energy producers have incentive to cut it.
Free CO2 in the air is gonna cost somebody a lot of money someday. Collecting a fixed amount for it at the time of origination is a way of containing the risk, since climate change is liable to be more expensive and less predictable.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
And how the hell did I slaughter the word "nuclear" even worse than Texans do?
From both a liberal as well as conservative viewpoint, is precisely lawsuits like this.
For those of a conservative viewpoint, this is precisely the kind of thing that has been the worst of nightmares regarding the debate, where this is an attempt to broaden the power of the federal government and to enact legislation through judicial case law rather than through a body like the U.S. Congress.
From a strict constitutionalist viewpoint, state regulations are precisely what was envisioned by the founding fathers for issues like this. When faddish things like Global Warming (and concern about Global Warming is a fad right now, at least from a political perspective) come up, they should be debated by individual states and citizens of those states.
If left to develop on its own, without somebody crying "fowl" and demanding federal intervention, this "laboratory of American states" is precisely what is envisioned by the founders to see how political ideas like regulation of industries for CO2 gases was intended to develop. Legislation based upon the current wind of political thought was something the early founders of the American Republic feared the most, and it was intended to be a long and difficult process for a good reason, particularly when it governed the actions of individual citizens in relationship to each other, such as this sort of regulation is doing.
From a politically conservative viewpoint, you can still suggest environmental legislation. There is common ground that can come from this sort of debate and help us to genuinely protect the environment. But you need to frame it from a conservative viewpoint in terms of stewardship, liability, and responsibility. Cut the emotional garbage out about rising sea levels, rising temperatures, and a fear of the future. If you produce pollution, you need to clean up your own messes and be nice to your neighbors. You also shouldn't be wasteful of those resources that God has given to you, because ultimately you will be held responsible for your actions before HIM. Even if you dismiss God as a human construct, there is still the more vague "being held responsible by humanity as a whole" that still applies on some sort of level. I certainly don't mind government regulation that helps to reduce dependence on foreign energy sources and lowering of a trade deficit.
I also realize that some of this is about legislation that has already been through the meat grinder of Washington D.C., and these states are "merely" asking for those laws to be enforced. A problem here is that the legislation was deliberately vague, and the actual enforcement of these laws left to such broad interpretation, that nearly anything could be suggested in terms of what they really meant or how they can be put together. This lawsuit is a political move to force these national regulations (which arguably may not even be constitutional) to conform to a specific viewpoint that runs counter to the current presidential administration. A U.S. President shouldn't have even had this sort of authority delegated to him in the first place, but of course those pushing in support of this lawsuit already knew that, didn't they? So why should it be moved to the authority of nine men in black robes?
It is poor law and shouldn't have been enacted in the first place, no matter how lofty the goals were made. Going to the courts is just going to make an awful law even worse. It would be far better to go to the national legislature (aka Congress) and get new legislation passed that deals with this issue, if that is the ultimate goal.
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As for states suing the Feds to force auto manufacturers to decrease emissions, why don't they just do it themselves? California has strict emission control policies. Why can't the rest of these states.
That isn't how air quality regulations work. Under the Clean Air Act, setting auto emissions standards is the exclusive responsibility of the Federal Government. However, because California had stricter emissions standards in place when the Clean Air Act was first passed, California (and only California) was granted a waiver to set its own standards which can be adopted by other states if they choose. This waiver doesn't apply to vehicular CO2 emissions. California (with other states) has already won a suit saying that EPA must grant such a waiver, however EPA has not done so. Thus, they are suing again, this time asking the court to order EPA to do so immediately.
As things currently stand, no state can regulate tailpipe CO2 emissions. When California wins their lawsuit, then states will be able to choose weather to follow CA CO2 regulations or to follow the Federal do-nothing approach.
I like my beverages with warning labels!
In this glorious deregulated California market you can specify green power, just don't complain about the rolling blackouts (which hit you regardless of where you buy your electricity.) :P In theory power grid deregulation was supposed to allow you to choose where you got your electricity from, but in practice it meant "as long as you bought it from Enron."
OTOH, It's not just about choosing who runs their lines to you. If you install solar panels on your roof, you'll essentially be buying around 50% of your power from yourself (carbon-free), depending on where you live and how much power you use during the day, though the initial cost is still pretty high. Same goes for a ground-loop air-conditioner, good insulation, really any technology that helps keep the energy you buy on your property. THAT stuff is where the big incentives should be.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
The reason why Spitzer and this group are suing the government is that the Feds have established pollution control standards and Spitzer wants them made more restrictive. I am normally in favor of states' rights, but the issue in question here is more of a standards debate for me -- were each state given the ability to mandate their own efficiency requirements for cars, the result would be a broad range of such standards and car companies would have to meet the most efficient denominator, with a drastic (skyward) impact on the price of cars. The federal government sets the national standard, and now you don't have the purchasing power of 4 million Oregonians determining that the rest of us have to pay a premium for a super-efficient hybrid car we can't afford.
The single biggest problem I have with this bogus lawsuit is this: it's the government suing the government, with all the included lawyer fees. Let the tax dollars fly. With a lawsuit at this level, as well, those fees will not be trifling, and who will pay them but the lowly taxpayer. Residents of the states filing suit are taxed twice on this -- first by their states for their legal fees, and second by the federal government for its defense. Those of us living in states who aren't signed on only get to pay for a lawsuit we disagree with once at the federal level.
Residents of these states who support this: the proper way to get the EPA to change its guidelines is to have your federal legislators introduce legislation to change those guidelines. Then, those politicians get to convince a majority of their house of the legislature to sign on, which is absolutely necessary for a change with such a huge impact as changing EPA efficiency requirements. This underhanded lawsuit crap is the same tactic that generates so much scorn for SCO, the MAFIAA and other legal trolls -- why is it now okay?
One of the purposes of the Attorney General's office is to protect the rights of the consumer. The rights of the consumer are NOT being trampled in this situation. Everybody in America has the opportunity to buy a more fuel-efficient vehicle. The government's purpose in the matter should be to establish a baseline of efficiency on which people who can afford it, and innovation by car companies, can improve.
The morons suing in these states should be taken out and shot, or at the very least disbarred and jailed for treason.
Yes, because a state fighting to improve air quality (and make no mistake, the poor air quality in many states is not controllable by that state, but the one next door) is treason, while the gross abuses of the constitution, like the 55 mph speed limit, national drinking age, and nearly everything controlled as "interstate commerce" is simply ignored. If states fighting for their rights to clean air is treason, I'd hate to see what you'd do to a woman that wanted to vote.
Learn to love Alaska
My guess? Now that Iraq is starting to look better, they need something new to hammer Bush with, lest he actually start to make gains in his approval ratings.
Most Americans think Oswald didn't assasinate JFK. Almost half of Americans think UFO's visited the earth. And the vast majority of Americans beleive in God, Heaven, Angels, Miracles, Hell, and the Devil, and not in a figurative sense.
You know what? Most people are fucking stupid. There's a reason why "most Americans" don't get to make policy.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Oh God...
*wipes tear*
Thanks, man, up to that point I thought you were serious
then we deserve what we get -- which is the end of our superpower status.
Looking at the greatest threat to our super power status right now, I would have to say that a severe reduction on fossil fuel reliance would benefit us greatly in the global superpower sense. If we have an renaissance of green tech in America two important things will happen: 1. We will have a new major tech export, reestablishing the strength of the dollar. 2. When oil loses it's supremacy then Middle Eastern countries will be economically and politically powerless until they transform into more globally harmonious cultures.
We are all just people.
Reuters would seem to disagree with your second statement; ranking the US as the fifth highest per capita emissions. I'd have no problem believing that the US has the highest total emissions, but I'm too lazy to look it up.
http://www.reutersinteractive.com/CarbonNews/73074
BTW, thanks for raising the quality of this thread.
A One that isn't cold, is scarcely a One at all.