EPA's Wood-Burning Stove Ban Has Chilling Consequences For Many Rural People

Forbes ^ | 1-29-14 | Larry Bell,

[dynachrome]

The impacts of EPA’s ruling will affect many families. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2011 survey statistics, 2.4 million American housing units (12 percent of all homes) burned wood as their primary heating fuel, compared with 7 percent that depended upon fuel oil.

Local governments in some states have gone even further than EPA, not only banning the sale of noncompliant stoves, but even their use as fireplaces. As a result, owners face fines for infractions. Puget Sound, Washington is one such location. Montréal, Canada proposes to eliminate all fireplaces within its city limits.

Only weeks after EPA enacted its new stove rules, attorneys general of seven states sued the agency to crack down on wood-burning water heaters as well. The lawsuit was filed by Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont, all predominately Democrat states. Claiming that EPA’s new regulations didn’t go far enough to decrease particle pollution levels, the plaintiffs cited agency estimates that outdoor wood boilers will produce more than 20 percent of wood-burning emissions by 2017. A related suit was filed by the environmental group Earth Justice.

[Girlene]

Is that photo from Boston? Is that dude in the armored vehicle pointing a gun?

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Very good!

[B4Ranch]

They aren’t on duty 24 hours each and every day. If they are part of a confiscation team, they will make fine targets when they’re relaxing after a hard day of rounding up the citizen’s means of self defense.

[wku man]

That's a Humvee...not exactly an armored vehicle, though they do come in up-armored variants. It looks to me like he's got a video camera.

Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

If I hear people are coming to take my woodstove, I’ll just light a fire in it. Let’s see if they have asbestos fingers.

[Girlene]

Wow.

[Girlene]

Thanks. Can’t figure out why he’d be pointing either one - camera or gun.

[wku man]

Upon closer look, I think that is an up-armored Humvee. They didn't have those when I was still in boots.

Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!

[defconw]

Yes, the royal "they" can tell us what we can or cannot do with our homes and bodies, but dare we suggest an alternative to abortion, and no, no, no. We are fascists. Makes about as much sense as banning smoking in Colorado, but legalizing pot? Smoke is smoke, no?

[backwoods-engineer]

Good link. I am a big fan of what Paul Wheaton, and Ernie & Erica are doing with Rocket Mass Heaters.

[Carriage Hill]

0% of rural Penna heats with wood, wood pellets or coal. This won’t go well around here.

[Eagles6]

“Did you really think we want those laws observed? said Dr. Ferris. We want them to be broken. You’d better get it straight that it’s not a bunch of boy scouts you’re up against... We’re after power and we mean it... There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that’s the system, Mr. Reardon, that’s the game, and once you understand it, you’ll be much easier to deal with. (’Atlas Shrugged’ 1957)

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[Nowhere Man]

While Obama sits in the White House with the heat cranked up to 80 degrees.

You gotta remember he was born in Kenya. Those people cannot take the cold, ya know, cut the guy some slack. /sarc> B-P cough......

I never thought I would see such tyranny in this country.

Yeah, I know. If you came to me and told me 30 or 20 years ago that one day a Chicago agitator born in Kenya would ever be elected president, I'd laugh at you. Now I'm crying.... B-(

[VideoDoctor]

A drunken Government who thinks it’s THEIR position to DECIDE for YOU.

[palmer]

Pick a side, palmer.

I have. Now you have to pick a side. Your picture postd to me is from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance_Publications one of the enemedia. If you know how logging works, it means that they can associate my IP with that picture when the thread reloads and I reply (except the way I just replied). If you don't realize that, then you are just a little naive. That's ok though, nobody's perfect.

As for the war, you have to pick your battles. If/when I go down it won't be as a right wing gun nut (which I am) but as an innocent wood stove owner persecuted by the overweening state. Hopefully thousands more like me would be able to stop the slide into totalitarianism. But maybe I am naive too.

[palmer]

I do the opposite. When it gets bitter I turn on the propane, but that’s expensive so I only use it to take the bitter edge off.

[palmer]

Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2009-0734

[tet68]

Being as this is America, the home of the free, I
would suspect that rural folks are just going to
go on heating themselves however they can.

[MagnoliaB]

Have you ever heard of ‘boiling the frog slowly’? This is how it starts and it will ultimately end with a complete ban.