by Marlo Lewis
EPA’s just-published endangerment finding puts a swagger in the step of cap-and-tax advocates in the Administration, Congress, and environmental groups. They believe the endangerment finding gives them a legislative hammer with which to beat opponents into submission. This is too clever by half.
The endangerment finding—an official ruling that greenhouse gases, principally carbon dioxide (CO2), threaten public health and welfare—is the Agency’s response to the Supreme Court’s Massachusetts v. EPA decision.
The endangerment finding will trigger a regulatory cascade through multiple provisions of the Clean Air Act (CAA), inflating consumer energy prices and further de-stimulating the economy. So, it’s not surprising that Obama officials, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and others think they can frighten opponents into supporting, for example, Rep. Henry Waxman’s (D-CA) cap-and-tax bill, which specifically exempts greenhouse gases from most CAA regulatory programs.
But the cap-and-tax gang miscalculates, because pro-growth lawmakers are not stuck between a rock and a hard place. They have a third option: Just say no to cap-and-tax, let President Obama and his Congressional allies take ownership of the regulatory morass EPA’s endangerment finding will spawn, and then capitalize on the political backlash.
As University of Colorado climatologist Roger Pielke, Jr. observes, “Far from being an incentive for Congress to act on its own, the looming possibility that EPA will take regulatory action is a strong incentive for Republicans to stalemate Congressional action and a nightmare scenario for Democrats.”
Michael Shellenberger of the Breakthrough Institute agrees. Threatening to sick EPA on the economy is tantamount to promising to commit political suicide. Team Obama, he says, might as well tell Republicans and moderate Democrats, “Don’t make me raise energy prices! You’ll really be in trouble with your voters when I raise their energy prices!”
Pro-growth lawmakers need to clear their minds and see the endangerment finding for the unexpected political opportunity it is. The following mantra may be helpful: “I will not reward the Obama-Boxer campaign of legislative extortion; I will not rescue the cap-and-tax gang from the political retribution that is their due; I will let the CO2-litigation lobby dig its own political grave.”
Marlo Lewis is a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and a contributor to Globalwarming.org.
