Enviro groups have filed a notice of intent (NOI) to sue EPA over the ozone standard withdrawn by Obama. If they win, there’s a good chance that taxpayers may have to pay their legal costs. Click for the NOINOI. Click for a law review article about enviros recovering Clean Air Act legal costs.
The huge Southern Company only recoups, through ratepayers, any increases related to the EPA regulations so they have no incentive to resist what the EPA is doing. As a Matter of fact, Southern Company has been fully cooperating and assisting the EPA/United Nations (Kyoto Protocols) in developing regulations for Cap and Trade CO2 capturing, storing, and transporting.
It will be people like us who will stop this redistribution of wealth through ridiculous environmental regulations. The UN does not expect us to do anything.
The only people with the pockets and motivation to do that are the energy companies and the Industrial Trade Associations. No oil company will go it alone and risk political backlash (you saw what happened to Exxon with their paltry donation), and you can count the European companies out of any suit. Besides, the history of industry versus agencies is… bad.
As for the associations: AICHE is staying low, but there have been rumors that the ACC (or at least the TCC) will stand up and take the EPA to court. Unfortunately, that’s all there is, rumors.
My assessment, our best hope in reigning in the EPA is the TCEQ. They have had enough nonsense, including deliberate lies to Congress and revocation of permitting authority after some of their greatest successes. While I have had my differences with Austin, I find them far preferable that the EPA.
Along the lines of what Ben is saying, is there some way we can sue the EPA to force them into using sound science for a change?
This is the game EPA plays. Sometimes EPA uses states to sue as in the ruling that engendered the Endangerment Finding. More often it is Sierra Club, NRDC, etc. EPA knows that judges are easily fooled by their pseudo-science, especially while industry continues to stand on the sidelines as these court cases continue with no serious challenges. If an industry tries to intervene it is immediately targeted by EPA.
Our tea party group has been pressing our Federal legislators to put an end to a cycle of fund, sue, settle, expand between the EPA and the eco-blackmailers. So far, all have agreed that this misuse of taxpayer funds and abuse of power must end. We won’t stop asking until the practice is ceased.
I suggest that we get someone to intervene as defendant in this lawsuit. The EPA currently has a huge conflict of interest to support their own proposal that was killed by politcal pressure. They cannot legitimately mount a defense.
I hope the truth comes out! The EPA needs to be reassessed, dismantled, and reorganized. They have been following the United Nation’s Agenda and it has to stop. CO2 is not a harmful Green House Gas requiring containment and trading of credits nor is it causing man made global warming as once thought. We can now see It’s a deceptive scheme to redistribute our wealth.
EPA has been paying activist groups to sue them for decades. Further, the activist groups suing EPA have had nearly unlimited access to the upper echelons of EPA for the purpose of planning the suits and the EPA responses. That is what the flap over the erasure of all of the data on Carol Browner’s EPA computer was about. Parties that would be affected by the outcome of a suit to force EPA to act had requested minutes of a closed door meeting among EPA, Browner and the activists suing EPA. They alleged that the minutes would show collusion between EPA and the activists, purportedly to demonstrate an attempt to guarantee an outcome desired by EPA and the activists.
But, alas, Ms Browner was unable to comply with the court order to produce the minutes because the EPA computer whiz who was assigned to erase the games that Ms Browner’s son had installed on her work computer made a mistake and deleted everything on the hard drive.
Darn the luck!
The NOI is addressed to the 75 ppb ozone NAAQS adopted in 2008 in the later part of the Bush administration and not the 60-70ppb orzone NAAQS that the Obama administration proposed and recently ‘tabled’ at the request of OMB. Forcing implementation of the already adopted 75 ppb standard should be a slam dunk. Jackson already said they will implement the 75 ppb standard. And as you know, the same weak, manipulated science that troubled the Obama 60-70 ppb propsed ozone standard is behind the 2008 75 ppb standard. You do great work. Thanks for all.