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On Wednesday, before the Senate EPW Committee, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy had this priceless quote regarding the EPA’s proposed carbon dioxide regulations (italics added): “And the great thing about this proposal is it really is an investment opportunity. This is not about pollution control. It’s about increased efficiency at our plants…It’s about investments in renewables and clean energy. It’s about investments in people’s ability to lower their electricity bills by getting good, clean, efficient appliances, homes, rental units.”

emissions by nearly 41 percent over the next 15 years as part of a sweeping plan President Barack Obama announced Monday to reduce pollution from power plants. Obama's plan calls for a 30 percent reduction in carbon emissions nationwide by 2030, when compared with 2005 levels. It sets different goals for each state, and some that rely heavily on coal won't have to make as many reductions. Minnesota is one of nine states told to reduce their 2012 levels by more than 40 percent, to help meet the nation's overall reduction goal. Officials with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, utilities...

The major climate rule that the Obama administration is unveiling Monday is a political gamble for the president’s party — but some Democrats see the risk as manageable, and the cause more than worth it. The Environmental Protection Agency’s rule, meant to cut greenhouse gas pollution from thousands of existing power plants, poses obvious dangers in November for Democrats in coal country and other energy-rich states, as well as regions where many voters dislike federal intrusion. It also poses unknown risks in 2016, when states will have to seek EPA approval for their plans to comply with the rule. But...

The Obama administration is focused on paring greenhouse gas emissions from the nation’s power plants, and at least one senator wants refiners to be in the crosshairs too. During a Thursday hearing on President Barack Obama’s climate action plan, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., pressed Environmental Protection Agency administrator Gina McCarthy to begin zeroing in on carbon dioxide emissions from refiners, industrial ovens and commercial boilers. The EPA has been obligated to tackle carbon pollution from power plants and refineries since a December 2010 settlement with conservationists. Obama directed his EPA to focus on new and existing power plants first, however,...

Regulation: More than 3,500 coal supporters descended on Washington Tuesday to protest environmental rules requiring technology that doesn't exist, designed to turn the Saudi Arabia of coal into the Bangladesh of energy. Members of Congress, union members, miners and their families stormed Capitol Hill to air their grievances about President Obama's policies that make it harder to burn or mine coal. They were protesting the government shutdown that hasn't ended — that of the coal industry in pursuit of environmental goals that ignore global temperatures that haven't budged in 17 years and greenhouse-gas emission declines that have occurred as a...

From the Bild.de news agency , “THE CO2 LIES … pure fear-mongering … should we blindly trust the experts?” That’s what Germany’s leading daily Bild (see photo) wrote in its print and online editions today, on the very day that renowned publisher Hoffmann & Campe officially released a skeptic book – one written by a prominent socialist and environmental figure. This is huge. More than I ever could have possibly imagined. And more is coming in the days ahead! The Bild piece was just the first of a series. Mark this as the date that Germany’s global warming movement took...

Global warming is now a "fact." It's a fact because the Bush administration has conceded it as such to the United Nations. There's little point in debating the theory any more. Man is altering his environment and creating future disaster scenarios that only computer models and Ph.Ds in earth sciences can predict. Never mind that only 30 years ago, some of the same scientists were prophesying doom and gloom from a new ice age. They've seen the light since then. There's a new consensus emerging. After all, the scientists who get the government grants all agree that global warming is...

California has approved an extensive carbon-trading plan aimed at cutting greenhouse emissions. State regulators passed a "cap-and-trade" framework to let companies buy and sell permits, giving them an incentive to emit fewer gases.

Today is the Environmental Protection Agency’s 40th birthday. Thank you Richard Nixon: you left us a heck of a legacy on this one. The media is sure to tout the remarkable environmental progress in the United States over the past 40 years, and indeed we have never had cleaner air, cleaner water, or more plentiful wildlife. By any objective measure, environmental progress has been remarkable over the past 40 years, but it was also remarkable for decades before the creation of the EPA, and indeed every advanced economy has seen dramatic environmental improvement, regardless of its regulatory model.

Addressing Climate Change Maryland’s Commission on Climate Change, created by Executive Order in 2007, has concluded that our State would see significant economic and environmental benefits from taking early, immediate actions to reduce global warming pollution. With more than 3,000 miles of shoreline, Maryland is the fourth most vulnerable state in the nation to the effects of climate change and rising sea levels. Scientists worldwide agree that early carbon reductions of at least 25 percent are necessary to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. Welcome http://www.rggi.org/home Upcoming Auctions Auction 10 December 01, 2010 Auction 11 March 09, 2011 Auction...

In last week’s column, I lamented the devolution of the climate debate into dueling ad hominem attacks, which has led in almost a straight line to the incredible totalitarian vision of the 10:10 climate group’s recent film showing school kids getting blown up for not adhering to the global warming alarmists’ position. In writing that column, it struck me that it was not surprising that many average folks may be unfamiliar with the science behind the climate skeptic’s position, since it almost never appears anywhere in the press. This week I want to give a necessarily brief summary of the...

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The push to produce more ethanol in Minnesota has come with a cost to the environment. Five ethanol plants in Minnesota have paid nearly $3 million in the past year for violating air and water quality standards. For example, Buffalo Lake Energy in Fairmont was fined for producing ethanol without a wastewater treatment system permit from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. Another plant illegally discharged wastewater into a creek. Several have failed to regularly monitor emissions and discharges.

AB 649 is Wisconsin's governor Doyle (D) highly touted bill to reduce CO2 emissions that adapt CA EPA regulations and mandate the way electricity is made 24% green to prevent "global warming". CO2 emissions does not cause "global warming" read "the Patterson effect (linked). Through CO2 hyperbole politicians saw a method to collect more taxes through a system known as "cap and trade" or worse yet hook up with producers of green energy devices (snip) CO2 hype also force-fed state and federal bureaus such as Clifornia's EPA into unmanageable unresponsive massive bureaucracies (snip)California EPA seems to have come up with...

Most of the man-made CO2 caused by man does not remain in the atmosphere, it is absorbed by the oceans and continents. Only about 45% of man-made CO2 stays in the atmosphere. However, the global-warming moonbats have suggested the ability of oceans and plants to absorb CO2 recently may have begun to decline and that the airborne fraction of man-made CO2 emissions is therefore beginning to increase causing the amount of CO2 to increase also . Many climate models also assume that the airborne fraction will increase. For the moonbats, understanding this number is important for predicting future climate change,...

BISMARCK, N.D.—North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem said he expects the state to file a lawsuit against Minnesota over its plan to tax carbon dioxide created by electrical generation. The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission wants to add a fee of $4 to $34 per ton of carbon dioxide to the cost of electrical generation starting in 2012. The majority of electricity in North Dakota is generated by coal-fired power plants, which emit carbon dioxide. North Dakota officials consider it an unfair tax on electricity produced in the state and say it would discourage its use by Minnesota utilities.

Now that we’re all in the mood to question extravagantly funded scientists, perhaps we should take a look at the tomfoolery involved in global carbon dioxide monitoring. C02 is the boogy-man, right? Well, it seems that taking a close look at how the big guy puts up the big numbers is in order right about now. The U.S. NOAA openly admits to producing a CO2 record which “contains no actual data.” Two of the five NOAA “baseline” stations are downwind from erupting volcanoes. All five are subject to localized or regional CO2 sources. Hmmm. Climategate collaborator Dr. Andrew Manning worked...

Unfortunately for Democrats, global warming is much more complicated science than what their theories predict. The greatest contributing factor to global temperatures isn’t atmospheric carbon dioxide, it’s the sun. The sun’s release of energy has natural variations and it is currently in a state known as solar minimum; the lowest energy output by the sun as it oscillates through an approximate 11 year cycle of activity, also known as the Schwabe cycle. This is the primary reason for the colder than normal temperatures recorded across the country this summer.

The Democratic Party of Japan will pledge a 25 percent cut in Japan's greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 from 1990 levels in its manifesto for the upcoming national campaign, party officials said Sunday. Bidding to wrest power from the Liberal Democratic Party-led ruling coalition, the DPJ has decided to set a more ambitious emissions goal than the 8 percent target set last month by Prime Minister Taro Aso. The DPJ's target, however, is the same as that pledged by the LDP's coalition partner, New Komeito. The DPJ's strategy would entail the adoption of a cap-and-trade system under which each company's...

8 Dems oppose quick debate on global warming bill Eight Senate Democrats are opposing speedy action on President Barack Obama's bill to combat global warming, complicating prospects for the legislation and creating problems for their party's leaders. The eight Democrats disapprove of using the annual budget debate to pass Obama's "cap and trade" bill to fight greenhouse gas emissions, a measure that divides lawmakers, environmentalists and businesses. The lawmakers' opposition makes it more difficult for Democratic leaders to move the bill without a threat of a Republican filibuster. The budget debate is the only way to circumvent Senate rules that...

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to act for the first time to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that scientists blame for the warming of the planet, according to top Obama administration officials. The decision, which most likely would play out in stages over a period of months, would have a profound impact on transportation, manufacturing costs and how utilities generate power. It could accelerate the progress of energy and climate change legislation in Congress and form a basis for the United States’ negotiating position at United Nations climate talks set for December in Copenhagen. The...