EPA Chief Gina McCarthy is another Clueless Left Wing Idiot

Gina McCarthy, head of the EPA, can't answer basic questions about global temperatures, climate models or numbers of hurricanes. She didn't know being a global warming zealot requires knowledge of math.

If the science of climate change was "settled," you'd think one of the generals in the war on global warming would have memorized the numbers that point to our planetary doom from a menace the administration says is a greater threat than terrorism.

But McCarthy was asked some pretty simple questions Wednesday at a Senate hearing Wednesday on her request for $8.6 billion to help fight the claimed imminent doom of climate change, and her performance didn't help her case.

One of the questions involved droughts and the claim that their frequency has increased due to warming that is said to be caused by mankind's increased production of greenhouse gas, such as carbon dioxide, the basis for all life on Earth but judged by the EPA to be a pollutant.

"Let me ask you this," said Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., inquired of McCarthy. "There was an article from Mr. (Bjorn) Lomborg ... from the Copenhagen Institute. He says, along with Dr. (Roger) Pielke from Colorado, that we've had fewer droughts in recent years. Do you dispute that?"

The seemingly clueless McCarthy pathetically responded that she didn't "know in what context he's making statements like that." Context? Truth has its own context, and the inconvenient truth that McCarthy wasn't aware of, or didn't want to face, is that Pielke and Lomborg are right.

Pielke, a professor at the University of Colorado, told the Senate environment and public works subcommittee in July 2013 that droughts have "for the most part become shorter, less frequent and cover a smaller portion of the U.S. over the last century." Globally, he said, "there has been little change in drought over the last 60 years."

Sessions also asked McCarthy if we've had more or fewer hurricanes in the last decade. It was another question she said she couldn't answer because "it's a very complicated issue." Well, no, not unless basic math is a complicated issue. Sessions noted that we have in fact gone nearly a decade without a Category 3 storm or higher making landfall in the U.S.

The last hurricane to hit America as a Category 3 or higher was Wilma, which struck Florida on Oct. 24, 2005. Superstorm Sandy had wind speeds barely reaching Category 1 status when it slammed into New Jersey in 2012 and wreaked havoc.

Sessions inquired of the global temperatures that have virtually flatlined for two decades:

"Would you acknowledge that over the last 18 years, that the increase in temperatures has been very little, matter of fact 90% below most of the environmental models that showed how fast temperature would increase?"

McCarthy replied that she didn't know "what the models actually are predicting that you are referring to."

Sessions called her ignorance and inability to outline the danger we supposedly face from climate change, as well as her failure to justify the EPA's funding request, a "stunning development." So do we.

The science is indeed settled, but not the way climate zealots think. McCarthy's lack of knowledge and facts on her side only underscores the fact we have wasted billions on fighting a nonexistent threat and shackled our economy with lower growth and higher job loss.

Thank You: Investors Business Daily

Widespread Corruption at the EPA

The lofty motto of the Environmental Protection Agency is "protecting people and the environment." In practice, however, EPA bureaucrats faithfully protect their own people and preserve the government's cesspool of manipulation, cover-ups and cronyism.

Recently, Mark Levin and his vigilant Landmark Legal Foundation went to court to ask federal district judge Royce Lamberth to sanction the EPA "for destroying or failing to preserve emails and text messages that may have helped document suspected agency efforts to influence the 2012 presidential election." The motion is part of a larger Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit to force EPA to release emails and related records from former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and others "who may have delayed the release dates for hot-button environmental regulations until after the Nov. 6, 2012, presidential election."


Thanks to Levin and Landmark, Jackson and other EPA officials admitted in depositions that they used personal, nongovernmental email accounts to hide communications about official EPA business sent and received on their government-issued BlackBerries and smart phones. The agency has continued to drag its feet for two years in response to Landmark's FOIA requests.

Levin minced no words: "The EPA is a toxic waste dump for lawlessness and disdain for the Constitution." Not to mention disdain for the public's right to know. As Levin added: "When any federal agency receives a FOIA request, the statute says it must preserve every significant repository of records, both paper and electronic, that may contain materials that could be responsive to that request."

The agency is legally obliged to notify all involved in the suit to preserve everything in their possession that could be discoverable in the litigation. But the feds have bent over backward to delay and deny. "(T)he people at the EPA, from the administrator on down, think they're above the law, that no one has the right to question what or how they do their jobs," Levin blasted. "Well, they're wrong. The laws apply to everyone, even federal bureaucrats."

That's a bedrock principle the EPA has defied over and over again. As I first reported 13 corruption-stained years ago in 2001, former EPA head Carol Browner oversaw the destruction of her computer files on her last day in office under the Clinton administration -- in clear violation of a judge's order requiring the agency to preserve its records. Browner ordered a computer technician: "I would like my files deleted. I want you to delete my files." In 2003, the agency was held in contempt and fined more than $300,000 in connection with another email destruction incident under Browner's watch.

Read More: Real Clear Politics

Hope Change and Cow Farts

As part of its plan to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, the Obama administration is targeting the dairy industry to reduce methane emissions in their operations.

This comes despite falling methane emission levels across the economy since 1990.

The White House has proposed cutting methane emissions from the dairy industry by 25 percent by 2020. Although U.S. agriculture only counts for about 9 percent of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, it makes up a sizable portion of methane emissions — which is a very potent greenhouse gas.

Some of these methane emissions come from cow flatulence, exhaling and belching — other livestock animals release methane as well.

“Cows emit a massive amount of methane through belching, with a lesser amount through flatulence,” according to How Stuff Works. “Statistics vary regarding how much methane the average dairy cow expels. Some experts say 100 liters to 200 liters a day… while others say it’s up to 500 liters… a day. In any case, that’s a lot of methane, an amount comparable to the pollution produced by a car in a day.”

“Of all domestic animal types, beef and dairy cattle were by far the largest emitters of [methane],” according to an EPA analysis charting greenhouse gas emissions in 2012. Cows and other animals produce methane through digestion, which ferments the food of animals.

“During digestion, microbes resident in an animal’s digestive system ferment food consumed by the animal,” the EPA notes. “This microbial fermentation process, referred to as enteric fermentation, produces [methane] as a byproduct, which can be exhaled or eructated by the animal.”

It’s not just the dairy industry that the Obama administration is clamping down on. The White House is looking to regulate methane emissions across the economy from agriculture to oil and gas operations — all this despite methane emissions falling 11 percent since 1990.

Read More: The Daily Caller

High Ranking EPA Staffer Quite the Fraudster

 

A former high-ranking EPA staffer convicted of stealing nearly $900,000 by pretending to be a CIA spy had virtually no experience, got his job with help from a college buddy, and went on to play a key role in sweeping environmental regulations, according to a report Senate Republicans released Wednesday.

Those regulations remain in place despite John C. Beale’s lack of environmental expertise, Republican investigators said, adding that they want the Environmental Protection Agency to review the work in which Beale was involved during his 24-year tenure.

The report said Beale led an “itinerant life” as a police officer and a physical therapist in California before heading to Princeton University in the 1970s. It was at Princeton, the report said, where Beale befriended Robert Brenner, who later would become the EPA’s deputy assistant administrator.

“Rather than recruit someone with the requisite experience, Brenner sought out Beale in what appears to be a decision based solely on their personal friendship rather than any experience or credentials,” said conclusions of the report by Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

Beale advanced quickly after he joined the agency in 1989 and eventually helped the EPA implement national air quality standards.

The highest-paid employee in the EPA, Beale was a senior policy adviser earning more than $200,000 in salary and bonuses a year by the time he resigned in April 2013.

Read More: The Washington Times

Are Electric Cars Another Green Energy Failure?

 

Testing by AAA has found that how far an electric vehicle can travel on one charge varies widely depending on the weather. Frigid temperatures can reduce that distance by 57%.

The research is important to the Automobile Club of Southern California because it maintains mobile recharging trucks for people who misjudge how far they can go in their electric car.

“EV drivers need to carefully monitor range in hot and cold weather,” said Steve Mazor, the engineer who manages the Southern California club’s Automotive Research Center.

The center conducted tests on a 2013 Nissan Leaf,  a 2012 Mitsubishi iMiEV and the electric version of a 2014 Ford Focus. 

The cars were tested for city driving to mimic stop-and-go traffic and to better compare with Environmental Protection Agency ratings listed on the window sticker, AAA said.

The average EV battery range in AAA’s test was 105 miles at 75 degrees but dropped 57% to just 43 miles at 20 degrees. Heat also sliced the cars' ranges but by not as much: The cars averaged 69 miles per full charge at 95 degrees, 33% less than in 75-degree weather.

The research center tested the cars following the same EPA drive cycles that provide the data for the mileage window stickers on new cars. The vehicles were charged up and then driven on a machine with rollers called a dynamometer in a climate-controlled room until the battery was exhausted.

Watch the Video at: The LA Times

The EPA might be headed for a bruising at the Ole Supreme Court

Does federal law empower the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate every non-moving source of carbon dioxide in America? The Supreme Court will decide that question in early 2014.  

The Supreme Court decided Massachusetts v. EPA in 2007, a lawsuit brought by the Bay State (with the support of Gov. Mitt Romney) to force the Bush EPA to make a finding as to whether carbon dioxide is a pollutant that endangers the environment. The Court surprised many legal experts when it held in a 5-4 decision, led by the liberal wing of the Court, that states have standing under Article III of the Constitution to sue the federal government over questions of federal law, despite the fact that it was disputed (1) whether global warming is even happening at all, (2) if so, whether it is caused by human activity generating GHGs (greenhouse gases) like carbon dioxide, and further (3) that is undisputed that only 20 percent of GHGs come from the United States, so no Supreme Court order could effectively remedy this problem even if it exists.

After Barack Obama became president in 2009, the EPA issued an official finding that carbon dioxide is a pollutant that harms the environment, notwithstanding the fact that (1) all animals exhale carbon dioxide, (2) that it is necessary for plants to live, and (3) that every form of fire and combustion generates carbon emissions.

EPA went on to invoke the Clean Air Act, passed by Congress in 1970, as authorizing it to regulate these carbon emissions. Various lawsuits were filed, challenging the unprecedentedly broad scope of these new EPA rules.

On Oct. 15, the Supreme Court granted review in Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA, limiting the Court’s review in this first modern case exploring this subject to determining whether the EPA’s permitting scheme for new cars legally authorizes the EPA to also regulate all stationary sources of GHGs. If so, then the federal EPA in Washington, DC can regulate not just your local power plant, but also your home stove, fireplace, campfire, and furnace.  

Arguments are likely to be scheduled around February, with a decision before July 2014.

Thank You: Breitbart

The EPA is getting a little out of hand.

When agents with the Alaska Environmental Crimes Task Force surged out of the wilderness around the remote community of Chicken wearing body armor and jackets emblazoned with POLICE in big, bold letters, local placer miners didn’t quite know what to think.

Did it really take eight armed men and a squad-size display of paramilitary force to check for dirty water? Some of the miners, who run small businesses, say they felt intimidated.

Others wonder if the actions of the agents put everyone at risk. When your family business involves collecting gold far from nowhere, unusual behavior can be taken as a sign someone might be trying to stage a robbery. How is a remote placer miner to know the people in the jackets saying POLICE really are police?

Miners suggest it might have been better all around if officials had just shown up at the door -- as they used to do -- and said they wanted to check the water.

Read More: The Alaska Dispatch

Is the EPA Playing Favorites? More Corruption?

Conservative groups seeking information from the Environmental Protection Agency have been routinely hindered by fees normally waived for media and watchdog groups, while fees for more than 90 percent of requests from green groups were waived, according to requests reviewed by the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

CEI reviewed Freedom of Information Act requests sent between January 2012 and this spring from several environmental groups friendly to the EPA’s mission, and several conservative groups, to see how equally the agency applies its fee waiver policy for media and watchdog groups. Government agencies are supposed to waive fees for groups disseminating information for public benefit.

“This is as clear an example of disparate treatment as the IRS’ hurdles selectively imposed upon groups with names ominously reflecting an interest in, say, a less intrusive or biased federal government,” said CEI fellow Chris Horner.

Most green groups, including Earth Justice, The Waterkeeper Alliance, and Greenpeace, saw their fees waived. In fact, according to the report, 92 percent of requests from green groups were waived by the EPA.

But of the requests that were denied, “the EPA said the group either didn’t respond to requests for justification of a waiver, or didn’t express intent to disseminate the information to the general public,” Conger reports, citing documents obtained by the Examiner. 

Read More: The Blaze

AUDIO Chris Horner and The Liberal War on Transparency

 

 Christopher Warner has been researching FOIA requests over the last four years. Chrisstopher alleges that the EPA has engaged in policies and practices that have led to the destruction of public records. He details some examples during this interview and refers to his recently released book, The Liberal War on Transparency

Obama EPA Must Not Approve E15

 

The Obama administration EPA is eager to press forward with beginning the sale of E15, an ethanol-based fuel source. Only one problem: AAA, the 53 million member travel group, says that the fuel source erodes engines. E10 has already been approved for market, but E15 has a higher percentage of ethanol. About 12 million light-duty vehicles can use E15; GM and Ford have greenlit E15 for new model vehicles.

AAA President and CEO Robert Darbelnet says, “It is clear that millions of Americans are unfamiliar with E15, which means there is a strong possibility that many motorists may improperly fill up using this gasoline and damage their vehicle. Bringing E15 to the market without adequate safeguards does not responsibly meet the needs of consumers …. The sale and use of E15 should be suspended until additional gas pump labeling and consumer education efforts are implemented to mitigate problems for motorists and their vehicles.”


If the EPA does not label its product more properly, it is possible that millions of vehicles could be damaged, necessitating huge expenditures on the government-bailed-out auto industry.

Courtesy: Breitbart

Climate Change: Hoax or Crime Of The Century?

We had a warm summer here in the United States, and that brought some of the climate change alarmists out again. Looks like it’s time for another rebuttal!

John Coleman, the founder of The Weather Channel, and various other critics have called the theory that human use of carbon based fossil fuels will lead to catastrophic global warming or climate change a “hoax.” It is, but it’s more than that, it’s criminal.

Here are some of the scientific questions at the core of this issue:
Is the climate changing? Of course. The climate always has changed and always will.
Is the earth getting warmer? We should hope so for at least two reasons: First, the world emerged from the Little Ice Age in the 19th century, so it would be worrisome if it weren’t getting warmer.  Second, all the history indicates that humans thrive more during warmer periods than colder ones. It is likely, though, that earth has warmed less than many official temperature records indicate for a variety of reasons, including: few long-term records from either the southern hemisphere or the 71 percent of the planet that is covered by water; distortions from the urban heat-island effect and other faulty siting (e.g., temperature sensors next to asphalt parking lots, etc.; the decline in weather station reports from Siberia after the fall of the Soviet government; the arbitrarily ceasing to include measurements from northern latitudes and high elevations, etc.) The most accurate measures of temperature come from satellites. Since the start of these measurements in 1979, they show minor fluctuations and an insignificant net change in global temperature.

Is the earth getting dangerously warm? Probably not, since the earth was warmer than it is now in 7000 of the last 10,000 years. By the way, does anybody know what the “right” amount of global heat is?
Are we humans causing the warming by our carbon emissions? Actually, most of the “greenhouse effect” is due to water vapor, which makes one wonder why the EPA hasn’t designated H2O a harmful pollutant that they must regulate. Meteorologist Brian Sussman’s calculations in his book “Climategate” show humanity’s share of the greenhouse effect as .9 of 1 percent.

It’s even possible that CO2 may not affect global warming at all. During many stretches of planetary history, there has been no correlation between the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere and global temperature. In other long stretches, the variations of the two factors followed a significant sequence: increases in CO2 followed increases in warmth by several centuries. You don’t need to have a degree in climate science to know that, in a temporal universe, cause does not follow its effect.

Read More: Forbes