Steven Milloy
Human Events
12/15/2010
Last Friday’s federal appellate court decision allowing the Obama administration’s greenhouse gas regulations to take effect Jan. 2 is an unnecessary travesty for taxpayers, consumers, businesses and states.
The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is by no means the final word on whether the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s rules are legal, but it does allow them to take effect pending their litigation.
The court (Clinton appointees Judith Rogers and David Tatel, and former-dope-smoking Reagan appointee Douglas Ginsburg presiding) held that the industry lawyers challenging the rules failed to show that “the harms they allege are certain, rather than speculative, or that the alleged harm[s] will directly result from [the EPA’s regulations].”
This is ridiculous.
On Jan. 2, the EPA will start writing permits for power plants and other large emitters of greenhouse gases. Overlooking for a moment the costs and hassles to emitters and consumers that will undoubtedly be caused by the rules, at the very least this permit-writing process will cost the EPA and state permitting authorities (read “already strapped taxpayers”) about $80 million per year.
Read the rest at Human Events.
