Wimp & Sellout Watch — No.3

While we have high hopes that the newly empowered Republican Members of Congress will make every effort to fight the socialization of America, we are also aware that the GOP has an ignominious history of wimping- and/or selling-out, especially on environmental issues. Wimp & Sellout Watch is GreenHellBlog’s effort to spotlight the GOP’s weak links because:

In the 112th Congress, it should take more courage for GOP-ers to retreat than to advance.

Today’s update on potential wimps and sellouts to watch:

Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID). Last week, the new chairman of the House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee said he intends to slash the agency’s funding, observing that,

“The E.P.A. is the scariest agency in the federal government, an agency run amok.”

While that sounds terrific, Simpson sounded just a tad bit too wimpy in an Environment & Energy News report yesterday:

Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) said the Republican takeover of Congress will ensure a debate over whether EPA has exceeded its legal authority under the Clean Air Act by moving to regulate carbon dioxide and other emissions linked to climate change. “There is a great deal of concern that the EPA is overreaching in trying to control greenhouse gases,” he said.

“And if they are, the way you bring them back is through the appropriations process, most likely. That’s the quickest way to do it,” he added.

The House approves spending bills before the Senate, and Simpson heads the House panel responsible for funding EPA each year, which puts its members in a unique position to place constraints on the agency. The Interior Appropriations Subcommittee has not yet decided how it will approach delaying EPA’s greenhouse gas rules, Simpson said, but he favors attaching language to the spending bill that would put a two-year stay on the stationary source programs.

The subcommittee voted last year on a similar appropriations “rider” but defeated it by a single vote.

“I suspect that would have a better chance of being adopted in this Congress,” he said.

While Simpson said the EPA language could be attached to a continuing resolution or omnibus appropriations bill Congress must pass in March to fund the federal government for the final six months of fiscal 2011, he added that the fiscal 2012 bill is a more likely vehicle.

He acknowledged that the rider could be a tough sell in the Senate, which is still under Democratic control. Still, he said it could be effective even if it never reaches the president’s desk.

“Sometimes bringing it up and debating it is enough to make the agency say, ‘Wait a minute, maybe we ought to re-examine this,'” he said. Simpson said EPA has the options of slowing implementation of its programs or of weighing their benefits with their costs to determine whether mandates will put an undue burden on communities.

“I would hope that they would slow down on this and that Congress would take it up and give them some direction on what to do,” he said. [Emphasis added]

Here are reasons to be concerned about these comments:

  • Debate? What is there to debate? The voters spoke in November. The EPA has clearly acted illegally with respect to the “tailoring rule”. Then the agency entirely ignored the implications of Climategate and its progeny in the endangerment finding. The EPA is regulating greenhouse gas emissions now. We need action now. As Al Gore might say, the debate is over.
  • No plan? Simpson’s “most likely” comment (see above quote) indicates that there is no firm plan to take action. EPA greenhouse gas regulation is perhaps the most important issue facing this Congress that it can do something about — and House leadership still has no definite plan?
  • Later rather than sooner? Why isn’t Simpson charging ahead with respect to fiscal 2011 funding? Instead he’s prepping us for delay (i.e., fiscal 2012 is “more likely”). The longer EPA regulation is allowed to proceed, the less likely it is to be halted. Other major events can intercede and distract Congress. Delay allows the greens more time to scare politicians away from taking action against the EPA.
  • Tough sell in Senate? Last we checked, the House can block agency funding all by itself. No Senate action required.
  • How naive is the GOP? Simpson thinks that Congressional debate is going to make the EPA pause to reconsider its rules. Wake up, dude. The Obama EPA will never blink on regulating greenhouse gases; it’s the Obama administration’s signature green achievement. Obama would be a one-termer for sure if it backed off as the lefties and energy rentseeking industry would surely abandon him. Moreover, the EPA has no history of backing off major initiatives. Rather, its history is one of making Republican politicians slink away in ignominious defeat.
  • Hope-a-dope. Simpson “hopes” the EPA “slows down.” Hope is for roulette. It is not a strategy.
  • GOP to pass greenhouse gas regulation? Simpson also “hopes” that Congress would give the EPA direction on how to regulate greenhouse gases. Excuse me? Cap-and-trade is one of the reasons that Simpson, not some Democrat, is chairman of his subcommittee. The only direction Congress should give the EPA is, “Stop, right now.”

Although Simpson doesn’t mention it, he seems to be hoping (again) that a court will force the EPA to stop. But as of today, there is no indication that any court will do so. Moreover, the likely litigation schedule could drag on past the 2012 elections.

Based on news accounts, oral argument in ongoing litigation could be delayed until the fall (or even later). If so, there likely will be no court decision until at least 2012. Supreme Court review could easily drag into 2013 — a decision that seems likely to again hinge on how swing-voter Anthony Kennedy feels about the EPA and global warming — remember this didn’t work out so well for us in 2007.

Once again, the longer EPA regulations stay in place, the more difficult it will be to end them. President Obama could make things even more difficult by designating natural gas as “best available control technology” (BACT) for greenhouse gases in the power sector. If he did that, the natural gas industry would flood Republican coffers with cash and EPA regulation would be cemented in place.

Simpson says the EPA is the “scariest agency” and it is “running amok.” If he means what he says, then he should take decisive action now.

Don’t forget to check out previous editions of Wimp & Sellout Watch:

  • No. 2 — Spotlighting Sens. Lindsey Graham and Rob Portman.
  • No. 1 — Spotlighting Sens. Chuck Grassley, Rob Portman, Lindsey Graham and Scott Brown, and Rep. Fred Upton.

DC Circuit teases, then screws Texas

We should have known it was too good to be true when on Dec. 30 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit temporarily blocked the EPA from taking control of Texas’ air pollution permitting program.

Yesterday, the Court changed its mind and lifted the stay ruling that,

“petitioners (Texas) have not satisfied the stringent standards required for a stay pending court review.”

The DC Circuit judges were the dope-smoking Douglas Ginsburg, Clinton-appointee Judith W. Rogers, and Thomas Griffith, who practiced law without a license in Washington, DC (1998-2000) and Utah (2000-2004).

God help us.

EPA outsmarts biomass industry

“Biomass-inine” is the only way to describe the biomass industry’s deal with the EPA.

Administrator Lisa Jackson announced today that the biomass industry would be exempt from the agency’s greenhouse gas (GHG) regulations for three years, pending more research on whether biomass is truly “carbon neutral”:

The agency intends to use this time to seek further independent scientific analysis of this complex issue and then to develop a rulemaking on how these emissions should be treated in determining whether a Clean Air Act permit is required.

Dave Tenny, the president of the National Association of Forest Owners told Greenwire,

“We think this is a very positive step in the right direction.”

But the agency had already declared biomass to be carbon neutral in its April 2010 “Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks 1990-2008”:

“…because biomass fuels are of biogenic origin, . . . [i]t is assumed that the carbon (C) released during the consumption of biomass is recycled as U.S. forests and crops regenerate, causing no net addition of CO2 to the atmosphere.”

Based on that statement, biomass should be permanently excluded from GHG regulation.

Note that in the above-captioned statement, however, the EPA only “assumed” biomass to be carbon neutral. And as argued in a July 2010 missive from the radical green Center for Biological Diversity,

The “carbon neutrality” assumption is just that—an assumption, not a fact. “Carbon neutrality,” if it exists at all, must be demonstrated on a project-specific basis, taking into account all emissions from biomass production, transport, processing, and combustion, all emissions and lost sequestration capacity associated with forest thinning and clearing operations, and actual analysis of fossil fuel displacement.

In the la-la-land of manmade global warming, that would seem to be quite a good point. There would seem to be much difference in say leaving biomass to decompose slowly versus the combination of fossil fuel-reliant harvesting and accelerated carbon-emitting through combustion.

But whether or not biomass is carbon neutral is just a distraction.

What’s really going on is that the EPA has effectively eliminated a potentially powerful foe from the upcoming political battle over the agency’s GHG regulations.

By embracing the CBD’s argument and reneging on its earlier assumption that biomass is carbon neutral, the EPA now has a passable excuse for denying the green-hated biomass industry a permanent exemption from GHG regulation. But since the agency doesn’t want to permanently antagonize the industry and its political supporters, especially now in the heat of battle over GHG regulation, a three-year reprieve has been granted.

Conveniently, that three-year period is just about the time that it will probably take to complete the ongoing litigation over the EPA’s climate rules. It also removes the issue from the 2012 presidential election. This obviously helps the EPA out a lot now while giving the biomass industry essentially nothing in return and setting it up to be screwed later.

Underscoring the EPA’s attempt to defuse political tensions are letters sent by Administrator Jackson to biomass champions Sens. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Max Baucus (D-MT) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR), and Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR), reading in relevant part:

“I hope you will see the steps described in this letter as following through on my prior commitment to exercise whatever discretion the Clean Air Act affords to avoid discouraging the use of renewable, domestically-produced fuel in power plants and factories.”

Through the 2012 election, the EPA will likely implement its greenhouse gas regulations gingerly and with an eye out toward not making more political enemies for President Obama. So it’s unlikely that the biomass industry would have felt any pain during that time from the EPA. But in three years — when the litigation and election are over — the biomass industry could very well be at the Obama EPA’s mercy.

If the fossil fuel industry has lost the war by 2014, then the biomass industry will be on its own defending itself against an Obama EPA that takes no prisoners. The EPA has long excelled, you see, at dividing and conquering business. It’s the agency’s most effective tactic.

The EPA threw the biomass industry a thin bone by classifying biomass as “best available control technology” during the three-year period. But this is a worthless gesture since no significant fossil fuel burner will be required by the agency to switch from coal or natural gas to biomass.

Lobbyist Tenny is right that the EPA’s action is a “very positive step in the right direction” — for the EPA.

Green backlash begins — lamely

Green groups commenced their assault on the House GOP today, accusing last week’s legislative efforts to rein in the EPA’s climate regulations as “a threat to public health.”

In condemning Rep. Marsha Blackburn’s bill (H.R. 97) to amend the Clean Air Act to exclude greenhouse gases, Health Care Without Harm (HCWH) issued a media release quoting its president, Gary Cohen:

“Curtailing [the EPA’s] efforts by placing our regulatory system in a stranglehold will sentence tens of thousands of people to debilitating, respiratory illnesses, adding to the burden of chronic disease in the nation and increased financial burden to the health care system.” said Gary Cohen, president of Health Care Without Harm.

Cohen also stated,

“Greenhouse gases contribute to human morbidity and mortality in the same way that smog and soot pollution and other air toxins do…”

But consider the two graphs below. The first charts the change in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels during the 20th century.

The second charts the change in life expectancy during the 20th century.

Note that as CO2 levels increased, so did life expectancy — the best measure of public health. Although correlation does not necessarily equate to causation, we expect that life expectancy correlates very highly with per capita CO2 emissions around the world.

Perhaps that’s why HCWH’s media release didn’t present these graphs (or anything else for that matter to back up their claims), preferring instead to stick with ad hominem attack.

BTW, what is Health Care With Harm? It describes itself as,

…an international coalition of organizations dedicated to reducing environmental damage by the health care sector.

Connoisseurs of junk science , however, know HCWH as a front group for the radical green agenda. Greenpeace, Beyond Pesticides, Environmental Defense Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Environmental Working Group, and Sierra Club are just some of its “members“.

We challenge HCWH to cite a single credible scientific study demonstrating that greenhouse gases pose any threat to human health whatsoever. We define “scientific study” to be an empirical analysis of data published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature — as opposed some conclusory book report like the EPA’s “endangerment finding.” We’ll even accept a case study of someone harmed by greenhouse gases. How hard could that be since tens of thousands have been debilitated by greenhouse gases, according to HCWH?

How about it Gary Cohen?

USCAP to go into self-induced coma

The US Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), the business-environmentalist lobby group that almost made cap-and-trade happen in the 111th Congress, is going dark at least temporarily. Continue reading USCAP to go into self-induced coma

USCAP to go into self-induced coma

The US Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), the business-environmentalist lobby group that almost made cap-and-trade happen in the 111th Congress, is going dark at least temporarily.

Jonathan Lash of the USCAP member World Resources Institute told Carbon Control News that members,

“have agreed to keep USCAP in existence for the time being and reassess what is going to be possible.”

Apparently with cap-and-trade off the table and internal disagreement about whether to support or fight the EPA’s climate rules, USCAP members have reached an impasse as to what to do next.

So it’s lights out for USCAP for now.

USCAP members lobbied hard and successfully for the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, but then saw disenchanted members fall away, including BP America, Caterpillar, ConocoPhillips, Deere & Co., Marsh & McClennan, Xerox.

Oddly (or perhaps not), USCAP’s lead lobbyist, Merribel Ayres is married to Dick Ayres, a longtime board member of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a radical environmental group that has long been a mortal enemy of most of the USCAP members. The NRDC was among the groups that sued the U.S. EPA to impose California’s emission standards on cars nationwide — a lawsuit that led directly to the EPA’s new and controversial greenhouse gas regulations.

USCAP is little more than a confederacy of dunces (the business members) and sharks (the green members). We look forward to the day when the plug is finally pulled.

In the meantime, let’s take a walk down memory lane and our campaign against USCAP. Do you remember:

  • the Carbon Criminal posters?
  • Sen. Barbara Boxer’s tirade against the posters?
  • Exelon CEO John Rowe receiving his “Carbon Bandit” bobblehead at a Senate hearing?

Bill to repeal bulb ban introduced

Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) introduced a bill to repeal the 2007 law that bans incandescent bulbs starting in 2012.

Here is Barton’s media release:

Barton leads Republican effort to repeal light bulb ban

WASHINGTON: Reps. Joe Barton, R-Texas, Michael Burgess, R-Texas, and Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee, joined 12 other Republicans to reintroduced the Better Use of Light Bulbs Act or BULB Act, H.R. 91.

The BULB Act repeals Subtitle B of Title III of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which is a de facto ban on the incandescent light bulb.

“This is about more than just energy consumption, it is about personal freedom. Voters sent us a message in November that it is time for politicians and activists in Washington to stop interfering in their lives and manipulating the free market. The light bulb ban is the perfect symbol of that frustration. People don’t want congress dictating what light fixtures they can use,” said Rep. Barton. “Traditional incandescent bulbs are cheap and reliable. Alternatives, including the most common replacement Compact Fluorescent Lights or CFL’s, are more expensive and health hazards – so why force them on the American people? From the health insurance you’re allowed to have, to the car you can drive, to the light bulbs you can buy, Washington is making too many decisions that are better left to you and your family.”

“Thousands of American jobs have been shipped overseas as a direct consequence of this light bulb provision in the Democrats’ 2007 energy bill,” Burgess said. “I have stated all along that exposing our citizens to the harmful effects of the mercury contained in CFL light bulbs, which are being manufactured in China, is likely to pose a hazard for years to come. Not only would this bill be better for the environment, but it would be one step to bringing jobs back to America.”

“These are the kinds of regulations that make the American people roll their eyes. It is typical of a ‘big Washington’ solution to a non-existent problem. In this case it manifests itself as an overreach into every American home, one that ships good jobs overseas and infuriates the American consumer,” added Rep. Blackburn.

Other co-sponsors include: Reps. Todd Akin (R-Missouri), Rob Bishop (R-Utah), Paul Broun (R-Georgia), Ann Marie Buerkle (R-New York), Dan Burton (R-Indiana), Howard Coble (R-North Carolina), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyoming), Tom McClintock (R-), Ron Paul (R-Texas), Steve Scalise (R-Louisiana), Cliff Stearns (R-Florida), and Don Young (R-Alaska).

Alternatives to traditional incandescent bulbs have many drawbacks. They are all considerably more expensive. The most common alternative, compact florescent light bulbs have a number of problems:

  • Most CFLs are not manufactured in the United States. A recent Washington Post story reported that GE is shuttering a plant in Winchester, Va., killing 200 jobs in the process.
    CFLs contain mercury and have to be disposed of carefully. The amount of mercury in one bulb is enough to contaminate up to 6,000 gallons of water beyond safe drinking levels. The EPA recommends an elaborate cleanup ritual, including throwing away any clothes or bedding that has come in direct contact with the mercury from the bulb.
  • CFLs are not designed to be turned off and on frequently; the lifespan of a CFL may be reduced by up to 85 percent if you switch it off and on a lot.
  • People with certain health conditions can be harmed by CFLs. Reactions range from disabling eczema-like reactions, to light sensitivities that can lead to skin cancer.
  • The Energy Star program warns that CFLs can overheat and smoke.

Don’t miss GreenHellBlog’s exclusive: EPA’s Mercurial Hypocrisy.

Ohio EPA’s Cancer Scare

By Steve Milloy
January 7, 2011, GreenHellBlog.com

As if there’s not enough to be worried about already, the Ohio EPA just reported that residents in seven Ohio counties face a great than acceptable risk of cancer from air pollution.

Based on air monitoring data, the Ohio EPA reported that cancer risks ranged from 1.01 additional cancers per 10,000 people in Scioto County to 2.1 additional cancers per 10,000 people in Columbiana County.

But these claims are specious and the scare is irresponsible.

First, even accepting for the sake of argument the dubious notion that the low levels of exposure to the metals and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) at issue actually increase cancer risk, people should be aware of the insignificance of the risk.

Like it or not, about 44 percent of all men and 37 percent of all women will develop some sort of cancer during their lifetimes. This means that of every 10,000 men and women, about 4,000 will develop cancer over their lifetime.

If what the Ohio EPA claimed were true, the 4,000-estimate would increase to perhaps 4,002 — an insignificant and undetectable change that would be lost in the margin of error.

But then, that’s only if there is a real cancer risk from the exposures at issues — and that is doubtful.

There are no scientific studies of human populations showing that typical exposures to the ambient concentrations of the metals and VOCs at issue have ever caused anyone’s cancer risk.

So what the Ohio EPA did was to rely on the U.S. EPA’s risk assessment methodologies — a very dubious proposition.

In the mid 1990s on behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy, I led a comprehensive study of the EPA’s risk assessment practices – none of which have changed in any significant way since that time.

We found that in the face of omnipresent gaps and uncertainties in scientific knowledge and data, the EPA employs assumptions that are usually not science-based.

In deciding whether or not to label a chemical as potentially causing cancer, for example, the EPA typically relies on laboratory studies in which cancer-susceptible rodents are virtually poisoned with unrealistically high doses of the chemical. If the rodents then exhibit increased rates of cancer, however slight, then the EPA assumes that the same thing will happen in humans.

But mice are not little people. They metabolize chemicals differently than humans — a fact that the EPA only grudgingly admits once in a while when researchers have gone to great effort and expense to make the point as they did, for example, in the case of unleaded gasoline.

The Ohio EPA calculated make-believe, not actual cancer risks. Its cancer alarmism relies on presumptuous assumptions that are scientifically indefensible.

The dirty secret that America’s environmental establishment doesn’t want to acknowledge, much less publicize, is that our air is clean and safe. We are now in an era of ever-vanishingly small returns from ever-increasing environmental regulation.

American manufacturing is on the decline and jobs are going overseas. While there are many reasons for this phenomenon, they include excessive environmental regulation.

Sure the Ohio EPA can tighten its air quality regulations and write more stringent permits to reduce the hypothetical cancer risks to “acceptable levels,” but at some point, employers will say enough is enough and simply move on to more welcoming jurisdictions.

Do Ohioans really want its government to chase away jobs for no good reason, and then be terrorized with baseless cancer scares to boot?

Steve Milloy publishes JunkScience.com and is the author of Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them” (Regnery 2009).

House GOP offers bill to block EPA climate rules (Update)

Update: The Washington Post’s Juliet Eilperin reports:

Three Republican House members — Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.), Shelley Moore Capito (W. Va.) and Ted Poe (Tex.) have each introduced separate bills aimed at blocking EPA from regulating carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.

The three measures hamstring the agency’s authority in different ways: Blackburn’s would “amend the Clean Air Act to provide that greenhouse gases are not subject to the Act,” even though the Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that they are; Capito’s would delay EPA from regulating carbon dioxide and methane for two years; and Poe’s would prohibit any agency funding “to be used to implement or enforce a cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gases.”

While Capito’s bill is the most modest of the bunch, the West Virginia lawmaker explained in a statement that she has introduced a more limited bill because she thinks it has enough votes to pass and block initiatives such as new EPA permitting requirements that now require major new greenhouse gas emitters to show how they would use the best available current technology to lower their carbon footprint.

The Hill reports,

Dozens of Republicans used the opening day of the new Congress on Wednesday to introduce legislation that would bar the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse-gas emissions.

Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, sponsored the bill. The measure’s 46 co-sponsors are all Republicans except for Rep. Dan Boren (D-Okla.).

Co-sponsors include Oversight and Government Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.). Absent from the list at the moment: Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.), who is weighing his approach to stifling greenhouse-gas rules he alleges will burden the economy.

The bill would amend the Clean Air Act to declare that greenhouse gases are not subject to the law, according to a brief description in the Congressional Record…

What’s Fred Upton waiting for? Isn’t this what he said he wanted?

On the Senate side, meanwhile, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) told Fox News yesterday,

“We are going to introduce legislation that says all regulations should sunset. If the EPA writes a regulation, it expires in six months, unless Congress votes on it and approves it.”

Let’s hope he presses hard for such legislation.

GE sued (more) over PCB clean-up

Poor, General Electric. The EPA makes the company spend hundreds of millions of dollars dredging the Hudson River to remove sediment-bound PCBs — something which everyone knew would stir-up the otherwise safely entombed chemical — and now the company is being sued for just that consequence.

According to CBS-6 (Albany),

SARATOGA — The Saratoga County Water Authority has filed a federal lawsuit against General Electric, seeking $27 million for the damages it says it incurred trying to avoid PCBs during GE’s dredging project in the Hudson River.

Law firm Dreyer Boyajian LLP said Thursday the Water Authority had to spend $27 million building a water treatment plant in the town of Moreau in order to stay upriver of the General Electric plants in Hudson Falls and Fort Edward plants and the PCB dredging project.

SCWA said the move was necessary to avoid possible PCB contamination in their water, as GE continues to dredge up the contaminants in a massive $500 million clean-up project.

PCBs are classified as the EPA as probably human carcinogens, associated with adverse effects on reproductive, endocrine, and immunological function.

Several town and villages within Saratoga County have already filed their own suits against GE for the damages and costs related to the PCB dredging project.

As this blog pointed out in August 2009,

Chalk up another green disaster, courtesy of:

  • RFK Jr, Planetary Zero. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and his activist group Riverkeeper pressured GE to undertake the clean-up. Ironically, Time magazine had declared Kennedy one of its “Heroes of the Planet” for his Hudson River activism.
  • Corporate Neville Chamberlain-ism. GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt who, in hopes of appeasing the greens, reversed former CEO Jack Welch’s policy against dredging; and.
  • Your gooberment at work. The EPA, which in forcing GE to dredge sediments that should have been left alone, failed its eponymous mission — environmental protection.

EPA may try cap-and-trade on its own

… and everyone thought cap-and-trade was dead. Sen. John Kerry said so. West Virginia Senate candidate Joe Manchin shot it in a campaign video.

Now comes news that the EPA may resurrect cap-and-trade via regulation under the Clean Air Act.

Carbon Control News (CCN) reported today that,

… EPA air chief Regina McCarthy has said that any [greenhouse gas] trading program using existing air law authority would have to be established under the [Clean Air Act Section 111(d) New Source Performance Standards (NSPS)] rather than other sections.

While McCarthy denied taking steps to advance this idea, CCN reports,

“The agency sought $5 million in its fiscal year 2011 budget ‘to assess and potentially develop NSPS regulations for major industrial sectors and seek, where possible, market-oriented mechanisms and flexibilities to provide lowest cost compliance options’ for reducing GHG emissions, according to EPA’s FY11 Annual Performance Plan. Sources have said EPA’s mention of market-oriented mechanisms is likely a reference to cap-and-trade programs.”

A limitation of cap-and-trade under the NSPS would be that,

… it can only operate within specific industry sectors, rather than operate economy-wide like the trading program that would have been established under legislative proposals for a climate cap-and-trade program introduced in the 111th Congress.

But you can bet that the first industry sector to be regulated would be electric power generators, which would have economy-wide impacts.

Let’s hope that the Republican-controlled House zeroes out any funding the EPA requests for bringing a cap-and-trade Frankenstein to life.

Wimp & Sellout Watch — No. 2

While we have high hopes that the newly empowered Republican Members of Congress will make every effort to fight the socialization of America, we are also aware that the GOP has an ignominious history of wimping- and/or selling-out, especially on environmental issues. Wimp & Sellout Watch is GreenHellBlog’s effort to spotlight the GOP’s weak links because:

In the 112th Congress, it should take more courage for GOP-ers to retreat than to advance.

Today’s update on potential wimps and sellouts to watch:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (SC). According to a report in today’s E&E Daily, Graham told South Carolina reporters that,

“I think $4 a gallon for gas is coming and is an opportunity to re-engage on the energy policy. … Four dollars a gallon for gas is going to reignite this debate… [At $4 gasoline] everybody is tripping over themselves to find an energy policy.”

So Graham is trying to use the current rise in gasoline prices as a reason for his coming “clean energy standard” bill which would put a cap on carbon emissions. But the primary sources of energy that would be affected by such legislation — i.e., coal, solar & wind — have nothing to do with the price of gasoline. A carbon cap, moreover, would make gasoline even more expensive. Keep in mind that USCAP member General Electric has a wind turbine manufacturing plant in Greenville, SC.

For more on Graham, see Wimp & Sellout Watch — No. 1.

Rob Portman (OH). The global warming industry is gazing fondly at new Ohio Sen. Rob Portman. Apparently taking note of former Ohio Sen. George Voinovich’s identification of Portman as a moderate who will do business with Democrats, E&E Daily reports that,

[Portman] has also been floated by the Obama White House and Democrats as someone across the aisle who may be open to negotiations on several issues, including energy and environmental policy.

In addition to Portman being named to the Senate Republican whip team, E&E Daily also reported that,

Kayaking and outdoor trips are passions that Portman shares with Dan Reicher, his former roommate at Dartmouth College who is a former assistant secretary for energy in the Clinton administration, a clean energy adviser on President Obama’s transition team and director of climate change and energy initiatives for Google.

Reicher, now head of Stanford University’s new Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance, declined to comment on Portman, explaining he was a “good friend.”

E&E Daily omitted mentioning that Reicher was also a senior attorney at the radical Natural Resources Defense Council where he specialized in anti-nuclear activities. In 1990, Reicher almost snuck into a position with the White House Council on Environmental Quality in the George H.W. Bush administration. But he was exposed a week or so before he was to begin work, and his appointment was cancelled.

Portman also received significant campaign contributions from USCAP members General Electric Co. ($59,510) and Duke Energy Corp. ($32,000).

For more on Portman, see Wimp & Sellout Watch — No. 1.