No doubt some lobbyist was patting himself on the back in January after securing a 3-year reprieve from EPA’ greenhouse gas (GHG) regulations for the biomass industry.
But as we pointed out at the time that deal was likely to be illusory. Now we can see how the deal will be killed without the Obama administration getting any blood on its hands.
The Center for Biological Diversity, the Conservation Law Foundation and the Natural Resources Council of Maine filed suit April 7 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit claiming that the EPA did not have authority to retroactively exclude biomass facilities from its greenhouse gas regulations, according to the Clean Energy Report.
Our money is on the greens prevailing since EPA did act retroactively (after the GHGs rules and been finalized) and its exclusion of biomass (as a source of GHG emissions) is arguably arbitrary.
The significance of this story is best seen in the light of yesterday’s successful green challenge to Shell Oil’s Obama-granted permits for drilling in the Arctic Ocean — i.e., once again, the Obama EPA acts in a slipshod manner opening the doors for the greens to sue successfully.
Actually it could happen to a better bunch of bunco artists. Bio-dumb. Just sucking up hundreds of millions of tax dollars to produce about as much energy as mouse farts.
I think there is little loss from EPA’s actions in this case. The biofuels industry has little hope of relieving our energy supply problems and their products are more expensive than conventional fuels. Therefore, curtailing the industry would be a financial positive for the country.
Totally agree with Stan B. I don’t believe the law allows EPA to pick and choose which producers of greenhouse gases it will favor or disfavor regulatorily. Waivers under any law offer opportunities for government corruption.
I am all for the Green’s winning this one. I am an advocate of suing the EPA to enforce GHG regulations to the letter of the law. This arbitrary and capricious application of their finding that CO2 is a pollutant needs to be vigorously challenged at every turn. If they are going to regulate CO2, they MUST regulate all industries that produce it in amounts that satisfy their findings! Force their hand on this – make it cause as much pain to as many people as possible as quickly as possible! Only then will the American people rise up and tell them to go to hell!