LF: Administration Warns of 'Command-and-Control' Regulation Over Emissions

Title: Administration Warns of 'Command-and-Control' Regulation Over Emissions
Source: Fox News
URL Source: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/200 ... -control-regulation-emissions/
Published: Dec 9, 2009
Author: Major Garrett
Post Date: 2009-12-09 13:26:07 by Joe Snuffy
Keywords: EPA, Heavy Handed Government, Global Warming bullsh*t
Views: 2532
Comments: 14

Administration Warns of 'Command-and-Control' Regulation Over Emissions

The Obama administration is warning Congress that if it doesn't move to regulate greenhouse gases, the Environmental Protection Agency will take a "command-and-control" role over the process in way that could hurt business.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson gestures during a briefing in the U.S. center at the Climate Conference in Copenhagen Dec. 9. (AP Photo)

The warning, from a top White House economic official who spoke Tuesday on condition of anonymity, came on the eve of EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson's address to the international conference on climate change in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Jackson, however, tried to strike a tone of cooperation in her address Wednesday, explaining that the EPA's new powers to regulate greenhouse gases will be used to complement legislation pending in Congress, not replace it.

"This is not an 'either-or' moment. It's a 'both-and' moment," she said.

But while administration officials have long said they prefer Congress take action on climate change, the economic official who spoke with reporters Tuesday night made clear that the EPA will not wait and is prepared to act on its own.

And it won't be pretty.

"If you don't pass this legislation, then ... the EPA is going to have to regulate in this area," the official said. "And it is not going to be able to regulate on a market-based way, so it's going to have to regulate in a command-and-control way, which will probably generate even more uncertainty."

Climate change legislation that passed the House is stuck in the Senate, but the EPA finding Monday was seen as a boost to the U.S. delegation in Denmark trying to convince other countries that Washington is capable of taking action to follow through with any global commitments.

The economic official explained that congressional action could be better for the economy, since it would provide "compensation" for higher energy prices, especially for small businesses dealing with those higher energy costs. Otherwise, the official warned that the kind of "uncertainty" generated by unilateral EPA action would be a huge "deterrent to investment," in an economy already desperate for jobs.

"So, passing the right kind of legislation with the right kind of compensations seems to us to be the best way to reduce uncertainty and actually to encourage investment," the official said.

Republicans fear that the EPA will ultimately end up stepping in to regulate emissions -- though many oppose the congressional legislation as well. They had urged Jackson to withdraw the finding in light of leaked e-mails from a British research center that appeared to show scientists discussing the manipulation of climate data.

Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., ranking Republican on the House Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming, said Tuesday he is going to attend the Copenhagen conference to inform world leaders that despite any promises made by President Obama, no new laws will be passed in the United States until the "scientific fascism" ends.

"I call it 'scientific fascism,'" Sensenbrenner said during a press conference with fellow climate change skeptics. Sensenbrenner said, "The U.N. should throw a red flag" on scientists who support global warming to the exclusion of dissent.

Administration officials, though, said the e-mails do not change the debate.

Former Vice President Al Gore, a leader in the movement on man-caused climate change, told CNN on Wednesday that the e-mails in questions were 10 years old and taken "out of context."

Fox News' Major Garrett and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

Tennessee is urging 49 other states to come together and create a "joint working group between the states" to combat unconstitutional federal legislation and assert state rights.

Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen signed HJR 108, the State Sovereignty Resolution on June 23. According to the Tenth Amendment Center, the resolution created a committee to form a joint working group between the states to enumerate the abuses of authority by the federal government and seek repeal of imposed mandates.

State Rep. Susan Lynn recently wrote a letter to the other 49 state legislatures, inviting them to join the group and warning that the role of the federal government has been "blurred, bent and breached."

"The national government has become a complex system of programs whose purposes lie outside of the responsibilities of the enumerated powers and of securing our natural rights; programs that benefit some while others must pay," Lynn wrote. "Today, the federal government seeks to control the salaries of those employed by private business, to change the provisions of private of contracts, to nationalize banks, insurers and auto manufacturers, and to dictate to every person in the land what his or her medical choices will be."

She continued, "Forcing property from employers to provide health care, legislating what individuals are and are not entitled to, and using the labor of some so that others can receive money that they did not earn goes far beyond securing natural rights, and the enumerated powers in the Constitution."

Lynn said that the people created the federal government to be their agent only for certain enumerated purposes.

"The Tenth Amendment defines the total scope of federal power as being that which has been delegated by the people to the federal government, and also that which is absolutely necessary to advancing those powers specifically enumerated in the Constitution of the United States," she wrote. "The rest is to be handled by the state governments, or locally, by the people themselves."

She noted that the Constitution does not include a congressional power to override state laws, nor does it give the judicial branch unlimited jurisdiction over all matters. Attempts to include such provisions in the Constitution were rejected by the Founding Fathers.

"With this in mind," she wrote, "any federal attempt to legislate beyond the Constitutional limits of Congress' authority is a usurpation of state sovereignty – and unconstitutional. Governments and political leaders are best held accountable to the will of the people when government is local. The people of a state know what is best for them; authorities, potentially thousands of miles away, governing their lives is opposed to the very notion of freedom."

It really IS that simple. As Tip O'Neil is famous for saying,"All politics is local." The feral government can't do a THING without the permission and the help of the various states. Cut off taxes and access to NG units from the states to the feral government,and you just put a leash on their power. The various governments can legally call out their NG units to resist any power grab by the feds,and the feds know better than to fight this battle because it is one that they can't lose without facing treason trials and hangings.