The EPA's Attack On The U.S. Economy
By Phil Kerpen
July 11, 2008
Opponents of a massive new energy tax and federal bureaucracy breathed a small sigh of relief last month when the Lieberman-Warner climate tax bill went down in flames on the Senate floor, with even 10 Democrats breaking from the party line and saying, in writing, that they would have opposed the bill on final passage. Unfortunately, power-mad bureaucrats at the Environmental Protection Agency are undaunted. Empowered by an activist Supreme Court in the 5-4 Massachusetts v. EPA decision, the EPA is expected today to release a staggering document blueprinting a dizzying array of greenhouse gas regulatory programs under dozens of different provisions of the 1970 Clean Air Act. This document, called an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, will formally begin the process of implementing restrictions more draconian than the Lieberman-Warner bill without a single vote of Congress.
While the Supreme Court decision that opened the door to this mischief was limited to motor vehicle regulation, the EPA blueprint (judging by various leaked versions that have been available for weeks) goes far beyond that, filling over 200 pages (plus over 800 pages of appendices) with a radical plan for reordering the entire U.S. economy.
Not only are motor vehicles regulated - and much more harshly than the already-coming motor vehicles regulations coming from the Department of Transportation because of last year's energy bill - but so are light-duty trucks, heavy-duty trucks, buses, motorcycles, planes, trains, ships, boats, tractors, mining equipment, RVs, lawn mowers, fork-lifts, and just about every other piece of equipment that's got a motor in it. The regulatory requirements in many cases could require complete redesigns, as well as operational changes.
Those are just the mobile sources, and bad as they are, the stationary source regulations could be much worse. EPA hopes to be able to regulate stationary sources by instituting a cap-and-trade scheme - the same massive multi-trillion dollar hidden tax hike scam that the U.S. Senate rejected last month - through a tortured statutory interpretation. If they're unable to do that, we'll end up with (yes, I know this is hard to conceive of) something even worse: Old-style, command-and-control regulation of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
The worst excess here is in the Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) program. That program requires permitting for sources that emit as little as 100 tons per year. That threshold may make sense for some air pollutants, but for carbon dioxide it's frighteningly low, and would subject millions of never before regulated entities to an expensive and lengthy EPA permitting process. This is an unprecedented regulatory nightmare, with permitting and expensive control technology (although what it would be for carbon dioxide remains unclear) for most medium to large buildings that use fossil fuel furnaces for heat. Any building over 100,000 square feet would be pulled in, as would much smaller buildings that produce carbon dioxide in their businesses, such restaurants, schools, and hospitals that have commercial kitchens with gas burners.
Not only would the burden of this permitting process be debilitating for businesses across the country, it would also grind state environmental agencies and the EPA to a standstill, inundated by so many permit filings that it would be impossible to pursue any legitimate environmental protections. While the backlog grows, all new construction activity across the country will stop.
The EPA blueprint has a lengthy discussion of how to avoid this outcome, suggesting that they can set their own threshold for permitting. They can't. That's the trouble with making national economic policy through an activist Supreme Court and a rogue regulatory agency - there's nobody in charge. Congress could design a regime with whatever threshold it considered appropriate, but the EPA can only stretch the 1970 Clean Air Act (whose author John Dingell, has stated unequivocally that it should not be forced into service to regulate greenhouse gases) so far. Even if the major environmental groups agreed to look the other way while more reasonable rules were implemented, all it takes is one environmentalist to file a lawsuit and point out that clear statutory language establishes the threshold for PSD regulation. Then the economy stops moving.
The EPA is an agency out of control. A multi-trillion dollar, radical reordering of our economy deserves at least the participation of our democratically-elected, accountable branches of government. Whether or not Congress chooses to establish a regime for greenhouse gas regulation, it must immediately pass legislation to stop the EPA from implementing its devastating vision for the U.S. economy.
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Mr. Kerpen is policy director for Americans for Prosperity.
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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.