by Jonah Goldberg
On Monday, Lisa Jackson, head of the Environmental Protection Agency,
formally announced that her agency now considers carbon dioxide to be a
dangerous pollutant, subject to government regulation. The "finding"
comes two years after the Supreme Court ruled that CO2 falls under the
EPA's jurisdiction.
A day later, an unnamed White House official told Fox's Major Garrett
that the message for Congress is clear: "If you don't pass this
(cap-and-trade) legislation ... the EPA is going to have to regulate in
this area. ... And it is not going to be able to regulate on a
market-based way, so it's going to have to regulate in a
command-and-control way, which will probably generate even more
uncertainty."
And such "uncertainty" is a huge "deterrent to investment," which will hurt the economy even more.
Translation: We don't want the EPA to kick the economy in the
groin, but if Congress doesn't act, well, a-groin-kickin' we shall go.
This is grotesquely dishonest.
http://townhall.com/columnists/JonahGoldberg/2009/12/11/global_warming_as_a_political_tool