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Global warming Bush rejects laws for emissions
White House makes EPA revise findings; punts solution to next president
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration, dismissing the recommendations of its top experts, rejected regulating the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming Friday, saying it would cripple the U.S. economy.
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In a 588-page federal notice, the Environmental Protection Agency made no finding on whether global warming poses a threat to people's health or welfare, reversing an earlier conclusion at the insistence of the White House and officially kicking any decision on a solution to the next president and Congress.The White House on Thursday rejected the EPA's suggestion three weeks earlier that the 1970 Clean Air Act can be both workable and effective for addressing global climate change. The EPA said Friday that law is "ill-suited" for dealing with global warming.
"If our nation is truly serious about regulating greenhouse gases, the Clean Air Act is the wrong tool for the job," EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson told reporters. "It is really at the feet of Congress."
White House press secretary Dana Perino said that President Bush is committed to further reductions but that there is a "right way and a wrong way to deal with climate change."
In a setback for Bush, the Supreme Court ruled last year that the government had the authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases as a pollutant. Bush has consistently opposed doing that.
Congress hasn't found the will to do much about the problem either. Supporters of regulating greenhouse gases could get only 48 votes in the 100-member Senate last month. The House has held several hearings on the problem but no votes on any bill addressing it. Both major presidential candidates, Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, have endorsed variations of the approach rejected by the Senate.
In its voluminous document, the EPA laid out a buffet of options on how to reduce greenhouse gases from cars, ships, trains, power plants, factories and refineries. On Friday, Johnson called the proposals drafted by his staff as "putting a square peg into a round hole" and he said moving forward would be irresponsible.
"One point is clear: The potential regulation of greenhouse gases under any portion of the Clean Air Act could result in unprecedented expansion of EPA authority that would have a profound effect on virtually every sector of the economy and touch every household in the land," Johnson wrote in the document's preface Friday.
Attorneys general from several states called the administration's findings inadequate.
"While we appreciate the effort that EPA staff made in putting together today's documents, the time has long passed for open-ended pondering -- what we need now is action," said Attorney General Martha Coakley, of Massachusetts, which initiated the Supreme Court case.
The EPA said it had encountered resistance from the Agriculture, Commerce, Energy and Transportation departments, as well as the White House, that made it "impossible" to respond in a timely fashion to the decision.
Friday's action caps months of often tense negotiations between EPA scientists and the White House over how to address global warming under the major federal air pollution law. It ended with the White House citing "extraordinary circumstances" and refusing to review the draft forwarded by EPA scientists.
"EPA's approach to this has been completely thrown out by the White House, which is only attempting to stall any kind of cleanup," said Frank O'Donnell," president of Clean Air Watch, an environmental advocacy group. "It sounds like the Bush administration is trying to ignore the Supreme Court and to pretend it doesn't exist."
Posted by MuddyOne on July 12, 2008 at 12:55 a.m. (Suggest removal)
you must be kidding me. Is it 2000 all over again? I am SO not proud to be paying taxes that fund this lunatic's paycheck. 1-20-09
Posted by EasyRider on July 12, 2008 at 2:29 a.m. (Suggest removal)
George Bush surprised world leaders with a joke about his poor record on the environment as he left the G8 summit in Japan. He ended a private meeting with the words: "Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter." He then punched the air while grinning widely, as the rest of those present including Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy looked on in shock.
This is not an Onion spoof! It was real - another example of Bush's arrested development, lack of class, and infantile sense of humor.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/world...'Goodbye-from-the-world's-biggest-polluter'.html
Posted by trappist99 on July 12, 2008 at 6:25 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Republicans have become detatched from reality.
I guess they dont worry about the environment because they anticipate the Rapture in the next six months.
Posted by mtbdad on July 12, 2008 at 7:24 a.m. (Suggest removal)
trappist99. Boulder_Badger just proved your point.
Posted by bobcat77 on July 12, 2008 at 7:34 a.m. (Suggest removal)
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/stor...
PSYCHIATRISTS have detected the first case of "climate change delusion" - and they haven't even yet got to Kevin Rudd and his global warming guru.
Writing in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, Joshua Wolf and Robert Salo of our Royal Children's Hospital say this delusion was a "previously unreported phenomenon".
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This mental disorder is rampant in Boulder, I hope that now that it has been identified the people suffering from it will get the help they so desperately need.
Posted by FrictionSoul on July 12, 2008 at 7:54 a.m. (Suggest removal)
HAVE? HAVE become detached from reality? Please. Have BEEN is more like it.
But you're right about their belief in Rapture. Never mind that the index was surpassed months ago. The scary part of this Rapture nonsense is that when Jesus doesn't return they will turn right around and nuke America. It's their self-fulfilling prophecy. You read it here first.
I never cease to be disgusted with traditional media's insistence on printing every word this fool has uttered. Going green will revitalize the entire world's economy and slay the beast (global corporations) at the same time.
Posted by slehan on July 12, 2008 at 8:02 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Bush has been ineffective in many ways, but thankfully he passed the temptation to create a "legacy" by being the Global Warming president.
Anthropogenic Global Warming (even if it were occuring) does not result in shameful misery and death, poverty does. Not for $100k plus incomes in Boulder necessarily, but for those that are already poor it does. Punishing the global economy for sins it did not commit only materially hurts the poor.
For those interested in science, and not dogma, there is a great presentation in Boulder next week.
http://climatesci.org/wp-content/uplo...
If you fancy yourself rational and logical, pedal down to CIRES Auditorium on the 17th and listen. Maybe you ultimately won't agree with the hypothesis presented, but you can at least rest assured that you have tried to look at the science on AGW objectively.
Posted by wgstrand on July 12, 2008 at 10:31 a.m. (Suggest removal)
slehan advocating objectivity on the subject of climate change is ironic.
Posted by chucklehead on July 12, 2008 at 10:46 a.m. (Suggest removal)
W's joke is funny on multiple levels. Make a joke in front of a formal and stiff foreign leaders...always funny. The fact we are actually number two behind china makes it even funnier. W is wrong again, probably knew it, but thought that was funny too.... Liberals..not so funny. Does centering ones chakra bury the funny bone into the derrier?
Posted by MikeEllis on July 12, 2008 at 11:56 a.m. (Suggest removal)
So ungrateful. Even after they give him the presidency, he still ignores their rulings.
Posted by boulderhippie on July 12, 2008 at 12:18 p.m. (Suggest removal)
"Going green will revitalize the entire world's economy and slay the beast (global corporations) at the same time."
so, there will be no corporations in the new economy?
Posted by rasinden57 on July 12, 2008 at 4:44 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Wah!!!! Bush did it again! He never listens to the left, the loony, and the liberals. Darn him! Why can't the "deniers" only see how the "new economy" will by Nirvana? The fact that our economy is petroleum based, and producing and transporting the goods and groceries depends on fossil fuels should never enter the equation! Can't we heat the smelters for our metal foundries with wind turbines or solar panels? Oh yeah, I forgot. We are only going to import. That would set the entire balance in the proper direction. Money out, goods and groceries in. And they can be transported by levitation. The same energy that powers the loons in boulderia.
Posted by trunestad on July 12, 2008 at 8:23 p.m. (Suggest removal)
The Truth trends liberal.
Rasinden57 evidently believes history began with his birth, and will end with his death. News flash: petroleum is a limited resource. It's been around for only 100 years. It is a great thing, no doubt, but has its unintended consequences. When we finally diversify our energy use and economies beyond oil and coal, we will all enjoy a cleaner world, with petroleum to last many times longer, so we can continue to enjoy records, CDs, newspaper bags, plastics, and whatever else we can think up for much longer.
It's sad, really, how these small-minded people cannot imagine, are incapable of thinking, of anything besides oil -- as if, the only choice is OIL or OBLIVION. It's no wonder these same people tend to believe in Intelligent Design, which holds that life is just too hard to comprehend, ergo it must be God. Did that work for you in high school as well?
Posted by rasinden57 on July 12, 2008 at 8:41 p.m. (Suggest removal)
trun---it is really sad to see that folks like yourself (notice I didn't use the maligned term 'ilk' here?") can't see the truth about green economics. No doubt there will be an evolution in what and how we produce durable and consumer goods. For now, Dude, agriculture, industry, and commerce depend on oil. You can't power a tractor on wind energy. You can't smelt metals with solar panels. Etc.
So, when it comes to small minds, you can write the book on it, and call it an autobiography. The supposed left is the party of the people. Evidently you have the idea that since you could survive with the heretofore mention green economy, that everybody else can too. Show me how.
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