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Politics : Politics of Energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Eric who wrote (14891)	12/8/2009 6:20:31 PM
From: longnshort	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86355

Tell it to the salmon

To: Eric who wrote (14891)	12/8/2009 6:40:06 PM
From: Peter Dierks	Respond to of 86355

EPA declares air a danger to human health posted at 2:30 pm on December 7, 2009 by Ed Morrissey For the first time ever, the Environmental Protection Agency has declared a naturally-occurring substance in the air a danger to human health. Carbon dioxide, which has existed as a major component of Earth’s atmosphere for billions of years — and which is necessary for plant growth — is now a declared pollutant. The determination gives the EPA wide-ranging authority over the operations of energy production and manufacturing: The Environmental Protection Agency has concluded greenhouse gases are endangering people’s health and must be regulated, signaling that the Obama administration is prepared to contain global warming without congressional action if necessary. … Under a Supreme Court ruling, the so-called endangerment finding is needed before the EPA can regulate carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases released from power plants, factories and automobiles under the federal Clean Air Act. The EPA signaled last April that it was inclined to view heat-trapping pollution as a threat to public health and welfare and began to take public comments under a formal rulemaking. The action marked a reversal from the Bush administration, which had declined to aggressively pursue the issue. Business groups have strongly argued against tackling global warming through the regulatory process of the Clean Air Act. Any such regulations are likely to spawn lawsuits and lengthy legal fights. The EPA and the Obama administration threatened to do this when their cap-and-trade bill first began to stall on Capitol Hill. The determination of CO2 as a pollutant — which is patently ridiculous on its face — allows the White House to bypass Congress and begin dictating to producers on carbon-emission reductions. Don’t kid yourself into thinking the EPA doesn’t understand the scope of its power. By classifying CO2 and methane (among other so-called greenhouse gases, it can inject itself into just about every industry in the US. Energy production will be its primary target, but the EPA has also gone after coal mining on the basis of the Clean Water Act; it will certainly not be shy about using this new authority to kill coal mining altogether. It will also impact agriculture, especially dairies and cattle ranching, as well as transportation. The entire manufacturing sector will have to answer for its output. This really is the worst of all outcomes. The EPA process can be restrained by Congress, but it will take positive action for that to happen — and in most cases, would take the assent of Barack Obama. About the only way Congress could stop the EPA’s effort to seize control of production without Obama would be to defund the agency, or at least its regulatory efforts. That certainly won’t happen with the current Congress. hotair.com

To: Eric who wrote (14891)	12/8/2009 7:53:03 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86355

Wind turbines to kill 900,000 - 1,800,000 bird deaths by 2030? .... The wind industry is prepared to increase the number of turbines 30 fold over the next 20 years, in order to fulfill the President’s request that renewable energy projects supply 20% of the nation’s energy needs by 2030. At the current estimated mortality rate, the wind industry will be killing 900,000 to 1.8 million birds per year. While this number is a relatively small percentage of the total number of birds estimated to live in North America many of the bird species being killed are already declining for other reasons, and losses of more than a million birds per year would exacerbate these unexplained declines. Data from the FWS Migratory Bird Management and Breeding Bird Survey by the US Geological Service indicate that at least 223 species of our native bird species are in significant decline (about 1/4 of all species in US). The mortality at wind farms is significant, because many of the species most impacted are already in decline, and all sources of mortality contribute to the continuing decline. wind-watch.org .... If the approximately 900 turbines currently proposed for wooded ridge tops within a 70-mile radius of our study sites in Pennsylvania and West Virginia are built, those turbines alone could kill more than 50,000 bats a year. Given bats’ low reproductive rates, kills of such magnitude could put entire species at risk. batcon.org Some of us do care however. Really?