Source:  TownHall

By Valerie Volcovici

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama’s plan to use federal agencies, and the Environmental Protection Agency in particular, to drive his second-term climate change agenda might be in peril if he cannot fill vacant seats on the federal court that has jurisdiction over major national regulations, legal experts say.

Obama is the first full-term president in more than a half century not to have appointed a single judge to the powerful U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. (more…)

Source:  SPPI

EPA Madness Spreads

EPA advances anti-energy agenda, with little regard for Americans’ health or welfare

by Paul Driessen

Seven score and nine years ago, President Lincoln resolved to take increased devotion to ensuring that government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the Earth.

Yet, today, our lives are determined not so much by We the People, as by a distant central government, particularly increasingly powerful, unelected and unaccountable Executive Branch agencies. Foremost among them, by almost any standard, is the Environmental Protection Agency.

Under Administrator Lisa Jackson, the Gettysburg vision has mutated into government of, by and for the EPA. Indeed, Ms. Jackson seeks not merely to regulate, but to legislate; not merely to protect our health and environment against every conceivable risk, but to control every facet of our economy, livelihoods and lives. Under her direction, EPA increasingly flaunts the naked power of regulators gone wild. (more…)

Source:  NLPC

See SPPI profile on Lisa Jackson

The suspicions of Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe were correct: Rather than sitting before the House Energy and Commerce Committee three weeks ago to explain the ways he “crucified” oil and natural gas companies, instead Al Armendariz – who cancelled his appearance at the last minute – met with the Sierra Club for a job interview.

This time the recently resigned EPA’s Region 6 administrator will eagerly attack another fossil fuel, joining the litigious environmental group as part of its “Beyond Coal” campaign. If there was any question that Armendariz unfairly regulated the gas and oil businesses under his authority in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and other neighboring states, the Sierra Club announcement left no doubt.

“I know how important it is to transition to cleaner sources of energy that don’t pollute the air that our children breathe,” he said, “and I’m proud to be working on a campaign with a proven track record for success.”

Inhofe proved prescient in remarks to National Journal on June 7th. (more…)

Source:  CEI

by Marlo Lewis

Executive Summary
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA)
Utility MACT Rule establishes the first-ever maximum
achievable control technology (MACT) standards for
emissions of hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) from
coal- and oil-fired power plants.
Mercury is the principal HAP targeted by the Rule.
Unlike most air pollutants, mercury poses health risks
not via inhalation but after being deposited in bodies
of water. Microbes can transform some of the mercury
into an organic form, methylmercury, which can
accumulate in aquatic food chains.
The EPA contends that pregnant women in subsistence
fishing households consume enough methylmercury in
self-caught fish to impair fetal cognitive and neurological
development. The MACT Rule supposedly reduces
the risk to unborn children by lowering methylmercury
concentrations in non-commercial fish. But the
agency provides no empirical evidence that any
American children are harmed by mercury emissions.
With an EPA-estimated annual compliance cost of
$9.6 billion, the Utility MACT Rule is one of the most
costly environmental regulations in the nation’s history.
The EPA claims that the Rule will deliver up to $80
billion in annual net benefits, with no risk of significant
adverse impacts on fuel choice, electric supply reliability,
or employment. These claims are false.

See full paper here:

http://www.globalwarming.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Marlo-Lewis-William-Yeatman-and-David-Bier-All-Pain-and-No-Gain.pdf

Source:  Senator Inhofe

Link to Press Release

Washington, D.C. – Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, blasted President Obama’s executive order, “Supporting Safe and Responsible Development of Unconventional Domestic Natural Gas Resources,” released today that will coordinate the activities of thirteen or more different federal agencies on natural gas development.

“President Obama now believes that his administration’s efforts to regulate natural gas production have become so complicated and convoluted that he needs yet another government board to coordinate them,” Senator Inhofe said, “While he makes disingenuous claims about how this working group is to increase natural gas production, we all know that the more layers of government involved, the greater the likelihood that he can stall efforts towards development.  He already has ten federal agencies looking into hydraulic fracturing with the express purpose of trying to find something wrong with it – now President Obama wants to add yet another layer of bureaucracy.  And to make matters worse, this working group incorporates even more federal agencies in the mix, bringing the total to thirteen with the possibility of more.  So why, when states are already regulating the process safely, efficiently, and effectively is President Obama pushing for the involvement of more than thirteen different federal agencies?  The answer is simple: with an election on the horizon – and the American people are feeling the economic pain of his disastrous war on fossil fuels – he’s trying to pretend he supports natural gas production, while ensuring that the federal government does everything possible to impede hydraulic fracturing. (more…)

Source:  SHTF

While Americans focused their attention on the Colombian controversy involving U.S. Secret Service agents, prostitutes and excessive drinking, President Obama quietly signed his latest Presidential Executive Order.

The Supporting Safe and Responsible Development of Unconventional Domestic Natural Gas Resources Executive Order seeks to create what amounts to a Presidential super committee that will oversee the regulation and development of the ‘unconventional’ natural gas industry for the purpose of ensuring a long-term natural gas supply for the United States, as well as to do so in a safe and environmentally responsible manner.

Excerpts (Read the complete E.O.):

While natural gas production is carried out by private firms, and States are the primary regulators of onshore oil and gas activities, the Federal Government has an important role to play by regulating oil and gas activities on public and Indian trust lands, encouraging greater use of natural gas in transportation, supporting research and development aimed at improving the safety of natural gas development and transportation activities, and setting sensible, cost-effective public health and environmental standards to implement Federal law and augment State safeguards.

Because efforts to promote safe, responsible, and efficient development of unconventional domestic natural gas resources are underway at a number of executive departments and agencies (agencies), close interagency coordination is important for effective implementation of these programs and activities.  To formalize and promote ongoing interagency coordination, this order establishes a high-level, interagency working group that will facilitate coordinated Administration policy efforts to support safe and responsible unconventional domestic natural gas development. (more…)