How Bush Got His Groove Back
Globaloney Sandwich
BIG LIZARDS BLOG
Hatched by Dafydd
Today, President George W. Bush did something that shocked some of us: With a sweep of his presidential hand, he rejected the attempt by a low-level advisor to the Environmental Protection Agency to force the administration to regular carbon dioxide (which we all exhale) as a "pollutant," defying both the Democrats and the Supreme Court:
* The Bush administration, dismissing the recommendations of its top experts, rejected regulating the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming Friday, saying it would cripple the U.S. economy.
In a 588-page federal notice, the Environmental Protection Agency made no finding on whether global warming poses a threat to people's health or welfare, reversing an earlier conclusion at the insistence of the White House and officially kicking any decision on a solution to the next president and Congress. *
The Democrats -- both their political wing in Congress and their journalistic wing -- reacted with befuddled fury; how dare the president try to censor Jason K. Burnett, the Democrats' best friend, when all he wanted to do was save the planet!
But we say good on President Bush that he finally found, well, the courage to tell both the Democratic mole inside the EPA and also the Supreme Court to go jump. The Democrats wanted Bush to use the Clean Air Act to "regulate" (ration and tax) carbon dioxide; but Bush said that the law was meant to cover pollutants... not perfectly natural gases that are, in fact, essential to plant life.
He says that it's up to the Democratic Congress to go through the formal process of trying to enact a new law to regulate carbon and carbonoids, if that's what they really want:
* The White House on Thursday rejected the EPA's suggestion three weeks earlier that the 1970 Clean Air Act can be both workable and effective for addressing global climate change. The EPA said Friday that law is "ill-suited" for dealing with global warming.
"If our nation is truly serious about regulating greenhouse gases, the Clean Air Act is the wrong tool for the job," EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson told reporters. "It is really at the feet of Congress." *
But this is one of those "don't throw me in that bridal path" moments, because the minute the Democrats try to write a globaloney bill into law, they will run smack into the buzzsaw of the economy and energy prices: The people want, and will want for the forseeable future, more drilling... not lame and transparent attempts to force an end to the use of fossil fuels.
The Democrats at least realize they don't want to take the heat (no pun) for crippling the American economy; rather, they want to force Bush to do it -- then blame him for any problems:
* Congress hasn't found the will to do much about the problem either. Supporters of regulating greenhouse gases could get only 48 votes in the 100-member Senate last month. The House has held several hearings on the problem but no votes on any bill addressing it. Both major presidential candidates, Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, have endorsed variations of the approach rejected by the Senate. *
What's interesting is that this is not really a fight over "anthropogenic global climate change," though that is at the heart of the dispute. The real issue here is the unitary Executive, which Democrats have failed to understand since the year Dot.
They believe, or at least claim, that the theory of the unitary Executive is that the president (the
"Executive" of the country) rules over both the other two branches, becoming supreme leader. This is risible on its face: The president cannot arbitrarily alter the Constitution, so he's stuck with the balance of powers. Rather, the theory of the unitary Executive is that the chief executive (the president) is the final voice of authority for anything emanating from an Executive department, including the EPA. Members of the agency, let alone individual, appointed members of the scientific staff, do not have authority to run their own foreign policy against the president's wishes.
Thus, it is (or should be) meaningless what a lower-level advisory committee at the EPA said about their grandiose plans; Bush has the authority to make them change their findings... especially when the science is still unsettled (scores of scientsts on "the other side" advancing very plausible counter-arguments that globaloney is just that... baloney). And especially does this president have the virtue of rightness on his side, since several other cabinet heads are totally opposed to trying to implement the Court's holding:
* The EPA said it had encountered resistance from the Agriculture, Commerce, Energy and Transportation departments, as well as the White House, that made it "impossible" to respond in a timely fashion to the Supreme Court decision.
"Our agencies have serious concerns with this suggestion because it does not fairly recognize the enormous -- and, we believe, insurmountable -- burdens, difficulties, and costs, and likely limited benefits, of using the Clean Air Act" to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, the secretaries of the four agencies wrote to the White House on Wednesday. *
While the GOP was in control of Congress, it sometimes seemed as if Bush's only function (apart from Iraq) was to rubber-stamp anything the Republican legislature sent him. But with the loss of both chambers in 2006, Rip Van Bush as awaked from his 40-year slumber and roared into his true power as president: I daresay he has had more success against the Democrats than against his own party.
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