# Will the envioronment be Bush's downfall?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-envioronment-be-bushs-downfall/198564
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [August 30, 2003, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-envioronment-be-bushs-downfall/198564 "2003-08-30T03:15:33Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2003, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-envioronment-be-bushs-downfall/198564/41 "2003-09-01T06:59:02Z")
**Anthracite** : fair enough. I guess I was asking for a pointer to any NSR commentary you’d made before – I could swear I could recall some case study you had strong opinions on, but it’s late and perhaps I’m misremembering. Your input is appreciatied in any case. 🙂
---
### Author:  [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2003, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-envioronment-be-bushs-downfall/198564/42 "2003-09-02T02:09:15Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Anthracite \*
> However, I would find a suit by a State on this exact subject to be somewhat odd, especially since States have the right to pre-empt the CAA and its Amendments with stricter regulations, even for existing power plants. I do not know why a State would sue over this, when they could simply pass their own stricter emissions legislation. I run into stricter State (and local) limits on SO2, NOx, and (especially) opacity all the time, so I suspect that whatever their complaint is, it’s not as simple as NSR when you get into the brass tacks of it. I believe such States as Arizona, California, and North Carolina already pre-empt the CAA with stricter regulation on existing plants, and I see no reason why other States simply do not follow suit, rather than following with a suit. 😉
Yes, but you have not considered a very important point. What these states, mainly in the Northeast, are objecting to is not that the new rules make it impossible for them to clean up plants in their own states but rather that it makes it impossible for them to clean up plants in the Midwest. And, alas, those damn emissions don’t stop at the border. That is the real battle going on in the Northeast: It is over plants in the Midwest. The claim, as I understand it, is that here in New York State, most of the acid rain problem at this point of time, for example, is due to emission sources outside of our state.
> [@](#):
>
> The new Rules are something which you may or may not agree with - however, would you agree that they are a much clearer and more straightforward guideline to follow that anything given by the Clinton Administration EPA?
Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were clearer. But, it is easy to make things clearer just by totally caving to one side. From my limited knowledge, that is in large part what happened here. Hell, as far as the quotes that I saw, the power companies didn’t even pretend that they got less than what they wanted. It sounded like they were downright gleeful.
> [@](#):
>
> Although your comments are very good and you bring up excellent points, this does not address the accusation that the CAA has been “rolled back”, or that the EPA made “a major relaxation of air pollution rules giving essentially free rides to the worst polluters in the country”.
Well, it is a major relaxation in how these rules are being enforced. And, it does make it possible for the worst polluting plants to continue in that vein for quite some time, doesn’t it?
---
### Author:  [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2003, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-envioronment-be-bushs-downfall/198564/43 "2003-09-02T02:32:17Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Anthracite \*
> The third and key reason I feel you may not understand the situation is that the emissions limits for these plants **have not changed.** It is true that overall emissions over a year period for a plant which does happen to implement a capital improvement to their systems _may_, I repeat, _may_ increase as a result of an capacity increase, I freely admit that.
Well, this may be true. But, I thought the point of the clean air act was for emissions levels to continue to **improve** over time. The fact that they may not significantly worsen is not very reassuring to me. The question is what would happen compared to the old enforcement policy.
> [@](#):
>
> The emissions limits have not changed for the older plants, and anyone in the print or media who claims that this is a “rollback”, “invalidation”, “repeal”, or “essentially (a) free ride” to pollute is being so dishonest about the matter that their motives cannot help but be suspect. In fact, if it’s not libel, it ought to be.
Well, I am willing to admit that some of the rhetoric on both sides may get overheated. But, I don’t find these statements to be entirely deceiving. I think it is a “rollback” in the sense of likely lowering the amount of progress that otherwise would have been made under the old enforcement policy. Yes, total emissions may not increase but they won’t go down at the rate that they would have had there not been this policy change.
And, it does seem that this policy does give the operators of these plants a “free ride” to continue to be covered by this grandfathering even if they make what seem to be some reasonably significant upgrades to the plants.
> [@](#):
>
> I could put forth my opinion that I feel that the grandfathering of these older plants should be gradually ended, and that emissions limits should be tightened on all of them, to the point where scrubbers, SCR/SNCR, and mercury removal carbon filters becomes the “standard” outfitting of a power plant.
Okay, but I guess I am missing the point here then. Because, this Bush plan alone is going in the opposite direction. It is essentially expanding the grandfathering rather than ending it, is it not?
If they had coupled these rules changes to some phase-out of this grandfathering then I doubt there would have been such an uproar. The point is that the net effect of this policy seems to be that more plants will continue to be grandfathered and that as a result they will continue to be able to emit more than they would if the rules had not been changed. (Well, okay, it is more complicated because the companies will argue that they just would avoid making these upgrades,. But if that is the case, it might not be such a bad thing. These old plants are responsible for the lion’s share of the pollution and asking them to either clean up or shut down at some point seems reasonable.)
I think there is a case to be made that the whole NSR thing has become a mess and needs some revision to avoid it becoming so litiguous. But, why did the changes have to be made in a way that seems to give more to one side than another? And, if they are made that way, doesn’t the media have the obligation to report this?
> [@](#):
>
> If the desire is to criticize the Bush Administration on emissions, then the focus should be on CAFE, ANWR, or even carbon taxes - I won’t argue with that for the most part. This particular issue, IMO, is a non-issue.
Well, I agree that these are important focusses. But, I still fail to see why this NSR stuff is a non-issue. And, I have a hard time believing that the attorney’s general in the Northeast are so keen on scoring political points against Bush that they would invest the resources in suing if they did not at least believe it really was important. Hell, here in New York, our Republican governor George Pataki has expressed [support](http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/29/nyregion/29AIR.html) for the lawsuit:
> [@](#):
>
> In Albany, the New York State attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, announced plans to file a federal lawsuit charging that the new rules violate the Clean Air Act, and Gov. George E. Pataki said he would support the effort.
---
### Author:  [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2003, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-envioronment-be-bushs-downfall/198564/44 "2003-09-02T02:48:37Z")
Here are a few more quotes from the NY Times article. First on the issue of the question of whether there have been legal rulings in favor of the Clinton era interpretation and enforcement of the NSR rules:
> [@](#):
>
> Before Mr. Bush took office in January 2001, the Justice Department began suing 51 power plants, and pressured some of them into installing hundreds of millions of dollars of pollution control equipment. Earlier this month, the department won an important legal victory when a federal judge ruled that Ohio Edison had violated the E.P.A. regulations by upgrading its plant without adequately improving its pollution control devices.
On the issue of why the states feel it necessary to sue to protect themselves from pollution from sources outside their state:
> [@](#):
>
> Although the new rule affects plants across the country, the battle over regulating the industrial emissions is fought largely along geographical lines. The bulk of the nation’s largest coal-fired power plants operate in the West and Midwest, and much of their emissions carry east, where governors and local officials have for years been fighting for tighter air-quality standards.
>
> …
>
> In December, Mr. Spitzer [New York State’s attorney general] led a group of Northeastern states in opposing a separate set of proposed E.P.A. revisions to the New Source Review policy, and most legal experts expect the new lawsuits to be joined with that case. Governor McGreevey, who has supported the fight to tighten pollution controls on out-of-state factories and power plants, said his attorney general’s office and the State Department of Environmental Protection will both be aggressively involved in the battle.
>
> “A large portion of the pollution impairing New Jersey’s air quality comes from out-of-state pollution sources,” Mr. McGreevey said. " We will not allow the federal government to walk away from its responsibility to safeguard the quality of our air and protect the health of our residents."
---
### Author:  [@Avumede](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Avumede)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2003, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-envioronment-be-bushs-downfall/198564/45 "2003-09-02T04:07:38Z")
And now, according to the Bush administration, [CO2 is no longer a pollutant](http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=438719).
Not only does it exemplify Bush’s war with science, he plainly went back on his earlier words to try and limit the CO2 pollution without Kyoto.
The Democrats could certainly make this an issue. I will be most dissapointed if they don’t nail him to the wall over it.
---
### Author:  [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2003, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-envioronment-be-bushs-downfall/198564/46 "2003-09-02T04:08:39Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by jshore \*
> **Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were clearer. But, it is easy to make things clearer just by totally caving to one side. From my limited knowledge, that is in large part what happened here. Hell, as far as the quotes that I saw, the power companies didn’t even pretend that they got less than what they wanted. It sounded like they were downright gleeful.**
So you believe that they “totally caved to one side”? That doesn’t seem to be borne by the new rules and regulations at all, in reading through them.
And they did win a major victory for their side - if you damn them for having “gleeful” quotes, then you have to equally damn anyone else who does, including those who support your own causes.
> [@](#):
>
> \*\*Well, it is a major relaxation in how these rules are being enforced. And, it does make it possible for the worst polluting plants to continue in that vein for quite some time, doesn’t it? \*\*
But _that’s not what I asked people to defend here._ I want the statement “a major relaxation of air pollution rules giving essentially free rides to the worst polluters in the country” either defended or decried. I want to see factual evidence that in fact this is “essentially a free ride” to pollute, or I want an admission that it is in fact a lie. If you will not do either, then there’s no point in discussing it any further, is there?
---
### Author:  [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2003, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-envioronment-be-bushs-downfall/198564/47 "2003-09-02T04:48:32Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by jshore \*
> **Well, this may be true. But, I thought the point of the clean air act was for emissions levels to continue to improve over time.**
If it is codifed in the CAA that they do so, then there would have been language written as such. When you quote from the CAA to show me a specific timetable for closure for these plants or a specific plan for tightening emissions on the “grandfathered” plants then I will discuss it. Until then, I’m not going to engage in speculation about what the CAA should have done if it had been written differently.
> [@](#):
>
> **Well, I am willing to admit that some of the rhetoric on both sides may get overheated. But, I don’t find these statements to be entirely deceiving. I think it is a “rollback” in the sense of likely lowering the amount of progress that otherwise would have been made under the old enforcement policy. Yes, total emissions may not increase but they won’t go down at the rate that they would have had there not been this policy change.**
With tremendous respect, you, as a scientist, don’t find the statement “giving essentially free rides to the worst polluters in the country” entirely deceiving?
> [@](#):
>
> And, it does seem that this policy does give the operators of these plants a “free ride” to continue to be covered by this grandfathering even if they make what seem to be some reasonably significant upgrades to the plants.
Forgive me please, but is your contention then that the level of upgrade as specified in the new ruling is unreasonable or not in keeping with safe and efficient steam plant operation? I’d like to see some factual basis or expert opinion dealing with plant operation on that (from an actual degreed Engineer, not a hack writing an Op-ED piece), so cite please? I’d love to discuss this point.
> [@](#):
>
> Okay, but I guess I am missing the point here then. Because, this Bush plan alone is going in the opposite direction. It is essentially expanding the grandfathering rather than ending it, is it not?
I’m not aware that the CAA has been re-written to expand the number of plants covered by grandfathering, nor that such is possible outside of legislative action. If by “expand” you mean “expand in such a way that covered plants may possibly emit more if they do capacity upgrades due to higher capacity factor throughout the year, or if these upgrades somehow result in higher point emissions, and the operators of said plants choose to maintain their point on the dispatch curve or else move the plant up the dispatch curve and it is economically viable to do so, AND the emissions increase is not pre-empted by State, City, or other local emissions attainment regulations”, then yes. But saying it “expands the grandfathering” is not correct, as it is overly simplistic and ignores the realities of each situation.
> [@](#):
>
> The point is that the net effect of this policy seems to be that more plants will continue to be grandfathered and that as a result they will continue to be able to emit more than they would if the rules had not been changed.
“More” plants will be grandfathered? Are you quite certain about that? Do you actually mean that the date and time of the cutoff in the CAA has been changed? Given that that cannot changed without new legislation? Which additional plants exactly (I would like actual names, please) will now be grandfathered under this ruling? I surely must be misreading that, but if I’m not, can you provide the cite for which additional plants are added to the grandfathering provisions of the CAA, and what their current and new emissions limits will be? Because our environmental attorneys are not yet aware of any such measures coming about.
> [@](#):
>
> But, why did the changes have to be made in a way that seems to give more to one side than another? And, if they are made that way, doesn’t the media have the obligation to report this?
The media has a responsibility to report the facts - IMO. “Giving essentially free rides to the worst polluters in the country” is not a fact, it is a **lie**. Regardless of how partisan anyone tries to be on this, it is still a lie on their part. Maybe my opinion is naive and unrealistic to expect that people tell the truth and set their partisanship aside for just once, even for an hour, and admit the facts of the matter.
> [@](#):
>
> \*\*But, I still fail to see why this NSR stuff is a non-issue. And, I have a hard time believing that the attorney’s general in the Northeast are so keen on scoring political points against Bush that they would invest the resources in suing if they did not at least believe it really was important. Hell, here in New York, our Republican governor George Pataki has expressed [support](http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/29/nyregion/29AIR.html) for the lawsuit: \*\*
I do not believe I said **one word** about “scoring of political points” being a motive for suing. I haven’t been viewing this issue as a partisan matter, because the facts are simply too important. I think both Democratic and Republican governors probably do honestly care for the health of their constituents and feel that this is the proper thing for them to do. Even if it brushes aside the realities of steam power plant operation. And if Governor Pataki thinks he has a case, well, he can and will evidently seek his remedy in the courts. People and States sue each other all times for all reasons, and I’m sure you’ll agree with me (maybe not, I’m not so sure any more about that) that the mere act of suing someone **does not mean your case has a single shred of merit whatsoever**.
I do find it highly ironic that denying utilities several options for increasing their unit equivalent availability by such a lawsuit goes against the governor’s competing goal of “increasing reliability of the power grid”. But I suppose most politicians, lawyers, and journalists out there know an awful lot more about power operations than people like me, so I’d best be quiet.
---
### Author:  [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2003, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-envioronment-be-bushs-downfall/198564/48 "2003-09-02T05:11:34Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Avumede \*
> \*\*And now, according to the Bush administration, [CO2 is no longer a pollutant](http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=438719).
>
> Not only does it exemplify Bush’s war with science, he plainly went back on his earlier words to try and limit the CO2 pollution without Kyoto.
>
> The Democrats could certainly make this an issue. I will be most dissapointed if they don’t nail him to the wall over it. \*\*
Your link doesn’t contain any link within it to a press release, White House statement, transcript, or document of any kind. Given the fact that this was important enough to report on, you’d think they would at least have selected “insert hyperlink” from Frontpage. Why wouldn’t they do that, I wonder? Without even a cite? Maybe it’s because the article is a tad bit misleading…?
The link didn’t work for me, BTW, due to an extra ‘br’. Here it is:
[http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=438719](http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=438719)
You could have provided a link, I suppose, if you had investigated this further than a single article reported rather sketchily on a single website.
I believe what they are referring to is here:
[http://www.epa.gov/newsroom/headline\_082803.htm](http://www.epa.gov/newsroom/headline_082803.htm)
I don’t see in this news release anything that says “CO2 is not a pollutant”. What I do see is this:
> [@](#):
>
> EPA signed a notice denying a petition to regulate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from motor vehicles under the Clean Air Act (CAA). The petition was filed by the International Center for Technology Assessment and a number of other organizations.
>
> The Agency is denying the petition to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles for two primary reasons:
>
> - Congress has not granted EPA authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate CO2 and other greenhouse gases for climate change purposes.
>
> - EPA has determined that setting GHG emission standards for motor vehicles is not appropriate at this time.
>
> “Congress must provide us with clear legal authority before we can take regulatory action to address a fundamental issue such as climate change,” said Jeff Holmstead, Assistant Administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation. “We cannot try to use the Clean Air Act to regulate for climate change purposes because the Act was not designed or intended for that purpose.”
OK, I’ll go out on a limb and say I feel that GHG emissions should be codifed into law (give me credit for that at least, jshore). However, would a lawyer come in and explain once again that **if a law does not cover a specific area or empower a government agency in a specific manner to carry out an action then said government agency does not have the legal authority to create new laws ad hoc**?
Why is this so hard to understand? The CAA did not give the EPA the authority to set limits on GHG emissions. What would one have - the Executive Branch writing and implementing it’s own legislation from scratch? Hello - checks and balances here, people?
And somehow this turned into “US says CO2 is not a pollutant” (the headline of the linked article)? If they’re referring to the same EPA press release I linked, then there is something really fishy going on at that newspaper. Surely, there must have been another announcement at the same time, but scanning the EPA press releases in my Inbox and on their site, I’m not finding it. I await a cite with links to the announcement, and hope that I’m wrong about all this. I could easily be barking up the wrong tree here (unless an Evil Satanic Republican cut the tree down already…)
So…again I am forced to ask - cite, please?
---
### Author:  [@Avumede](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Avumede)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2003, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-envioronment-be-bushs-downfall/198564/49 "2003-09-02T05:31:06Z")
Yes, it’s the same issue. Some other cites:
> **[MSNBC News - Breaking News and News Today | Latest News](https://www.msnbc.com/)**
>
> MSNBC breaking news and the latest news for today. Get daily news from local news reporters and world news updates with live audio & video from our team.
[http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N27198975.htm](http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N27198975.htm)
I’m not a lawyer, and certainly am not familiar enough with the CAA to know if it only talks about specific pollutants. I’ll assume you are correct and that any type of pollutant not mentioned in the CAA falls outside of it’s scope, regardless of the impact to public health. Sounds a bit strange, but who knows.
Besides that, something worries me. the EPA had to be petitioned to regulate CO2. They should be a little more proactive about it, perhaps they should be making noise about it to Congress, rather then the whole “hey, it’s out of our hands!” routine. Of course, this would be a great place for Bush to uphold his promise to reduce CO2 and urge congress to grant the EPA the necessary powers. Let’s see if he does it.
---
### Author:  [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2003, 9:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-envioronment-be-bushs-downfall/198564/50 "2003-09-02T09:28:47Z")
Ford VS Chevy here IMO.
Can’t talk about engines because no one is listening nor reading what the true expert here has to say. Many seem to be locked up in their prejudices and can’t see or hear.
::: happens a lot round here. ::::
Anthracite is in the power plant business and has shown what is really going down.
**If** all the rest will not look at facts without the political glasses, then you got men telling women what childbirth feels like.
::: sheesh :: Listen to the woman and read what Anthracite is saying. I am just a dumb pilot and I can see it.
I always loved the press when me and the FAA safety inspector were having coffee and laughing about all the ( seemingly) deliberate misinformation that was in the papers, TV, where ever.
This particular part of the thread is not about Bush or politics in the main but about a particular statement by the press that is wrong. ( big surprise there huh? ) Why fight about something that has so clearly been explained?
---
### Author:  [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2003, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-envioronment-be-bushs-downfall/198564/51 "2003-09-02T13:18:58Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Anthracite \*
>
> And they did win a major victory for their side - if you damn them for having “gleeful” quotes, then you have to equally damn anyone else who does, including those who support your own causes.
I’m not damning them at all. Who I am damning are those who issued the new regulations. I.e., I am pointing out that this seems to be a reasonable indicator of where the Bush Administration came out on this issue relative to the sides involved in the dispute. I mean the people on that side didn’t even seem to make an attempt to say, “Well, this wasn’t really all that we would have wanted, but it is a compromise that we can live with.” (And, I guess I would credit them with a certain amount of honesty in having not done that.)
A short answer on your other points: With this question of expanding the grandfathering, what I mean of course is that the trigger for when the plants are no longer able to escape putting in modern pollution controls has been changed so that now plants that would have made changes that would have triggered the Clean Air Act standards to now apply to them will no longer hit this trigger. In my view that **is** effectively expanding the grandfathering.
Now, you seem to argue that it is necessary to expand it in this way because the old rules didn’t make sense. Since you are the only one who understands these rules in their gory engineering details, we either would have to take your expert opinion on this as being correct or do more learning on the issue ourselves than we frankly have time (or maybe even the capability) to do at the moment.
But, again, if this is the case, then don’t you agree that a better solution is (as you seem to have suggested in a previous post) to couple these rule changes to some phasing out of grandfathering altogether or something of that sort? This move by the Administration smells to me like the same sort of stuff I have heard with the tax reforms (elimination of dividend tax in particular): These are important changes to make the tax code more efficient and encourage the right sort of things and the fact that it is a windfall mainly for the rich is purely incidental…or even accidental. Well, my reaction is that if it “purely incidental”, then why not do other things to the tax code to alleviate this (to me, very unnecessary and unfortunate) incidental side effect.
I see the same thing here. If these rule changes are so necessary because the current rules are so confusing and cumbersome and non-sensical then the industry should be happy to accept some stricter regulations in return for having these rules cleared up, n’est pas?
---
### Author:  [@Tranquilis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tranquilis)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2003, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-envioronment-be-bushs-downfall/198564/52 "2003-09-02T13:43:28Z")
No matter what we want the world to be, no matter what the world _ought_ to have been, we all have an accredited expert telling us what is: The articles & opinions suggesting that the CCA was rolled back are false. They’re lies. The article claiming the administration is calling CO[sub]2[/sub] a non-pollutant is also essentially a lie.
Give the woman some breathing room: She came to dispell a little ignorance, not support a partisan cause. So sorry if in supporting _knowledge_ she managed to show some partisan reporters up for fools, but hey, if they’d done their jobs right, they’d not be looking foolish. If anyone has based their public opinions and positions on those foolish collumnists, well, we know who to go pillory: The collumnists.
Rather than strengthening the credibility of people supporting a clean environment, those foolish collumnists have _damaged_ the position of environmentalists by tarring _all_ of us with the brush of foolish ignorance.
Time to break out the tar and feathers, folks. We gots us some lying reporters to handle.
---
### Author:  [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2003, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-envioronment-be-bushs-downfall/198564/53 "2003-09-02T14:13:52Z")
I’m going to stop making long posts now, since it’s clear that this subject is not going anywhere. I will address this point.
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by jshore \*
> \*\*I see the same thing here. If these rule changes are so necessary because the current rules are so confusing and cumbersome and non-sensical then the industry should be happy to accept some stricter regulations in return for having these rules cleared up, n’est pas? \*\*
Hey, I’m with you, and I posted as such - that IMO the grandfathered plants should have **legislation** passed by **Congress** and **signed into law** by the **President** which sets new caps on emissions - particularly, SO2, since IMO unregulated NOx emissions have been decreasing somewhat on their own across the board, except at a few plants (such as Paradise, with it’s once-horrifying 2.1 lbm/MBtu of NOx). I feel that the cap should be set, with a timetable for lowering the emissions gradually. I’ll even support you on adding CO2 limits as well. I would also prefer this to States limits, in that having one codifed set of regulations would make life easier for people and involve the lawyers much, ,uch less. And as I said earlier, any new environmental legislation sends oodles of money my way - just the _possibility_ of mercury legislation has resulted in several new projects for me to work on. So I certainly would support it from that selfish, self-partisan aspect.
Unfortunately, _this is not the topic at hand, and hasn’t been._ I have shown via about 40,000 characters of text how the announcements in the press regarding this decision are misleading, untruthful, ignorant, and out and out lies - IMO. There has been no real rebuttal to this. And on the subject of the authority of the EPA, it’s simple - they have not been given the authority to do certain things. Whether or not they _should_ have the authority is irrelevant to the claims that they do or do not have said authority.
The reason I am in here beating my head against this is that this is the third time these allegations have been trotted out on this message Board - one dedicated to “fighting ignorance” - and the third time I have tried to present a coherent argument as to why this is not a “free ride to pollute”, “a open door for disaster”, or the “worst catastrophe since Love Canal” (!? why are headlines like these **not** libel, BTW? Does truth matter so little to some?) In GQ, the person making the accusations **categorically refused** to read my posted explanations, and in the Pit no one gave a shit.
Unless we want to go into and address the actual points I made in prior posts again, I guess we can call this done.
---
### Author:  [@Avumede](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Avumede)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2003, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-envioronment-be-bushs-downfall/198564/54 "2003-09-02T16:23:13Z")
> [@](#):
>
> And on the subject of the authority of the EPA, it’s simple - they have not been given the authority to do certain things. Whether or not they should have the authority is irrelevant to the claims that they do or do not have said authority.
Hey, you’re the expert. The topic of their authority is intereting to me, and something I’d like to discuss further. But I won’t. The topic of this thread is “Will the environment be Bush’s downfall?”. You’ve convinced me that the CO2 article is not entirely accurate, but certainly the article highlights the lack of action of Bush with regards to global warming. Just because some of the claims against Bush are exaggerated (and I agree that some claims are), that does not prove that Bush’s environmental record is actually OK.
---
### Author:  [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2003, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-envioronment-be-bushs-downfall/198564/55 "2003-09-02T16:56:17Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Avumede \*
> \*\*Just because some of the claims against Bush are exaggerated (and I agree that some claims are), that does not prove that Bush’s environmental record is actually OK. \*\*
I agree with you completely on that point, and actually, I do not claim nor believe that the BA environmental record is “OK”, if by “OK” one means “acceptable and good”. I do not see it as abyssmal or even “bad”, but it is not “good” IMO. I feel that much more should be and must be done, and the rhetoric coming from _both_ sides is poisoning the scientific and practical aspects of a decision process which should be truthful and honest in its intent and application. That makes me unhappy. Science must completely outweigh politics and partisanship and hate for matters such as this, or else we will either go too far and risk destroying the economy, or do too little and risk destroying the ecology. Wow, that sounds like an election speech…too bad the EPA Administrator isn’t an elected position…
---
### Author:  [@Grim\_Beaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grim_Beaker)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2003, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-envioronment-be-bushs-downfall/198564/56 "2003-09-02T21:07:18Z")
I have nothing to add to this discussion. Just wanted to publicly proclaim my appreciation for **Anthracite** and her well thought out and informative posts.
---
### Author:  [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2003, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-envioronment-be-bushs-downfall/198564/57 "2003-09-03T02:05:55Z")
I second **Grim\_Beaker** ’s opinion. I really do appreciate your posts, **Anthracite**. And, I really wish I had the time right now to study this issue further and do justice to what you have posted with a more well-thought out and studied reply.
Still, while I really do respect your opinion, there do seem to be some different views amongst people who are presumably pretty well-informed, unless all these state’s attorneys general are really getting bum advice. Maybe they are. I guess we’ll have to see how all of these lawsuits pan out.
By the way, I don’t know how other media covered it, but note that the NY Times did not use the sort of charged language you complained about. They may have quoted some people using such charged language, but they also quoted the other side.
---
### Author:  [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2003, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-envioronment-be-bushs-downfall/198564/58 "2003-09-03T03:23:20Z")
[QUOTE]
\*Originally posted by Anthracite \*
I don’t see in this news release anything that says “CO2 is not a pollutant”. What I do see is this:
> [@](#):
>
> OK, I’ll go out on a limb and say I feel that GHG emissions should be codifed into law (give me credit for that at least, jshore). However, would a lawyer come in and explain once again that **if a law does not cover a specific area or empower a government agency in a specific manner to carry out an action then said government agency does not have the legal authority to create new laws ad hoc**?
>
> Why is this so hard to understand? The CAA did not give the EPA the authority to set limits on GHG emissions. What would one have - the Executive Branch writing and implementing it’s own legislation from scratch? Hello - checks and balances here, people?
**Anthracite** , while I might agree with you that the title of the article is a bit misleading, I think your take on it is a bit too strong in the other direction. [Here](http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/08/29/tech/main570848.shtml) is a link to a CBS News story on this and [here](http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/29/politics/29CLIM.html) is a NY Times article. Note the following:
(1) You are absolutely correct that the EPA has decided not to regulate CO2 emissions because they **claim** they do not have the authority to do so. However, you seem to accept as fact that their interpretation of their authority is correct. In fact, there is debate about their interpretation and the interpretation is a reversal of a stance in the Clinton Administration when the EPA apparently concluded that they did have such authority if they determined that CO2 could be reasonably expected to harm human welfare due to its effect on climate. To quote from the NY Times article:
> [@](#):
>
> This contrasts with assessments made by two Clinton-era general counsels, who said such heat-trapping gases could potentially be regulated if the agency found that they could reasonably be expected to harm human welfare. They noted that the Clean Air Act listed “climate” as an aspect of human welfare.
>
> But the environmental agency has never determined that carbon dioxide does indeed harm human welfare, though there is a growing body of scientific knowledge that says carbon dioxide plays a role in global warming. The E.P.A. has never issued any regulations on carbon dioxide with respect to global warming.
>
> “The authority exists if the proper findings are made under the specific regulatory provisions of the act,” said Jonathan Z. Cannon, who was general counsel in the Clinton administration and now a professor at the University of Virginia Law School.
>
> Environmental groups and Northeastern states are also pushing that interpretation. This year, Northeastern states filed two suits against the E.P.A. to force it to regulate carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act. Environmental groups filed a petition with the agency in 1999, asking it to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles.
(2) Here is a quote from the CBS article, quoting the EPA decision:
> [@](#):
>
> “Even if CO2 were an air pollutant generally subject to regulation under the (Clean Air Act), Congress has not authorized the Agency to regulate CO2 emissions,” and doing so would infringe on the Department of Transportation’s authority to set fuel economy standards, the EPA said in its decision.
Now to me, the “even if…” implies that they concluded that CO2 is not an air pollutant generally subject to regulation under the clean air act, or more precisely that they concluded that they could not definitively conclude that it is. I do think it is a bit simplistic, but not horribly so, to summarize this view as concluding that “CO2 is not a pollutant”. After all, saying “The EPA concluded that CO2 is not a pollutant…or that they are unsure if it is a pollutant…in the sense that the Clean Air Act gives them authority to regulate emissions of such pollutants” would make for a rather long headline. On the other hand, I will say that I think the NY Times article headline of “EPA says it lacks power to regulate some gases” is a fairer one.
---
### Author:  [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2003, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-envioronment-be-bushs-downfall/198564/59 "2003-09-03T03:29:32Z")
By the way, interestingly, [Rush Limbaugh](http://rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_082803/content/see_i_told_you_so.guest.html) also interpretted (the advance story of) the EPA ruling as saying that CO2 is not a pollutant:
> [@](#):
>
> EPA to Say CO2 is NOT a Pollutant
> August 28, 2003
>
> The Environmental Protection Agency is set to rule that carbon dioxide - which trees breathe - is not an air pollutant and that the federal government has no authority to regulate emissions linked to the global warming hoax. Oh, my friends, the left is already going batty out there and this is just going to end their day. They live by pushing the false notion that CO2 is an air pollutant!
>
> …
---
### Author:  [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2003, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-envioronment-be-bushs-downfall/198564/60 "2003-09-03T03:50:48Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by jshore \*
> Now to me, the “even if…” implies that they concluded that CO2 is not an air pollutant generally subject to regulation under the clean air act, or more precisely that they concluded that they could not definitively conclude that it is.
Actually, after reading through the NY Times article, my educated guess is that the “even if…” likely refers to something along the lines of “even if the EPA were to come up with the finding that CO2 is an air pollutant in the sense described in the Clean Air Act” so they were likely not taking a position either way on whether it is a pollutant but were noting that such a finding had not been made. (If someone has more time than me, they can read through the actual EPA petition denial at the EPA [website](http://www.epa.gov/airlinks/airlinks1.html) and see if this is correct.) If it is correct, I would admit that it is not right to say the EPA has concluded that CO2 is not a pollutant but rather they have concluded that it is premature to classify CO2 as a pollutant…or at least that they have not as of yet made a finding that it is a pollutant in the regulatory sense of the Clean Air Act.
[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-envioronment-be-bushs-downfall/198564.md?page=2)
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-envioronment-be-bushs-downfall/198564.md?page=4)