The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to
announce today an "endangerment" finding on carbon and other
greenhouse gasses, which would allow the Obama administration to
impose restrictions on carbon emmissions even if "cap and trade"
cannot get passed through Congress.
I wrote about this possibility for an article in the
December/January version of our magazine, which is now up on our
main site
here. This is just one example of how Obama will attempt to
impose through regulation whatever parts of his agenda that he
cannot achieve legislatively.
As I wrote, "Each day, throughout the executive branch,
presidentially appointed bureaucrats who remain unknown to most
Americans make decisions that have consequences for the entire
nation. And in President Obama's case, his appointments serve as
a plan B, allowing him to realize the parts of his agenda that he
is unable to enact through the legislative process."
My article looked at some of Obama's appointments on labor,
communications, energy, housing, and transportation. Here's the
bit that's most relevant to today's decision:
But regardless of what happens in Congress, the administration
is already laying the groundwork to limit carbon emissions.
Lisa Jackson, the administrator of the Environmental Protection
Agency, made these intentions clear in her opening memo to
employees in January 2009. "EPA will stand ready to help
Congress craft strong, science-based climate legislation that
fulfills the vision of the President," she wrote, adding, "As
Congress does its work, we will move ahead to comply with the
Supreme Court's decision recognizing EPA's obligation to
address climate change under the Clean Air Act."
The Supreme Court decision Jackson referred to is
Massachusetts v. EPA. Decided in 2007, the Court ruled
that, pending a finding of "endangerment," the EPA was required
to regulate greenhouse gases in new vehicles. Obama appointed
the lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the suit, Lisa
Heinzerling, to be senior policy counsel on climate change at
the EPA, a position that does not require confirmation. In her
speeches and academic writings, Heinzerling has advocated an
unabashedly activist role for the federal government in
regulating carbon emissions....
Heinzerling has gone so far as to argue that since global
warming kills people, a failure to address it is tantamount to
somebody not acting on prior knowledge that a homicide is going
to take place.
"Knowledge that death and suffering will result from our
actions leads uncontroversially to a moral obligation to change
our behavior," Heinzerling wrote in a 2008 article for the
Georgetown Law Journal. "In the United States, knowing
killing is condemned in the criminal laws of all 50 states, in
modern regulatory laws at the federal level, and in civil jury
awards in tort cases. These laws embody a moral commitment
against knowing killing that, in traditional criminal contexts,
is uncontroversial. It should be no more controversial when it
occurs on a global scale."
More specifically, even though the Massachusetts v.
EPA decision involved emissions from new cars, Heinzerling
made it clear in March 2008 testimony before the House Select
Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming that her
view is that the ruling applies broadly to all carbon
emissions.
"There is little doubt that many categories of stationary
sources -- including, for example, power plants -- emit
greenhouse gases and thus ‘cause' air pollution, which the
Administrator has concluded endangers public health and
welfare," Heinzerling said. "Under section 111, the
Administrator ‘shall' include these sources on a list and then
‘shall' regulate them."
