ANWR and the EPA

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge:

Don't be fooled by the name, ANWR is 19,000,000 acres of frozen-over dirt, not a luxurious wilderness.  Nobody lives there, nor would anyone want to.  Even the Russians didn't care too much for it, apparently, so they kept Siberia and sold Alaska to the United States in 1867.1  Underneath ANWR is a huge deposit of oil, and it would make much more sense to drill for oil there than to buy oil from OPEC!


ANWR — Trillion-dollar Arctic cathedral.  The real issue in ANWR is the proper use of the fiscal assets of the U.S. government.  The oil there is worth, minimally, $500 billion in gross value and, potentially, $1 trillion dollars or more — depending obviously on the future world price of oil.  With the current dire economic situation, and federal deficits projected to approach a trillion dollars in the next year or two, the United States can no longer afford to leave this immensely valuable economic asset to simply sit idle.

Facts about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge:  The 19-million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) lies in the northeast corner of Alaska.  The Coastal Plain area, comprising 1.5 million acres on the northern edge of ANWR, is bordered on the north by the Beaufort Sea, on the east by the U.S. Canadian border, and on the west by the Canning River.  The Coastal Plain of ANWR is being considered for oil and gas development since it potentially holds billions of barrels of recoverable oil and trillions of cubic feet of recoverable gas.  Of the 1.5 million acres of the Coastal Plain, less than 2000 acres would be affected by development.

Arctic National Wildlife Refuge:  The issue.  Most geologists agree that the potential of recoverable oil on the Coastal Plain is in the order of billions of barrels and trillions of cubic feet of recoverable gas and that these resources may rival the initial reserves at Prudhoe Bay.  The validity of these estimates can only be proved by drilling exploratory wells.  Before oil and gas development in the Coastal Plain can proceed, Congress and the President need to authorize leasing and development.

Top ten reasons to support ANWR development.  [#8] No Negative Impact on Animals.  Oil and gas development and wildlife are successfully coexisting in Alaska 's arctic.  For example, the Central Arctic Caribou Herd (CACH) which migrates through Prudhoe Bay has grown from 3000 animals to its current level of 32,000 animals.  The arctic oil fields have very healthy brown bear, fox and bird populations equal to their surrounding areas.

What is ANWR and where is it?  The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was originally formed on Dec. 6, 1960 with an original size of 8.9 million acres.  In 1980 and 1983 ANWR was added to for a current size of 19.6 million acres comprising of three distinct legal areas of use within its borders.  Despite its name ANWR is NOT entirely "refuge".  The southern part of ANWR taking 9.16 million acres is classified as officially "Refuge".  The central 8 million acres of ANWR is classified as "Wilderness".

Making The Case For Anwr Development:  Eighty-eight percent of the energy for America's transportation, industry, government and residential needs comes from oil, gas and coal.  No combination of conservation, technology or alternatives can come close to replacing these fossil fuels.  It will take years for research, testing, permitting, construction, and distribution systems for replacement alternatives to be realized.  When alternative energy sources become practical and economical, Americans will use them.  Until then, fossil fuels must be relied upon.

The case for drilling in ANWR.  I am dismayed that legislation has again been introduced in Congress to prohibit forever oil and gas development in the most promising unexplored petroleum province in North America — the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, in Alaska.  Let's not forget:  Only six months ago, oil was selling for nearly $150 per barrel, while Americans were paying $4 a gallon and more for gasoline.  And today, there is potential for prices to rebound as OPEC asserts its market power and as Russia disrupts needed natural gas to Europe for the second time in three years.

Drilling in ANWR remains off limits, despite growing support.  For weeks, nearly every time President Bush has spoken about energy he has re-emphasized his support for drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.  Pressured by constituents whose budgets have been strained by high gasoline prices, there's also movement in Congress to explore more domestic sources of energy, particularly offshore in the Gulf of Mexico.  And as gas prices continue to climb, polls have shown that people who once refused to consider drilling offshore or in ANWR have begun to change their minds.

Salazar says he would consider tapping oil in Alaska refuge.  But the Interior secretary says 'directional drilling' from outside ANWR boundaries would be allowed only if it could be shown that the refuge's wildlife and environment would not be disturbed.

Let's See the Votes.  Here is information and a list of votes compiled by Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), ranging from 1995 to 2008, on off-shore drilling and drilling in ANWR.  Take a look and decide for yourself who is to blame for stopping drilling in the OCS and in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR).

Bush again calls for drilling in Alaska wildlife preserve.  With gasoline prices reaching yet another new high today, President Bush reiterated his call to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling and defended his policy of adding crude to the nation's emergency oil stockpile.  But Bush declined to jump into the political fray over whether the federal government should give motorists a tax holiday on federal excise tax on gasoline.

Our elected leaders are the problem.
 Drill in ANWR!  A 1998 United States Geological Survey (USGS) study indicates that there are a minimum of 4.3 billion and possibly (though unlikely) as many as 11.8 billion barrels of oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).  But ANWR, for all the press it has received, is only the tip of the oil iceberg.  John K. Carlisle, of the National Center for Public Policy Research, claims that the US likely has more than 110 billion barrels total of recoverable oil (which is five times the estimated current supply).  But we are not drilling for this oil.  Why?

The Bid To Drill Oil:  Alaska is the No. 2 supplier of energy to the rest of the U.S. Prudhoe Bay alone produces 400,000 barrels a day.  But ANWR could turn out 876,000 barrels of oil a day, DOE says, with reserves at a median estimate at 10.4 billion barrels.  Some forecasts are as high as 16 billion, said John Cogan, an industry attorney at McDermott, Will & Emery in Houston.

Too dumb to be true.  There is no country in the world with richer or more varied energy resources than the United States.  Alas, there also is no country with more rigid and senseless environmental restrictions that prevent us from utilizing those resources.  If you can't drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, an uninhabited, pestilence-ridden wasteland where the proposed drilling site comprises an area roughly the size of Boston Airport vis-à-vis the state of Massachusetts, where can you?

A Step Back From Enviro Lunacy.  The ANWR ban is the work of environmental restriction groups that depend on direct-mail fundraising to pay their bills and keep their jobs.  That means they must always claim the sky is falling. ... ANWR is a precious cause for them because it can be portrayed (dishonestly) as a national treasure and because the pressure for drilling there has been unrelenting.

Drilling in ANWR will Cut Gas Costs.  Record high prices are having a major impact on American consumers and businesses, from the way people travel to the way they do business to the food they buy at the grocery store.  Congress has the ability to decrease prices at the pump and get our nation back to $2 a gallon gas — and it means accessing our nation's available resources and opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) today.

Rep. Bachmann Reports From ANWR:  'Drill It or Lose It'.  There's absolutely no reason not to drill in ANWR and begin doing so immediately.  The problem, really, is the permitting process has so many artificial delays in it and also there are about 11 different points in that permitting process where lawsuits can be filed to stop production.

Who Is Really Responsible For The High Prices You Pay For Gasoline?  For the last 28 years, Democrats in Congress and a few Republicans have again and again opposed our drilling for oil in Alaska's ANWR area when we knew it contained at least 10 billion barrels of oil we could be using now.  For the past 31 years, Congress repeatedly prevented us from building any new oil refineries that we now badly need.  More recently, congressional Democrats defeated and discouraged any bill that would let us drill in the deep sea 100 miles out.  However, it's somehow OK for China to drill there.

The High Cost of Saving ANWR:  For 20 years, environmentalists, Democrats, and a few misguided Republicans have been busy keeping Big Oil out of ANWR and out of the oil fields on the Coastal Shelves, where there are an estimated 635 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, enough to heat 60 million American homes for a century, and 115 billion barrels of oil, enough to replace 100% of the oil we now buy from OPEC for 21 years.  At $130 a barrel,that would cut out trade deficit by $5.4 trillion over 21 years.

ANWR Not the Frosty Paradise It's Cracked Up To Be.  ANWR inspires awe almost entirely in those who haven't been there.  It is an environmental Brigadoon or Shangri-La, a fabled land almost no one will ever see.  That is its appeal.  People like the idea that there are still Edens "out there" even if they will never, ever see them.  Indeed, if Americans could visit the north coast of Alaska, as I have, as easily as they can visit the Grand Canyon, the oil would be flowing by now.

Oil companies spend more on taxes than on oil supply development.  According the Energy Information agency, there is a daily supply deficit approaching one-million barrels a day.  Coincidently, this approximates the amount of oil that is projected to be lifted out of ANWR in Alaska that the Democrats with assistance from a few Republicans have been blocking for almost three decades.

Alaska drilling is no quick fix, but it needs to happen.  Environmentalists charge that drilling would despoil a pristine area in northern Alaska that is about the size of South Carolina and is a critical habitat for caribou, musk oxen, bears and birds.  In fact, exploration in the 19 million-acre refuge would be confined to 1.5 million acres, and drilling to just 2,000 acres, an area less than half that of Atlanta's airport.

Oil Woes Left and Right:  Just to deprive OPEC of a few of our dollars would justify any number of conservation efforts — to say nothing of drilling in the 1percent of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that contains oil (perhaps, say some estimates, more than Prudhoe Bay).  Those pictures we've all seen of moose and caribou against a backdrop of verdant mountains are a fraud.  The coastal plain, where drilling is proposed, is flat, barren, and characterized by unforgiving permafrost.

The Media's 'Green is Good' Philosophy Strangles our Energy Policy.  ANWR's trillions of dollars worth of oil are a particular conundrum for the candidates.  On one hand, that oil helps push America toward a fantasy of "energy independence."  On the other, it offends environmentalists who oppose drilling and use of oil.  Meanwhile, gas prices continue to rise.  And the congressional "solution" to the gas crisis is to stop filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve -- just 70,000 barrels of oil a day.  The U.S. uses about 21 million barrels each day.

Oil Crisis Will Be Solved By Resources, Not Gimmicks.  Thus far, the debate about accessing those resources closest to home has focused on Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR).  Congress ridiculously refuses to green-light the project.  I say "ridiculous" because concerns about preserving the vast swaths of nature and the caribou there are not serious:  Congress would be giving a go-ahead to oil exploration on 2,000 — or 0.01 percent — of ANWR's 19 million acres, which can supply 5 percent of America's oil per year for 12 years, according to the U.S. Energy Department.

The problems in the solutions:  Congress, doing the bidding of environmental extremists, created our energy supply problem.  Oil and gas exploration in a tiny portion of the coastal plain of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would, according to a 2002 U.S. Geological Survey's estimate, increase our proven domestic oil reserves by about 50 percent.  The Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and eastern Gulf of Mexico offshore areas have enormous reserves of oil and natural gas.  Congress has also placed these energy sources of oil off-limits.

Gas prices blame game:  The best way to cut prices in the long run would be to increase supplies.  Policymakers could help do so if they would allow drilling off-shore and in a tiny section of Alaska's barren Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.  It makes no sense to keep so much domestic oil off-limits, especially with prices climbing.

How much have the Democrats cost you at the pump?  Senator Chuck Schumer claims that coercing Saudi Arabia to increase oil production by 1 million barrels a day would drop the per barrel price by $25, saving Americans 62 cents per gallon at the gas pump.  Yet, somehow, that same amount of oil coming from Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would only ease oil prices by a penny.

Seward's Folly:  He bought vast mineral riches for pennies on the dollar.  In 1867, Russia sold Alaska to the U.S. for a bit more than $7 million — less than $0.02 per acre.  William H. Seward, the U.S. Secretary of State who was responsible for pushing this sale, was considered by some to be foolish.  Even though the purchase had public support, it was branded as "Seward's Folly."  Unfortunately, even to this day, most Americans lack any understanding of the 49th state's history and its amazing geologic wealth.

Start Drilling.  It may surprise Americans to discover that the United States is the third-largest oil producer, behind Saudi Arabia and Russia.  We could be producing more, but Congress has put large areas of potential supply off-limits.  These include the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and parts of Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico.  By government estimates, these areas may contain 25 billion to 30 billion barrels of oil (against about 30 billion barrels of proven U.S. reserves today) and 80 trillion cubic feet or more of natural gas (compared with about 200 tcf of proven reserves).

Congress needs to get out of the way and let U.S. tap its oil supply.  With gasoline at historic high prices and admittedly headed higher, [Rep. Betty] Sutton remains firmly against drilling in our Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other untapped domestic sources that environmentalists jealously guard, beyond common sense.  The nation's economy is totally geared to using oil, and unless Congress comes to its senses and allows ANWR and other abundant untapped domestic oil sources to be drilled, the U.S. will remain at the mercy of foreign oil suppliers for many years to come, despite all our conservation efforts and hoped-for but still-unrealized alternative energy and fuel plans.

Alaska senators make another push for oil drilling in ANWR.  Hoping to capitalize on consumer concern about gasoline prices, Alaska's two Republican senators introduced legislation Thursday that would allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge if the price of oil hits $125 a barrel.  With oil hovering near $110 a barrel and gasoline expected to reach $4 a gallon, Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Ted Stevens said that they hoped the continuing price spiral would spark consumer clamor and overcome opposition to opening the wildlife refuge to drilling.

The Editor says...
 Why wait for $125 a barrel?  This issue should have come up when oil hit $40 a barrel.

More drilling, please.  How much more pain must Americans endure before our masters in Washington let oil companies punch a few holes in the Alaskan tundra?  Must we shiver pennilessly in the dark before we may extract new domestic petroleum deposits?  Or shall we simply keep buying $111 barrels of oil from people who want us dead?

McCain Needs To Add ANWR To Energy Plan.  We import two-thirds of our oil, sending hundreds of billions of dollars to the likes of Russia, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia.  And yet we voluntarily prohibit ourselves from even exploring huge domestic reserves of petroleum and natural gas.  At a time when U.S. crude oil production has fallen 40% in the last 25 years, 75 billion barrels of oil have been declared off-limits, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.  That would be enough to replace every barrel of non-North American imports (oil trade with Canada and Mexico is a net economic and national security plus) for 22 years.

Green movement also behind gas hike.  What if we had our own Iraq-sized supply that we haven't even touched yet?  We do.  According to the U.S. Geological Survey and American Petroleum Institute, we have at least 112 billion barrels of undrilled oil — "enough to produce gasoline for 60 million cars and fuel oil for 25 million homes for 60 years."  By comparison, Iraq has 115 billion barrels and Venezuela 80 billion.  At least 16 billion barrels of our oil is in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.  Drilling would only touch 8 percent of 17 million acres — but environmentalists say it's off-limits.

ANWR Passes House For the TENTH Time!  ANWR passed the House of Representatives today as a standalone measure in HR 5429 for the tenth time, showing the majority support for exploration in the 10-02 Area by the people's representatives. … This was a straight-up vote on opening the 10-02 Area.  The Senate, which also has a majority support for ANWR and passed an ANWR measure this March in a Budget Resolution, will now receive HR 5429 and debate it.

American-Made Energy from ANWR at a Modest Cost.  Congress has failed to remove restrictions on oil drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).  ANWR is America's single largest untapped source of oil.  A new bill, the American-Made Energy Freedom Act (H.R. 5890), would open it to energy production.  Other provisions in the bill are problematic, particularly those that would use the billions in ANWR leasing and royalty revenues to fund alternative energy projects.

Loons and Bears Versus Eskimos and Oil:  "A petition seeking Endangered Species Act protection for a rare loon that breeds in Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve has been accepted for review by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service," noted a May 29, 2007 Associated Press article.  "Conservationists hope an eventual listing of the yellow-billed loon will curb petroleum development in the 23-million acre reserve that covers much of Alaska's North Slope."  So, at a time when a $100 barrel of oil makes economies around the world quiver, the "conservationists" are more interested in a yellow-billed loon than in your ability to drive to work, pick up the kids at school, or just go anywhere in your car.

Arctic refuge drilling to get new vote in House.  Alaska's two Republican lawmakers said they would continue to push to advance ANWR drilling.  Sen. Ted Stevens, chairman of the Commerce Committee, said ANWR drilling could be included in a package of energy legislation that Republicans are drafting for possible consideration this summer.

For Stevens, ANWR drilling is debt unpaid.  The Incredible Hulk appeared Tuesday [12/20/2005] on the Senate floor, adorning the necktie of Sen. Ted Stevens – a familiar sign that the veteran from Alaska is pumped for the fight to open part of an arctic wildlife refuge to oil drilling.  But to hear his colleagues tell it, Stevens is more like the Grinch who would steal Christmas – and New Year's, if need be – to collect on his end of a vote-swapping deal he struck with two Democrats 25 years ago.

Three Things to Know About Drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge:  (#3) Alaskans overwhelmingly favor drilling for oil in ANWR.  Over 75 percent of Alaskans support oil exploration and production on ANWR's coastal plain.  In addition, general support among Americans for drilling in ANWR is on the rise, according to a September 2005 poll conducted by the Pew Research Center.

ANWR factors:  The Interior Department has estimated that "ANWR could produce nearly 1.4 million barrels of oil" per day.  Had President Clinton not vetoed the 1995 congressional authorization to explore for oil in ANWR, production there would be in full swing now.

Democrats to fight Arctic oil drilling.  Senate Democrats on Monday [12/19/2005] threatened a filibuster to stop Republicans from adding language to a must-pass defense spending bill that would allow oil drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).  The refuge, an area the size of South Carolina that sprawls along Alaska's northern coast, has been at the center of a bitter congressional debate for decades.  The refuge is home to caribou, polar bears, migratory birds and other wildlife.

[The "other wildlife" is mostly flies, and the proposed drilling area is only 2,000 acres, not "the size of South Carolina."  There we have two examples of media bias in the first two sentences.]

ANWR exploration:  energy for the West Coast.  At the height of production in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Alaska produced as many as two million barrels of crude oil a day.  While some was and is refined for in-state use in Alaska, the bulk of the North Slope crude produced at that time provided 55 percent of all the oil consumed on the West Coast.

Top 10 reasons to support development in ANWR:  In 2004 the US imported an average of 58% of its oil and during certain months up to 64%.  That equates to over $150 billion in oil imports and over $170 billion including refined petroleum products.  That's 19.9 million dollars an hour!

Democrats block defense bill with Alaska drilling.  Senate Democrats succeeded on Wednesday [12/21/2005] in blocking, for now, a Republican plan to allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as part of a massive $453 billion war-time military spending bill.

Fred states the obvious...
 Thompson:  Tapping Arctic oil will help reduce gas prices.  Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson said Wednesday [12/5/2007] that tapping oil reserves in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would help lower gas prices.

How Long Could Your State Run on ANWR Oil?  Nearly all geological experts who have studied the area agree that ANWR represents America's largest untapped onshore prospect for oil and gas.  According to mean estimates from the U.S. Geological Survey, ANWR would produce 10.4 billion barrels of new domestic oil.  Just how much is 10.4 billion barrels?  It's enough to replace more than 30 years worth of oil imported from Saudi Arabia or over 58 years of oil imported from Iraq.

Senate Votes to Open Alaskan Oil Drilling.  A closely divided Senate voted Wednesday [3/16/2005] to approve oil drilling in an Alaska wildlife refuge, a major victory for President Bush and a stinging defeat for environmentalists who have fought the idea for decades.  By a 51–to–49 vote, the Senate put a refuge drilling provision in next year's budget, depriving opponents of the chance to use a filibuster to try to block it.  Filibusters, which require 60 votes to overcome, have been used to defeat drilling proposals in the past.

ANWR and Our Nation's Energy Future.  Many of the same people that are now complaining about our dependence on foreign oil consistently oppose opening Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to production.  This is not some radical idea.  The 1980 law that doubled the size of ANWR to 19 million acres explicitly called for Congress to develop a process through which exploration and production could be conducted on the 2000 acre Coastal Plain.  Yet, across the past 24 years, anti-development forces in Congress have ignored America's energy needs and, through the use of filibusters, prevented oil and gas development.  This inaction is irresponsible.

Our fake drilling debate:  Few opponents of energy development in what they call "pristine" ANWR have visited it.  Those who have and think it is "pristine" must have visited during the 56 days a year when it is without sunlight.  They missed the roads, stores, houses, military installations, airstrip and school.  They did not miss seeing the trees in area 1002.  There are no trees.

Section 1002 is not a pristine area.  Opponents of drilling in ANWR claim it is the nation's last true wilderness, a hallowed place, and a pristine environmental area.  Though such attributes describe much of ANWR, they do not accurately portray the 1002 Area.

Remember this when you're paying $3.00 a gallon for self-service unleaded:
 Activists Launch "No Oil from ANWR" Campaign.  Environmentalists have announced an "unprecedented, coordinated nationwide summer campaign" to block passage of legislation that would allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

It worked.

Senate Democrats Put Enviros' Dollars Before National Security.  America can't produce all the oil it needs domestically.  This means that we rely on oil from countries with interests often hostile to our own.  Allowing oil and gas production in ANWR won't end this reliance but it would reduce it and thus make our country less vulnerable to either petro-blackmail or temporary disruptions in supply.  Accordingly, the Senate's action was stunning and irresponsible.

Serious About Gas Prices.  Solutions include opening a small portion in the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil and gas production.  If there is as much oil as the U.S. Geological Survey's mean estimate shows, this would increase America's proven domestic oil reserves by approximately 50 percent.  There is majority support in both the House and Senate for opening ANWR, but an obstructionist minority blocked enactment last year.

The ANWR Defeat is a Big Blow to Energy Independence.  "ANWR is important not only for the oil it will provide, but for the precedent it sets," said NCPA Senior Fellow H. Sterling Burnett.  "With oil selling for more than 50 dollars per barrel, drilling on other public lands could contribute billions of barrels of oil that currently are off limits to drilling."  "ANWR should have received an up or down vote," said Burnett.  "But political maneuvering by Senate Democrats beholden to environmental lobbyists have once again prevented that."

Alaskan oil and wildlife:  The potentially oil-rich area is a flat, treeless stretch of tundra, 3,500 miles from D.C. and 50 miles from the beautiful mountains seen in all the misleading anti-drilling photos.  During eight months of winter, when drilling would take place, virtually no wildlife are present.  No wonder.  Winter temperatures drop as low as minus 40°F.  The tundra turns rock solid.  Spit, and your saliva freezes before it hits the ground.  But the nasty conditions mean drilling can be done with ice airstrips, roads and platforms.  Come spring, they would all melt, leaving only puddles and little holes.

American-Made Energy from ANWR at a Modest Cost.  Oil and gasoline prices remain high, and two wars raging in the Middle East could drive prices up further still.  Yet Congress has failed to remove restrictions on oil drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).  ANWR is America's single largest untapped source of oil.  A new bill, the American-Made Energy Freedom Act (H.R. 5890), would open it to energy production. … The frustrating bottom line is that ANWR oil is still off-limits.  America remains the only nation on earth that has restricted access to such a promising domestic petroleum source.

Oil Prices and the Media:  Don't Believe the Hype.  With regard to folks blocking drilling for oil in ANWR due to environmental concerns, U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) offered the following analogy:  If ANWR was the size of a basketball court, the proposed area for drilling would be the size of a dollar bill.  He also said that if President Clinton had not vetoed ANWR drilling in 1995, the U.S. domestic oil supply be 20 percent higher today.

The Caribou Con:  In Search of ANWR Truth.  Estimates of the size of the Porcupine Caribou herd vary, but approximately 123,000 seems to be the best current estimate.  Despite all the speculation about the potential effects ANWR oil exploration might have on the herd, the greatest single, ever-present threat — their harsh natural habitat, including weather, food supply and predation — is almost never discussed beyond research papers.  During a series of severe winters in the early 1990s, weather conditions alone depleted approximately 15 percent of the herd.

Opening ANWR:  Long Overdue.  In Washington, support for opening ANWR falls mostly along party lines, with only a few Democrats in favor.  But that is not so in Alaska.  In Alaska's 2004 Senate race, both candidates accused each other of not being sufficiently pro-drilling. … Alaskan residents would share in the leasing revenues, as they have with Prudhoe Bay, located west of ANWR.  Prudhoe Bay has delivered billions of barrels of crude through the Alaskan oil pipeline since the 1970s.

Drilling in ANWR — It's closer than ever.  The combination of skyrocketing oil prices, more environmentally friendly ways of drilling and transporting oil, and the prospect of long-term, high-paying jobs has given the project a political boost.

'Truth' About ANWR:  Tell It All, Sarah James.  If [Sarah] James tells Congress the whole truth, she will say that in 1971 the Gwich'in was virtually alone among native tribes in electing not to participate in the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA).  To have done so would have required sharing, with the other tribes, in Alaskan natural resource revenues.  Instead, the Gwich'in chose to own, control and keep for themselves all revenues from 1.8 million acres in their former reservation.

Behind the ANWR Scare Tactics:  Most people now recognize [President] Bush urges oil and gas drilling in Alaska in order to reduce the massive U.S. oil dependency on unfriendly, unstable and erratic foreign governments.  The Interior Department estimates Alaska's 1.5 million-acre Coastal Plain has from 10 billion to 16 billion barrels of recoverable oil.  Drilling engineers believe recent technological advances would require as few as 2,000 surface acres to recover the underlying oil and natural gas -- meaning just one acre for every 10,000 acres in the refuge area.

America can safely seek new oil.  It will be several decades at least before alternative fuel vehicles and the infrastructure needed to fuel them will be developed enough to satisfy America's transportation needs.  Additionally, oil is a critical component of plastics, pharmaceuticals, fertilizers, lubricants and construction materials.  This means that Americans will need oil well into this century.  Unfortunately, the United States uses more oil than it can produce, making it dependent on supplies from politically unstable parts of the world.  While America will never have complete energy independence, Congress should remove obstacles to domestic production both to reduce energy prices and so that, in times of crisis, America's prosperity is not held hostage to hostile foreign powers.

Oil Drilling in Alaska:  To put the size of the ANWR in perspective, keep in mind that Alaska contains 591,000 square miles, or about 378,000,000 acres.  The ANWR is five percent of Alaska or 19 million acres.  Of these acres, eight percent have been proposed for development, and only one percent would be affected by oil production.  This means that about 15,000 acres, or .004 percent of Alaska, would be affected.  Actual production facilities including roads, drilling pads, living quarters, and pipelines would cover a thousand acres.

White House Committed to ANWR Drilling Despite Senate Opposition.  Two years after President Bush first offered his domestic energy plan, the administration remains confident Congress will send him a bill that opens the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling.

Battle over oil drilling in arctic refuge heats up.  Members of Congress who have successfully blocked oil drilling in the Arctic refuge for more than a decade vowed to do everything, including a Senate filibuster, to protect the Alaskan preserve this year.

Arctic oil:  Facts versus Fiction.  The truth is that the latest U.S. Geological Survey estimates are that the entire "1002 Area" contains up to 16 billion barrels of recoverable oil.  If found, this oil could replace all of our imports from Saudi Arabia for more than 30 years!  The reserve could prevent our dependence on foreign oil from getting any worse for decades.  Rather than being 56 percent dependent like we are now, it could cut our dependence to around 50 percent, according to the Energy Information Agency.

Murkowski Expected to Offer ANWR Amendment.  The amendment, if approved, would authorize oil drilling in ANWR but limit surface area development in the ANWR to 2,000 acres.  Limiting development to 2,000 acres would mean that more than 99 percent of ANWR's 19 million acres would remain untouched.  Exploration would not negatively affect the environment and it would provide thousands of jobs and decrease America's dependence on foreign oil.

 Editor's Note:   The author of the following article paints a very detailed picture of ANWR, including the flies and mosquitos, the cold, the wind, nights that last for months, and the complete emptiness of this part of Alaska.  He also provides very interesting information about the extremely tight environmental restrictions already in place which make working there nearly impossible.

Ugh, Wilderness! — The horror of ANWR, the American elite's favorite hellhole.  Before you can appreciate what a small presence human beings have up here, you need to understand how mind-bogglingly huge — and devoid of people — Alaska really is.  Alaska has a population not much greater than that of the nation's capital, but you could fit the District of Columbia into it more than 9,000 times.  You could squeeze California into it almost four times; New York State, more than eleven times.

Say "No" to Terrorists By Saying "Yes" to ANWR.  America currently imports 1.5 million barrels of oil a day from Saudi Arabia.  ANWR oil could replace nearly all we currently import from the Saudis for almost 30 years, or replace one-half of our imports from all of the Persian Gulf for 36 years.  Drilling also could provide between 250,000 and 735,000 new jobs.

Alaska Bucks the Feds and Invites More Oil Production.  Tired of the federal government hampering its economy by prohibiting natural resource recovery from federal lands located in the state, the Alaskan state government has taken matters into its own hands and opened more of its non-federal lands to oil and gas recovery.  State and federal legislators from Alaska have expressed overwhelming support for ANWR resource recovery but have been frustrated by a block of East Coast Senators claiming to be better at managing Alaskan lands than Alaska residents themselves.

New England lawmakers push drilling ban:  They've never been to Alaska or seen the coastal plain, but two New England lawmakers are leading the fight in the U.S. House to ban oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

ANWR's Private Potential:  President Bush thinks the oil beneath the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is more valuable to society than the untrammeled wilderness above it.  Environmentalists, of course, think the opposite.  Who's right?  If we want the reserve's maximum benefits for the American people, we should let market agents, not politicians, decide how best to use the reserve.

High-gas-price blues?  Blame the greens.  ANWR is the symbol for the greens' war on fossil fuel.  Any use of fossil fuels is bad, according to the green gospel, and government should force society to turn to "alternative" fuels.  This idiotic belief has resulted in regulations that add to the upward pressure on gas prices.  For example, fuel producers now have to formulate as many as 18 different blends to accommodate EPA requirements in different markets.

Bush Administration To Renew Fight For ANWR Drilling:  With Republicans now in control of the U.S. Senate, the Bush administration plans to renew its fight to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, making it a signature piece of its energy plan.

Explore Alaska's ANWR.  As usual, what's easy is not what's right.  And what's right is that America meet its energy needs in the most responsible way possible.  That means we produce what we can domestically — and that means we explore ANWR.  It's good for the economy.  It's good for national security.  And it's even good for the environment.

The 1002 Area - Why We Should Drill There:  When most people mention ANWR, they usually show pictures of beautiful landscapes with wildlife roaming freely.  Unfortunately for them, this is not the 1002 Area.  Winters on the coastal plain last for nine months; there is total darkness for 58 consecutive days; and temperatures drop to 70 degrees below zero without the wind chill.  Summers aren't much better.  Although the thick ice melts, it creates puddles on the flat tundra and attracts thousands of mosquitoes.

Drilling past the hypocrisy on Alaskan oil:  Once, says Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore, "truth mattered and science was respected for the knowledge it brought to the debate."  But now, "many environmentalists have taken a sharp turn to the ultra left, ushering in a mood of extremism and intolerance."  These extremists dominate debates with intolerance, falsehoods and "anti-technology, anti-trade, anti-business, anti-democratic, anti-human" attitudes.  Few issues epitomize this depressing state of affairs better than the debate over oil development in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Teamsters May Withdraw Support for ANWR Oil Exploration.  One of the nation's most powerful labor unions is "reexamining" its support for drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), a policy it has supported for several years.  The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which represents 1.4 million workers nationally, has supported expanded drilling in Alaska in the past.  But that could change, said Leslie Miller, spokeswoman for the Teamsters, because, as she said, there needs to be a solution in the short term for reducing oil prices and boosting the economy.


" The land occupied by the proposed drilling site in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) would be 2,000 acres, which could produce an estimated 1,000,000 barrels of oil per day.  In contrast, 2,000 acres covered by windmills could produce the energy equivalent of 1,800 barrels of oil per day.  To produce the energy equivalent of ANWR would require a windmill farm of more than 1,000,000 acres, or 1,700 square miles, or five times the size of New York City.  This would (not might) kill 22,000 birds every year."

 — "Energy Footprints and Frauds"  

How to fight our addiction to Saudi oil:  The U.S. Geological Survey says there is a 95 percent probability that at least 6 billion barrels of oil can be recovered from Alaska's ANWR — and that amount could readily go to 10 billion barrels.  Others say 16 billion barrels is a reasonable figure.

The Sierra Club:  The Sierra Club played a pivotal role in defeating the Bush Administration's efforts to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.  Now it wants Congress to require impractical and costly renewable energy standards for use of wind and solar power.

9 Out of 10 Caribou Support Drilling:  George Bush has proposed drilling in a tiny, desolate portion of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR.  According a leading Democratic opponent of the plan, lying is the key to defeating ANWR.  ABC-NBC-CBS have been accompanying discussions of ANWR with picturesque footage of caribou frolicking in lush, fertile fields — all of which happens to be nowhere near the site of the proposed drilling.

Concession to the Environmentalists' Premise Killed the ANWR Drilling Program:  Government exists to establish "the conditions required by man's nature for his proper survival" — not to "preserve" things from man.

GOP, Teamsters Plug Away for ANWR:  Having settled one blockbuster item in the energy bill — fuel efficiency standards — members of the U.S. Senate now turn to the question of whether to allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

"Drill or Die" by Phil Brennan:  Radical environmentalists assail the idea of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge — an area they seem to view as their own private property — by promoting flat-out falsehoods.

Anti-ANWR Tribe Signed Alaska Oil, Gas Lease in 1980

To drill, or not to drill:  There are enough votes to pass the ANWR measure; there are not the 60 votes required to kill a filibuster, which Tom Daschle and the Senate Democrats have promised.  Daschle Democrats and environmental extremists contend that drilling will "destroy" the pristine wilderness.  What this really means, according to a study just released by the U.S. Geological Survey, is that the range for a herd of 125,000 Porcupine River caribou would be reduced from 19 million acres to 18,998,000 acres.  Should the herd get within earshot, they may also have to endure the sound of trucks and equipment operating on the 2,000-acre footprint of the oil operation.

Why Not Explore the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska?:  We're supposed to believe that it's improper to drill for oil in the remote part of Alaska where the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge sits — where fewer than 1,000 people live in an area the size of South Carolina.  And that it's OK — indeed, it's been going on for nearly 100 years — to drill in the environmentally sensitive marshes of Louisiana, a state where 4 million make their homes in fewer than 50,000 square miles.

Oil Drilling in Alaska:  Endicott, the sixth largest oil field in North America, encompasses only 55 acres.  It is possible for oil fields to be small because the oil wells themselves are only ten feet square.  They are placed immediately next to one another.  The oil is not pumped from the wells but, when the reserve is tapped, the oil flows out under natural pressure.  This means that the wells are not only small, but quiet.  Modern technology has made it possible to build the oil fields on gravel pads that make a solid foundation for the equipment and insulate the underlying permafrost.

ANWR



This would make a good T-shirt or bumper sticker.

Alaskans Hopeful Democrats Permit ANWR Vote:  The media fail to report about what Alaskans think about oil exploration in the Arctic.

ANWR Apathy:  Does anyone really care if oil wells in Alaska disturb the caribou?  While a disconnect between what we want to be true and what is in fact the case might be troubling to most of us, it's minor concern at best to an activist.

Somewhat related material:

Designers got it right.  The Trans Alaska Pipeline System survived the century's biggest slip-fault earthquake.

The Trans Alaska Pipeline System  is one of the largest pipeline systems in the world.  Since 1977, it has successfully transported over 14 billion barrels of oil.

Yes, this is the same Alaska Pipeline that the environmentalists said (30 years ago) would wipe out the caribou and ruin the lives of Alaska natives.  Their predictions couldn't have been more wrong.  The lesson to be learned is this:  Environmentalists are some of the most pessimistic people on Earth, and their predictions are always wrong.

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CAFE:  Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards

This subsection has moved to a page of its own, located here.


The EPA:

The Environmental Protection Agency isn't all bad, nor is it entirely unnecessary, since there are still hundreds of large and small companies in the U.S. which do inconsiderate things to save money, like pouring nasty chemicals into the atmosphere and the rivers.  And there are a lot of great people who work for the EPA who really want to make the country a better place to live.  But still… like any government agency, the EPA will never go away even if most of its goals have been accomplished.  This is partly because no politician would dare to propose eliminating it, and partly because bureaucracies take root and, with the help of the news media, they constantly find new reasons to exist.

EPA Overreach.  President Obama has promised the world the United States will take definitive action on carbon emissions and he needs to have something to show for this promise at the looming global climate conference in Copenhagen.  One problem, the American people hate greenhouse gas regulations and they've been talking to their representatives in Congress — that's why cap-and-trade is stalled in the Senate.  That's where the Environmental Protection Agency comes in.  The Obama administration is so desperate to regulate greenhouse gas emissions that they are willing to illegally rewrite statutes without authorization from Congress.

Bypassing all elected officials...
 E.P.A. Moves to Curtail Greenhouse Gas Emissions.  Unwilling to wait for Congress to act, the Obama administration announced on Wednesday [9/30/2009] that it was moving forward on new rules to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from hundreds of power plants and large industrial facilities.

Energy Czar Raises Possibility Of EPA Implementing Cap-And-Trade.  There's more than one way to get cap-and-trade, President Obama's energy czar said today [10/2/2009].  Carol Browner, the former Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) administrator who now serves in the Obama administration's newly created role of energy czar, floated the possibility today of the EPA implementing cap-and-trade energy policies, during an interview at The Atlantic's First Draft of History symposium in Washington, DC.

Environmental Swine.  So the problem is complex.  But the solution begins with a call for the White House to take the lead on reversing federally mandated use of corn to produce ethanol fuel.  Imagine how many jobs we could save if we turned away from ethanol mandates and towards drilling in ANWR.

EPA cracks the whip on coal-fired power plants.  In a move praised by activists as a way to save lives but criticized by industry as potentially driving up electricity costs, the Obama administration has agreed to adopt rules reducing toxic emissions of mercury, soot and other chemicals from all coal-fired power plants in the U.S.

The EPA Silences a Climate Skeptic.  [Scroll down]  One of President Barack Obama's first acts was a memo to agencies demanding new transparency in government, and science.  The nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Lisa Jackson, joined in, exclaiming, "As administrator, I will ensure EPA's efforts to address the environmental crises of today are rooted in three fundamental values:  science-based policies and program, adherence to the rule of law, and overwhelming transparency."  In case anyone missed the point, Mr. Obama took another shot at his predecessors in April, vowing that "the days of science taking a backseat to ideology are over."  Except, that is, when it comes to Mr. [Alan] Carlin, a senior analyst in the EPA's National Center for Environmental Economics and a 35-year veteran of the agency.

The Dog Ate Global Warming.  [Scroll down slowly]  So the question remains:  What was destroyed or lost, when was it destroyed or lost, and why?  All of this is much more than an academic spat.  It now appears likely that the U.S. Senate will drop cap-and-trade climate legislation from its docket this fall — whereupon the Obama Environmental Protection Agency is going to step in and issue regulations on carbon-dioxide emissions.  Unlike a law, which can't be challenged on a scientific basis, a regulation can.  If there are no data, there's no science.

Climate Of Control.  Though the EPA says a cap-and-trade bill will do nothing if the developing world doesn't cut CO2 emissions, Democrats are intent on passing a global warming law anyway.  What is their real goal?

Greens:  No escape from Clean Air Act on CO2.  One reason many industries have been willing to go along with cap-and-trade is to escape tortuous and unpredictable EPA regulation of CO2 under the CAA.  In addition to the many onerous provisions of the CAA, the law has aggressive "citizen suit" provisions that enable the greens to enforce the law by legal action.

Obama's EPA Ignores Inconvenient Truths.  John Hinderaker of Poweline has alerted everyone to the release of the suppressed EPA Carlin/Davidson report along with incriminating emails by the Competitive Enterprise Institute.  President Obama and his administration have again been appropriately exposed.  Obama's intent can no longer be in question, and his deceptive activities are instructive as to the role the United Nations will play in his plan to address the use of American wealth.

Sen. Inhofe Calls for Inquiry Into 'Suppressed' Climate Change Report.  Republicans are raising questions about why the EPA apparently dismissed an analyst's report questioning the science behind global warming.

Suppressed EPA scientist breaks silence, speaks on Fox News.  Alan Carlin, the senior EPA research analyst who authored a study critical of global warming that was suppressed by agency officials, has broken his silence and spoken on Fox News about his situation.  Carlin told "Fox & Friends" Steve Ducy and Gretchen Carlson that his most important conclusion in the study was that the U.S. should not rely upon recommendations of the UN in making policy decisions regarding global warming.

Faith-Based Science, Indeed.  Dr. Carlin's paper is substantial and deserves to be read in its entirety.  But his takeaway is clear:  the best explanations for global temperature fluctuations are changes in the amount of energy emitted by the sun, and, especially, oscillations in the temperatures of the oceans.  The explanatory power of CO2 levels is much weaker, and, over the past decade, almost non-existent.  So why, when the House has just passed a "global warming" bill, is this report only available via a leak from CEI?

More examples of suppressed dissent can be found under Silencing the Skeptics in the Global Warming Debate.

EPA looks at effects of waste plants on minorities, poor.  The Environmental Protection Agency is focusing on the effect of hazardous waste recycling plants on minorities and low-income communities.  The move hearkens back to a Clinton-era executive order that required federal agencies to consider the effect of their policies on disadvantaged communities.

The Editor says...
 Does the EPA exist to protect the environment, or to protect downtrodden minorities?  Is it a scientific agency or just another political tool?

The regulation of essential elements of life.  The EPA is now considering designating CO2 a dangerous pollutant.  The regulation of essential elements of life by our government scares me.  It should scare us all.  I am devastated by the notion that our own government founded on freedom would regulate and control the most fundamental aspects of life on earth. ... We generally have too much water where we don't need it and too little where we do.  Are you planning to regulate water also? ... Carbon dioxide is just as essential to life as water and oxygen.  Carbon dioxide is no more a pollutant than oxygen or water.

EPA to Kansas:  Start over on coal plant proposal.  A federal official has told Kansas to start over its review process for a proposed coal-fired electric plant in southwest Kansas that Gov. Mark Parkinson had endorsed.  Sunflower Electric Power Corp., based in Hays, plans to build the electric plant in Finney County.  Sunflower had wanted to build two plants, but Rod Bremby, the state's secretary of health and environment, rejected an air-quality permit for them in October 2007, citing their potential carbon dioxide emissions.

When did the lowbrows take over the culture?  The Federal EPA is about to officially declare carbon dioxide to be a pollutant.  That's not just false and unscientific; it's not just an excuse for taxing everything in sight, including breathing.  It's not merely wrong.  It's idiotic.  It marks a low point in our national conversation.  Scientists or engineers with a grain of sense shouldn't be taking the EPA seriously for a second. ... Only the truly ignorant could fall for this level of ignorance.  Or those who just can't think.

Five Reasons the EPA Should Not Attempt to Deal with Global Warming.  On April 17, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued an endangerment finding, saying that global warming poses a serious threat to public health and safety. Thus, almost anything that emits carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases could be regulated under the Clean Air Act.  This is the first official action taken by the federal government to regulate carbon dioxide.  The endangerment finding is the initial step in a long regulatory process that could lead to the EPA requiring regulations for almost anything that emits carbon dioxide.  Automobiles would likely be the first target, but subsequent regulations could extend to a million or more buildings and small businesses, including hospitals, schools, restaurants, churches, farms, and apartments.

Environmental Protection, in Name Only.  [Scroll down]  There are two reasons for skepticism.  First, the EPA has long been a haven for zealots in career positions and for scientifically insupportable policies, so it has little integrity to compromise.  It has a sordid history of incompetence, duplicity, and pandering to the most extreme factions of the environmental movement, all of which are likely to become even worse during the Obama administration.  Second, [Lisa] Jackson herself is a veteran of 16 years at the EPA, during which she developed some of the agency's most unscientific, wasteful, and dangerous regulations.

Land Grab, Air Grab, Water Grab — S 787.  The CWA (Clean Water Act) regulates point source pollution discharges into "waters of the United States."  The United States Supreme Court has interpreted the phrase "waters of the United States" to exclude isolated waters, such as ponds, intermittent streams, and wetlands which do not have a "significant nexus" to a navigable waterway.  These bodies of water are not regulated by the CWA.  S 787 would change the CWA to significantly broaden the scope of the bill.

The EPA keeps attending to smaller and smaller minutiae, in order to survive.
 EPA targets cement industry emissions.  The federal agency has proposed regulations that could cut mercury emissions 81% to 93% annually.  Industry representatives warn the rules would increase costs and could lead to outsourcing.

EPA:  Greenhouse gases threat to human health.  Declaring that greenhouse gases are a significant threat to human health, the Environmental Protection Agency has proposed listing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as pollutants under the Clean Air Act, a policy the Bush administration rejected.  The White House acknowledged that the EPA had transmitted its proposed finding on global warming to the Office of Management and Budget, but provided no details.

An obvious power grab:
 EPA:  Global Warming Threatens Public Health, Welfare.  The Environmental Protection Agency sent a proposal to the White House on Friday [3/20/2009] finding that global warming is endangering the public's health and welfare, according to several sources, a move that could have far-reaching implications for the nation's economy and environment.

EPA moving toward carbon regulation.  Taking another step toward regulating emissions of greenhouse gases, the Obama administration's Environmental Protection Agency is declaring that global warming poses a threat to public health.

EPA Move on Greenhouse Gases Puts Congress on the Line.  The EPA took a first step on Friday [4/17/2009] toward federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, a move that will put pressure on Congress to address the issue through legislation.  The agency issued a "proposed endangerment finding" that says carbon dioxide and five other gases threaten public health and welfare by triggering global climate change.  The document also says emissions from motor vehicles are contributors to global warming.

EPA says farmers must keep dust down.  Nothing says summer in Iowa like a cloud of dust behind a combine.  But what may be a fact of life for farmers is a cause for concern to federal regulators, who are refusing to exempt growers from new environmental regulations.  It's left some farmers feeling bemused and more than a little frustrated.

Obama:  A Red Diaper Baby.  Do believe that the U.S. military should be in the streets of America to enforce the actions of the federal government "to prevent environmental damage"? ... The Environmental Protection Agency has just unveiled its own version of the FBI Most Wanted list, unveiling a roster of 23 fugitives charged with environmental offenses!  The most environmentally committed President to have ever been elected will be in charge by Noon on January 20, 2009 and the rise in gun sales across the nation suggests that a lot of people think the government is about to become the enemy.

The EPA's Most Wanted List:  It's little wonder why the FBI's "Most Wanted" list doesn't include anyone accused of breaking federal environmental laws.  It's hard to argue that a father-son team accused of illegally importing Alfa Romeo sports cars that don't meet U.S. tailpipe emissions standards is the criminal equivalent of the likes of Usama bin Laden or the other hardened sociopaths for whom the FBI warns the public to remain on the lookout.  But the Environmental Protection Agency has now cured its apparent case of outlaw-envy with the launch of its own "Wanted" list last week.  Hoping to "track down environmental fugitives," the agency wants to "increase the number of 'eyes' looking for environmental fugitives."

A List of the Most Wanted, by the E.P.A..  The E.P.A.'s list, complete with mug shots of the fugitives, was established in December to try to draw attention to serious environmental crimes.  "We take them seriously, and there are serious consequences," said Doug Parker, deputy director of the agency's criminal investigation division.

Cap-and-trade — 'Largest tax increase of all time'.  Is the carbon dioxide that humans exhale a public danger?  Yes, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  The EPA has released an endangerment finding on carbon dioxide.  The finding will allow the gas to be regulated under the Clean Air Act, something the Act was not intended to do when it was enacted over 30 years ago.  Aggressive cap-and-trade measures are being debated on Capitol Hill and, if enacted, are rumored to rake in trillions of dollars for the federal government and raise the cost of living for Americans by thousands of dollars.

Your EPA Mafia At Work.  I am increasingly of the opinion that the main goal of the Obama administration through CO2 regulation, exploding deficits, punishing taxation, and any other means at their disposal is the destruction of the economy and the complete control of impoverished Americans.  This is an administration that exists to impose an Orwellian socialist utopia when the smoke clears.  When it comes to CO2, Obama, all of his so-called science advisors, and the Environmental Protection Agency are all lying.  A criminal fraud is being perpetrated.

EPA Expected to Regulate Carbon Dioxide for First Time.  The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to act for the first time to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, The New York Times reported on Wednesday [2/18/2009], citing senior Obama administration officials.  EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has asked her staff to review the latest scientific evidence and prepare documentation for a finding that greenhouse gas pollution endangers public health and welfare, the newspaper said.  There is wide expectation that Jackson will act by April 2, the second anniversary of a Supreme Court decision that found that EPA has the authority to regulate greenhouse pollution under the U.S. Clean Air Act.

The EPA is fabricating and amplifying problems in order to justify its existence.
 The Quality of Science Matters.  With Dallas-Fort Worth's current ozone design value of 94 ppb, the new 75-ppb standard is formidable.  And although legally irrelevant, the EPA has conceded that the cost of attaining the new standard will outweigh the health benefits by $20 billion in 2020.  The new standard will classify 400 new counties nationwide into nonattainment.  In Texas, five additional urban areas will join the Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston-Galveston regions under the federal nonattainment shackle.  Characterized by the EPA as perhaps its most expensive rule ever, this 75-ppb standard begs for solid scientific justification.

EPA Chief Warned White House On Global Warming, Senator Says.  The document is important because the Supreme Court ruled last year that if the EPA administrator finds greenhouse gases endanger the public, then the government must regulate them — a move the administration opposes.

The Editor says...
 If that is true, and I'm not sure it is, then apparently the Supreme Court's position is that the EPA has more authority than the President.

Inhofe says the EPA is too powerful, could damage economy.  A key player in the years-long debate over climate change, the Oklahoma Republican agreed that using the Clean Air Act to put new regulations in place would be an unprecedented expansion of the Environmental Protection Agency's authority that would impact every household.  "Obviously the concept of regulating carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act is flawed and the act must be amended by Congress," Inhofe said.  "Today's notice should concern all lawmakers; no one should want the EPA to exercise the kind of power and authority that the career staff at EPA contemplates."

Obama's Carbon Ultimatum.  The EPA hasn't made a secret of how it would like to centrally plan the U.S. economy under the 1970 Clean Air Act.  In a blueprint released in July, the agency didn't exactly say it'd collectivize the farms — but pretty close, down to the "grass clippings."  The EPA would monitor and regulate the carbon emissions of "lawn and garden equipment" as well as everything with an engine, like cars, planes and boats.  Eco-bureaucrats envision thousands of other emissions limits on all types of energy.

The EPA is choking democracy.  One of the most important events of our lifetimes may have just transpired.  A federal agency has decided that it has the power to regulate everything, including the air you breathe.  Nominally, the Environmental Protection Agency's announcement last Friday only applies to new-car emissions.  But pretty much everyone agrees that the ruling opens the door to regulating, well, everything.  According to the EPA, greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide — the gas you exhale — as well as methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride.  It is literally impossible to imagine a significant economic or human activity that does not involve the production of one of these gases.

EPA 'Cow Tax' Could Charge $175 per Dairy Cow to Curb Greenhouse Gases.  Call this one of the newest and innovative ways your government has come up with to battle greenhouse gas emissions.  Indirectly it could be considered a cheeseburger tax, but one of the suggestions offered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in its Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) for regulating greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act is to levy a tax on livestock.

You should also read It's the cows!

EPA Presses Obama To Regulate Warming Under Clean Air Act.  [Scroll down]  William L. Kovacs, vice president of environment, technology and regulatory affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said an effort to regulate greenhouse gases based on the EPA's scientific finding "will be devastating to the economy."  "By moving forward with the endangerment finding on greenhouse gases, EPA is putting in motion a set of decisions that may have far-reaching unintended consequences," he said.  "Specifically, once the finding is made, no matter how limited, some environmental groups will sue to make sure it is applied to all aspects of the Clean Air Act."

EPA May Block Navajo Coal Site.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has decided to review permits that would allow the Navajo Nation to build a clean-burning coal power plant on tribal lands in northwestern New Mexico.  The Navajo consider the proposed Desert Rock Energy Station a promising means of escaping generations of abject poverty, but environmental activist groups argue EPA should ban the construction of all coal power plants.

Protect us from the EPA.  One man's meat may be another man's poison, but the Environmental Protection Agency has taken the idea to an absurdity.  EPA has just sent a proposal to the White House that would classify carbon dioxide as a health hazard.  But if there wasn't carbon dioxide around, there would be no plants.  And, for that matter, neither would there be any people or pets if we weren't allowed to exhale.

EPA Supports Cap-and-Trade at Senate Mercury Hearings.  [A number of expert witnesses] pointed out the advances and challenges of new emission control technologies.  Their overall message was that technology cannot yet meet the strict standards the environmental activists seek to impose.  Experts also noted current environmental mercury levels are neither dangerous nor toxic to humans.  Others pointed out much of the nation's ambient mercury is carried here by wind currents from China and would thus be beyond the reach of U.S. rules.

Bush to relax protected species rules.  Parts of the Endangered Species Act may soon be extinct.  The Bush administration wants federal agencies to decide for themselves whether highways, dams, mines and other construction projects might harm endangered animals and plants.

Justices Say E.P.A. Has Power to Act on Harmful Gases.  In one of its most important environmental decisions in years, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday [4/2/2007] that the Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to regulate heat-trapping gases in automobile emissions.

Global Warming Ruling Called 'Victory for the Bad Guys'.  Global warming skeptics reacted strongly Monday to a Supreme Court ruling that the Environmental Protection Agency has the power to regulate carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from cars, calling the decision "bad news" for the country and predicting that the economic fallout will be "vast."

However...
 Supreme Court Ruling Doesn't Mean EPA Will Regulate CO2 Emissions.  The Environment Protection Agency is not required to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from tailpipes, contrary to the impression fostered in media reports about the U.S. Supreme Court's "rebuking the Bush Administration for its inaction."  The court simply ruled the EPA had the authority, not that they had the obligation, according to H. Sterling Burnett, senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA).

Why put fish above our civil liberties?  We have a federal agency devoted entirely to ensuring that the environment is protected before any significant project needed for the public good is allowed to go forward.  Well over $7 billion is spent each year by the Environmental Protection Agency.  Private companies, and state and local governments spend many times that in compliance costs.

Carbon Fiat.  [Scroll down] True, the EPA's ruling is a minor setback for the global warmists.  But it may pour the bureaucratic foundation for their larger policy goal, which is economy-wide regulation of carbon dioxide.  Worse, the Bush EPA may do so by rewriting current environmental law, with little or no political debate.

EPA Sludge Tests:  A "Modern-Day Tuskegee Experiment".  The Associated Press reported April 13 that researchers using federal grant money selected nine families in poor, black Baltimore neighborhoods to test if sludge could reduce child health risks from lead.  Sludge derived from human and industrial waste was tilled into the families' yards and grass was planted over it.

It's not up to the EPA.  If global warming requires regulation, that is a decision for our elected representatives to make, says Jonathan Adler, a professor of environmental and constitutional law at Case Western Reserve University School of Law.  Yet several states and environmentalist groups are asking the Supreme Court to force the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to impose nationwide regulations on greenhouse gases, the most ubiquitous byproducts of modern industrial society.

EPA Seeks To Have Water Vapor Classified As A Pollutant.  If successful, the push to classify water vapor as a dangerous pollutant would impact virtually everyone.  For instance, homeowners could see a wide variety of common activities that cause evaporation being regulated:  watering the lawn, or using a hot tub or swimming pool.  "Right now, we are not so concerned about the water vapor exhaled by people.  That is low on our list of priorities", said Mr. Donaldson.  "We'll tackle that manmade source at a later time."

The Editor says...
 Evidently he's not kidding.  This is just another way the EPA, having outlived its usefulness, is desperately looking for something to fix.  How do you suppose Mr. Donaldson is going to keep the lakes and oceans from producing water vapor?

New EPA Rules Punish Areas for Ozone Improvement.  A notable pattern is becoming apparent:  EPA moves the goalposts every time most of the nation meets the then-present ozone standard.  The evidence shows this is not a health issue at all, but rather EPA's strategy to maintain its substantial regulatory power over the American public.  A review of the historical context of ozone regulation confirms this agenda.

Testimony before a Texas Senate Hearing on Wind Turbines:  I have practiced medicne for 36 years in the United States, and I assure you that people do not die from a change in temperature of 2 degrees or even 4, they do not die from air pollution in the United States.  Not one person.  Killer air and toxic air pollution are an historical problem, not a current problem, created by old industrial pollution more than 50 years ago, combined with a less capable medical system.

Experts Testify on Dangers of Junk Science at EPA.  The experts will testify that EPA has allowed "junk science" about health effects to permeate its work and the national debate over public health regulations.  The consequences are catastrophic:  Enormous public and private expenditures are being mandated to chase tiny and hypothetical health risks.  This not only wastes resources but diverts public attention from true health problems.

"The risks [Superfund] addresses are worst-case, hypothetical present and future risks to the maximum exposed individual, i.e., one who each day consumes two liters of water contaminated by hazardous waste.  The program at one time aimed to achieve a risk range in its cleanups adequate to protect the child who regularly ate liters of dirt. ... And it formerly assumed that all sites, once cleaned up, would be used for residential development, even though many lie within industrial zones.  Some of these assumptions have driven clean-up costs to stratospheric levels and, together with liabilities associated with Superfund sites, have resulted in inner-city sites suitable for redevelopment remaining derelict and unproductive."

E.P.A. Says 17 States Can't Set Emission Rules.  The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday [12/19/2007] denied California and 16 other states the right to set their own standards for carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles.  The E.P.A. administrator, Stephen L. Johnson, said the proposed California rules were pre-empted by federal authority and made moot by the energy bill signed into law by President Bush on Wednesday.

The Editor says...
 California has had its own set of emissions rules for years.  It's a little late for the EPA to object now.  It would be very amusing to see California take the EPA to the Supreme Court, to demand its 10th Amendment rights.

Emissions decision draws fire.  Critics mounted a fierce attack on the Environmental Protection Agency's decision to deny California and other states the right to impose strict vehicle tailpipe emissions limits, with House and Senate committees demanding documents and many state governors vowing to sue to overturn the decision.  President Bush defended the federal agency's decision on Thursday [12/20/2007].

EPA Should Help States Required to Clean Up Foreign Pollution.  Walker County, Georgia Commissioner Bebe Heiskell recently testified to Congress, "Walker County's non-attainment status is almost exclusively due to outside influences on our air quality — including up to 60 percent natural particulate matter, transported from Alaska, Canada, and amazingly Africa, which is completely out of our control."

EPA Proposed Rule Changes Standard With Little Public Benefit.  "Yet again, the EPA is moving the goal post in ozone regulation without considering the cost to the states and local communities.  Air quality has improved significantly over the past 20 years due to innovative technology developed in the marketplace, not by the stroke of a pen in the federal bureaucracy," said Utah Senate Majority Leader Curtis Bramble (R-Provo).

Finding Better Ways to Achieve Cleaner Air:  Air quality regulation is complicated.  The Clean Air Act (CAA) is hundreds of pages long, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has written thousands of pages of compulsively detailed regulations to implement the CAA requirements, along with tens of thousands of pages of guidance documents explaining what the regulations mean.

Facts Not Fear on Air Pollution:  Perhaps the most harmful aspect of air quality regulation is that it has no negative feedbacks that would slow down or stop its bureaucratic expansion.  Regulators' jobs and power depend on a public perception that air pollution is a serious and urgent problem.  Regulators also set the level of the health standards, meaning that they get to decide when their job is finished.  Naturally, it never will be.  The bureaucratic incentives built into air quality regulation explain why regulators and activists work so hard to make it appear that air pollution is still a serious problem, even as air pollution has reached historic lows that have, at worst, minor effects on people's health.

Three Things to Know About Pollution:  (#1) Air quality in the United States has markedly improved.  Between 1993 and 2002, aggregate emissions of the six principle pollutants (nitrogen dioxide, ozone, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter, carbon monoxide and lead) decreased 19 percent.  During the same time period, United States gross domestic product grew at an average of 5.15 percent annually.  Volatile organic compound emissions from cars and trucks have fallen 73.8 percent since 1970, and carbon monoxide emissions from cars have been reduced 64 percent.

Phony Science Begets Phony Public Policy.  Many Americans find tobacco smoke to be a nuisance. … But how successful would anti-smokers have been in a court of law, or public opinion, in achieving the kind of success they've achieved based on tobacco smoke being a nuisance?  A serious public health threat had to be manufactured, and in 1993 the Environmental Protection Agency stepped in to the rescue with their bogus environmental tobacco smoke study that says secondhand tobacco smoke is a class A carcinogen.

Farmers, Cattlemen Challenge New EPA Soot Rules.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) new rule requiring a 50 percent reduction in fine particulate matter allowable over a 24-hour period subjects farmers, cattlemen, and businessmen to inappropriately strict new standards, according to petitions filed December 18 with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.  Farmers and cattlemen, in particular, argued the rule will unjustifiably impose unprecedented regulations on dust kicked up by centuries-old agricultural practices.

Scientific Evidence Shows Secondhand Smoke Is No Danger.  In 1992 EPA published its report, "Respiratory Health Effects of Passive Smoking," claiming [second-hand smoke] is a serious public health problem, that it kills approximately 3,000 nonsmoking Americans each year from lung cancer, and that it is a Group A carcinogen (like benzene, asbestos, and radon). … [But] in November 1995 after a 20-month study, the Congressional Research Service released a detailed analysis of the EPA report that was highly critical of EPA's methods and conclusions.  In 1998, in a devastating 92-page opinion, Federal Judge William Osteen vacated the EPA study, declaring it null and void.  He found a culture of arrogance, deception, and cover-up at the agency.

Vegetable Producers Sued for Air Pollution.  Environmental activist groups in California filed a lawsuit December 27 in the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco claiming the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency should declare the San Joaquin Valley in nonattainment with federal particulate matter (PM) guidelines.  The lawsuit makes good on threats by the activist group Earthjustice to challenge air quality throughout the San Joaquin Valley region.

Administration Selling Environmentalist Window Insurance.  "Climate Czarina" Carol Browner sat down with the press this weekend, offering her best mob enforcer impersonation.  She announced the Obama administration is offering "window insurance" to industry because, well, otherwise, you never know what could happen. ... That's because ... the administration was also preparing to let that stone-throwing EPA over there out of its cage.  If business sued for peace and negotiated the terms of their own execution, why, they wouldn't have to worry about the beast getting loose, in which case she just couldn't promise what it might do.

Carbon Regulation:  One Scientist's Unscientific Dream?  There's an understandably growing unease about the likely prospect that the Obama administration will soon choose to regulate CO2 as a pollutant.  But that disquiet would likely turn quickly to rage if more people knew the truth about the scientific conclusions on which this unprecedented incursion on both industry and individual freedom was based.  You see, it appears that those conclusions weren't based on accepted scientific procedure at all, but were instead predetermined — and perhaps by a single man.

Stop the EPA Before it Destroys America!  If the Environmental Protection Agency were some benign government unit tucked away in the corner of some massive federal government building, we could safely conclude it was doing its job to keep the nation's air and water clean.  It is the very antithesis of that.  It is a Green Gestapo that has wreaked havoc with all aspects of the nation's industrial and agricultural communities, run roughshod over property rights, declared puddles to be navigable waters, and removed invaluable, beneficial chemicals from use to protect the lives and property of all Americans.

Reckless 'Endangerment'.  President Obama's global warming agenda has been losing support in Congress, but why let an irritant like democratic consent interfere with saving the world?  So last Friday the Environmental Protection Agency decided to put a gun to the head of Congress and play cap-and-trade roulette with the U.S. economy.  The pistol comes in the form of a ruling that carbon dioxide is a dangerous pollutant that threatens the public and therefore must be regulated under the 1970 Clean Air Act.

EPA Says CO2 a Threat to Human Health.  Institute for Energy Research (IER) president Thomas J. Pyle today issued the following statement in response to the announcement by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that carbon dioxide is a threat to human health and welfare, and as such:  must be regulated, rationed and restricted by the federal government.

The Great Government CO2 Power Grab.  The inevitable has happened.  The Obama government has declared CO2 — a nutrient required by plants to live, and a gas exhaled with your every breath — a pollutant.  Let there be rejoicing in the ranks of activists.

When Expenses Outweigh Benefits.  Should the Environmental Protection Agency place limits on carbon dioxide emissions, the costs to the oil industry, its customers and consumers in general will be stiff.  Fighting global warming is not cheap.

Did someone mention carbon dioxide?

EPA Says It Will Toss 18th Century Artifacts into a Landfill.  Less than a week after the Environmental Protection Agency restarted a controversial dredging project on the Hudson River, dredgers operated by the General Electric Company dislodged wooden beams that are the last remnants of one of the largest British forts in the American colonies.  The EPA now says that the beams are contaminated with potential carcinogens known as PCBs and therefore must be buried in a landfill.


The EPA tightens air pollution standards in order to justify its existence

Air Pollution Cut in Half, EPA Announces.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has achieved a major milestone in its 34-year battle against air pollution.  As Administrator Michael Leavitt announced on September 22 [2004], "emissions have been cut by more than half (51 percent) since the Clean Air Act was passed in 1970."  Unfortunately, recent polls show the public is unaware that things have improved at all.

But that's not enough.
 EPA Clears Way to Regulate Small Engines.  The Environmental Protection Agency cleared the way Friday [3/17/2006] for regulations to limit pollution from lawn mowers, jet skis and similar small machines. … Without new pollution controls, engines under 50 horsepower would account for 18 percent of smog-forming emissions from mobile sources by 2020, the agency has estimated.

Even as the air gets cleaner every year, the EPA will always be able to find something to regulate, by looking for smaller and smaller problems.

EPA proposing limits on mower emissions.  Engine-powered push mowers and riding mowers account for up to ten percent of summertime smog-forming emissions in some parts of the country. … The proposal effects [sic] engines under 50 horsepower.  The action would cut smog-forming emissions from the engines by 35 percent.

Small Engine Rule to Bring Big Emissions Cuts.  With this proposed rule, nonroad gasoline-powered engines, such as those used in lawn and garden equipment, would see an additional 35 percent reduction in HC and NOx emissions beyond a 60 percent reduction that finished phasing in last year under an earlier rulemaking.

EPA Proposing Limits on Mower Emissions.  Engines under 50 horsepower, which are mostly used to power walk-behind and riding mowers, account for up to 10 percent of summertime smog emissions from mobile sources in some parts of the country.  The Environmental Protection Agency has been considering a proposal that would cut smog-forming emissions from the engines by roughly 40 percent.  [Emphasis added to show that the article describes the worst-case problem and the best possible results from the proposed new regulations.]

This is proof that the EPA is running out of things to do.  There just aren't that many lawnmowers.  The average lawnmower is only a few years old, and only runs a couple of hours per month.  If a lawnmower is in good enough condition to start up and run reliably, it's probably not causing extraordinary pollution.  These new EPA rules are simply a means of keeping the EPA alive -- much like their latest effort to try to regulate the dust kicked up by farm tractors.

The Lawnmower Men:  Al Gore blew into Washington on Thursday, warning that "our very way of life" is imperiled if the U.S. doesn't end "the carbon age" within 10 years.  No one seriously believes such a goal is even remotely plausible.  But if you want to know what he and his acolytes think this means in practice, the Environmental Protection Agency has just published the instruction manual.  Get ready for the lawnmower inspector near you.

Cleaner mower, speedboat engines ordered.  Gasoline-powered lawnmowers that are a big cause of summertime air pollution will have to be dramatically cleaner under rules issued Thursday [9/4/2008] by the Environmental Protection Agency.  The long-awaited regulation requires a 35 percent reduction in emissions from new lawn and garden equipment beginning in 2011.  Big emission reductions are also required for speedboats and other recreational watercraft, beginning in 2010.

Farmers target EPA report they say might tax cows.  For farmers, this stinks:  Belching and gaseous cows and hogs could start costing them money if the federal government decides to charge fees for air-polluting animals.  Farmers so far are turning their noses up at the notion, which they contend is a possible consequence of an Environmental Protection Agency report after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that greenhouse gases from motor vehicles amounts to air pollution.  "This is one of the most ridiculous things the federal government has tried to do," said Alabama Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks, an outspoken opponent of the fees.


Report says US air quality has improved in past decade.  U.S. residents can breathe a bit easier than they did a decade ago, as the number of days that air quality was deemed unhealthy has fallen, according to a report by the American Lung Association on Thursday [4/27/2006].

EPA Makes Mistakes in Proposed New Air Quality Standards.  Over the past three decades, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has repeatedly ratcheted up restrictions and regulatory burdens to regulate ever-decreasing air pollutant emissions, often with no discernable effect on human health.  This process is continuing with EPA's proposed 2006 ambient air standards. … "There is a greater relative risk of whole milk causing lung cancer than the relative risk EPa has shown for air pollution."

Top Ten Junk Science Stories of the Past Decade:  EPA air pollution rules issued in 1997 governing airborne particulate matter (soot) are estimated to cost $10 billion annually.  The EPA claimed soot in ambient air causes tens of thousands of premature deaths every year.  Congress asked the EPA to disclose the scientific data underlying the claims.  EPA refused.  A subsequently enacted law requiring that taxpayer-funded scientific data used to support regulation be made available to the public through the Freedom of Information Act has yet to be enforced.

EPA Whips Up Air Pollution Scare:  As it turns out, the study was funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which conveniently just started a rulemaking process in January that would make outdoor air quality standards more stringent.  The study was released on March 7, in time for the March 8 newspapers — the same day that the EPA held a public hearing in Chicago on the need for new air pollution standards.

Outdated Car-Mileage Tests Steer Buyers Off Course.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's test for mileage hasn't changed since 1974.  Consequently, the tests likely overstate the actual mileage, note observers.  The EPA's "current" mileage tests assume that no one drives more than 60 miles per hour when many states have set the limit at 65 or higher since 1995.  And they assume that no one uses air conditioning, which can cut mileage by as much as 21 percent.

Clinton's EPA Chief Springs the Mercury Trap She Left for Bush.  Although she served as President Clinton's EPA chief for eight years, Carol Browner never imposed a crackdown on power-plant mercury emissions.  But between Bush's election and inauguration, she proposed an expensive, technically infeasible mercury plan — for her successor.  It was an effort to trap Bush by giving him the choice of imposing a draconian policy — or face condemnation by the left for supposedly being "weak" on the environment.

Oiling the Green Political Machine.  Did taxpayers unknowingly help fund the 2004 election campaign to unseat President Bush?  Ignored by the media, a Senate probe has found grants from the Environmental Protection Agency financing a host of anti-Bush political lobbies and activist groups.

Finding Cancer Just About Everywhere:  New guidelines proposed last April [1996] by the EPA would enable the agency to label virtually anything it wants as cancer-causing — regardless of what the science says, according to agency-watchers.  Critics say that while science has never been EPA's strong suit, past EPA cancer risk assessments were at least rooted in science by its traditional guidelines.

Environmental Frauds:  EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman is the cover girl on the May 27 [2002] issue of Insight because the Environmental Protection Agency is being investigated by its Office of Inspector General (OIG) and the FBI.  Central to the controversy is the $100,000 to $250,000 investment interest of Whitman and her husband in Citigroup.  Critics claim this influenced a Super-fund settlement that was allegedly too favorable to Shattuck Chemical Co. or the decision to exclude most of lower Manhattan from the disaster zone surrounding the World Trade Center.  Former EPA ombudsman Robert Martin states that he was forced out after launching a probe into the potential conflict of interest.  While Martin's files were said to be meticulously indexed before being shipped to the OIG's office, they arrived in no discernable order — leading to suspicions that they had been stripped of embarrassing investigative reports.

Science and the Environment:  There is a deliberate and quite outspoken attack on the whole idea of people owning private property.  Mr. William Riley, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, has said publicly on a number of occasions that he does not believe that people should have the right to own private property.

Critics Wonder What's Afoot at EPA.  The Environmental Protection Agency has been spending more money, but doing a lot less, according to the agency's own documents and Congressional records.  Critics say the agency's productivity and effectiveness seem to be dropping.

Why Socialism Causes Pollution:  So many new controls have been proposed and enacted that the late economic journalist Warren Brookes once forecast that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could well become "the most powerful government agency on earth, involved in massive levels of economic, social, scientific, and political spending and interference."

The War on Radon:  Few Join Up.  The EPA has decided that radon is the number one environmental health risk in America:  worse than pesticides and worse than hazardous waste.  Judging from the panic caused by environmental scares such as Alar on apples and chemicals from hazardous waste sites, one might expect the nation's "number one risk" to incite near hysteria.  Yet radon has failed to instill widespread fear in the public mind.

EPA Global Warming Report Violates White House Agreement to Settle Lawsuit:  As a result of the lawsuit filed in October 2000, the Bush Administration ultimately agreed in September 2001 to withdraw the National Assessment and stated that its unlawfully produced conclusions are "not policy positions or official statements of the U.S. government."  EPA has ignored this agreement in issuing its report to the United Nations.

EPA enforcer quits with a flourish, joins left-leaning activist group:  Eric Schaeffer, a 47-year-old attorney and former director of EPA's office of regulatory enforcement, had already lined up a job with the Rockefeller Family Fund when he made his public resignation.  The Rockefeller Family Fund champions outside-the-mainstream environmental issues and funds a variety of environmental activist groups.  The Fund has criticized environmental enforcement as too lax even in the Clinton era.

Is EPA Out of Control?:  In March 1999, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit struck down the Environmental Protection Agency's new air quality standards.  The court found that EPA ignored reliable scientific evidence suggesting that tightening the ozone standard could harm public health.  The court also ruled that since the agency's interpretation of the Clean Air Act provided no "intelligible principle" to justify its actions, the interpretation was unconstitutional.

Attorneys General Versus the EPA:  The latest corrected temperature data from satellite and weather balloon observations, and to a lesser extent from surface measurement, suggest strongly that the earth's warming trend since the late 1970s has been slight, and that the climate models predicting substantial anthropogenic (resulting from human activities) warming are afflicted with significant modeling error. … Efforts to regulate carbon dioxide emissions fundamentally are an effort to achieve "taxation by regulation," that is, wealth redistribution for politically favored groups outside the formal structure of government budgeting through taxation and expenditures.

Anti-science Policies from EPA:  Carol Browner's own Scientific Advisory Panel … rejected the EPA's proposal to declare the nation's highest-use herbicide, atrazine, a "likely carcinogen."  Few papers covered it, and the most prominent, USA Today, got the story backward.  It declared:  "The most commonly used herbicide in the USA has been upgraded from a 'possible' to a 'likely' carcinogen in a draft report prepared by scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency."

Regulatory Excess:  In response to a lawsuit filed by the American Lung Association, an EPA-funded lobbying group, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has imposed ever more stringent standards on ground-level ozone and particulates.  These standards are based on inadequate science and wildly unrealistic cost/benefit figures, yet EPA Administrator Carol Browner ignored comments put forth during the formal review process and zealously moved ahead.

The Environmental Propaganda Agency:  Seven years after the U.S. Congress ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of the Clean Air Act, the EPA submitted a report greatly exaggerating its achievements.  The agency's 1999 follow-up study on air pollution continues to place bureaucratic imperatives above the search for truth.

Supreme Court Rules EPA Can Override States on Environment.  In an ongoing fight between states and the federal government over control of environmental policy, the federal government has notched an important victory in the U.S. Supreme Court.  Other such disputes are currently in the courts, so it will soon become apparent whether this decision shifts the balance of environmental power further towards the federal government.

Can No One Stop the EPA?  In the case of new EPA standards for particulate matter and ozone, the actions and policies of unelected federal regulators, even when highly questionable, can go unchallenged and unchecked.

Scientists Decry "Atmosphere of Fear" at EPA.  The misuse of science at the Environmental Protection Agency has gone from the "chronic to the acute," according to David Lewis, a 28-year veteran of EPA.

More Junk Science from EPA:  EPA insists on including highly speculative but enormous estimates of the health effects of reducing particulate matter concentrations.

EPA Games:  What doesn't Carol Browner want us to know about her zealously activist reign at the Environmental Protection Agency?  Someone was playing games at EPA all right.  It wasn't just Browner's little boy.

New Cars are Dramatically Cleaner than Recent Models.  Over the long term, these new standards signal nothing short of the end to air pollution as we know it.  "Even after accounting for growth, total vehicle emissions will decline more than 80 percent during the next twenty years or so," concludes American Enterprise Institute visiting fellow Joel Schwartz, author of No Way Back:  Why Air Pollution Will Continue to Decline.  At those levels, any lingering public health threat from air pollution would virtually cease to exist.

 Editor's Note:   After reading the above article, it sounds as if we no longer need the Environmental Protection Agency.  Their work is finished!  But what are the chances that the EPA (or any other federal agency) will go out of business when its goal is accomplished?

EPA Expected to Declare Carbon Dioxide a Dangerous Pollutant.  Don't exhale.  That advice may need heeding if the Environmental Protection Agency declares carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases dangerous pollutants, a move — expected in the next couple weeks — that would require the federal government to impose new rules limiting emissions.  But some skeptics say regulating carbon dioxide, a byproduct of burning fossil fuels, may be a difficult task, especially since people emit carbon dioxide with every breath.

Say no to the supersized TV, EPA hints.  How big is too big when it comes to TV screen size? How much energy does the U.S. gobble up watching television?  If you ask the Environmental Protection Agency, the answers would be (a) anything over 50 inches and (b) about 4 percent of all household electricity.  "There are about 275 million TVs currently in use in the U.S., consuming over 50 billion kWh of energy each year — or 4 percent of all households' electricity use.

EPA must do more than just say no.  The decision by the federal Environmental Protection Agency to unilaterally pull the mining permits for 79 mountaintop coal mines is a baffling action that leaves in the lurch investors, miners and half the electric customers in the United States.  Some clarification is needed — and quickly.

The 'Absurd Results' Doctrine.  The EPA has now formally made an "endangerment finding" on CO2, which will impose the commandand-control regulations of the Clean Air Act across the entire economy. ... In any case, the point of this reckless "endangerment" is to force industry and politicians wary of raising taxes to concede, lest companies have to endure even worse economic and bureaucratic destruction from the EPA.

Obama's EPA is a regulator reborn.  To appreciate the extent to which the Environmental Protection Agency under President Obama is a regulator reborn, consider this:  EPA officials have begun to cut air pollution by invoking the Clean Water Act.  Long quiescent under President George W. Bush, the agency is churning out initiatives and regulations at a pace that pleases its friends in the environmental movement and frightens many in the business community.

"Government bureaucracies and public institutions have a unique way of signaling that they no longer serve any purpose and it's time to eliminate or drastically reform them.  They do so by conducting themselves in a manner that demonstrates self preservation has become their one and only objective."
— John Martin   

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