Sunday, May 14, 2023
Sen. Manchin Vows to Block All Biden EPA Nominees Over Regulation Targeting Power Plant Emissions
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, has threatened to oppose all Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) nominees proposed by President Biden due to a forthcoming regulation aimed at power plant emissions.
Manchin criticized the administration for seeking to close fossil fuel-fired power plants without considering the impact on the national power grid.
Manchin highlighted that neither the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law nor the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) provided the EPA with the authority to regulate power plant emissions.
He stated, “However, I fear that this Administration’s commitment to their extreme ideology overshadows their responsibility to ensure long-lasting energy and economic security and I will oppose all EPA nominees until they halt their government overreach.”
The EPA regulation, expected to be released shortly, would require coal and natural gas-fired power plants to cut or capture the majority of their carbon dioxide emissions by 2040. The Biden administration believes the IRA allows the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions extensively.
Manchin expressed his concerns about the administration’s climate agenda, saying, “This Administration is determined to advance its radical climate agenda and has made it clear they are hellbent on doing everything in their power to regulate coal and gas-fueled power plants out of existence, no matter the cost to energy security and reliability.”
***********************************************
Cantuar's climate confusion
It is widely expected that Justin Welby, having now screwed the crown on Charles III’s head, will shortly retire as Archbishop of Canterbury and put himself out to grass. If so, he is not going quietly. This afternoon, in the House of Lords, he launched a wholesale attack on the government’s Illegal Migration Bill, which includes measures to offshore the processing of asylum-seekers in Rwanda, describing it as ‘isolationist, morally unacceptable and politically impractical’ to leave developing countries to handle the world’s refugees.
But one comment in particular stands out in the Archbishop’s speech. He asserted that ‘the IPCC forecasts that climate change by itself, let alone the conflicts it is causing, will lead to at least 800 million more refugees a year – in total – by 2050’.
It is an extraordinary claim, but is there any truth in it? If the Archbishop was trying to say that 800 million people would be displaced by climate change every year that would mean one in ten of the world’s population having to do a runner every single year. But let’s assume – which seems fair given his delivery – that the words ‘a year’ were an error and that the Archbishop was correcting himself when he added the words ‘in total’. It is still a stark figure, that 800 million people could be displaced by climate change by 2050, so did the IPCC really predict that?
The IPCC’s 85-page synthesis report, published in March, does not mention the word ‘refugee’ once. Nor does the Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability report published last year. What the synthesis report does say is that between 3.3 billion and 3.6 billion people ‘are living in contexts that are highly vulnerable to climate change’ – in order words, there is some negative form of climate change going on where they live. It does not, however, speculate on how many of them will at some point have to flee their homes.
Others, however, have made predictions which include a number similar to that quoted by the Archbishop. The closest match appears to be a report published in 2015 by a group of scientists calling themselves Climate Central. That forecast that ‘carbon emissions causing 4 degrees celsius of warming (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) – a business as usual scenario – could lock in enough eventual sea level rise to submerge land currently home to 470 to 760 million people globally’.
Climate Central was not saying that these people would be driven from their homes by 2050 (indeed, the IPCC’s central estimate is for 32-62cm of sea level rise over the course of the 21st century, which would not cause mass evacuation of land anywhere save for marshlands, and communities built on marshland without sea defences). What it was saying was that were global temperatures to rise by 4ºC – which itself would only happen if the world took no action on climate change whatsoever – then eventually (which could mean several centuries’ time) sea levels would rise to flood land currently inhabited by between 470 and 760 million people.
That is somewhat different from the Archbishop’s alarmist claim of mass exodus by 2050. But will anyone notice? Or will Welby prove yet again that prominent figures rarely get into trouble by making exaggerated and scientifically-illiterate claims about climate change.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/05/justin-welbys-climate-confusion/ ?
******************************************
Forest Service Wants to Permanently Close 226K Acres to Recreational Shooting
The Biden administration continues to wage war on public lands access to deter activities like hunting, fishing, and shooting sports. Mind you, these activities pump back billions to conservation funding annually.
The U.S. Forest Service, a subsidiary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), is considering a rule to permanently close over 226,000 National Forest Service (NFS) lands to recreational shooting opportunities. The affected areas will include three locations in Colorado: Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests and Pawnee National Grassland. The national forests cumulatively comprise 1.4 million acres. Public comments closed on May 5th, 2023.
Under multiple-use management of public lands, recreational target shooting is allowed on National Forest Service lands. Efforts to increase access on public lands are underway as more Americans lawfully purchase firearms and desire to go outdoors to do some safe target shooting.
This rule, if implemented, would deprive visitors to these public lands of opportunities. This recommendation first originated from the 2019 Recreational Sport Shooting Management Decision and Forest Plan Amendment, which determined these areas are “unsuitable” for shooting sports. The three reasons given include “residential housing density,” “high-use recreation areas on NFS and other government lands, and existing conflicts between recreational shooting” and “other uses on NFS and other government lands.”
The rule, if enacted, seeks to do the following: “When fully implemented, the 226,113 acres identified as unsuitable for shooting will be closed. The three geographic areas included in the current Dingell Act notice comprise 141,095 acres of that, including 94,900 acres when Devil’s Nose opens and 46,195 acres when the Clear Creek Shooting Sports Park opens.”
What’s the reasoning for pursuing permanent closures here? Naturally, it’s under the guise of “protect[ing] public safety by improving management of recreational sport shooting.”(It’s reminiscent of talking points employed by gun control advocates to ban firearms under the guise of “safety.”) An initial draft claimed legal hunting opportunities won’t be affected. But the Biden administration is not to be trusted here either.
Unfortunately, the Forest Service rule is not the first of its kind by this White House. As I’ve noted here at Townhall, the Biden administration has worked behind closed doors with anti-hunting preservationist groups to undo a Trump-era opening of 2.3 million acres to new hunting and fishing opportunities on national wildlife refuge lands.
Additionally, the Biden-appointed Alaska Federal Subsistence Board voted to close off 60 million acres of public land to moose and caribou hunting to non-locals last spring. According to Outdoor Life, the proposal known as WSA21-01 isn’t “supported by science or data of big-game harvests.”
Moreover, the Commerce Department is mulling obtuse vessel rules for recreational and commercial boating activities under the guise of protecting endangered right whales. But anglers and boaters worry these closures–upwards of six months–throughout the East Coast would create no-go zones, have negative economic ramifications, and displace countless Americans from recreational and boating industry jobs.
And there are, sadly, more public land and public water closures being mulled as we speak.
Whenever closures to sporting activitieson public lands occur, access is usually never restored. A prime example is California instituting Marine Protection Areas (MPAs) in the 1990s.
California regulators claimed overfishing was decimating Pacific fisheries. Despite evidence showing recovery, the California Fish and Game still refuses to reopen MPAs to recreational fishing as of 2016. Why? They operate as if there’s still a “fisheries crisis”--yet the Golden State created “draconian no-fishing zones that prevent recreational anglers and their families from going out for a day’s fishing…”
Several years ago, the American Sportfishing Association (ASA) concluded the Marine Life Protection Act, which created MPAs, is “having serious negative financial impacts on coastal communities and on California’s $2.2 billion saltwater recreational fishing industry, while attempting to address a fishing crisis that no longer exists.”
Their document continued, “While there are examples of overfishing and declining fish stocks in oceans around the world, such is not the case off the Pacific coast. The fisheries crisis that the MLPA is supposed to solve has been effectively addressed by implementation of traditional fishery management tools.”
Exporting California policies nationwide–including preservationist environmentalist ones–is a recipe for disaster. Federal agencies, naturally, are replicating the same misguided policies on public lands nationwide.
Let’s not kid ourselves: the Biden White House isn’t a friend to true conservationists who fish, hunt, and partake in shooting sports. On the contrary. It’s actively undermining our way of life, despite lauding the $1.6 billion generated in conservation funds by the Pittman-Robertson Act last year.
While these prohibitions may not be overt, they’re coming. If you think your preferred style of fishing or hunting is safe from regulators or preservationists, think again. They’re inevitably coming for all facets of the sporting lifestyle.
Let’s defend our way of life by opposing bad rulemaking emanating from Washington, D.C.
********************************************************
Australia: Federal environment minister Tanya Plibersek has indicated that will approve the coking coalmine near Moranbah
The Australian government has approved a new coalmine development for the first time since it was elected last year.
Tanya Plibersek, the federal environment minister, indicated she would give the green light to the Isaac River coalmine in Queensland’s Bowen basin. It was announced late on Thursday.
The mine, to be developed by Bowen Coking Coal, is planned for 28km east of Moranbah, next to five other coalmines, and expected to produce about 500,000 tonnes of metallurgical coal a year for five years. Metallurgical coal, also known as coking coal, is used in steelmaking.
“The Albanese government has to make decisions in accordance with the facts and the national environment law – that’s what happens on every project, and that’s what’s happened here,” a spokesperson for Plibersek said.
“Since the election we’ve doubled renewable energy approvals to a record high. The government will continue to consider each project on a case-by-case basis, under the law.”
The government said no submissions had been received about the project during the public consultation period, including from environment groups.
However climate campaigners had made public statements calling on Plibersek to reject the mine in line with scientific advice that no new fossil fuel developments should go ahead if the world is to limit global heating to 1.5C.
“Scientists, energy and climate experts have said that the climate cannot afford new coalmines, and they’ve said it so many times I’ve lost count,” said Rod Campbell, research director at The Australia Institute.
“The fact that this is a small coking coalmine is beside the point – fossil carbon needs to stay in the ground. We’ve already got more than enough coalmines approved to cook the planet, including coking coalmines that could run into next century.
***************************************
My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
*****************************************
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Jim Hansen and his twin
No comments:
Post a Comment