The EPA's Attack On The U.S. Economy

[Terri]

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.

More