« BACK  |  PRINT

RS

FRONT PAGE CONTRIBUTOR

White House to Congress: Nice Economy You Have There. Be a Shame if Something Happened to It.

By: Leon H. Wolf (Diary)  |  December 9th, 2009 at 01:54 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

In the wake of the Obama administration’s brazen move earlier this week to bypass Congress and enact cap-and-trade via regulatory fiat, the Obama administration has now taken to actually threatening Congress to (further) harm the economy if Congress does not cover their backside by passing unwanted legislation.

The Obama administration is warning Congress that if it doesn’t move to regulate greenhouse gases, the Environmental Protection Agency will take a “command-and-control” role over the process in a way that could hurt business. 

The warning, from a top White House economic official who spoke Tuesday on condition of anonymity, came on the eve of EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson’s address to the international conference on climate change in Copenhagen, Denmark.

…

But while administration officials have long said they prefer Congress take action on climate change, the economic official who spoke with reporters Tuesday night made clear that the EPA will not wait and is prepared to act on its own. 

And it won’t be pretty. 

“If you don’t pass this legislation, then … the EPA is going to have to regulate in this area,” the official said. “And it is not going to be able to regulate on a market-based way, so it’s going to have to regulate in a command-and-control way, which will probably generate even more uncertainty.” 

Apparently, the White House feels that now is a good time to brazenly threaten to do enormous economic damage to our already depressed economy for the sake of scoring cheap political points against Congress. What a disgrace.  Maybe once unemployment hits 15 or 20% the fifth-graders who run this administration will feel really tough about having made their point to all those pesky elected legislators.  And then they will know, in the future, that if they don’t give Obama administration what it wants, the administration will just go ahead and take it anyway, and will harm their constituents in the process.

COMMENTS

POSTING RULES  |  LOGIN TO COMMENT  |  REGISTER TODAY
  • eswan9

    The White House is peeved the Cap and Tax hasn’t passed yet, because the Congress is busy trying to pass HCR, which was mandated by…the White House.

    Seems to me the solution would be to combine the 2 bills and pas them together.

    • Leon H. Wolf

      As the case may be.

    • joshua0853

      Let’s not give these morons any ideas!

  • earlgrey

    How does threatening red state dems to pass a second unpopular bill help pass health care reform. Is HCR already in the bag so they are now ready to move forward with something else? They are bullying their own party. This isn’t bipartisanship this Is dictatorship.

  • billyd

    I just really don’t understand how the EPA can decide that something is now a danger or pollutant without going through the courts to prove their claims? How in the world can a government agency who’s head is not elected by the people, be able to just say that something is now a pollutant? I really just don’t get it. Perhaps you could fill me in a little better.

    Thanks
    Bill

    As a NJ resident, i can say, without doubt that Lisa Jackson is a piece of trash!

    • Leon H. Wolf

      The EPA was actually REQUIRED by the Supreme Court to “consider” whether CO2 was a pollutant.

      • billyd

        The Supreme Court says that the EPA has to “consider” if CO2 is a pollutant. So the EPA consideres it, and says yes. Isn’t there more to it? Don’t they then need to prove why it is a pollutant? Wouldn’t whatever proof they have about CO2 being a pollutant be discredited by plants as a whole? I really don’t understand any of how this is possible. I can see the EPA having the power to say that they “Think” anything is a pollutant, but i just don’t see how they have the power to “Declare” that anything is a pollutant. What’s to stop the EPA from saying that people are a pollutant, and thus people need to be eliminated?

        • Leon H. Wolf

          Because statutes like the Clean Air Act and others give the EPA the discretion to declare new pollutants and to regulate them. Congress does this because they are lazy and don’t want to have to keep amending the act to account for all the new potentially dangerous chemicals we manufacture.

          • billyd

            Your response sums it up perfectly with “congress does this because they are lazy”. I honestly can’t believe that this is the way our system is now working. We’ve got a total twit as the head of the EPA who has the ability to criple our entire economic engine.

        • Achance

          the right to promulgate regulations by the legislative body, they have broad discretion and the courts give their administrative “expertise” great deference. The rule usually though is that their determination must have a substantial basis in fact. It is a tough standard that pretty much requires point by point rebuttal. In other words, in order to prevail, you’d have to prove that CO2 was NOT a pollutant. It could perhaps be done though because judges do read newspapers.

          • billyd

            Basically, what your saying is that the only option we would have would be to challenge the EPA’s expertise through a point by point rebuttal long enough for the moron to be removed from office and the new president to appoint a new EPA head that would drop this. Then a new congress to pass a law that would forbid the EPA from declaring any new “pollutant” without their approval?

            Basically, Use Green Peace’s tactic, and just drag this through the courts until you’ve got the right people in power.

          • Achance

            the EPA from implementing the regulation. The rule would be something like demonstrating a likelihood of prevailing on the merits and a showing of irreparable harm should the regulation be implemented. I don’t know federal practice well enough to know how you’d start for sure, but probably in the DC District Court.

            Getting such an order, no easy thing, would hold off implementation until the matter was heard on the merits and all appeals were exhausted. A trial and the appeals would probably take a couple of years. You’d want to be working a lot of politics during that trial and appeal process.

            This is the game the Greenies, and the Left generally, play; they just tie things up in court and the prosecution of the court case is trade goods in the next election cycle(s). I always assumed that any initiative that was going to wind up in court had to start in the first year of an administration or you’d wind up headed to the Supreme Court in an election year. The Court would sit on the case to see which way the political winds blew in the election year and the union or whoever was challenging would be trying to elect somebody who would drop the appeal or settle with them before the Court rendered its decision.

          • dudette

            the EPA thru the courts where we might get a friendly ruling?

          • http://impudent.blognation.us/blog kyle8

            who announced his/her desire to curtail or eliminate the EPA?

            I bet they would get millions in volunteers and donations from businesses.

            Same with Senatorial candidates.

            I wish we had more people with guts.

          • Marcus_Traianus

            Seems to me there is any easy legislative answer. Unless things have changed Congress still has the power of the purse. Not that they have the stones to do it. However, they should refuse to fund the EPA’s budget. At a minimum, they will have to cut back on whatever it is they do.

            By the way, what does the the EPA do anyway? In a struggling economy, we could give their budget back to the taxpayers. We will give it back when Republicans take over again- pinky promise.

          • Achance

            a Republican committee chair or President took an agency head to the woodshed? Wouldn’t be seemly, someone might say it was partisan or mean-spirited.

          • Marcus_Traianus

            He was chairman of the Ag. Committee when Clinton was in his
            waning days of office. He pulled together a bipartisan group opposed to some stupid EPA power grab water proposal.

            Old Larry put a provision in a military funding bill prohibiting the use of funds for that particular effort. Pure legislative genius. If Congress had any semblance of independence and actually were not cowed by Obama-Reid-Pelosi they might do the same with this unconstitutional piece of crap.

            But they will sit idly by, sheep that they are, and watch the country get destroyed by the fifth column inside our government and deflect any criticism by the people that elected them to serve by providing mealy-mouthed, dishonest excuses.

            As for Republicans, I quote the great Margaret Thatcher;

            There are still people in my party who believe in consensus politics. I regard them as Quislings, as traitors… I mean it.

          • Achance

            who was working down with us mere mortals in the Executive Branch to tune up his retirement; the Legislature here pays peanuts but has a nice, quickly vested retirement system. Leave the Leg and spend a few years in the Executive Branch and your Legislative pension is based on your Executive Branch salary – some insight into why public pensions are in so much trouble. But I digress.

            He was in the running to become Gov. Knowles’ Commissioner of Administration and was scheduled to go over and talk to the Gov’s COS who, in typical Democrat fashion, could be a real SOB. He an I were talkng about dealing with the COS and he said something along the lines of, “I hope he doesn’t remember when he was at DNR and he pi$$ed me off and took his position out of the budget and made him come over and beg to get it put back in.” Democrats know how to do that stuff! He got the job but the COS kept him on a real short leash.

        • http://www.veronicaestrada.com/ Veronica Estrada

          and have the same governing power where their recommendations establishes policy?

          That soon to be known “Task Force on Clinical Preventive Services” will be renamed in the healthcare legisation — to cover any and all health-related legislation in America, including the SCHIP program, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and the Public Health Service Act (that spokes out to include amendments/bills and acts related to family planning services, population research, health insurance, and various illnessess).

          Once healthcare passes — will the “Task Force” be the new “legislative body” on healthcare?

          The same way the EPA is gearing up to become the new “legislative body” on climate-change leglislation?

        • zuiko

          What matters is the legislative definition of pollutant, not the real life, common sense definition of the word. The legislative definition is so overly broad, anything and everything you can imagine can be considered a pollutant. You could make a case for oxygen and nitrogen to be considered pollutants under the Clean Air Act, despite the fact that together they comprise about 99% of the atmosphere.

      • E Pluribus Unum

        While that is only tangientially relevant, I just felt like saying it because it’s true and because I hate the courts with a bounty of bubbling, welling bile that would fill the Pacific.

    • zroxx

      What does going through the courts have to do with it? Government bodies like the EPA, FDA, DEA, and so forth routinely declare this or that material, foodstuff, substance, or so on to be dangerous and issue regulations. Moreover, they conduct inspections, raids, confiscate property and livestock, etc. They don’t have to prove their findings in a court of law or have a judge uphold each regulation they put forth, although citizens placed under duress by these agencies may be able to have a day in court after the fact.

      Better to spin these federal agencies down to a very narrow and limited set of functions that do not include the ability to harass American citizens and businesses, or do away with them altogether. The opportunity for me to seek justice by bringing a lawsuit against an entity I allege is polluting my private property or otherwise damaging my legitimate interests would remain in the absence of these agencies.

      BTW,

      how in the world can a government agency who?s head is not elected by the people, be able to just say that something is now a pollutant?

      The EPA answers to the executive branch, I think. At minimum I know the president appoints the agency director, so that would be the indirect connection point with the electorate.

  • Raven

    Can’t find the breakdown now on BLS.gov, but someone else posted a story on it here on RS a couple weeks ago with the breakdown (by the BLS on BLS.gov) of how they calculate unemployment and how Real unemployment was 17.5% last month.

    With last month’s job figures showing another loss of another 100,000 jobs, somehow I don’t think that % has gone down at all. Regardless what number the WH and the Press want to report.

  • 10ksnooker

    FDR Fascist of our time.

    When FDR was elected the Fascists pf the world said “we now have one of our own in the White House”.

    • anotherindyfilmguy

      The O is an FDR wannabee…

      • Vegas_Rick
    • jsbrodhead

      This NEW O’DEAL STINKS!

      SCOTUS was not created to evaluate the Constitution, but to prevent pervertion of it.

      Time for a full RESET of the FERAL (sp!) Government!

  • bobojake

    Go to Helen Waite. Stop the job hemorrhaging, destroying business, housing , banking, Get the hemmroids out of the Whitehouse, Senate and Congress.
    Let build for America not a marxist America

  • E Pluribus Unum

    For:
    ** bowing to multiple dictators while apologizing for America abroad
    ** putting a raging perverted pedophile in his kitchen cabinet as the ‘safe schools czar’
    ** for nominating David Hamilton to appellate court. Yes, the very act of nominating him constitutes a gross violation of his oath of office
    ** for calling patriots ‘tea baggers’
    ** and now, for subverting the Constitutional separation of powers.

    Is that enough yet? High crimes, no. But misdemeanors — misbehavior in an unseemly way that sullies the office? Yes. Oh, yes.

    • Alberta

      No offence to little girls.

      • izoneguy

        Obama needs to be more like JFK and start sleeping around. Maybe he can get hooked up with some of Tiger’s girls. Anything to get him distracted from trying to save the world. And as a bonus Michelle can throw cell phones at the bama – maybe a fat lip would keep him off TV for awhile.

        • dudette

          or maybe both sides if Larry Sinclair is right—i think Tiger’s babes would be too scary for him

          • izoneguy

            is really behind Kevin Jennings….

            He is a stiff supporter of Jennings….

      • phred

        nt

    • mssouth

      This is from the AP in Washington, D.C.,

      VERY QUIETLY OBAMA’S CITIZENSHIP CASE REACHES SUPREME COURT
      AP- WASHINGTON D.C. – In a move certain to fuel the debate over Obama’s qualifications for the presidency, the group “Americans for Freedom of Information” has Released copies of President Obama’s college transcripts from Occidental College .. Released today, the transcript indicates that Obama, under the name Barry Soetoro, received financial aid as a foreign student from Indonesia as an undergraduate at the school. The transcript was released by Occidental College in compliance with a court order.
      The transcript shows that Obama (Soetoro) applied for financial aid and was awarded a fellowship for foreign students from the Fulbright Foundation Scholarship program. To qualify, for the scholarship, a student must
      claim foreign citizenship. This document would seem to provide the smoking gun that many of Obama’s detractors have been seeking. Along with the evidence that he was first born in Kenya and there is no record of him ever applying for US citizenship, this is looking pretty grim. The news has created a firestorm at the White House as the release casts increasing doubt about Obama’s legitimacy and qualification to serve as president.
      When reached for comment in London , where he has been in meetings with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Obama smiled but refused comment on the issue.
      Under growing pressure from several groups, Justice Antonin Scalia announced that the Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday to hear arguments concerning Obama’s legal eligibility to serve as President in a case brought by Leo Donofrio of New Jersey . This lawsuit claims Obama’s dual citizenship disqualified him from serving as president. Donofrio’s case is just one of 18 suits brought by citizens demanding proof of Obama’s citizenship or qualification to serve as president.
      Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation has released the results of their investigation of Obama’s campaign spending. This study estimates that Obama has spent upwards of $950,000 in campaign funds in the past year with eleven law firms in 12 states for legal resources to block disclosure of any of his personal records. Mr. Kreep indicated that the investigation is still ongoing but that the final report will be provided to the U.S. attorney general.

      Possibly this will help!!!

  • anotherindyfilmguy

    by Federal Regulatory agencies come from Congress. If they try to do that Congress has the authority to squash them like bugs.

    Personally I’d rather see them do it and some corporation take them to court challenging and discrediting the science behind the move and having the whole thing thrown out…

    • larueladue

      The law can make it up as it goes (so to speak); it doesn’t have to follow science. I speak from experience, having worked on both sides of the fence in the environmental field in the late ’80s and early ’90s. Expert witnesses can be found that will espouse both sides of anything as accepted and valid science.

      The law and science have very little in common…

      • anotherindyfilmguy

        of the law or regulation a judge can theoretically throw it out.

        Note: theoretically doesn’t mean will, but one can *hope*.

    • zuiko

      To strip EPA with the power to regulate CO2 unless it comes with draconian regulations of Congress’s own design. I don’t see the votes in 2010, 2012, or any other year. And I certainly don’t see EPA undoing the regulations on their own, under any administration. The EPA is full of radical socialists under Republicans as well as under Democrats.

  • nessa

    What an idiot. If you do business in any arena that produces CO2 in any way shape or form are you looking forward to still being in business next year? If you sell widgets that are used in refineries, or power plants, hell if you sell Ofama lunchboxes to the union workers who work at the power plant do you think they’re going to be buying or needing them?

    Oops, sorry, its not Ofama’s fault, it greedy capitalists who are in business FOR PROFIT, not just to provide jobs like some non-profit.

    I think I’m going to secede from the union, my property is only 1 acre but I have clear fields of fire. Go ahead and invade.

    • Leopard1996

      Yeah, I don’t have that much land, but I do think I would have to practice some civil disobidience and cut the smart grid things off of my house to protect my liberty.

    • Achance

      to make my house functional for a longer period so I can go off-grid. We’d have to change our lifestyle somewhat, but we could do it as long as we could get propane and fuel oil. Like most people in Alaska, I have a generator that will get me through a few days for power outages, but I want one that will run everything in the house except maybe the electric clothes dryer.

      • larueladue
        • Achance

          w/o a dryer – in winter. Avalanche wiped out the line to the hydro plant so we were on diesel at $0.50 kwh instead of the usual 10 cents or so. Town sold out of clothespins in a day and I had to strip some small stuff off my boat to get clothesline. Rigged it up in the garage and we got by with line drying everything. Still are line drying things like comforters and that sort of stuff that take forever to dry in the dryer; just wash them and throw them on the clothesline. They do fine and are a lot cheaper to dry. Even put a clothesline up outside that we use when the weather is good enough for it.
          Granted, we’re both retired so I don’t need those crisp, creased dress shirts and blouses anymore but everything else is fine that way and you can always give them a tumble on air dry in the dryer to smooth the wrinkles in knits and such.

          • Richard Mullins

            You might consider it. 10c Kwh is great to me, I end with over that quite often. Yeah, if a Natural Gas generator can help a guy for a week while the power got cut after Ike, I’m sure it will help you.

          • Achance

            I could go propane or diesel since I burn #2 for heat and DHW and have an underground 670 gal. tank. Propane doesn’t put out as much energy but it is available, handy, and I already have a propane cookstove and propane for my greenhouse.heat.

    • Achance

      and board of a non-profit will take more money out of the organization than the proprietor and managers of a for profit that handles the same revenue.

  • Marcus_Traianus

    Next we can move on to killing humans, probably another big source of C02. We can do that through the Democrats health care legislation- or is that the intent?

    • benjjneb

      In plants, algae and cyanobacteria photosynthesis uses carbon dioxide and water, releasing oxygen as a waste product.

      I’m pretty sure killing all plants isn’t going to produce the effect you’re expecting.

      • phred

        Then maybe the EPA could take a look at pot ash, potassium, urea and any other items that might be beneficial to plant growth. Then we can all switch over complete to being carnivores. lol

        • Achance

          Sure wish they’d taught science in the government schools over the last thirty years or so. Only the barest minimum of HS grads in the last couple of decades would have any idea about photosynthesis or food chains.

      • Praying

        Isn’t it amazing what our government run schools (don’t) teach?

      • larueladue

        Plants respirate when it is dark, and “exhale” CO2 when not doing photosynthesis….

        • LDahl752

          I learn a lot here. Thanks, larueladue.

        • Marcus_Traianus

          Geez, give me some credit folks. I did know that plants produce oxygen as a result of photosynthesis. Crimeny, I learned that on Spongebob (well, actually I think it was grammar school science first, but I digress).
          As noted here they also product some Co2. I was being facetious. So stop breathing hard and polluting the planet or I will report you to the Obama’s EPA Police.

          • benjjneb

            Still no, the net contribution of plants to environmental CO2 is always negative. Respiration cannot release more CO2 than is fixed by photosynthesis.

            Net vs. gross is more commonly seen in economics, but the concept applies generally. It’s too bad the public schools don’t teach it.

    • LDahl752

      Plants and trees take in CO2 and put out oxygen. That’s why it is beneficial to “talk” to your houseplants when you’re watering them. Remember the terrarium fad from several years ago? If you had a healthy terrarium with a cover, you had to lift the cover periodically and breathe into it. Without doing that, all the plants in there would die.
      I’ve been wondering. If all the efforts to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere are successful, will one of the “unintended consequences” be the demise of the forests? Maybe there’s enough decomposition going on there to provide enough CO2. But, what about trees in our yards and city parks?

      • phred

        Conservation of matter: can neither be created or destroyed. We have just as much carbon now as we have ever had. You can have it as CO2, hydro-carbons (coal,oil,gasetc), graphite, carbon,… Pick your poison gentlemen and remember — the human body is 1/4 carbon.

        • eburke

          outlaw plants dying. I mean, they’ve already repealed the laws of economics ’cause they’ve figured out a way to spend your way out of debt. This is a piece of cake compared to that.

          Have you no faith man? This is the Annointed One we’re talking about here. He can do *anything*. (Well…except bring the Olympics to Chicago; but who’s counting?)

  • nessa

    We’ll make millions, algore will advertise it for us, we can cut some poor UN pukes in on the deal and they can force governments to buy it from us, we’ll never have to work again.

    • Scope

      It’s called the cow fart stopper. Corks that come in all sizes for cow butts, with a string attached in case they blow out.

      • Praying

        Ewww. Gross thought, especially certain representatives from Mass, it might be the quickest way to slow down global warming… I really think the problem is liberals spewing their filth, not SUVs or coal power plants. Of course, I don’t believe in global warming anyway, but if I did, it would be from the liberals. No doubt.

  • Leopard1996

    I would like to believe that if I was a congressman, regardless of if my party was running the show at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, I would be going all in to tell that president to go screw you are not going to cut us out for your own power grab.

  • marinetbryant

    on the EPA and CO2:

    http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj29n3/cj29n3-8.pdf

    Tom

  • throwback59

    is rejecting market forces (Capitalism) in favor of “command & control” (Marxism/Socialism) and makes no attempt to even hide it.

    • larueladue

      But, unfortunately, it won’t be….

  • geraldsr

    CO2 is what we exhale, it is stupid of the EPA to declare that CO2 is a hazard. Since the congress and senate helped bring about EPA, I think they should also help to dismantle EPA. Most of the bureaucratic agencies in Washington could be passes down to the individual states to run as they please and I am sure more efficiently!

  • mlowry

    Last night on Fox, Krauthammer offered the perfect solution: Congress can pass a 1-page amendment to the clean air act that specifically removes CO2 from consideration by the EPA.

    Then we are not subject to regulation just for breathing.

  • sarge324

    they make the laws not obama,and the epa.the congress is letting this go,we have to get them guys out of government.2010 vote for freedom not slavery.

  • talgus

    Still amazed by the ruling that the molecule upon which ALL LIFE on this palnet is built is considered a pollutant. No CO2, no life. Simple, unlike the premise that increasing CO2 is increasing the global mean temperture. More likely, the end of the last ICE AGE is still playing out. But, liberals, bureaucrates and lawyers all want MORE CONTROL.

  • olddog

    IMHO Big O lies, Congress lies, Scientists? , too, U.N. lies, A.A.R.P lies, Al gore lies,Union lies, and its all for redistribution, of wealth , andof power , A Man named “Tito the Builder”, said it best during the campaign, they will all be on top, and we will all be down here, gesturing with his hands, he came from south America, from a system, that O and crew want here, forgetting the constitution, which forbids all that they are doing. Of all of the country’s through History that fall , most fall when spending exceeds the societies output. and moral center is lost.
    The message is,They want us all to be sheeple, and believe their lies, without proof.

    Support our Troops! Those on the left do not.!, ( Photo ops., mainly)
    One Old Dog