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Title: "Ending EPA Overreach"
Source:
National Review
URL Source: https://www.nationalreview.com/2025/03/ending-epa-overreach/
Published: Mar 17, 2025
Author: The Editors
Post Date: 2025-03-17 10:40:22 by Mudboy Slim
Keywords: None
Views: 305
Comments: 2
As our own Audrey Fahlberg first reported, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin will, in coordination with other relevant agencies, be “reconsidering” the Obama EPA’s “Endangerment Finding.” This is big and very welcome news. The EPA concluded in the 2009 finding that greenhouse gases were a threat to public health and human welfare as defined in the Clean Air Act. The EPA will also, thankfully, be “reconsidering” the many regulations and other actions it has taken that rely on the finding. This reconsideration is part of a wider deregulatory drive announced by Zeldin, which is designed to “unleash American energy,” lower the cost of living, and return more power to the states to decide certain environmental matters. Needless to say, this reflects the priorities of an administration that focuses far more on the cost of regulation than did its predecessor, a change much for the better. The intent is to roll back “trillions” in regulatory costs and hidden “taxes” so that cars, for example, should be more affordable (the EPA, of course, has no say on tariffs), as would running a business or starting up new manufacturing. Among the topics to be reconsidered are EPA regulations designed to “encourage” the switch to electric vehicles. Other items on Zeldin’s agenda include scrapping the EPA’s Environmental Justice and DEI arms, and a technical sounding but important move — “overhauling” the calculation of the “Social Cost of Carbon.” This purports to be the cost of the damage caused by the release of each additional ton of CO2 into the atmosphere. It’s a number that has significant regulatory consequences such as in constructing cost/benefit analyses of new rules. And it has been a thumb on the scale to advance the green agenda. It was assessed at $43 under Barack Obama and at $3-$5 in the first Trump administration — and rose from $51 to $190 under Joe Biden. This all points to a more rational, less economically harmful climate policy, but, as always, there’s going to be litigation. Here, the 2007 Supreme Court ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA is going to be a major obstacle. It held that greenhouse gas emissions were a “pollutant.” Once the Court came to that conclusion, the EPA was obliged to regulate such emissions — in what is a low bar — if they could “reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.” The Court divided 5-4 in the case, with the dissenters including Justices Roberts, Thomas, and Alito. The composition of the Court is different now, and it might rule differently if the issue reaches it again. Rather than engaging in the long-running administrative and legal back-and-forth from one administration to another on environmental regulation, though, it would be best if Congress voted to make it clear that the Clean Air Act does not authorize the regulation of greenhouse emissions. The status quo is a policy disaster. We’ve festooned ourselves with ruinously expensive regulations and harmed our energy producers. The rules have benefited America’s geopolitical rivals by reducing the degree to which this country can take advantage of its abundant natural resources. Adding insult to injury, the regulations will have no material effect on the climate. We wish Administrator Zeldin the very best in stopping the insanity.
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Man-Made Global Warming is a Globalist/Marxist HOAX!! Regards...MUD
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Regards...MUD
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