MAX SCHULZ: Environmental Blackmail – City Journal 16 December 2009

MAX SCHULZ

Environmental Blackmail

The Obama administration’s EPA ruling is an attempt to force Congress’s hand.

16 December 2009

Typically, when a law is passed or a regulation proposed, its champions believe that the action will be beneficial to society. But that’s not the case when it comes to steps that the Obama administration took last week, when Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson issued an “endangerment” finding that greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide are harmful pollutants and therefore subject to EPA regulation under the Clean Air Act. Jackson issued the finding largely because the Obama team believes—or at least thinks that Congress believes—that EPA regulation of CO2 would be devastating to the economy.

The endangerment finding was designed to strike fear into the hearts of those worried about the economic harm of severe government action. The aim is to terrify industry and move public opinion to such a degree that Congress feels compelled to pass cap-and-trade legislation—no matter how economically harmful it would be—in order to pre-empt a much worse, EPA-imposed regulatory regime. It is, essentially, environmental blackmail.

Up to this point, Congress has seemed unwilling to pass global warming legislation, largely because of the perceived economic damage that would ensue. A 2007 MIT study suggested that cap-and-trade would cost the average American family $3,900 each year in economic losses and taxes. A more recent Heritage Foundation study reached a similar conclusion. Even candidate Obama said, “Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.” What Obama is saying to Congress today is: If you don’t pass cap-and-trade, which I have already acknowledged is costly, I’ve got something coming down the pike that will be even costlier. It’s a very cynical—and very risky—strategy.

via Environmental Blackmail by Max Schulz, City Journal 16 December 2009.