CEI Today: New OMB report on regulations, Obama's EPA nominee, and a court ruling on mining

OBAMA REGULATORY COSTS - WAYNE CREWS

Openmarket.org: Costs Rise In Obama’s New 2013 Draft Report To Congress On The Benefits And Costs Of Federal Regulations

OMB just released the new 2013 Draft Report to Congress on the Benefits and Costs of Federal Regulations, and the burdens are increasing.

Observe the high cost estimates for each year; the Obama administration’s acknowledged new regulatory costs nearly doubled from $10.1 billion in 2012 to $19.5 billion annually in 2013.> Read the analysis

> Interview Wayne Crews

OBAMA EPA NOMINEE - BRIAN McNICOLL Daily Caller: Boxer’s claims on behalf of EPA nominee don’t hold water EPA has refused to produce emails that would shed any light on Gina McCarthy’s thinking on coal, climate science, air and radiation policy — her designated area — or a carbon tax, all likely to come before her as administrator if she’s confirmed. The strategy is clear — hide all McCarthy’s communications until she clears this hurdle.   Sen. Barbara Boxer is blocking for President Obama's EPA nominee now because she realizes if McCarthy can gain this one first down and achieve confirmation, she can run out the clock on reasonable opposition to her policies. Only the Senate stands in the way. >Read more > Interview an expert

COURT RULING ON EPA REGULATION Today's Court Ruling on West Virginia Mine Could Have Silver Lining William Yeatman, an energy policy analyst at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, sees a possible silver lining to today’s ruling by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals that the Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to retroactively revoke a Clean Water Act permit that had been issued to the Mingo Logan Coal Company for the Spruce No. 1 Mine in West Virginia. While Yeatman disagrees with the ruling, he welcomes the scrutiny of the science behind EPA’s veto that will likely result from today’s decision. > Read more > Interview William Yeatman

More in the news... CEI Study: Cost Of Keeping One Unauthorized Immigrant From Getting A Job — $13,000 Why FAA’s Child Seat Campaign Is Deadly The spreading of ‘right to work’ ... where will it show up next?

CEI ANNUAL DINNER & GALA FEATURING THE HONORABLE RAND PAUL JUNE 20, 2013 cei.org/ceidinner

CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government.  For more information about CEI, please visit our website, cei.org, and blogs, Globalwarming.org and OpenMarket.org.  Follow CEI on Twitter! Twitter.com/ceidotorg.

CEI - Supreme Court Asked to Review EPA “Endangerment ” Regs

CEI, Southeastern Legal Foundation, Lawmakers Seek Supreme Court Review of EPA “Endangerment” Regs

EPA Greenhouse Gas Regulations “Most Expensive Regulatory Program in History”

Washington, D.C., April 23, 2013 – In a lawsuit challenging over-reaching greenhouse gas regulations, the Competitive Enterprise Institute joined the Southeastern Legal Foundation, a host of lawmakers and several companies in asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling that upheld EPA.

The case involves a 2009 finding by President Obama’s EPA that carbon dioxide emissions endanger public health under the terms of the Clean Air Act. Based on that finding, EPA has promulgated massive regulations restricting CO₂ for new motor vehicles and countless types of businesses.

EPA’s actions were challenged in court on the grounds they were unauthorized by statute and that EPA’s scientific assessments were arbitrary and capricious, especially in light of the Climategate revelations, email conversations disclosed in late 2009 that raised new questions and doubts about the scientific basis for those actions. But last June, a D.C. Circuit panel ruled in the agency’s favor, relying in large part on the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in  Massachusetts v. EPA in 2007. That case held that greenhouse gases fall within regulatory purview of the Clean Air Act.  The panel also deferred to EPA’s treatment of global warming science. In December, the full circuit ruled against rehearing the case en banc, but two judges issued powerful dissents from that decision.”

“This most massive regulatory regime in American history deserves the highest level of judicial scrutiny. We hope it receives it,” said Sam Kazman, CEI General Counsel.

The petition asks the Supreme Court to consider whether EPA can regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act when doing so requires a regulatory regime so huge that the agency itself must rewrite the underlying law. The petition also seeks review of the lower court’s perfunctory upholding of EPA’s “science,” given the admitted uncertainty and lack of independent agency judgment that went into it.

See also:

Southeastern Legal Foundation v. EPA

EPA Issues Global Warming ‘Endangerment’ Finding

Free Market Coalition Letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson on EPA’s Endangerment Finding

ALG's Daily Grind - Rand Paul's question still has not been answered

April 23, 2013

Rand Paul's question still has not been answered

The White House says, "Under U.S. law, United States citizens cannot be tried in military commissions." If the government cannot even do that, then how and when can a U.S. citizen be targeted with military force on American soil?

Cartoon: Compromise

Is dealing with Obama the path to victory in 2014?

Beware of Gov. Martin O'Malley

Maryland to institute rain tax, in which homeowners, businesses and nonprofits in certain counties will pay a fee based on the amount of "impervious surfaces" on their property, supposedly raising $482 million annually.

TheHill.com: EPA urges State Department for another Keystone delay

"EPA urged the State Department to revisit its suggestion that Keystone would not expedite production of Canada's carbon-intensive oil sands or significantly ramp up greenhouse gas emissions — two major assertions made by the pipeline's critics."

ALG's Daily Grind - Freedom Under Attack!

April 17, 2013

Freedom under attack

Neither a bomb maker, nor a terrorist pilot determined to kill thousands, and not even a deranged kid who invades an elementary school destroying precious little ones can destroy America, the only thing that can make our nation more like Mexico City in 1984 is how Congress reacts to these events.

Obama: $205,000 a year all that is 'needed' to retire

$10 trillion in tax-deferred retirement savings is just too much temptation for the Obama Administration.

EPA's Tier 3 tyranny

High cost, no benefit does nothing to forestall agency's quest for ecological utopia.

Examiner.com: Union members get screwed by their own leaders

To get around Michigan's new right-to-work law, many unions signed long-term contracts prior to the bill's passage to require workers pay union dues.

ALG's Daily Grind - The Boehner Rule

April 15, 2013

The Boehner Rule

One struggles to find a single vote of significance — legislation that became law — that House Republicans did not need Democrats in order to pass.

ALG in the News: EPA Nominee Gina McCarthy Under Fire for Approving Dangerous, Exploding Chemical for Cars

ALG counsel Nathan Mehrens on Fox News: "[Mercedes] simulated head-on collisions and about two-thirds of their simulations resulted in fires [...] It's so toxic that even a small amount of it, if it got in contact with say, a portion of your hand, could be deadly in certain circumstances."

Greedy green land grabbers

On Sunday, February 28, 2010, armed troops evicted villagers in Uganda's Mubende district, to make way for a tree plantation.

Investors.com: North Dakota Builds A Refinery, First In The U.S. Since '76

"America's future as the global fossil-fuel king is a reality while Barack Obama's green economy is simply a fantasy. Fracking on nonfederal land has turned the U.S. into the top petroleum-producing country in the world, having passed Saudi Arabia in late 2012."