U.S. Senate blocks amendment to limit EPA authority

Excerpt:

The Senate declined to take up Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s (R-AK) effort to limit for a year the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, factories and other stationary sources of pollution.

~~snip~~

It would have forbidden the EPA from working to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and large manufacturers while the Senate continues to work on its own global warming proposal. It would not have prohibited the agency from continuing work on emission standards from mobile sources, such as automobile emissions.

Murkowski said she agrees emissions need to be brought in check, but said she didn’t believe the EPA, acting under the authority of the Clean Air Act, was the proper agency to do so.

Read the rest here.

So why is this important?

The EPA currently is working to comply with a 2007 Supreme Court decision, Massachusetts v. EPA, which required the agency to determine whether certain greenhouse gas emissions are harmful to the environment and public health. The EPA currently is in the middle of writing the final "endangerment finding" that would put the agency on the path of regulating greenhouse gas emissions.

If Congress doesn't act on legislation to cap emissions, the work the EPA is doing could emerge as the standard. The House of Representatives has passed legislation that would cap greenhouse gas emissions and create a market for trading pollution credits, but the Senate has stalled in its effort.

In other words, the EPA can adopt regulations on emissions (read "carbon emissions") which would effectively place a stranglehold on U.S. commerce. This would not be a law; just a "regulation".

Read the whole article, and consider this: it would also stop oil and gas exploration just as effectively as the cap-and-tax fiasco.

Make no mistake, my friends, the soulless automatons in D.C. will continue their relentless march to hobble this country, reducing us to third-world status in a short time.

This stuff is coming at us thick & fast. Respond appropriately, while we still have that option.