Tuesday, December 7, 2010

The Bureaucrats Prepare For Cutting Your Power

The hot air activists shown in the picture are the shock troops for the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA is a mass of dedicated enviro-nuts who have managed to get power of unimaginable proportions in a few short decades. Having gotten CO2 (carbon dioxide) declared a dangerous greenhouse gas over which they have near absolute control, they have prepared a huge set of C02 regulations set to go into effect on January 2, 2011.

Despite years of relying on junk science and debunked theories supported by jury-rigged "hockey stick" graphs and outright fraud, the EPA will begin regulating CO2 emissions from power plants. It will have a devastating effect on all power plants fired by fossil fuels, but most of all could destroy the coal industry which provides nearly half of the electricity America needs. The EPA has done some very good things, but there was plenty of elected government oversight, and cleaning up America's air and water were worthy goals.

But like all gigantic bureaucracies, the EPA quickly lost sight of its intended goals, and instead sought to perpetuate and expand its own power and ignore the will of the people and the nature of the real world. Hare-brained schemes abound, and reasonable goals have gone the way of the dodo, to be replaced by magic schemes of "renewable energy." The agency heads have come to believe that all they have to do is announce an outrageous goal with a short compliance date, and technology will suddenly be able to do what it couldn't do the day before at a price that is no burden whatsoever.

Fossil fuels are a particular target since they produce large amounts of CO2 emissions (which are not nearly so dangerous or climatologically damaging as the ecofreaks would have us believe). But pictures of coal-fired power plants spewing black smoke into the air have become both ubiquitous and dishonest propaganda for the EPA. No fuel that is at all viable as a major power source is completely emission-free. Coal powered plants have become amazingly clean compared to the smoke-belching horrors depicted in the agitprop, and today's plants are not Birmingham, England in 1890.

The alternatives to coal and oil power are few, and even fewer are close to being viable within a short period of time. Nuclear power plants are the one proven alternative, and it takes considerable time to build them, more time to get approval of environmental impact reports from the EPA, and there are inherent dangers in them. The no nukes crowd has been relatively quiescent of late, but discuss nuclear plants, and the movement will immediately spring back to life. Wind-power produces very little power, takes up immense amounts of room, and is very cost-ineffective. Solar power has its small niche but is decades away from practical use as a major producer of power.

Bureaucrats have absolutely no conception of the interaction between what is viable, what may some day become viable, and what is necessary and tolerable in the meantime. Anything that burns is, in their mind, toxic, and therefore must be eliminated entirely regardless of its effect on the economy and the production of energy. The goal of cleaning up the air and the water has been replaced by the concept of immediate absolute purity. CO2 has been targeted as the engine that causes climate change (formerly global warming) and must be done away with forthwith. I wouldn't be surprised to see the EPA try to regulate human exhaling, since it is a major source of C02 production. Too much oxygen or nitrogen can be deadly, but only CO2 has been made the source of all environmental evil.

There is absolutely no legitimate scientific support for the regulation of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. Even the law appears to be against the regulation since the Clean Air Act does not authorize it. Only the complicity of an administration that loves bureaucracies and a Congress unwilling to do its job have allowed the EPA to become an evil empire of its own. Even the leviathan agency has admitted that if all its goals were reached, it would reduce the temperature of the earth by only fifteen ten-thousandths of a degree over the course of an entire century.

Still, the agency will try to go forward with its regulations in the new year. One goal is to reduce the ambient air-quality standard for ground-level ozone (smog) from 75 parts per billion to between 60 and 70 parts per billion. That may not sound like much, but in fact it's a 9.3% to 20% decrease, something that it took five decades to do previously. The reduced power-production and the horrific monetary effects this attempt would produce would be unacceptable in a robust economy. Doing it now is a guarantee of economic chaos.

Too many solid conservatives have been so involved in stopping the Cap and Trade money-making scheme that they haven't noticed that the only difference between Al Gore and the EPA is that the EPA can accomplish its goals without Congressional oversight or immense profits for Gore and his cronies. The result, however, could be as bad, or even worse. Profiteers are more easily stopped than zealots who have made earth-worship into a form of radical religion for which they are willing to sacrifice everything (except themselves).

There is a solution. I don't know if the Republican takeover of the House is enough, and may require adding the Senate and the White House to stop this juggernaut. As it stands, Congress (with the assent of the White House) has allowed the EPA to implement its "endangerment rule," which gives the EPA the power to decide which gases must be regulated for the "public good" without permission from elected representatives. This is a complete and probably unconstitutional delegation of power. A new Congress could simply enact legislation which eliminates the endangerment rule and therefore automatically removes the EPA's power to regulate without Congressional permission and oversight. With the power of the purse that rests solely with the House, a major monkey-wrench could be thrown into the EPA machinery by simply de-funding their major projects.

Fossil fuels currently light up 85% of America's power plants. It's a legitimate goal to reduce that percentage over the next decades as alternate forms of energy become viable and come on line. But to allow one agency to high-handedly and unrealistically wave its collective hand and say "abracadabra, we don't need coal, oil and natural gas anymore" is nothing short of insanity. A bureaucrat can't use a bathroom without twenty pages of regulatory rules. How can we expect a nation to survive having its entire energy policy run by people like that?

Unrelated note: I have not forgotten that today is Pearl Harbor Day. We should remember our honored dead and at the same time remember that for America, that day became a national day of dedication to victory. It's a concept that has become very scarce in America today.

20 comments:

Tennessee Jed said...

The scary part to me, Hawk, is that gaining both houses and the presidency will only be enough if the Republicans are not RINO's and sell-outs.

Your comment about "gigantic bureacracies perpetuating their own power is spot on.

Tehachapi Tom said...

CO2 is not the ruination of our atmosphere that these perception guided numskulls claim. Very conservative rounding off of numbers shows our atmosphere has over 7 billion cubic miles of volume. That is a seven with nine zeros behind it.

14000 cubic miles is only 2% of that total volume. By ignoring the first and stating the second you will cause the perception guided clowns to go ballistic.

There is more CO2 as dissolved gas in the waters of the world than all the CO2 in our atmosphere. Where is the common sense that we as humans are supposed to have?

A non-indigenous fish as the foil has again by perceived science ruined one of the most productive agricultural areas in our country. Now since that wasn't good enough these pseudo science junkies want to ruin the whole country.

Please lets apply some common sense and control the stupidity.

Anonymous said...

This is complete and utter madness, but what it boils down to is control.

With regard to Pearl Harbor, last year after we had bought our daughter a calendar for Christmas we heard that instead of December 7th being shown as "Pearl Harbor Day" it was shown as the first day of the Islamic new year. Upon checking this out, sure enough this calendar had that change. We immediately returned it to Walmart and told them why. They were not aware that this had been done. So, if any of you plan to purchase calendars this year you may want to double check on this.

TJ

StanH said...

Once again I believe that in the end this is all good. When - - as the messiah (Barry) put it “peoples electric bills will necessarily skyrocket,” it will only firm up the complete demise of the democrat party and ‘60s radicalism, once and for all. 2012, I believe will be a complete and utter rebuke of Barry, Owlgore, and his band of blithering Bolsheviks.

The better term for Cap-n-trade is “Rent Seeker,” (In economics, rent seeking occurs when an individual, organization or firm seeks to earn income by capturing economic rent through manipulation or exploitation of economic or political environment rather than by earning profits through economic transactions and the production of added wealth.) a term applied by Christopher Horner over at Big Government, based on meetings in the Oval Office between Bill Clinton, Bob Rubin, Ken Lay, and the CEO of BP at the time, where they devised the Cap-n-Trade scheme. A complete fraud on the American society.

Even the term “fossil fuels” is being challenged. Supposed dry oil fields are replenishing, which would be impossible if only fossils make oil. The theory being oil is a byproduct of the earth, and will renew itself.

Joel Farnham said...

If this is so important, I think that the EPA bureaucrats should have power removed from their homes and offices until this CO2 imbalanced is made up.

BevfromNYC said...

Joel, I say turn off all the electricity in DC for 8 hours each day. Let them run on batteries. We could save a bundle in useless legislation.

If only we could harness all of the hot air coming out of DC and convert into something useful.

T_Rav said...

Well, LawHawk, complain about CO2 legislation all you want, but the current unprecedented heat wave America and Britain are experiencing right now demonstrates beyond all doubt that global warming is happening, and unless we change our ways, sea levels will rise 200 feet and everyone is going to die.

Unknown said...

Tennessee: I worry about the Republicans as well, but I don't think they're in the "maverick" mode they were before the recent elections.

Unknown said...

Tehachapi Tom: I think most Americans are aware of the CO2 hoax. I was more concerned with the fact that the EPA hasn't gotten the message and is about to act as if the hoax hadn't been exposed.

Unknown said...

TJ: Well, I have to stop at WalMart today anyway (calendars were on the list). I'll check it out.

Unknown said...

Tehachapi Tom: Now you guys have me checking all calendars for December 7. Islamic new year? What the hell is that to us? It makes even less sense when you consider that Muslims theoretically don't use the Julian/Gregorian western calendar anyway. Pffft !

Unknown said...

TJ: Apparently it isn't just leftist political correctness. CAIR has been trying to stick its nose into everything in order to mainstream Islam in America. This sounds like a successful effort.

Unknown said...

Stan: I think you're right. I just hope Americans are awake enough and vocal enough to act now rather than wait until their bills skyrocket and then react.

I hadn't heard the theory about oil replenishing itself, but if that's scientifically-provable, it would be a real boon.

Unknown said...

Joel: At the rate the EPA and other bureaucracies are growing, just cutting off their power alone could make a major difference.

Unknown said...

Bev: Excellent suggestion. In fact, if we turn off the power in DC 24 hours a day, the Republic might yet be saved.

Unknown said...

T-Rav: I know exactly what you mean. The heat wave is awful. In fact, here in Caliente the sun came out and melted the snow that had fallen a month earlier than usual. Global warming is a constant threat to early winters.

AndrewPrice said...

It's either ironic or moronic or both that the EPA is looking to regulate carbon right when the rest of the world is giving up on that idea. Typical.

Unknown said...

Andrew: Talk about tone-deaf. The EPA shows no signs of backing off its current stand. If it really begins to implement the regs after the first of the year, the Congress had better strangle their funding quickly. A lot of serious damage could be done in a very short time.

JB1000 said...

Phone call I would like to hear about.

Customer. "I have been without power for two hours. Can you send someone to check the line?"

Power Company. "No need, sir, the power has been off for two hours."

Customer. "WHY?!"

Power Company "We have to reduce out emissions by 20% by 2020 so we decided to shut off power for 2 hours a day."

Customer "But that is insane!"

Power Company "But don't you have a deep concern about the earth? You voted in politicians that mandated the reductions."

Customer "Well...Yes...but...It isn't supposed to inconvenience me!"

Power Company "Well, get used to it."

Unknown said...

JB1000: I think Southern California Edison is already implementing that. My power goes out, I call, two hours later the power comes back on. In the meantime, the rep always tells me I can check for power outages and other information by going on line to SCE.com. Now how am I supposed to do that when my power's out? LOL


After Obama has put all the power companies out of business, we will start getting those messages because there will only be one game in town: GGE (Government Gas and Electric).

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