THE UN-STIMULUS PACKAGE-NEW STUPID REGULATIONS TO CURB INDUSTRIAL GROWTH FOR AMERICA-EPA AT IT AGAIN

The government not only tells us how much water our toilet can use, but now the findings of how dangerous various natural gases in our atmosphere are, has started a process to destroy American industry, your jobs and your ability to enjoy life as you know it.

Read, and weep, as you will discover than from now till your children retire, o The Environmental Protection Agency said greenhouse gases pose a danger to the public, opening the way for new U.S. regulation of cars, power plants and factories.

The proposed finding, announced by the agency today, marks the first formal action by the federal government toward restricting carbon-dioxide emissions that climate scientists say contribute to global warming.

The decision may spur regulation of General Motors Corp. and other automakers and utilities such as American Electric Power Co., as well as manufacturers led by chemical and steel makers. It also pressures Congress to back legislation on emissions, rather than letting the EPA set all the rules, said David Bookbinder, chief climate counsel of the Sierra Club.

“I don’t think the EPA ought to be regulating carbon emissions,” Representative Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” airing this weekend. “I think we ought to deal with it under this cap-and-trade program and the overall energy bill we are moving through.”

Draft legislation being debated next week by a panel of the House Energy and Commerce Committee would “supersede” EPA regulation, said Waxman, the committee chairman. The measure would require industrial polluters to get permits for emissions, which then could be bought and sold on a market.

“There is no longer a question of if or even when the U.S. will act on global warming: We are doing so now,” said Bookbinder, of the environmentalist Sierra Club, in a statement.

A petrochemical-refiner group and a Republican lawmaker said the EPA decision may lead to higher costs to consumers and overburden industries with new rules.

‘Assertion of Authority’

Regulations “would constitute EPA’s single largest and potentially most complex assertion of authority over the U.S. economy and Americans’ lifestyles,” said Charles Drevna, president of the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association.

“Today’s action by the EPA is the beginning of a regulatory barrage that will destroy jobs, raise energy prices for consumers, and undermine America’s global competitiveness,” said Senator James Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma.

Supreme Court Ruling

The so-called endangerment finding, which won’t become final until after a public review, is based on a Supreme Court ruling in April 2007. The court said the government could restrict heat-trapping gases under the Clean Air Act if it found them a danger to the public health and welfare, and it ordered the EPA to make a determination.

Former President George W. Bush’s administration declined to act, passing on the issue to President Barack Obama.

“This finding confirms that greenhouse gas pollution is a serious problem now and for future generations,” EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said in a statement.

Obama has made curbing greenhouse gases a priority. He has called on Congress to pass legislation that would cap carbon- dioxide emissions. The president’s budget plan assumes almost $650 billion in revenue from a cap-and-trade system from 2012 to 2019.

The draft legislation proposed by Waxman and Edward Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, would cut greenhouse-gas emissions 20 percent by 2020. By 2050, emissions would be reduced 83 percent from 2005 levels under the plan.

The EPA said today that climate change related to carbon dioxide and five other gases can lead to increased drought, more flooding, heat waves and wildfires and cause harm to water, agriculture and wildlife. The finding doesn’t include any proposed regulations.

The EPA also found today that heat-trapping emissions from motor vehicles cause or contribute to global warming.

Cars, Trucks

While the Supreme Court case concerned new cars and trucks, the Clean Air Act directs the EPA to limit emissions from other sources such as power plants if a finding is made that greenhouse gases pose a danger, said Bookbinder of the Sierra Club.

The EPA’s proposed rules for vehicles could come by the end of the year, Bookbinder said. Proposed rules for power plants would probably follow early next year, he said. After that, it would be several months to a year before any regulations take effect.

Power plants account for about 40 percent of carbon-dioxide emissions, and vehicles make up about 30 percent, according to government figures.

The U.S. produces about 20 percent of the planet’s man-made carbon-dioxide emissions, according to Energy Department figures.

Policy Priority

Since Obama took office in January, the EPA has taken steps to prepare for regulating greenhouse gases. The agency proposed in March requiring factories to give annual reports to the federal government on emissions.

The first reports would be submitted in 2011 and cover emissions in 2010, according to the proposal. Car and engine makers would begin their reports for 2011 models.

The endangerment case goes back to 1999, when environmental organizations asked the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases from cars and trucks.

In 2003, the Bush administration’s EPA said that it wouldn’t regulate such emissions from new vehicles, citing “substantial scientific uncertainty” about the effects of climate change on human health and the environment and about the best means to deal with the issue.

A dozen states, including California and Massachusetts, joined the environmental groups and sued the EPA.

The Supreme Court in 2007 ordered Bush administration environmental officials to reconsider their refusal and said the EPA didn’t follow the requirements of the Clean Air Act.

Soon, our cows will have to pay a tax for their pollution as well.