national ambient air quality standards

Washington’s New War on the West

by Ben Lieberman on October 4, 2010 · 1 comment

in Global Warming, Odds & Ends

The economic track record of the current administration and Congress is not a good one. Unemployment remains stubbornly high at nearly 10 percent, and many believe federal missteps prolonged the recession and are weakening the recovery. While things like ill-advised spending, Obamacare, and looming tax hikes are doing damage nationwide, a number of other federal measures have particularly burdened the American West, the region suffering with the highest unemployment rate in the country. The Senate and House Western Caucuses’ recent study, “The War on Western Jobs,” documents the host of environmental policies that have targeted the sectors crucial to the economies of Western states — especially energy production but also mining, logging, farming, and ranching.

It is important to note that the federal government controls the economic fate of western states to a greater extent than any other part of the country. The lands comprising 12 western states (Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, California, and Alaska) are nearly half owned by the federal government. More so than other regions, job losses in the West can be traced to federal policies.

The Obama administration’s attack on Western energy jobs began within weeks of taking power when the Department of the Interior revoked 77 oil and gas leases in Utah and halted new oil shale projects in Colorado. By the end of 2009, the administration had issued fewer onshore energy leases than in any year under Bush or Clinton, and the pace thus far in 2010 is no better. Throughout the West, vast energy-containing federal lands are currently off-limits, and the administration and Congress have sought to restrict access to millions of additional acres. Even where energy leasing is not explicitly prohibited, Obama’s regulators have imposed red tape and bureaucratic delays that have substantially limited it.

Beyond oil and gas, the administration has all but declared war on coal mining, which is particularly vital to Wyoming and Montana. The Environmental Protection Agency’s global warming regulations as well as many other anti-coal measures (including Boiler MACT, combustion byproducts, new National Ambient Air Quality Standards, others) bode ill for the future of western coal.

The threat of new energy taxes has only added to the chilling effect on Western investment in energy projects.

In addition to the impact on energy production, the federal government’s excessive ownership of land — as well as intrusive measures like the Endangered Species Act that target private property — is posing growing problems for other industries. Despite the West’s mineral wealth, mining jobs continue to decline. The same is true of logging. Farmers and ranchers also face a host of costly hurdles.

Instead of providing regulatory relief that could turn the region’s economy around, Congress has proposed new constraints like the sweeping Clean Water Restoration Act. This bill would essentially federalize land-use decisions on any property containing wetlands, and compounds the threat by defining wetlands so expansively so as to include almost everywhere. And the Obama Department of the Interior and Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service have issued new agency guidance for federal lands, which under the name of addressing global warming would further restrict access.

Granted, Washington’s control over western lands and the misuse of that control to curtail economic activity is not a new phenomenon, but the current administration and Congress have taken it to a new level.

The West’s economic pain has not been justified by environmental gain. Quite the contrary, Uncle Sam turns out to be a lousy landlord. For example, the forest fires that have become common in Western lands in recent years have mostly originated on federal lands, and not on privately-held forests which tend to be better managed against such risks. A less-intrusive federal approach could deliver both economic and environmental benefits.

The next Congress should have a long list of reforms on its agenda. The Western Caucuses’ report spells out what needs to be addressed to get the American West back on the path to prosperity.

Thank You CBD: Another Reason to Nix EPA Endangerment Finding

by Marlo Lewis on June 3, 2010 · 2 comments

in Global Warming

Twice during the past six months, the eco-litigators at the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) have underscored the political necessity for Congress to overturn EPA’s endangerment finding.

Yes, that is very far from CBD’s intention. CBD is a fervent defender of the endangerment finding, the December 2009 rulemaking in which EPA concluded that greenhouse emissions endanger public health and welfare.

The endangerment finding compels EPA to establish greenhouse gas emission standards for new motor vehicles, which in turn makes carbon dioxide (CO2) a “regulated air pollutant”  under the Clean Air Act, which in turn makes ”major” stationary sources of CO2 ”subject to regulation” under the Act’s Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) pre-construction permitting program and Title V operating permits program. CBD must be thrilled by the endangerment finding and the regulatory cascade it has triggered.

CBD wants EPA to follow through on all the regulatory commitments logically entailed by the endangerment finding and CO2′s new status as a “regulated air pollutant.” But that’s where things get dicey for President Obama and his congressional allies. Once the regulatory genie is out of the bottle, Obama officials may not be able to control it.

Even EPA acknowledges that applying the Act’s permitting programs to CO2 leads to “absurd results.” For example, EPA and its state counterparts would have to process 41,000 PSD permit applications per year (instead of 280) and 6.1 million Title V permits per year (instead of 14,700). The resulting administrative quagmire would paralyze environmental enforcement, slam the brakes on development, and force millions of firms to operate in legal limbo. A more potent anti-stimulus package would be hard to imagine. 

To avoid this red ink nightmare, EPA has issued a Tailoring Rule that exempts small CO2 emitters from the Act’s permitting programs for six years. However, nothing in the statute authorizes EPA to suspend or modify the permitting requirements. In reality, EPA’s Tailoring Rule is an amending rule. It’s anybody’s guess whether courts will uphold this breach of the separation of powers.

Even if they do, the endangerment finding will still endanger the U.S. economy and our constitutional system of separated powers and democratic accountability. Thank you, CBD, for bringing this peril to light!

Last December, CBD petitioned EPA to establish national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for greenhouse gases set below current atmospheric levels. CBD is only acting on the obvious implication of EPA’s assertion that endangerment comes from the “elevated concentration” of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Why should Obama and congressional leaders worry? The Clean Air Act requires states to come into attainment with a primary (health-based) NAAQS within five or at most 10 years. Yet not even a global depression lasting several decades would suffice to lower CO2 concentrations from today’s level (390 parts per million) to the stabilization target (350 parts per million) demanded by CBD and its co-petitioners. Because EPA may not take compliance costs into account when establishing NAAQS, the endangerment finding sets the stage for eco-litigators to transform the Act into a de-industrialization mandate.  No elected official wants to take ownership of so crazy a policy. If CBD prevails, however, Obama and the Democrats — the Party of Endangerment — will be left holding the bag. 

Yesterday, CBD filed suit to overturn EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson’s reconsideration of her predecessor Stephen Johnson’s memorandum determining when a pollutant is “subject to regulation” under the PSD program. Jackson’s reconsideration held that a pollutant is subject to regulation not when EPA finalizes an emissions control rulemaking but when the rule takes effect. Since EPA’s greenhouse gas motor vehicle standards rule does not take effect until January 2011, Jackson concluded that EPA may not regulate greenhouse gases from stationary sources until then. CBD says EPA should have started already to regulate large emitters via PSD.

CBD’s lawsuit makes EPA regulation of greenhouse gases a real-time issue for this Congress, not just a post-election issue for the next Congress. It increases the pressure on Democrats to get the monkey off their back. If courts strike down Jackson’s reconsideration, they will be more likely to strike down the Tailoring Rule, which undeniably flouts statutory language. Courts will also be more likely to look favorably on CBD’s NAAQS petition, which simply demands that EPA, having made an endangerment finding, follow the letter of the law.   

Democratic Senators who don’t want to bet their political futures on EPA’s ability to control the cascading effects of greenhouse gas regulation under the Clean Air Act – or who simply believe that climate policy is too important to be made by non-elected bureaucrats, trial lawyers, and activist judges appointed for life – will soon get their opportunity.

On June 10, the Senate will vote on a resolution of disapproval (S.J.Res.26), sponsored by Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, to nullify the legal force and effect of EPA’s endangerment finding. If enacted, S.J.Res.26 will:

  1. Avert the threat of an administrative meltdown under the PSD and Title V programs.
  2. Avert the threat of sky-is-the-limit, money-is-no-object regulation of greenhouse gases via the NAAQS program.
  3. Avoid the need for EPA to play lawmaker and ’amend” a statute it is supposed merely to administer.

Most importantly, enacting Sen. Murkowski’s resolution will ensure that the big decisions about the content and direction of national policy are made by the people’s representatives, as the Constitution requires.

Deregulatory Bailout

by Iain Murray on December 12, 2008 · 10 comments

in Bailout Watch, Economy, Mobility

There are hundreds of regulations that Congress and agencies have imposed on the auto industry, driving up their costs unnecessarily. As an illustration, these are the new rules from the DOT identified by Wayne Crews in the 2008 edition of Ten Thousand Commandments:

– Reform of the automobile fuel economy standards program.
– Light-truck Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards (2012 model years and beyond).
– Upgrade of head restraints in vehicles.
– Rear center lap and shoulder belt requirement.
– Monitoring systems for improved tire safety and tire pressure.
– Automotive regulations for car lighting, door retention, brake hoses, daytime running-light glare, and side impact protection.

Plus these from the EPA:

– Rulemaking to address greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles.
– Clean air visibility, mercury, and ozone implementation rules.
– Review of National Ambient Air Quality Standards for lead, ozone, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter, and nitrogen dioxide.
– National emission standards for hazardous air pollutants from … auto paints.

These rules and all those from previous years need to be reanalyzed in the light of the industry’s troubles to see whether they should be repealed, suspended or weakened. In particular, attention should be paid to their aggregate effect on the industry. A deregulatory bailout would save the industry billions, and also save thousands of lives.