by the Editorial Board, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
President Obama’s new envirocratic and anti-growth “climate action plan” ignores genuine science, tramples representative government, spells economic ruin and — like so much federal grandiosity — clearly wasn’t subjected to proper cost-benefit analysis.
Blame-mankind “scientists” can’t explain global warming’s virtual halt since 1997 while U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide have fallen to 1994 levels. Yet Mr. Obama — defying his radical agenda’s rejection by Congress — plans to decree by executive fiat that Americans must pay dearly to avert the supposed ills of “carbon pollution.”
Hiking electricity costs and killing jobs en masse, his Environmental Protection Agency will shutter existing coal-fired power plants and make new ones impossible. Expect him to reject the proposed Keystone XL pipeline over its supposed effect on total carbon emissions, though Asia will burn the Canadian oil it otherwise would carry — and to squander more taxpayer dollars on “green” boondoggles.
All this, though even halting all U.S. CO2 emissions immediately would have only negligible climate effects. That speaks volumes about his plan’s cost-benefit failings.
Thankfully, Obama can’t circumvent congressional control of the federal purse strings. “Congress should move immediately to defund as much of this as possible,” says Myron Ebell, director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Center for Energy and Environment. That’s the last, best hope for stopping this monstrous plan.
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This op-ed article was originally published in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.