Thursday, December 10, 2009

The Politicization of EPA: The Administration’s Radical Endangerment Gamble

On Monday EPA announced its endangerment finding for greenhouse gases. One can infer from the timing of the announcement that the Administration may have taken this action at this time in order to bring something to the table at the Copenhagen COP15 meeting. From a scientific viewpoint it was an odd time to do so given that the very recent Climategate disclosures would presumably have taken some time to digest and analyze for their possible effects on vital conclusions. So the timing may have been based more on the political rather than the scientific factors involved.

But from a larger viewpoint, the Obama who was going to find a way to resolve partisan bickering in Washington has now embarked on a major escalation of the conflict by using the power he holds over Executive Branch agencies to fight its enemies in Congress over the issue of global warming. Although EPA has always been organizationally an arm of the Administration in power, it has until this Administration been able to largely maintain the appearance if not the reality of being science based. That is now much harder to maintain. Read more.

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