Tuesday, November 17, 2009

are not waiting for Congress to pass cap-and-trade.

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President Obama, White House Climate Czar Carol Browner, and their Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are not waiting for Congress to pass cap-and-trade.

The enormous grassroots reaction to the outrageous Waxman-Markey energy tax bill passing the U.S. House has slowed Senate progress to a crawl. While cap-and-trade remains a major threat (especially with new "tri-partisan" negotiations betweens Senators Graham, Kerry, and Lieberman), the biggest threat of huge new energy taxes and government controls right now comes not from legislation, but regulation.

Based on a legal theory originally conceived by Climate Czar Carol Browner in the late 1990s, Obama's EPA is moving ahead with greenhouse gases regulations under the 1970 Clean Air Act even though in 1970 global warming hadn't even been invented yet, and the doom-saying scientists were instead warning of an impending ice age!

Click here to help stop EPA's power grab!

Don't take my word for it. Even the 1970 Clean Air Act's original author, Rep. John Dingell of Michigan, who supports cap-and-trade, says the Obama Administration's latest move is a recipe for disaster:

We are looking at the possibility of a glorious mess being visited upon this country. This is not what was intended by the Congress and by those of us who wrote the Clean Air Act. We are beginning to look at a wonderfully complex world, which has the potential for shutting down or slowing down virtually all industry and all economic activity and growth.
— Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.)

The 1970 Clean Air Act is such a bad vehicle to address greenhouse gases that EPA is attempting, illegally, to rewrite the law to suit its purposes. (Click here for details about the scheme) EPA wants to handpick which industries and carbon emitters it will regulate, instead of following the law as written. Not only is it illegal, but it's also ineffective, because state regulators and courts will still be able to use these regulations to shut down the whole U.S. economy.

Fortunately, the EPA is required by law to accept public comments on its proposal. Please take a moment to let them know what you think about their proposed regulatory power-grab.

Click here to comment with the EPA on this power grab!

With your help, we can stop the EPA power-grab, stop cap-and-trade, and move towards a more sensible energy policy.

Sincerely,

Phil Kerpen
Director of Policy
Americans for Prosperity

P.S. You can follow my latest thoughts on key issues, like this one, by connecting with me on Twitter (http://twitter.com/kerpen) and Facebook (http://facebook.com/PhilKerpen) and listening to my daily 2-minute KerpenCast (http://kerpen.hipcast.com/rss/kerpencast.xml).

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