On April 18, the Wall Street Journal published an editorial supporting EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s position against reconsidering the Endangerment Finding (EF) on Greenhouse Gases. The editorial makes six basic points:
- 1. WSJ: Finding has been upheld by the courts.
My comment: The issue is not whether the current EF was upheld, the issue is whether the courts will uphold a reassessment and revocation, which is clearly allowed by the Clean Air Act on the basis of new information (as in this case).
2. WSJ: Creating a legally bulletproof non-endangerment rule would consume a tremendous amount of EPA resources, especially at an agency with few political appointees and a career staff hostile to reform.
My comment: This is absurd. EPA can argue for and hire whatever size staff it needs to accomplish the goals it wants to pursue assuming approval by OMB. There is no more important goal under EPA’s jurisdiction for an Administration devoted to putting America first than vacating the EF, which makes it possible to resurrect a new EPA CO2 regulatory effort at any time if not vacated. Imposing regulations on CO2 would hurt the US by imposing costs and reducing the effectiveness of any effort to improve the US economy. Further, vacating the EF would immediately legally vacate all the Obama regulations based on it without any added effort by EPA, so would actually much reduce EPA’s resource needs.
3. Technical determinations about the state of the science are supposed to be entitled to judicial deference, but the reality is that the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals that would hear the case is packed with progressive judges. Climate change has become a theological conviction on the left, so Mr. Pruitt would almost certainly lose either with a three-judge panel or en banc.
If EPA vacates the EF, it should be entitled to judicial deference, just as it was when it promulgated the EF. I agree that given the majority of liberals on this Court, thanks to the Democrats’ efforts a few years ago to bring this about, could result in a sudden reversal of their previous position in favor of judicial deference. But that should not stop the Supreme Court from finding otherwise, as it did on the stay it issued on the so-called Clean Power Plan.
4. The Supreme Court’s appetite for such a case is also minimal, since it would run directly at the 2007 ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA that prepared the way for the endangerment finding. Justice Anthony Kennedy was in that 5-4 majority.
Overturning the 2007 ruling is almost as important as vacating the EF. But hopefully the judges who authored the five votes involved have now realized just how unjustified that ruling was and the need for overturning it before it does still more damage to the US economy for negative environmental gains.
5. Mr. Pruitt has the discretion to interpret the Clean Air Act to achieve his favored policy outcomes, including to repeal legally tenuous central planning like CPP.
The great danger is that the Climate-industrial Complex (CIC) will push the resulting inconsistency between the EF and EPA’s attempts to avoid CO2 regulation, as they are all but certain to do. What defenses would he possibly have with the current EF in place? EPA will be a sitting legal duck. Pruitt can interpret but the courts will decide.
6. Same Administration could restore endangerment too.
Yes, the EF could be restored but likely only in a two-term Presidency. That would be a major help in slowing down a future climate alarmist Administration and thus saving the US from the overwhelming disaster that climate alarmism will result in. Avoiding such an outcome should be Trump’s EPA priority one.
Not mentioned by the WSJ is that there is a desperate need to publicly explore the alarmist scientific case. Reconsidering the EF would provide a unique opportunity to do this. Letting the alarmist science continue to go unchallenged is a recipe for disaster. The alarmist science is not just scientifically weak, it has now been shown to be scientifically invalid. EPA needs to recognize this as soon as possible and not risk the disaster of new CIC-inspired CO2 regulations the next time that the CIC regains political power.
Yet another good post, Mr. Carlin, please keep up the good work.
The claim that we are living in the early stages of what will become runaway global warming has nothing to do with science.
It is a secular religious belief with no evidence to support it at all.
There is some evidence from laboratory experiments that a doubling of CO2 will increase the average temperature +1 degree C. in real life.
If you blame ALL the warming since 1850 on CO2 — and even the IPCC doesn’t do that — you could claim there is sketchy, rough evidence the past doubling of CO2 added +1 degree.
If the lab experiments do apply to real life, which I doubt, and CO2 levels continue to rise about 2ppm per year, then we will have + 1 degree of warming 200 years from now … less warming if negative feedbacks damp the warming effect of CO2.
The warmists’ claim that some bizarre, huge positive feedback, not apparent in any climate proxy studies, or in any real-time temperature measurements since 1850, will triple the +1 degree direct CO2 warming, is a complete fabrication intended to scare people, get attention, and get government funding for “further studies”.
The claim of a coming climate catastrophe is a left-wing fantasyland – the current climate in 2017 is wonderful, a little warmer at night than 150 years ago, and more CO2 in the air is greening the Earth.
The average temperature has stayed in a harmless 1 degree C. range since 1880 (+/- 1 degree C.), and has barely changed since the early 2000s, in spite of lots of CO2 added to the air since then.
The current climate is wonderful for people, animals and plants …
… as government bureaucrats who call themselves “scientists” make up scary fantasies,
refuse to debate their climate fantasies,
claim the science is settled,
as if science is EVER settled,
and character attack all doubters,
making themselves look like the hostile fools they are …
greedy, well paid fools, but certainly fools.
The coming climate catastrophe is a fantasy, supported ONLY by computer games whose temperature predictions have been consistently wrong for the past 30 years.
The fact that these unproven ‘climate religion beliefs’ are used to make public policies just shows how dumb American leaders have been.
The claim that humans can predict the future climate is the biggest hoax in human history, and very obvious now that we have 30 years of grossly inaccurate computer game temperature predictions to laugh at !
@Alan Carlin: Please could you write a post on the pros and cons of Congress simply clarifying that CO2 can not be be legally classified as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. It seems to me that the whole house of cards is constructed on this linkage. Wouldn’t this be a far simpler exercise than challenging the endangerment finding? By the by, I agree with your rebuttals of the WSJ points and think the endangerment finding should also be challenged.
Alan,
My Bay Area neighbor was a real rocket scientist and former West Point graduate. Years ago we talked a bit about some of his time making sure the military assets we had at the DMZ were ready to go if the need arose. They were. By the way he didn’t think the deal we struck back in the 90’s with North Korea would work.
I wish I had spoken to Mike to get his thoughts on Andrew J. Bacevich’s “The Limits of Power- The End of American Exceptionalism” book. We both thought the evidence to date (early 90’s-) even with the use of the precautionary principle- didn’t indicate that co2 levels were an existential threat to mankind. Like Bacevich (see pg 171 “the fundamental problem facing the country- a yawning disparity between what Americans expect and what they are willing to pay for- will remain) Mike had some concern on how problems and opportunities were not evaluated from a strategic (systems) perspective in this country.
I have a feeling he, and likely Andrew Bacevich, would be as angry as I am on how the scientific method has been abandoned in favor of pushing a political agenda as far as CO2 goes. If there is a Red and Blue team to evaluate the EF I would nominate Andrew Bacevich to the Orange (management) team to moderate the debate, set the ground rules, write up the roles and responsibilities etc. America has shown it’s exceptionalism by acknowledging what does and doesn’t work. It’s time to deal with the EF issue (just like we need to deal with North Korea).
Doc Carlin has freely expressed his skepticism from the sanctuary of retirement.
An eminent physicist Freeman Dyson has publicly expressed his incredulity about Mr. gores claim. Dyson may be in his 90s by now, but he knows which end is up.
Though there are surely many scientists with integrity within the federal government, many are still going to feel it imprudent to question the fake news orthodoxy until its reign of error is diminished and freer speech is restored.
where does the global warming claim come from and what sustains in the teeth of the best efforts of dr carlin?
It especially arose when mr gore was Vice President and with support from federal scientists such as Jim Hansen and many others since him. In other words the claim was endorsed by US federal bureaucracies.
They have allies to be sure, the New York Times, national public radio, universities, and environmentalists gone mad.
Or possibly driven mad by federal bureaucracies with a self serving agenda?
Could An EPA administrator reorganize the agency so as to cease EPA oversight of programs delegated to States? delegation could become more genuine?
If so, then an epa finding could be used by select States like California, whereas ignored by 40 others. This would support states rights. The endangerment finding is not a regulation like the CPP.
EPA intervenes in states on many programs. This is why it coukd be more consequential to work on the national versus state government relationship. It could be why mr Pruitt was tapped for the job
It is my understanding that the Supreme Court did not approve the science in the EF. The just said that the EPA could make rules about CO2 if they found it to be a danger using proper methods. The EPA hadn’t complied with their own regulations or those of the OMB, but said it would cost too much to comply and went ahead and wrote the CPP. So not only is there lots of new science to put into a reanalysis this time they would be constrained by Pruett to do it by the book. In my opinion it would fail badly to meet the required empirical standards and comprehensive analysis required for such a far reaching rule. Meanwhile the Congress ought to amend the Clean Air Act to better define pollutants and exclude CO2 from Clean Air Act review.