Newly-Elected Virginia AG Ken Cuccinelli: Activist!

During his campaign for Attorney General of Virginia, Ken Cuccinelli committed himself to acting with an aggressive conservative agenda. He promised voters that he would the office to aggressively fight governmental overregulation and interference wherever he could find it.

In other words, he pledged to use the office of Attorney General for good, rather than evil. After just over one month in office, he’s off to one hell of a start.

Last week, AG Cuccinelli boldly petitioned the EPA to convene a proceeding to reexamine their “Endangerment Finding” which claims that human activity has increased atmospheric greenhouse gases to a point that people’s lives are at risk. As such, they claim, the federal government must impose new caps on emissions and other climate protection policies in the energy sector.

Cuccinelli believes, rightly, that regulations based on the findings of the EPA in this sketchy case would be both legally questionable and detrimental to Virginia’s economy. (Much of the research that the EPA has based these findings upon has come from the questionable climate-gate materials). Accordingly, the AG also has petitioned a federal appeals court to review the EPA’s findings.

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Tags: Attorney General, carbon emissions, climate change, climate gate, EPA regulations
Posted Feb 27th 2010 at 12:03 pm in Environment, News, Politics, State Politics | 81338128 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/cjosi/2010/02/27/newly-elected-virginia-ag-ken-cuccinelli-activist/Newly-Elected+Virginia+AG+Ken+Cuccinelli%3A+Activist%212010-02-27+20%3A03%3A16Christian+Josi

Another EPA Power Grab in the Offing

Sources in Washington say Sen. Frank Lautenberg is drafting a new version of his Kids Safe Chemicals Act, which stalled out in 2008 after environmentalists complained the bill was toothless and didn’t grant the EPA enough power to regulate chemicals used to make products. Lautenberg’s new version of the bill is likely to increase the EPA’s authority to limit – or even ban – the use of common chemicals.

As the EPA’s carbon “endangerment finding” in December has demonstrated, it might not be such a good idea to vest virtually unlimited power in a single government agency, especially one that has become as politicized as the EPA.

And like the global warming hysteria the “endangerment finding” was supposed to address, the argument in favor of this aggressive power grab is thin, based on emotional, not scientific appeals, and fairly obviously designed to encroach on the free market. One organization advocating for the EPA power grab, “Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families,” is actually sponsoring a virtual Million Baby Crawl on Washington. Expect the stunts to get more ridiculous after Lautenberg’s bill drops.

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Tags: chemical exposure, chemical regulation, chemical toxicity, EPA, EPA regulations
Posted Feb 2nd 2010 at 11:41 am in Congress, Environment, News, Politics | 6875448 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/capitolconfidential/2010/02/02/another-epa-power-grab-in-the-offing/Another+EPA+Power+Grab+in+the+Offing2010-02-02+19%3A41%3A25Capitol++Confidential

The Global Warming Campaign Issue, There for the Taking

Kim Strassel writes, in “The EPA’s Carbon Bomb Fizzles” in the Wall Street Journal, with typical insight that:

“President Obama, having failed to get climate legislation, didn’t want to show up to the Copenhagen climate talks with a big, fat nothing. So the EPA pulled the pin. In doing so, it exploded its own threat.”

Far from alarm, the feeling sweeping through many quarters of the Democratic Congress is relief. Voters know cap-and-trade is Washington code for painful new energy taxes. With a recession on, the subject has become poisonous in congressional districts. Blue Dogs and swing-state senators watched in alarm as local Democrats in the recent Virginia and New Jersey elections were pounded on the issue, and lost their seats.

But now? Hurrah! It’s the administration’s problem! No one can say Washington isn’t doing something; the EPA has it under control. The agency’s move gives Congress a further excuse not to act.”

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Tags: 2010 elections, cap-and-trade, carbon caps, carbon emissions, climate change
Posted Dec 13th 2009 at 7:10 am in Congress, Environment, Politics | 4471477 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/chorner/2009/12/13/the-global-warming-campaign-issue-there-for-the-taking/The+Global+Warming+Campaign+Issue%2C+There+for+the+Taking2009-12-13+15%3A10%3A59Christopher+C.+Horner