How Did Big Green Become So Powerful?

With tax dollars, of course.  This is from the Washington Examiner.

SPECIAL REPORT- Big Green: Global warming and EPA's threat to regulate everthing

by Mark Hemingway

In 2003, the Environmental Protection Agency concluded that it lacked authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon emissions as the cause of global warming.

Because carbon emissions result from nearly all economic activity, the ruling made sense, as Congress never intended the EPA to regulate the entire economy.

But Big Green environmentalists were outraged. They teamed with allies in state and local governments to sue the EPA to force it to reverse its ruling in a case known as Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency.

The petitioners in the case featured multiple Big Green outfits that specialize in litigating environmental causes, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Environmental Defense Fund and the Conservation Law Foundation.

Litigants on both sides were astounded when in 2007, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that the EPA does indeed have the authority to regulate carbon emissions under the Clean Air Act. Critics called it a fundamentally flawed decision and predicted its reversal in the near future.

But until then, Massachusetts is probably the most significant legal decision in Big Green's history because it opens the door to the agency using global warming as a threat to justify its regulation of anything that can be remotely linked to carbon creation or use.

Among the least discussed aspects of the case is found in a search of the EPA grants database that shows NRDC, EDF and CLF received federal funding totaling $7,656,829 from the EPA during the past decade.

That meant EPA was in effect using tax dollars to help fund a lawsuit against itself that ultimately resulted in the agency acquiring unprecedented regulatory authority. Whether it will ever actually be able to exercise that authority is very much open to question.

Read more at the Washington Examiner.

The Administration doesn't like Alaska anymore than it likes Texas

Wonder Why? Well, read this maybe it makes sense to you. As I see it, it is a power grab of land.

Habitat designation won't help polar bears, but will kill Alaska's jobs
by Sean Parnell

Imagine a federal agency listing a species as threatened under the Endangered Species Act even though that species is stable and shows no evidence of decline.

Now imagine that agency setting aside an area larger than the state of California as "designated critical habitat" for that species, and subjecting all activity in that region to federal review, skyrocketing costs, endless delays and certain litigation, despite the agency itself admitting that the critical-habitat designation will do nothing to benefit the species.

Unfortunately, this isn't a hypothetical situation. This is exactly what is occurring in Alaska as the federal government strives to appease environmental advocacy groups.

 Read it all.

He Really is trying to kill the oil industry, and a by product is our economy

Yahoo news has this AP headline

Volunteers ready but left out of spill cleanup
By Tom Breen
NEW ORLEANS – BP and the Obama administration face mounting complaints that they are ignoring foreign offers of equipment and making little use of the fishing boats and volunteers available to help clean up what may now be the biggest spill ever in the Gulf of Mexico.
The Coast Guard said there have been 107 offers of help from 44 nations, ranging from technical advice to skimmer boats and booms. But many of those offers are weeks old, and only a small number have been accepted, with the vast majority still under review, according to a list kept by the State Department.
And in recent days and weeks, for reasons BP has never explained, many fishing boats hired for the cleanup have done a lot of waiting around.

There is more on volunteers here.

But that's not the only reason for my headline.  There is also this showing they have gone to war against Texas. Again it is from Yahoo news, AP.

 EPA overturns 16-year-old Texas permit program
By RAMIT PLUSHNICK-MASTI,
HOUSTON – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday officially overturned a 16-year-old Texas air permitting program it says violates the Clean Air Act, leaving some of the country's largest refineries in a state of limbo.
The move comes after years of backdoor bickering, negotiations and public arguments between the EPA and Texas. The argument recently escalated from a battle over environmental issues into a heated political dispute over states' rights.
Gov. Rick Perry has been using it to drive home his contention that President Barack Obama's administration is overreaching, saying in a statement Wednesday that "Texas will continue to fight this federal takeover of a successful state program."
The EPA's decision, announced in a statement, will force some 125 refineries and petrochemical plants to invest millions of dollars to get new permits. Many of the plants may also have to invest in updates to comply with federal regulations.
The decision did not come as a surprise to Texas or the industries. EPA regional director Al Armendariz has said for months he would disapprove the permits if Texas did not comply with the Clean Air Act.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality's chairman Bryan Shaw insisted Wednesday the state's permitting program complies with the Clean Air Act and has improved air quality in Texas. However, in an effort to satisfy the EPA's concerns, Shaw said the commission recently changed the rules but apparently the EPA "did not take them into consideration."
Texas can challenge the ruling in court, but a commission spokesman said it hasn't decided whether to go that route.

It doesn't matter what laws we change it is hard to fight a takeover of our way of life.

Lead Paint!!!??? Were you aware of this?

From Neo-Neocon

Next on Obama’s hit list: small contractors

It may have slipped under your radar screen, as it almost did mine. But I was talking to a friend who owns a small home remodeling business and he reminded me that on April 22 (Earth Day!) new EPA regulations go into effect that could take down many a small contractor.

It’s all about the rules on lead paint removal, which heretofore had been enforced only for work on homes that were old enough to have lead paint and in which small children or pregnant women (the populations at risk) resided. But that’s not good enough for our nanny state; oh no. Now the rules will apply to work done on any home built before 1978, eliminating the previous sensible escape hatch whereby a homeowner could opt out of the regulations if there were no at-risk individuals living in the house.

It's funny how some of us thought the Congress wrote the laws.  Read it all here.

Cap and Trade or EPA Regulations

From Canada Free Press

EPA Regulation of CO2 Emissions Will Begin in 10 Months

By Fred Dardick

So much for the spectacle of Democrats and Republicans fighting their way through Congress over the future of Cap and Trade energy legislation. Thanks to EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson in little noticed press releases from March 29 and April 1, the “final decision” that “greenhouse gases (GHGs)” and “carbon pollution” will be regulated (taxed) by the federal government is complete and the imposition of “construction and operating permit requirements for the largest emitting facilities will begin.”

The first misleadingly titled release “EPA Formally Announces Phase-in of Clean Air Act Permitting for Greenhouse Gases/Agency reiterates no stationary source requirements until 2011” makes it clear the EPA absolutely will regulate (tax) stationary sources of greenhouse gases (power plants, factories, farms, homes, etc…) starting Jan 2011.

Read it all here

The EPA and Cap and Trade

Frontpage Magazine has an article explaining how the EPA might be thwarted in it's try to get around no Cap and Trade bill.
Apparently there are controls in place to prevent or delay any implementation.
But... do we have anyone who will try?  Go read it.