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Indefensible

By on 7.27.11 @ 6:08AM

The EPA and its eco-litigator friends are stooping to new lows to push their toxic agenda.

Steve Milloy of JunkScience.com last week reported in the Washington Times about a deceptive pair of ads by Environmental Defense Fund. The ads, which criticized Ohio-based utility American Electric Power, portrayed children and the pre-born as threatened by AEP’s attempt to block “new clean air rules.”

One of the ads shows a hospitalized child wearing a nebulizer facemask and automatic chest compressor. As Milloy explained, “The ad is a total put-on. Moreover, asthma attacks aren’t treated with chest-compression devices, which are instead more typically used for cardiopulmonary resuscitation.”

The second ad, which also attacks AEP, shows an ultrasound image of a child in-utero as a narrator explains how “the developing fetus and young children are thought to be disproportionately affected by mercury exposure…” And the point is? Is the mother gulping down 12 cans of tuna fish a day?

The manufactured problems highlighted by EDF (total net assets at the end of Fiscal Year 2009: $132 million) at AEP’s expense are undoubtedly part of a partnership with EPA to leave the regulatory agency financially unscathed. The bill that EDF so strenuously objects to reduces EPA funding by 18 percent, and its funding for climate change programs by 22 percent. This not only cuts into EPA’s police power, but also has the potential to harm an EDF cash flow that it enjoys by recovering its attorney fees after suing EPA. As former Bush EPA official Jeffrey Holmstead explained to Investor’s Business Daily recently, “The EPA isn’t harmed by these suits. Often the suits involve things the EPA wants to do anyway. By inviting a lawsuit and then signing a consent decree, the agency gets legal cover from political heat.”

This not only threatens the friendly deals that EDF and other eco-litigators (like Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council) perpetrate, but it could threaten the healthy revenue flow of their top executives (EDF President Fredd Krupp’s 2009 compensation: $423,359). So now you get Krupp challenging AEP publicly with unverifiable and grossly misleading statistics such as, “How many lives are you willing to sacrifice? Because in the first two years alone, according to EPA, your bill would cost 34,000 lives and lead to 220,000 asthma attacks.”

As Milloy wrote:

There is no evidence that ambient levels of mercury or mercury emissions from U.S. power plants have harmed anyone. In any event, nature is responsible for the vast majority of mercury emissions (70 percent), while U.S. power plants are responsible for less than 1 percent of global emissions.

The EPA says air pollution kills tens of thousands of people annually. This is on a par with traffic accident fatalities. While we can identify traffic accident victims, air pollution victims are unknown, unidentified and (as far as anyone can tell) figments of EPA’s statistical imagination.

What is certain is that it is unreasonable to allow EPA to continue with its unaccountable reduction of acceptable particulate levels well below what is needed to protect human health and the environment, or to consider EPA’s proposed limits on carbon dioxide emissions — which have not been identified by scientists as showing inordinate harm to the environment.

Even more certain is that the effect of EPA’s excessive regulations — in the context of the Obama Administration’s overall policy initiative to create a “new energy economy” with loads of new “Green” jobs — are failures. In fact, EPA has ignored the president’s executive order from earlier this year that required all agencies to calculate the affects of proposed regulations on job creation.

Worse, EPA and its partners in environoia at EDF focus on artificial fatality numbers that it cannot prove, while ignoring the real harms caused by excessive regulatory costs as explained in academic risk journals. Believe it or not, EPA’s own literature from the Clinton era states:

People’s wealth and health status, as measured by mortality, morbidity, and other metrics, are positively correlated. Hence, those who bear a regulation’s compliance costs may also suffer a decline in their health status, and if the costs are large enough, these increased risks might be greater than the direct risk-reduction benefits of the regulation.

For example, a study by my colleagues at American Tradition Institute ties economic costs from a potential national clean energy standard (proposed by President Obama in his State of the Union speech this year) to premature deaths due to losses in employment and income. The higher the costs of the regulation (which in this case, would mandate higher electric bills and therefore less disposable income for health needs) were, the greater the number of premature deaths and health risks.

Even President Obama’s regulatory czar Cass Sunstein, in his book Laws of Fear, wrote that “an expensive regulation can have adverse effects on life and health.”

Unfortunately, those kinds of facts get lost when sweetheart deals between environmental extremists and government regulators are at stake.

About the Author

Paul Chesser is executive director for the American Tradition Institute and a senior fellow for the Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy Alternatives. The views he expresses do not necessarily reflect the views of these organizations.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (59) |

Dick Nome| 7.27.11 @ 6:28AM

The purpose of the EPA (and other agencies) is to regulate. EPA has nothing to do with clean air, water etc. That is the excuse used. The mission is now to regulate as much of our lives as it can. Period.

TrueBlue| 7.27.11 @ 2:42PM

The original purpose of those agencies was to provide information to lawmakers that could be used to create legislation to be voted on. Sadly it's been twisted into its current form of creating regulations enforceable by law, without ever seeing a ballot box of any kind.

POST American| 7.27.11 @ 7:00AM

---'90's Show' complacency op ALERT!---

Putting aside Dr Timothy Busby's disclosures
on his colleagues openly speculating on the
scope of the Fukishima world depop op
that's magically disappeared from media
consciousness -----

AND the equally 'invisible' Monsanto GM
food op that's bringing on waves of stomach
and other cancers and gradual MASS sterilization

-----------------------WHEN is the EPA even
going to take on the simple issue of our
enviornment being saturated by the feces
of the petro-chem industry (ie plastics)?

--------------------------------------OR the chronic
decades old matter of HAARP
enabling CHEM-trails that are generating an
epidemic of bronchial and allergy problems ---AND again
cancers and sterility.

These matters DEMAND attention, and
surely capital crimes prosecution.

DLB| 7.27.11 @ 7:15AM

Don't look now, but there's a hole in the tinfoil on your hat.

Mike Hawk| 7.27.11 @ 8:17AM

..and the fecal matter inside is leaking out.

Super Secret Agent #29| 7.27.11 @ 12:58PM

And ma'am, we in the NSA's Over-Sky Hyper-Phonic monitoring program would greatly appreciate it if you would stop humming ABBA's "Waterloo" as you push your detritus-de-civilization filled shopping cart exactly three and a half times counter-clockwise around the park every day at 1332 hours as your 'signal' to the "Alpha Centauri Thetans".

Super Secret Monitoring Agent #213 is totally ready to bust a prion-ray cap in your a**. Just sayin'.

Occam's Tool| 7.27.11 @ 1:19PM

I await the outcome of each Eurovision song contest with bated breath. You never know when a new Scandinavian super-group like Blue Swede or A-Ha will have a breakthrough.

Al Adab| 7.27.11 @ 4:24PM

Don't step on my blue Swede shoes.

Southern_Comment| 7.27.11 @ 9:04AM

Why don't they take care of it right after they get rid of the lightbulbs with mercury that they are helping to force on us - it ain't the tuna poisoning those children with fake illnesses that are being used for propaganda. (No matter though those children probably live in the fake districts where all that money went)

TrueBlue| 7.27.11 @ 2:44PM

It IS pretty disgusting how they push things like this against some companies and then push FOR the same product from others isn't it? Having to call a HAZMAT team if you break a lightbulb now cannot be cheap...

Al Adab| 7.27.11 @ 5:29PM

Our local fire department is thrilled to death waiting for the calls to start coming in. BTW isn't it GE the Obama campaign finance corporation that makes those bulbs? Yeah I know the bill passes in 07 but... Reward your friend and punish your enemies as Andy Jackson said.

bobmontgomery| 7.27.11 @ 7:39PM

Ready the lawsuits against GE. In fact, when you're cruising down the aisle at cost-co and they've got a whole rack of those things just waiting to tip over, sue cost-co AND GE. Soon.

Harry Russell | 7.30.11 @ 11:22AM

CFP's are made in China. This is their gift to us by the Obama Administration.

POST American| 7.27.11 @ 7:35AM

----Some of these posts looking distinctly
computer generated.

Sad if true.

Sadder still if it isn't...

Dan| 7.27.11 @ 6:52PM

Well of course the response are computer generated. How else would you access the interent?

big bob| 7.27.11 @ 8:12AM

This is NOT a computer generated response, (yet it was "generated" on a computer, if you get my drift!!).

The EPA is currently the most dangerous agency in our country. It has absorbed unconstitutional, and thus unlimited, powers to mandate behaviors from Americans that it has no authority or prerogative to effect. It falls into the same category as O'bama's czars. And yet it has a massive budget and no accountability. I defy anyone reading this column to identify an industry that has not had regulations placed on it which has stifled business, hiring and growth. I have a business in construction and the recent mandates on lead abatement, just to name one, will slow down, and possibly reduce housing sales to a mere trickle, even worse than we have now. I call what this White House is doing the great "carbon monoxide poisoning of America": silent, without warning and deadly before it's discovered. I call on Congress to hold hearings on the EPA, and to start from scratch with its budget. Even if we revert to 2008 taxes and budget, these regulations will kill us before we wake.

Pecos Pete| 7.27.11 @ 8:45AM

Agreed! And it won't be long before the EPA regulates the sale of existing homes mandating the minimum energy efficiency of an existing home BEFORE the home can be sold.

Pecos Pete| 7.27.11 @ 8:42AM

Mercury in the CFL light bulb is okay according to the EPA. So, buy CFLs and pollute your home and business.

That doesn't make a lot of sense. But then GE will make a LOT of money from selling you CFLs made in China.

Brian Mc| 7.27.11 @ 8:57AM

I wonder if there is a single conservative working for the EPA, or OSHA. We the people are slowly being strangled by this so-called government. Luckily, it's for our own good.

tsd| 7.27.11 @ 9:11AM

I have no faith in any agency run by some hack czar appointed by a socialist/communist president to promote and force tyranny onto the people of my country. Pick one of these bloated, blood sucking federal agency that is doing any good for our country at this point. It seems to me they are working to consolidate all power into Washington so that they can do what they please.

Jack London| 7.27.11 @ 9:34AM

Is there any agency or regulation you people support? Seems to me you're preaching anarchy more than anything else.

George S| 7.27.11 @ 10:17AM

We support every agency whose regulations are written into federal law and not their own in-house rules. If the EPA wants to regulate X, then the Congress has to write it into law. This way, it doesn't sneak by the people and their 535 representatives. In other words, we strenuously object to any agency that has the power of "As the Secretary May Determine". Which is why we are terrified by ObamaCare -- no specifics but plenty of As the Secretary May Determine. But that doesn't worry you -- Big Brother knows you are a loyal Democrat.

Deborah D | 7.27.11 @ 10:22AM

Amen, George! The EPA, the Energy Dept., the Dept. of Education -- just three of the many agencies that do nothing for the country except tie its hands.

Jack London| 7.27.11 @ 2:05PM

That's odd George - I could have sworn we had a Clean Air Act. Must have been dreaming.

Al Adab| 7.27.11 @ 3:24PM

The problem lies with the plethora of regulations which, having the force of law, these agencies which are not accountable to the voters or their representatives continue to promulgate. Congress has abrogated its legislative responsibility to executive departments thereby disenfranchising the voters. Take a look at the Federal Register sometime. Even the agency spokesmen are at a loss to explain the meaning and impact of their regulations.

Jack London| 7.27.11 @ 4:22PM

So let's have some examples - what in this 'plethora of regulations' do you object to? Otherwise this is just meaningless rhetoric.

Al Adab| 7.27.11 @ 4:29PM

I know you enjoy running with White Fang Jack but note my reference to the Federal Register. There are about 40,000 pages of regulation therein. A list of specifics would begin with ethanol mandates, CFL mandates, endangered species mandates, re-introduction of species, forest management mandates which increase fire danger well, perhaps you get the idea. Some of those are in fact legislative action but most others are simply directives from agencies. It is a violation of the seperation of powers for the Legislature to pass its authority along to executive agencies. For that reason alone most should be disolved. Have fun in the arctic.

Jack London| 7.27.11 @ 4:32PM

Sounds like you object to regulation for the sake of it, not because of any merit/demerit Let's try and unpack just one you think is destroying the American way of life.

Al Adab| 7.27.11 @ 5:00PM

Like the chinese water torture, indiviidually regulations may be somewhat (operative word that) benign but cumulativly become dangerous. However as the weight of those regulations increses the camel's back scenario gets closer.

Constitutionally the regulatory agencies are on thin ice. In that regard I do object to regulations on principle. Nonehteless I listed several specifics above so unless you want a list several thousand pages long of those which have a deliterious effect such as those which increse costs to business or prevent energy exploration and development as again two examples I suppose I can't help you.

Al Adab| 7.27.11 @ 5:39PM

Oh Jack, I could add fleet milage mandates also. What is it to the fed if I choose to drive my 1962 Starfire 7 mpg? It is my money is it not? The costs in passenger safety are astronomical. Someting along the lines of 10K per car in regulatory costs.

Jack London| 7.27.11 @ 6:38PM

If you're talking about CAFE it was passed by our lawmakers, and has been amended by our lawmakers. Fuel economy has majority public support. Last time I looked we had a democracy - just get your campaign together to overturn the law and see how many Americans flock to buy Hummers as the gas price rises.

Al Adab| 7.27.11 @ 7:07PM

That is exactly the point, the market - not the government - dictates. That is called Freedom or Liberty if you prefer. Markets are self-regulating. Thanks for backing up my point of view.

Jack London| 7.27.11 @ 7:19PM

As I thought - you're an anarchist who doesn't believe in democracy or government. It always amazes me that you see the 'government' as an alien entity not made up of people and not a collective way of getting things done.

Occam's Tool| 7.27.11 @ 1:21PM

I support the Defense Department and the CDC, Jack. Most of the rest is crap in one way or another.

One should only trust people who are reluctant to assume power with power. See a lot of those people in government these days?

Jack London| 7.27.11 @ 2:07PM

Why do you support the CDC? Surely it's nanny state intervention of the worst kind?

bobmontgomery| 7.27.11 @ 7:44PM

Why, yes, Jack! As a matter of fact, you're right about that. The CDC has somehow confused gunownership with disease, and for many years wasted millions and millions of our tax dollars writing reports and publishing papers on gun control.

Anthony| 7.27.11 @ 9:43AM

The whores in Washington have done a magnificant job of just about destroying America.
What they have created are massive regulations promulgated by radical environmental Marxists at EPA, whose aims are the destruction of the private sector and capitalism.
This, along with congressional legislation that grants "standing" for radical groups like the EDF to file all sorts of litigation on behalf of "Americans", in order to shut down all forms of energy until America is back in the 15th Century.
Yep, the radical left has corrupted just about every entity they have managed to gain control of.
America is on borrowed time unless and until we rid ourselves of these bastards.

Ken (Old Texican)| 7.27.11 @ 9:49AM

One solution;
fire every one of the communist SOBS, (pardon the shorthand).

Petronius| 7.27.11 @ 10:05AM

Environmentalism is not about protecting the environment. It's about preventing commerce in natural resources and leveling society through onerous regulations which of nothing but drive up our cost of living. Just as the race hustling parasites sue businesses over alleged discrimination, these eco-parasites make a fat living the same way. When mining claims are filed out west, Redford and the EDF sue the next day. If you want to dig for anything, they want 15%. Having the feds aid and abet their sweet racket is like a Mafia dream come true. And they won't stop so long as one middle class American has $1 of disposable income.
Their crusade against SUV's is really about preventing Bubba from hunting and fishing, because they are the vehicle of choice for hauling boats and campers. Parents of large families like them also. And who doesn't want them having more than two kids? John McLaughlin was right when he said, "environmentalists love humanity but they hate people."

Louis Jenkins| 7.27.11 @ 10:49AM

It would not hurt one bit to fire the scum, lock stock and barrel. The EPA, like other depts., has experienced "mission creep." They are one of the most powerful depts. found in DC. If one doesn't want clean air, clean water, etc., there is something wrong with him, but they've gone overboard. It's a crime to break a CF bulb when you get down to it. The instructions for clean up takes up a page or more. And one need not be pregnant. Enough already!

Solo| 7.27.11 @ 10:56AM

Post American Wrote:

"----Some of these posts looking distinctly
computer generated.

Sad if true.

Sadder still if it isn't..."

All of these comments are "computer generated", my friend. That shouldn't worry anyone.

It's the posts which are fever-swamp generated that should be of concern to you.

Richard| 7.27.11 @ 11:53AM

The Environmental Protection Agency and the Endangered Species Act should be disbanded/repealed. Then we should examine the "problem" objectively and see what is needed.

DaveS| 7.27.11 @ 12:07PM

Name one person killed by air pollution. Show me a coroner's report on the cause of death that says 'air pollution.' However, to be fair to EPA, it has a more sinister rival: New York State Department of Environmental Conservation - an agreement state equivalent to EPA. They've gone to businesses with guns drawn over environmental infractions. What happens when FDA gets weapons and hits McDonald's?

Jack London| 7.27.11 @ 2:30PM

Have a look here:

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/412202

' A study in the October issue of the European Respiratory Journal describes how fine dust particles released into the atmosphere really constitute an independent cause of mortality, and its authors call for urgent review of permitted pollution limits. At the same time, the study conclusively invalidates the theory that a large proportion of such deaths are due to seasonal epidemics of influenza or pneumonia.'

You won't believe it of course because nothing that we do has ever harmed anyone ever, has it?

TrueBlue| 7.27.11 @ 2:56PM

Air Pollution does have a negative effect on people's health, I won't argue. L.A. used to be a very good case to prove it before California started passing all their anti-pollution laws. I remember as a kid being able to locate L.A. from San Diego by the smog cloud hanging over the city, and it occasionally floated it's way south.

That said, it has been taken too far and now it has negatively affected our way of life to nearly the same degree (if not moreso) than the pollution itself. When regulations, created by a body that was NOT voted upon (didn't our country start a revolution over not being represented?), make it so a company cannot do its job, that company doesn't hire people. Those unemployed people only buy what they have to to survive (the ones not scamming the system anyway), thus less commodities are purchased, which affects the companies that produce them to either no employ more people or to reduce their current workforce. There is a balance that can be, and MUST BE, maintained when it comes to regulation. It is currently tipped FAR to one side, the wrong side.

Jack London| 7.27.11 @ 3:18PM

'There is a balance that can be, and MUST BE, maintained when it comes to regulation. It is currently tipped FAR to one side, the wrong side.'

In what ways TrueBlue? How about some examples?

bobmontgomery| 7.27.11 @ 7:45PM

Be afraid, Jack. Be very, very afraid.

Al Adab| 7.27.11 @ 12:26PM

Simply put, the EPA has done more damage to the American economy that all the ostensible "threats" it has regulated. This is an agency created in error (by Republicans) and one which should be eliminated under the coming Republican (hopefully Conservative) administration. How do the potential candidates stand on that?

Dai Alanye | 7.27.11 @ 1:38PM

This, my friends, is why I propose ending charitable tax deductions, especially those which go to "educational" operations like EDF, Sierra Club, Greenpeace and hundreds more.

You may add Harvard College to the list if you wish.

Al Adab| 7.27.11 @ 3:58PM

Single flat tax rate across the board - assuming of course any income tax at all - and elimination of privileged deductions. Perhaps excepting the home mortgage or dependant child but that would be debatable. It can be done. Actually the income tax structure started out that way.

Appleby| 7.27.11 @ 2:20PM

What is this "pre-born children" riff? I thought the PC term was "blob of cells" until it took its first breath?

Can we find out who admitted that they are in fact "pre-born children" and find out how s/he came to that conclusion -- at last?

TrueBlue| 7.27.11 @ 2:49PM

Last I checked we exhale carbon dioxide, so should we stop breathing too? If CO2 is such a worry, maybe the EPA and their followers could demonstrate the proper method of not breathing for us? Nothing gets people to follow quite like leading by example.

Also, don't plants turn CO2 into Oxygen at some point or another?

Jack London| 7.27.11 @ 3:21PM

'Also, don't plants turn CO2 into Oxygen at some point or another?'

They do, but it does help if we don't cut down all the forests for a quick buck.

Dollface| 7.27.11 @ 6:21PM

I guess we can just let the forest burn down.

bobmontgomery| 7.27.11 @ 7:46PM

Jack, your hockey stick is calling.

POST American| 7.27.11 @ 9:57PM

-------------------BOTTOM LINE----------------------

Too many programmed responses infest the
column above.

Sad if true.

Sadder still if not.

Rockefeller meds taking their toll, Alas....

POST American| 7.27.11 @ 10:45PM

------------------BOTTOM LINE--------------------

-The Fukishima world depop op continues to
be covered up, indeed, memory holed

-Bisphenol and estrogen leeching plastics
saturation of the enviornment continues to
expand

-CHEM-trails and fallout continue to rain down
across the world ---unnoticed ---unmentioned

-stealth saturation of the food network with
organ destroying, cancer and sterility causing
GM foods is undeniable

-the new RED Chinese made flourescent
bulbs that are UN mandated are, IN FACT,
designed for psychological 'management',
contain eavesdropping and biometrics functions,
are loaded with mercury and seep mercury fumes

-the contamination of the water supply with
flouride and a host of other things is beyond
dispute

Nick| 7.28.11 @ 7:27PM

HOW MANY BOTTOM LINEs CAN THERE POSSIBLY BE!
GEEZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

POST American| 7.30.11 @ 10:46PM

"Forget the messenger! ---GRAB the message!"
-D H Lawrence
(essays 1919)

In this the 11th hour of the Globalist-RED China-UN sellout, TREASON and EUGENICS op
---take a tip from Larry.

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