policies.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is moving to repeal CPP and other Obama climate rules. Environmental groups will inevitably sue. If the U.S. remains in Paris, Mr. Pruitt will have to explain to the many Obama appointees on the federal bench that gutting CPP is a reasonable exercise of administrative power in light of the Administration's continued fealty to Paris carbon reductions. This is the sort of logical inconsistency that a creative judge might seize on to justify blocking Mr. Trump's EPA rules. By staying in Paris Mr. Trump may hand opponents a sword to kill his agenda.
The left is also pointing to Section 115 of the Clean Air Act, which gives EPA a mandate to regulate emissions that "may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare in a foreign country." The catch is that EPA can only act if there is regulatory "reciprocity" among the nations involved. Such as the Paris accords.
Mr. Obama knew he was setting these carbon political traps as he rushed to commit the U.S. to Paris. His bet was that even a future GOP President would be reluctant to endure the international criticism that would follow withdrawal. And sure enough, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and National Economic Council director Gary Cohn are making precisely this argument for staying in Paris.
Then again, Candidate Trump promised to withdraw, and he can't possibly be vilified for Paris more than he already has for everything else. His advisers have presented a way to short-circuit the supposed four-year process for withdrawing, which involves U.S. resignation from the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.
This isn't a question of science or diplomacy. For Mr. Trump, the question is whether he wants to put his economic agenda at the mercy of anticarbon warriors and federal judges.
Appeared in the Apr. 27, 2017, print edition.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/sprinqtime-out-of-paris
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These two letters to the editor were published in the 27th April WSJ:
https://www.wsi.com/articles/maybe-its-time-to-revie
as-finding-
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Regarding your editorial "Highway From the Endangerment Zone" (April 19): Many compelling reasons exist for revisiting the EPA's endangerment finding for greenhouse gases.
Based on email obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and other evidence, the Obama EPA may have improperly predetermined the outcome of the "endangerment finding" (EF) rule-making. This evidence reveals a disturbing practice of EPA staff working covertly with green activist groups to shape major climate regulatory efforts.
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The EF was issued in the wake of the November 2009 Climategate revelations. Climategate validated suspicions that climate scientists manipulated science, worked to cover up their high jinks and tried to silence critics. Although the EF (as well as the climate hysteria amid which Massachusetts v. EPA (2007) was decided) relied in great part on the controversial science giving rise to Climategate, the EPA refused to reopen the public comment period for the EF to explore its ramifications.
The EF is also scientifically suspect. It ignored the global-warming pause for starters. According to NASA satellite data (the most reliable temperature data), 2016 wasn't warmer than 1998, despite there being 10% more carbon dioxide and 4.5% more methane (reputed to have 20 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide) in the atmosphere. We've also experienced a hurricane drought, fewer tornadoes and declines in other extreme weather events and disasters despite the aforementioned significant increases in atmospheric greenhouse gas levels.
The EF also relies on non-EPA scientific assessments that don't meet the standards of the Information Quality Act.
Steve Milloy
Potomac, Md.
The Journal is asking the wrong question. It is not about eliminating the endangerment finding, it is about updating and possibly modifying it after almost a decade of new science and observations. The EF wasn't a full scientific finding made by the EPA but an adoption of findings of other government agencies and the political summary conclusions of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (versus the underlying science of the IPCC). That the finding rather than being based on welfare was also based on an imminent risk to health and was a very controversial one is reflected by the fact that every single affected agency and department in the U.S. government--save the EPA--strongly opposed the EF The review should be conducted as an evidentiary-type hearing process, with an A-Team that believes updated science supports modification and a B-Team arguing against, with the merits of various scientific assumptions, finding and reports thoroughly examined.
What has changed in eight years? It is confirmed that large swings in temperatures over centuries aren't unusual. There has been no statistically significant change in atmospheric warming in 18 years, despite fiddling by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration with temperature records. Computer models don't agree with observed temperatures. There is a significant divergence between historic observations and model projections, entirely undermining the validity of the computer models.
We have strong evidence climate change is far less sensitive to CO 2 than first assumed. Observed science shows no statistically significant changes in droughts, flooding, hurricanes or rise in sea levels.
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