The National Resources Defense Council has put together a handy collection of MSM love for the EPA’s power grab over CO2 emissions.
Some excerpts:
2011: Year of the EPA?, Washington Post, (editorial), 12/31/10. Congress hasn’t passed a sensible, comprehensive energy policy. EPA regulation of greenhouse gases is one way the government can cut emissions now, using current law. Over the next year, the president should defend his administration’s authority to do so.
Needless conflict. Once again, Texas environmental regulators’ obstruction forces EPA intervention, The Houston Chronicle, (editorial), 12/30/10. In its zeal to fight the federal government, the administration of Gov. Rick Perry continues to put politics over the interests of Texans. The latest example is the confrontation over greenhouse gas permitting that has resulted in the Environmental Protection Agency taking over what was a state function… Far better would be a state policy to work with the federal environmental regulators to meet the new pollution standards, as some individual refinery operators in Texas are already doing.
The EPA goes after carbon, The Miami Herald, (editorial), 12/29/10. The Clean Air Act turned 40 this year, as did the Environmental Protection Agency, which was created to enforce that new law and others Congress adopted to reduce all types of pollution. But it has taken this many years for the EPA to begin flexing its regulatory muscles to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, the principle culprit linked to climate change.
EPA: Regulate greenhouse gases, Lexington Herald-Leader, (editorial), 12/29/10. Certain industries will always declare the end of the world anytime they are subjected to new environmental standards. One prime example is acid-rain regulations in the 1980s. Utilities warned then of all sorts of dire economic consequences if they were forced to curb sulfur and nitrogen emissions that were killing forests. But the economy and republic survived just fine, along with the trees.
A Coming Assault on the EPA, New York Times, (editorial), 12/25/10. Ms. Browner could remind the president that it was after a dispiriting Republican midterm victory that President Bill Clinton found his feet on environmental issues. In 1995, the Newt Gingrich crowd came to town promising to overturn a whole body of environmental law. Mr. Clinton rose up, not only winning the big battles, but eventually compiling a sterling record. Mr. Obama should emulate him.
The EPA Acts, Toledo Blade, (editorial), 12/31/10. The decision by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to limit greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and refineries is welcome, especially since Congress stubbornly refuses to protect the nation’s air.
California leads way on global warming, San Francisco Chronicle, (editorial), 12/20/10. Washington failed miserably to take action on climate change this year. The nation’s best hope is California, which made a historic leap forward last week when its Air Resources Board approved a broad-based cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gases.
The whole sorry collection is here.