Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Bless The Beasts And The EPA

That adorable little critter eating the foliage in your garden is the banana slug. It's one of many creepy-crawlies living in abundance being protected by the Environmental Protection Agency. It eats, it breeds, yet serves no other known purpose. But it's cute, so let's call it "endangered."

That way nobody will consider doing something useful with the land it eats and breeds on in great numbers from Southern Alaska to San Diego. fact, it's so cute that the University of California at Santa Cruz chose it as the school mascot. In case you're not familiar with recent activities at UC Santa Cruz, Jews are a far more endangered species there than are banana slugs. But I digress. Alas and alack, the EPA seems to have located, identified and protected just about every ecologically useless or destructive animal in America. So unless they can find an even more obscure and useless fish than the Delta smelt (whose miserable existence is about to cause the extinction of another species, the California farmer), they have to move on to other things. And move on is exactly what the EPA is doing.

With the assistance of the greenie-weenie Obama administration, and the guidance of the Great Goracle and his billion dollar carbon offset scam, the EPA is poised to usurp the prerogatives of the elected branches of government and regulate greenhouse gases. The EPA has particularly decided that Carbon Dioxide is a deadly poisonous gas, which is solely produced by the human activities of greedy capitalists, and is causing global warming which is melting all the ice in the world (except the ice in the potent cocktails at D.C. parties).

In an attempt to fend off the EPA's egregious power-grab that is based on rapidly disintegrating junk science and doctored reports, eighteen state governors (as well as two American territorial governors) have had the effrontery to write a joint formal letter demanding that Congress rein in the EPA zealots. How dare these mere elected state officials think they might know a little more about their states' needs than a bunch of bureaucrats, crackpot politicos (Van Jones, anyone?), socialist self-aggrandizers, and for-profit pseudo-scientists in D.C.?

"As governors, we have the responsibility to protect jobs, promote economic growth and mitigate any threats to financial stability in our states. We oppose EPA regulation of greenhouse gases that fail to account for these responsibilities." How petty can they be? Imagine--weighing the very economic survival of their people against the airy-fairy pet theories of global warming/climate change enthusiasts. When will these backward-thinking self-centered stooges of capitalism realize they must sacrifice their old-fashioned ideas for the public good?

The governors weren't even particularly combative in the letter. They certainly didn't demand that all attempts to rid the air of pollutants cease immediately. They simply said: "The Agency is not equipped to consider the very real potential for economic harm when regulating emissions. Without that consideration, regulation will place heavy administrative burdens on state environmental quality agencies, will be costly to consumers and could be devastating to the economy and jobs." They want to know why Congress is so willing to surrender its oversight authority on behalf of job-killing schemes which are unproven and scientifically questionable and demonstrably quarrelsome (see EPA solar-power enthusiasts vs. EPA "save the lizards" enthusiasts in the California/Nevada deserts). Of course they wrote the letter to a Congress that actually took Cap and Trade seriously.

No taxation without representation was a rallying cry for the Revolutionary patriots. Perhaps today a good substitute is what the governors are saying--no regulation without representation. The governors are suggesting that such a massive delegation of power should never occur, but if it were to be done in a constitutional manner (if such a thing is even possible), then this is precisely the wrong time to be doing it.

One of the implications of the letter is that the governors represent their citizens, and that this is the same thing expected of the members of Congress. The hint is that any elected representative who ignores his or her constituents may not be long for this political world, given the economic crisis the entire nation is experiencing. Creating a few thousand "green jobs" that cost billions of dollars and take jobs away from far more workers than the plan creates is clearly not a viable alternative to being extremely cautious about implementing EPA restrictions that grossly restrict growth and seriously hamper major business and industrial activities.

The letter was signed by two Democratic governors (Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Steve Beshear of Kentucky), so it was not entirely partisan. I did not fail to notice that the signature of the governor of California was conspicuously absent from the letter. Our RINO governor is presiding over the worst economic calamity in California since the Great Depression, and the greatest mass exodus of businesses and taxpayers in its entire history. So naturally he supports the EPA's plans to make the air entirely pollutant free this very moment, and damn the effect on the jobs and economy of the state that is leading the rest of the nation off the tax-and-spend cliff.

Final question. Does anybody know how much greenhouse gas a few million munching, foliage-eating, slimy breeding banana slugs produce in a year? I don't.

18 comments:

Tennessee Jed said...

I am guessing the banana slug, pound for pound, is still no match for Prince Albert in a can. I live in an area that was held up from development for years by the snail darter, so I feel your pain. I am glad to see the Governors growing a spine and at least attempting to stop federal power grab, the Chicago way.

Unknown said...

Tennessee: Ah, the infamous snail darter. I wonder if it's a cousin of the Delta smelt. I'm not sure, but I think banana slugs would eat Delta smelt, except not even a snail could stand the taste.

There seems to be some serious state opposition to federal encroachment in matters which have too long been left to bureaucrats in D.C.

HamiltonsGhost said...

Lawhawk--When the junk scientists finally admit that C02 FOLLOWS global warming, what gas will the EPA regulate instead?

Unknown said...

HamiltonsGhost: Probably oxygen. When combined with hydrogen it forms water which causes floods which causes the Delta smelt to wash out to sea. Even better. Once they've figured out how to cut back on the oxygen supply, Al Gore can start making billions of dollars off of trading oxygen credits.

Writer X said...

I think human beings are becoming as endangered as the banana slug--which sounds like a really cool ice cream flavor.

Unknown said...

WriterX: I love it. Comes with three different toppings, and for a little extra, you can order slime sprinkles. Available only at Baskin-Robbins.

Unknown said...

LawHawk. The only thing nuttier than the California EPA is the federal EPA. I sometimes wonder if each sits around and plans how to out-stupid the other. Which will be the first to decide that humans emit too much C02 when breathing so Central Valley farmers will be required to stop breathing for six months of each year.

Unknown said...

CalFed: And then after the farmers suffocate, they can plant magical trees to put the oxygen back in the air. They have to be magical because the EPA won't allow anybody to water them.

AndrewPrice said...

Lawhawk, West Virginy is in serious trouble since it relies entirely on coal company kickbacks to run the state. And Obama seems determined to shut down the coal industry. I guess that should you need to be careful who you pick as your friends. . .

Unknown said...

Andrew: Does that mean that at long last we won't get anything else named after Grand Kleagle Byrd? What's the mine workers union going to do when it doesn't have any members?

AndrewPrice said...

Lawhawk, I would bet their plan will be to unionize welfare.

StanH said...

The good news about Budget Reconciliation is we can use it to get rid of the EPA, DOE, HHS, etc. What’s good for the goose…

Salt! Every thinking person on the West Coast buy a box of salt and pour this on your fluffy little slugs. There is any number of ways to kill off the delta smelt, get at it. It’s past time for a raid on the water pumps for the farmers, that’s simply obscene. Have it out with the Feds!

Unknown said...

Andrew: And we'll organize the Banana Slugs Union. LOL

Unknown said...

StanH: You know, I'm surprised that there hasn't already been such a rebellion. The law-abiding farmers of the Central Valley have suffered more than enough. Time to man the barricades. After all, it was the farmers of Lexington and Concord who fired the shot heard round the world.

JB1000 said...

I read on another site that some state (New Mexico, I think) was talking about a reduction of CO2 emissions of 70% from 1990 levels by 2020. At first, I thought this was insane but after I thought about it, there may be value in it.

Maybe if one state tried something this ridiculous, the rest of the country could watch as that state's economy melted down and their citizen got taxed, fee'ed and surcharged into poverty. It might just show people how much the Religion of Gaia really costs.

Individualist said...

LawhawkSF

Don't let the libs read this article.

Otherwise they will try to ban salt.

Unknown said...

JB1000: It might work as an example, particularly if it is tried in some place like New Mexico. But it won't work in California. The C02 generated by the gasbags in Sacramento will always be ahead of the curve. Of course we could eliminate a lot of that by reducing the number of legislators by 70% of their 1990 numbers. Fewer gasbags, less CO2.

Unknown said...

Individualist: I still have my magnifying glass. It's slower than sprinkling salt, and it requires a sunny day, but it's a lot more fun to watch. It's even more fun with snails because you can burn right through the shell that slugs don't have.

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