Dead on ice: Obama losing climate war
In yet another indication that the Obama administration is losing the global-warming war, Texas and several national industry groups have filed separate motions in federal court challenging the government's authority to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions, Jerome Corsi's Red Alert reports.
In December, the Environmental Protection Agency, acting under the authority of the Clean Air Act, took steps to control carbon emissions blamed for global warming from power plants, factories and refineries without waiting for Congress to act on cap-and-trade.
"The EPA ruled that greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide endanger human health under the Clean Air Act," Corsi noted, "despite the fact human beings exhale carbon dioxide that trees and other plants absorb."
The EPA decision opened the door for the Obama administration to impose restrictions on the use of carbon-based fuels in the United States, even if Congress never passes the administration's proposed cap-and-trade legislation.
The agency seeks to require industrial plants that emit 25,000 tons of greenhouses gases a year or more to install technology to improve energy efficiency whenever a facility is changed or built, according to the Associated Press.
Red Alert reported that the EPA has also delayed 79 coal-mining permits in four states, arguing the planned coal mining operations would cause significant damage to water quality and the environment under the specifications of the Clean Water Act.
"Texas, a leading carbon-dioxide emitter because of its heavy concentration of oil refining and other industries, stands to suffer a major economic impact if the EPA mandatory regulations on carbon dioxide are allowed to take effect," Corsi noted.
The National Association of Manufacturers, the America Petroleum Institute and the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association announced that they filed a petition in federal appeals court challenging the EPA's carbon-dioxide ruling.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and various U.S. iron and steel makers have also threatened to file similar petitions.
"These challenges signal that the White House has lost control of the global-warming message to such an extent that the end-run around Congress seems to be hitting a dead end as these lawsuits force the EPA to prove carbon dioxide is a chemical harmful to people," Corsi wrote.
Last year, cap-and-trade legislation passed the U.S. House but stalled in the Senate.
Red Alert continues to predict that the Obama administration's cap-and-trade legislation will fail to pass Congress this year, joining Obamacare and a new attempt to pass comprehensive immigration reform as failed pillars of President Obama's first-year legislative agenda.
Red Alert's author, whose books "The Obama Nation" and "Unfit for Command" have topped the New York Times best-sellers list, received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in political science in 1972. For nearly 25 years, beginning in 1981, he worked with banks throughout the U.S. and around the world to develop financial services marketing companies to assist banks in establishing broker/dealers and insurance subsidiaries to provide financial planning products and services to their retail customers. In this career, Corsi developed three different third-party financial services marketing firms that reached gross sales levels of $1 billion in annuities and equal volume in mutual funds. In 1999, he began developing Internet-based financial marketing firms, also adapted to work in conjunction with banks.
In his 25-year financial services career, Corsi has been a noted financial services speaker and writer, publishing three books and numerous articles in professional financial services journals and magazines.
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Feb. 22, 2010