Search: endangerment

Government’s Chinatown Bus Shutdowns Based on “Statistical Malpractice”

by Marc Scribner on May 9, 2013 · 0 comments

in Mobility, Precaution & Risk, Regulation

Reason’s Jim Epstein has an article up that does a nice job debunking a National Transportation Safety Board study, prompted by a 2011 bus crash in the Bronx that killed 15 people, that led the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to shut down a number of supposedly unsafe small bus companies:

In 1997, Chinese-born entrepreneurs began regularly scheduled long-distance bus services that picked up passengers on the street. Tickets were priced so low that it was hard to figure how the operators could be breaking even, much less making a profit. Faced with declining market share, Greyhound and Peter Pan imitated the Chinatown model by teaming up to create a new venture called BoltBus. Then Coach USA got into the game with Megabus. Today, “curbside” buses—lines that begin and end their routes at the sidewalk as opposed to a traditional station—make up the fastest growing form of intercity travel in the U.S.

But over the past two years, the government has forced 27 bus companies based in Chinatown to close. The regulatory clampdown was fueled by a government study that found curbside carriers were disproportionately killing their passengers. Released by the National Transportation Safety Board, a federal agency, the study concluded that curbside bus companies were “seven times” more likely to be involved in an accident with at least one fatality than conventional bus operators. That finding was reported by The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Businessweek, USA Today, the New York Daily News, WNYC, and Reuters, among others. Although the study did not single out Chinatown bus companies the headline in Businessweek read, “Chinatown Buses Death Rate Said Seven Times That of Others.”

The study is bogus. Not only is the “seven times” finding incorrect, the entire report is a mangle of inaccurate charts and numbers that tell us virtually nothing meaningful about bus safety. There’s no evidence that curbside or Chinatown buses are any less safe than any other kind of bus.

How did the study authors figure curbside bus companies are “seven times” more prone to fatal accidents? For starters, they counted 37 accidents during the study period involving curbside buses in which there was at least one fatality. When I rebuilt the study data and contacted the companies involved, I found that, in 30 of those 37 accidents, curbside buses were not involved. In fact, 24 of those 30 misclassified cases involved Greyhound’s conventional bus fleet. (Greyhound’s curbside subsidiary BoltBus had no fatal accidents during the study period.)

The National Transportation Safety Board denied my requests for the study data, even though it was a taxpayer-funded report with an impact on policy. After my Freedom of Information Act request also failed to return the information following a six-month wait, I began reconstructing the study data from other sources.

Proceeding on the time-honored hunch that people who are hiding something have reason to do so, I generated a list of the 37 fatal crashes using a database obtained from a federal contractor that collects nationwide accident data. I analyzed that data with help of Aaron Brown, a quantitative analyst with the hedge fund AQR Capital Management. Brown was the first to point out major flaws in the NTSB’s methodology in an article published by Minyanville.com, accusing the study authors of “statistical malpractice.” I also consulted with Ed George, a professor of statistics and department chair at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton business school, who examined the study for the purposes of this article.

“When I first read the NTSB report, I thought this is just terrible statistics,” says Brown. “But it goes way beyond that. It’s almost as if someone took some random data and shook it together.”

Read the whole thing over at Reason for an overview of the NTSB’s incredibly sloppy study methodology. Cato’s Randal “The Antiplanner” O’Toole has more.

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Obama State of the Union Proposal Could Increase Mortgage Costs, Shrink America’s 401(K)s

by Hans Bader on January 26, 2012

in Bailout Watch, Economy

AEI’s James Pethokoukis says that the mass-refinancing plan proposed by President Obama in his State of the Union address would “result in higher financing costs going forward.”  It’s designed to create a short-term “boost for the economy going into the election.” The plan would also harm bank shareholders and people approaching retirement  (most mutual funds that people hold in their 401(k) plans have holdings in banks and thus would be harmed, reduced the size of people’s retirement plans, over the long run). Pethokoukis quotes a financial analyst at Guggenheim Washington Research Group who notes that “that a mass refinancing could permanently drive housing finance costs higher. This is a real threat as investors are likely to demand a premium if government policy materially accelerates prepayment rates.” Pethokoukis calls this mortgage bailout proposal Obama’s “January surprise.”

The Obama administration is also harming the housing market by pressuring banks to make risky loans to minorities with bad credit, using the threat of massive Justice Department lawsuits. The Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, Thomas Perez, has compared bankers to “Klansmen,” and extracted settlements from banks “setting aside prime-rate mortgages for low-income blacks and Hispanics with blemished credit,” and treating welfare “as valid income in mortgage applications,” noted Investor’s Business Daily.

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Fannie and Freddie Helped Spawn the Mortgage Crisis, and So Did Affordable Housing Mandates

by Hans Bader on January 9, 2012 · 1 comment

in Bailout Watch, Economy, Politics as Usual, Regulation, Zeitgeist

In a recent letter in The New York Times, I noted the role played by the government-sponsored enterprises, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, in spawning the financial crisis and burdening taxpayers to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. The two mortgage giants bought up risky sub-prime mortgages partly in order to satisfy government affordable-housing mandates, as even the liberal Village Voice found in its investigative reporting. Even Fannie Mae’s 2006 10-K form with the SEC noted the role of HUD’s affordable-housing mandates as a factor in its purchase of mortgages it would once have avoided as too risky:

[W]e have made, and continue to make, significant adjustments to our mortgage loan sourcing and purchase strategies in an effort to meet HUD’s increased housing goals and new subgoals. These strategies include entering into some purchase and securitization transactions with lower expected economic returns than our typical transactions. We have also relaxed some of our underwriting criteria to obtain goals-qualifying mortgage loans and increased our investments in higher-risk mortgage loan products that are more likely to serve the borrowers targeted by HUD’s goals and subgoals, which could increase our credit losses. [emphasis supplied]

Some commentators at liberal newspapers, like The New York Times‘ Joe Nocera, have argued that Fannie and Freddie bought up risky mortgages in order to maintain their market share, not to satisfy affordable-housing mandates, and that this somehow minimizes their role in the mortgage crisis, contrary to the arguments of Peter Wallison, who prophetically predicted that Fannie and Freddie would someday have to be bailed out by taxpayers, and argued in his opinion at the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission that Fannie and Freddie were a major contributor to the financial crisis.

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Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Were Into Subprime Lending, and Lied About It

by Hans Bader on December 16, 2011

in Bailout Watch, Economy, Legal, Politics as Usual, Zeitgeist

“One of the regular claims from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac apologists . . . is that the two entities were blameless” for causing the mortgage meltdown and financial crisis, as these two “Government-sponsored enterprises” (GSEs) supposedly “weren’t involved in subprime” mortgages and were forbidden to buy them. This false and dishonest claim has now been refuted.  In charging the former heads of Fannie and Freddie with fraud, “the Securities and Exchange Commission has decided that not only could the GSEs buy subprime, but they did in fact do so and, even worse, they lied about it.”

As Cato Institute economist Mark Calabria notes, “Back in 2008, Paul Krugman went so far as to say, ‘they didn’t do any subprime, because they can’t.’ Just taking 10 minutes to read the actual statute and regulations would have revealed to him that they actually could. Krugman went on to say, ‘Fannie and Freddie buy only mortgages issued to borrowers who made substantial down payments and carefully documented their income.’ Of course, just reading Fannie’s 10-K would have revealed that claim to be false. But why let facts get in the way?”

In the Wall Street Journal, Peter Wallison, who prophetically warned against the risky practices of mortgage giant Fannie Mae, earlier described the key role that government-sponsored entity played in spawning the recent financial crisis, in an article entitled “Government-Sponsored Meltdown.” He cited the findings of a recent book about the causes of the crisis by New York Times business reporter Gretchen Morgenson and financial analyst Josh Rosner, a book called “Reckless Endangerment,” which chronicles how “it was Fannie Mae and the government housing policies it supported, pursued, and exploited that brought the financial system to a halt in 2008.” Earlier, a top investment manager at JP Morgan Private Bank reached a similar conclusion, noting that “new research” showed that “US Agencies played a larger role in the housing crisis than we first reported,” and thus were a “primary catalyst for the US housing crisis.”

(Even now, the Obama Justice Department is pressuring banks to make risky loans to people with bad credit, relying on a strained interpretation of fair lending laws, and the threat of massive lawsuits.)

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Fannie-Freddie’s Hypocritical Suit Against Banks Making Loans that GSEs Helped Create

by John Berlau on September 2, 2011 · 5 comments

in Bailout Watch, Economy

“U.S. is set to sue dozen big banks over mortgages,” reads the front-page headline in today’s New York Times. The “deck” below the headline explains that that the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees the government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is “seen as arguing that lenders lacked due diligence” in the loans they made.

A more apt description would probably be that Fannie and Freddie are suing the banks for selling them the very loans the GSEs helped designed and that government mandates encourage — and are still encouraging them to make. These conflicted actions are just one more of the government’s contributions to the uncertainty that is helping to keep unemployment at 9 percent.

Strangely the author of the Times piece, Nelson Schwartz, ignores the findings of a recent blockbuster book by one of his colleagues that Fannie and Freddie took the lead in creating the shoddy loans. “Reckless Endangerment” by Pulitzer Prize-winning Times reporter and columnist Gretchen Morgenson and financial analyst Joshua Rosner write that the GSEs “led both the private and public sectors down a path that led directly to the financial crisis of 2008.”

In the Times, Morgenson has written that Fannie and Freddie were the “biggest and most steadfast collaborators” of the notorious Countrywide Financial. Fannie “assiduously … pursued Mr. Mozilo and 14 of his lieutenants to make sure the company continued to shovel loans its way,” according to Morgenson. In 2004, Countrywide “sold 26 percent of the loans Fannie bought,” she reported.

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Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Nominee Richard Cordray Supports Price Controls and Borrower Bailouts

by John Berlau on July 19, 2011 · 3 comments

in Bailout Watch, Deregulate to Stimulate, Economy, Features

Post image for Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Nominee Richard Cordray Supports Price Controls and Borrower Bailouts

Last Thursday, before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau architect Elizabeth Warren insisted that her priority was not to ban certain products, but just require better disclosure. While she refused to renounce the power the mammoth Dodd-Frank financial legislation signed into law almost a year ago gives the bureau to ban products deemed “abusive” as well as deceptive, she indicated that limiting choices should through bans or interest rate caps be a last resort.

“There’s a lot of space between banning a product and making a product clearer to consumers,” she said at the hearing as quoted by The Hill. “Let’s get out there and try some real disclosure … I believe in markets.”

But Richard Cordray, who was just nominated for the top spot at the bureau that many thought Warren would get, doesn’t subscribe to this belief. As Ohio’s attorney general, his philosophy was ban first, ask questions later. He seemed to never meet a price control, interest rate cap, or product ban he didn’t like. The former Jeopardy! champion would constantly express the belief that less intelligent beings should not be burdened with deciding what product is best for them in the marketplace.

He was a driving force in Ohio’s efforts in putting price controls interest on small, short-term loans. Ohio instituted one of the lowest interest caps in the country, driving legitimate small lenders out of the state, and Cordray would have gone even further. He championed outlawing basic fees that small-loan providers had been able to charge in the state since the ’50s.

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Fannie Mae Played a Bigger Role in the Financial Crisis than Previously Thought

by Hans Bader on July 12, 2011

in Bailout Watch, Deregulate to Stimulate, Economy, Legal, Regulation

In the Wall Street Journal, Peter Wallison, who prophetically warned against the risky practices of mortgage giant Fannie Mae, describes the key role that government-sponsored entity played in spawning the recent financial crisis, in an article entitled “Government-Sponsored Meltdown.” He cites the findings of a recent book about the causes of the crisis by New York Times business reporter Gretchen Morgenson and financial analyst Josh Rosner, a book called “Reckless Endangerment,” which chronicles how “it was Fannie Mae and the government housing policies it supported, pursued, and exploited that brought the financial system to a halt in 2008.” Earlier, a top investment manager at JP Morgan Private Bank reached a similar conclusion, noting that “new research” showed that “US Agencies played a larger role in the housing crisis than we first reported,” and thus were a “primary catalyst for the US housing crisis.”

As Wallison notes, Government-Sponsored Enterprises (GSE’s) like Fannie Mae played a central role in precipitating the financial crisis:

After James A. Johnson, a Democratic political operative and former aide to Walter Mondale, became chairman of Fannie Mae in 1991 . . . it became a political powerhouse, intimidating and suborning Congress and tying itself closely to the Clinton administration’s support for the low-income lending program called “affordable housing.” This program required subprime and other risky lending, but it solidified Fannie’s support among Democrats and some Republicans in Congress, and enabled the agency to resist privatization or significant regulation until 2008. “Under Johnson,” write Ms. Morgenson and Mr. Rosner, “Fannie Mae led the way in encouraging loose lending practices among banks whose loans the company bought. . . . Johnson led both the private and public sectors down a path that led directly to the financial crisis of 2008.”. . .Far from being a marginal player, Fannie Mae was the source of the decline in mortgage underwriting standards that eventually brought down the financial system. It led rather than followed Wall Street into risky lending. . .Edward Pinto (a former chief credit officer of Fannie Mae) . . . presented . . . evidence . . . showing that by 2008 half of all mortgages in the U.S. (27 million loans) were subprime or otherwise risky, and that 12 million of these loans were on the books of the GSEs.

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EPA at 40 — Doing an End-Run Around the Legislative Process

by Fran Smith on December 1, 2010 · 1 comment

in Energy, Environment, Global Warming, Regulation

The Environmental Protection Agency is 40 years old.  It came into being under a Republican president, Richard M. Nixon, and opened its offices on December 2, 1970.  In January of that year, Nixon had signed the National Environmental Protection Act, and on the last day of December 1970, he signed the Clean Air Act of 1970.

Fast forward to the year 2010, with an EPA now with almost limitless powers in the environmental arena — regulating greenhouse gas emissions, policing carbon dioxide as a pollutant, and expanding the purview of the Clean Air Act, without congressional approval.  As CEI’s Marlo Lewis wrote,

. . . EPA has positioned itself to determine the stringency of fuel economy standards for the auto industry, set climate policy for the nation, and even amend provisions of the Clean Air act–powers Congress never delegated to the agency. The Endangerment Rule is both trigger and precedent for sweeping policy changes Congress never approved. America could end up with a pile of greenhouse gas regulations more costly than any climate bill or treaty the Senate has declined to pass or ratify, yet without the people’s representatives ever voting on it.

Here’s more from a coalition letter trying to roll back these expanded powers:

Is climate policy to be made by the people’s representatives or by politically unaccountable bureaucrats, trial lawyers, and activist judges?

Only one answer to that question passes constitutional muster. EPA has no authority to do an end-run around the democratic process. Climate policy is too important to be made by an administrative agency without new and specific statutory guidance from Congress.

Republicans are now in control of the House, and with six additional seats in the Senate, they, working with moderate Democrats, should be able to pass legislation suspending or overturning EPA greenhouse gas regulations. We, the People, can “take back our government” only if our representatives stop administrative agencies from legislating.

Morning Media Summary

by Lee Doren on November 9, 2010

in Economy, Energy, Environment, International, Legal, Personal Liberty, Regulation

Tech:

LimeWire Resurrected By Secret Dev Team:
“Last month, the Gnutella-based file-sharing client LimeWire was effectively outlawed after a U.S. federal judge granted a request from the RIAA to shut the software down. Now, not even a month later, LimeWire is back as good as new. Not only has a secret dev team reanimated the hugely popular client, but they have also made a few significant changes which make it better and more streamlined than before.”

Linux: Does Being Competitive with Windows Matter?:
“How many times have you heard this statement: “It’s the year of the Linux desktop.” Not recently? Then how about “Linux is making gains on the Windows desktop”? Still leaving a bad taste in your mouth? Bet I know why.”

‘Net pioneers: Open Internet should be separate:
“The U.S. Federal Communications Commission should allow for an open Internet separate from specialised services that may prioritise IP traffic, a group of Internet and technology pioneers have recommended.”

Global Warming / Environment / Energy:

Video: I’m a Denier:
“Our friends at Minnesotans for Global Warming have a new theme song for the Republicans in charge of the House in next year’s Congress. With the GOP poised to take control, the cap-and-trade bill looks all but dead, and the EPA enforcement of its endangerment finding may soon lack any funds. M4GW reworks the old Neil Diamond song written for The Monkees, “I’m a Believer,” into something a little more appropriate:”

Insurance / Gambling:

Man who launched online poker winning accepts time-served plea deal:
“He was the target of a federal investigation into money laundering, accused of funneling millions of dollars in Internet poker gambling winnings through dozens of bank accounts.”

Health / Safety:

Look out, your medicine is watching you:
“The initial program will use one of the Swiss firm’s established drugs taken by transplant patients to avoid organ rejection. But Trevor Mundel, global head of development, believes the concept can be applied to many other pills.”

STD Test? There’s an App for That:
“British health officials are hard at work on a new app that will allow users to pee into their cell phones and find out within minutes if they have an STD.”

New nutrition rules may be no party for students:
“The cake, cookies and candy at the school parties you might remember will become a no-no if the state approves new nutrition guidelines.”

Anti-Smoking Programs Are Slashed:
“Many cash-strapped U.S. states are slashing budgets for tobacco-prevention programs, raising alarms among public-health groups as the nation’s progress toward getting adult smokers to quit has stalled.”

Economics:

Big Nanny Bloomberg’s latest initiative: Govt-sponsored fashion jobs:
“Not satisfied with taxing carbon, soda, and salt, Big Nanny NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg is sticking government’s nose into yet another area it doesn’t belong — and isn’t needed.”

Legal:

First interview with NPR CEO Vivian Schiller on Juan Williams filing:
“Q: Could NPR live without federal funding?”

NPR’s defenders receiving money from the same Soros-backed organization:
“After NPR fired Juan Williams in late October for comments he made about Muslims on Fox News’ “O’Reilly Factor,” NPR
saw supporters come out of the woodwork to decry right-leaning calls for the radio company to be stripped of government financial support. Interestingly, many of those who voiced their opinion that NPR should keep its government provided cash happen to receive funds from the same source: liberal financier George Soros and his Open Society Institute.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.: Keith Olbermann’s suspension means we can’t let Republicans own media companies:
“Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said he would look to block a merger between NBC and Comcast, citing the decision last week by MSNBC to suspend liberal anchor Keith Olbermann.”

China Bars Rights Lawyers From Leaving Country:
“Two prominent legal advocates bound for an international law conference in London were blocked from leaving China Tuesday on vague charges that their departure might endanger national security, the men said.”

Company Accused of Firing Over Facebook Post:
“In what labor officials and lawyers view as a ground-breaking case involving workers and social media, the National Labor Relations Board has accused a company of illegally firing an employee after she criticized her supervisor on her Facebook page.”
Labor:

Worker rights extend to Facebook, labor board says:
“In what labor officials and lawyers view as a ground-breaking case involving workers and social media, the National Labor Relations Board has accused a company of illegally firing an employee after she criticized her supervisor on her Facebook page.”

The SEIU Assault on American Colleges and Universities:
“Unheralded and virtually unnoticed, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has been pushing its way into the halls of America’s universities and colleges. Not content to restrict its activities to food workers and non-supervisory personnel, the Union has moved on to organizing part-time faculty.”

Transportation/ Land Use:

Death of Wisconsin high-speed rail project will come at price, Doyle says:
“According to a statement issued yesterday by Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle, reported plans to end a high-speed rail project between Milwaukee and Madison will result in millions of rescinded and wasted funds, as well as hundreds of jobs lost in the state. Gov. Doyle’s statements come following public declarations by Governor-elect Scott Walker to end the federally financed project.”

Sen. Baucus, I Salute You! OK, I Will Salute You If…

by Marlo Lewis on October 7, 2010 · 1 comment

in Global Warming

In a message titled, ”EPA WILL REGULATE GLOBAL WARMING IN STATES WITH OR WITHOUT AUTHORITY,” the ever-vigilant Maryam Brown of the Senate Republican Policy Committee reports:

As you likely saw, Senator Baucus [D-MT] said yesterday that he would strip U.S. EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act: “That would put too much power into few hands.” (Source:  E&E News) Senator Baucus’s apprehension to EPA’s power over all activity is well placed.

On October 5th, EPA officials said that those states not cooperating come January 2nd would face a gap in permitting authority that could prevent sources from receiving the necessary permits.  [In plain English: If states don’t come along, the Obama EPA will hold up projects (and the jobs that go with) in your state.]  (Source:  BNA Daily)

Because these statements echoed states such as Texas’s fears that EPA has a “plan for centralized control of industrial development through the issuance of permits for greenhouse gases,” EPA issued a clarifying statement on October 6th: “EPA has a mechanism in place to ensure permitting can occur without disruption in any states that currently do not have authority to regulate GHG.”  [In plain English: Whether there is authority or not, the Obama EPA will regulate the states.] (Source:  BNA Daily)

Baucus’s opposition to EPA regulation of greenhouse gases is noteworthy for three reasons.

First, as E&E News observes, Sen. Baucus “is considered a key vote to obtain in order to pass any climate bill and a bellwether for many other moderate Democrats on the issue.” Second, Baucus voted against Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s resolution (S.J.Res.26) to overturn EPA’s Endangerment Rule — the trigger for a cascade of greenhouse gas regulation under the Clean Air Act. If he is a “bellwether,” then other opponents of S.J.Res. 26 may also have come to their senses and realize that Congress should not let EPA legislate climate policy.

Third, although Baucus may not acknowledge it, his “too much power into few hands” argument is tacit criticism of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA, which both authorized and pushed EPA to regulate greenhouse gases via the Clean Air Act. The Court authorized EPA to regulate greenhouse gases when it declared that “greenhouse gases fit well within the Clean Air Act’s capacious definition of ‘air pollutant’” (they don’t, as I explain here).

In addition, the Court pushed EPA to regulate greenhouse gases by pre-judging EPA’s endangerment proceeding. The Court held that EPA must make a positive finding of endangerment if it decides that “greenhouse gases cause or contribute to climate change” — as if climate change per se = endangerment. Since greenhouse gases by definition have a greenhouse effect, the Court left EPA only one alternative — declare that “the scientific uncertainty is so profound that it precludes EPA from making a reasoned judgment as to whether greenhouse gases contribute to global warming.” An impossible alternative for an agency that had been a certified member of the alleged “scientific consensus” for many years.

The key point regarding Mass. v. EPA, though, is that Sen. Baucus is almost uniquely qualified to rebut the claim that the Clean Air Act authorizes EPA to regulate greenhouse gases from new motor vehicles. During congressional deliberation on the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, Baucus  introduced legislation requiring EPA to do just that. As originally introduced on September 14, 1989, S. 1630, the Senate version of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, contained a Section 216 on “Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Passenger Cars.” The provision would require the Administrator to establish tailpipe emission standards for CO2:

SEC. 216. (a) PROMULGATION OF REGULATIONS- The Administrator shall promulgate regulations providing for standards applicable to emissions of carbon dioxide from passenger automobiles (as defined in 15 U.S.C. 2001(2)). Such standards shall require that for model years 1995 to 2002, the average of such emissions from passenger automobiles manufactured by any manufacturer shall not exceed two hundred and forty two grams per mile, and for model year 2003 and thereafter, such average shall not exceed one hundred and seventy grams per mile.

However, the Senate declined to adopt that provision.  Another part of Baucus’s draft legislation, Title VII of S. 1630, would have made “global warming potential” a basis for regulating ”substances manufactured for commercial purposes,” such as chlorofluorcarbons and halogens. Although Title VII declared reductions in CO2 and methane emissions as a national goal, it did not explicitly provide authority to regulate those gases, which are byproducts of combustion and agricultural activity rather than “substances manufactured for commercial purposes.”

In any event, the House-Senate conference committee ultimately rejected even that limited basis for global warming regulation while also dropping Title VII’s goal of reducing CO2 and methane emissions. The only trace of Title VII’s climate language that survived is Section 602(e) of Title VI, which directs the Administrator to “publish” the “global warming potential”of ozone-depleting substances. To ensure that trigger-happy regulators would not go off half-cocked, the phrase “global warming potential” is immediately followed by this admonition: “The preceding sentence shall not be construed to be the basis of any additional regulation under [the CAA].”

So with the possible exception of Rep. John Dingell (see pp. 65-66 of this committee print), who chaired the House-Senate conference committee on the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, probably nobody on Capitol Hill knows better than Sen. Baucus that Congress never authorize EPA to regulate greenhouse gases for climate change purposes. Baucus tried to persuade the Senate to approve greenhouse gas emission standards for new motor vehicles — and failed. House and Senate conferees also rejected the other greenhouse gas regulatory provisions he had proposed. A lawmaker doesn’t forget stuff like that!

And now, 20 years later, Baucus is willing to break ranks with his own party leadership and incur the wrath of the green establishment because EPA is amassing powers that, in the last major re-write of the Clean Air Act, he tried and failed to confer on the agency via legislation. Sen. Baucus, I salute you! OK, I will salute you if you match your brave words with action and do something to stop EPA!

The Court in Mass. v. EPA ignored its own better judgment: “Few principles of statutory construction are more compelling than the proposition that Congress does not intend sub silentio [by its silence] to enact statutory language that it has earlier discarded in favor of other language.” INS v. Cardozo-Fonseca, 480 U.S. 421, 442-43 (1983) It is not too late to correct the Court’s error. If Sen. Baucus is indeed a bellwether, that correction may not be long in coming.

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