“Smoking Gun” Memo Discloses How Global Warming Remedies are Political, NOT Scientific

Classifying CO2 as a dangerous pollutant makes about as much sense as asking people not to exhale!

In April, Lisa Jackson, Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (full disclosure: I worked for EPA in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s) signed a finding which declares that “greenhouse gases pose a threat to the health and welfare of current and future generations of Americans.”

It’s one of many steps to advance the political agenda of the global warming movement by giving the federal government more power to regulate and tax CO2 emissions in the lives of every day Americans by calling the gas a dangerous “pollutant.” Since each of us exhales CO2, that makes each of us polluters.

As support for the global warming agenda continues to melt faster than an iceberg in July, Democrats appear hell bent on ramming through the most massive and expensive restructuring of our way of life ever contemplated.

Yet, an internal Obama Administration memo from the Office of Management and Budget highlights the concerns from various federal agencies asked to respond to the proposed finding. It’s a bombshell document (PDF here) just waiting for someone to light the fuse.

Wyoming Senator John Barrasso(R) Rides to the Rescue

On Tuesday, Senator Barrasso lite that fuse. In another fine example of an elected GOP leader fighting back effectively against the leftwing moonbattery that is so in vogue in Washington these days, Senator John Brasso had this exchange with EPA Administrator Jackson:

“This is a smoking gun, saying that your findings were political, not scientific” - Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.)

BARRASSO: “I received a memo this morning, that’s marked ‘Deliberative: Attorney-Client Privilege’. In this memo Counsel for the White House repeatedly, repeatedly suggests a lack of scientific support for this proposed finding. This is a smoking gun, saying that your findings were political and not scientific.
…
This smoking gun memo is in stark contrast to the official position presented by the Administration and the EPA Administrator.”

The memo takes direct aim at EPA’s conclusion that “compelling evidence of human-induced climate change, and that serious risks and potential impacts to public health and welfare have been clearly identified.”

MEMO(page2):In the absence of a strong statement of the standards being applied in this decision, there is a concern that EPA is making a finding based on (1) “harm” from substances that have no demonstrated direct health effects, such as respiratory or toxic effects, (2) available scientific data that purports to conclusively establish the nature and extent of the adverse public health and welfare impacts are almost exclusively from non-EPA sources, and (3)applying a dramatically expanded precautionary principle. If EPA goes forward with a finding of endangerment for all GHGs, it could be establishing a relaxed and expansive new standard for endangerment. Subsequently, EPA would be petitioned to find endangerment and regulate many other “pollutants” for the sake of the precautionary principle (e.g., electromagnetic fields, perchlorates, endocrine disruptors, and noise).

The memo also notes, there are several areas where essential behaviors of greenhouse gases are “not well determined” and “not well understood.” That’s not news to most of us.

What is at stake here is Obama’s plan for “cap and trade” the goal of which is not to limit or reduce CO2 emissions but to enable a new set of taxes on the energy used by every American. It’s nothing but a funding mechanism for Obama’s ongoing socialist makeover masquerading as protection for the environment and public health.