Barack Obama and John McCain have both pledged to make greenhouse gas reduction one of their administration’s top environmental policy priorities. But Obama takes this pledge far beyond mere policy by making it the occasion for an unprecedented end-run around Congress. He will do so via the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which is literally poised to become the advance element of Big Brother intrusiveness, a virtually unaccountable federal agency that will monitor and regulate the most minute details of American life.

Top Obama energy advisor Jason Grumet told Bloomberg News recently that if the new Congress does not declare carbon dioxide a dangerous pollutant within 18 months after Obama is inaugurated, the new president will direct EPA to do so unilaterally. This means that any human activity that creates carbon dioxide – a natural substance we exhale and plants require for photosynthesis – would fall under EPA’s purview. If that doesn’t scare you, it should.