Lisa Jackson
Just when you thought Cap and Trade was dead or dying a lingering death, some thing worse appear and takes it place. Obama and his henchmen (er, women) pulled another fast one on you while you weren’t looking. In a seemingly innocuous announcement last week by EPA Director, Lisa Jackson, declared environmental war on American Industry. Not just a single industry, but ALL American industry by declaring that carbon dioxide emissions were an “endangerment” to human health.
It is not insignificant that she made this pronouncement on the first day of the Copenhagen Climate Summit. This so called “summit” is a poorly disguised attempt to raid the treasuries of the western world and fill those of third world kleptocracies. But since Obama was not there yet, this was a clear signal that he was behind them. Now I don’t think Obama is a dumb as Al Gore but he certainly does surround himself with some rather suspect advisors. It is a known fact that less than five percent of all his “advisors” have worked in private business. That’s leaves the other ninety-five percent as all members of the political hack tribe.
One of the major goals of the Copenhagen climate summit is another NIEO (New International Economic Order) shakedown: the transfer of hundreds of billions from the industrial West to the Third World to save the planet by planting green industries in the tropics.
Politically it’s an idea of genius, engaging at once every left-wing erogenous zone: rich man’s guilt, post-colonial guilt, environmental guilt. But the idea of shaking down the industrial democracies in the name of the environment thrives not just in the refined internationalist precincts of Copenhagen. It thrives in the Obama administration as well.
On the day Copenhagen opened, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency claimed jurisdiction over the regulation of carbon emissions by declaring them an “endangerment” to human health. Since we operate an overwhelmingly carbon-based economy, the EPA will now be regulating practically everything. No institution that emits more than 250 tons of CO2 a year will fall outside EPA control. This means more than a million building complexes, hospitals, plants, schools, businesses and similar enterprises. The EPA proposes regulating emissions only above 25,000 tons, but it has no such authority but do you hear anyone challenging them? Not since the creation of the Internal Revenue Service has a federal agency been given more intrusive power over every aspect of economic life.
One must remember the IRS was created by constitutional amendment and we all know what a log, lengthy and esoteric process that can be. This pronouncement by the EPA was by fiat. The huge grab of power by the EPA in the name of environment is all the proof one needs to see that environmentalism is the new name for socialism. But where is the hue and cry?
One could argue that this could not be construed as socialism but the objective is the same: highly centralized power given to the best and the brightest, the new class of experts, managers and technocrats (aka bureaucrats). This time, however, the alleged justification is not abolishing oppression and inequality among the classes but saving the planet.
Not everyone is pleased with the coming New Carbon-Free International Order. When the Obama administration signaled (in a gesture to Copenhagen) a U.S. commitment to major cuts in carbon emissions, Democratic Sen. Jim Webb wrote the president protesting that he lacks the authority to do so unilaterally. That requires congressional concurrence by legislation or treaty (Article 2, section II US Constitution) but when has the constitution ever stopped Obama?
So what does this leave us, American Industry? With the Senate blocking President Obama’s cap-and-trade carbon legislation, the EPA coup d’etat served as the administration’s loud response to Webb: The hell we can’t. With this EPA “endangerment” finding, we can do as we wish with carbon. Either the Senate passes cap-and-trade, or the EPA will impose even more draconian measures: all cap, no trade.
So America, Obama has us between a rock and hard place. We shall all wait with baited breath to see how badly we get screwed.
