Posted on 07/09/2022 5:19:25 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Last Thursday, June 30, the Supreme Court issued its decision in West Virginia v. EPA, holding that, absent a further explicit statute from the Congress, the EPA did not have the authority to orchestrate its planned fundamental restructuring of the electric power generation sector of the economy. More generally, the Supreme Court stated that in cases involving “major questions,” including regulations that affect large portions of the economy, the government must demonstrate “clear congressional authorization” to support a sweeping effort to regulate.
Do you think that such a Supreme Court decision might cause the various regulatory bureaucracies to slow down and reconsider a little before plowing ahead with other dubious plans for fundamental economic restructurings? That’s not how these bureaucracies work. And such is most particularly the case with regard to regulators of the energy sector, sometimes known as “climate change” arena, where the bureaucrats are burning with a righteous religious fervor that they believe entitles them to cast the evil sinners into the fires of hell.
And thus, contemporaneous with the Supreme Court’s decision, several agencies promptly doubled down on efforts to strangle the oil and gas industries with regulatory restrictions, essentially daring the courts or anyone else to stop them. Thousands of pages of statutes give them thousands of arguments to claim they have the “clear congressional authorization,” any one of which arguments might stick. They are now out to show who’s boss.
EPA Administrator Michael Regan wasted no time in getting a statement out on the afternoon of June 30. Excerpt:
[W]e are committed to using the full scope of EPA’s authorities to protect communities and reduce the pollution that is driving climate change. . . . EPA will move forward with lawfully setting and implementing environmental standards that meet our obligation to protect all people and all communities from environmental harm.
In other words, we will just have to find other ways to implement the restrictions that we want to implement. The very next day, July 1, David Blackmon at Forbes reported that “EPA Targets Permian Basin, Widening Biden’s War On Oil And Gas.” The Permian Basin is currently the most productive oil and gas region in the United States, providing about 40% of the oil production and 15% of the gas of the entire country. The Permian Basin is also the site of about 40% of the nation’s active drilling rigs. And so it seems that EPA is gearing up to declare the Permian Basin a so-called “non-attainment area” with respect to ozone. Blackmon:
[T]he Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced [this week that] it may soon issue a ruling declaring that vast parts of the Permian Basin are in “non-attainment” status under the agency’s ozone regulations. If such a declaration is made, it will constitute a direct governmental assault on what is by far America’s most active and productive oil-producing region and its second most-productive natural gas area.
What would be the effect of such a declaration on current and future U.S. domestic oil and gas production? Blackmon again:
Placing the Permian Basin in non-attainment status would force a significant reduction in the region’s rig count, severely limiting the domestic industry’s efforts to increase U.S. oil production at a time when the global oil market is already severely under-supplied.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott promptly called on the Biden Administration to back off, saying that an EPA “non-attainment declaration “could interfere in the production of oil in Texas which could lead to skyrocketing prices at the pump by reducing production, increase the cost of that production, or do both.” But Blackmon notes that the plan comes from an office headed by a Biden-appointed anti-fossil-fuel activist, and thus is likely a core element of the administration’s program:
Mr. Biden appointed Joe Goffman, another of the many anti-fossil fuel activists that now hold senior posts at his various agencies, to head up EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation on an acting basis. That appointment might have been made with this specific policy action in mind.
Meanwhile, over at the Interior Department, July 1 was also the day for issuance of a statutorily-mandated five-year off-shore oil and gas leasing plan. Nicholas Groom at Reuters has a summary here. The bottom line is, we’re going to completely shut down leasing off both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, but maybe we’ll allow a little in the Gulf of Mexico or the Cook Inlet (Alaska). The number of auctions over the five-year period will be in the range of “zero to eleven,” and supposedly we’ll take public input as to which way to go. But Interior Secretary Deb Haaland in a statement left no doubt as to where she wants and expects this to come out:
"From Day One, President Biden and I have made clear our commitment to transition to a clean energy economy," Haaland said in a statement. "Today, we put forward an opportunity for the American people to consider and provide input on the future of offshore oil and gas leasing. The time for the public to weigh in on our future is now."
There is a 90 day period for public comment. You can be sure that environmental activist groups will flood the zone with thousands of comments to support the approach of the “zero” option of ceasing all further off-shore leases.
Other agencies were eerily silent in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s June 30 decision. Notable among those were the SEC and the Federal Reserve, both of which have recently ventured into adding “climate change” to their missions with only the most questionable of statutory support. Neither has given any indication of an intention to slow down.
And then on July 2, President Biden issued his now-famous tweet blaming the rising price of gas at the pump on gas station owners:
My message to the companies running gas stations and setting prices at the pump is simple: this is a time of war and global peril. Bring down the price you are charging at the pump to reflect the cost you’re paying for the product. And do it now.
A bureaucracy-wide campaign is ongoing under this guy’s direction to suppress oil and gas production in any way they can think of, and yet he has the gall to blame high prices on “companies running gas stations,” the majority of which are small independent businesses. At this point Biden has become malicious.
It is amazing how deftly the democRATs can mandate SCOTUS rulings they agree with and ignore rulings that they disagree with.
Where are our “Trump” judges to put a stay on the EPA’s stop order?
Ignore them. Arrest them if need be.
we exercise power over other people both by benefiting them and by hurting them. When we hurt them we make them feel our power in a crude way—and also a dangerous way, since they may seek to revenge themselves.Making someone indebted to us is usually a preferable way to feel a sense of our power; we also thereby extend our power, since those we benefit see the advantage of being on our side.
Nietzsche, in fact, argues that causing pain is generally less pleasant than showing kindness and even suggests that cruelty, because it is the inferior option, is a sign that one lacks power. ...
The weak, by contrast, seek to impose their values in a more cunning, roundabout way, by making the strong feel guilty about their health, strength, egotism, and pride.
The two chances they would have said that under Trump: Zee and Roe.
Interesting is it not?
The Supreme Court makes decisions on the Constitutionality of several issues and within days the three other branches of government (Legislative, Executive & the unconstitutional Administrative) are on their bully pulpits undermining the decisions.
I wonder what the outcome of this will be. My guess is; packing the Court, maybe term limiting the Justices therefor nurturing both the Court and the Constitution.
Gotta have a suit brought them standing granted, the hearings, the an injunction etc.
That’s the right, due process method. Good guys have to play it that way.
Sigh.
Completely expected. The various alphabet agencies exist ONLY to keep their jobs by writing new “regulations” and “rules”.
I used to follow Trump's judicial appointments very carefully.
The record is not good.
From memory, more than 50% of his District Judge confirmations got a voice vote or at least 20 Democrat Senators.
His Circuit Judge confirmations were quite good in his first year - almost every one got close to a 100% Democrat NO vote.
In years 2-3-4, from memory, close to half of his Circuit confirmations got at least 20 Democrat votes.
Electric companies need to start disconnecting the electrical service to the private homes of these greenie activist department heads.
Want green energy so bad?, well, go get some, you don’t want or need us afterall.
I was not aware that oil wells produce ozone.
Where does this ozone come from?
“The weak, by contrast, seek to impose their values in a more cunning, roundabout way, by making the strong feel guilty about their health, strength, egotism, and pride.”
See my tag line.
“Ignore them. Arrest them if need be.”
So how does the Supreme Court enforce its rulings if the other two branches (especially the executive) don’t want to go along with them?
99% of the policing and enforcement power is controlled by the executive branch. So if it decides to give the middle finger to the Supremes what are they going to do about it?
Didn’t Andrew Jackson defy the Supremes?
It's TIME to DownSize DC!
Restore the Constitution!Size DC!
Ozone was was regulated based on measurements inside the LA Basin based on the NOx and smog found there and in the NYC area.. Once first regulated, they expanded the regs nationally,, then continued everywhere ationally at ever increasing specs.. (Lower allowed ozone and NOx levels.)
So, like in the naturally “polluted” areas of the Great Smoky Mountains and forests of the Southest US, the high Texas plains have a little bit added Petroleum evaporation and enough natural ozone to put the region out of spec.
Now that you mention it I remember, I think it was back in the Reagan administration, that the EPA was fining some state or city for ozone that turned out to come from VOCs that pine trees put out.
I was not aware that oil wells produce ozone.
Where does this ozone come from?
Ozone is a byproduct of the oxidation of volatile organics in the lower atmosphere. It can also be created via combustion such as a flare stack at a sour gas well. Also every diesel engine produces ozone via combustion at high temperatures along with NOx emissions which when in contact with atmospheric O2 also reduce it to monoatomic oxygen which finds another O2 in short order becoming O3 which is ozone. Every drill rig is powered by diesel engines as is every frac job. It’s truly impressive to see 15+ ship sized diesel engines on semi trailers powering pumps that put out 15,000+ psi each all feeding into a 8” pipe the amounts of energy is awe inspiring. When people need to find a grad job and GPS is only getting you to within a mile or so before you have to go off road we just tell people look to the horizon find the huge plume of black smoke pouring into the sky and there is your frac site those engines put up a smoke cloud that would make the most ardent coal roller truck guy blush. It’s the nature of the industry. Non attainment means every one of those engines has to have SCR catalysts for NOx and particulates emissions plus the urea injection to regen those cats. It’s hideously expensive.
Thanks. I live far from any oil producing areas and never visited any, so it’s hard to envision. Now that you mention it, I suppose it’s not possible for an oil well to be a closed system and all those volatiles have to go somewhere.
I’ve done a bit of lab analyses of VOCs way back when, but I was in the nuclear field.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.