Charles Krauthammer recognizes environmentalism for what it is -- corruption. Socialism has failed as a economic model. When choice is available it is routinely rejected by the very people it is purported to help. No problem for socialists. The holy grail of environmentalism is the new mandate for keeping the governing elite governing in the name of sharing the wealth.
The raid on the Western treasuries is on again, but today with a new rationale to fit current ideological fashion. With socialism dead, the gigantic heist is now proposed as a sacred service of the newest religion: environmentalism.
The left leaning Obama administration is doing its part with the EPA's "endangerment finding." On the eve of the Copenhagen climate conference, a power hungry Obama administration went ahead with it in order to demonstrate that it has the upper hand over a congress that is reluctant to pass cap and trade legislation to regulate CO2 emissions. Since congress wouldn't give Obama the bona fides of a cap and trade to take with him to the conference, he simply made up his own by having the Environmental Protection Agency declare CO2 a hazard to human health and giving itself power to regulate it. It's a power grab.
Not since the creation of the Internal Revenue Service has a federal agency been given more intrusive power over every aspect of economic life.
This naked assertion of vast executive power in the name of the environment is the perfect fulfillment of the prediction of Czech President (and economist) Vaclav Klaus that environmentalism is becoming the new socialism, i.e., the totemic ideal in the name of which government seizes the commanding heights of the economy and society.
Kim Strassel has the good news. She doesn't think it's going to work out. The threat to regulate CO2 emissions through the Clean Air Act is not likely to encourage congress to move forward on cap and trade, nor is it likely that the EPA will have any success exercising its new regulatory muscle.
No one can say Washington isn't doing something; the EPA has it under control. The agency's move gives Congress a further excuse not to act.
"The Obama administration now owns this political hot potato," says one industry source. "If I'm [Nebraska Senator] Ben Nelson or [North Dakota Senator] Kent Conrad, why would I ever want to take it back?"
All the more so, in Congress's view, because the EPA "command and control" threat may yet prove hollow. Now that the endangerment finding has become reality, the litigation is also about to become real. Green groups pioneered the art of environmental lawsuits. It turns out the business community took careful notes.
So there's the upside for Democrats. The heat is off on cap and trade. The upside for the rest of us is potentially huge.
Industry groups are gearing up for a legal onslaught; and don't underestimate their prospects. The leaked emails from the Climatic Research Unit in England alone are a gold mine for those who want to challenge the science underlying the theory of manmade global warming.
Anthropogenic Global Warming may be headed for its moment of truth in court. Which is not to say the fact or fiction of it will be decided there, but possibly enough sunlight will shine in to curtail the hysteria and scour out some of the corruption.
Hitler had the scientists on his side.
Posted by: jorod | December 13, 2009 at 09:18 PM