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Shocker: Chinese air pollution debunks U.S. EPA junk science

By (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Steven Milloy
January 5, 2012  •Leave a Comment
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The Chinese city of Xi’an has some of the worst air quality in the world. Yet its air is significantly safer than the air in U.S. cities, according to a new study.

And if you have trouble believing that, then you ought to have trouble believing Obama Environmental Protection Agency claims that U.S. ambient air quality is killing tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people per year.

Chinese researchers compared data on air pollution and death rates in Xi’an from 2004 to 2008. In 2006, the World Health Organization ranked Xi’an as having the second worst air pollution in Asia, which means the second worst in the world.

The study was just published online (Jan. 3) in Environmental Health Perspectives.

The city of Xi’an had the second worst air quality in Asia in 2006.

Using the same sort of data and statistical analysis employed by EPA-funded air quality researchers, the Chinese researchers reported having statistically correlated every 10 microgram per cubic meter’s (μg/m3) worth of fine particulate matter (soot or PM2.5) in Xi’an’s air with a 0.2% increase in the city’s death rate.

While that sounds like a result in the statistical noise range — and it is as the mean daily death toll in Xi’an is only about 26.2 — we’re going to overlook that normally fatal flaw and, instead, momentarily embrace the result so that we can compare it with what EPA-funded researchers claim about U.S. cities.

In a 2009 study of 112 U.S. cities, EPA-funded researchers reported that every 10 μg/m3 worth of PM2.5 correlated with about a 1.0% increase in death rate. Once again this is, in reality, statistical noise. But in the fantasy world of EPA air quality science it is five times greater than what Chinese researchers reported from the second dirtiest city in the world.

But there’s more. Just how dirty is the air in Xi’an?

As measured by the Chinese researchers, the air in Xi’an is, on average, 9-10 times more polluted in terms of PM2.5 than the median PM2.5 levels of the two most polluted cities in the 112-city study (Rubidoux, CA and Los Angeles, CA).

And that dirty Chinese air, according to EPA scientific practice, is safer than U.S. air by a factor of five. This is shocking since if air pollution really was deadly, one would expect to see this phenomena operating in high gear in the respiratory horror story that Xi’an should be.

Keep in mind that EPA chief Lisa Jackson testified to Congress on Sep. 22, 2011 that:

Particulate matter [i.e., PM2.5] causes premature death. It doesn’t make you sick. It’s directly causal to dying sooner than you should.

Leaving the fantasy land of EPA air quality science and returning to the real-world, however, clean U.S. air is axiomatically not more dangerous than filthy Chinese air and so some sort of explanation of these results is required.

The scientific and medical reality is that PM2.5 — even as high as it is in China — does not kill or hasten death.

PM 2.5 was such a public health problem in the U.S., in fact, that no one knew about it until EPA-funded researchers invented it in 1993 with the so-called “Six Cities Study” — 30 years after the Clean Air Act was enacted.

Concern for PM2.5 — the primary and virtually sole justification for recent costly EPA regulation like the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) and the Mercury and Toxics Standard (MATS) — has been entirely manufactured and ruthlessly exploited by the EPA for almost 20 years.

The agency has been able to get away with this scam because it has cleverly hidden key data with a clique of private researchers in academic institutions who are beyond Congressional and Freedom of Information Act reach.

Obtaining the EPA data may no longer be so important for debunking purposes, however, given the emerging reality in China.



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Cruisin’ with The Nation: Why red isn’t the new green

By (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Steven Milloy
April 4, 2011  •1 Comment
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You can’t imagine the thunderous LOL that emanated from my office last Saturday when I opened my copy of the April 11th issue of The Nation. Yes, you read that right — The Nation, that long-time voice of American comrade-ism.

Casually flipping through the pages looking for some environment-related screed with which to have some good ol’ JunkScience.com fun, I came upon a full-page ad for — get this — The Nation‘s 14th Annual Seminar Cruise to the Caribbean (December 11-18, 2011) with stops in Grand Turk, San Juan and St. Maarten. (How did I miss the previous 13 cruises and who knew that you could plot against the free world and enjoy all-you-can-eat steamship round at the same time?!)

Anyway, just two days earlier, The Nation ran an online article entitled “Six Ways to Green Your Spring Break,” in which readers were advised to:

“Take a “staycation.” Staying at home instead of traveling can be a really inexpensive and relaxing way to enjoy your time off. In fact, it’s probably the “greenest” travel option there is. It will save you money, make less of an environmental impact, and allow you to explore your immediate surroundings.”

But since the crusin’ comrades have already opted for shuffleboarding in the Caribbean over staycationing, they’ll need to get to the port of departure (Ft. Lauderdale) somehow. The Nation gives cruisers the choice of making their own air arrangements or working with the cruise lines’ travel agent. Unfortunately, The Nation‘s Six Ways to Green Your Spring Break” advises to:

“Travel green. Your transportation has perhaps the biggest effect on the environment. If you’re flying, try to avoid flying at night. The contrails of a plane at night have a bigger impact on global warming than those left in the day. As an alternative to flying, you can also take a train overnight while you sleep, carpool, or take a road trip with a rented hybrid car.”

Yet somehow I doubt that The Nation‘s child-of-privilege publisher, Katrina vanden Huevel, will be road-tripping in a rented hybrid from her tony Upper West Side digs down to sunny south Florida.

The next item in the advertisement for the cruise that caught my attention was the speakers list, which included that allegedly green and self-proclaimed red himself, Van Jones. This won’t be a maiden voyage for Jones, however, as he previously sailed (or, more accurately, “diesel-engined”) on a tony National Geographic-sponsored “climate change cruise” with eBay billionaire Meg Whitman and Jimmy Carter. More on cruising and global warming in a moment.

Surfing over to the cruise’s web site (NationCruise.com), I learned that while members of the lowly proletariat could cruise with Katrina and Van in a 185 sq. ft cabin for as little as $1,836 per prole, wealthy wanna-be Bolsheviks could reserve 563 sq. ft cabins for a mere $5,418 per elite. Très égalitaire!

This must be what Van Jones was talking about in his June 2010 address to the Commonwealth Club of California:

“The time has come to move beyond eco-elitism to eco-populism.”

But enough of the cheap shots, lets get down to (hopefully biodegradable) brass tacks.

How could The Nation‘s usually green-flacking editors not realize the already-pronounced green verdict on cruises as exemplified by this recent media release from a UK eco-travel agency that asked in the headline,

“ARE YOU SAILING AWAY INTO THE SUNSET FROM THE IMPACT OF YOUR CARBON FOOTPRINT?”

The first sentence was even better:

“One of the lesser known facts about the cruise industry is that your average cruise holiday is one of the most environmentally damaging types of holiday you take.”

The release continued:

“According to Climate Care, a ship such as Queen Mary 2 emits 0.43kg of CO2 per passenger mile which means that compared with 0.257kg for a long-haul flight cruising has a long way to go to improve its environmental reputation. CO2 is not the only issue. According to the United Nations Environment Programme Division of Technology, Industry, and Economics — per week a cruise ship generates more than:

  • 50 tonnes of garbage;
  • 1 million ton of waste water;
  • 210,000 gallons of sewage; and
  • 35,000 gallons of oil-contaminated water.

So it’s probably safe to say that the waiter serving former Obama green jobs czar Van Jones his champagne cocktail won’t be counted as having a “green job.”

NationCruise.com was good enough to inform me that the cruise ship will be Holland Lines’ brand-spankin’ new ms Nieuw Amsterdam IV:

As the Nieuw Amsterdam IV is described by Cruise-Australia.net,

“Although she is 86,700-ton, amazingly she will only accommodate 2,106-guests in the ultimate of five star luxuries! Thus, although this magnificent new ship is large enough to offer a vast range of diverse amenities she will carry far fewer guests than all other ships of her size, because Holland America Line believes in the following principle when they designed their latest ship … “This is a refined ship and it is adorned with fine art and antiques, however, personal space is still the greatest luxury of all.” [Emphasis added]

Nevermind The Nation‘s hostility toward space as a luxury of the despised “upper class”:

“Living space, unless one belongs to that tiny percentage called the upper class, is shrinking as the human population continues to grow.”

While the Holland Lines engineers ever-larger ships to serve ever-fewer passengers, The Nation is contributing ever-expanding hypocrisy!

In July 2010, The Nation stated:

“… we need a new national energy policy—a comprehensive plan for escaping our dangerous reliance on fossil fuels and creating a new energy system based on climate-safe alternatives.”

Yet the Nieuw Amsterdam IV is powered by six 16-cylinder diesel generators producing 64 megawatts of power. As each cylinder of these engines burns about 2.8 tons of fuel per day, daily fuel consumption is 268.8 tons, or 1,881 tons per week.

The Nation and environmentalists like to talk about “taking cars off the road” to reduce carbon emissions. But if you do the math, its cruise will be like adding more than 31,000 SUVs on the road for the week. That would be about 16 SUVs per passenger.

Given that Van Jones travels the country preaching the merits of wind power, you think he would shun diesel-powered, carbon-spewing ships in favor of some sort of sailing ship.

BTW, The Nation pointed out in 2003 that,

“A study released by the EPA in September 2002 concluded that diesel fuel is “a chronic respiratory hazard” and “likely to be carcinogenic to humans by inhalation.” In an ongoing study conducted by the Harlem Hospital Center and Harlem Children’s Zone, startled researchers have found that 28 percent of the kids tested in Harlem suffer from asthma, one of the highest rates ever documented. (Though not believed to cause asthma, diesel fuel’s fine particles irritate lungs and trigger asthma attacks.)”

I guess it’s a good thing that none of those poor kids from Harlem will be exposed to the smokestack emissions from the Nieuw Amsterdam‘s diesel generators.

Knowing that the greens take a dim view of these floating all-you-can-eat buffets, further searching produced a Friends of the Earth-authored “2010 CRUISE SHIP ENVIRONMENTAL REPORT CARD“, which included a report card for the ms Nieuw Amsterdam IV‘s predecessor, the Nieuw Amsterdam III. Sadly, the FoE didn’t conclude that the luxury liner was exactly ship-shape environmental-wise.

Although the Nieuw Amsterdam III earned an “A” in “air pollution reduction,” it only earned an overall grade of a “C-” because of its “F” in “sewage treatment.” Yuck. Riddle: What will the cruisin’ comrades and the sharks trailing the ship have in common? Answer: Both will have be exposed to a loads of you-know-what!

When The Nation covered the 2008 Beijing Olympics, it was none too happy with the China’s sailing venue:

“… the green water is like an underarm sweat stain on someone trying to act cool: it reveals that untreated sewage is being dumped into rivers and coastal waters also polluted by contaminated run-off from farms and factories…”

Now maybe the Nieuw Amsterdam IV won’t be like its sewage treatment-failing predecessor, but then again maybe it’s just another “underarm sweat stain,” so to speak.

Last month, The Nation published a video entitled, “Why Cheap Energy Is a Bad Thing.” But there wasn’t a word in the video about the real problem with cheap energy — it allows self-considered greens to expose their fluorescent hypocrisy.

My 2009 book “Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them” spotlighted that,

“Green is the new red.”

Yet The Nation‘s cruise evidences that,

“Red is definitely NOT the new green.”

 

 



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Clean energy’s junk economics

By (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Steven Milloy
March 23, 2011  •Leave a Comment
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The oxymoron-ish nature of a left-wing “think tank” is on display in the Center for American Progress’ latest pitch for a so-called “clean energy standard” (CES).

In a new white paper, CAP says that clean energy opponents (like us),

“…have built a fear campaign about the impacts of these investments, arguing that the costs are too great and the jobs created are too small.”

If facts constitute a “fear campaign,” so be it. Let’s examine CAP’s arguments.

Cheaper than fossil fuel?

CAP says that so-called “clean energy,” by which it means primarily wind and solar electricity generation, is actually less expensive than fossil fuel generation if you include the costs of fossil fuel’s supposed “externalities” — i.e., air pollution and its alleged health consequences, forest fires, droughts etc. CAP estimates that the externalities of coal-fired electricity cost between $175 billion and $523 billion per year.

But as shown in “EPA’s Clean Air Act: Pretending air pollution is worse than it is” (JunkScience.com, March 2011), air pollution is largely a thing of the past in the vast majority of the U.S. In areas where air quality may occasionally be problematical, mainly California, such events are mainly due to vehicle emissions (i.e., not electricity generation) and California’s particular topography and weather. Moreover, there are no coal-fired power plants in California. So the claim that emissions from coal-fired plants cause any health problems and associated health costs whatsoever lies somewhere in the continuum of wrong-to-pretend.

The forest fire and drought arguments harken back to the famously disproven and disavowed connection between manmade carbon dioxide emissions and weather-related events. But as IPCC and Climategate honcho Kevin Trenberth has admitted and the British judge who trashed Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient truth” ruled, for example, climate change and weather events are entirely independent of each other.

What we do know — and this is undisputed — is that electricity from wind and solar sources is so expensive that without government subsidies, it would not exist, let alone compete with fossil fuels. At a Senate hearing last week, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) asked a “clean energy” venture capitalist:

“If it wasn’t for the credits you’re receiving, would you be in business?”

The answer was no, according to Climatewire. CAP admits as much in its report, citing the success of several “clean energy” welfare programs.

‘Clean energy’ not subject to the ‘broken windows fallacy’?

As described by CAP,

This brings us to the second erroneous criticism of clean energy critics: that clean energy actually costs jobs by destroying productive capital and robbing jobs from other sectors of the economy. Their argument is that clean energy jobs are an example of the famous economic observation known as the “Broken Windows Fallacy.” In the classic telling of this economic lesson, a vandal breaks the window of a shop. The shopkeeper then has to replace the window, and calls the glassmaker, who then has more business. While the new business is good for the glassmaker, economists point out that this has not created a “net new job,” but has simply moved employment around in the economy. After all, if the shopkeeper didn’t have to spend money on the new window, he would have spent it on something else that he’s now foregoing.

CAP dismisses the broken window fallacy argument as follows:

But this criticism applies only if a broken window is replaced with another identical window. But in the transition to a cleaner energy economy, we are talking about replacing that first broken window with a much more efficient one—perhaps one with double-paned glass, or even glass with solar reflectors on it to store heat from the sun. Or maybe we’re talking about replacing a 40-year-old, coal-fired power plant with a geothermal plant, or a new wind or solar farm. The “broken window” analogy simply does not work when the window you start with is flawed. We’re replacing an outdated window with a new, more efficient one that costs less to operate.

But if CAP’s argument was correct and there was significant value to be had in knee-jerk replacement of old windows with new windows, then shopkeepers would break their own windows and become richer. The notion that there’s some sort of automatic economic benefit from replacing a coal-fired power plants with wind farms is disproven by the economic reality that utilities — which provide 45 percent of our electricity by burning coal versus slightly more than one (1) percent through wind, and which have no ideological preference for coal over any other fuel — choose to use coal, even with all its accompanying regulatory costs, because of its affordability and reliability.

Whether rational people are replacing windows or power plants, they will only do so if they are getting some value out of the replacement. That value doesn’t necessarily have to be purely economic (at least in the case of windows); it could be aesthetic. But wind and solar are not being pressed on us because of their aesthetic values; it’s their alleged economic and environmental benefits of which we are regaled. But there is no real world evidence that the latter exist now or will come to pass in the foreseeable future.

Job hypocrisy?

Finally, CAP takes an ironic swipe at the job efficiency. It’s not true, CAP claims, that it takes more workers to produce a given amount of energy from “clean energy” versus fossil fuels. CAP is apparently saying that “clean energy” can be as, or even more “job efficient” than fossil fuels — i.e., “clean energy” requires a comparable number of, or perhaps fewer jobs than fossil fuels to generate the same amount of power.

But CAP has called “green” or “clean energy” a,

“… great engine… for job creation in the coming decades.”

Hmmm…

CAP goes on to assert — i.e., without providing any evidence — that,

“… dirty energy opponents argue that green jobs are a myth, and aren’t actually new jobs. This is wrong because building clean energy creates new installation, construction, and manufacturing jobs immediately, and then frees up resources to create jobs and growth in the rest of the economy.

But of course, the U.S. has already “invested” about $80 billion in “clean energy” via the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Where are the jobs?

The failure of “clean energy” is not just an American phenomenon. As pointed out in “The Myth of Green Energy Jobs: The European Experience“

Experiments with renewable energy in Europe have led to job loss, higher energy prices, and corruption.

Europe has tried to make “clean energy” work, but it just doesn’t.

What to do?

Last week, Sens. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) began seeking answers to questions about “clean energy” with their “WHITE PAPER ON A CLEAN ENERGY STANDARD.”

Given that a “clean energy standard” could easily become a carbon cap (as in the economy-killing cap-and-trade), it important to make sure that policymakers understand the truth about “clean energy” before the carbon cap that we have worked hard to avoid since the 1990s is snuck in place via junk economics.

 

 



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Mann et al. try old lie on new Congress

By (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Steven Milloy
February 2, 2011  •Leave a Comment
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Hokey stick creator Michael Mann and a number of fellow alarmists sent a letter to Congress yesterday asking it to take a “fresh look at climate change.”

In the letter’s section “Climate Change Deniers,” Mann et al. state:

… no research results have produced any evidence that challenges the overall scientific understanding of what is happening to our planet’s climate and why.

Some quick thoughts:

  • The claim presumes that alarmist research has provided any scientific understanding in the first place. Every climatic prediction made by the alarmists has turned out to be wrong in one way or another. If your “understanding” doesn’t provide for reasonably accurate predictions, then your “understanding” isn’t. Don’t forget Kevin Trenberth’s Climategate e-mail to Tom Wigley:

    Hi Tom
    How come you do not agree with a statement that says we are no where close to knowing where energy is going or whether clouds are changing to make the planet brighter. We are not close to balancing the energy budget. The fact that we can not account for what is happening in the climate system makes any consideration of geoengineering quite hopeless as we will never be able to tell if it is successful or not! It is a travesty!
    Kevin [Emphasis added]

    That doesn’t sound like understanding to us.

  • Even the alarmists own research doesn’t support their position — remember how they had to “hide the decline”?
  • Click here for an article about a December 2007 study that directly contradicts the assertion about “no research results” contradicting alarmism — and there are many more.

In addition to choking off funding for the EPA, Congress needs to stop taxpayer funding of Mann et al. Let’s see if Penn State is willing to support Mann’s nonsense without taxpayer largesse.



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EPA’s desperate new smog scare

By (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Steven Milloy
January 17, 2011  •Leave a Comment
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A new study reports that people can suffer lung damage from ground-level ozone (smog) even at the strict new standards proposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. But this is yet another example of how science can be manufactured by EPA to fit its regulatory agenda.

Last month, the EPA delayed finalizing its proposed ozone standards, supposedly pending completion of a scientific review. This was the third delay for the rules which the agency hoped to have in place last August.

Although the Bush administration EPA had tightened the ozone standard to 75 parts per billion (ppb) in 2008, the Obama EPA proposed in January 2010 to further tighten the standard to between 60 to 70 ppb. But this proposal is quite controversial as its underlying science is questionable, and it would be very expensive and inconvenient to implement and comply with. And unlike the case of greenhouse gas regulation where EPA has successfully divided the big business community, businesses are united against these rules and so have been able to exert sufficient pressure on the White House to cause the Obama EPA to hiccup — a remarkable occurrence.

But the ever-resourceful EPA and its long-time partner-in-junk science, the American Lung Association, rushed to publication a new study that purports to show that the proposed standards may not be tight enough. (Aside from its publication in an ideologically friendly journal, the study was still in Word document format, as opposed to journal format, when it was released).

Although the study has not been reported in the mainstream media yet, the EPA/ALA has fed it to the agency-friendly trade press. As alarmingly reported by Energy and Environment News:

Healthy young adults can suffer lung damage at the lowest level of ozone pollution being studied by U.S. EPA as the agency prepares stricter limits on smog, according to new research that was touted today by public health groups.

Published today in the American Journal of Respiratory and Clinical Care Medicine, the study provides the strongest evidence yet that most of the U.S. population is being exposed to dangerous air pollution, the American Lung Association said.

“This study provides even greater evidence for a stronger ozone standard to protect the public from the nation’s most widespread air pollutant,” said Norman Edelman, the American Lung Association’s chief medical officer, in a statement. “Ozone today remains a threat that we need all the tools in the Clean Air Act to combat.”

Contrary to the above-captioned claims, however, the only thing this study proves is that scientific study should be removed from the EPA.

EPA researchers had 59 healthy young adults (ages 19-35) exercise in a zero ppb ozone chamber and, a week or so later, had them exercise again in a 60ppb ozone chamber. Study subjects spent 6.6 hours in the chamber each time, engaging in 50 minutes of exercise (alternating bike/run) with a 10-minute break per hour. Spirometry measurements (forced expiratory volume at one second, FEV1, and forced vital capacity, FVC) were taken before and after the chamber exposures.

Here are the results. When exposed to 60 ppb ozone while biking/running for 6.6 hours, study subjects had a statistically significant mean decline in FEV1 of about 1.75 percent and a decline in FVC of about 1.19 percent more than when exercising in zero ppb ozone.

Do these results matter? Are the reported reductions in FEV1 and FVC meaningful? From a clinical perspective, no. Changes in FEV1 and FVC are clinically important at levels ranging from 15-20 percent — not 1-2 percent.

Underscoring the meaninglessness of the changes allegedly “measured” is that spirometry is not so precise that such small changes can be reliably detected and attributed to anything other than how hard the subjects inhaled and exhaled. It’s interesting to note, for example, that the results inexplicably differed for men and women. The margins of error reported for the men indicate the ironic possibility, in fact, that the 60 ppb exposure may actually have increased their FEV1 and FVC. Since this is not likely to have happened, the explanation must lie in the unreliability of the spirometry.

Moreover, the study subjects were likely exposed to much higher levels of ozone than the researchers say they were. As air quality expert Joel Schwartz pointed out in his 2007 book Air Quality in America (AEI Press), the ozone doses used in the laboratory studies are based on ambient concentrations measured by monitors, rather than real personal exposures. But as it turns out,

… [the] ozone concentrations measured at the ambient monitors used to determine Clean Air Act compliance are much higher—at least 65 percent higher, on average—than the concentrations in the air people actually breathe in. Several factors contribute to the discrepancy between monitored ozone levels and personal exposures. Ambient monitors are often placed several feet above typical human head-height to avoid interferences from people and surfaces near the ground. However, ozone deposition on surfaces (such as clothing or the ground) reduces the levels in the air that people actually breathe in. Levels also tend to be lower near roads, due to destruction by nitric oxide emitted by vehicles. Finally, there is evidence that the equipment used for regulatory monitoring gives ozone readings that might be biased high.

So although the EPA researchers claim the study subjects were exposed to 60 ppb ozone, that level equates to about 92 ppb measured by an outdoor monitor measuring ambient ozone — a level that is 22 percent higher than the existing standard set by the Bush administration and more than 50 percent higher than the tightest level proposed by the Obama administration.

Schwartz also observed that,

In addition to using personal exposures that are too high, laboratory studies also use “background” ozone exposures that are too low. To determine the health effects of ozone, researchers compare subjects’ lung function while breathing ozone with their lung function while breathing “clean” air—that is, air representing some background exposure level. All studies to date have used ozone-free air for this background level. This too is unrealistic, because there is always some natural background ozone in air due to natural emissions of ozone-forming pollutants from vegetation, lightning, and occasional transport of ozone to ground level from the stratosphere. Some ozone and ozone-forming pollutants are also transported into the United States from other countries. This background level of ozone is a matter of controversy, but it is certainly not zero.

But does the science really matter? Isn’t ground-level ozone (aka smog) just bad? And shouldn’t we do everything possible to live in a zero-smog world?

To put the EPA’s new non-results in context, consider what economist Donald Norman, PhD. of the Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI estimates will be the costs of tightening the ozone standard to 60 ppb:

… the annual cost of attaining a standard of 60 ppb would be $1.013 trillion between 2020 and 2030, equivalent to 5.4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2020. The present value of attainment costs over this period amounts to $7.1 trillion based on a discount rate of 7 percent.

Norman’s other key findings include:

  • GDP would be reduced by $676.8 billion in 2020 (in 2010 dollars), an amount that represents 3.6 percent of projected 2020 GDP in the baseline case (2.5 percent annual GDP growth);
  • Total U.S. job losses attributable to a 60 ppb ozone standard are estimated to rise to 7.3 million by 2020, a figure equal to 4.3 percent of the projected 2020 labor force;
  • Job jeopardy and the impacts of a 60 ppb ozone standard are largest in states where there is considerable manufacturing and refining activity. The states with the largest job losses include: Texas, which would lose nearly 1.7 million jobs at a total attainment cost and reduction in GDP of $452 billion (in 2010 dollars); Louisiana, which would lose 983,000 jobs at a cost of $270 billion; California, which would lose 846,000 jobs at a cost of $210 billion; Illinois, which would lose 396,000 jobs at a cost of $98 billion; and Pennsylvania, which would lose 351,000 jobs at a cost of $86 billion;
  • Together, annual attainment costs and reduced GDP in 2020 would total $1.7 trillion…

Should we sacrifice millions of jobs and trillions of dollars to improve U.S. public health by precisely zero?

In a March 1992 report by a blue ribbon panel of the EPA’s Science Advisory Board, Safeguarding the Future: Credible Science, Credible Decisions, the agency was warned not to adjust science to fit policy.

But 19 years later, the agency has yet to embrace this advice. It’s doubtful that EPA ever will on its own. The solution is for Congress to remove the scientific research function from the EPA and put it someplace where it’s less susceptible to politicization.



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EPA outsmarts biomass industry

By (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Steven Milloy
January 12, 2011  •Leave a Comment
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“Biomass-inine” is the only way to describe the biomass industry’s deal with the EPA.

Administrator Lisa Jackson announced today that the biomass industry would be exempt from the agency’s greenhouse gas (GHG) regulations for three years, pending more research on whether biomass is truly “carbon neutral”:

The agency intends to use this time to seek further independent scientific analysis of this complex issue and then to develop a rulemaking on how these emissions should be treated in determining whether a Clean Air Act permit is required.

Dave Tenny, the president of the National Association of Forest Owners told Greenwire,

“We think this is a very positive step in the right direction.”

But the agency had already declared biomass to be carbon neutral in its April 2010 “Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks 1990-2008″:

“…because biomass fuels are of biogenic origin, . . . [i]t is assumed that the carbon (C) released during the consumption of biomass is recycled as U.S. forests and crops regenerate, causing no net addition of CO2 to the atmosphere.”

Based on that statement, biomass should be permanently excluded from GHG regulation.

Note that in the above-captioned statement, however, the EPA only “assumed” biomass to be carbon neutral. And as argued in a July 2010 missive from the radical green Center for Biological Diversity,

The “carbon neutrality” assumption is just that—an assumption, not a fact. “Carbon neutrality,” if it exists at all, must be demonstrated on a project-specific basis, taking into account all emissions from biomass production, transport, processing, and combustion, all emissions and lost sequestration capacity associated with forest thinning and clearing operations, and actual analysis of fossil fuel displacement.

In the la-la-land of manmade global warming, that would seem to be quite a good point. There would seem to be much difference in say leaving biomass to decompose slowly versus the combination of fossil fuel-reliant harvesting and accelerated carbon-emitting through combustion.

But whether or not biomass is carbon neutral is just a distraction.

What’s really going on is that the EPA has effectively eliminated a potentially powerful foe from the upcoming political battle over the agency’s GHG regulations.

By embracing the CBD’s argument and reneging on its earlier assumption that biomass is carbon neutral, the EPA now has a passable excuse for denying the green-hated biomass industry a permanent exemption from GHG regulation. But since the agency doesn’t want to permanently antagonize the industry and its political supporters, especially now in the heat of battle over GHG regulation, a three-year reprieve has been granted.

Conveniently, that three-year period is just about the time that it will probably take to complete the ongoing litigation over the EPA’s climate rules. It also removes the issue from the 2012 presidential election. This obviously helps the EPA out a lot now while giving the biomass industry essentially nothing in return and setting it up to be screwed later.

Through the 2012 election, the EPA will likely implement its greenhouse gas regulations gingerly and with an eye out toward not making more political enemies for President Obama. So it’s unlikely that the biomass industry would have felt any pain during that time from the EPA. But in three years — when the litigation and election are over — the biomass industry could very well be at the Obama EPA’s mercy.

If the fossil fuel industry has lost the war by 2014, then the biomass industry will be on its own defending itself against an Obama EPA that takes no prisoners. The EPA has long excelled, you see, at dividing and conquering business. It’s the agency’s most effective tactic.

The EPA threw the biomass industry a thin bone by classifying biomass as “best available control technology” during the three-year period. But this is a worthless gesture since no significant fossil fuel burner will be required by the agency to switch from coal or natural gas to biomass.

Lobbyist Tenny is right that the EPA’s action is a “very positive step in the right direction” — for the EPA.



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Green backlash against House GOP begins — lamely

By (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Steven Milloy
January 11, 2011  •Leave a Comment
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Green groups commenced their assault on the House GOP today, accusing last week’s legislative efforts to rein in the EPA’s climate regulations as “a threat to public health.”

In condemning Rep. Marsha Blackburn’s bill (H.R. 97) to amend the Clean Air Act to exclude greenhouse gases, Health Care Without Harm (HCWH) issued a media release quoting its president, Gary Cohen:

“Curtailing [the EPA's] efforts by placing our regulatory system in a stranglehold will sentence tens of thousands of people to debilitating, respiratory illnesses, adding to the burden of chronic disease in the nation and increased financial burden to the health care system.” said Gary Cohen, president of Health Care Without Harm.

Cohen also stated,

“Greenhouse gases contribute to human morbidity and mortality in the same way that smog and soot pollution and other air toxins do…”

But consider the two graphs below. The first graph charts the change in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels during the 20th century.

The second graph charts the change in life expectancy during the 20th century.

Note that as CO2 levels increased, so did life expectancy — the best measure of public health. Perhaps that’s why the Health Care With Harm media release didn’t present these graphs, preferring instead to stick with its standard junk science-fueled ad hominem attack on greenhouse gases.

BTW, what is Health Care With Harm? It describes itself as,

…an international coalition of organizations dedicated to reducing environmental damage caused by the health care sector.

Connoisseurs of junk science , however, know HCWH Harm as a front group for the radical green agenda. Greenpeace, Beyond Pesticides, Environmental Defense Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Environmental Working Group, and Sierra Club are just some of its “members“.

We challenge HCWH to cite a single credible scientific study demonstrating that greenhouse gases pose any threat to human health whatsoever. We define “scientific study” to be an empirical analysis of data published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature — as opposed some conclusory book report like the EPA’s “endangerment finding.” We’ll even accept a case study of someone harmed by greenhouse gases. How hard could that be since tens of thousands have been debilitated by greenhouse gases, according to HCWH?

How about it Gary Cohen?



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Tired of greenies watching over us? Steven Milloy hatches a watch list of his own

By (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Joel Johannesen
January 4, 2011  •Leave a Comment
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BoldColors.net contributor Steven Milloy has hatched a great idea on his GreenHellBlog.com blog site:

Wimp & Sellout Watch — No. 1

January 4, 2011

While we have high hopes that the newly empowered Republican Members of Congress will make every effort to fight the socialization of America, we are also aware that the GOP has an ignominious history of wimping- and/or selling-out, especially on environmental issues. Wimp & Sellout Watch is GreenHellBlog’s effort to spotlight the GOP’s weak links because:

In the 112th Congress, it should take more courage for GOP-ers to retreat than to advance.

Today’s potential wimps and sellouts to watch:

Sen. Chuck Grassely (IA). Climatewire reported today that, “Germany’s Siemens AG and MidAmerican Energy Co. are expanding their wind energy partnership in Iowa, rolling out plans to add to the state’s wind capacity in 2011.” No doubt this means Grassley will be even more incentivized to push for anti-carbon policies.

  • In 2010, Grassley supported a national renewable electricity standard, which would have operated like the “cap” part of cap-and-trade.
  • In the last election cycle, the wind and solar industries contributed to Grassely ($5,000 from the American Wind Energy Association, $2,500 from Iberdrola Renewables, $1,000 from Horizon Wind Energy, $2,400 from Growth Energy) as did electric utilities pushing for cap-and-trade ($3,000 from Florida Power & Light and $2,500 from Duke Energy).

Sen. Rob Portman (OH). While Portman admirably has been skeptical of climate alarmism and opposes EPA climate regulation, Carbon Control News reported today that,

Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH), a senior member of the Environment & Public Works Committee who is retiring after two terms in office, says he is optimistic about the chances for bipartisanship in the 112th Congress, pointing to the election of moderate freshmen senators such as Rob Portman (R-OH), who is taking Voinovich’s seat, and Christopher Coons (D-DE), who won after moderate Rep. Mike Castle (R-DE) lost a primary challenge from a Tea Party candidate, as potential deal-makers in the new session, along with current moderates like Murkowski and others. [Emphasis added]

Portman is also a supporter of so-called “clean coal,” which means carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). Ohio’s major utility, American Electric Power, is a proponent of CCS as it expects to receive hundreds of millions in taxpayer largesse for burying a miniscule amount of carbon. Aside from its taxpayer boondoggle aspects, CCS is little more than a sticky pad for trapping utility cockroaches into supporting cap-and-trade.

We don’t know whether Voinovich knows of what he speaks, but considering Portman’s CCS tendencies, he will need to be watched.

Rep. Fred Upton (MI). Not only did Upton publish a wimpy strategy for protecting American from the EPA’s greenhouse gas regulation, but last week on Fox News Sunday, he said,

We want to [regulate carbon] in a reasonable way.

But what could possibly be reasonable about junk science-fueled regulation?

Sen. Lindsey Graham. While Sen. Graham does get credit for backing out of the ill-fated Kerry-Graham-Lieberman cap-and-trade bill, he apparently has yet to learn his lesson. In December, Graham began floating the idea of a “clean energy standard,” which is little more than a carbon cap with lip service paid to increasing nuclear power. He told Climatewire at the time,

“I’m concerned that if the Republican Party doesn’t embrace the idea [that] it’s OK to clean up the air, we’re gonna lose young people forever. Whether you like it or not, young people are environmentally sensitive. I happen to like it.”

I suppose the rest of us are environmentally insensitive. We must not breathe the same air as Graham’s morally superior youngsters.

Great idea! And we’ll be helping every step of the way.

.
UPDATE (Wednesday January 6): Installment number two is already posted.



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EPA’s Mercurial Hypocrisy

By (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Steven Milloy
January 3, 2011  •Leave a Comment
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How cynical is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency about the potential mercury hazard of compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs)?

Last week the EPA issued new guidance for the clean-up of mercury-containing CFLs.

Atypically minimizing any potential health risks and arrogantly assuming that people patronize the agency’s web site, the EPA’s media release states,

CFLs contain a small amount of mercury sealed within the glass tubing. When a CFL breaks, some of the mercury is released as vapor and may pose potential health risks. The guidance and brochure will provide simple, user friendly directions to help prevent and reduce exposure to people from mercury pollution. [Emphasis added]

But consider that EPA’s “Mercury and Hazardous Chemicals in Schools: A Manual for Students in Southeast Asia” (April 2008) states that:

Just as there are no safe uses of mercury and mercury-containing equipment in schools, there are no safe uses for these products in homes, either. Tell your parents about the toxic effects of mercury, and encourage them to remove all mercury products from your home.

Also consider that EPA says that eating the mercury from a broken thermometer is safer than inhaling mercury vapor (i.e., how you would be exposed to mercury from a broken CFL):

It is not uncommon for children to break fever thermometers in their mouths. Mercury that is swallowed in such cases poses low risk comparison [sic] to the risk of breathing mercury vapor.

Consider what Brown University researchers had to say in an August 2008 study of CFL breakage published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology:

Some [CFL] lamps are inevitably broken accidentally during shipping, retail sales, consumer use, and recycling and release a portion of their mercury inventory as volatile vapor, which is the dominant mercury form in the early stages of lamp life. Inhalation exposure is a concern because 80% of inhaled [mercury] is physiologically absorbed.

  • The Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) occupational exposure limit (8 h, 5-day week time average) is 100 [micrograms per cubic meter (μg/m3)].
  • The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) recommended exposure limit is 50 μg/m3, while American Conference of Governmental and Industrial Hygienists recommends 25 μg/m3 under the same conditions.
  • Because children are more susceptible, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) recommends 0.2 μg/m3 level as a safe continual exposure limit for children.

As an illustration of the effects of CFL breakage, the release of only 1 mg of [mercury] vapor (~20% of the Hg inventory in a single CFL) into a 500 m3 room (10 × 10 × 5m) yields 2.0 μg/m3 or ten times the ATSDR-recommended level of 0.2 μg/m3 in the absence of ventilation. [Footnotes omitted, and bullets and emphasis added]

So how much mercury was released into the air when these researchers fractured CFLs in their study? According to the Brown researchers,

The release is initially rapid producing vapor concentrations from 200−800 μg/m3 during the first hour, which far exceed the OSHA occupational limits.

And if you go to EPA’s IRIS data base, you’ll see that the EPA’s Reference Concentration (RfC or permissible exposure via inhalation) for elemental mercury is 0.3 μg/m3. Note that the reported 200-800 μg/m3 air concentrations upon bulb breakage are somewhat greater than the EPA’s RfC (by 667 to 2,667 times to be precise).

The EPA promotes the safety of CFLs in order to advance its jihad against greenhouse gases. The agency would apparently rather have you and/or your children exposed to possibly thousands of times more mercury than the agency itself deems safe than to have you use an incandescent bulb and emit an ounce or so more of CO2 per hour of bulb use.

Were CFLs not useful in the EPA’s cause — let’s say they were just a funny looking light bulb sold as a novelty item — there can be little doubt that the agency would have long ago taken action to ban them as needlessly unsafe. The agency has stated, after all, “there are no safe uses for mercury-containing products] in homes” and children should tell their parents “to remove” them from homes.

Would you rather be exposed to possibly thousands of more times mercury than the EPA says is safe or....

... or would you rather have your power plant emit an extra ounce or so of carbon dioxide per hour of bulb use?

One common requirement for science, law and government to function as intended is consistency. Exposure to low levels of mercury is either safe or it is not. But the EPA wants it both ways, depending on the purpose being served.

In the realm of federal regulation, this sort of hypocrisy would seem to be proscribed by the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) as “arbitrary and capricious.” When the APA was enacted in 1946, then-Nevada Sen. Pat McCarran called it “a bill of rights for the hundreds of thousands of Americans whose affairs are controlled or regulated in one way or another by agencies of the Federal Government.”

But since there is typically no meaningful way for anyone to enforce that law against the EPA, it is a mere vestige of Congress’ post-New Deal efforts to make the burgeoning federal bureaucracy accountable to the people that pay for, and are impacted by it.

Maybe that accountability is something that the 112th Congress, which begins this week, can begin to reinstate.



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GOP all set to wimp out on EPA?

By (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Steven Milloy
December 28, 2010  •Leave a Comment
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A key Republican is already laying the groundwork for the 112th Congress’ surrender on the EPA’s climate rules. More surprising is the complicity of a tea party group.

Rep. Fred Upton, the chairman-designate of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, co-authored an op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal with the promising title, “How Congress Can Stop the EPA’s Power Grab.”

Now that we face the prospect of flagrantly illegal, arbitrary, expensive and pointless regulation of greenhouse gases by the EPA, I was eager to read how the new Congress was going to, say, slash the EPA’s budget to prevent it from implementing the climate rules or perhaps shutdown the federal government if the Obama administration proceeded with its plan to dictate energy policy in order to control the economy.

Instead, Upton offered a mere two sentences of action that are better described pusillanimity rather than pugnacity:

The best solution is for Congress to overturn the EPA’s proposed greenhouse gas regulations outright. If Democrats refuse to join Republicans in doing so, then they should at least join a sensible bipartisan compromise to mandate that the EPA delay its regulations until the courts complete their examination of the agency’s endangerment finding and proposed rules.

Earth to Upton, it will be impossible to overturn or delay the EPA rules because:

  • There will likey be more than 40 Democrat senators to filibuster any effort to overturn or delay the rules. Likely filibuster-ers include Begich (AK), Feinstein (CA), Boxer (CA), Bennet (CO), Lieberman (CT), Blumenthal (CT), Carper (DE), Coons (DE), Nelson (FL), Akaka (HI), Inouye (HI), Durbin (IL), Harkin (IA), Cardin (MD), Mikulski (MD), Kerry (MA), Levin (MI), Stabenow (MI), Franken (MN), Klobuchar (MN), Tester (MT), Reid (NV), Shaheen (NH), Lautenberg (NJ), Menedenz (NJ), Bingman (NM), Udall (NM) ,Schumer (NY), Gillibrand (NY), Hagan (NC), Brown (OH), Merkley (OR), Wyden (OR), Casey (PA), Reed (RI), Whitehouse (RI), Johnson (SD), Leahy (VT), Warner (VA), Webb (VA), Cantwell (WA), Murray (WA), and Kohl (WI). Most of these senators already voted last June against the Murkowski amendment to rollback the EPA rules under the Congressional Review Act.
  • Even if a bill to overturn/delay the rules managed to get out of Congress, President Obama would veto it — and it’s unlikely that Republicans could muster the two-thirds majorities needed to overturn the veto.

The wimpiness, here is breathtaking. Aside from the total ineffectiveness of the plan, Upton fails to support his preferred solution (overturning the rules) with a more aggressive, less-palatable-to-Democrats alternative (defunding the EPA or shutting down the government). Instead, Upton’s alternative course is weaker (delaying the rules) and is offered from the position of a supplicant (“at least” do the “sensible, bipartisan compromise” — pretty please?).

I hope EPA administrator Lisa Jackson doesn’t hurt herself rolling on the floor.

Upton expresses high hopes, if not expectations, that ongoing litigation will curb the EPA. But an appellate court recently held that the EPA can wreak its havoc on our economy while the litigation is ongoing. And who knows how long it will take to get a final ruling from the Supreme Court? Keep in mind that the current Court is philosophically unchanged from the one ruling in 2007 that EPA could regulate greenhouse gases.

Moreover, while the portion of the EPA’s climate rules that is flagrantly illegal is likely to be overturned (i.e., the so-called “tailoring rule” under which EPA unilaterally amended the Clean Air Act to limit regulation of greenhouse gases from 100-ton emitters to 75,000-ton emitters), it is unlikely that the Court will overturn the EPA’s so-called “endangerment funding” (which declares that greenhouse gases are a threat to the public welfare). Under the 1984 Supreme Court case Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, it is extremely difficult to show that an agency has acted arbitrarily and capriciousily in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act.

No profile in courage, Upton is wishing for a litigation miracle so that he doesn’t have to get down in the mud and wrestle with the Obama administration.

Also of note is Upton’s co-author, Tim Phillips of Americans for Prosperity (AFP) — a nationwide conservative grassroots group that has tried to blend in with the tea party movement. But AFP may be risking its tea party credentials by signing on to Upton’s exercise in bipartisan futility — where liberal/socialist Democrats get what they want and the rest of us get the shaft. That may be standard Washington, DC fare, but it is not what tea partiers voted for in November.

I’m not surprised by Upton’s wimpiness — that’s why conservatives wanted Joe Barton (R-TX) to be chairman of Energy and Commerce, not the light-bulb-banning Upton — but I am surprised by AFP’s. Shame on them.

Here’s the bottom line. Since the new Congress will not rubber stamp Obama’s socialist legislative agenda, the President will seek to socialize us via regulation — regardless of legality. The EPA’s climate regulation plan is unconstitutional on its face (only Congress, not federal agencies, can change laws). Another example of the coming socialization-by-regulation is the Federal Communications Commission’s recent party-line vote to implement net neutrality rules despite the a federal appellate court ruling that it lacks the statutory authority to do so.

“Every battle is won before it is fought,” said Sun Tzu. Upton, according to his op-ed, has already surrendered to Obama. Oh well, at least election night was fun.



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