Warming alarmist says CRU scandal “a major blow”, endangers EPA’s anticipated regulatory power

Good news has been in short supply of late in the US. But today’s op-ed in the WSJ by Kim Straassel is bound to bring a rare smile in today’s “climate”.

Despite the FA resident warmists, insisting this is much ado about nothing, even one of the most vocal alarmists and stiflers of debate by “climate criminals” – UK’s George Monbiot – admits that the CRU absconded database becoming public is a “major blow” to advancing climate change legislation. Even going so far as to say the documents “… “could scarcely be more damaging.”

Conversely, the big Zero’s “climate czar”, Carole Browner, is busy publicly plugging her ears to the scandal, hoping it will simply go away.

As is becoming more common for news reporting today, the internet is leading the charge, defining the talking head production segments of news. When the blogosphere is alive and active on an issue, invariably the talking heads are forced to follow. And between the CRU’s database becoming public knowledge… meticulously combed thru by all types of interesting parties (including our own Patvann and family)…. combined with New Zealand’s NIWA also being accused of unexplanable fudging of raw temperature measurements… this is an issue that is not only *not* going away, but is destined to destroy any thread of hope that the December Copenhagen climate convention would culminate in anything but another toothless resolution of promises and intents. Their next best hope would be Mexico City in 2010… highly unlikely at the undeniable cost to American taxpayers in a mid term election year. And, as I pointed out late October, much of the success of Copenhagen depended upon Obama and the US Congress, implementing American emissions legislation.

The emergence of manipulated data from both CRU and NIWA into public domain has all but dashed the hopes of Congressional Dems and Obama for cap and trade legislation. The thin margin of victory for cap and trade in the House this year may have left the realms of bragging rights, and entered into a campaign issue that may have to be explained away.

But wait… there’s more.

There’s still the EPA, which is preparing an “endangerment finding” that would allow it to regulate carbon on the grounds it is a danger to public health. It is here the emails might have the most direct effect. The agency has said repeatedly that it based its finding on the U.N. science—which is now at issue. The scandal puts new pressure on the EPA to accede to growing demands to make public the scientific basis of its actions.

Mr. Inhofe goes so far as to suggest that the agency might not now issue the finding. “The president knows how punitive this will be; he’s never wanted to do it through [the EPA] because that’s all on him.” The EPA was already out on a legal limb with its finding, and Mr. Inhofe argues that if it does go ahead, the CRU disclosure guarantees court limbo. “The way the far left used to stop us is to file lawsuits and stall and stall. We’ll do the same thing.”

In case this is drawing a blank in your mind, this new found “power” of the EPA to regulate carbon emissions stems from the AGW alarmists celebrations of the SCOTUS decision on Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency back in April 2007. In that ruling, SCOTUS held “…that greenhouse gases are “air pollutants” that the Administrator of the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is authorized to regulate under Section 202 of the Clean Air Act.” Within a year, multiple states and environment groups were filing additional lawsuits, demanding EPA regulation on emissions from vehicles… essentially placing them in the lofty position of becoming “climate scientists” capable of bypassing Congress via back room regulations.

Considering the SCOTUS opinion was founded on IPCC documentation… now called into question with the exposure of questionable and unstable correction and adjustment formulas… the EPA and enviros may now found themselves dead in the water with legal recourse.

‘scuse me for a sec…. HOOOOOOOYAH! :0)

If you haven’t had enough “good news” here, how about some more? Can you say Congressional hearings? With Inohofe and the GOP leading the charge, the entire scandal becomes quite pertinent because taxpayers fund climate studies, and includes many federal agencies.

Add to that the CRU scandal, which pivots the focus to potential fraud. Republicans are launching investigations, and the pressure is building on Democrats to hold hearings, since climate scientists were funded with U.S. taxpayer dollars. Mr. Inhofe’s office this week sent letters to federal agencies and outside scientists warning them not to delete their own CRU-related emails and documents, which may also be subject to Freedom of Information requests.

I know it’s been oft mentioned by some on this blog that the MSM is remaining silent. Actually, they aren’t…. it’s not dominating the news 24/7, but it’s certainly getting some covereage here and there. But we sure know one more thing…. it’s only going to become more prominent in news coverage with the scope of this scandal spreading it’s tenacles to all involved.