Shortly after taking office in 2001, President Bush reneged on a campaign pledge to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from US power plants. Last week the administration, in office for only six more months, closed the circle and announced that it still would not regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
Given what the Washington Post called seven years of administration "denial, inaction and foot-dragging," the decision should have surprised no one. But what set it apart from business-as-usual was that it was in response to a US Supreme Court ruling that the Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to regulate GHG emissions under the Clean Air Act.
The High Court directed the EPA to determine whether GHG emissions from motor vehicles endangered public health and welfare. If so, the agency would be required to regulate the emissions; if not, the agency would have to provide a science-based explanation as to why not.
Last week, EPA issued an advance notice of proposed rulemaking (in effect, a notice of non-rulemaking) seeking public comment on whether the agency should regulate GHG emissions under the act, while at the same time going to great lengths to cast any such regulation in the most negative light possible. The decision to regulate now rests with the next administration.
The regulation of greenhouse gases under any portion of the act "could result in an unprecedented expansion of EPA authority that would have a profound effect on virtually every sector of the economy," EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson said. "Based on the analyses to date, pursuing this course of action would take decades and inevitably result in a very complicated and likely, convoluted set of regulations. If our nation is truly serious about regulating greenhouse gases, the Clean Air Act is the wrong tool for the job."
The agency sought to tip scales by taking the unprecedented step of including in its notice comments from other administration agencies urging EPA not to regulate greenhouse gases under the act.
Comments from the Secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, Transportation and Energy, the Chairman of the Council of Environmental Quality, the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, "reflect agreement with you [Administrator Johnson], that the Clean Air Act is a deeply flawed and unsuitable vehicle for reducing greenhouse gas emissions," the Office of Management Budget said in a submission to EPA.
The comments are hardly surprising considering that they come from agencies and officials in the service of an administration which has opposed all proposals to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. The Clean Air Act, in fact, was not intended to control greenhouse gas emissions. But because the administration (and Congress) have failed to develop an alternative, it is the only vehicle currently available.
The debate within the administration about how to respond to the Supreme Court ruling pitted EPA staff and experts - who believed that GHG emissions pose a danger and that the agency was required to regulate them - against senior officials within the EPA and elsewhere in the administration who sought to interfere with, or block that finding.
Last December, Jason Burnett, an associate deputy administration at EPA, e-mailed an endangerment finding to the OMB, where officials reportedly refused to open it, the way folks avert their eyes to avoid looking at something they find unpleasant.
The Washington Post also reported that at one meeting the OMB general counsel asked if "carbon dioxide emissions from a tailpipe could be treated differently from those from a power plant, wondering if the molecules are different. The answer was that they are not."
The laws of chemistry are not easily revoked, regardless of administration policy.
Wow, Gerry, Bush derangement syndrome really gets a deep hold when you combine it with global warmermongering cult stuff.
You have to give the Bush administration points for consistency, at any rate. But even the administration has ackowledged that global warming is a serious problem that demands a domestic and international response, including from emerging economies such as China (no argument there). The question now is how to respond.
Yes, the President derailed and ignored his top scientist's recommendation and softened his stance on CO2. He was wrong to do that. But in fact I believe he knows there is nothing we mere humans can do about warming but cope with it. CO2 will blow up eventually because there is absolutely no data or science to back it up whatsoever. And we are not going to spend precious capital during this energy crisis, at least, on such a boondoggle.
Yes, it's warming ever so slightly from solar energy cycles, which eventually cycle down. And because of a scientific discovery reported a couple years ago we now know why, it's the 100,000-year magnetic field cycle of the sun. We also now know global warming is a winter thing causing more snow and spring rains and flooding. The temperature trend is ever so slightly cooling summers as a matter of fact.
The conclusion that global warming is largely caused by solar energy cycles is not the slam dunk Mr. Weaver suggests. Solar activity does have an effect, but studies suggest that it plays a minor role in the current global warming. And there is science and are data that indicate the fault lies not in our star, but in ourselves.
Mr. Karey lists no hard data or science; we have just his assertion humans caused the recent warming. This is the main problem the public has in understanding and grappling with global warming. The 2005 AMS Climate Report shows a detailed analysis of Mt. Washington temperature data for 70 years, and despite an alleged 80% CO2 emissions increase (by humans) since 1970, the temperature trends (see page 4450) of every season did not change one iota for all 70 years up to 2005 when the peer-reviewed scientific report was published. If an 80% emissions increase doesn't cause even one bit of change, Mr. Karey's assertion of a human cause (I assume he is speaking of carbon) is false.
Until we experience the sun's downturn in energy output, we will not know for certain. But since per ice core data we live at the temperature peak of the 100,000-year cycle (some say nearing the end of the approximate 10,000 year interglacial peak period), we may not have to wait long for cooling. As an engineer and scientist, I have to base my beliefs on hard data and real science, and it looks like it is our star causing the cycle. "The Sun's radiation has increased by 0.05 percent per decade since the late 1970s," and we will probably pay the price in stormier winters and worse spring runoffs overall as this continues, as has been asserted by climate scientists.
Mr. Weaver and Lee: The scientific community has spent decades looking into this question. Look at the current research in the top 100 graduate schools and the conclusions of the scientific academies of every developed nation. Most importantly, the IPCC has summarized the peer-reviewed literature for 2 decades... it's consensus conclusion is that the current warming is UNEQUIVOCAL, and that there is a 90% likelihood that the majority of this warming is due to additional greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. The Foot-draggers and "Denialists" reasons and explanations are all over the map... it's not warming, it's cooling, its solar cycles, or warming won't hurt us, or it's too expensive to do something, or we are not capable of a post-fossil fuel economy.
Peak Oil and Natural Gas are coming in the next decades anyhow. the big picture for future generations is how we transition away from fossil fuels in a way that does not lead to the collapse of civilization. GW Bush is just kicking the ball down the field because comprehending this or doing something about it is beyond his skill-set and clashes with all that he holds true.
In February, 2007, the American Meteorological Society, which Mr. Weaver cited, issued a new statement on climate change. It said, in part, that despite uncertainties, "There is adequate evidence from observations and interpretations of climate simulations to conclude that the atmosphere, ocean, and land surface are warming; that humans have significantly contributed to this change; and that further climate change will continue to have important impacts on human societies, on economies, on ecosystems, and on wildlife through the 21st century and beyond. Focusing on the next 30 years, convergence among emission scenarios and model results suggest strongly that increasing air temperatures will reduce snowpack, shift snowmelt timing, reduce crop production and rangeland fertility, and cause continued melting of the ice caps and sea level rise."
The AMS said the statement "is consistent with the vast weight of current scientific understanding as expressed in assessments and reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the US National Academy of Sciences and the US Climate Change Program."
The statement, which is still in force, can be found at: http://www.ametsoc.org/POLICY/2007climatechange.html
Mr. Karey, I have never said it was not warming, it is. And per real data, it's warming winters but cooling ever so slightly over time summers (again, see page 4450 of that important AMS climate report). Further, an AMS official or person may have said humans may be contributing to warming based on "observations" and simulations. If those observations are based on it's warming, we all know that. But did CO2 increases do it? The real data says no it did not.
As for simulations, that is not real data, and the chemical engineer in me (I've did some fancy simulations in my your career) says the climate change process is too slow and complex to simulate. How do I account for the previous contingences in the equations? They and their initial conditions are part of the engine of change now, and this is a very complex initial condition to any simulation, let alone getting the relationship equations correct. That is virtually impossible. I would not recommend leaders make policy based on anyone's simulation. And certainly greenhouse gases, the 95% effect gas being water vapor as asserted my most scientists, accounts for nearly all of the greenhouse effect. And more solar gain means more evaporation and more of that effect, but also more snowfall tying up Btu's in snow pack, which can drop the ocean 100 feet or more. Nevertheless, temperature increases are on the same steady course, no affect whatsoever from the 80% CO2 human emissions increase asserted since 1970. Thus, all real evidence and science shows that the 100,000-year temperature cycle you are worried about is indeed solar driven.
Secondly, Mr. Bush and I think everybody in his administrant and everybody in the next administration and all of us working diligently on energy will see this through to a nearly 100% alternative energy future, and much better one as well. It is not Mr. Bush's fault that autos have engines that use oil, and he has been very critical of that industry's foot dragging, as a matter of fact.
What I'm concerned about is people who will try and confiscate my money and my friends money to their empty ends of CO2 sequestration, or wealth transfer using a carbon tax or what have you for something there is no real science to support. That is in my view taxation without scientific representation and worthy of a "Boston Tea Party." I don?t believe it will happen because I think in the end cooler heads will prevail and capital will go to wind and EV's and better biomass technologies (that we are all working on) etc. There are 10,000 scientists and engineers who have signed letters to the effect CO2 assertions are not valid. And ultimately, all of those world leaders who have jumped onto the CO2 bandwagon will jump off just as fast when they see the light. They are, after all, political animals and ultimately have their reputations on the line. They will not be made a fool of. And I still consider Mr. Bush's reputation in tact on the CO2 issue. And I don't expect the next president to be running off and signing carbon tax legislation; it's highly unlikely.
Thank you for your interest, Mr.Weaver.