.
"In rulemaking documents from April 2010, the EPA writes, “Based on the reanalysis the results for projected atmospheric CO2 concentrations are estimated to be reduced by an average of 2.9 ppm [parts per million] (previously 3.0 ppm),
- global mean temperature is estimated to by reduced by 0.006 to 0.0015 ˚C by 2100.”" ...(item in middle of article)
"Tough new rules proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency restricting greenhouse gas emissions would reduce the global mean temperature by only 0.006 to 0.0015 of a degree Celsius by the year 2100, according to the EPA's analysis.
- As a side effect, these rules would “slow construction nationwide for years,” the EPA said in a June 3 statement.
Republican members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee highlighted those findings in a report released last week.
The GOP minority report, issued last Wednesday (9/29) , said a series of proposed and partially implemented new regulations on
- industrial boilers, greenhouse gas emitters, and ozone levels will put
- over 800,000 jobs at risk with little environmental benefit.
The authors cite the EPA’s own staff to show that greenhouse gas regulations, which would require major sources of CO2 (carbon dioxide) to obtain permits and limit their output, could seriously harm the economy if implemented....
The EPA permits, under the Prevention of Significant Deterioration program, are already in place –
- but would be significantly expanded to include greenhouse gases.
“(D)uring this time, tens of thousands of sources each year would be prevented from constructing or modifying,” the EPA staff wrote.
- “In fact, it is reasonable to assume that many of those sources will be forced to abandon altogether plans to construct or modify. As a result, a literal application (of the permit requirement) to GHG (greenhouse gas) sources would
slow construction nationwide for years, with all of the adverse effects that this would have on economic development.”
Because of these concerns, the EPA decided to create the “tailoring rule,” which changes the thresholds for being considered a major source of carbon;
- they claim this will limit immediate 2011 exposure to the regulations to only 900 sources.
But Republicans on the Senate EPW committee said that
a federal court could strike the tailoring rule because it does not follow explicit guidelines set out for the process of issuing permits for pollutants in the Clean Air Act (CAA), which has its own threshold of 100-250 tons of CO2 equivalent a year.
“(T)he tailoring rule violates the plain language of the CAA. The Act defines ‘major sources’ as those that emit more than 100-250 tons per year of a regulated pollutant.
- In the tailoring rule, however, EPA arbitrarily changes those thresholds -- to 75,000 and 100,000 tons. For this reason,
- the rule likely won’t survive judicial scrutiny,” the staff wrote.
All of these complications stem from EPA’s desire to regulate mobile sources of greenhouse gases -- primarily automobiles. By issuing a finding
- last Spring that carbon dioxide is a danger to public health, the EPA is able to regulate mobile output of the gas;
but the ancillary effect is that stationary CO2 emitters -- factories, schools, office buildings -- are now subject to those Clean Air Act regulations as well.
But the benefit of regulating those mobile sources is, also by the EPA’s own estimations,
- as little as less than two thousandths of a degree in temperature reduction over a century.
In rulemaking documents from April 2010, the EPA writes, “Based on the reanalysis the results for projected atmospheric CO2 concentrations
- are estimated to be reduced by an average of 2.9 ppm [parts per million] (previously 3.0 ppm),
- global mean temperature is estimated to by reduced by 0.006 to 0.0015 ˚C by 2100.”"...
Rare earth smelting plant in China. This is why Communist China is "ahead" of us. We forfeited the rare earth business. Our environmental rules and wages made it too expensive to produce here. reuters photo, 11/21.
via Tom Nelson
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