Are Republicans Finding Their Manhood?

It would seem so. And at least one of the early moves toward taking the momentum away from the expansionist federal monstrosity is being led by a woman. Lisa Murkowski, Republican Senator from Alaska, has introduced a resolution of disapproval to overturn the Environmental Protection Agency's determination that greenhouse gas emissions, particularly carbon dioxide, endanger public health and welfare.

This would be a major step toward slapping down the bureaucratic circumvention of the independent powers of Congress and the executive branch. The Messiah, tutored by the Goracle, decided it was time to stop any moves which would endanger their march toward economic meltdown by empowering the EPA to do by indirection that which the law had previously denied them directly. By declaring carbon-dioxide to be a dangerous emission, the federal bureaucracy would be able to force restrictions on industry and production without having to go to Congress for authorization. In other words, it's the fast-track to cap and trade legislation. Congress would be forced to find a scheme to finance a reduction of greenhouse gases that Obama and Gore both believe are the cause of global warming, or climate-change, or whatever they're calling it this week. That whole theory is blowing up in their faces, and any impediment to enforcement of carbon trade-off legislation endangers their underlying plan--to gain government control of every facet of our lives and to tax American businesses into oblivion.

In proposing this resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act, Murkowski is taking an angry shot across the statist bow. And she understands "strike while the iron is hot." In the wake of the Massachusetts victory and the revolt of the Tea Party movement, even blue dog Democrats, already feeling shaky, are positively trembling about their futures. As a result, Murkoswki's resolution is co-sponsored by Democrats Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Ben "Cornhusker Kickback" Nelson, and Mary "Lousiana Purchase" Landrieu. And Murkowski knows that if she can bring along her party and seven additional Democrats on a resolution, she's home free because under Senate rules, a CRA resolution of disapproval only requires a majority vote and cannot be filibustered.

Murkowski faces formidable opposition, led by my junior Senator, Her Majesty Doctor Professor Queen-of-the-Hill Don't Call Me Ma'am Senator Barbara Boxer. Says Babs: "Imagine if in the 1980s the Senate had overturned the health finding that nicotine in cigarettes causes lung cancer. How many more people would have died already? Imagine if a senator got the votes to come to the floor to overturn the finding that lead in paint damages children's brain development? How many children and families would have suffered? Imagine if the senator had come down to the floor and said, you know, I don't think black lung disease is in any way connected to coal dust. Imagine!"

Well, Ma'am, would you listen to a Senator who said that all your examples are "settled science" which can't even come close to being said about your crazed ideas about carbon dioxide and global warming? How would you feel if a Senator came down to the floor and said "we believe that chocolate is killing children at a horrendous pace, so we want production taxed, limited and ultimately eliminated, and if you'll just give us another fifty to seventy-five years, we'll have bought enough junk scientists to prove it?" (Theoretically, the latter Senator would also produce a hockey-stick graph to demonstrate how the increased use of chocolate in the last decade has caused a huge spike in the death rate of chocolate-eating children).

It's all "for the children" isn't it, Ma'am? So anything goes. Well, maybe not. More germane, Murkowski joins many of us in wanting legislation which cleans up the air that we, and our children, breathe. Even we troglodyte conservatives see the good in preventing further despoliation of our air, land and waters. Murkowski merely sees the underlying statist scheme and the immense damage it would produce, and says that what the Democrats are proposing won't work, is based on highly-disputed science, would be costly beyond imagination, produce wealth for carbon-traders like Al Gore while crippling major American business and industries for no good reason, and set a precedent for bureaucratic decision-makers to reach conclusions in which they have a vested interest.

With the approval of the Obama administration, and the past docility of the Congress, the EPA is working toward making itself the sole power controlling a major portion of the economy. By declaring carbon dioxide a dangerous emission, the EPA can control heavy industry, energy producers, the automobile industry, the construction industry, and myriad small businesses. And it does all that without public agreement or the necessity of Congressional votes.

Before passage of the Clean Air Act, Congress had reserved to itself the power to determine what is, and what is not, a poisonous emission. If EPA was allowed to regulate anything, it had to get that power from Congress first. The new power to make that determination came from Congress's failure to put that reservation into the Clean Air Act, and a terrible decision from the U. S. Supreme Court in Massachusetts v EPA which held that without specific language regarding regulation of the list of dangerous emissions authorized by Congress, EPA's power to do so was inferred from the text of the Act.

Boxer's argument is that if we waited for Congress to make the determination, it could take years. Yes, Ma'am, it might. It's called democracy, and it's messy and time-consuming. But prior to the new-think from the Progressive era, we did not tolerate government by bureaucracy. Speed and efficiency are no substitute for public debate, Congressional action, and the will of the people. The Clean Air Act is simply another example of Congress unconstitutionally delegating its power to legislate to a regulation-crazy bureaucracy. Murkowski proposed to halt that ongoing process. The correction is actually quite easy. Amend the Act so that Congress takes back its rightful power of determining what the EPA can and cannot do in the area of "greenhouse gases." Murkowski's resolution is a first step in accomplishing that. Nevertheless, Her Majesty the High and Mighty Senator Boxer calls the action "unprecedented." I wonder where she got that word?