Biden Administration's Environmental Injustices

Paul Driessen May 23, 2023 

President Biden recently issued a 5,400-word executive order directing all federal agencies to emphasize “environmental justice” in every decision they make.  

After ducking questions for weeks on what remediation, remuneration and environmental justice the administration is providing East Palestine, Ohio residents following a toxic railway chemical spill, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre explained the EO in her inimitable style: 

The President has “the most ambitious climate agenda than any other president in history, and one way that you can look at this today is that he’s continuing to deliver on that ambitious agenda, and he’s not done yet. This is a continuing continuation of what he’s promised the American people.”

In plain English, the order enables each agency to implement this infinitely malleable “justice” concept to justify whatever policies and regulations it is implementing in the name of abating the “climate crisis” and “fundamentally transforming” America’s energy and economic systems. It also allows agencies to ignore any “justice” issues that might interfere with their plans. 

The Environmental Protection Agency quickly issued a press release citing justice and “equity” rationales for eliminating coal and gas power plants, internal-combustion vehicles, and gas stoves, ovens, furnaces and water heaters – all of which it says contribute to global warming. 

EPA claims “children are uniquely vulnerable” to climate-related impacts like rising temperatures that can cause “lifelong consequences” for their concentration, learning, academic achievement and earnings potential. Moreover, these effects “disproportionately fall on children who are Black, Indigenous and People of Color, low income, without health insurance, and/or have limited English proficiency.” 

Of course, air conditioning reduces high temperatures in schools and homes, thereby avoiding these far-fetched problems. During wintertime, gas furnaces (or reliable, affordable coal or gas-generated electric heat) keep students warm when outdoor temperatures plummet to deadly lows. 

However, both cooling and heating systems will become unavailable or unaffordable to these same classes of people in the wake of government decrees that coal and gas be banished, and electricity provided by expensive, weather-dependent wind and solar. That’s already happening in Europe.

The Economist reported that 68,000 people died in Europe this past winter because energy prices have rocketed so high that many families can no longer afford to heat their homes properly. 

Meanwhile, EPA asserts that closing coal and gas power plants would prevent 1,300 “premature deaths” by 2042 from global warming. That’s a hypothetical 65 deaths annually. 

Allowing for Europe versus US population differences, more than 30,000 Americans would die needlessly every year, if energy prices soar as high as they have in Europe. Minority and low and middle income families would be disproportionately affected and least able to afford proper winter heating. Without affordable, dependable AC, thousands more would likely die during sweltering summers. Just keeping lights on and computers running requires reliable, affordable electricity. 

EPA didn’t consider these realities in its news release, regulations or “environmental justice” contortions, because the agency is pushing an agenda, not providing honest, scientific evidence. The agency and Biden EO routinely ignore inconvenient realities like the following, as well. 

Rushing to eliminate coal and gas power plants before America has sufficient reliable alternative electricity supplies will destabilize state and national power grids, causing repeated blackouts, disproportionately affecting families that cannot afford emergency backup generators. 

EPA rules dramatically reducing tailpipe emissions will force families to buy electric cars that average over $65,000 in price – and light, medium, heavy-duty and long-haul trucks that could cost twice as much as gasoline or diesel versions. Blue-collar families will be hammered hardest. 

Farmers will be compelled to pay far more for electric tractors, and for natural-gas-based fertilizers and pesticides that will likewise be much more expensive. Food prices will soar still higher, forcing disadvantaged families to choose between food, heat, clothing and other needs. 

Families and landlords will also be required to replace high-efficiency gas furnaces with pricey electric systems ... or expensive heat pumps that don’t even work well in sub-freezing weather. 

Middle class families will see their living standards plummet. Poor households will be unable to improve their lives. Rural communities will become increasingly isolated, turned into energy colonies for heavily Democrat urban voting blocs, with wind turbines, solar panels and transmission lines horizon to horizon. 

Federal agencies will likely just parrot the Bank of England’s callous, imperious attitude: 

People just “need to accept that they’re worse off and stop trying to maintain their real spending power.” Ruling elites will do fine. Why would they worry about us commoners? 

Soaring prices for intermittent electricity will force many factories and businesses to close. Workers will have to take low-pay jobs installing, maintaining, repairing and replacing wind turbines, solar panels and other equipment – and hauling worn out, obsolete and broken parts to enormous rural landfills. 

“Clean, renewable, sustainable” energy technologies require vastly more non-renewable, unsustainable metals, minerals and other raw materials than their fossil fuel counterparts. The overseas mining, processing and manufacturing operations run on fossil fuels and emit vast quantities of carbon dioxide and toxic air and water pollutants, generally under no or minimal laws governing pollution ... or slave and child labor, workplace safety, health, or other environmental justice and human rights issues. 

The supply chains and even finished product chains increasingly run through China, which is also taking over electric vehicle markets. Especially under a Biden Administration that opposes almost any mining or processing in the USA, China will only increase its dominance of cobalt, graphite, lithium, nickel and other critical material suppliess, all but necessitating tepid responses to Chinese (and Russian) military and territorial ambitions. The Asian and African environmental justice implications should be obvious. 

Even doubling or tripling today’s global mining levels would not meet the soaring materials demands for the millions of wind turbines, billions of solar panels, billions of battery modules, millions of heating systems and transformers, and hundreds of thousands of miles of new transmission lines that an American Net-Zero economy would require. A global energy transformation would likely be catastrophic for economies, jobs, living standards, human rights, wildlife and environmental quality. 

Abundant, reliable, affordable, mostly fossil fuel energy has liberated people from back-breaking toil. The energy scarcity and de-industrialization promoted and imposed by Biden and other Western governments is rolling living standards, health and personal freedoms backward, in the name of “climate justice.” The adverse effects will be worst for women, the poor and people of color. 

Italian dictator Benito Mussolini said, “The Fascist State lays claim to rule in the economic field no less than in others; it makes its actions felt throughout the length and breadth of the country by means of its corporate, social and educational institutions, and all the political, economic and spiritual forces of the nation.” 

That description sounds all too appropriate for the situation America and the world increasingly confront today. The gravest threat to our living standards, freedoms and environmental justice is not from climate change. It is from dictatorial edicts imposed in the name of controlling Earth’s perpetually fickle climate. 

Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books and articles on energy, climate change, environmental policy and human rights.  

Childish Beliefs Drive Lethal Energy and Agricultural Agendas

Biden and environmentalist policies would destroy agriculture, habitats, products and nutrition

Paul Driessen

Many eco-activists (and too many legislators, regulators, judges and journalists) have trouble thinking beyond slogans. They apparently believe declaring ecological emergencies, repeating clever mantras, and issuing proclamations and mandates will create a fossil-fuel-free, organic farming utopia. In their dreams.

Since 1950, American farmers increased per-acre corn yields by an incredible 500% – and other crop yields by smaller but still amazing amounts, while using less land, water, fuel, fertilizers and pesticides. Their exports helped slash global hunger and malnutrition. Farmers in Brazil, India and other countries worldwide have likewise enjoyed record harvests in recent years. Their success has many “roots.”

Hybrid seeds combine valuable traits from different plants. Biotech seeds protect crops against insects and viruses and reduce water and pesticide demand. Nitrogen fertilizers (synthesized from natural gas) join phosphorus and potassium in supercharging soils. School and online programs offer libraries of agricultural success tools. Increased atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) further spurs plant growth.

Long-lasting herbicides control weeds that would otherwise steal moisture and nutrients from crops, while enabling farmers to utilize no-till farming that avoids breaking up soils, reduces erosion, further retains soil moisture and preserves vital soil organisms. Israeli-developed drip irrigation delivers water without the evaporation characteristic of other irrigation methods.

Modern high-tech tractors use GPS systems, sensors, cameras and other equipment to steer precise courses across fields, while constantly measuring soil composition, and injecting just the right kinds and amounts of fertilizers, herbicides and insecticides, along with seeds, to ensure optimal harvests.

Imagine the bounteous crops for humanity if all these technologies could spread across the globe.

Instead, this planet-saving, life-saving progress is under assault – by well-meaning or ideologically driven, ill-advised or ill-intended … but all well-funded … organizations that demand natural gas bans, “more Earth friendly” agriculture and a return to “traditional farming lifestyles.”

Their hatred of biotech crops is intense and well-documented, but they also despise hybrid seeds. They want modern herbicides and insecticides banned, in favor of “natural” alternatives that are often toxic  to bees, animals and people and are rarely tested for residues on produce or long-term toxicity to humans. They demand “natural” fertilizers, which often provide a tiny fraction of nutrients that modern synthetic fertilizers do.

They want to teach only “traditional” (ie, subsistence) farming, especially in Africa. They prefer to call it “food sovereignty” – which they claim is the “right” to “culturally appropriate” food produced through “ecologically sound and sustainable methods,” in accord with AgroEcology policies. In other words, millions more people (ruling elites and their kids?) doing back-breaking stoop labor, dawn to dusk.

Tractors? Why not horses, oxen or human labor, they ask? At least get rid of gasoline and diesel tractors and trucks, in favor of electric models. Never mind that EV tractors and combines would require several tons of battery modules, and still wouldn’t be able to do a full day’s work without hours-long recharges.

They want oil and gas locked in the ground. “We don’t need petrochemical products, especially synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides.” Or tractor tires, paint, windows, GPS/computer housings, and more.

Have these illiterati looked at their own clothing, food, homes, offices or world? Synthetic fabrics, cosmetics, cell phone and computer housings, pharmaceuticals, tapes and adhesives, protective gear, eyeglasses, car bodies, detergents, wind turbine nacelle covers and blades, medical devices, car bodies – practically everything around them and in their lives exists because of oil, gas and petrochemicals.

But we can just use biofuels to replace feed stocks for products we really need, they proclaim. Right.

Banishing oil, gas, petrochemicals and internal-combustion engines would certainly mean no more ethanol as a gasoline additive. That would eliminate the need to grow corn on 36,000,000 acres (equivalent to Iowa), and that land could be used for food crops or wildlife habitat. Except it won’t be.

Organic farms have significantly lower crop yields per acre and require far more land than conventional agriculture. Worse, ending oil and gas production means tens of millions of acres would have to be planted with biofuel crops, to provide feed stocks for thousands of now-petrochemical products.

That means vastly more tractors or human labor – and more water, fertilizers and pesticides – to cultivate and harvest sugar and oilseed crops (and algae). And then all those simple biofuel molecules would have to be transformed into much more complex hydrocarbons to provide the necessary feed stocks. That would require even more energy, from even more wind turbines and solar panels – on top of doubling or tripling our existing electricity needs, to transform the U.S. and global economies to all-electric systems, and repeatedly recharge the grid-balancing and power backup batteries those systems would require.

Or perhaps Team Biden plans to simply import all those petrochemicals and/or products – as it seems to be planning with regard to wind turbines, solar panels, battery modules, transformers and other “green” energy equipment. America will not be able to produce any of it, because Team Biden and its allies oppose mining and drilling in the USA (even for raw materials essential for their utopian “renewable” energy transformation – and we won’t even have affordable, reliable electricity to operate factories.

How can these “best and brightest” decision-makers and advisors be so ignorant, inept and clueless – so unable to connect even two or three dots? They’re destroying our planet, habitats and wildlife, to “Save the Earth” from a computer-modeled “climate crisis” that President Biden absurdly insists is “a greater threat than nuclear war.”

They base critical policies that deeply affect lives and livelihoods everywhere on childish beliefs in Santa Claus and Harry Potter. They think we can banish today’s energy and agricultural resources and technologies – and amazing replacements will just be there … via some mystical, mythical process called Materials Acquisition for Government-mandated Infrastructure Change (MAGIC).

Some of them know this cannot possibly happen, but promote the policies anyway. They seem to believe they can mandate that “common folks” will just have to live austerely, under nineteenth or early twentieth century living standards, in 700-square-foot apartments, using electricity when it’s available (not when they need it), and subsisting on bug burgers and larvae milk.

They think Africa would be “the perfect laboratory” for testing new foods, like “crackers, muffins, meat loaves and sausages” made from lake flies. If all that fails, they’ll just impose forced rationing.  

Others would go even further. Obama science advisor John Holdren advocated “de-development of the [United States and other over-developed countries] and semi-development of the under-developed countries, to approach a decent and ecologically sustainable standard of living for all in between.”

Oceanographer Jacques Cousteau once said, “in order to stabilize world populations, we must eliminate 350,000 people per day.” Environmental Defense scientist Charles Wurster said “People are the cause of all the problems…. We need to get rid of some of them, and [banning DDT] is as good a way as any.”

Environmental and racial justice? Campaigns, policies government actions to eradicate fossil fuels and modern agricultural practices and technologies go well beyond callous and imperious. They go well beyond eco-imperialism, eco-colonialism and eco-Apartheid. They drive eco-manslaughter on a global scale via energy, farming and climate policy. They impose systemic, systematic racism.

These ideas, and these policy proponents, are what should be banished from government, media and academic institutions. Not the wondrous technologies that make modern life possible. 

Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books and articles on energy, climate change, environmental policy and human rights.

Biden DOJ sets up a new 'Office of Environmental Justice' -- headed by another fanatic

May 7, 2022 By Monica Showalter

As if we didn't need yet another government agency in this age of behemoth federal spending, the Biden administration has saddled the U.S. with a new one, the Office of Environmental Justice. The $1.4 million monstrosity will be buried within the U.S. Department of Justice under the authority of U.S. associate attorney general, Vanita Gupta, who set up the new bureaucracy-enforcer arm. It will be headed by one Cynthia M. Ferguson, whose title is acting director. And you can bet it's going to be a problem.

According to the Washington Examiner:

The Justice Department is launching a new Office of Environmental Justice, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced on Thursday, which will seek to redress health risks from climate change faced by minorities and low-income people in the United States.

“Although violations of our environmental laws can happen anywhere, communities of color, indigenous communities, and low-income communities often bear the brunt of the harm caused by environmental crime, pollution, and climate change,” Garland said at a news conference on Thursday.

“For far too long, these communities have faced barriers to accessing the justice they deserve,” Garland said, adding that the Justice Department “will prioritize the cases that will have the greatest impact on the communities most overburdened by environmental harm.”

Which sounds like a shakedown operation. We already know that activist groups have conspired with the Environmental Protection Agency for millions in payouts as well as the 'right' to write regulations themselves in exchange for not protesting the agency. We saw the details of that scandal in the late Obama years, after President Trump's officials came to power and put a stop to it. Remember this?

In fulfilling his promise to end the practice of regulation through litigation that has harmed the American public, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt issued an agency-wide directive Oct. 16 designed to end “sue and settle” practices within the agency..........To Read More.....

 

The Looking Glass World Of "Climate Injustice" -- Part I

September 05, 2021/ Francis Menton @ Manhattan Contrarian

This is Part II of what will now be a series titled “The Looking Glass World Of ‘Climate Injustice.’” The original post in what is now this series appeared way back on April 11, 2014. The thesis was that while climate campaigners prattle on about very minor supposed differential impacts of “climate change'“ upon the poor, at the same time the same campaigners demand schemes to intentionally devastate the economic situation of the poor by decreasing the availability and increasing the price of energy. The particular focus of the April 2014 post was policies advocated by the U.N., although the reasoning would apply equally to all national and international schemes to reduce carbon emissions. Excerpt:

Given the serious hardship faced by the world’s poor in the absence of energy access, one would think that a top priority of the U.N. would be finding ways to achieve that access as quickly, as cheaply, and as reliably as possible. But in fact, under the banner of so-called “climate justice,” the U.N. is doing exactly the opposite. It is doing its best to hobble, hinder and obstruct development of the cheapest and most reliable sources of energy in the third world, . . .

Fast forward seven years to today, and we now have the Biden administration going all in on the embrace of what they call “environmental justice” as the prime motivation behind trillions of proposed dollars of spending to transform the nation’s energy economy. It all kicked off with Biden’s January 27, 2021 Executive Order, commanding that all government agencies adopt a new focus on this “environmental justice” thing. Excerpt:

To secure an equitable economic future, the United States must ensure that environmental and economic justice are key considerations in how we govern. That means investing and building a clean energy economy . . . . Agencies shall make achieving environmental justice part of their missions by developing programs, policies, and activities to address the disproportionately high and adverse human health, environmental, climate-related and other cumulative impacts on disadvantaged communities, as well as the accompanying economic challenges of such impacts . . . .

Following the President’s directive, the EPA is just out with a big new Report titled “Climate Change and Social Vulnerability in the United States.” Take a look at the Report, and you will see these geniuses struggling to articulate exactly how climate change is supposedly going to differentially impact the poor or minorities in any way that anybody (including themselves) can even notice. Here are a few choice quotes from the Executive Summary:

• “Those with low income or no high school diploma are approximately 25% more likely than non-low income individuals and those with a high school diploma to currently live in areas with the highest projected losses of labor hours due to increases in high-temperature days with 2°C of global warming.” Hang on — even assuming that “high temperature days” are increasing (they are not) does anyone actually lose “labor hours” due to high temperature days? As far as I know, the economy of places like Texas and Arizona, with summers above 100 deg F for weeks on end, continue to function without notable interruption.

• “With higher levels of global warming and sea level rise, the risks to socially vulnerable groups are generally projected to remain approximately the same or increase.” Scary!

• “Minorities are 41% more likely than non-minorities to currently live in areas with the highest projected increases in traffic delays from high-tide flooding associated with 50 cm of global sea level rise.” So exactly how many people in a given year experience “traffic delays” due to “high tide flooding”? They don’t say, but a good answer would be “almost none.”

Against these completely speculative and almost negligible harms to small numbers of people, we have the Biden administration working diligently to cause a dramatic increase in the price of energy, to the obvious significant detriment of everyone, and most particularly the poor and minorities. From its first days in office, the Biden crowd has fought pipelines, fought fracking, tried to ban drilling on federal lands, threatened the coal industry, and otherwise tried everything it could think of to decrease the availability and increase the price of energy that works. As one small indication of the results so far, the price of gasoline at the pump, per EIA data, has gone from an average of $2.55/gallon in January 2021 when Biden took office, to $3.16/gallon in August 2021 — an increase of about 24% in under 8 months.

But rest assured that the “environmental justice” crowd has only gotten started in their efforts to impoverish the poor in order to save them. As one indication of what they have in store for us, check out the August 16 article from Nature Sustainability titled “Personal carbon allowances revisited.” Here’s the idea: the government gives everyone a “personal carbon allowance” or PCA for the year. That’s all the carbon you can use, and when you have used up your allowance, it’s no more heat or driving or electricity for you. Then, every year, they just reduce the PCA a little until it gets to zero. Easy. Excerpt:

The literature highlights the importance of economic incentives, cognitive awareness, prevailing social norms and education as drivers for pro-environmental decision-making and behaviour. Research indicates that behavioural change could be engendered by creating a direct and visible incentive to reduce carbon emissions. Studies show that people tend to adhere to the prevailing norm and that descriptive social norms and comparison with others influence decisions about electricity use and mode of transport. Building on this literature, PCAs are envisaged to deliver carbon-emissions-related behavioural change via three interlinked mechanisms: economic, cognitive and social. . . .

Got that? Once the “experts” in our administrative bureaucracies have decreed how much carbon you can use in a year, that will become a social norm, and peer pressure will come to bear upon you not to exceed your limit. So of course you will conform. If December comes and you’ve used up your annual limit, I guess that means that you will just gladly turn off the lights and the heat and freeze.

I haven’t seen this particular idea yet put forth by the Bidenites, but it’s only a question of time. For myself, I’m considering buying one of these fire pits so that I can gratuitously flare off propane all day to show them what I think of their idiocy.

 

Will Schumer ‘Go Pelosi’ on Masks? And Mysteries of the Democrats

By Lawrence Kudlow, Special to the Sun |July 31, 2021

Yesterday I offered to make bail for Senator Marsha Blackburn just in case the Senate goes Pelosi and Chuck Schumer orders a mask mandate subject to arrest if you fail to follow it. Hasn’t happened yet, but you never know.

I’m convinced Madam Speaker’s secret sauce to defeat Republican free enterprise principles is to just arrest all the GOP house members. It’s a terrific plan. Much better than cogent analysis with numerical facts. Just clean them out. Now, of course I’m just kidding. It’s a joke. Is it? We’ll see.

Next up is the infrastructure bill. I just want to raise a puzzling question: What is the environmental justice review. It’s in there. It’s not a permitting review, because outside of highways there’s no National Environmental Policy Act permitting reform. The environmental justice review could probably mean anything you want it to mean.

We’re talking total regulation of every nook and cranny in the economy in the name of environmental justice. There’s no telling how much that’s going to cost. I doubt the democrats ever want to clearly define this thing, and, by the way, while we’re on the subject of the environment, it’s worth reminding that U.S. carbon emissions have fallen 25% since 2005........To Read More....

 

 

Pelosi: 'We Must Pursue Justice--Economic Justice, Justice in Health, Racial Justice, Environmental and Climate Justice'

 By Susan Jones | January 4, 2021

After winning her fourth term as House Speaker on Sunday -- with only 211 votes to Republican Kevin McCarthy's 209 -- Rep. Nancy Pelosi addressed the 117th Congress, urging her fellow Members to "all pray personally, pray that let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with us."

Pelosi said prayers are "very needed now," as the new Congress begins "during a time of extraordinary difficulty." She mentioned the coronavirus pandemic, the economy and the pursuit of justice -- all kinds of justice, in fact:............We must pursue justice -- economic justice, justice in health, racial justice, environmental and climate justice, the list goes on. Every morning in this chamber we take a pledge, "One nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all."  Liberty and justice for all. Every day the Congress must live up to that pledge........To Read More...... 

My Take -  Great!  What's that mean?  Justice is the equal enforcement of laws, or is it? Since these terms are indefinable, or unendingly re-definable depending on the mood of the day on the left, that means to me there will be no justice.  Only tyranny.

Is a Desalination Plant “Systemic Racism”?

K. Lloyd Billingsley  •  Friday September 25, 2020 •  1 Comment

“California American Water withdrew its application to the California Coastal Commission for a permit to construct a desalination plant in the Monterey Bay,” reported Josh Copitch of KSBW, so the Commission canceled its September 17 meeting. Opponents of the desalination plant hailed the Commission’s new policy on “environmental justice” for nixing the project.

Marina city planning commission member Kathy Biala told KSBW “disadvantaged communities, communities of color in specific, are often victimized by larger organizations that often build environmentally damaging projects in those areas.” Marina mayor Bruce Delgado said his city would have received no water from the project but been saddled by “all the adverse impacts.” Delgado claimed 66 percent of his constituents are “non-white,” and “it doesn’t get any more textbook perfect of an example to exemplify what systemic racism looks like.” To say the least, that charge is highly dubious, unlike the water needs on the Monterey Peninsula............  

The real back story here is the California Coastal Commission, an unelected body that overrides scores of elected governments on land-use issues. For decades, the Commission has run roughshod over property rights and its regulatory zealotry now blocks improvement of the water supply. Monterey Peninsula residents have a case that the Coastal Commission, not a desalination plant, is the true injustice inherent in the system..................To Read More....

 

 

From Bed Bugs to Micmacs: EPA Offers New Round of 'Environmental Justice' Grants

By Susan Jones October 16, 2012 Subscribe to Susan Jones's posts

Ladies and gentlemen, step right up to the public trough: The Environmental Protection Agency is seeking applicants who want a piece of the $1.5 million set aside for "environmental justice" grants to be awarded in 2013. The taxpayer money goes to non-profit and tribal groups that address health and environmental issues in minority, low-income, and indigenous communities. These places are "overburdened by harmful pollution," as the EPA phrases it. Applicants must be incorporated non-profits or tribal organizations that are working to "educate, empower and enable" their communities to understand and address local environmental and public health issues.  Previous grants have supported projects that seek to improve -- or raise awareness of -- air and water quality, lead contamination, energy efficiency, even healthy food. In 2011, for example, the Aroostock Band of Micmacs in Presque Isle, Maine, received money for a project establishing "a sustainable approach for disseminating air quality information" to communities susceptible to air pollution.  To Read More......

Observations From the Back Row

We must stop thinking of the individual and start thinking about what is best for society -

Hillary Clinton as first lady.

I hope I don't have to explain the irony of that! RK

Politics trumps science as Senators pass Safe Chemical Act — latest chemical “reform”

On an otherwise pleasant morning, ACSH staffers’ blood began to boil after reading the latest anti-chemical screed in the Huffington Post, which included such fear-mongering claims as this: “Ninety-nine percent of pregnant American women carry multiple manmade chemicals in their bodies, sharing that concoction through the umbilical cord.”   The latest assault on chemicals preceded yesterday’s Environment and Public Works Committee's vote on the Safe Chemicals Act, which if passed, would replace the Toxic Substance Control Act of 1976. First introduced in 2005 by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), the Safe Chemicals Act would require that manufacturers must first prove a chemical is safe before it’s approved for use. As the law currently stands, the EPA must demonstrate that a chemical already in use poses substantial health risks before it can be phased out…… As  ACSH;s Dr. Elizabeth Whelan aptly points out, “such legislation has no basis in reality, as anti-chemical hysteria is largely a psychological problem rooted in paranoia and politics, not science. Simply stated, the Safe Chemical Act would protect us from risks that don’t exist.”

Reader letter: Chemicals, supplements, and smokeless?

In yesterday’s Dispatch, we considered the potential harms of the Safe Chemicals Act. If passed, it would replace the Toxic Substance Control Act of 1976 and would require that manufacturers must first prove a chemical is safe before it’s approved for use.  Our discussion of this type of regulation led one of our readers to contrast it to our previous coverage of the dietary supplement industry. Here’s what Steve Curtis of Nellson Nutraceutical, LLC had to say:

“Veggie” diet blamed for poor performance of China’s women volleyball team

Fearing tainted meat, China's women's volleyball team has stuck to a strict vegetarian diet for the last three weeks, which the team's coach is now blaming for his athletes' abysmal performance.  The Chinese team lost four of five matches at a world tournament that ended Sunday in Ningbo, China, falling to the United States, Brazil, Turkey and Thailand. While Brazil and the US are powerhouses in women's volleyball, Turkey and Thailand didn't even qualify for the 2008 Olympics, where China won bronze.  “They have showed significant decline in their strength and fitness” coach Yu Juemin said of his squad after Sunday's defeat to the US. “We are wary of meat tainted by lean-meat powder, and we didn't eat any during the game period,” Yu told the Shanghai Daily newspaper.

How Scientific Ideas Become Fashionable (Part 1)

By Jennifer Marohasy

THERE is no doubt that many people are susceptible to the repetition of a single message. No matter how stupid the message, if enough people say it often enough, a large percentage of those who hear it will begin to believe it. That’s the basis of advertising and also propaganda: it’s how you make ideas fashionable, even scientific ideas. But just because an idea is fashionable doesn’t make it right and just because an idea is right, well it doesn’t mean it represents the truth  Fashion is in fact the lowest form of ideology and I have little regard for fashionable ideas – even fashionable scientific ideas. I also have little regard for what many claim to be good and wholesome ideas. My interest is in the facts, the evidence – the truth particularly as it pertains to the natural world.

Environmental justice: A new movement to restrict your movement

By Katherine Timpf

When most people talk about President Obama's influence on America, they mention reforming health care, repealing "don't ask, don't tell" or ending the war in Iraq.  But a nearly unknown executive order could have a greater impact on the future of America than all of those things combined, potentially giving the federal government power to control every project in the country.  The obscure memorandum of understanding, based on a long-forgotten executive order signed by President Clinton in 1994, marries the issues of environmentalism and social justice. The federal government can use the laws from one to control the other.  Seventeen federal agencies signed the Aug. 4, 2011, memorandum — a clear indication of its widespread implications. By signing it, “Each Federal agency agrees to the framework, procedures, and responsibilities” of integrating environmental justice into all of its “programs, policies, and activities.”

US Green Building Council: An unchecked taxpayer-supported monopoly

Something called the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) enjoys de facto authority over government green building standards. Many would be surprised, however, to learn that it is not a government agency.

Rather, the USGBC is a non-profit environmental advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., that sets the standards for the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system. For those unfamiliar, LEED is the dominant certification program used for measuring building sustainability and energy efficiency.

Technically, LEED is a voluntary program. But because a reported 400 U.S. cities and localities, 39 states and virtually the entire federal government currently require builders to meet LEED standards, USGBC effectively operates as a taxpayer-subsidized monopoly – one whose standards increasingly seem driven by ideology and influence rather than sound science and economic common sense.

For evidence of that, look no further than LEED v4, the USGBC’s proposed fourth generation changes to its green building standards……The era of the taxpayer-supported USGBC monopoly must end.

Skeptic Magazine Needs to be More Skeptical of Man-Made Global Warming

By Jim Lakely

A quarterly magazine called Skeptic published a cover story a few weeks back by Donald Prothero titled “How We Know Global Warming is Real and Human-Caused.” That struck us here at The Heartland Institute as rather strange.  Our work for years has been skeptical of the idea that human activity is causing catastrophic climate change, which is the conventional wisdom of the mainstream media. And we have two immense volumes of peer-reviewed literature and the videos of many conferences to prove it.  So if the very name of your magazine is Skeptic, shouldn’t readers expect you to carefully examine the spoon-fed doctrines of the likes of Al Gore, Michael Mann, the UN’s IPCC, etc., and be … well … skeptical of “doctrine” — especially in light of the Climategate scandal? Alas, no.

Romney thinks U.S. air is dirty?

At a London fundraiser last night, Mitt Romney said,
 “The EPA has an important responsibility, and that is to keep clean and make more clean our air and our water. I happen to think that the decision by the Supreme Court and by the administration to have the EPA also regulate the emissions of carbon dioxide was beyond the intent of the original legislation. My view is that the EPA, if it keeps to its mission and does not use its power to foster or further an anti-carbon energy agenda, would be a more effective department…” [Emphasis added] [h/t Politico, for the quote]
 

While Romney is spot on about the overreach of Massachusetts v. EPA, it’s also true that U.S. air is clean and safe. No one is being harmed by ambient air quality anywhere in the U.S.

 

Can Government Protect the Environment...or Anything?

by Devin Leary-Hanebrink

In light of recent comments by NASA climatologist Dr. James Hansen – stating that climate change is a moral imperative on par with slavery – climate change is, once again, front and center. Immediately, environmental alarmists and reactionary extremists on both sides of the political spectrum started pointing fingers and raising voices.  While the climate debate certainly has merit and must be studied (scientifically, not politically, of course), climate change is not the crux of this overarching environmental issue. The real issue is can government actually provide the solution?

Answering this question requires only a brief look at government’s track record of fixing problems and protecting things.

·         A Broken History of Environmental Protection

·         Protecting infinity and Beyond

·         Do Viable Market Alternatives Exist?

·         Markets Always Win

The perpetually growing state is synonymous with endlessly eroding freedom and, every year, government shovels more and more responsibility into its bloated craw. At the same time, it fails the most basic obligations. Fortunately, politicians and bureaucrats, convinced they know all the answers, are consistently proven wrong by the laws of economics. As F.A. Hayek eloquently states in The Fatal Conceit, "The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design." Or protect.

Obama Donor: Stimulus Was Like a Hooker in Prison

Another green company backed by an Obama bundler just bit the dust. After announcing earlier this year that the company would lay off 200 of its 300 employees, solar manufacturer Amonix Inc. closed its operation in North Las Vegas leaving taxpayers in the red by $20 million.

“Just seven months after California-based solar power company Amonix Inc. opened its largest manufacturing plant, in North Las Vegas,” reports the Las Vegas Sun, a liberal paper, last January, “the company’s contractor has laid off nearly two-thirds of its workforce. Flextronics Industrial, the Singapore solar panel manufacturer that partnered with Amonix to staff the new $18 million, 214,000-square-foot plant, laid off about 200 of its 300-plus employees Tuesday.” 

My Take - I guess it was Romney’s fault that all those jobs ended up in Singapore?  No?  Okay, then who sent them there?  Clearly it must have been Romney’s fault those workers lost their jobs there and here?  No?  Okay….then whose fault was it? Most importantly…who decided to “invest” in this company?  Surely it must have been Romney!  No?  Well then who in the world could have been so stupid as to spend that kind of money on a plan that was so stupid that it failed in seven months? Oh…this was a government investment called a subsidy promoted by…..Oh Nooooo….say it ain’t so Joe…..it just couldn’t have been ‘The One’! Could it?  Of course not…. after all his wide business experience as a community organizer how could he have made such a mistake?  RK

Is Obama a Marxist?

When President Obama goes off prompter, he usually tells truth … at least the “truth” as he sees it. Obama’s quote above not only reminds me of Karl Marx, the father of socialism and communism, moreover, his arrogant, anti-business, anti-capitalism screed reminds me of the words of Thomas Jefferson who wisely said, “A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have.” Perhaps that’s why so many Marxists and socialists professors and liberal teachers are rewriting and revising history today, because they don’t want the voting public to be knowledgeable about the truth of history, politics and economics. Why? Hitler’s minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, supposedly said: “Truth is the enemy of the State.” ……..  Pick any grand, utopian, liberal, humanist, progressive, or socialist policy over the past 112 years – Theodore Roosevelt’s “Square Deal,” Woodrow Wilson’s “Statolatry” (state worship), FDR’s “New Deal” and welfare-state policies of the 1930s and ’40s, Truman’s “Fair Deal,” LBJ’s “Great Society,” Nixon’s EPA, Carter’s Department of Education, Clinton’s failed attempt at universal health care, or President Obama’s neo-socialist, Keynesian policies contained in Obamacare today. In other words, these progressive presidents followed Mussolini’s famous fascist slogan of 1923 – Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State…… Western Marxists like Obama exploit the trappings natural to democracy to contrive getting elected and then mercilessly exploit the reins of political power…. institute a torrent of radical reforms, regulations and legislation, thus propelling society inevitably into a welfare state, socialism and, if feasible, toward communism.

Oregon Man Sentenced to 30 Days in Jail -- for Collecting Rainwater on His Property

By Kendra Alleyne

A rural Oregon man was sentenced Wednesday to 30 days in jail and over $1,500 in fines because he had three reservoirs on his property to collect and use rainwater.

Gary Harrington of Eagle Point, Ore., says he plans to appeal his conviction in Jackson County (Ore.) Circuit Court on nine misdemeanor charges under a 1925 law for having what state water managers called “three illegal reservoirs” on his property – and for filling the reservoirs with rainwater and snow runoff.  “The government is bullying,” Harrington told CNSNews.com in an interview Thursday.  “They’ve just gotten to be big bullies and if you just lay over and die and give up, that just makes them bigger bullies. So, we as Americans, we need to stand on our constitutional rights, on our rights as citizens and hang tough. This is a good country, we’ll prevail,” he said.

Conservatives and the Elephant in the Living Room

by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.

One of my pet peeves is the conservative who lectures us on the “limits” of markets and looks with a self-satisfied and condescending shake of the head upon the stupid rubes he must endure who persist in supporting the market all the same. Why, haven’t these dopes read Wilhelm Roepke, whose views are to be considered definitive?  In this unfortunate post, we get the usual laments about what “capitalism” has done to the public. If only banking had stayed local we wouldn’t have had all these problems, etc.  Absent as always from these critiques is any discussion of the Federal Reserve, the elephant in the living room, which is a friend neither of localism nor the free market. Likewise absent is any acknowledgment that to call the banking system of today a “free market” is at best an expression of one’s sense of humor. As I’ve noted elsewhere, the current system is rather far from the Misesian ideal; it includes:

The Monetization of Everything

by Gary North

What the Federal Reserve System can do and what it will do are two different things.

The Federal Reserve System can monetize anything. It can create digital money and buy any asset it chooses to buy. There are no legal restrictions on what it is allowed to monetize. If it were to do this, and it continued to do this, the dollar would fall to zero value. This would produce hyperinflation. The result would be the destruction of all dollar-based creditors. Debtors could pay off their loans with the sale of an egg or a pack of cigarettes. This is what farmers did in 1923 in Germany and Austria.

The economists who advise the Federal Reserve System know this. The bankers who run the banks that own the shares of the 12 regional FED banks know this. Bernanke knows this. The day will come when the decision-makers on the Federal Open Market Committee will have to fish or cut bait. They will have to decide: mass inflation (20%) or hyperinflation (QEx). They will have to decide: recession or hyperinflation.

Ethanol Added $14.5 Billion to Consumer Motor Fuel Costs in 2011, Study Finds

by Marlo Lewis

Today, FarmEcon LLC released RFS, Fuel and Food Prices, and the Need for Statutory Flexibility, a study of ethanol’s impact on food and fuel prices. FarmEcon prepared the study for the American Meat Institute, California Dairies Inc., Milk Producers Council, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, National Chicken Council, National Pork Producers Council, and National Turkey Federation.  The study argues that the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), commonly known as the ethanol mandate, is detrimental to both non-ethanol industry corn users and food and fuel consumers. The program should therefore be reformed. The RFS has “destabilized corn and ethanol prices by offering an almost risk-free demand volume guaranty to the corn-based ethanol industry.” Consequently, food producers who use corn as a feedstock “have been forced to bear a disproportionate share of market and price risk” when corn yields fall and prices rise. This has become painfully obvious in recent weeks as drought conditions in the Midwest depress yields and push corn prices to record highs.

###

Forget Homeland Security, Now It's About "Environmental Justice"

By Alan Caruba
 

This appeared here on Alan's Blog, Warning Signs. I want to thank Alan for giving me permission to republish his works.  You may wish to go the right hand column of this blog to Caruba's Corner, Green Myths and Other Lies, to review a series of articles by Alan.  Alan's articles are timeless; even though many go back to 2007 they still work well today. RK

 
It is the nature of any government to seek to expand its authority. The Founding Fathers knew this and gifted Americans with a Constitution that limits authority devolving it to the states and to “the people.” Read the Tenth Amendment. It isn’t working.

The freedoms they sought to establish and preserve for future generations are being eaten away and we tend only to hear about in individual cases when, in fact, it is so widespread we accept the injustices, the inefficiencies, and the enslavement in increments.

After 9/11 it was clear that some reorganization was needed to ensure that various enforcement and other agencies could communicate and coordinate more effectively in order to wage “a war on terror.” The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was created. The sheer size of it should have been a warning.

One of its siblings was the Transportation Security Administration that currently makes taking a flight anywhere a nightmare of intrusive groping and, because one failed bomber used explosive in his shoes, everyone now must remove theirs to get on a flight.

Fifty-seven years ago, the State of New Jersey issued me my first driver’s license. For years all one needed to do was renew by mail, but after 9/11, it was decided that every license had to include a photo. A very high tech license resulted, but it also means that, if you live in New Jersey, every four years you are going to spend a minimum of two hours in your nearest motor vehicle agency standing in line and sitting around for your number to be called in order to renew.

You need bring several documents with you such as a passport, birth certificate, and Medicare card. Just one won’t do. Even though I already have a license with a photo (it was on record at the agency so there was no need for a new photo), I still had to personally prove I am who I am to receive a renewed license. In an age of computerized records of birth and residence, the whole process struck me as overkill.

After December 1, 2012, New Jersey will join eight other States to issue a driver’s license with a gold star in the upper right corner. Without it, I will not be allowed to board a domestic flight or visit a federal building. Do I feel any more secure? Not really. In fact, what I really feel is the tightening grip of the federal and state government on my freedom to drive my car, get on an airplane, or legitimately enter a building in which the work of the federal government is being conducted. This is less about security and far more about authoritarian control.

Environmental Justice

I tell you this because I doubt you are aware that the Department of Homeland Security has added a whole new layer of authority to its portfolio. You thought it was about protecting the nation against acts of terrorism. Now it is about enforcing “environmental justice.”

The DHS has added Green Police to its concerns and, if you think this has nothing whatever to do with some jihadists trying to kill a lot of people as was the case on 9/11, you would be right.

According to a DHS report entitled “Environmental Justice Strategy”, issued February 2012, it is a “commitment of the Federal Government, through its policies, programs, and activities, to avoid placing disproportionately high and adverse effects on the human health and environment of minority or low-income populations.”

This has NOTHING to do with homeland security by the wildest stretch of the imagination and yet it is, according to DHS, federal policy. It gets its authority from Executive Order 12898 and this is the way government expands and expands and expands beyond what citizens expect or request.

The results are always predictable. Ordinary people who just want to be left alone discover that the government has defined the ownership of their land and property as a criminal act.

When Chantell and Mike Sackett found themselves locked into battle with the Environmental Protection Agency that had decided their land was a wetland, they battled the EPA all the way to the Supreme Court which granted them a unanimous decision in their favor on March 12th of this year. This kind of “law enforcement” by the EPA has been common over the years, but Congress has done little to rein in its typical bullying tactics.

Now add to the EPA, the Homeland Security Department with its own Green Police empowered to protect “minority and low-income populations.” This is a deliberate effort to divide Americans from one another, inspiring racial and class warfare. It is a vast reinterpretation of its responsibilities and authority.

Welcome to the Soviet Union of America or the National Socialist States of America.

© Alan Caruba, 2012