EPA to Force Businesses to Regulate Carbon Dioxide

Michele Bachmann | December 07, 2009 5:28 PM

With the future of cap-and-trade currently in limbo in the Senate, President Obama and liberal leaders in Congress are getting a bit nervous about the prospects of their national energy tax becoming law, and rightly so. More and more evidence is pointing to the highly skeptical statistics of global warming trends, and the scientific community is becoming increasingly wary about the soundness and significance of man made global warming.

In fact, recently revealed emails written by scientists at the Climatic Research Unit of the U.K.'s University of East Anglia and their peers calling into question the scientific rationale for regulation have turned the global warming debate on its head.

But, if you were worried that facts and figures would get in the way of the United States pursuing a radical agenda, have no fear. Where Congress falls short, we have the EPA to pick up its pieces.

Today, the EPA officially declared carbon dioxide a dangerous pollutant. This is bad news for businesses and jobs alike.

The Wall Street Journal reports that:

"an 'endangerment' finding by the Environmental Protection Agency could pave the way for the government to require businesses that emit carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases to make costly changes in machinery to reduce emissions -- even if Congress doesn't pass pending climate-change legislation. EPA action to regulate emissions could affect the U.S. economy more directly, and more quickly, than any global deal inked in the Danish capital (Copenhagen Climate Change Conference), where no binding agreement is expected."

U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donahue released a statement on the EPA's costly decision, saying the EPA's endangerment finding "could result in a top-down command-and-control regime that will choke off growth by adding new mandates to virtually every major construction and renovation project."

The National Association of Manufacturers had harsher words stating that the EPA action won't do much to combat climate change and "is certain to come at a huge cost to the economy."

The timing of this announcement is no coincidence. President Obama is scheduled to fly to the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference later this month, and now he has something to show his similarly misguided peers.

With unemployment at 10%, our government and its agencies shouldn't be looking for ways to eliminate jobs and make it more expensive for businesses to operate. They should be doing exactly the opposite. But again, what else would you expect from liberal leadership that is more focused on seeing through their radical agenda instead of creating jobs and getting our economy back on track.