EPA to Impose Cap & Trade on Texas

[Dick Seibert]

Since businesses are fleeing California for Texas due to Cap & Trade taxation, the EPA Gestapo has announce plans to take on Texas, probably the last free state.

The opening shot of the War Between the Red and Blue States may have been fired last Friday when the Environmental Protection Administration announced its intention to take over Texas's authority on issuing clean air permits to new industrial facilities as of January 2.

Now Washington is going to try to impose this blue-state agenda on Texas. The struggle will dwarf the Arizona-versus-Washington contest over immigration.¹

Two days after the midterm elections, Obama served notice that he would look for ways to control global warming pollution other than Congress placing a ceiling on it.

"Cap-and-trade was just one way of skinning the cat; it was not the only way," he said. "I'm going to be looking for other means to address this problem."

The EPA was at the center of the battle in Congress over climate change policy, especially in the wake of a 2007 Supreme Court ruling giving the agency the authority to regulate heat-trapping gases.

"While there will be attacks on (EPA's) authority, it is important that there not be any surrender on EPA's ability to do the job," Trip Van Noppen, president of the environmental group Earthjustice, said earlier this year.²

Impeach Obama! or Don't Mess with Texas!


¹ http://spectator.org/archives/2010/1...-states-fort-s
² http://www.aolnews.com/2010/12/24/ep...enhouse-gases/

[Lavrans]

I'd rather we start with eliminating Homeland Security and all it's various tentacles, then move to eliminate the Fed Bank loaning any money to financial institutions. Restrict the commerce clause to actions that actually cross state lines, and repeal the income tax and apply it to where it belongs- on the shoulders of businesses operating across state and national boundaries.

Then I'll start worrying about the EPA. Although- stepping back a few years with the commerce clause would drastically reduce the EPA's ability to do that anyway.

[davenorthup]

Since businesses are fleeing California for Texas due to Cap & Trade taxation, the EPA Gestapo has announce plans to take on Texas, probably the last free state.

I love the way you interject crazy theories into what is really happening.

The EPA is taking over the issuance of clean air permits in several states b/c they are not yet set up to issue air quality permits. 40+ states are set up to do this, a handful are not ready yet and Texas refuses to abide by the federal rules; so the EPA is reluctantly taking over the issuance of permits until Texas agrees to sit at the adult table.

You'd make a great headline writer Dick - too bad the headlines would be for the Onion or Weekly World News. Your tread title and rational behind this thread is grossly exaggerated and false; but keep us entertained.

[Ottoman]

Yeah, remember several years back when Dick was spouting off about an impending housing "crash"? What a nutcase.

[Hoover]

Obama and the Dem's couldn't get their Cap and Trade (tax) passed through congress so they are trying to do it through regulations. They couldn't get their "net neutrality" bill to regulate the internet through congress so the FCC just passed a regulation for them to govern the internet. They lost a court case this past spring where the appeals court said congress had never authorized the FCC to regulate the internet, but the majority of the FCC (the three democrats) passed the rules to regulate it anyway.

There is a real problem when items are not voted through congress. What does it say when they try to get something through congress, cannot and they do it anyway.

I'm with Lav's on the TSA. All this stuff about body scans, frisking 85 yr old grandmothers, etc isn't making anyone safe. They don't do any of that in Israel and they don't have terrorists taking over their planes. The ask questions and seek out the people who need to be focused on. A pilot posts a few youtube videos and complains and they raid the guys house.

This was Penn Jillette's experience with the TSA back in '02. http://www.pennandteller.com/03/cool...ederalvip.html There are certainly issues with various politicians but pol's can be taken out at the polls (albeit some are isolated from most voters, few get a chance to take out Barney Frank or Tom Delay), but these gov't buearucrats are seemingly untouchable. The power of some of these agencies and the pace at which the power is growing is unacceptable.

[MarkMc]

There are certainly issues with various politicians but pol's can be taken out at the polls (albeit some are isolated from most voters, few get a chance to take out Barney Frank or Tom Delay), but these gov't buearucrats are seemingly untouchable. The power of some of these agencies and the pace at which the power is growing is unacceptable.

Actually most are insulated from most voters, and while pin the tail on the donkey games are all fun and often with point, that's not anywhere near being the whole game and anyone with a scintilla of memory should be able to summon up the fact that this did not happen overnight by a cabal of over zealous pol's seeking new regulatory buttons but has a decades long proud history of money, not from the pol's BTW, seeking to remove, diminish, choke, drown, stall, etc., any and all that was not profitable to the givers of said money [and by extension, the receivers - bad dog!].

Don't drool in my gruel!

[davenorthup]

Yeah, remember several years back when Dick was spouting off about an impending housing "crash"? What a nutcase.

You are correct - Dick has never been known to exaggerate... Aside from the housing predictions you remember, my point was, the title of this thread and his claims in this thread are false.

[Dick Seibert]

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger departs Sacramento with approval ratings near the bottom of the barrel and clutching one so-called achievement -- this cap-and-trade regime that regulates the emissions of 260 businesses operating 600 facilities. The Terminator leaves a legacy that is, in essence, a script for a very expensive comedy.

The absurdity of a single state attempting to tackle climate control via the imposition of regulations on 600 facilities is wildly amusing. No one can argue that all the effort and all the costs, all the bureaucrats and all the rules will have any impact whatsoever on the climate.

Thus no Democrat last year or in the coming year will run on the demand for a national cap-and-tax scheme. The demand for de-industrialization is a political death wish, and the departure of the Pelosi House buries cap-and-tax at the national level for as long as the GOP holds the House.

Sacramento's political elite knows this, of course, and no reputable scientist will aver that this new single-state scheme will have any impact on global temperature at all. But the theater of California politics required that something be done after all.

So for the purpose of a pose -- Hollywood's influence on California's politics is never insignificant -- the country's most important state economy is taking on a massive productivity-killing burden.

The new CARB regulations benefit lawyers like me who have served on a body like the South Coast Air Quality Management District Board, and consultants with friends in the pollution bureaucracies who can navigate the hallways to the right office where a friendly face can provide a permission slip of some sort for the right fee.

They also empower the business development arms of the various states now led by Republican legislative majorities and energetic, business-friendly governors like Ohio's John Kasich, Florida's Rick Scott, Texas' Rick Perry, Michigan's Rick Snyder, Wisconsin's Scott Walker and Pennsylvania's Tom Corbett, among others.

The job-seeking professionals accompanied by their smiling, just-elected governors will be happy to set up appointments with the governor so that a side-by-side comparison of life under California's new rules contrasts with life in, say, the Buckeye State.

Arnold's "legacy" is thus a job-killing, metastasizing bureaucracy that accomplishes only the destruction of jobs without even a miniscule impact on the world's climate.

Real estate agents across the Midwest, Texas and Florida will cheer Arnold as the best friend they ever had, and the once-great California economy will slip further into stories on Greece, Ireland and Spain.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinio...#ixzz19WJ9mhYb

[Hoover]

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinio...#ixzz19WJ9mhYb

And don't forget the UN's push to tax the developed countries and give the $$ to corupt and incompetent 3rd world countries in the name of "global warming". It's a global tax on the "wealthy countries". Redistribution of money, via the socialists at the UN.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/news/b...-cut-emissions

It's a warmer than normal winter it's because of global warming

It's a colder winter, global warming

It's snowier ditto

It's not snowy but cold ditto.

The same argument no matter what the facts are. Too bad they couldn't even get some global warming in Cancun during their party oops I mean very important conference. http://blog.nj.com/njv_paul_mulshine..._you_cant.html

[davenorthup]

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinio...#ixzz19WJ9mhYb

Looks like we are now treating OP'ed's as facts...

Since businesses are fleeing California for Texas due to Cap & Trade taxation, the EPA Gestapo has announce plans to take on Texas, probably the last free state.

NO matter what you post Dick - the statement above is false. You present a simple cause and effect relation ship above which is laughable.

Hoover - I will not restart the AGW debate; but the best response to your post is the same as my first line to Dick - 'Looks like we are now treating OP'ed's as facts...'

A simple exercise is too look at predictions made by climatologists in the late 80's and early 90's and then look at what is happening today and then trying to explain them. Either a lot of climatologists had amazingly accurate crystal balls - or sound science.

[MarkMc]

And don't forget the UN's push to tax the developed countries and give the $$ to corupt and incompetent 3rd world countries in the name of "global warming". It's a global tax on the "wealthy countries". Redistribution of money, via the socialists at the UN.

Yes, far more efficient to let KBR et al handle that for US because bribed resource extraction is not a tax on the peoples from whom it was taken.

Dick you should be cheering on the collapse of CA. I mean they are, by tax paid, the largest contributor to the ongoing MIC problem which you have railed agin time and time again. And stop cheering for Tejas, they be #3 on the list at about 63% of CA levels [according to StateMaster stats]. Drown the beast in the bath tub, but make sure you use a water saving faucet to do so.

[Dick Seibert]

Part I: New Record for Calif. Companies
Departing or Shifting Work Out: 193 - Nearly Four Times Last Year's Level

In the eight weeks since my last compilation, another 35 companies have left California completely or re-directed substantial capital to build facilities out of state that in an earlier era would have been built here. The names of the companies and justifications for listing them appear below. Today's entry builds upon the Oct. 12 entry regarding 158 companies here.¹

More than 600 CEOs rated states on a wide range of criteria from taxation and regulation to workforce quality and living environment, in our sixth annual special report.

In Chief Executive’s annual survey of best and worst states for business, conducted in late January of this year, 651 CEOs across the U.S. again gave Texas top honors, closely followed by North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. They gave the booby prize for worst state to California, with New York, Michigan, New Jersey and Massachusetts filling out the bottom five-a line-up virtually unchanged from last year. Florida and Georgia each dropped three places in the ranking, but remain in the top 10. Utah jumped six positions this year to sneak into the top 10 at No. 9.²

After two article from different sources in my original post you deny that the EPA is targeting Texas for Cap & Trade taxation to level the playing field with California? Texas Governor Perry has been on radio spots here welcoming California businesses to Texas touting Texas' business friendly atmosphere and low regulation.



¹ http://thebusinessrelocationcoach.bl...companies.html
² http://www.chiefexecutive.net/ME2/Au...BCEB1289960A07

[MarkMc]

After two article from different sources in my original post you deny that the EPA is targeting Texas for Cap & Trade taxation to level the playing field with California? Texas Governor Perry has been on radio spots here welcoming California businesses to Texas touting Texas' business friendly atmosphere and low regulation.

Is the intent, you remember that one don't you, to level the field [no pun intended] or to correct some unselfregulating harms?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40830410...s-environment/

[Dick Seibert]

Mark:

Like imposing Cap & Trade taxation on Texas coal powered plants is going to make the pollution go away? Somehow taxing Texas coal plants and giving the money to all "the little brown people" half a world away is going to solve the problem. If you note that at the climate conference in Cancun nothing was mentioned about pollution or climate, the subject is redistributing the world's wealth, which is all it's been about in the first place.

You also repeat the disingenuous argument of equating particulate pollution with so-called CO2 "pollution", the EPA derives it's authority to regulate CO2 from that ridicules Supreme Court decision classifying CO2 as a pollutant, it it's a pollutant the can regulate people breathing, and of course the nastiest polluter of all, Richie Poor popping all this beer cans releasing CO2 into the atmosphere, when is the EPA going to ban beer and carbonated beverages?

[MarkMc]

You also repeat the disingenuous argument of equating ...

No, actually I didn't, sorry. Would you like me to so you could be correct on something today besides the volume of your [clients] water tank? ;) But if you are referring to the article and its noting of SO2 then you need to work on your chemistry a bit. Felling a tree is not necessarily bad, unless it's a precursor to clear cutting a forest/ecosystem.