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Two Powerful Blows Against Air Pollution Controls
The NYTimes reports from Washington on two separate actions on Friday that, between them, have halted Bush administration clean-air initiatives in their tracks. The current administration is no favorite of environmental groups, but these groups sided with the administration in a court case brought by the utility companies. On Friday an appeals court threw out the EPA's Clean Air Interstate Rule, established in 2005. The court ruled that the EPA had exceeded its authority when it established that rule, which set new requirements for major pollutants. According to the article, even the utilities were appalled to see the rule completely gutted; their objections had been narrower. Here is a podcast with the reporter (MP3) giving some background on the ruling. The second major blow to clean-air efforts came later in the day on Friday. Quoting: "...the EPA chief rejected any obligation to regulate heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide under existing law, saying that to do so would involve an 'unprecedented expansion' of the agency's authority that would have 'a profound effect on virtually every sector of the economy,' touching 'every household in the land.'... In effect, Mr. Johnson was simultaneously publishing the policy analysis of his scientific and legal experts and repudiating its conclusions."
I think I will make the best of this, take my HUMMER out for a ride.
Every American should be fitted with a government issued flatulence belt and sphincter funnel.
Task Mangler
If I get it right, the EPA is allowed to be given authority to do things as long as they have no real effect? Of course the EPA is going to have a profound effect on every sector of the economy. If you curtail CO2 emissions you are basically affecting every step of production delivery and consumption of most goods. That is, after all, the gravity of the situation.
WTF is the EPA for anyway?
OTOH this is looking like an episode of Yes Minister, with the approach of overdoing a popular idea to make sure it sinks.
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
The obvious result of this ruling is not that heat-trapping gases will remain unregulated, but that the Bush (and by extension the Rupblican) version of said regulation failed. The next administration will take a shot, and under a possibly Democratic Party controlled White House and Congress you can expect something dramatically different. Which is most likely the reason for the dismay from the litigating utility companies.
this administration is just unbelievably evil, why not wait six months and try it with more enlightened minds?
I don't know. While I am in favor of environmental regulations, the fact that the courts threw out the entire mess might be a blessing in disguise. It will be back to the drawing board and the Bush administration will not have enough time to put new ones into effect. The regulation that the courts threw out probably was filled with loopholes that would let polluters off the hook. Maybe a new (and hopefully environmentally friendly) administration will do it correctly.
I out to patent the attachment for that is like a jacket only it traps that warm air. It's kind-of like a personal heat pump!
The game.
Here's the announcement:
(Washington, D.C. - July 11, 2008) Today EPA released an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) soliciting public input on the effects of climate change and the potential ramifications of the Clean Air Act in relation to greenhouse gas emissions.
And here is the transcript of Johnson's conference call on the release.
Finally, here is the (588 page PDF) document itself.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Sorry, the IRS is already up my ass.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
buys stock in the gas mask industry...
From what I can tell from reading it, just about everything has been invalidated except for that which concerned vehicles. My opinion it should have also included vehicles.
The EPA is basically meaningless. The powers not explicitly granted to the Federal government by the Constitution are reserved to the states, and the people. 10th Amendment to the Constitution. Perhaps the most important Amendment in that it limits the reach of the Federals.
Unfortunately (for the better part of a century), the Congress has behaved as if there were no restrictions whatsoever on their authority. As if "anything we can dream up, we can do." This is one of those rare times that a federal court seems to understand the Fed (and it's agencies') power is limited.
And no, "regulation of interstate commerce" clause, so often abused, does not grant this authority; It does not give free reign to the Feds to do anything they wish. Practically speaking, the Framers of the Constitution would not construct a careful balance of power, then undo it all with one clause.
The parent post will be the most insightful post in the thread. This was a judgment that respected state's rights and the constitution, and put limits on a government agency that very clearly needs to have firm limits. It's a good thing, despite the hand-waving writeup.
Judging by the utilities response, there were probably some loopholes in this act they already have plans in motion for. The Bush administration is known for making deals with energy. That's why they were shocked to have the whole thing thrown out. Most likely, the holes came down from the top, and the EPA threw in some licensing requirements at the last minute. They lucked out and got the whole thing thrown out.
There was a lot of selling of coal and natural gas companies on the East Coast in the last few years in anticipation of this act so it probably threw a wrench into the spokes of the alternate plans (nuclear). Most likely Dick Cheney and the nuclear lobby collaborated on this one. You're probably saying, "Dick Cheney?!" Well, yes. Wyoming is home to the largest deposits of uranium around. He's worked at power and energy companies for all his life. The act alone would I'm sure fuel some speculation in the Uranium markets, of which he and his family are major players.
The 15 year uranium chart clearly shows this amazing run up culminating in the sell off (in late 2007). I don't think we will be hearing from any of these guys for another 10 years, because they have just pulled the biggest scam in the history of America, they have ALL the money now (and just to make sure they printed a lot of extra and gave it to themselves). Oh, and they all moved to Dubai (Halliburton is now headquartered in Dubai, and deals equally with Euros and trades on the Dubai exchange).
Cool! Amazing Toys.
Global warming and such is not really a problem for the industrialized world. If any problems arise we will just build technological solutions to overcome them. After all there is more money to be made in fixing problems than preventing them. As for the rest of the world. Who cares, they do not vote in our elections and besides that they have to cross oceans to get to us.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
EPA == Establishment Protection Agency
Well, yeah. If you have the power to declare any substance whatsoever to be a pollutant, and then to heavily regulate its release, you could ruin any industry you wanted in a heartbeat.
The idea the carbon dioxide should be strictly controlled is novel, and it isn't up to the EPA - staffed by nonelected officials - to decide out of the blue to do so.
I always mod up spelling trolls.
What about the first power granted to Congress?
Article I, Section 8
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
How does the regulation of the environment not fall under "general welfare" of the United States?
If you take that line of reasoning then pretty much anything can be justified under "general welfare" and why have a constitution with a limited set of powers anyway?
--- You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad- Neal (not Cowboy) Boortz
Unfortunately (for the better part of a century), the Congress has behaved as if there were no restrictions whatsoever on their authority. As if "anything we can dream up, we can do." This is one of those rare times that a federal court seems to understand the Fed (and it's agencies') power is limited.
Exactly. Congress follows the letter of the law, not the spirit. If they think they can get away with passing a blatantly unconstitutional law, nothing stops them from trying, especially if someone with deep pockets wants the law to pass. (See: The War on Drugs, banning online gambling, the 55 MPH speed limit, etc.)
I think it is hilarious that all these environmental wacko hippies get all crazy about CO2 being emitted in excess. Do you know that there's something perfectly natural that eats up CO2? They are called p-l-a-n-t-s. That's right, the more CO2 in the air, the better plants grow. It almost seems as if this earth were designed in such a way that we couldn't mess it up. Global warming... you hippy morons should come up to michigan in the winter (last winter was record breakingly cold and long) and talk about global warming.
The problem being that the courts have a storied history of ruling against the 10th amendment - e.g., drug laws. I would LOVE it if the 10th amendment were reinstated to its full and correct meaning, but I feel like it's used as a rare excuse by the court when they want to favor certain private parties and otherwise ignored. If public perception changed such that ruling in favor of environment laws were seen as good for big (American) business, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if the courts changed their mind and ruled in favor of them.
The powers of the EPA don't really fall under "power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises"
Do you want the government to tell you when you can drive?
What temperature to set your house at?
How many kids you can have?
What you can do, see, eat, or be?
The average person will tell you that, NO...they don't want any of this. Of course, the same person will say they want OTHERS regulated. The government should come in and regulate companies, they should regulate cities! Regulate farmers, miners, whatever, as long as it doesn't mean THEY are effected.
If your AVERAGE person really gave a shit, they would ALREADY be limiting their impact. For example, I drive as little as I can, recycle, bike as much as I can, turn off my CFL bulbs when not in use, xeriscape, etc...ALL without the government having to tell me to. This is what we call FREE AGENCY. Freedom...liberty. The choice to drive a Prius or a Hummer.
Thomas Jefferson would punch most of you dead in your shit!
How come liberals don't believe in liberty? Why are they only pro-choice when it comes to abortion? Thomas Jefferson would punch most of you dead in your shit!
So Bush doesn't sign us up for Kyoto or other measures...and everyone shits their collective pants about how evil Bush and the USA are cause of it. Most of the countries that DO sign these things don't even have to do anything! How fucking easy is it to sign something that doesn't require you to do anything? Most of these countries sign stuff left and right, like pledging troops for the SFOR, or Darfor...like pledging money for Afghan reconstruction..and they never actually pitch in....
How fucking easy is it to sign up when you don't intend to actually do your part? And the US is the bad guy, cause we just don't sign up? Fuck that.
THL phish sticks
ah, yes. As long as they are applied equally. Uniformly, actually.
This is one of those questions that Utilitarians often have problems with.. Is it easier to inconvenience everyone a bit now or an unknown amount later?
http://www.xkcd.com/354/
Granted, the Interstate Commerce clause can certainly be abused, but environmental regulations sure seem like an actual application of Interstate Commerce powers. Environmental regulations, after all, primarily affect the conduct of interstate commerce. For example, say a business in Pittsburgh dumps polution into the Ohio River, which touches something like 6 states (Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois, not sure if I'm missing one), then feeds into the Mississippi River, where it touches 5 additional states before dumping into the Gulf of Mexico; potentially, from their, the pollution could travel to other states on the Gulf, carried by currents). That polution can potentially affect commerce across something 11 or more states. For example, killing (or ruining - e.g. unfit for consumption) economically important fish or other species. Most pollution is the same, essentially - polution rarely stays in one place. That which cannot stay within the borders of a single state cannot be regulated by that state. How can any state have authority over pollution?
If the Feds aren't going to regulate pollution which affects more than one state, who *is* the proper authority? States are supposed to regulate their own internal affairs, but any action on the part of their residents (individuals or businesses) which has economic effects outside of that state can no longer be under the authority of just that state.
and the striking are having trou3le From a technical 'first post' around are in need And, after initial its corpse turned GNAA on slashdot, Elected, we took
Here's what we know (for sure) about global warming:
Increases in atmospheric CO2 cause warming.
Man has been increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.
The Earth has been warming.
However, we cannot link any of these together in a cause and effect relationship, because the Earth has been warming long before man started to emit CO2. The last ice age (10K years ago) is still melting, and the last 1.5K year warming trend is still on the upswing. Water vapor has a more significant effect on warming, and we don't even know if more clouds increase or decrease warming. It would be a HUGE negation of science for the EPA to say that CO2 is a pollutant.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes
This is stating that they have power to collect taxes for just about everything, not that they have the power to do just about everything.
Learn to love Alaska
All life on Earth benefits from even very high levels of carbon dioxide. We exhale it, and plants breath it in. We learned this in 1st grade. It makes me mad to see them even considering regulation. Carbon dioxide is not a poison gas and needs to remain unregulated. Global warming is a scam, a gimmick to bring in new taxes and more government control over our lives.
ah, yes. As long as they are applied equally. Uniformly, actually.
Uniformly throughout the US. That is, progessive (or regressive) taxes are just fine as long as they are the same in Lousiana as California.
Learn to love Alaska
I entirely agree. And with the EPA out of the way, the oil companies can be sued into the ground. After all, if Grokster can be sued into the ground based upon contributory copyright violation (and copyright isn't even a right), then certainly oil companies can be sued into the ground based upon contributory property damage (aka all those nasty effects of pollution (poisoning waters, crops, etc) and global warming (flooding, droughts, etc)) and contributory littering (soot, CO2, mercury, etc).
Until now, companies could always claim that the EPA effectively immunized themselves from lawsuits because they were following the law, which itself implies that nothing improper was happening. But if the EPA and its powers don't exist, then one can only really based one's decision on based property law. And I think it's pretty clear (certainly above preponderance of the evidence) that polluting upon others property is illegal and creating a whole industry based upon that is illegal as well.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
You'd need a constitutional amendment to give the EPA the authority because those things not delegated to the federal government are reserved by the states (Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution)
If you want pollution controls without an amendment have your state legislate them - CA already does.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
If the interstate commerce clause can regulate my growing and selling of marijuana to my neighbor here in California, then I don't see why it can't be used to regulate CO2 emissions, which do cross state lines...
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
Uh, Imposts = impose. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/imposts Knowledge is power...
I'm not actively disagreeing with you, but your reading of the 10th Amendment is expressly contradictory of the way courts have read it. For most of the Modern Jurisprudential (post-Lochner) Era, the Supreme Court's interpretation of the 10th Amendment has been the following:
The Tenth Amendment was intended to confirm the understanding of the people at the time the Constitution was adopted, that powers not granted to the United States were reserved to the States or to the people. It added nothing to the instrument as originally ratified.
United States v. Sprague, 282 U.S. 716, 733 (1931).
Thus in effect the 10th Amendment is a nullity in terms of its scope and power. There have been attempts to revive the 10th Amendment as a restriction on the Commerce Power--some as recently at the 1970s--but the Court has been quite divided over whether it wants to do this. There's some interesting reading on the subject here.
The sun beams down on a brand new day, No more welfare tax to pay, Unsightly slums gone up in flashing light...
The point is, we should try to have as little impact on our environment as possible, since we've shown ourselves to be clueless as to the actual effects of what we've already done.
So you think individual households shouldn't be responsible for what they do to our environment? They shouldn't pay the true cost of the gas they burn in their Hummer?
...they won't have the administrative infrastructure to get the job done?
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
Yes, let's be very careful to avoid violation of the spirit of the american constitution. How about equal care to something far more important (the environment that every person on this plant shares with you free-landers, for better or worse).
-cut to 200 years into the future-
"buh-buh-buh-but we honoured the constitution... how could this have happened?" *continues to slow-bake*
Requiem for the American Dream
This clause is commonly referred to as the Tax and Spend Clause and has been commonly read to give Congress the power to tax and spend for the general welfare, not to regulate for the general welfare. Thus, if Congress wanted to tax pollution for the general welfare, it could. This specific clause does not give Congress the power to regulate pollution for the general welfare. Congress has no general police power.
If you want to know more about the history and interpretation of the clause, there is some excellent reading here.
The sun beams down on a brand new day, No more welfare tax to pay, Unsightly slums gone up in flashing light...
Am I reading this right?
The Bush administration refuses to ratify the Kyoto Accord
They then make bold and popular "clean air" initiatives, which depend on enforcement from the EPA
When called upon to enforce the "clean air" initiatives, the EPA is not provided the authority to do so, for example, by the ratification of the Kyoto Accord
The Bush administration sits back and says, "oh well, we tried"
Tell me it's not that transparent!
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
Fair enough, but what is your live of reasoning? What very specific set of power should "general welfare" cover?
Two giant leaps for libertarians.
That is what everyone here claims to be, come FISA and DMCA time, right?
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
SURPRISE SURPRISE! The founding fathers were... SURVEY SAYS! no! no philosophical angels looking for a better way, but politicians!
limited government clauses made antifederalists happy, the "general welfare" and the "necessary and proper" clauses let federalists have the last laugh.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
And hence the government we have today. If we have to deal with the stupid implications of the Federal government's power grab, we should at least benefit from the positive steps that the Congress has taken.
Practically speaking, the Framers of the Constitution would not construct a careful balance of power, then undo it all with one clause.
Not necessarily true. The federal arrangement in Australia mirrors the arrangement in the US, although rather than interstate commerce the federal government here tends to use its power to make tied financial grants to the states to regulate things outside of its explicit control. (In particular, one of the larger tied financial grants is given only if the states don't draw their own income tax — and the Commonwealth government's income tax is large enough it would be suicide for a state to try to ignore it.)
Anyway, it is commonly regarded that this was done explicitly because just like in the EU the founders of our federation wanted a very power central government and very weak state governments — eventually to be entirely irrelevant. But politically that would've been impossible at the time; everyone needed to agree. Victorians were generally happy; so far as they were concerned they might've been founding the Victorian empire[*] with a few concessions to New South Wales, but the smaller colonies would've rathered stay under Britain's control. So they put in all this language "the federal government can only eat cheese and five past six in the morning and can only make laws regarding how frequently people can hop between 11.53 am and 5.42 pm blah blah blah", but a couple of those "blahs" were expected eventually to become the basis of all or most of the federal government's power. And it has, and the people of Australia suffer for it, even though we don't all realise it.
Now of course America was founded by terroris — ahem, that is — revolutionaries rather than by politicians, who got what they wanted by fighting a war rather than by holding referendum after referendum until they got the desired result, but I see no reason to believe they'd be any less cunning or centralist than anyone else, rhetoric notwithstanding.
[*]: Of course Sydney and New South Wales quickly outgrew Melbourne and Victoria...
Look out!
then certainly oil companies can be sued into the ground based upon contributory property damage (aka all those nasty effects of pollution (poisoning waters, crops, etc) and global warming (flooding, droughts, etc)) and contributory littering (soot, CO2, mercury, etc).
The oil companies didn't put that into the air - you did, by burning it directly or paying people to burn it for your to make your goods.
What's you mailing address again? ;)
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Personally, I think that the EPA was right to claim that they can't regulate carbon emissions. The reasoning they stated was absolutely and 100% valid. Regulation of carbon emissions (and other heat trapping gases) is a big deal. You are talking about going from open seasons to something much more restrictive. The vast majority of companies don't even know how much they are dumping out because it is currently unregulated. The EPA regulating carbon emissions would be a very very big deal. It would have some very dramatic effects upon the price and have an effect upon the economy.
I am not against regulating such emissions, but it isn't up to a government bureaucrat to make such a significant decision. This truly is the role of elected officials. Congress needs to get up off their collective asses and decide what the law of the land should be in terms of green house gas emissions. Congress needs to decide what the balance between the economy and the environment is, and they need to be held responsible if they screw it up. The head of the EPA is absolutely correct in throwing up his hands and saying that this is for congress to sort out, not him.
Satellite global temps
The planetary temperatures are either flat or cooling down. Since its been two weeks since the last sunspot, can anyone say "Little Ice Age"?
This is my sig.
What plant are you from?
A power plant?
The parent is so far off base it's not even funny. Just take a look at the website the photo of the National Geographic Magazine was located at. (here's the page for the November, 1976 edition). Here's a summary of the website by the way:
Perfect is the enemy of done.
Global warming is just a part of the problem with using fossilized carbon fuels. One of the biggest problems is that it is a finite source of energy. They will run out in a not so distant future.
CO2 gases arent the only problem either. Cancerogenes and heavy metals arent fun in the long run for our children and the animals. However you look at it its about time we seriously look at other energy sources.
HTTP/1.1 400
Exactly how does the power of "regulation of interstate commerce" that is explicitly mentioned as within the reach of Congress --in Article 1, no less-- not apply to, you know, the regulation of interstate commerce?
The EPA is a regulatory agency; they are part of the executive branch, the legislative branch. Article 2 explicitly grants the executive branch the power to enforce the laws created by Congress.
I believe you are misinterpreting the 10th amendment. It concerns rights, not specific topics for future legislation, such as environmental protection.
Hey, there's plenty of methane in farts. Cheap home heating!
You're making me think. You won't like me when I'm thinking.
Unfortunately, Congress has the power to 'regulate' Interstate commerce in just about any way they see fit. Of course, any matter of national policy /might/ have an effect on Interstate commerce, so they mostly get to do what they like.
A much better stipulation would be, "As this Bill pertains unequivocally and indubitably to national interests *strictly necessary* to Interstate commerce and is furthermore restricted in action to minimal involvement necessary unless regularly reviewed and granted further extension of power and influence by a [large] margin of the States, ... (insert the rest of the text of the Bill here)"
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
God, you aren't helping your case.
-- arstchnca
--
2.8% in the air? Well, if I change 2.8% of the water in your body for hydrochloric acid, do you think you'll be OK?
If we changed 2.8% of the planets air to cyanide, will we survive?
Your points are invalid.
Exactly, things that fall outside the scope of "providing for the general welfare" are pretty much right out.
Stop reading snippets of sentences and take the whole damn thing or don't take any of it at all.
... could a thread whose topic is two separate court's overturning of Bush Administration initiatives to PROTECT the environment become a Bush-bashing free-for-all. The Bush Derangement Syndrome is strong with you, young Slashdotter. There's this thing called a "life" - try it some time.
"n. The uppermost part of a column or pillar supporting an arch."
Doesn't really apply...
Oh, how about this one? "n. Something, such as a tax or duty, that is imposed." That's really just another word for tax.
It is called fox news. We are fed crap and shit from the white house all day long.
This thread is a long, lame troll. Hey, if you weren't a troll you'd realize that you've lost this battle already. Now you're just trying to make a scene and be generally disagreeable. You're a troll. A troll with a long comment history. But still a troll.
Troll, BE GONE!
It's very disgraceful that our government can blatantly ignore the constitution, but when it tries to pass laws controlling pollution it "exceeds its authorities".
If your interpretation is correct, then it's a much better indictment of the 10th Amendment than of the EPA. Environmental laws are a matter of life and death.
Worship nothing.
Property is theft.
As correct as you may be, it seems that the 10th is only invoked whenever the ruling party doesn't like something.
Although the idea of states' rights is very much open to debate, the wording of the law should be amended to reflect the status quo that's been present ever since the end of the Civil War (remember folks, the constitution is not scripture, and was explicitly designed to be updated as needed).
For one thing, the 10th was drafted long before the sparsely-populated western states were annexed. Many of these states simply don't have the population to support all these agencies, and it would be fairly inefficient to duplicate the efforts of an agency such as the EPA or FDA 50 times over.
As long as the federal agencies are focusing on the issues that affect the majority of the states, I honestly see no problem. States certainly should be able to run their own agencies to tackle their own problems (that's the point after all), though it does make a lot of sense to have a federally-run agency to focus on the big-picture issues.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Just because you like a law, doesn't make it constitutional.
I don't think many people here like getting murdered by terrorists, but most on Slashdot were against the new FISA bill. Does this make sense?
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
So Bush and his Republican Congress created environmental controls that didn't do the job, and were illegal anyway. So eventually the power industry would get them thrown out, and leave us with nothing.
Which is kinda like Bush overall. While in power he did little but stand in the way, and now all we can do is flush him down the toilet. Meanwhile, years are lost in which polluters get to squeeze some bucks out of our environment in exchange for damaging our health.
And Bush gets to breathe free in Crawford, Texas.
--
make install -not war
When we see a problem, we tend to talk about it but generally ignore it. We assume someone else will be responsible enough to handle it or just pretend it doesn't exist. It's not bad enough to fix.
Anyone over the age of 10 in 1972 was keenly aware of what happens when gas becomes scarce and the mistakes that were made then. People were being shot for gas. Automobile manufacturers were going bankrupt (Chrysler) because they didn't think there was a problem ("America buys what we build" - GM) until the Japanese gave us a severe drubbing.
And at the same time there was an Indian on TV standing by the side of a road with garbage being thrown at his feet. Down Chemical (my hometown) was routinely creating record breaking fish kills and chemical spills that emptied the town.
Thirty some years later people are acting all surprised by this crap. And they want someone else to take the burden for it.
We, as a nation, will do NOTHING about pollution simply because we have no solution which will not have a potentially negative impact to our economy. This is consistent with capitalism. China has a hot economy and epic pollution problems. We are trying to compete with that and don't believe we can if we try to stay clean at the same time.
Perhaps the solution is to go in a different direction. Make oil-independence a science, technology, and industry that the US can export. And do the same with environmentally designed processes and products. China will kick our ass on many industries and we will never be able to compete with them unless we abolish the EPA. But eventually China and others will have to face the same problems -- energy is limited and pollution is real.
And there are about 10,000 other nations that have an socio-economic evolutionary path somewhere in between the US and China who would all be interested in these technologies being developed. So we might not be selling to China, but we can sell to Europe, Western Asia, Africa, and South America, Australia.. That's a good customer base.
But, this pollution regulation thing -- we are not going to fix it with the current government system. They don't have a real interest in it. We've done enough damage with the Bush years and yet it's likely we won't elect a winner this time either -- none available. Just compromises and shell games.
Will you bitches PLEASE decide once and for all whether or not you want the government to regulate the public to death? I can read slashdot one day, and the tone is practically one in favor of every adult receiving a housing and food ration from the government. Then the very next day I can read slashdot and the tone is one of "f--- the government for overstepping their bounds." Does anyone on here actually have a well-reasoned and consistent world view that also happens to correspond with observable reality? Phil Gramm was right. This IS a nation of whiners. Every one of you is a huge pussy compared to your grandparents.
Maybe we could harness this incredible source of energy to fuel vehicles and put an end to the energy crisis!
Saying "I'll probably get modded down for this" in a post is the best way to get it modded up.
Erm ... did you actually look at those values ? Or even plug them into Excel/Matlab/Octave/whatever and trend them (with a larger running average than 12 months) ? If not, then I suggest you do that.
Global warming deniers generally are neither good at science nor at statistics.
Uh, did you look at the numbers? I mean, seriously. The numbers are not absolute temperature averages, they are a number that already statistically indicates above or below normal. It already factors in seasonality and all of that other stuff.
So, if you have got a negative number, it means the region in the column shown did in fact get colder. Secondly, there is a comparison set of columns with a twelve month moving average. Right now, the twelve month moving average is .089 degrees above normal.. however, the trend of that is downwards and has been since August 2007.
The basic theory against AGW is that the sun controls climate in a way that is linked to sunspots but is not understood -yet-. So, it's pretty simple to test. If there is a continued period of low sunspot activity by the sun, then the planet will cool off. If the planet heats up, then, hey, sunspot dudes are wrong and people on the coasts need to learn to swim;.
But... since there's been no or few sunspots for the last couple of months, and the earth is cooling down, AND, the La Nina that was previously cited for the unseasonable cooling is gone, well, I'm betting on the Little Ice Age.
This is my sig.
Hmm.. I'm usually one of the defenders of the 10th Amendment and often a critic of the "interstate commerce" clause's perversion and abuse, but..
Pollution (especially air pollution) crosses state lines. It's not even like the medical marijuana thing where they argue that a patient's medicine might cross lines and then indirectly influence the interstate drug market. Pollution simply does it quite naturally.
Even if the 10th amendment explicitly said that the power to deal with pollution was left to the states, what would the states really be able to do? If the town 10 miles over the border belches ickiness into another state's air, what is the "victim" state going to do -- build a wall? Put itself in a dome? And are they going to put some kind of water filter in all the rivers crossing the lines?
If you can think of a way of keep pollution from spreading, then the EPA will have no legitimate authority. But no such tech exists. It's definitely an interstate problem. Commerce? Ok, that's a bit of a stretch, but the damage caused by pollution certainly includes economic impact.
Yeah, I'd prefer it if as a society, we dotted the i's and crossed the t's and actually passed a constitutional amendment explicitly granting pollution control to the feds, but compared to all the other abuses of the interstate commerce clause, that isn't really worth thinking about right now. Scale back the more ridiculous abuses and then we can look at these gray areas.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
We've not had a negative growth quarter under the Bush administration and CO2 emissions are down. You need to look outside of daily Kos and Slashdot for news once in a while.
My neighbor across the street owns a small business. He has bought 3 hummers, which he rides around for a while with a removable sticker on the doors advertising his business, and then sells. He claims that he is making a profit (I cannot verify this) because he is very carefully following the law and taking advantage of some sort of calendar year/fiscal year mismatch.
He is very happy he voted for Cheney both times. He says the Bush Miracle Economy has been very profitable for him, his business shows a loss on paper every year and he's rolling in cash.
PS: He has six illegals cutting his huge lawn every week for $25.00 (total, not per Mexican) each time. He's against immigration reform because he thinks it would drive up the price...
Because most doctors give a lot more to society than others and they had to work their asses off to be in a position to do so.
I dunno, if Texas starts hauling all their garbage to the border and firing thousands of tons a day out of a cannon at Oklahoma (which I'm sure many Texans would consider a fine idea), that would certainly fall under the federal government's jurisdiction.
Why does it matter if the garbage is floating in the air or water?
...or more reasonably, this is what happens when you have idiots running the federal government.
Conservative or liberal doesn't matter. It's the competence deficit that matters.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Damn those bushies, for classifying a hummer as a light truck! It's clearly a, uh, sedan?
It isn't so much about the classification as it is about the application (with apologies to Jessee Jackson on that one). The point that many people have been trying to make is that the business tax laws don't make sense with regards to business vehicles.
For example, if you are a business owner who could just as well drive around in a sedan, why would you buy a truck? You probably wouldn't, until you talk to your accountant and find out that you get a huge tax rebate by buying the truck instead.
The result is we have florists and IT guys driving around in Hummers because it ends up being cheaper to purchase an H2 than a more reasonable sedan.
KARL-ROVE-FROM-BEYOND-THE-GRAVE
I think Mr. Rove would be surprised to hear that he is dead. While plenty of non-conservatives would place Rove as evil, few would place him as dead. Even wikipedia seems to believe he is currently alive.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Exactly, things that fall outside the scope of "providing for the general welfare" are pretty much right out.
Everything provides for the general welfare. I don't think you can name anything that can't be considered to provide for the "general welfare" of either the nation or the people in it in some capacity. As such, it was a catch all to essentailly say "everything."
Stop reading snippets of sentences and take the whole damn thing or don't take any of it at all.
No. The first part is the only part with substantial meaning, so it's the only one that matters. Just like the recent ruling that the first clause of the 2nd Amendment is essentially superfulous, so is the remainder of this sentence when it comes to what taxes can be collected for. And there isn't anything I can think of that can't be argued to be for the "general welfare" of the nation or the people inside it, so why focus on that?
Learn to love Alaska
Not a troll. There has been no warming the past 8 years and last year we lost 100 years of warming. There are predictions for 10-25 years of additional cooling before global warming returns. Just because you disagree, doesn't mean he's a troll.
I think this brings up some fairly debatable points. For example, if we have to force environmental laws on a state-to-state scale, then what's to stop one state from allowing free reign on pollution? It could have a generally poor impact on the entire environment, yet other states would be powerless to stop them.
It's a sketchy line to draw, definitely. It must have been difficult for the founding fathers to foresee how each state could so heavily affect other states.
'unprecedented expansion' of the agency's authority that would have 'a profound effect on virtually every sector of the economy,' touching 'every household in the land.'.
Isn't this exactly what we need for the EPA to be capable of doing? it might be time to expand the EPA's power significantly then.
"Nobody could have forseen" that the Bush administration would do such a poor job of making a case in favor of pollution controls that it would set a precedent which harms limitting pollution in general.
Add this to the list of other things nobody could have forseen (but everybody did).
As a Texan, I cannot endorse this idea.
On the other hand, I believe it would be hilarious.
"The power to tax involves the power to destroy." McCulloch v. Maryland
And if you have the ability to destroy something, you pretty much control it.
If the EPA can regulate CO2, why not reproduction? There would be less pollution with less humans. One child per family. It's for the environment after all...
Are moderation points now being handed out on "special" blotter paper?
Ooooh, so it's a conspiracy amongst the media, scientists and governments of the world. Man, why didn't I think of that!
Check out the US Government Grant program to study Global Warming. This was paid research with millions of dollars spent for the study of Man made Global Warming. If you follow the money, it comes from funded research. The Scientests you refer to had a strong conflict of interest. The resulting conclusions were predictable and little other research was funded for other causes. I can produce grants to prove lighing matches in the gymnasium causes warming of the gym. I'm not ready to ban birthday cakes because it will overheat the gym.
Yes, I am ready to back up my claim before you dismiss me as a troll;
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Grants+for+Global+Warming+research
Do the research. Most of the studies and scientific conclusions was from grant money. Independant study most often has other conclusions.
The truth shall set you free!
Touching every household umm.... unlike our Environment that is supposed to be Protected by the Agency he is supposed to lead.
Most of the studies and scientific conclusions was from grant money.
So? The obvious explanation, here, is that the legitimate scientists, doing high quality work with useful results backed by proper data, also happen to be the ones who attract the grants because, surprise surprise, they're good at their jobs.
And my argument is only strengthened by the fact that entrenched industry, whose interests are very much focused on maintaining the status quo, haven't been able to use their massive cash reserves to fund contradictory science. Care to explain how this fact fits with your theory?
That said, I agree, money in science can be... a challenge, which is why it's vital to focus on the science, and not where it comes from. But to dismiss all of mainstream climate science simply because grants are used to fund the research is throwing the baby out with the bathwater... not to mention exceedingly paranoid.
Independant study most often has other conclusions.
Such as? I mean, that's quite the claim, but strangely, you haven't provided links or references to back it up.
The US being the largest producer/consumer of weapons in the world isn't helping fight Global Warming as much as it is helping the War Against Terror...or is it?
http://www.junkscience.com/
I know full well that tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack
It seems to me that says they can use the funds collected to provide for the general welfare of the country... Not that they can use taxes, duties, and excises as a social bludgeon to modify the behavior of individuals or corporations.
does it say foreign intercepts require warrants? My reading of the Bill of Rights - as a lawyer and political science professor - is that the Fourth Amendment is a criminal procedure protection, not something designed to regulate intelligence gathering.
But you are right - Congress encroaching the President's inherent powers with a mere law (rather than constitutional amendment) could be considered unconstitutional, just as the War powers Act likely is.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Such as? I mean, that's quite the claim, but strangely, you haven't provided links or references to back it up.
Have you not been paying attention? The dispute on the influence of the SUN and whatever is also warming Mars. Sorry, I didn't think it needed spelled out.
A scientist has disproven (in his theory) that the heating on Mars is from atmospheric dust from winds. What causes wind? How did the wind die down for the dust to settle and the ice caps form? Why isn't it the same today?
In short, it's warmer. What caused it? That's in dispute both here and on Mars.
The truth shall set you free!
Have you not been paying attention? The dispute on the influence of the SUN and whatever is also warming Mars. Sorry, I didn't think it needed spelled out.
And yet, still, no links or references. Just discussion of some mysterious, anonymous "scientists". And you completely ignore the rest of my post, probably because you have no rebuttal.
So, how about *I* provide a link discussing the topic of "warming" on Mars. Oh, and before you start, here's a link discussing the "warming" on Jupiter. Alright, now it's your turn.
Meanwhile, ask yourself: If GW is due to solar forcing, why aren't we seeing the exact same trends on Venus? Or Neptune? Or Saturn? Or Jupiter (no, Jupiter is not experiencing GW, see the preceding link)? Why just Earth and Mars?
Or, maybe it's just the obvious: Earth and Mars are both experiencing independent climate change, but for different reasons, neither of which is related to solar output. But the anti-AGW folks need *some* sort of proof, and so they're cherrypicking their results, and then claiming victory.